For the Piece de resistance there was a black satin gown. The corset was strapless and the black satin gown had spaghetti straps. I felt naked with my shoulders bare. The gown hugged every curve the corset pulled in and padded out. It also dragged the floor before I was handed heels to put on. Black open, strappy, two inch heels were last.
Barbie Lee
From The Editor. Barbie has entrusted her story to me, to edit and post. Any remaining mistakes due to spelling, context, usage or punctuation are mine. Remember, comments are the only pay the writers here get, so don't forget the "kudo" button and please comment, even if it's just: "Hey, nice story." Thank you.
CHAPTER ONE.
Gus Stall was a bully when we were in the first grade. Looking back at the last nine years, we had been in the same schools and the same grades, I could see where Gus had become… How does one say a person has become a better, smarter bully? It’s a contradiction when actually they are a worse bully and more cruel in their tactics. Gus learned over the years not to pick on the other kids when an adult could see him. He also learned to single out kids when they were alone so it was that kid’s word against his if the kid went crying to the adults. If any of the kids tattled after Gus had beat them up, the kid was in for another beating from Gus when the opportunity arose again. At some time about the forth grade Gus found there was power in numbers when Mike Ertain and Jerry McBain teamed up with him. Gus and his two buddies were the grade school Mafia, taking lunch money and extortion money from many of the other kids.
Gus didn’t try to take my lunch money until after Mike and Jerry joined his team. In grade school I was always the tall kid for my class. Even someone as dumb as Gus is smart enough to not tackle someone bigger then themselves unless they have the advantage of numbers. All that changed in the forth grade with Mike and Jerry joining Gus as the grade school bullies.
Gus had his eye on me for several weeks before the opportunity arose for him and his buddies to close in on me. My brother Elliot wanted to talk to the football coach during our lunch break. Elliot was two years older than me and in the sixth grade. I planned on meeting Elliot on the south side of the gym building and we would walk to the cafeteria together. The school yard was fairly empty. All the kids and teachers had headed to the cafeteria already.
I walked over to the back of the gym to wait for Elliot. That was where Gus and his buddies closed in on me. I saw them coming. There wasn’t anywhere to go as I looked for an escape route. The chain link fence around the school yard kept me from leaving the yard, the side door to the gym only opened from the inside not the outside. Gus and his buddies were in the only lane of escape. I did the only thing I could do. I waited, knowing it could get ugly. I knew I could be in for a beating from the three boys.
Gus stopped when he was right up in my face. Jerry and Mike closed in on either side. Gus leaned up where his nose was almost touching my chin as he looked up at me. “Give me your money Peck.”
“Not now, not ever Gus. You and Jerry can drop dead.” I shot back, before my brain remembered there were three of them. What I wasn’t prepared for was Jerry and Mike each grabbing an arm. Something they had been doing since teaming up with Gus at the beginning of the school year.
Gus hauled back and hit me with his fist on the left side of my face. Something else I hadn’t been prepared for. My mind never had that kind of situation handed to it before. It shocked me as much as it hurt.
Gus pulled back to hit me again when my brain finally kicked into defense mode. I brought my right foot up with all the strength necessary to kick a football through the goalposts. I connected before Gus uncorked his swing. Now it was his turn to look shocked. I don’t know if Gus ever had anyone fight back before.
“Oooooh” Gus groaned as he dropped his arms and grabbed between his legs.
Elliot stepped out of the gym side door when Gus hit me and was there just before I unloaded on Gus. He grabbed Gus by the right arm and spun him around. Gus wasn’t in any condition to put up a defense as Elliot hit Gus right between the eyes with everything he could put into it. I’m not positive, but I think the lights turned out on Gus at that moment, which was probably a blessing considering what I had done to him.
Mike was turning loose of my left arm as Elliot was turning loose a left on his face. Elliot wasn’t left handed so it didn’t have as much force behind it as what he hit Gus with. It still came with all the hate a brother could have toward someone beating up his kid brother. Mike went staggering backwards before he fell down on his butt. He was down and out for the count.
Jerry threw up his hands. “Don’t hit me Elliot. It wasn’t my idea.”
“You were in on it.” Elliot didn’t give Jerry a second chance to claim his innocence as he swung while he lunged forward toward Jerry.
I think Jerry was horizontal in the air before he bounced on the ground.
Elliot reached out and gently touched my left cheek. “Is it sore yet?”
I didn’t think it had time to purple up yet. I shook my head. “No.”
“It will be. Let’s go to the training room and get plenty of ice. It will keep down the swelling and stop it from getting too sore later.” He took my right arm to lead me off to the front door of the gym.
He kicked Gus on the leg as he stopped and looked down at him. “You or your friends ever touch my bother again it will be the last thing on this earth you ever do.”
“Ooooooh” Gus moaned in pain.
“I'll take that as a yes.” Elliot motioned me to walk with him.
The Principal never called Elliot or me into her office. I guess Gus and his friends decided not to tell why they were sporting bruised faces and black eyes. Maybe they did tell and the Principal figured they received some of the same they had been passing out? Thanks to Elliot and the ice he immediately put on my cheek I never got a black eye and the swelling wasn’t very noticeable. Gus and his friends never tried to bully me again. They probably took Elliot seriously; as they should. Because Elliot was two years older he was always going to be bigger, stronger, and tougher than Gus and gang. There was probably a second reason they took Elliot seriously. Elliot was a major player in sports. Elliot’s gang was most of the other kids in athletic sports. If you ain’t ever noticed, unless they are knocking each other’s brains out, athletes stick together on and off the field.
I was the second and last child in our family. Elliot and I were closer than this in more ways than one. Elliot played football and baseball and basketball and tennis and made straight A’s through the sixth grade. Dad kind of figured I would follow Elliot because everyone in our family ate and breathed sports. Mom was point guard in women’s basketball. She was also the starting pitcher in fast pitch softball in Junior High, High School, and college. I think she would have loved to play football too if they had allowed such things in her schools. Dad wasn’t the top player in baseball, and football but he was good enough to go through college on a sports scholarship. Consequently our house was filled with sports trophies from mom and dad. Elliot was adding his share.
By the time I was in the sixth grade I wasn’t doing too bad myself for a tall skinny kid. For some reason I wasn’t bulking up in muscle mass like most boys, but I had a height advantage over most of my teammates so I was the quarterback. I could stand up and toss an overhand spiral to most of my receivers and the opposing teams just weren’t tall enough to bat it down. My passes weren’t exactly pretty, but they usually went where receivers and ball met down field, most of the time.
I reached Junior High and Elliot was the star quarterback. Our coach made me wide receiver. Elliot and I were unstoppable as a brother team. I guess it was because we thought so much alike we never missed our positions or when one made a mistake the other was there, covering. That year the Junior Wildcats went to state. We didn’t win, but we came in second. It was the first time in Wildcat history our school had gone to state.
Judy Mecham was in my grade and she was a fox. Like a few girls, she matured early. She was the hottest girl in Junior High, second to none. It probably didn’t hurt that Judy was also a cheerleader. Although I liked girls, I wasn’t interested in dating them. Elliot didn’t have that problem. He and Judy became an item that year.
When Elliot moved up to High School my days as a football hero started to go south. My problems were manyfold. I stopped growing in height for the most part, my hands were too small to catch any wild passes that most of our quarterbacks threw at me, and I wasn’t gaining that much weight. I kind of faded to bench warmer my eighth and ninth year as the other boys caught up in height and weight and then passed me on both counts.
“Who you taking to the prom?” Elliot asked me for the ten thousandth time as the week of the freshman prom closed in on us.
“None of your business. Judy asked you to be her escort. Quit bugging me.” I was trying to catch up on my homework. Although it may have been our last week of school, our teachers weren’t cutting us any slack.
“Still no date huh? Listen, why don’t you go with Judy and me. She asked me to ask if you wanted to go along. She said she would dance with you.” Elliot leaned over my shoulder and pointed at one of my answers on American History. “That’s wrong. It’s a trick question. Mrs. Baber asked us that same question when I graduated from Junior High. It was George Washington, not Thomas Jefferson, who organized the first meeting of the colonial irregulars. Thomas Jefferson was the one who said they should start a meeting.”
“Oh, okay, thanks.” I erased my answer and put in George Washington.
“Now who is your date?” He wasn’t going to give me any relief.
“No one. I’m not going. It’s not a big deal anyway. Bunch of kids get together and some get drunk and some are on dope and everyone says how much fun they had when they don’t even remember.” I was hoping Elliot would stop bugging me once I told him I wasn’t going.
Elliot was headed out the door. “Okay ‘sis’, if you say so.”
That stopped me as it usually did when he called me sis. Which he had been doing for the past two years every time he wanted to get my goat. It meant instant war. I jumped up and spun around ready to charge into him and get my butt whipped one more time by my big brother, which I always did when I tried to out wrestle him. Didn’t make any difference, my honor was at stake. I wasn’t going to let him get away calling me sis without retaliation. However the door was closed as he had made his escape before he started name calling. By now he would be downstairs in the middle of the living room with mom and dad. If I followed him down and plowed into him I would get beat up by him. A whipping by dad for fighting in the house would follow. Double jeopardy meant nothing in our house.
“NEANDERTHAL!” I shouted at the closed door. Like yeah, that would really hurt him where it counted. Not.
The rest of the week was a repeat of that evening. Elliot asking who I was taking and me telling him to drop dead. He would call me sis when he had an escape planned out ahead of time.
Friday was our last day of regular school. It was only for picking up our personal stuff, books, and what ever as we cleaned out our lockers. It was the last time for us freshmen to walk into the Junior High Wildcats school. We had the Brown and White graduation ceremony the night before where they handed us our diplomas. For me, I was glad it was over. The other freshmen kids would be headed toward the Freshman Banquet at eight that evening. I’d be home watching television.
I walked over to the high school parking lot and dropped my gear into the back seat of Elliot’s Mustang. He always gave me a ride home, even when he had other things to do. Usually Judy was the front seat passenger so I unlocked his car, rolled down the windows and slid into the backseat. I figured I would have a couple hours wait, as high school wasn’t on the same time schedule as junior high this day because of the freshman prom.
Minutes later, Elliot and Judy walked across the parking lot and got in the car.
“How did you get out of class?” I was curious why they seemed to be the only two leaving the high school?
“Had permission to pick up my cousin from the airport.” Elliot started up the car and was headed out of the parking lot.
Judy giggled.
“Who? Does mom and dad know? What cousin? I didn’t hear about any cousin coming in for a visit.” I was disgusted no one had told me about any cousin coming to visit. “What’s his name?”
“Barbara.” Elliot turned up the street, headed toward Judy’s house.
I was trying to think of any cousins named Barbara. None came to mind. “Barbara who?”
“Barbara Peck.” Elliot turned on the radio and then turned it up really loud to make conversation impossible.
And Judy giggled.
“Barbara Peck?” I don’t recall a cousin named Barbara Peck.” I was shouting to be heard above the music rattling around inside the Mustang. I should have saved my breath, the music was too loud.
Elliot didn’t answer. I figured that was the end of the conversation. I couldn’t even hear myself think, much less carry on a conversation with anyone else in that car. “Could you turn it down? I think the whole city can hear your radio.”
Still no answer. I slid back into the seat and covered my ears so I wouldn’t go deaf before he decided enough was enough.
Ten minutes later Elliot pulled up into Judy’s driveway and killed the car. He and Judy slid out before he motioned to me. “Come on brat. It’s going to be awhile before Barbara is ready.”
“No thanks, I’ll stay put. How long is awhile?” I had been in Judy’s house many times with Elliot. Right now I just wanted to get home and forget school, the prom, and all the other kids.
“Suit yourself sis.” Elliot was already halfway to the house.
Judy giggled again.
I think I would have ignored him this time if it hadn’t been for Judy giggling when he called me sis. It was the double whammy that stoked my furnace and made me hot enough to want to plow into him for his remark. This time I was determined he would take it back before I finished. I was clawing my way out of the back seat of the car when he and Judy disappeared into the house.
“ELLIOT, YOU COME BACK HERE AND TAKE THAT BACK!” I was headed toward the house at a run.
I hit the front door with my shoulder as I twisted the knob. Forgetting in the heat of the moment Elliot was twice my size, twice my weight, and five or six times stronger than me; I was determined to beat the holy shit out of my brother for calling me sis in front of Judy.
Inside the house Elliot stiff armed me with his left hand as I charge across the living room toward him. Of course I bounced off. That wasn’t going to stop me. My wheels were already spinning for another charge when he held up a bunch of photos in his right hand.
“Judy, you want to see some pictures of my baby brother?” He held them out so I could see them.
I stopped dead in my tracks as I realized what pictures he was holding. “Elliot don’t you dare!”
When you’re growing up there are always pictures that shouldn’t be taken, along with pictures that should be destroyed after they were taken. I was looking at one of those pictures that shouldn’t have been taken. The picture should have been destroyed before it saw the light of day. I was in my all together in the back yard when Elliot took that picture.
“Okay, but you have to do as we say.” Elliot shuffled the pictures and there was another one where during Halloween I was dressed as a princess in a white chiffon gown. It was one of my mistakes of youth was my only defense.
“Elliot, please?” I was getting desperate, hoping against hope he didn’t share my embarrassing moments with Judy. I would never be able to return to finish school.
He pulled up another picture where, after that Halloween episode, mom dressed me up as the Red Princess for a school play. I was young and hoped no one remembered that school play.
“Elliot?” Please?” I was willing to crawl across broken glass if he would only destroy those pictures.
“You agree? You'll do as we say?” Elliot waited for me to capitulate.
I sighed, knowing I had met my waterloo. “What do I have to do?”
“Go into the bathroom and take a bath.” He was waiting for me to agree. Judy was looking at me like I was an appetizer for the next meal.
“That’s it?” I raised my right arm and sniffed. I didn’t smell. Not to me anyway.
“That’s a start. Agree? Judy, you really should see these pictures.” He hesitated as he turned partially toward Judy.
“Oh please let me see them, Elliot.” Although Judy was talking to Elliot, her eyes were focused on me.
“NO! I’ll do it.” I headed for the bathroom. I could hear the water running as I walked in and closed the door. The water was tepid and it only took me a few seconds to shed my clothes and drop into the bathtub.
I thought I had locked the door but obviously I hadn’t when Elliot walked in. He picked up my clothes.
“Wait, what are you doing?” I was ready to pounce on him and reclaim all my clothes when Judy walked in.
I did a submersible under the water. It was pure survival instinct because anyone with a brain would know that wasn’t going to hide anything. When I had to come up for air they were gone along with my clothes. “Rats!” I didn’t like the way this was going.
“There is a razor on the edge of the tub. Shave your legs.” Came through the open door.
“DO WHAT? Not in a million years.” I yelled back at him.
“Judy do you still want to see those pictures?”
“Okay, okay, I get the message. I’ll shave my damn legs.” I had no attachment to the few hairs on my legs. If that was what they wanted then that was what they would get as long as he didn’t show those photos to Judy and ruin what I had left of my life.
It didn’t take long to complete the task and I was ready to dry off. “I need a towel and my clothes.”
Elliot walked in with a large bath towel. “Here, dry good.”
I took the towel and noticed it had a funny scent to it. It took me awhile when I was drying, but it finally came to me, it was perfumed. I smelled like Judy when I finished. “Thanks for nothing. I’m going to kill you when this is over.”
“When it’s over you can try. Towel around your privates and put this on.” He held up a two piece bikini.
I stared in shock. “NOT in this…”
“JUDY, PICTURES.” He smiled from ear to ear as he held out the bikini.
“You are dead meat after this is over.” I took the bikini from him. The bottom was the easiest part. It went on first. I'd worn jock straps with more material in them than what the bikini bottom had. I adjusted my privates so they weren’t showing.
The top was next. I had to work a little at that one since it clasped in back but it wasn’t the first bikini I had ever seen so it was simple enough to figure out. The cups were padded. As tight as the top was, it felt snug. I wondered what my stupid brother and his girlfriend had in mind? “Okay.”
Elliot and Judy walked into the bathroom. Elliot motioned toward the tub. “Back into the tub.”
“For a shower?” I couldn’t figure out what kind of spray gun Judy was holding in her hand.
“For a tan.” Elliot set a small compressor down on the vanity and plugged it into the receptacle. It started humming.
“I haven’t figured out how, but you are going to get paid back. You better not ever close your eyes again.” I stepped back into the tub.
“Hold your arms out and close your eyes.” Judy walked over beside the tub with that spray thing she was holding.
I held out my arms and closed my eyes. I could feel her adjust the shoulder straps on the bikini before I started feeling a fine mist spraying on me as I heard a hissing sound.
“Keep your eyes closed and turn around.” She was spraying my legs and feet.
I slowly turned around as she misted me. Actually, it was kind of pleasant like being in front of one of the misting machines we used on the football field.
“Stop and hold your arms straight out. Keep your eyes closed.”
It felt cool on my face and neck and then on my arms. I was beginning to think maybe this wasn’t so bad after all, except the perfume smell was even stronger than before. I was wondering if they had added more to the spray? Now I definitely smelled like Judy! I was going to get so even these two would wonder what hit them!
“Keep your eyes closed for a few minutes and don’t move. Don’t rub your skin or anything either.” The hissing stopped along with the mist and the sound of the compressor humming quit.
Great, I was turned into a statue. So I just stand there in the tub with my arms spread out for the rest of the night? I could do that if that was what they wanted.
“Come into Judy’s bedroom.” Came from outside the door.
I opened my eyes. The first thing that caught my attention was I was tan all over. A beautiful golden bronze tan as if I had days and weeks of lying on the beach soaking up rays. This wasn’t so bad. I kind of liked it. At last they did something I liked for a change. I stepped out of the tub and admired my beautiful tan in the mirrors as I headed for Judy’s room. Except for the bikini I was wearing, I could accept this. I looked James Bondish, even if I did say so myself.
I wrapped the towel around me and headed for Judy’s bedroom. It never dawned on me to ask where her parents were.
Judy and Elliot were waiting. She held up a corset. “Take off your bikini and slip this on.”
I choked. “You’re kidding aren’t you?”
“Judy, you want to see those pictures?” Elliot was reaching for his back pocket.
“A real slow death for both of you.” I took it and looked it over to see how it went on.
“Turn your backs.” I figured it out which was a no brainier. The damn thing had padding in all the right places for an aspiring young girl who didn’t have the natural blessings of Mother Nature.
They both turned around. I unhooked the bikini top and dropped it. And I darn near dropped. I had a beautiful tan all right. Except where the bikini was. I had bikini lines like I had been sun bathing in the damn thing. “Cute, really cute.”
I dropped the bikini bottoms knowing what I was going to see. A beautiful golden tan except where the bottom was. I was no longer James Bondish, but one of the Bond Girls with a golden tan in all the right places and bikini lines in all the wrong places. I figured I could lose the bikini lines with summer coming on. If I could just stay out of mom and dad’s way while this straightened out I would be home free. “You two are a real pair of cut ups aren’t you?”
I stepped into the corset and pulled it up as I slipped it on.
“Tuck in your water weasel so it doesn’t show.” Came from Elliot as he turned around before I had finished wiggling into the darn thing.
Pulling it back down I did as he suggested and pulled it back up. “I hope you two are enjoying this evening because I’m going to kill both of you after this.”
“Threats will only bring more pain. Turn around and let me lace it up.” Elliot did a spinning motion with his finger.
I turned my back to him. He did lace it up. I mean really laced it up. I was the toothpaste squeezed in the middle and spread out on each end. I couldn’t breathe.
“Okay, sit in front of the mirror.” Elliot guided me over to the dressing table.
I don’t think I could have made it if he hadn’t been guiding me. The restriction that torturous device was placing on my waist and hips made it almost impossible to walk. My hips involuntarily rolled with each step.
Judy went to work on me. She put on a foundation on my face and then makeup. She lavishly laid on the mascara, lipstick, and eyeliner. Long glue-on nails were next. The fingernail color matched my lipstick which was a vivid liquid red. She teased my hair. I always wore my hair long anyway. She brought it down and gave me bangs, along with a shag style.
Elliot was busy adding pictures to his collection. For blackmail I was positive. Suntan nylons were next, which hooked to six garter straps on the corset. For the Piece de resistance there was a black satin gown. The corset was strapless and the black satin gown had spaghetti straps. I felt naked with my shoulders bare. The gown hugged every curve the corset pulled in and padded out. It also dragged the floor before I was handed heels to put on. Black open, strappy, two inch heels were last before Elliot and Judy were finished. I was living in hell as Elliot kept a running picture diary of minute by minute of my shameful disgrace.
Judy stood back and admired her work of art. “Barbara you look stunning. I can say without a doubt I’m jealous.”
“Barbara…?” I choked on that one. “You can’t be thinking what I think you are thinking…?”
“Oh? And what is that Barbara dear?” Judy’s eyes were dancing with delight.
“You tell me first.” I wasn’t going to give her any ideas in case I was wrong.
“Oh no sweety. Since you’re visiting your cousins and you are from out of town, I insist you tell first.” Judy was having more fun than what was legal.
“The prom…” I choked out, afraid I was right.
“The Wildcats Freshman prom? Oh yes, that’s right. It is tonight. I had completely let it slip my mind. I must be getting ready. Why don’t you go wait in the living room while I get dressed?” Judy motioned with her hand it was time for me to leave.
I wobbled toward the door, positive I was on the right track. Well they could just forget that idea. I wasn’t buying into it. I was going to demand Elliot take me home where… OH SHIT…, What would I tell mom and dad? 'Oh by the way, mom…, dad…., I decided I was going to the prom after all. Like my dress? Is my hair okay? Mom, may I borrow your lipstick I seem to need a little upkeep here.' Then I could call nine one one and have them resuscitated so they could pass out again when they realized I wasn’t a bad dream.
“Elliot give me back my clothes. I’m not joking.” I was headed to the living room to find Elliot and make him give me back my jeans.
I had a problem walking on those heels so I wobbled toward the living room. I had a second problem when I got there. Elliot wasn’t there. I headed out the front door to demand he give me back my clothes and a ride home. There was when the third problem reared its ugly head. Elliot and Elliot’s Mustang were no longer in the driveway.
“I’m going to kill him. I swear to God I’m going to kill him.” I turned around and wobbled back into the house.
“Practice walking Barbara dear.” Came from the bedroom.
“I’ll Barbara dear you Judy. You Witch you.” I wobbled toward the kitchen to get a drink of water. My throat was parched as if I had been in the desert all day.
“I heard that. No need to get catty just because you’re prettier than me.” Came back from the bedroom.
“No one will ever be prettier than you.” I mumbled under my breath as I stepped into the kitchen. I was positive Judy Mecham was going to be the next Miss USA when she graduated and went to college. She had all the right curves, in all the right places, in perfect proportions.
I caught a reflection of myself as I passed the black glass door on the refrigerator. It took a second to sink in as I walked on past and stopped in shock. Did I see what I just thought I had seen? Slowly I backed up and slowly the other girl in the reflection backed up. I turned to look at her. She was a stunner. She had all the right curves, in all the right places, in abundant proportions. The padding in that corset was, shall we say ample? I put my hands on my hips and cupped my fingers around my tiny little waist. Surely that wasn’t me in there? I turned sideways for a silhouette and choked. Slowly I brought my hands up and touched my hair. It was impossible to comprehend the fox I was looking at wasn’t a hologram.
“You like?” Came from the doorway.
I jumped out of my skin as I turned toward Judy. She was standing there with a housecoat on. I had nothing to say.
“We girls may not match the boys in muscle and brawn, but we make up for it in beauty and brains. I noticed you got quiet. I had to come and see why. Barbara, don’t hate us because Buddy didn’t want to go to the prom. I know he’s different and so does his brother. We love him just the same and wouldn’t have it any other way. To us he will always be a special person. Because Buddy couldn’t be dragged to his prom we decided you could take his place. You might be just as unwilling as Buddy, but we aren’t taking a no from you since you flew in as a special date and Buddy dropped out on you. So you’re going and you are going to have fun, despite what you might think and feel. I promise no one will know any different than you’re Barbara Peck, Elliot’s and Buddy’s cousin from out of town.”
“Now a word of caution. Your looks, your body we can change to a point where there isn’t any doubt she’s all girl and she’s a fox second to none. Your voice... we can’t change that easily. Don’t do a whole lot of talking tonight. You answer yes or no in a very demure, quiet voice, but that’s it, no long conversations. Now give me a yes and a no.” She put her hands on her hips and waited.
“I can’t do this.” I was ready to cry.
She walked over and put her hands on my shoulder. “Yes you can sis. No tears because it will mess up your makeup. Give me a yes in a soft, demure, quiet voice.”
“Yes” I said softly, as if I was talking to Elliot across the room in the middle of the night when we were supposed to be asleep.
Judy giggled and nodded her head in agreement. “That’s perfect. I couldn’t have done it any better myself. Now a no.”
“No” I whispered to Elliot in my mind when he asked me a question in the darkness of the room.
“My god, I can’t believe how you do that so easily. I must hear more. Tell me your name is Barbara Peck and you flew in from Dallas this evening.”
I held out my hand in a greeting. “Hi, how are you? I’m Barbara Peck, Buddy and Elliot’s cousin. I had a miserable flight from Dallas this afternoon on Southwest. Do you know my cousins, Buddy and Elliot Peck?” I said breathlessly, as if I was trying to keep from waking mom and dad.
Judy reached out and took my hand. “That’s perfect. Barbara, you have such a Marilyn Monroe breathless voice. Sweety, you’re a natural. You can carry on a conversation with anyone. There isn’t going to be a single boy or girl there who will doubt you aren’t exactly who you are. Buddy and Elliot’s beautiful cousin from Dallas.”
“Now give me a chance to catch up. I want all the boys to be watching me too, even if I am in Elliot’s arms all night.” She turned and left the kitchen.
I heard the front door open and close. Figuring it was Judy running outside for something I headed toward the living room. And walked straight up face to face with Judy’s mom.
She stopped and gave me the once over which scared the absolute living shit out of me. I figured the first thing would be shock and then “Oh Buddy what are you doing in a dress?”
She nodded her head in agreement. “Hi, you must be Barbara Peck. I have heard so much about you from my daughter. You are all she has talked about for the past two weeks. She said you were a beautiful girl. She didn’t say how beautiful. You look absolutely stunning. I can’t imagine Buddy not wanting to take you to the prom after he invited you. Between us girls…, he made a mistake big time.”
She looked down at her watch. “I hope Judy is getting ready so we can have some pictures made. Have you talked to Buddy’s brother since you flew in? Elliot should be here shortly.”
She shook her head as she stared. “Oh I do go on, don’t I? And I haven’t let you say a word. How was your flight? Did you have any trouble getting through at the airport?”
Swallowing to get the catch out my throat I tried to speak. Nothing came out.
“Oh you poor dear. Knowing Judy she didn’t offer you any refreshments when you came in. Come on into the kitchen. I’ll find us a glass of Dr. Pepper, or a Coke, or maybe just a glass of ice water. I imagine you will get plenty of refreshments at the prom tonight. I’m betting every boy there will be bringing you a glass just to say hi.” She reached out and took my hand to lead me back into the kitchen.
She held up my hand after we walked over to the refrigerator. “I just love those nails. You have pretty hands. Such long delicate fingers. I bet you would be good playing the piano. You probably already are. A pianist I mean. She traced one of her fingernails up my left arm. That’s such a beautiful tan you have.”
She turned toward the refrigerator. “What will you have, Barbara?”
“Water please Mrs. Mecham.” Came out as a hoarse whisper.
“Oh please call me Miriam. We aren’t formal around here.” She reached into the cabinet and retrieved a couple glasses, then filled them with ice and water from the door before she handed me one.
Gratefully I took it and took a sip. I was hoping to lubricate my throat and get the lump out of it. “Thank you…, Miriam.” Came out like a whisper in the night.
“Perfect.” Came from the doorway.
I turned and looked at Judy who was standing there in panties and bra. I choked. “Cough, cough.”
“Go down the wrong way? You poor dear.” An absolutely wicked smile flashed across Judy’s face.
“Judy, you must hurry dear. We don’t have time to waste.” Miriam was looking at me with sympathy.
“Okay mom. You and Barbara go ahead and visit while I finish dressing.” She turned and gave a shake of her rear as she disappeared into the hallway.
It wasn’t funny what Judy had done to my poor mixed up little mind. I was in uncharted waters and downing in emotions so conflicting they didn’t have rhyme or reason. I didn’t know whether I wanted Judy or wanted to be Judy? I headed back for solid ground. “How was your day Mrs. Mecham?”
“Let’s go in and sit while Judy gets ready. I swear that girl has no sense when it comes to time. My day was okay. I work with my husband in the furniture business if Judy hasn’t already told you. We have a little store down on Main and Broadway.” She motioned to the living room.
I took that as my cue to walk ahead of her. I tried my hardest to walk without wobbling. I let my hips swing naturally and it wasn’t that difficult. Walking over to the couch I caught the back of my dress with my right hand as I held my water glass in my left and tried to gracefully sit down without plopping onto the cushions. I was thinking the little furniture store of theirs was the biggest store in town. Judy didn’t come from poor folk. She might not live in a mansion, but I bet her parents could afford one if they wanted.
“Judy said you were a freshman graduating to a sophomore this year? What subjects do you like besides boys?” Miriam gracefully sat down on the couch beside me.
She did it so naturally and elegantly. I was insanely jealous of her and her daughter. They were both beautiful women in looks and in manners. Miriam was a beautiful woman. I looked at her hands and studied them. Not flaw one. She also had long delicate fingers and beautiful nails. I took a look at her face. The makeup didn’t cover any flaws, she was a natural beauty.
“You’re such a beautiful woman. I can see where Judy comes by her looks.” That slipped out without me thinking about it.
Miriam smiled as her eyes slightly closed. She give the slightest nod of her head. “Thank you. That was a sweet compliment. Judy said you were a living doll. She forgot to say you were so well mannered too. I’d love to meet your parents sometime. We…, my husband Bill and I, make a lot of trips to Dallas for trade shows and furniture ideas. We must get together with your parents and go out to dinner some evening. Our treat of course.”
“Cough, cough, excuse me?” I had visions of imminent disaster on the horizon. “My… my…, parents…?”
“Are you sure you don’t want some coffee or tea or something stronger than water? You seem to have picked up a persistent cough.” She looked concerned as she leaned over in my direction.
“Loyd and Linda Peck, momma. They are in the Dallas directory. I’ll call them and set up a meeting next time you and dad fly to Dallas.” Came down the hallway from the bedroom.
“Oh…, okay. That sounds great. Your dad and I are going up there next week for a trade show. Think you can arrange a dinner that soon?” Miriam turned her head and talked toward the bedroom.
“I’m sure it can be done. Barbara would love for you to meet her parents. Wouldn’t you Barbara dear?” Echoed back from the bedroom.
I was positive I was in Hell. I now had imaginary parents by the name of Linda and Loyd and my name had been changed from Buddy Peck to Barbara Peck. My imaginary parents were going on a dinner date with Judy’s parents who knew Buddy’s parents, Ethan and Sherry Peck.
“You can go with us, Judy. Be sure and invite Elliot along if you want. I’m sure he already knows Linda and Loyd. Would it be okay if we invited Buddy? Would it be possible to get Ethan and Sherry to go along?” Miriam was adding guests by the second.
“Cough, cough,” I was positive this couldn’t possibly get any worse. Now Buddy’s parents were invited along with Buddy and Elliot to meet Barbara’s parents. They couldn’t possibly be meeting Barbara too could they?????
“That is a terrible cough you have there Barbara. Can I possibly get you something for it? Hot tea maybe?” Miriam turned her attention back to me.
I was positive Judy was dying laughing in the bedroom. I was just dying period. I took a sip of water to get the lump out of my throat. It settled back down into my stomach which had turned up the acid machine. “I’m alright Mrs. Mecham. Thank you anyway.”
“Please, call me Miriam. We aren’t long on formality in this house. Bill and I are plain folk. We will look forward to a dinner date with you and your parents next week then if they don’t mind. I hope we can get your cousins and Ethan and Sherry to go along.” She was positively beaming from ear to ear thinking she was going to meet my parents in Dallas.
“That would be great.” Little did she know she already knew my parents. They most certainly weren’t living in Dallas. I was thinking I could kill myself before next week arrived. Of course my death would be after I killed Judy and my stinking no good brother for getting me into this mess.
Miriam talked about the flowers in the showroom and how she was planning on changing the layout to black panel furniture next week. She went on how it wasn’t for everyone and it would most certainly shock a lot of people. The idea was, it got their attention and drew them into the furniture store to look. That was what showrooms were for, to pull people in, even if what they saw there wasn’t in their taste.
As Judy walked into the room I know my eyes bugged out of my head. Her gown was strapless. A liquid red, it glistened and rustled with each step she took. Her breasts were perfectly poised. She had her hair brushed out so that it framed her angelic face. Her high cheekbones accented her perfect heart shaped kissable lips. She was showing more curves than possible, but they were all hers, nothing artificial there.
The skirt was a full skirt. She was wearing several petticoats underneath to give it lots of body. Her red, strappy heels were probably two inch. She walked gracefully like a ballerina, with her hips swaying gently with each step. She carried a liquid red clutch in her right hand that matched her heels and her dress. Her long dangle diamond earrings and diamond necklace accented her natural beauty.
She was a fox before. Now she was a goddess. I was jealous. There was no doubt who was going to be the queen of the freshman prom tonight. I was insanely jealous.
“You look…,” I had no words to describe her. Everything was inadequate.
“Darling maybe?” Judy giggled.
“All that and more.” I didn’t have to practice being breathless. I really was.
Judy walked over and picked up a black clutch off the end table. “Here’s your clutch. I know you wouldn’t forget it. Oh, your necklace and earrings. Where did you leave them? I think I saw them in my room. Let’s go look.”
“Judy, don’t take too long. We need to go take pictures, and where is that Elliot?” Miriam rose off the couch as she was speaking.
“I think I saw him through the window. Please let him in while we find Barbara’s jewelry.” Judy was motioning me toward the bedroom.
“I followed her into the bedroom where she picked up a diamond necklace off her dresser. “Turn around and let me put this on you.”
I turned around as she slipped it around my neck and clasped it. It was a three strand diamond necklace. I had no idea how much it cost and could not begin to imagine. Fifty thousand or more? I had no idea.
“Hold out your left arm.” Judy picked up something off the dresser.
I did as she requested and she placed a group of bracelets on my left wrist. They softly clicked together every time I moved my arm or wrist. I was fascinated with the quiet almost tranquilizing sounds they made every time I moved. They reminded me, in an odd way, more of the soothing wind chimes in the garden stores.
“Be still now.” She stepped around in front of me with a tool and pushed it up to my left earlobe. It clicked and I felt a slight sting.
“That stings.” I wanted to remove whatever it was she placed there.
“I know.” She put something into it and held it up to my right earlobe. It clicked and stung.
“That hurt.” I reached up with my left hand and felt a long dangle earring. “That’s stinging Judy.”
“I know. It doesn’t hurt that bad. You will forget about it in an hour or so. Let’s go. Momma is dying to take those pictures of hers.” Judy took my hand and led me out of the bedroom back into the living room.
Elliot was by the door talking to Miriam. He looked up and…, his eyes kept growing and growing. “Oh…,”
Miriam turned around to look. “Yes the girls do look beautiful don’t they. There, I said it, even if one of them is my own daughter. Barbara, you look divine. Judy, I’m so proud of you. Honey, you look like a living doll.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” Elliot was nodding in agreement. “I think their earrings are something else. They are pierced aren’t they?”
Pierced? I reached up and touched my left ear again. Pierced? I looked over at Judy who was smiling like a Cheshire cat. Pierced? That was why it was still stinging. So when I get home tonight I could look at mom and say, “Hey mom, you like my new earrings? These old things? Oh I just borrowed them for the prom tonight. I think I’ll keep them for awhile. Hello, nine one one, my mom has passed out again.”
“Okay, let’s go get those pictures taken. Barbara, would you mind riding with me?” Miriam was holding open the door.
“I’d love to.” I picked up my clutch with my left hand and held my skirt with my right. Letting my hips roll naturally, I walked across the floor and out the door ahead of Miriam.
“Un, un, uh” Elliot was muttering as I passed him.
“I bet your brother would take her if he could see his cousin now.” Miriam looked over at Elliot.
“I think my brother is taking her.” Elliot was shaking his head as he held out his hand for Judy.
“In his dreams.” Miriam headed out the door ahead of Elliot and Judy.
“That’s more true than she will ever know.” Elliot leaned over and whispered in Judy’s ear as he took her hand.
I didn’t have to do much more than say an occasional yes or no as Miriam did all the talking as she drove. Fifteen minutes later we pulled into the Kingsmen shopping mall. She killed the car and slid out.
Continued in Chapter Two.
From The Editor. Barbie has entrusted her story to me, to edit and post. Any remaining mistakes due to spelling, context, usage or punctuation are mine. Remember, comments are the only pay the writers here get, so don't forget the "kudo" button and please comment, even if it's just: "Hey, nice story." Thank you.
Surely they didn’t expect me to walk into the shopping mall? Elliot and Judy pulled in beside us. Seconds later they were getting out of the Mustang. Elliot waved to me. “Come on Barbara. We are going to take pictures in Bundy’s Studios.”
Swallowing what little courage I didn’t have, I slid out of the car fully expecting everyone in the parking lot to point and start laughing. What I didn’t expect were the wolf whistles that echoed across the parking lot and back.
One guy who had started to get into his car stopped and stared. “Nice, really, really, really nice” he said softly as we walked past him.
“I think they noticed the girls.” Miriam laughed as she smiled.
“I know I have.” Elliot gently shook his head as he put his arm around Judy.
“And your cousin?” Miriam prodded Elliot.
“I can honestly say Buddy…, Well, I’m glad he didn’t want to go to the prom. Barbara is going to break a few hearts tonight.” Elliot curled up his mouth in a private joke.
“Both the girls are real dolls.” Miriam reached out and put her arm around my shoulder to give me that protection all girls need when they are turning heads.
“Barbara, are you cold?” Miriam could feel me shivering.
“No” I had no idea how to tell her I was scared to death. The idea that I was walking into a mall full of people scared me. The idea there were men in the parking lot thinking about how great I would be in their bed scared me even more. Was this what girls went through when they dressed up and went out in public?
When we reached the mall there were guys on both sides keeping the automatic doors open. I didn’t think it was because they were gentlemen. They were wanting to get a good look at the merchandise walking into the mall. I knew Judy was a guy magnet, even when she wasn’t dressed to the tens. Was this what she had to put up with once she matured into a natural beauty?
“Thank you.” Miriam offered, as we walked up to the door past the men patrol.
“Thank you.” I followed her lead, as I walked in ahead of her.
Bundy’s Studios wasn’t near the entrances. It was in the middle of the mall. I guess it was because the middle of the mall was a high traffic location they picked that spot. It didn’t make me a happy camper to walk a couple blocks inside the mall to get to the photographer’s studio. And it wasn’t only the men who were stopping and staring at our little party. The women were too. It gave me an attitude adjustment. Silently, I was thinking to myself, 'eat your hearts out girls, because your guys are thinking about us, even if they do have their hand around your waist.' I was turning into a bitch without realizing it.
Judy and Elliot were first in front of the cameras. She was a beautiful girl and I was oh so jealous. Elliot looked so handsome in his black suit and tie. Someone hit me over the head with a hammer. Did I just think my brother was handsome? I was thinking a lobotomy about now would be nice. They took a bunch of different poses with Judy and Elliot. Then it was Judy and my turn. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. Is that lobotomy about ready? They had us girls…, us girls? I’m definitely not myself this evening. Girl and whatever posed in different poses. Then they added Elliot to the girl mix. Elliot, with his arm around Judy. His arm around me. His arms around both of us. Judy and me leaning over, acting like we were kissing on Elliot. And then Elliot acting like he was kissing Judy and then me.
We were pulling a crowd into the store and more people were stacking up in front of the store, watching. I don’t guess many people had ever seen something so nice as Elliot in his suit and tie and Judy in her gown. My brother and his girlfriend were beyond beautiful tonight.
When Elliot leaned over in my direction for the kiss shot I whispered in his ear. “Those lips touch me and you won’t live to walk out of this room.”
Elliot tried not to, but he burst out laughing. He leaned over in Judy’s direction and whispered in her ear between giggles. She started giggling and then broke up laughing.
Finally the photographer had Judy and her mother pose together and then all us girls…, God, there I said it again. Can you hurry up that lobotomy? And then they brought Elliot back in with the three girls. What is the matter with me? I keep thinking I’m one of the girls. This has to be a nightmare and I’m going to wake up.
We made the trip back out of the mall after the photo shoot, turning heads as we left. As we walked past a different bunch of guys holding the doors open one of them reached out and touched my hand. When I glanced down and I had a piece of paper between my thumb and finger. I opened it up and looked. “Jason Whitman, 7654354, date me?”
I turned red as Judy looked in my direction. “He ask for a date?”
I nodded yes as I blushed some more.
“Men…, you just gotta love them, don’t you?” She giggled as she smiled and winked at me.
“Animals” I crushed the note up in my hand.
“Don’t toss it until you are out of the parking lot. He will be heartbroken if you do.” Judy was watching as I crushed the note.
Miriam gave me a knowing look. “Don’t hurt them Barbara. They might turn into stalkers. Give them the benefit of the doubt, thinking you are considering it.”
I held on tightly to that note. A stalker was the last thing I needed. I could only imagine him stalking me. 'Okay kid, what did you do with the girl?'
Elliot held open the door of his Mustang. “Barbara, you’re riding with Judy and me. Miriam is headed home.
I held my skirt as I wiggled up into the back seat. “Thank you.” Now why did I just tell my brother thank you after what he and Judy had done to me this evening?
“You’re welcome.” Elliot returned, as naturally as if he had known his cousin Barbara all his life.
Jeeze, what is the matter with all of us? Some alien life form must have done brain extractions on Elliot and me. We were now brainless. “You’re too kind.” I offered up, in my best sarcasm.
“Think nothing of it. I am.” Elliot returned the sarcasm as deftly as only a brother would.
I glanced over at Miriam as she was getting in her Jaguar. She was shaking her head and laughing. Obviously she was listening to the banter and figured it was between cousins. I decided not to return the volley to Elliot since cousins didn’t really snipe at one another like brothers did.
Elliot headed the opposite way from the school as he pulled out of the Kingsmen shopping center. I wondered if he was thinking about getting a coke or something? Deciding I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking, I didn’t... ask that is.
It was only a few miles down the road he pulled into Cedar Village Mall. Softly I moaned. “No more pictures.”
Elliot pulled into the parking lot and killed the Mustang. He slid out and held the seat forward for me to get out. “Okay, Barbara, let’s go.”
“Go where?” I was working my way out of the back seat appreciating more and more the things girls had to go through when they had to get in and out of a car.
Judy had already made her way around to the driver’s side. She slid her left hand around Elliot’s waist as she held out her right hand for me. “Come on sis.”
“Okay.” I took her hand to leverage myself up on my heels. I guess I was getting used to being a girl, as this time I wasn’t nearly as scared as I was at the first mall.
Elliot stepped in between Judy and me and put his left arm around Judy as he put his right one around me. “Let’s go girls.”
Judy put her right arm around Elliot’s waist as she leaned into him like a real girlfriend would. Feeling like the devil himself, I did the same thing, as I put my left arm around Elliot’s waist and leaned into him from the right. I was thinking I was making him pay for putting me through this. It surprised me, then shocked me, when he put his arm up on my shoulder and pulled me in even closer. It was obvious Elliot wasn’t paying his proper dues for making me into a girl. When I tried to push back out he didn’t let me. His strength wasn’t something I would ever best whether I was wearing jeans or a dress. I was proud Elliot was my brother.
He was all of six foot two inches, one hundred and eighty nine pounds of solid muscle, and a handsome beast, even if he was my brother, and to tell the truth, I wasn’t trying to push away from him that hard. I mean, here I am wearing a dress, Judy and I are male magnets for everything wearing pants. It felt good to have Elliot’s arm on my shoulder telling every male out there I wasn’t free merchandise for the taking. I bet Judy felt the same comfort with Elliot’s arm around her.
We walked into the mall and were turning heads as we threaded our way down to the center of the mall. Why was everything always in the center of the malls? I felt the panic rise when we walked into a store with the name of Michelle’s above the entry. It was a dance studio. “Oh no, you can’t be thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
“And what is that, Barbara dear?” Judy had that Cheshire cat grin back on her face. Something I was becoming too aware of that meant more discomfort for me.
A young lady walked up in front of us. She held out her hand to Elliot as she turned her attention toward me. “You have to be Elliot. I’m Brenda, and this is the young lady you were telling me about? She’s such a lovely girl isn’t she.”
Brenda looked over her shoulder and motioned to a young man dancing with an older woman. “Eddie is one of our best teachers. He can explain the basic steps in the forty five minutes you said you had allowed us to teach her.”
Eddie walked up in front of me and held out his open left hand, palm up. It was obvious he wasn’t wanting to shake hands. “Please, my name is Eddie. You must be Barbara. Elliot asked if we could teach you a few basic dance steps before your prom tonight. We have so little time so let’s get started. Lay your right hand in mine. Gently and don’t grasp it. Let me lead you out to the dance floor.”
I wanted to tell Eddie to drop dead as I pounced on Elliot and strangled him with my bare hands. But I didn’t. I gently placed my right hand in Eddie’s open hand and followed him as he led me out to the dance floor. He turned to face me and held up his left hand, as he put his right hand on my waist above my left hip. “Put your right hand in my left and put your left hand on my waist.”
I did as he requested. He nodded. “Okay, now I’m going to teach you the basics of dancing. If any of the other kids are doing the bump and grind, or any other dirty dancing, you are on your own. There aren’t any set rules. You just get out there and shake it, whatever you feel like shaking. For the basics this is for the slow dances, when your partner wants to hold you and dance slowly around the floor, while feeling the rhythm of the music. Personally, I think this is a whole lot sexier than going off and doing one’s own thing, but then that’s my personal opinion.”
Eddie started moving his body to the music without moving his feet. “Dip and sway, dip and sway. Feel the music and dip and sway. One, two, three, one, two, three, dip and sway, dip and sway.”
I felt stupid but I followed his lead as I started imitating Eddie’s movements rocking my hips to my left as he went right and right as he went left, which meant I was staying in sync with him.
“Great, you’re a natural Barbara. Was your cousin kidding me? You really have danced before haven’t you?” Eddie was rocking his shoulders very, very slightly ahead of his movements, giving me a lead to his body movements.
“No, I really haven’t ever danced before.” It was one of those things I never did. I didn’t date girls and the idea of getting out in the middle of a bunch of kids, dancing with myself, was never going to happen.
“I wouldn’t have believed it. Okay, next, we need to move around the dance floor. That means our feet must take us there. Our bodies have the beat so let’s see if our feet want to get in the mood and join the fun, shall we? Next time we dip to your left which is my right, step out with your left foot and then bring your right foot over. We will reverse and go back to your right which is my left. Let’s keep rhythm with our bodies as we invite our feet to join in…, Now.” Eddie dipped and swayed out to his right, moving his feet in time.
I didn’t have a bit of problem following. He was telegraphing his every move with his shoulders before his body made the movement. And immediately we shuffled back the other direction. And back the other way and back and back and back and…,
“Barbara I can’t believe you haven’t danced before. I’ve never had any newcomers pick it up as quickly as you have.” Eddie was still leading me back and forth as we dipped and swayed with our bodies.
“You’re a good teacher. I’m just following your lead.” I noticed out of the corner of my eye Elliot and Judy as they danced past us. They were holding each other close. I mean really close. I looked down at Judy’s feet and noticed something I had never thought of before. She was moving backwards while Elliot was moving forwards. Girls danced in reverse! Oh, just peachy keen! I was expected to dance in reverse yet!
“I’m not that good of a teacher. Okay, let’s see if our feet want to carry us around the dance floor. We will dance to your left, which is my right, and I want you to step in time as we circle one another. It’s the same thing we have been doing, only we keep moving to your left instead of stopping and moving back to home base. You ready? Now.” Eddie stepped out to his right and I was right with him step for step. He didn’t stop and move back to home base this time, but kept moving to his right and was urging me to circle to his left as we kept moving.
Following his lead I kept moving to the left as he made smaller steps than me which pulled me in a circle around him before we danced to my left some more and another circle and then to my left and another circle and to my left and another circle and…,
We were circling the dance floor not too far behind Elliot and Judy. “You are doing good, Barbara. Okay, I’m going to twirl you. Guys really don’t twirl ladies, but only give the indication they would like their date to show off for all the rest of the guys by twirling. What I am going to do is raise my right arm up and pull gently on your waist with my left hand. That is your cue to unclasp my fingers, put your knuckles up in the palm of my hand and spin one or more turns under my hand. Your cue to stop spinning is when I gently clasp your knuckles. That’s a guide for you to open your fingers and grip my hand as you stop twirling. Done right you will be facing me. You reach out and put your right arm on my waist as I reach out to you. For those looking on it will look like our hands never let go of one another. Are you ready?”
“I guess.” I was positive I wasn’t ready as Eddie lifted his hand above my head pulling my left hand up with his. Turning loose he gave a gentle pull with his left hand indicating I should spin under his hand. I curled my knuckles under his open palm and spun, taking several steps. His hand clasped mine and I stopped as I reached out with my right hand, not really knowing if I was facing in the right direction or not. I was, and my hand was resting on Eddie’s hip as his right fingers interlocked with my left fingers.
“Perfect.” He danced me across the dance floor as he indicated several more times I should twirl while we circled the floor.
“Okay, last but not least, before you go. You need to dance with me leading.”
“But I thought you were. We were.” I honestly thought he was leading.
“No, you were following, but I wasn’t leading. Which is part of dancing, but now I want you to let me lead. For that you have to dance in rhythm backwards to the music as I dance forward. It’s the same thing we have been doing only you are going to dance backwards. Are you ready?”
“Not really.” I didn’t think I could dance backwards even if Judy had been doing it for most of the past thirty minutes.
Eddie laughed. “Oh yes you are. Okay, we shift from a side step to forward and backward step. I’m going to step backwards and you follow me the same as you have been doing. I’ll stop and indicate you should step backwards by gentle pressure on your left hand and your waist. Okay, get ready, now.”
Eddie stepped backwards instead of going sideways. I was ready and I followed him as he stepped backwards and backwards, and…, The pressure on my waist and hand said he was ready to move forwards. I stepped backwards and backwards and backwards wondering if I was going to back into a wall or someone or something. I mean there were other people in there.
It was as if Eddie was reading my mind. “I’m the pilot steering you, Barbara. I won’t guide you into anything. Put your faith in your partner and enjoy the music and the rhythm of the dance. Now twirl for me.”
He raised his hand and I did several spins before he indicated I should stop. Which again came out perfect. And he danced me backwards and spun me and backwards and spun me. He stopped without telling me and danced backwards, but I had been following his lead for the past thirty minutes. I didn’t hesitate as I was with him step for step. He spun me and stepped backwards and spun me and stepped forwards and spun me and stepped to the side and spun me and stepped backwards. And I guess he just wanted to see if he really could shake me as he spun me and kept on spinning me as we moved around the dance floor. When he indicated I should stop I was dizzy as heck, but I didn’t fall down. Probably because I had a partner to hold onto. He danced backwards and spun me again. Forward and spun me. And sideways and spun me.
That last time he stopped me he pulled me in and gave me a life squeezing hug which shocked me. We had stopped dancing. I noticed everyone else had too as they moved off the floor and watched Eddie and me.
Eddie was laughing as he took my hand and led me back over to where Elliot, Judy, and Brenda were standing by the front entrance. “I thought you said she didn’t know how to dance? You can’t tell me this girl hasn’t been dancing for years.”
Elliot and Judy looked like they still didn’t believe what they had just seen. Elliot shook his head. “She hasn’t.”
“I was only following your lead. It wasn’t hard. I’ve been following Elliot’s lead all my life.” I had no idea what the big deal was? Whether it was at home or on the game field, Elliot was always leading and I was always following.
“No you haven’t. I never taught you…,” Elliot stopped as he stared at me when it finally came to him too.
It was what little brothers did. We always followed our big brothers in hero worship as they showed us how to handle life. I really didn’t have any friends of my own. Elliot’s friends were my friends. Elliot’s girlfriends were my girlfriends. Elliot was always leading the way for me. I tried to share his life as I worshiped the ground he walked on…, usually. This last trick he pulled on me, with the prom and all, may have strained our relationship some.
Elliot held out his hand for Eddie. “Thanks for taking her in and teaching her the basics.”
Eddie took his hand and shook it. “It’s been my pleasure. I’ve never had a girl who could follow as easily as she does. I know a lady in Dallas who would love to have Barbara on her dance team. They do competition dancing. I’ll call her and see if she is still looking for a girl.”
“Cough, cough,” I was positive there was no way on God’s little green earth I was going to do any competition dancing, or any other dancing for that matter. Not after tonight I was sure. I had seen some of those ladies and their costumes left little to the imagination. Much less those spiked heels they wore while doing all that stuff.
“Barbara, your cough is back dear. Did you ever drink that warm tea mother was suggesting before you left the house this evening?” Judy was grinning from ear to ear. She almost giggled.
I never answered her because what I was thinking would have shocked everyone in that room. Die, Judy my pet, die!
Elliot put his hand in the small of my back and steered me for the door. “We gotta be going ladies. Eddie, let me know and I’ll relay the message to Barbara.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.” Followed us out the entry.
“You two are dead meat.” I hissed in my brother’s ear as I leaned over in his direction.
“Only if I don’t close my eyes. You promised me that much.” Elliot shot back.
“That was before you kept changing the game. You want rules, but you don’t play by them. Mr. Dead Meat.” I retorted.
“Barb, my beautiful cousin, don’t start counting your victims until you have them down. I’m not an easy target or did my brother forget to tell you that when he invited you to the prom?” Elliot had his right hand around my waist and Judy in his left.
Judy leaned into Elliot as he walked us out to the Mustang. I didn’t lean into him because I was still planning on murder.
We loaded up into the Mustang and, twenty minutes later, pulled up in front of the Wildcats High School gymnasium. Looking at the kids going into the gym sapped all my nerve. “I can’t do this.”
Judy turned around in the seat to look at me. “Barbara, there isn’t a single person there who isn’t going to accept you as Buddy and Elliot’s cousin from Dallas. I’m jealous you look so hot. There isn’t another girl there who is going to outshine you tonight. This is your night girl. Let’s go turn some heads. If the boy pack gets to smothering you, then close in on Elliot and ask him to dance with you. No one with half a brain is going to argue with the high school football captain.”
She looked over at Elliot. “I like your brother a lot. At first I used him just to protect me. I know all the guys who thought, because I had matured a little sooner than most girls, that my sex drive was also in overdrive. If your brother was my boyfriend I didn’t have to do any more then mention his name when some boy wanted to hit on me. Then they would slink away.”
She turned her attention back to me. “Elliot has two girls to protect tonight. He can handle that job as easily as he has protected his brother all his life.”
Judy was right. Our schools had bullies, but they always gave me a wide berth. It wasn’t because I was bigger or stronger. That only lasted through the seventh grade. I was now one of the smallest boys in class. Usually kids like me were a magnet for bullies who like to pick on the other kids. I hadn’t ever thought about it. Elliot’s reputation was protecting me from the bullies. Mess with Buddy and you will have to answer to his older brother. And possibly the whole damn football team, baseball team, and basketball team.
I sighed. “Thanks Elliot, you’re the best brother anyone could wish for. I’m going to hate it when I kill you after tonight.”
“Probably not as bad as I will when you do kill me. However tonight is still young. Let’s go revel while we are young and foolish.” He slid out of the car and held the seat up for me to get out.
I managed to gather up my courage. I knew Elliot and Judy wouldn’t let me get in harms way when the other kids started laughing at me. I held my skirt and took his hand as I managed to wiggle out of the back seat. “Thank you. You’re a gentleman.”
“It was nothing.” He gave me a wink as he walked around the car to open the door for Judy.
“Ooooooh weeeeee” Babes at three o’clock.” Came from over to my left.
“Suck it up stupid. That’s Elliot Peck. You ask permission to even look at his chicks.” Came across the parking lot.
“I can’t look?” Was from the first voice.
“Only if you want to die a thousand deaths at the hands of the high school athletic teams.” Was the answer.
“It’s worth it. Damn! That babe in the black dress is hot. I’m looking, so kill me now.”
By this time Elliot had opened Judy’s door and held his hand out for her as she slid out of the seat.
“Oh double whammy. Look at that fox in the red dress. My god, is she hot or is she hot? I’ve died and I’m in heaven with the angels.”
“You will be if you don’t close that big yap of yours. Did you park your brain at home tonight? Didn’t you hear what I told you. That’s Elliot Peck. Those are his chicks. Unlock your beady little eyeballs off his flock.”
I think my head swelled up ten sizes at that moment. That was my brother they were talking about. It was the first time I had heard anyone talk about him that way. I was so proud of him.
Elliot guided Judy up to the front of the Mustang and held out his hand for me. “You coming? Or do you want to stay and listen to the wild life back down on the farm?”
I held my clutch in my left hand as I gathered my skirt with my right. “Sorry Elliot. I guess I was listening to the wolves howling at the moon.”
“Barbara dear, it wasn’t the moon those wolves were howling at. They were looking over the meat section. Guess who they wanted on the menu?” Judy was shaking her head as she waited for me.
I walked up beside Elliot. He put his hand in the small of my back. “Let’s go to that prom shall we?”
Several wolf whistles echoed out across the parking lot as Elliot escorted Judy and me into the gymnasium.
There were two policemen guarding the door as we walked in. Inside there was a desk with four teachers behind it checking names as the kids came in the door. Elliot steered us over to the last line. Seconds later Mrs. Esters looked up at Judy, and then Elliot, and me. “Hello Miss Mecham and who are your…, Oh hi Elliot, I didn’t recognize you there at first. You’ve grown some since you were in my class.”
She looked back at her computer and typed in Judy Mecham and Elliot Peck. “And who is the beautiful young lady in the black dress? You are a very pretty young lady Miss…?”
“Miss Peck, Miss Barbara Peck.” Judy answered for me while I tried to get the cotton out of my throat. I had expected Mrs. Esters to start laughing when she looked at me.
“Miss Barbara Peck.” Mrs Esters typed into her computer. “Oh yes, Buddy’s date. Is Buddy going to be late?”
“Not really.” I muttered to myself.
“What’s that dear? I didn’t hear you. Can you repeat that please?” Mrs Ester had focused in on me.
“Buddy stood her up. He changed his mind at the last minute and decided he wasn’t coming.” Elliot responded.
“Oh that’s too bad. Well, there are a lot of boys here tonight. I know Miss Peck isn’t going to be allowed a moments piece. There will certainly be no lack of offers to dance. You know the rules. No alcohol, no smoking, no fights, and have fun.” She was looking past us at the next bunch of kids wanting to sign in.
“Is it me or is it hot in here?” I was about to die as Elliot took us by the hand. He walked Judy and me over to the bleachers.
Judy laughed as another senior stepped up in front of us. “Nervous excitement. You’ll get over it in a few minutes. Hi Tank.”
I focused and recognized him. It was one of Elliot’s friends and teammates. His real name was Tug Bagget but all the kids called him Tank. Tank was appropriately named. He was about as broad as he was tall and it was all pure muscle. I heard someone mention Tank regularly bench pressed six hundred pounds without even grunting. I believed it. I also believed he could crack walnuts in his bare hands. If anyone was Elliot’s equal in muscle, then Tank would be that person.
“Hi Judy, Elliot, care to introduce me to your friend?” Tank glanced at Judy when she greeted him and then focused back in on me.
“Sure, Tank, this is Barbara Peck. She’s my cousin from Dallas. Barbara, this is Tank.” Elliot offered as Tank moved in on me.
Tank held out his hand. “Barbara, I’m so pleased to meet you. I didn’t know beauty ran in Elliot’s side of the family. I thought only ugly was in their blood. I see I have made a terrible error in judgment by thinking Elliot and Buddy represented the Peck family. It’s obvious to me where all the beauty in the family went. May I say you are the prettiest girl here tonight?”
My face turned red as I blushed from the top of my head down to my feet as I took his offered handshake. I fully expected to lose my fingers and my hand in his grip. He was gentle beyond belief as he took my hand without pumping it.
“Barbara thanks you for the compliment Tank. However I fail to find my honor still intact after you cast dispersions on my good family name and our looks. I expect you, as a gentleman, to meet me on the field of battle at the break of dawn tomorrow morning to restore my family name and our honor.” Elliot was about to bust out laughing as he glanced from Tank to me.
“Who’s your date tonight?” Elliot looked down at our hands where Tank was still holding mine.
“Needa Sess, but she’s not really my date. She just invited me to make Harry Nuger jealous. I bought her corsage and gave her a ride. Once inside she dumped me and headed straight for Harry.” He pointed to the couple over across the gym, dancing in a close embrace.
“I’m sorry Tank. You deserve better.” Elliot was truly sorry for his friend.
“I’m think I did get better. Didn’t I overhear you saying Miss Peck was stood up by your younger brother? Is it true?” He held onto my hand as he waited for an answer.
“It’s true. Judy and I brought her tonight. Buddy was a no show.” Elliot already knew where this was headed as he turned and winked at me.
I finally figured it out. Tank was holding onto my hand so no one else would butt in while he tried to find out if I was stag tonight. He wanted to be first to stake a claim if I didn’t have a date.
“Then Miss Peck, I would be more than honored if you would consider me your date tonight. I mean, if you don’t mind.” Tank waited to see if he had been right.
“Thank you, it’s most kind of you b…,”
“She would be glad to have you as an escort Tank. Wouldn’t you Barbara dear?” Judy cut me off before I could tell Tank I wasn’t interested.
“I…, I…, I guess.” I stammered as I noticed boys stacking up behind Tank, waiting their turn at the new blood in town.
“Thank you.” Tank swiftly moved in beside me as he put his arm around my waist as a signal to all the other boys they had lost out.
“In case we get separated, Barbara is staying at my house.” Judy called over her shoulder as Elliot led her out to the dance floor.
Great, just great. I thought my brother and Judy were going to protect me from the sharks in the waters. Now they not only offered me up as the sacrificial virgin for the alter, but they also handed him the sacrificial knife.
“Would you like to dance?” Tank was waiting to guide me out to the gym floor.
“I should tell you, I don’t know how to dance.” I was hoping that would pour cold water on his rockets.
“That’s okay, I don’t either.” Tank guided me out to the floor beside Elliot and Judy who were dancing away from us.
He stepped up in front of me and held up his left hand. I put my right hand in his right. He put his right hand around my waist and I put my left up against his. Darn…, that boy felt like pure muscle packed up and tamped down with good measure. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He started me backwards. I dipped and swayed as Eddie had taught me. Tank led me around the dance floor. Tank lied. Tank wasn’t only a good dancer, he was an excellent dancer. He gave an indication he wanted me to spin and I did one turn for him.
His eyes were absolutely dancing themselves as he indicated he would like another spin. I did and he danced me around in a circle and then a couple spins. He nodded in agreement as I stepped back in his arms.
I can only guess because I was so easy to lead he thought I knew what I was doing. He spun me and then instead of catching me he stepped out beside me. We danced side by side and closed, he spun me out the other direction and stepped out beside me. Again we danced side by side before he spun me back into his arms. I realized Tank wasn’t only an excellent dancer he was an accomplished dancer. Something I never expected of one of Elliot’s football teammates.
He pulled me in close and whispered in my ear. “Would you leave your purse with Mrs. Ester so you will have both hands open?”
“I guess.” I stepped out of his embrace.
He put his hand in the small of my back and walked with me across the gym back over to where Mrs. Ester was checking kids. I waited until she looked up. “Mrs. Ester, would you look after my clutch for me please?”
“I’d be glad to Barbara. You and Tug seemed to be doing quite well out here.” She held out her hand for my clutch.
Tug? I had never heard him called anything besides Tank. I placed my clutch in her hand. “He seems to be an accomplished dancer.”
“Yes, both of you are. I think everyone has noticed.” She slipped my clutch down beside her leg and put it in her purse.
Everyone? I was so busy following Tank’s lead I hadn’t been paying any attention to the other kids.
Tank led me back out to the edge of the gym and we took our positions. I noticed he bounced to pick up the beat before he stepped into the music. He started me backwards and spun me out to his right, caught me, spun me to his left, caught me and pulled me back in before spinning me around him. It was certainly a lot easier to follow him without holding onto the clutch. The band stopped before they started back in with a quick number.
Most of the kids were gyrating their bodies and waving their arms. Elliot and Judy were doing a very quick dance step around the edge of the floor trying to keep from bumping into the other kids who weren’t doing much besides looking like seaweed in a rip tide. They were anchored in place doing lots of movement and nothing they did was synchronized with the music. But then, hey, I would probably be doing the same thing if I had come to the dance. What was I thinking? I did come to the dance, or Barbara did. I smiled at my own joke.
“You have a very pretty smile.”
I looked up at Tank as my mind engaged. I blushed clear down to my toes again. “Thanks” I mumbled.
“Let’s see if we can follow the path Elliot and Judy are clearing as they circle the floor.” He put his hand in the small of my back as he moved me up closer to the center of the gym floor. Elliot and Judy were coming around one more time.
He held up his hand and I followed putting my right in his left as he put his right hand on my waist. Elliot and Judy danced past us. Tank moved me in behind them with a very very quick two step. He was telegraphing his steps through his hips and his hands. I moved my hand down on top of his hip to better pick up his intentions as he danced me backwards a step or two behind Elliot and Judy. When Elliot twirled Judy, Tank would twirl me in the same instant. And when they took off again, Tank kept me one step behind Elliot.
Elliot decided to see if he could throw Tank off and did a double spin with Judy. Tank wasn’t the best or second best on the football team because he was a slow thinker or slow to react. Tank followed Elliot’s lead almost to the split second and twirled me twice. Our foursome moved on down the court and Elliot spun Judy twice and instead of going ahead, spun her around himself. Tank led me through in synchronous movement at the same instant. And we danced down the gym.
By now some of the kids had decided the best show was the two couples doing synchronous dancing. They had moved to the edge of the gym floor and stopped to watch. Several of the teachers and chaperones were watching us instead of looking for the beginnings of trouble among the sea of kids. The teachers at the front had stopped letting the stragglers in as they stood up to watch.
Elliot and Judy were getting more and more room to play as the kids left the floor to watch the show. Elliot did a spin with Judy and kept her spinning all the way around himself before he caught her and led her one step to do a double spin. Tank was just as quick as he spun me the same instant Judy started spinning. I’ll never know how he could keep a watch on Elliot and Judy and me at the same time but he did. Probably had a lot to do with his football skills watching several players and the ball all at the same time.
Tank caught me, we did one step and did a double spin. I would have fallen down dizzy as a squirrel about then if Tank hadn’t been there to hold me up. Elliot snapped Judy out to his right, spun her back across in front and snapped her out to his left before he spun her back into his arms. Tank wasn’t even a split second behind as he snapped me out to the right, spun me across the front, snapped me out to the left and spun me back into his arms.
Some of the kids started keeping beat by clapping to the rhythm of the band with their hands. Pretty soon the whole gym was one thunderous clapping to the beat.
Elliot tried to throw Tank off by shifting his body to the left without spinning Judy. It certainly threw Judy off as she stepped out to his left. Elliot picked up as if it was intended and spun out past Judy, had her spin past him, he spun out past her, had her spin out past him and then pulled her back into his arms. Tank did the same only he didn’t fake his hips to the left. It was nothing but smooth sailing with Tank as he followed suit.
The band wound down on the number and it was over. The kids spread out across the floor again as the band picked up another jazzy number.
I was so dizzy I hung onto Tank to keep from falling to the floor. “Can we take a break?” I managed to gasp.
“Sure. Can I get you something to drink? They have punch and cake or dip and chips.” Tank was holding me in his arms as my brain stopped spinning.
“Nothing at the moment thanks. If you want something go ahead.”
Tank was guiding me over to the seats beside Elliot and Judy. I plopped down beside Judy. “Whew, am I hot.”
Judy was shaking her head as she tried fanning herself. “Me too. Guys, how about some refreshments?”
I shook my head. “I’m hot, not thirsty.”
“I’ll get four drinks.” Tank was already headed down the gym.
Elliot was studying me. “Cousin, I think you have been holding out on me. Where and when have you been taking lessons?”
“Lessons? Are we back to dance lessons again? I told you big brother. I’ve been following all my life. I had the best teacher in the world. You taught me how to follow.”
Elliot took a quick look around to make sure I hadn’t been overheard. “Careful cousin Barbara from Dallas. Remember who you are.”
I looked down at my fake breasts as I rolled out my right hand with the fake fingernails. “How could I forget?”
“You just did. You called me brother. Don’t do that again. At least not tonight.” Elliot had a dead serious look on his face.
“So shoot me. I’m too hot to care.” I was steaming. I wanted nothing more than to take my clothes off and run naked through the night. I had been hot in my football uniforms. The difference was there I could go stand in front of the mist machines they always set up along the sidelines.
“You’ll cool down in a few minutes. We won’t let the guys do that to us again.” Judy reached over and patted the back of my hand.
“I hope not. Next time they will have to carry me out on a stretcher.” I closed my eyes and leaned back against the seat behind me.
“Barbara, would you dance with me please?”
I opened my eyes and was looking at Danny Cullen. He was in the same grade as Judy and me. “Danny…,”
“She would be pleased to, Danny.” Judy offered in my stead.
Judy leaned over in my direction. “His name is Danny Cullen. He is in my class.”
Oops…, I had just called him by name as if I knew him all my life. “Thanks for telling me his name, Judy.”
I didn’t have to ask how Danny knew my name. The names of new girls at school or a dance circulate faster than lightning among all the students and not just the boys.
I pushed myself up off the seat and stepped up beside Danny. He reached down, took my hand and led me out to the gym floor. He put both his hands on my shoulders and started moving me backwards. I put my hands on his hips to read his intentions as I stepped backwards ahead of him. We didn’t dance to the beat as we had no rhythm. I guess we were dancing as I walked backwards and he walked forwards around the gym several times before the number was up. Funny but I was a lot cooler up there walking off the heat buildup in my body rather than sitting down waiting for it to reside.
Danny took my hand and walked me back over where Elliot, Judy, and Tank were sitting. “Thank you. It was awfully nice of you to dance with me. I really enjoyed it.”
He turned and left. I could only stare as he walked across the gym to be with a group of guys on the other side. Was that me? Only I wouldn’t have asked the girl to dance. I would have stood along the wall with a dozen other guys who were too shy to ask the girl if she wanted to dance.
I sat down beside Judy as Tank placed a paper cup of iced something in my hand. “I feel sorry for them.”
Judy nodded in agreement. “They will eventually grow out of it. They always seem to be able to find that moment when boy meets girl. Sooner or later they no longer stand along the wall watching the others dance, or play sports, or other things.”
“But this should be the best times of their lives.” It suddenly dawned on me. It should be the best time of my life too. I looked over at Judy who had a knowing look in her eyes.
She giggled. “Elliot, you big hunk of adorable boy you. I want to dance. Us girls can do anything boys can do and we can do it better and look prettier while we do it.”
She looked back at me as Elliot took her hand. “Can’t we Barbara.”
“We most certainly can.” I agreed with her as Elliot led her out to the gym floor and put his arms around her for a slow dance.
“Barbara, would you do me the honor?” Tank stood up and held out his hand.
I took a quick sip of coke or whatever and tried to take in as big a mouthful of ice as I could at the same time before sitting my cup down and holding up my hand for Tank to pull me up.
Tank kept me close by his side most of the night. Somewhere around one or so Elliot and Judy disappeared. It didn’t bother me at first. Then I got to wondering how I was ever going to get home? How was I going to change without mom and dad seeing me? I most certainly didn’t want Tank to drive me home. I could only imagine his thoughts as he drove Barbara up to Buddy and Elliot’s home to spend the night. I didn’t have a house key. My house key was in my pants pocket wherever my pants might be at this point in time.
So I would have to walk up to the front door, ring the doorbell and walk in past mom or dad as I told Tank goodnight. Yeah, that would work. Not! 'Hi mom, it’s your daughter and I’m home. Hello nine one one, it’s me again. Send over the rescue squad. My parents passed out again.'
It was close to two when they started shutting things down. Most of the kids had left already. Mrs. Ester caught me at the door as Tank was walking me out. “Your clutch Barbara.”
I had forgot. I reached out and took the clutch. “Thank you Mrs. Ester. Thank you for looking after it for me tonight.
“I hope you had a good time dear. All of the teachers I talked to said they enjoyed having you visit us.” She took a look up at Tank visually taking him to task to behave himself if he was taking me home.
Tank looked uncomfortable. “Barbara is staying with Judy Mecham. I’m driving her back over to Judy’s house.”
I know exactly who was more relieved at that moment. It was yours truly. I could drop in on Judy, change clothes, and go home.
Mrs. Ester nodded in agreement. “That’s a good idea.”
Tank put his hand in the small of my back as he steered me out to his Firebird. He walked me over to the passenger side and opened the door for me.
I held my skirt as I turned my back to the seat, sat down, and swung both my legs in. “Thank you.”
There were a few wolf whistles and someone across the parking lot shouted, “She was the hottest one there tonight.”
Tank nodded in agreement as he shut my door. “I know, I know, boy do I ever know.”
I smiled thinking I was hot all right. I wasn’t hot in the way the boys were thinking. I was physically hot. Dancing was hard work and took lots of energy.
“Did I tell you how pretty your smile is?” Tank slid in under the steering wheel.
I blushed down to my feet again as I looked shyly out of the corner of my eyes at him. “Yes, you did. It was a very nice compliment. Thank you. You have been a gentleman all evening Tank. I had a wonderful time.”
“I did too, once Needa dumped me for her ex. I was leaving when you and Elliot walked in. I wasn’t going to stay and watch a bunch of graduating Freshmen dance all night. I was walking past the girl cheerleaders when I overheard Charlotte Danbey said you were Buddy’s date and he wasn’t coming. I remembered Elliot mentioned last week that Barbara Peck was flying down from Dallas to date Buddy.” He started up the Firebird and was slowly moving out of the parking lot.
Funny how Judy must have told the rest of the girls in the cheer leading squad one thing and Elliot mentioned to his friends something else and it all came together tonight. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it if I had to put up with the other boys all night. They seemed so immature. I was more comfortable around Elliot’s friends than kids my own age. I guess that was from following Elliot all my life.
Tank took it slow as he drove the six miles or so back over to Judy Mecham’s house. The lights were still on in the living room. I figured someone must still be up waiting for Judy to come home.
Tank pulled up into the driveway, killed the car, got out and walked around to open my door. He held out his hand.
I took it and tried as gracefully as I knew how to turn in the seat and stand up. “Thank you Tank. I had a wonderful time tonight.”
I was headed for the house when the car door shut behind me and I felt Tank’s hand reach around my waist. He had stepped up beside me to walk me to the door. Okay, no problem at least it wasn’t Buddy’s home we were walking up to. Miriam thought I was Barbara. I had already passed that hurdle.
Tank walked me up to the front door. He was standing between the doorbell and me. I held out my hand. “Thanks for a wonderful time.”
Tank took my hand and gently, oh so gently I don’t know if I realized what he was doing until he had done it. He pulled me into his arms. Put his left arm around my waist, his right around the back of my head and pulled me into a kiss.
Hello Houston…, Houston we have a problem here. Barbara forgot just exactly who she was, Houston? Please check and see if she left her brain on the bench when she dressed for the prom this evening. Houston, please respond. Houston, you are breaking up. Houst…,
I wrapped my arms around Tank’s neck, stood up on my tip toes, and kissed him back before it came to me just exactly WHAT THE HELL I WAS DOING! I had let Barbara take over where Buddy had left off. Or maybe it was because I had been following Tank’s lead all night I automatically fell into his arms when he pulled me in. I pushed back from him and reached for the doorbell as I muttered under my breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
Tank backed up to give me some room as the front door was opening up. “Yes you did. I’m not apologizing because you liked it.”
“Hello Tank. You and Barbara have fun?” Judy was standing in the door wearing a housecoat. She had a knowing look on her face.
“Don’t let her tell you she didn’t like the kiss.” Tank turned to walk back to his car.
Judy was grinning from ear to ear. “Kiss? Barbara? On your first date? Oh well, we do live in changing times don’t we?”
I was wiping tears of frustration. “I didn’t mean to.”
She held out her hand and took mine as she led me into the house and closed the door. “I don’t believe that. You did mean to. I know Tank. He wouldn’t have kissed you if he hadn’t been invited.”
“I didn’t invite him. It just happened. I didn’t…,” I was wiping tears with the back of my hands as they were coming like a spring flood.
“Maybe not in so many words, but your body language said you wanted to be kissed. Only a few of us girls are brave enough to holler at our dates and tell them you either kiss me or I’m going to knock your block off.” She turned out the living room lights and led me to the bedroom where she handed me a hand full of Kleenex.
I was dabbing at tears. “I don’t know how it happened. I’m not gay. I’m not gay.”
Judy pulled me into her arms as I cried on her shoulder. “I know hon. I do know. We need to have a long long talk and I am going to tell you something about yourself Elliot figured out years back.”
“What? I’m not gay. He better not say I’m a queer. I’m not.” I sniffed and wiped tears as I backed up to look in Judy’s eyes.
She shook her head. “Not in a million years would he say you were gay. Even if you were it wouldn’t make any difference. Elliot loves you with all his heart. There isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for you even if it meant giving up his life for you.”
She led me over to the dresser and sat me down. “Okay, let’s get you out of that rig. Although us girls may look better than the guys it takes a lot of effort. We are going to keep our secret. We want them think it all comes easy and naturally don’t we?”
She removed my bracelets and necklace. “My mother’s necklace never looked prettier than it did on you tonight.”
“Your…, your mother’s necklace? She knows?” I sniffed as I wiped away the last of the tears. I couldn’t believe Miriam wouldn’t recognize her own expensive jewelry.
“She knows. She didn’t care. In fact it was her idea when I mentioned you were coming to visit.” Judy was removing something by my left ear.
“They still sting.” I had forgotten them all evening until Judy started messing with them.
She removed the dangle. “But not much, right?”
“Yeah, not much.” I agreed as she moved around to work on the right ear. Funny but it felt like something was still there in my left ear. I reached up with my hand and felt a large loop earring.
“Barbara, it’s a stainless steel stud. It won’t come out without a machine. The diamond earring was screwed to it.” She removed the dangle from my right ear.
“A stud? They won’t come out?” I couldn’t believe she would put something in my ear she couldn’t remove.
“Only after the holes have healed. It takes a special tool to take them out. Remove your heels and nylons.” She worked attaching a loop earring to the stud before she laid the second dangle down on the dresser next to the first and the diamond necklace and bracelets.
“But I have to go home. I can’t go home with earrings in my ears. Mom and dad would go ballistic.” I didn’t have to imagine what mom and dad would say. I knew they would hit the ceiling. I leaned down and removed my heels before I stood up. I hiked my skirt and undid the straps holding my nylons. I pushed the nylons down with the flat of my fingers so as to not snag them with my fingernails. I sat back down and pushed the nylons off my feet.
“Perfect. Stand up and let me unzip the dress.” She motioned for me to stand up and turn my back to her.
I did and she unzipped me. I pushed the spaghetti straps off my shoulders. Shaking my hips to let the dress slide on down to my ankles I stepped out of the pile at my feet.
Judy undid the corset and let it out. I breathed a sigh of relief as I rubbed my waist. “Ohhhh that feels sooo good.”
“I know.” She pointed toward the door. “Bathroom, take off your makeup with the Vaseline you'll find on the dresser. Lipstick and all comes off with a little Vaseline. Take a quick shower and come back here.”
She pulled a large towel off the bed and held it up as she turned her back.
I took the towel, dropped the corset, and wrapped the towel around me in less than the blink of an eye. I was in the bathroom almost as quick. What never dawned on my tiny little sleep deprived brain was what would I do if Miriam or Bill caught me walking through the hall to and from the bathroom. Never mind the fact I was in their daughter’s bedroom in the darkest hours of the night. Can we say sudden death? Sure we can. But then my brain never thought along those lines that night, so it didn’t make any difference.
The Vaseline did the trick with the lipstick and makeup. Soap and water in the shower did the trick with any residue left by the Vaseline. Quicker than one can say…, well it took a little longer than that. I traced the outline where the bathing suit had been and the fake suntan didn’t cover. I knew everyone at the prom could see where I didn’t tan under the bikini straps on my bare shoulders. It was kind of fun being Barbara for one night. I didn’t take long as I padded back to Judy’s room with a towel wrapped around me.
My dress and under things had been hung up or moved out of the middle of the floor. Judy was sitting on the edge of the bed in a black satin nightgown. She was yawning. She pointed toward the dresser. “Slip into the bra and panties and the nightgown. Let’s call it a night, shall we?”
Up until that moment I had forgot the stupid earrings and was close to sleep walking. My little sleep fogged mind was instantly awake. Wide awake! “Judy, I’ll call Elliot and have him come pick me up. I can’t go home in a nightgown. Where’s my pants?”
She clasped a hand over her mouth to stifle a yawn. “Barbara, no Elliot tonight. Sweety, you’re not staying with your cousins. You’re staying with my parents and me. You were a real lady tonight. It wouldn’t do for you to suddenly lose those curves and my mom or dad see you. Slip on the bra. I know my mom. She will peek in on us in the morning when she gets up around five.”
I choked. “US!”
“Shhhhh, keep it down Barbara. My parents bedroom is at the other end of the house, but it you get to making too much noise they will hear you. Yes, us. You can’t fly home to Dallas tonight. You are staying with me. Bra, panties, gown, bed, goodnight.” Judy laid her housecoat over on the chair beside the bed. She was wearing a silk or satin black nightgown. She pulled back the covers and slid into bed.
“Don’t forget to turn out the lights.” She pulled the covers down on the other side of the bed and patted the pillow. “You sleep here Barbara.” She pulled a pillow up over her head and wiggled to find a position to sleep.
Un huh…, Elliot, I’m going to kill you for this. If I knew where Miriam kept her kitchen knives I would…, ah what the heck? I slipped on the bra which had more than it’s fair share of padding. The panties were next which also had a lot of extra padding. The black nightgown was last before I turned out the lights and softly treaded back over to the bed. I slipped in and rolled over on my side away from Judy. That didn’t work because it pushed the earring into my head. I rolled over on my other side facing Judy. That also didn’t work for the same reason. I rolled over on my back and lay there as I slid my left hand up out of the covers and felt the earring in my left ear. I liked them, but there was no way to keep them. Mom and dad wouldn’t understand.
“Night Judy.” I whispered softly figuring she was already asleep. My own brain shut down with the innocence of youth, accepting for tonight, I was Barbara.
Continued in Chapter Three, to be posted Thursday. Please don't forget to comment and kudo? Thank you for reading.
I tried to open an eye when I heard voices, I really did open an eye for a fraction of a second. Nothing was working and I slept. There were more noises and more voices and I tried to understand and wake up, and I slept. Finally I managed to crawl up out of the darkness of sleep and open both eyes. It was bright in the room, the sun was way up, The birds were singing their little hearts out in the trees outside. I rolled over and looked for Judy. Her side of the bed was empty.
I pushed the covers back and slid out of bed. The black satin nightgown I was wearing felt soft against my skin. Standing up I padded across the floor, cracked the bedroom door, and peeked out to see who was up and about. I could hear the television going in the living room. Other than that the house was quiet.
My clothes were the uppermost things on my mind. I headed across the room to the closet, hoping Elliot and Judy had stashed them there yesterday. It wasn’t to be. I really was needing that bathroom by now. Finally I couldn’t ignore the call of Mother Nature. I slowly opened the door, pulled it back just far enough to slip through and headed down the hall for the bathroom and relief. I figured I had made my unnoticed silent rendezvous with Mother Nature as I headed back for the bedroom. I needed to find my clothes. I needed Judy to call Elliot. I needed the earrings out of my ears.
Back in the bedroom I had no idea what to do. This was turning into a desperate situation for me. I was wearing a nightgown and didn’t have any clothes. In times like this, thinking about killing Elliot always helped, so I thought about killing Elliot. Actually it didn’t help. I still needed my clothes. I headed back out to see if I could find Judy without getting caught by Miriam or Bill. I checked the kitchen. It was empty. Heading for the living room as softly and quietly as I could I noticed the top of Judy’s head where she was sitting on the couch.
“Sssssss, sssssssss, ssssssssss.” Wasn’t getting any attention. “Ssssss, judy, ssssss”
Judy stood up and turned to look. “Ssssss yourself. Morning Barbara. I thought you were going to sleep the day away. You look nice this morning.”
I pointed to the bedroom as the living room was much too public for me to want to carry on a conversation there.
Judy giggled as she shook her head. “What do you need hon. Get dressed. Elliot is picking us up in thirty minutes. We are going out to eat lunch.”
“Dressed? I’d love to. My clothes…,” I whispered back.
“You forgot where you put your suitcase? It’s beside your side of the bed. I think the red dress and heels would be right for today, don’t you? I took it out and hung it up in my closet so it wouldn’t get wrinkled.” Her eyes were dancing with delight.
“Are you and Elliot out of your ever loving minds? I gotta get home and check in. Mom and dad will wonder where I am. Now where’s my clothes?” I was trying to keep it as quiet as I could and get the message across I wasn’t in any mood for this to keep going the way it was headed.
Judy was laughing as she walked around the couch, back over to me, took my hand and led me back to the bedroom. “Girl, you have so much to learn.”
She walked over to the closet and retrieved a vivid red dress with a more than full skirt to it. She laid it out on the bed. “Barbara, you and I are about the same size. I’m five seven, you’re five six. I weigh a hundred and four pounds and you weigh a hundred and six. I wear a size five heel and so do you.”
She was studying me to see if any of this had sunk into my brain.
I shrugged my shoulders. “So?”
Judy pointed to the turquoise suitcase on the other side of the bed. “You flew in from Dallas yesterday to go to a prom dance with your cousin. You are staying with me instead of your cousins this week.”
It was finally reaching the part of my brain where thinking is supposed to take place if it isn’t turned off. “Oh no, you and Elliot are thinking you can carry this off for a week? No way, un uh, ain’t happening, no way Jose.”
“Yes way. Now let’s get ready. Come over here and let me help you with your makeup before you slip into the dress.” She motioned toward the seat by the dresser.
I was trying to convince her I had to get home before mom and dad called out the Marines to hunt for their son Buddy. “Mom and dad…,”
“Are happy Buddy signed up for summer camp this year. Buddy left for camp this morning. Elliot woke Buddy up and took him down to meet with the church group, where he would get on the bus and go to summer Christian camp, along with eighteen other boys.” Her eyes gleamed with mischief. She knew her and Elliot’s plans to set me up to not be missed were perfect.
I put my hands on my padded hips as I stared back at her. “Not so fast Sweety. I never signed up for any camp. Mom and dad would have to sign the papers anyway.”
“And…,” I cut her off as she started to speak. “And I never packed for summer camp, never left the house for summer camp, AND, when they check for Buddy Peck on their passenger list, I won’t be there.”
I knew I had outfoxed the foxes. With one phone call to the church counselors and Judy and Elliot’s whole house of cards would crumble in on them, crushing their devious little game in the process. Judy and Elliot would be so grounded they wouldn’t be able to leave their bedrooms until they were old and gray.
I couldn’t believe it when Judy started giggling again. Didn’t she know I blew up their plans for turning me into a girl for the day?” I not only destroyed their plans, I shipwrecked them so they would go down as a bigger disaster than the Titanic.
“Well Barbara, it looks like you have Elliot and me cold. I guess there isn’t any way out is there? What will it take for you to not tattle on us?” She was giggling between every other word.
Somehow she didn’t seem properly chastised. Her giggling didn’t assure me she was living in mortal fear of what was to be her last free day on earth. What had I missed? My plan was foolproof. The earrings? I reached up with my left hand and felt the large loop in front of the stud going through my ear. No, mom and dad would understand I had no choice after they heard the story. That wasn’t it. The pictures Elliot was going to show Judy? Fat chance now since I had danced my prom night away in dress and heels. Those pictures were tame stuff by now. What was I missing in this game of one upmanship? I was thinking I had the winning hand. Yet…, Judy wasn’t buying it.
“One phone call, Judy. All it takes is one phone call.” I was positive she should be quaking in her beautiful black heels by now.
Judy giggled as she pointed to the living room. “Phone is by the end table.”
“I’ll use it. I really will. If you and Elliot don’t return my clothes I’ll make that call.” I was getting worried because Judy wouldn’t stop giggling. The more I threatened the more she giggled. Some how either I didn’t know all the cards laid out or they had an Ace up their sleeves.
I took a couple steps toward the door. “I am going to go make that phone call.”
“The telephone is setting on the end cabinet. The Directory is in the drawer in case you don’t know the number you want to call.” She was about to die laughing.
I pulled up short. She wasn’t bluffing. She and Elliot had managed to foolproof their scheme somehow. What was I missing? It finally came to me. The only way to foolproof the plan was if some kid took my place. Okay, how would they work it? Mom and dad signed the papers thinking I had asked to go to summer camp. Elliot gets up early before mom and dad are up and carries my duffle bag and suitcase out to his car, saying he is driving me to the church bus. Mom and dad would be grateful they didn’t have to get up at that time. So…, at four or so I was obviously fictitiously sent off to summer camp. Elliot must really have been dedicated to their plan for him to get up at that time of morning after staying up half the night.
It was beginning to feel more and more like Elliot and Judy had boxed me in. I was going to be a girl today whether I liked it or not. The part that bothered me more than the idea Judy and Elliot had come up with this plot was... I kind of liked it.
Judy had her hands on her hips waiting to see if I was headed to the phone or the dresser. I finally caved as I ate crow and padded on my bare feet over to the dresser. I had done this last night in front of my own classmates. I could do this today while I worked on an escape plan.
Judy picked up the eye liner and started with my eyes. “Barbara, you really need to learn this so you can handle it on your own. I mean, look at you girl. You’re fifteen going on sixteen. You had your maid and butler waiting on you hand and foot all your life. You still can’t put on your own makeup. Now watch in the mirror and pay attention to how it’s done.”
Minutes later Judy finished her magic tricks. I had long lush lashes, my eyes were outlined in black eyeliner, soft earth tones for eye shadow, and my lips were a vivid liquid red. Her work with the foundation and makeup brushes was nothing short of phenomenal. She didn’t have to do my nails which she had glued on yesterday. They were still long and sharp and stood out in a very bright, liquid red color.
She backed up as she studied her handiwork. “Okay Barbara, stand up, lose the nightgown, drop the panties and put on your pantyhose.”
“Pantyhose?” I managed to squeak out.
“No corset to hold up your nylons today so it’s pantyhose. You will slip the panties back on after you put on the pantyhose.” She walked over to the dresser and lifted out suntan colored pantyhose.
“I’ve gone to hell.” I didn’t think girls had to go through all this to look good. But then I never gave a lot of thought to what girls went through to look good. I just naturally assumed God printed out boys and girls. When God printed out girls He made them with lipstick, and makeup, and jewelry, and dresses. When He printed out boys He made them with jeans, and…, jeans and…, jeans and…,
I lifted the nightgown up over my head and laid it down across the bed before I took the pantyhose from Judy. “Turn your back or leave the room.”
Judy turned around. I dropped my panties, sat down on the makeup bench, and rolled down the right leg of the pantyhose. I pulled it up my right leg and then the left leg was next. I retrieved the padded panties and slid them on making sure to adjust my water weasel so it wasn’t showing. “Okay.”
Judy turned around and nodded in agreement. “Very good, Barbara.”
She lifted a satin slip out of the dresser and handed it to me. “Over the head.”
I found the bottom and the front and slid into it from the bottom, letting it settle in over my head. I adjusted the thin straps on my shoulders.
Judy picked the red dress up off the bed. “Same way.”
The dress had a long zipper in back so I lined it up and dropped the dress over my head. I slid my arms through the arm holes as it settled. I shook my hips to get it to settle in place. The skirt was more than a full skirt. There was an awful lot of material in that glistening red dress. The skirt was short, about four inches above my knees short. The sleeves were about two inches long and had some sort of filler on top of the shoulder so the material stood up and fluffed out. The neckline of the dress was scoop neck in front and back. Even though it had sleeves, the open front and back made me feel naked. I adjusted the bra strap and slip strap so they didn’t show. My bare shoulders were still showing that white bikini tan line, which I wasn’t going to be able to adjust. That was going to have to go away with time.
“You do that so naturally you don’t surprise me any more. Turn around and let me zip you up.” She made a spinning motion with her finger on her right hand.
I turned my back to her and felt the zipper sliding up as the bodice got tight.
“Exhale.”
I let out my breath. Judy slid the zipper home and hooked it. “Slip into your heels and let me take a look.”
I picked the glittering red heels up off the bed and slipped them on. I was back up on my toes. The heels were three inch spiked heels. For a size five that is a really tall heel and does put one up on their toes. I picked up the black nightgown I had laid down on the bed, walked over to the closet, retrieved a hanger and hung it up so Judy wouldn’t have to pick up after me. The skirt was rustling with every step I took. It wasn’t a soft material like the gown I had on the evening before. It rustled with each step. I walked around to my side of the bed and started making it up. I fluffed up the pillow, pulled the sheet back in place, and then the bedspread.
Judy was watching without saying anything. When I finished up I looked over at her. “What?”
She smiled as she closed her eyes for a second. “When I visit Elliot and walk into his room, it’s always a pig pen. Clothes are on the floor or strewn about, the bed is never made, and papers and books are scattered everywhere.”
“I’ve seen Buddy’s room. Everything is always so neat and tidy. The bed is always made, the books are so well stacked it doesn’t look like he ever reads them. The clothes are always hung up out of sight.” She looked straight at me. “I’m not surprised by what you just did. I was kind of admiring the way you did it.”
I shrugged. “I kind of like a neat room. Elliot doesn’t care as long as it is his room. I like your room. You keep everything picked up and put in place so you know exactly where it is. I noticed you don’t waste time looking for something because you already know where it is supposed to be. I like that.”
“Me too. Let’s call Elliot and see where that boy is. He was supposed to be here by now.” She walked over to the closet and took out a red shoulder purse that matched my heels. “Put your necessities from your clutch in here.”
That stopped me cold. Clutch? “Oh froggers. I left it in Tank’s car last night.”
Judy shook her head. “Young ladies do not misplace their purses. We carry our lives in those purses. Lipstick and makeup are two items we would never be caught without. Basic girl rule, you never misplace your purse, even if you forget everything else.”
“I’m not a girl.” I protested.
She put her left hand up under her chin as she cupped her left elbow with her right hand in deep thought and stared at me.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking but forget it.” I was hoping to derail any further helpful ideas from Judy.
She snapped her fingers. “Sit down in front of the dresser. There is work left to be done.”
“Can’t we leave well enough alone? Shouldn’t you be getting dressed?” Judy was wearing jeans, a light blue polyester blouse, and sneakers. Of course she was a fox no matter what. I bet when Judy was born the doctor held her in his arms and said this girl is one foxy baby girl.
“Sit.” Judy commanded as she pointed at the seat.
Sighing in resignation I walked over, held my skirt with my hands, and sat down.
The loop earrings didn’t suit Judy. She changed them out to diamond or crystal chandelier, long dangle type earrings. The posts never came out so I could only guess how she was attaching those earrings. The earrings cascaded about three inches and tinkled and sparkled even when I wasn’t moving my head. A matching multi strand necklace was next along with four bracelets.
“Turn your head.” She put her hand on my head to turn it away.
I did and felt something against my right ear. It clicked. I felt a stinging in my ear. “Ow…, what did you do? That stings.”
There was a second click and that same sting further up the ear. “Judy, that hurts.” I started to reach up to feel my ear.
She stopped my hands and pushed them back down in my lap. “Be still.”
There was a third click and a sting close to the top of my ear before she walked around to the other side. “Turn your head.”
“Judy, that stings. I don’t know what you are doing but it hurts.” I turned my head as I was trying to explain to her this wasn’t any fun. I heard a click and my left ear felt a sting. “Judy…,”
“Be still.” There was a second click and third click near my left ear. The sting felt worse. It may not have been as bad as a wasp or bee sting. I won’t say it wasn’t tolerable, but it did sting.
“Okay, you can look in the mirror. Don’t forget your purse.” She was walking out of the bedroom.
I turned to look in the mirror and…, oh poop…, I had three more studs in each ear, not counting the earrings she put in the day before. The lower stud in my right ear was a little above the original earrings. It had a red stone that caught the light and sparkled and glittered. It wasn’t that small either. The second stud up had a blue stone that caught the light and sparkled and glittered. The top stud had a clear stone that sparkled with the light. Underneath those studs was a narrow gold and silver filigree band where the tiniest rhinestones sprinkled in it. The band lay with the curvature of my ear from the second stud up to the top stud. It looked like a miniature diamond bracelet. I slipped one of my long fingernails under it. It was fastened under the studs somehow and probably not removable from the looks of it.
Feeling with my fingers it felt more than just studs on the back side of my ear. Turning my head and pulling my ear forward to look I saw a matching band of filigree on the backside of each ear. I could only guess it was the backing for the extra three studs. My left ear was a match for the right. That ear also had a row of rhinestones from the second stud to the third and fourth stud. The same type backing was used in my left ear. Now each ear was sporting three extra earrings.
I couldn’t believe Judy would put earrings in my ears that couldn’t be removed. I figured I might just possibly, in the wildest sense, explain away one earring to mom and dad. There was no way between heaven and earth I was going to explain four in each ear or eight earrings. This sink hole I was trapped in was getting deeper and deeper all the time. I now knew what quicksand felt like and I was positive I was in it. The harder I struggled, the deeper I was sucked in. Those pictures Elliot was blackmailing me with yesterday were a non event. He could show them to the whole world for all I cared at this point. I would even help him pass them out among the kids at school if it would turn back the clock on yesterday and let me start all over again.
Alas, my problem was the age old problem of young and old alike since the beginning of time. Mistakes can’t be undone. Trying to get out of a situation can lead to an ever worsening situation until one reaches the point of no return. I was positive I'd passed the point of no return by now. There wasn’t one definitive moment when I can say, ah ha you need to go back now while you still can, but it happened just the same.
I walked over to the bed and picked up the shoulder purse as I plotted Elliot’s slow, really really slow, death in my mind. Walking into the living room I saw Judy pick up a brown purse off the couch where I first saw her that morning.
She looked over at me after she retrieved her handbag off the couch. “You look positively radiant, Barbara Peck.”
I didn’t feel radiant. I felt trapped. “Thanks for the compliment Judy. I have a…,” I stopped and gave it some thought. No matter what, I did feel pretty and Judy had a talent for making me into a girl even when I wasn’t. “A very beautiful girl helped me get ready. Now shouldn’t you be getting ready?”
The doorbell rang. Judy walked over and opened it up. Elliot stepped into the living room. He reached out and gave Judy a hug. “How’s…,”
He had looked across the room where I was. “Holy mackerel…, Barbara? Jeeze whiz, I’d never recognize you if I had met you in the mall.”
“If that was a compliment it sure fell flat.” I waited for Judy to run to the bedroom and change into dress and heels.
“We’re late. Let’s go.” Judy was motioning me out the door.
“You aren’t going to change?” I was positive I didn’t want to wear a dress if Judy wasn’t.
She looked at her watch. “No time. Let’s go Barbara.”
“Can’t I put on jeans and…”
“No time. We are late. Let’s go hon. NOW!” She was pushing Elliot out the door ahead of her.
“I’m in female hell.” I mumbled as I walked across the room and out the door ahead of Judy.
Elliot was holding open the passenger door on his Mustang. He had the seat pulled forward. I held my skirt and climbed into the back. He let the seat back and Judy slid into the passenger seat. He closed the door and walked around and slid under the steering wheel.
“She looks awfully nice and so do you.” Elliot was making small talk as he pulled out of the driveway.
Yes she does. Barbara has so much natural beauty I don’t have to do anything to bring it up.” Judy gave a slight nod of her head.
Elliot found the freeway and was up on it in minutes headed across town.
“Where we going?” I was curious as to what we were late for where I needed to be dressed up and Judy could be…, well, that girl never could dress down if she tried. She would always be a fox in a dress or jeans.
“Mechams” Elliot pulled over into the second lane to get by a slow dump truck.
“Bill’s store? What is at Mechams?” Why in the world would we be going over to Judy’s parent’s store?
“You have fun at the prom last night, Barbara?” Elliot looked up into the rear view mirror at me for a reaction.
“Dead Meat” I mouthed so he could read my glossy red lips.
“Judy and I sure did. Unless I am mistaken it looked like you and Tank were having fun.” He glanced in the mirror again.
I nodded. “Tank was. Having fun that is.”
“He called this morning…” Elliot let that hang without finishing it.
“Called? He wanted to discuss football?” I was hoping my brother and Tank were discussing play strategy for the next school year.
“He wanted to know about my cousin Barbara Peck. Asked if she was going home today? Wanted to know if she visited very often? Said he would like to see her again.” He took a sideways glance in Judy’s direction as he was talking.
“You tell him Barbara died! She isn’t ever coming back again.” I was positive I wasn’t ever going to be Barbara again after this little game of Elliot and Judy’s was over.
“Actually, I told him Barbara was going to be staying with Judy all week. Mentioned she was flying home with Judy and her parents when they went to their trade show this next week.”
Even from where I was I could see a smile on Elliot’s face as he grinned from ear to ear. Surely he was joking! “You didn’t…, did you? Did you really say that?” I felt the quicksand getting deeper and deeper as I was sucked further into this scheme of Elliot’s.
“I did. Maybe not in those exact words, but the meaning was the same.” He hit the exit ramp for Patton Street.
“Thanks for nothing, big brother.” I used my most sarcastic tone of voice.
“Think nothing of it. I am.” Was his favorite retort when he had me down for the count.
“Neanderthal.” I volleyed back to him.
“Little sister.” He gently returned, in a softer caring voice.
That was the one that choked me up and stopped me. I looked down at my hands with the long, liquid red fingernails cupped in my lap, on top of my glistening red dress.
Elliot pulled into the huge parking lot in front of the Mecham’s Furniture Store. The store took up a whole block on Broadway and Main. There were a lot of customers already in that store on Saturday morning. Mechams was one of those stores that wouldn’t have to worry about the Wal Marts or the Target super stores. They sold the quality merchandise and had customer support those other stores couldn’t, or didn’t want to try to match.
Elliot parked way out in the parking lot where most of the spots were empty. I knew why he did it. He didn’t want his Mustang getting beat up by people opening their car doors against his car. Buddy didn’t mind the long walks to the stores when he was riding with Elliot. Barbara on the other hand would be happiest driving right up to the door so she didn’t have to make that long walk with every thing wearing pants eyeing her.
Elliot slid out and walked around to open Judy’s door. He held out his hand as Judy slid out of the front seat. I had never paid any attention to my brother and the little things he did for Judy. I didn’t see any of the other boys doing it for their dates. It never registered on my mind why Elliot did it for Judy. Now I understood, as he pulled the seat forward and held out his hand for me.
I took his hand as I worked my way up out of the back seat and stood up beside the car. “Thank you kind Sir.”
“You are more than welcome cousin.” Elliot closed the door after I had moved out of the way.
He put his right hand around Judy’s waist and gathered me on his left as he walked us to the entrance. Something else that had never entered my mind before now. Elliot was signaling to the world the girls were with him.
The people who shopped Mechams were more mature then the bubble gum crowd at the prom last night. There weren’t any cat calls or wolf whistles across the parking lot. However there were a lot of heads turning from both men and women as Elliot escorted Judy and me into the building.
“Judy” A woman waved from the front desk over to our right as we walked in. “Hello Elliot.” She was giving me the once over several times over.
I could see curiosity written all over the woman’s face as Elliot and Judy returned the acknowledgment. I wanted to slink back out to the car and hide in the back seat.
“Judy, it wouldn’t hurt you any to dress up a little too.” Came from a recognizable voice over to our left.
“Momma, I didn’t have time.” Judy was making excuses before I turned to look at Miriam.
“This time I’ll accept that since you kids came in so late last night. I noticed Barbara had time. If my memory serves me right, she came in after you. I expect you to dress up as long as Barbara is visiting.”
Miriam was wearing a lime green silk or satin dress with a Mandrian design to it and matching heels. She was wearing silver looped earrings with a single strand diamond necklace. Now that I had time to think about it I didn’t ever remember a time when Judy’s mom wasn’t wearing a dress and looking like Mrs. Ward in Leave it to Beaver.
She met us as we walked over in her direction. She reached out and took my left hand. “Barbara, I hope some of your fashion sense wears off on my daughter while you’re staying with us. You might try giving her a few lessons if you have time.”
“Cough, cough” I bet my eyes looked like two egg whites about then as I tried to get the stupid look off my face. Me giving fashion lessons to Miss All American Girl!
“Uh…, Judy…, uh…, she…, I don’t think there is anything I could teach her…,” Oh how stupid and lame that sounded.
I turned red from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. “I mean she already knows it all…,” Oh, just shut up stupid, and pull your foot out of your mouth.
“I mean she’s so talented.” There! Finally something intelligent came out of my mouth.
Miriam looked over at her daughter while she held my hand. “I hope it shows up this week while you are staying with us.”
Oh what a sly underhanded hint Miriam hit Judy with. Was that what mothers and daughters did to one another?
“I’ll try momma, but you know me. I just can’t seem to figure out what the basics are and…,” Judy put the back of her right hand up against her forehead. “Color co-ordination is so confusing. Purple and orange do go together don’t they? Or was that orange, green, and purple?”
I glanced over at Judy. Her eyes were sparkling as she came back at her mother with such sweet innocent ignorance.
I slightly shook my head. I bet that girl was color and fashion coordinating while she was still in diapers.
Miriam let go of my hand as she smiled with a mother’s pride, knowing Judy was teasing. She pulled a phone out of her purse and pushed a number. “Kids are here, you ready? Ten minutes? Send them to get a table? Okay.”
She clicked it and put it back in her purse. “Bill said he was hung up with a customer for another ten minutes or so. You kids go on and we will meet you there.”
“Love you mom.” Judy stepped up and gave her mother a hug before Elliot led us back out of the store to his car.
We were headed back to the freeway for another few miles before Elliot dropped down off on Chester Street. He pulled into the parking lot at Randys. Randys was one of those restaurants for the upper class. They charged an arm and a leg to smell the food. Expect to pay a whole lot more if you want to eat some of it.
“I don’t have any money.” I whispered to Elliot as he pulled the seat up to help me out.
“Me neither.” He whispered back as he shut the door.
“Well, don’t look at me. I didn’t bring any money.” Judy stood back with both hands on her hips looking at Elliot.
“Whose turn is it to wash dishes then?” Elliot gathered Judy and me up and led us toward the entrance.
Judy and Elliot turned their heads to look at me.
“Oh no, not in…,” I held out my right hand as I adjusted my purse strap up on my right shoulder with my left hand. “Surely you can’t expect me to wash dishes and get my hands all yucky with all that greasy dish water.”
Judy shook her head as she giggled. “That sounds soooo Barbara.”
She held out her left hand with the manicured nails and the beautiful long fingers. “Goes for me too. Certainly I can’t be expected to wash dishes if Barbara doesn’t.”
Elliot snorted as he held out both his hands. “You girls can’t expect me to wash dishes. These hands are too valuable to the football team to put them at risk in a sink full of knives and forks.”
“Let’s go home then.” I offered before we walked into Randys.
“Too late.” Elliot opened the door for Judy and me.
“Mecham and party.” Judy met the maitre d’ as she walked in the door.
“Certainly.” He looked down at his register. “Party of seven. Would you like to wait for the others or may I show you to your table?”
“Table please.” Judy reached out and wrapped her left hand around Elliot’s right arm.
“Please follow me.” He turned and was headed into the dark recesses of the restaurant.
The maitre d’ pulled back a chair at one of the tables and waited. Elliot pulled back a chair for Judy. I guess the maitre d’ was holding that chair for me? I sat down in the offered chair. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure. Leon is your waiter. Would you ladies and gentleman like something to drink while you are waiting for the rest of the party?”
“Coke.” Judy was arranging her napkin.
“Same.” Elliot found his seat.
“Ditto” I didn’t have to think if I followed Judy’s lead.
“Your drinks will be here shortly.” He turned and left.
“I bet I can’t afford to pay for the drinks in this place.” I was looking over at Elliot hoping he had brought some money.
“I know I can’t.” He bounced back to me, knowing he wasn’t offering me a lifeline.
The maitre d’ was back and pulled out a chair.
I wasn’t looking when she sat down. I was looking the other way at Elliot when she said. “Thank you.”
My heart stopped. My world turned black. I wanted to die right then and there. I hoped God would toss a Lightning bolt into that room and kill me. I would have run if my whole body hadn’t turned to Jell-O. I stopped breathing. That voice belonged to my mother! Oh God take me now!
“Mom, I want you to meet Barbara. You remember, she’s the girl Buddy invited to the prom.” I was watching Elliot’s lips move, his voice sounded like thunder as my world crashed in on me.
It was sheer horror as I waited for my mother to start laughing at Buddy wearing a dress and makeup. I could not bring myself to look at her.
“Such a beautiful young lady. Barbara, I have heard so little about you. Elliot said Buddy invited you to the prom. I don’t remember Ethan mentioning a cousin by the name of Loyd, but then Peck is a common name. Ethan isn’t the best at keeping up family acquaintances.” Came from my mother with a soft admiring tone.
Slowly I turned to face my worst nightmare and imminent and ultimate disgrace, knowing mom would be shocked out of her ever loving mind when she got a good look at her youngest son, dressed as a girl no less.
I was looking straight into my mother’s eyes. What I was looking at wasn’t what I had expected. She wasn’t shocked. She didn’t even show any sign of recognition.
Sitting to my immediate left she reached out with her right hand and touched my left earring. “Those earrings are so pretty. I must have the name of the place where you found them. Are those other earrings a ruby and a sapphire? Oh they are, aren’t they? Please, may I see the other ones?”
She had her hand under my chin gently urging me to turn my head so she could see my right ear. “Those are so adorable. I love those earrings. That’s a diamond isn’t it? Those are so precious. I love them. The diamond lace is so attractive and certainly draws attention.”
She turned her head to look back over at my dad, Ethan, “I want a pair like those Barbara is wearing for my next birthday.”
My eyeballs snapped over to look at my father sitting to the left of my mother. I was positive he would know, even if mom was acting like she didn’t have the faintest clue.
He took a cursory look and nodded before turning his attention back to Elliot. “I’ll have to see if you’ve been good enough to deserve a pair like that. They look expensive. Elliot, have you heard the Coach say whether he was using you or Tug as quarterback next season?”
“I don’t think you have to worry about how good a girl I’ve been as I wouldn’t have the nerve to put four holes in my ears like Barbara has. Maybe the dangle earrings like she is wearing?” Mom was examining my ears again.
“Got the word last week dad. Coach said he was going to alternate between Tank and me. I’d be the starter most of the season with Tank taking over when we need a trick play or I need a rest.” Elliot wiped his mouth with his napkin.
“Men! I don’t mind talking sports but you could at least say hi to Barbara.” Mom focused in on my dad like a hawk watching a chicken.
My dad turned his attention toward me. “I’m sorry Barbara. I didn’t mean to slight you. I was interested in what the coach had to say about Elliot’s chances as quarterback next season. My wife is right. You are a very beautiful young lady. I’ve been trying to remember if we are kin to Loyd Peck? I honestly have no idea. Probably somewhere back down the family tree they are in there. I hear you are staying with Judy and her parents this week. You must come over to the house while you’re visiting. Buddy is away at summer camp. It doesn’t matter. My wife and I would love to have you drop in and visit.”
Dad looked back at Elliot. “You make sure you bring her by when you and Judy are out running around.”
I looked at Elliot hoping against hope he would crush that idea before it gained traction. Elliot’s eyes were dancing with mischief. I knew before he opened his mouth what he was going to say.
“Sure dad. No problem.” Elliot’s mouth twitched as he kept a smile in check.
The maitre d’ was back with Miriam and Bill in tow. They found their seats in short order. The maitre d’ was holding a chair for Miriam.
“Bill, Miriam” Mom acknowledged as they settled down.
Greetings were given all the way around again. Bill, dad, and Elliot started talking football for next season and rehashing last season.
Miriam looked across the table at me and then at my mother. “Isn’t Barbara a pretty young lady? I was asking her to give Judy some fashion tips.”
Mom reached out and touched my dress. “I just love her dress. I think it’s a Dion. Is that right Barbara?”
“Oh, uh, uh…,” Was the only thing that escaped.
“I thought so. Ferdmans of Dallas carries that name. Did you buy it at Ferdmans or someplace else?” Mom was waiting for an answer from me.
“Cough, cough” I was dying a slow excruciating death of embarrassment.
“I noticed Barbara had a persistent cough last night before the prom. Barbara, you aren’t coming down with something are you dear? I hope you didn’t pick up something on that flight down here.” Miriam was looking concerned.
“I’m fine.” I managed to work out past the lump in my throat.
The waiter showed up and everyone ordered. I followed Judy’s order and asked for the same. It didn’t make any difference as I wasn’t going to be able to choke down anything anyway. The acid in my stomach had hit hyper drive. I was dying a slow death every time mom or Miriam turned their attention toward me. They asked me questions about my parents, my life, where I went to school, or ten thousand other questions I couldn’t answer. My only saving grace was that Judy or Elliot would either answer those personal questions for me. Or they would immediately ask a question changing the subject away from my life history.
Our group had finished dining, I ate absolutely nothing, Miriam and now mom were worried I was coming down with something. I couldn’t tell them it was a bad case of butterflies mixed in with a generous proportion of stomach acid and nerves that killed any appetite. I noticed Elliot and Judy weren’t having any problem with their meals. I was going to kill both of them if I lived through this dinner. It was the thought of revenge and murder that kept me from dying myself.
Bill handed the waiter a credit card the last trip to our table. I was thinking I had made it home free by that time. It would be a cold day in Hell before I visited mom and dad as Barbara.
Miriam turned to my mom before anyone had a chance to get up from the table. “Did you and Ethan decide whether you and the kids could make that trip to Dallas with Bill and me next week? I do so wish to meet Barbara’s parents.”
Oh death, oh blessed death, wherefore art thou? I was once again praying for that bolt of Lightning from the heavens.
“We would love to. After talking to you on the phone this morning Ethan and I arranged for tickets on the twenty first on Southwest. Elliot is flying up with us. I wish Buddy could meet Barbara and her parents. I’m afraid Buddy won’t be coming. He is at summer camp for another week. Maybe next visit Buddy will be there.” My mom was handing Miriam a Southwestern flight schedule out of her purse.
Miriam took it and opened it up. “Oh isn’t that nice? Bill and I will be flying up on the same plane as you and Ethan. Judy is coming along on this trip. We will have to work in an evening with Barbara’s parents after the trade show. It will be all of us together. There is a theater with a comedy team and I hear they are very good. I’ll see about getting all of us some tickets if that’s okay with you and Ethan.”
I gave some very serious thought at that moment about taking a knife and stabbing myself in the heart about then. I think I would have too, if there had been anything sharp on the table. But alas, there wasn’t and I didn’t think a butter knife would do the trick.
Miriam looked over at me. “You think that would be okay with your parents Barbara? Do they enjoy comedy clubs?”
“Why don’t I call them and see if they can be free for that evening.” Judy piped in before I had a chance to choke again.
“That would be great hon. The adults rose up from the table and started to leave. Miriam turned her attention toward Judy. “Take a few lessons from Barbara, dear. A little fashion wouldn’t hurt you none.”
“Yes momma. I hear you.” Judy responded in the same condescending tone every frustrated teen uses for their parents.
Elliot and Judy were looking so pleased with themselves I gave some serious thought about jumping across the table and killing both of them right then and there. Judy reached out her hand as she stood up. “Come on Barbara let’s make the girls room before we get back in the car.”
“Girls room???” I couldn’t believe she was suggesting what I thought she was suggesting.
“Don’t tell me you aren’t in dire need. Come on girl.” Judy was waiting beside my chair.
I didn’t think I could walk into the men’s room after what Judy had done to me. I just didn’t think about walking into the women’s bathroom either. I had no idea where I would find a restroom. I rose out of my seat, picked up my purse, and followed her to the ladies room. There were several women in there. A couple of them looked my way which scared me. Judy was holding tightly onto my hand to keep me from fleeing in panic. She pointed toward one of the stalls. “Take your time sis.”
She looked at one of the women who had been staring. “My sister hogged the bathroom this morning and I didn’t have time to get dressed too.”
The woman nodded in agreement as she patted her hair in place and brought up her lipstick. “I know the feeling. I grew up with four sisters. It was murder trying to get any bathroom time.”
The idea I was going to drop my panties and pantyhose, hike my skirt, and take care of business with women on the other side of that partition didn’t do a whole lot for the kidneys. They refused to co-operate for the longest time even though they were about to burst at the seams. Finally there was no holding back and I completed my first and hopefully last trip to the women’s bathroom.
Judy was waiting by the vanity brushing her hair when I opened the door to the stall.
“Touch up your lipstick sis.” She motioned me over.
I walked over and placed the purse up on the counter beside Judy. She looked through it and came up with a tube of vivid liquid red lipstick. She pulled off the top, rolled the lipstick out, and handed it to me before she pulled out a tube from her own purse. She leaned up toward the mirror and put the lipstick to her lips as her eyes focused in on me.
I followed suit as I leaned up toward the mirror.
Judy worked the lipstick back and forth across her lips several times following the curve of her sweetheart shaped lips.
Following her example I did the same only my lips weren’t heart shaped like hers were. I had just plain ol lips and I was jealous. “You have the prettiest mouth.”
“I think your sister does too. Not that you don’t have a beautiful smile like your sister.” The woman beside Judy commented.
“Thank you.” Judy smiled at the woman, turned her head and gave me a wink. “Come on sis, we don’t want to keep Elliot waiting too long.”
“Your brother?” The woman was watching as Judy and I put up our lipstick, picked up our purses, and turned to go.
“Boyfriend.” Judy answered as she held the door open for me.
“Lucky boy.” The answer followed us out of the ladies room.
Elliot was waiting for us in the foyer by the front door. “Problems?”
“No, smooth as silk.” Judy walked out the door ahead of him as he pushed open the door for us.
We were back in Elliot’s Mustang headed up for the freeway. I figured this day was over as far as Barbara was concerned. Tonight I would either talk Elliot into taking me home or I would call a taxi. That was when my mind finally got hold of what the conversation meant back there in the restaurant when mom was talking to Miriam. Surely Elliot and Judy didn’t expect me to be Barbara the rest of the week so I could fly home to Dallas with mom and dad and Judy’s parents to meet my imaginary parents? Surely not!
“Elliot.”
“Barbara.” He volleyed the same as if he was talking to Buddy.
“You don’t expect me to be Barbara the rest of the week do you? Haven’t you and Judy had your fun by now?”
“Oh, I’m sorry cousin. I thought you knew when you flew down you were going to spend the whole week with Judy before flying back home. That was the arrangement we discussed a couple weeks back when we talked about you flying down for the prom.” Elliot looked up in the mirror at me.
“I’m going to get so even you will regret the day you and Judy did this.” I laid my hands down in my lap and contemplated a week as Barbara. I can do this. I can do this.
“Just how is Buddy supposed to get home from summer camp?” I was hoping for any kind of chink in their plans. Find out how Buddy comes home and then do it earlier than they planned.
“He comes back on the church bus after camp is over. Why?” Elliot took a sideways glance in Judy’s direction, trying to figure out what I was up too.
“Nothing.” That certainly wasn’t any help. Kind of impossible to come back on a church bus when I didn’t know when it was coming back. Yet…, maybe I came back early because I had a…., serious cough? Yes, I had a plan for Buddy’s return. I was finally home free…, Not! Buddy wasn’t coming home in a skirt and heels from church camp. Don’t forget the earrings. Oh how could I forget the earrings? The earrings it takes a special tool to remove. 'Hi mom, dad, church camp was a blast. You wouldn’t believe what they teach at those camps. Like my dress and earrings? Hello operator, nine one one please. My parents just passed out. And operator would you please alert the church camp. My parents are on their way to bomb the place after they are re-situated?'
Elliot dropped down off the freeway headed toward Cutter’s road.
“Where we going?” I figured we would go home. The direction Elliot was headed wasn’t toward home. And what did I know about home? I mean, Buddy’s home most certainly was no longer my home. Judy’s home was where I was visiting for…, obviously longer than I intended. I had no intentions of making Dallas my home with an imaginary mother and father.
Elliot kept going until he came upon Trotter’s Park. It was a combination theme park, city park where a lot of the kids and grownups came for a few hours or more of picnicking or ridding the old imitation steam engine around the borders of the park. All the rides were slow and yes, cheap. The roller coaster was the wildest ride and it was tame. I heard it was built back in the fifties, but I wasn’t sure. It cost ten cents for a ten minute ride or a person could pay twenty dollars for a season pass for all the rides. Most everyone bought a season pass and seldom used them. I mean, it was generic stuff for the babies and old folks, for goodness sake. Grandparents brought their grandchildren out to Trotter’s Park. The occasional dweeb brought his date, which usually meant he was never going to get another date with the girl.
Elliot pulled in and found an empty parking space, which wasn’t hard. There were a lot of empty parking spaces. He slid out and walked around the car to open Judy’s door before helping me up out of the rear.
Standing beside the car looking at the old people and kiddies coming and going through the gate, I couldn’t believe Elliot was dweeb enough to bring Judy to this place. “You gotta be kidding. You really don’t like Judy that much?”
“Cork it cousin. You haven’t been until you been on the rides in Trotter’s Park.” Elliot put his hand around Judy and his other hand in the small of my back to steer us toward the entrance.
“I’ve heard of places like this. Isn’t this the retirement village amusement center? I think I see a wheelchair patient getting on the Ferris Wheel now.” I was positive this wasn’t the place for soon to be high school sophomores like Judy and me.
“That’s what I like best about you Barbara. Always willing to try out something new before you start running it down. You give the benefit of the doubt before you start complaining.” Elliot pulled three season passes out of his shirt pocket as we walked up to the entrance.
“Trust me Elliot, the reputation of this place precedes us. I don’t think my opinion one way or another is going to make any difference.” I could only figure that Elliot and Judy had this planned out before yesterday, when they changed me into cousin Barbara. As much as I was going to regret having to kill both of them, I had to admire their devious minds and the way they had so much planned before they blackmailed me.
The man in the booth took Elliot’s passes and punched them before handing them back. Elliot steered us toward the riverboats. At the ticket booth the man looked at the tickets and waved us on.
Actually the riverboats were plastic tubs, approximately six feet long by three feet wide. The river they floated in was only a few inches wider than the boats. I stepped in the front and held my skirt as I found my seat. Elliot and Judy rocked the boat, but not much, when they stepped in and sat down in back. The boat couldn’t turn over if all of us stood up on one side. The water was only a few inches deep. The man pushed a lever and the boat was moved out into the river which wasn’t a river, but a ditch actually. We would float lazily along with the current under an arched bridge past a fake zoo with wood cutout animals in fake cages. Then we would drift into a fake mountain, past a fake prairie with plyboard buffalo and deer. The end would be floating out into a fake ocean which was a sea of blue colored plyboard laid out on the ground and finally the boat would be caught at its berth where we had to disembark after our transcontinental adventure in a riverboat. I was bored out of my ever loving skull as we drifted lazily along.
I started looking up at the clouds in the sky out of sheer boredom. At least they gave me a change of scenery as they drifted past in ever changing form.
“Mind if I join you?”
My mind snapped back to the now and present as I recognized the voice and the boat rocked. Tank had stepped into the front of the boat as it passed the zoo theme scene. “What?”
“Hi Barbara. I was hoping I’d get to see you again before you went home. I certainly didn’t think you would come down where I was working.” Tank was beaming all over as he stared at me.
“Uh, uh, uh…,”
“That’s okay, Tank. Don’t say hi to Judy or me.” Elliot was pushing on Tank’s shoulder.
Tank looked over his shoulder. “I was trying my best to ignore you Elliot, but since you seem determined to get a greeting out of me. Hi Judy. Why don’t you ditch Elliot and it will be just you girls and me.”
Judy giggled. “I guess we better hang onto him Tank. He has the wheels.”
“Oh, no problem fair maiden. I have wheels and it would be my honor to provide same for you and Miss Peck.” Tank looked at me and winked his left eye.
“You work here?” I couldn’t believe Tank would work in a place like this.
“Maintenance. I work on their equipment when it gets to acting up. It’s a lot of fun to keep these rides going for people to enjoy. You should see the smiles on those kids faces when they get on that roller coaster. That’s the bonus payment.”
Shaking my head I smiled at the thought of Tank working on the rides for the kids.
“That’s exactly what I mean. You have such a beautiful smile Barbara.”
I blushed from my head to my feet as I looked down at the water in front of us. “Thank you.”
Tank smiled as he studied me. “You sure look nice and you smell nice too.”
I blushed even more if possible. “It’s Judy’s fault.”
“Well, let’s thank Judy and thank your mother too. I’m betting she is a real pretty woman too.”
“She is…,” I was thinking of my mom and even though she was my mom I thought she was a very pretty woman. Sometimes I even wished to be as pretty as her.
“You going to be here awhile or did you drop in for a few rides?”
“We only stopped in for a couple rides until the theater opens. There is a good action film at the Westland Theater this afternoon.” Elliot offered from behind us.
“I read about that one. It’s the new James Bond movie isn’t it?” Tank turned and looked over his shoulder at Elliot.
“No it’s the new Baker Spy Thriller movie. You working all afternoon?” Elliot was making small talk.
“No, I finished up and was headed back to the car when I saw you and the girls getting on the boat. Figured I could catch up at the zoo.”
“You want to come with us to the flick?” Elliot gave an invite.
'No, no, no, no, no, no, no,' I was saying in my mind as soon as Elliot passed out the invitation.
“Sure, if no one minds.” Tank looked over at me and smiled.
I tried to smile back. I bet it looked forced.
“Then it’s settled.” Elliot offered to his friend.
“I have your purse in my car. This will give me a chance to give it back.” Tank was looking as happy as if he had good sense.
Oh joy, oh foolish joy. I was thinking as I gave a weak smile. I wonder if a couple inches of water is deep enough to drown myself?
“We have time for a couple more rides before the movie unless everyone wants to go to the mall for a few minutes.” Drifted up from Elliot.
More rides! How could I be so lucky! God must hate me.
Tank was looking in my direction. “The Roller Coaster and then the Ferris Wheel if it’s okay with everyone else.”
I was praying Elliot would say no, let’s go to the car.
“Sounds like a plan. That okay with you Judy?” Was the voice of my Benedict Arnold brother.
“I’d love to.” Was the answer from my brother’s co-conspirator.
No court in the world would convict me if I killed both of them now. I could plead they drove me to mental insanity.
The water ride lasted forever and ever and…, Tank put his arm around my shoulder as he pointed out across the theme park and explained the hidden controls, and safeties for all the various rides keeping them safe for the kids and adults alike. He explained the hours and hours the volunteers put in every day to keep the park running and keep it affordable for the kids and adults.
He pointed toward a young woman who had knelt down to talk to some of the kids who had been pushing some of the other kids out of the way. “That’s Laura. She is a policewoman. One of the best this city has ever had. She can be as cold as ice to anyone who challenges her authority. Shot a guy trying to steal a car out of a parking lot a few weeks back. She volunteers a lot of her time to come down here and keep the riff raff from taking over. A couple months back she arrested a kid trying to sell crack to the other kids.”
The woman Tank was talking about reached out and pulled the kid in for a hug and then gave the second kid a hug. I had a hard time not thinking of her as those kids mom the way she treated them. “She gave those bullies a hug.”
Tank nodded. “Laura said a lot of those kids only need a little loving. Something a lot of kids don’t ever get at home. Oh, the ones who come down here are usually the ones who get love at home. I guess the parents who come here are the ones who want to treat their own kids with attention.”
I had a new respect for Tank other than he was my brother’s teammate. “You work here all the time?”
“No, I work for Tchrad.” He pointed off toward the ticket man watching the electric cars. “That’s…,
“What do you do at Tchrad?” I interrupted Tank. I hadn’t ever heard of a company named Tchrad. I was curious as to what Tank did there.
“I make things.” That’s Howard. He…”
“What kind of things.” I didn’t care about Howard. I wanted to know what Tank did besides work at this theme park.
“Uh…, Barbara, I’m not allowed to say.” Tank turned his attention back in my direction.
“Why aren’t you allowed to say what you make?” Now my curiosity had really been pricked.
“Because I can’t. Tchrad does research.” His eyes were begging me to drop the subject.
I had no intentions of dropping the subject. “What kind of research?”
“I can’t say. Barbara, this conversation is going to go nowhere because it can’t. I can’t tell you what I do because I signed a contract saying I wouldn’t speak to anyone outside the company about what they do or what I do for them. The only thing I can say without violating that contract is I work for a company called Tchrad. That’s it. This is the end of the discussion about what I do for them.” He waited to see if he had ruined any budding relationship.
As bad as I wanted to use this moment to make Tank think he had ruined any hope of being my friend I couldn’t. Tank had treated me nice in every way. I knew Tank was one of the nicest kids in or out of school. His interest in the theme park and the people who worked here and the kids who visited here had proved that beyond a doubt.
The chill between us was so palatable it could be felt. “Do you know all the employees who work here?” I gave Tug an icebreaker if he wanted to take it.
“Most all of them. Ewell works the front gate most of the time. He used to work for American Airlines as a freight expediter.” Tank smiled.
In all the years Tug and Elliot had been running around together I never paid any attention to Tug’s smile. He had a very nice sincere smile. “Would it be breaking your contract if you explained to me what a freight expediter is?”
Tank laughed as he shook his head no. “That I am allowed to talk about.” And he did, along with a lot of the other tiny little things all the other volunteers in the theme park did so they could donate their time to keep it running for the kiddies and the older generation.
When we left the river ride I was a lot more appreciative of the theme park. I was no longer thinking it was for kiddies and the generic generation. I was wrong to think it was a park for dweebs. Like everyone else of my generation, I had labeled the park as a dweeb park for dummies, without trying it out and enjoying the rides, the people, and the social atmosphere it offered. Tank put his arm around my waist after we stepped off the river ride and led me over to the Ferris Wheel.
The lady watching the gate never asked for a pass or anything as she opened the gate to let us on. “Who’s your friend Tug?”
“Betty, this is Barbara Peck. She’s from Dallas and is visiting Elliot and Buddy for a week. Barbara, this is Betty Nickson, she works at the hospital for a paying job.”
I nodded in agreement. “Nice to meet you Betty.”
“Love your earrings Barbara. Hope you are enjoying your visit to our city.” Betty looked past us at the next couple.
I turned expecting it to be Elliot and Judy. They had chosen to ride the electric cars which was funny in itself. Both of them had to double up to get their legs inside those cars which were for kids not teenagers.
Tank led me over to the seat on the Ferris Wheel. He sat down and pulled the locking bar down after I had climbed up into the seat.
Betty checked that the bar was in place and locked before she moved the Ferris Wheel up one place so the next two could get on. There were four more pairs of kids who got on before the wheel started moving constantly.
We went up to the top and started down. It was funny because I found I had butterflies looking down at the ground coming up at us. I didn’t think this ride could do that to me. I mean it only went up about a hundred feet or so. It was a kiddie ride for goodness sake. I grabbed my tummy.
Tank smiled from ear to ear. “Gets most everyone like that the first few times.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I was determined to not let him know a kiddie ride had stirred up the butterflies in my stomach.
Tank was laughing as he looked at me. “Sure you don’t. People don’t realize it’s the forward and downward motion of a Ferris Wheel that gets them. They can stand going up and down and they can stand going forward and back, but combine the two, and it spells hello every time.”
The butterflies had left by the time we got down to the bottom of the circle. I shrugged my shoulders. I wasn’t going to admit a simple little ride could get me. And then we reached the top and started forward and down again and those stupid butterflies returned and I grabbed my tummy. Okay, I admit it the ride was getting to me. “Hello.”
Tank leaned back and positively howled with laughter.
It was funny to me too. I caught Tanks laughter as I laughed with him.
The ride finally stopped and Tank led me over to the roller coaster. I enjoyed that one too, as Tank threw his arms up to prove he was fearless. I had to laugh at him as he could have fallen out and it couldn’t have hurt. His fearless gesture wasn’t very macho but it was the thought and it was funny.
Elliot and Judy met us at the gate after that ride. Judy was smiling as she winked at me. “Looks like you’re having fun.”
I started to deny it, but I really was having fun. Certainly not what I expected when Elliot pulled into the park. “Yes I am.”
“We will meet you and Barbara at the Westland in about fifteen minutes. That okay with you?” Elliot was waiting on an answer from Tank.
“If Barbara doesn’t mind riding with me.” Tank turned his attention in my direction.
“O…, okay” I wasn’t sure I liked the way this was headed. I was positive Tank wouldn’t do anything wrong, but I felt a whole lot more comfortable with Elliot and Judy.
“Don’t forget your purse.” Judy was trying to remind me as Elliot ushered her across the parking lot toward his Mustang.
Tank put his left hand in the small of my back to steer me toward his Firebird. He opened the passenger door for me and waited as I settled in and straightened my skirt. My black clutch was in between the seats. I would leave it until after the movie. I was positive I didn’t need two purses.
Tank slid under the steering wheel and slowly and carefully pulled out of the parking lot. I noticed the night before that Tank might have a muscle car, but he drove it very carefully. No revving the engine, squealing the tires, or racing down the street. I liked the way he drove. It came to me! My brother drove the same way in his Mustang. I was beginning to realize how mature my bother had always been even when we were in grade school. Elliot not only acted mature, his friends acted mature.
We made the theater behind Judy and Elliot. Tank offered to buy me popcorn and a coke before the show. I declined. I didn’t think it was quite right for Tank to think he had a date. I was positive I knew I wasn’t a date. During the show Tank reached over and took my hand. I really wanted for him to not do that. I didn’t know how to tell him I wasn’t interested.
All of us were walking out of the movie and there was a group of guys making derogatory remarks at the girls as they walked out. The boys were extra ugly and tried to get in the girls faces if they were with other girls.
“Hey bitch! Yes you in the red dress. Hey bitch, I’m talking to you!” My heart was in my throat as I turned to look.
Tank took a quick glance. “Ignore them. They only get worse when they have your attention.”
I looked for Judy and Elliot. They were still lost in the crowd behind us.
“Hey bitch in the red dress, how about giving me some.” Came from the same group of boys.
Tank had his hand in the small of my back and I felt him hesitate. I took his arm. “You said ignore them. Words of the mentally retarded aren’t worth responding to.”
He nodded, “I did, didn’t I?”
One of the idiots stepped out in front of me and put his left hand on my right breast. At first it shocked me and then it frightened me, wondering if he would know I wasn’t a real girl?
I didn’t have time to think about it before Tank’s arm slipped from around my waist and came up and forward. Everything happened in less than a second. The guy grabbed me... Tank hit him. He went flying backwards into his buddies who were standing behind him. They all went down to the sidewalk. Tank’s arm was back around my waist. He never broke stride, nor did he let me, as we walked on past the pile of bodies as if we had just seen them fall over backwards.
“Tug…?”
“Keep walking Barbara as if nothing happened.” He never slowed down as he walked out to his car and opened the door.
I slid in. Tank walked around to the other side, started the car, and slowly, oh so slowly, pulled out of the parking lot as if he was curious as to what happened to the boys who had fell down on the sidewalk.
He was headed down Sumpter and up on the freeway in less than three minutes.
I started shaking and couldn’t stop. If they had found out, if Tug had found out I was a lie, I was positive he would have left me to the boys. And then the tears started. I hated this. I hated it, I hated it, I hated it. I didn’t want to be Barbara any more. I wanted to be Buddy, in my bed, with the covers pulled up over me.
Tank pulled over to the side of the freeway and stopped. He reached across with his right hand and wiped the tears off m left cheek. “It’s alright Barbara. I wasn’t going to let them hurt you.”
“I…, Tug, I’m sorry, oh god am I sorry, I don’t want to hurt you either. Please take me home.” I sniffed as I cried.
“Hurt me? You could never hurt me Barbara. You’re one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen. I don’t believe you could hurt a fly.” He was wiping tears off my cheek.
“Tug, please. You’re too nice. I have hurt you and you don’t even know it. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Please take me home. Please?” I turned away from him and cried as I looked out the window.
The car started moving. It seemed like forever and ever before Tug pulled up in Judy’s driveway.
Tug started to get out. I already had my door open. I was crying my heart out as I bailed out of the car. “Please go and forget you ever saw me. I’m so sorry Tug.” I slammed his door as I ran for the house.
The door wasn’t locked. I was inside running for Judy’s bedroom.
“Barbara…, Barbara dear, what’s wrong? Are you all right?” Miriam called as I ran past her to the bedroom.
I slammed Judy’s door, flung myself down on the bed and cried. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Gently a hand was brushing my hair away from my face. “Barbara, what is it dear?”
Rolling over I was looking up at Miriam. I wrapped my arms around her neck as she leaned down to hold me. I cried my heart out with my head laying against her breasts. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I’m sorry.”
She held me until I had cried down and it turned to more sniffles than tears. “Sounds like boy trouble to me Barbara.”
“Oh Mrs Mecham, I didn’t do it on purpose. I couldn’t hurt him. He’s too nice. I tried to not let him get close to me.” Wiping tears I was trying to explain it wasn’t my fault as I lay back on the bed.
“It’s Miriam hon. Sounds to me like a young woman ran straight from young adolescence into the feelings of a young woman. Listen Barbara this is the talk your mother should be giving you as her daughter. Your mom isn’t here at the moment, so I’ll try to explain it to you. At a certain time in a young girl’s life she will find she suddenly becomes interested in boys…,”
“But…,” I wanted to tell her I wasn’t interested in boys. Or girls either, for that matter.
“Don’t interrupt dear. It’s not nice and you are a very nice lady. Let’s see, where was I? Oh yes, girls become interested in boys. Sometimes it is boys in the plural sense and she likes lots of boys. Sometimes it’s boy in the singular sense and she like one boy.” Miriam wiped the last of the tears off my cheeks.
“It’s always easier when the girl likes lots of boys. You see, she can’t say she has really been hurt if one boy doesn’t respond in similar fashion when she has lots of boys at the same time. But woe to the young girl who suddenly finds herself liking one boy when she realizes there is a difference between girls and boys. You see, she only has one boy she likes. If he is a good boy, then she will find she has gone into rough seas as she struggles to balance her hormones with her latest interest. If it is a bad boy, she will find she has gone into shark infested waters as she tries to figure out the emotions as she changes from a young girl to a young woman.” Miriam sat up on the edge of the bed as I turned her loose.
“Sounds to me like a young woman has found one boy. Am I right?” She was looking at me waiting for an answer.
“No…, I mean, it’s not like that. I mean…,”
“Is he nice?” Miriam smiled.
“Yes, he’s awfully nice.” How do I go about explaining this?
“And did he drive you home this evening?”
“Yes.”
“Is he one of Elliot’s friends?”
“Yes.”
“Judy said you danced most of the night with Tug Bagget at the dance. Am I getting warm?”
I blushed as I nodded yes.
“I’ve met young Mr. Bagget. I know his parents. Ellen and Ripley are some of the nicest people you will ever met. Did our young gentleman want more from you than just a kiss this evening?” Miriam was trying to figure out where the evening had gone wrong.
“No…, it wasn’t that. We went to the movies…, Elliot, Judy, and me, and Tug. When the movie was over Tug was walking me out of the theater and there were these kids who started…, They were more than rude and one of them grabbed me and…”
“One of them grabbed you? And you were with Tug? I don’t have to imagine what happened next. How bad did he hurt the kid?” Her smile had disappeared.
“I don’t know. It was all over so quickly. Tug kept on walking like nothing happened.” I was trying to explain without telling everything and why it frightened me so.
“So Tug defended your honor. Do you like him, Barbara?”
I looked down at my feet, I looked across the room, I looked everywhere, hoping she would let that question go unanswered. “Yes.”
Miriam looked at her watch. “Sometimes life gets so complicated doesn’t it. We plan so carefully and think we have all the problems taken care of before we ever start the game. Then we are handed a double dose of gotcha. We find ourselves deep in our own stew, wondering what went wrong.”
I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Okay young lady, it is too late to be going out again. I'll tell you what. You take a bath, slip into a nightgown, and come into the den to watch a movie with Bill and me.” She stood up and motioned for me to get up off the bed.
Slowly I rose up off the bed. There was no way on God’s little green earth I was going to undress with Judy’s mom in the room.
She motioned for me to turn around. I did. She unhooked my dress and unzipped the zipper.
I was ready to panic when I heard the door close to the bedroom. I found a robe and a nightgown before I slipped off the dress and hung it up. The slip was next and I was back in the robe a second after I was out of the slip, in case Miriam walked back into the room. I lost the heels and the panties and pantyhose next. I put them away so Miriam wouldn’t see them and wonder why a young girl needed padded panties. I headed for the bathroom down the hall for that much needed bath.
Miriam walked back down to the den and picked up the phone. Bill looked up as she was dialing. “What are you doing?”
“Crisis management. Hello, Judy, Barbara came in a few minutes ago. She was crying her heart out.”
Miriam shook her head. “No, she is fine now. She is going to watch a movie with your dad and me here at home. I wanted you and Elliot to know where she was and she is okay.”
“She’s fine for now.” Miriam hung up the phone and then made a second phone call.
“Sherry, this is Miriam. I had a very upset young girl crying her heart out in my bedroom a few minutes ago. It seems she has found a boyfriend.” Miriam listened for a few seconds. “No, not in that respect. They aren’t intimate. It’s Tug Bagget, one of Elliot’s football teammates.”
She listened for a few minutes. “No I don’t think it would be wise to call it off now. Elliot and Judy are right. Barbara is a young lady trying to figure out life from the female side of life. She happened to run straight into the boy girl relationship a whole lot sooner than anyone planned.”
“I called to let you know how the day went. We need to get together with Judy and Elliot to see how to proceed with Mr. Bagget. Barbara was crying because she didn’t want to hurt him. Sherry, your daughter has found love for the first time in her life.”
Miriam listened for a few minutes. “Okay, I know you would like to be there for her but this isn’t a normal situation. I’ll make sure she stays safe. I’m positive Judy and Elliot wouldn’t let her do anything foolish. I know Tug, he comes from a good home. I don’t know how he would react to knowing who Barbara is but I know he wouldn’t hurt her. Okay Sherry. I’ll stay in touch.”
Bill looked up at his wife. “Movie? Honey, I need to finish up these invoices and we have to plan on what we want to look for at that trade show in a couple days, and…”
Miriam shook her head. “It will wait. You and I are going to watch a movie with a very confused young lady who suddenly found out boys are boys and girls are girls and they aren’t the same thing.”
Bill sighed as he closed down his laptop before putting papers back into his briefcase. “I learned a long time ago to not argue with you when you have your mind set on something. I hope it’s a good action film.”
Miriam walked over to a closet beside the entertainment center. “No, it is going to be a real romance movie. Let’s see…, Charade with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn will be a good choice.”
Bill shook his head. “I don’t mind his acting but I never did understand why any guy would name himself Carrie.”
“Sssssssush, make sure you give Barbara the support she needs to handle the emotional flood she is feeling. She needs someone who cares about her without the boy girl mix stirring her emotions.” Miriam slipped a disk into the player.
“Come here and snuggle. I need some emotional support.” Bill patted the couch seat beside him.
Miriam walked back over with a remote in her hand, dropped onto the couch beside her husband, kicked off her shoes, leaned over in his arms, and pulled her legs upon the couch.
Bill put his arm around his wife and pulled her into his side as he leaned over to smell her hair. “I forget every now and then how beautiful you are. I think the reason God made girls is to remind us guys there are other things besides working. Thanks for reminding me. I love you.”
Miriam looked up at her husband as she reached up and put her right hand around the back of his head. “I love you.” She gently pulled his head down and kissed him.
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ALMOST A GIRL: CHAPTER 5 OF 10
I awoke with the scent of Judy still in the room. Her side of the bed was still warm when I put my hand over to feel if she had been there. I pushed the covers back as I sat up in bed and wondered how soon I could get Elliot and Judy to relinquish their sadistic desire to torture me as a girl? Surely today would be enough? I had spent two days already in their blackmail scheme. Well, maybe not two whole days. Friday was only one evening and night as we went to the prom. But that should count as a whole day, along with yesterday. I moved the covers back and slid out of bed. The black satin nightgown felt soft against my skin as I made the bed. I went to sleep wearing the padded bra and panties to give me the right shape, in case Judy’s mom looked in and wondered why Barbara didn’t make the necessary bumps in the covers.
Bed made, I cracked the bedroom door to make sure it was safe and padded down the hall to the bathroom for a bath and other things necessary in the morning. As I stripped for the shower I was reminded of my tan and the lines of my bikini top and bottom. Those lines didn’t look like they had started blending in with the tan. The dresses Judy had me wearing weren’t hiding the untanned strap lines going over my shoulders. Most of the time I never even thought about it when I was out with Judy and Elliot. I mean, I was wearing a dress. What difference did the strap lines on my shoulders make?
After toweling off, I wrapped it around me and padded back down to the bedroom where Judy was waiting. She had laid a soft yellow dress, slip, bra, and corset along with nylons out on the bed. Softly I moaned to myself. “Haven’t you and Elliot had enough fun torturing me?”
Judy giggled as she pointed toward the dresser. “Barbara, I always wanted a sister. I was envious of Elliot and Buddy because they had each other. I never had the kind of sisterly love for another, like Elliot and Buddy shared as brothers. Hon, you are visiting with me until Friday and then you fly back to Dallas to your parents. Now come over here and let’s get ready to go to church.”
“Church? You’re kidding!” I was positive God would strike me dead if I walked into church in a dress. God knew everything and he would know I wasn’t a real girl. I was sure it would be sacrilegious to walk into church in a dress. I knew God wouldn’t approve.
“Mom and dad always make church on Sunday. Two thirds of their customers are church going people. Most of those people like it when someone says they have been to church last Sunday. Mom and dad make sure they can almost always say they were at church last Sunday. Now come over here and sit.” Judy motioned toward the seat in front of the dresser.
Hesitantly I headed toward the chair. I was going to Hell. God would punish me for walking into His church in a dress.
Judy looked around. “Where’s your purse? You need your makeup.”
“I…, I’m sorry Judy, I left it in Tug’s car last night. I didn’t mean to. I…,”
“I heard Barbara. I only wanted to know if you knew where you left it. It’s Tug now is it? What happened to Tank?” She was smiling.
“I…, he…, we…,” I had no idea why I had rather call him by his given name rather than his nickname.
“We are going to run out of purses if you keep leaving one behind every time you step out the door. The purses are expensive enough but those cosmetics cost a bunch themselves.” She pulled open the dresser drawer and searched through the lipsticks. “Okay, here is one a little more appropriate for church. It’s a peach. It is a lot more subtle than the Passion Red you have been wearing. We will be a little finer on the eyeliner and not as heavy on the mascara this morning.”
She handed the lipstick to me after she opened it. “Show me you have learned how to apply your makeup.”
With regret I took the lipstick, leaned toward the mirror, and began changing Barbara into the girl Judy wanted.
Judy slipped into a soft reddish brown dress, nylons and heels as she watched and gave me pointers while I put on my makeup. She started brushing my hair to show me how it was done and then she turned me loose with the hairbrush. She was there giving help and suggestions as I got ready. It took a lot longer than when Judy did it for me. I was finally ready except my dress was still unzipped. I managed to get it part way up my back but couldn’t make it all the way. Judy finished that for me and then hooked the dress. I belted it after she had me zipped up. The corset gave me an hourglass figure again. I figured because Judy laced it up it wasn’t choking me nearly as bad as the other night when we went to the prom.
“Let me change your earrings. They are a little much for church. We dress down when we go to church.” Judy was motioning toward the seat again.
“Can’t we just take them out?” I had to sleep in those long dangle earrings last night because I couldn’t figure out how Judy had them fastened.
“Barbara, they stay until they heal. Now be still.” She removed the right one.
I felt of my right ear. All four studs were still there, along with that diamond lace on the front side and the gold filigreed bar on the back side. “Judy, please take them out.”
She attached a multi gold loop to it. “They stay until they are healed. Besides, it takes a special tool to remove them.”
I looked in the mirror. Judy had attached four gold loops to the bottom stud in my right ear. “And?” I was afraid of the answer she was going to hand me.
“It’s on back order.” She finished by removing the dangle from my left ear and attached four gold loops.
“Back order? And I’m guessing no one in town has one? How long a back order? One day? Two days?” Surely she wouldn’t put permanent studs in my ears without a way to remove them…, would she?
“The company said it would ship in approximately ten days.” She was watching me in the mirror.
“Oh just ducky! Okay, hardware store and pliers will work.” This was not my finest moment. Ten days wearing ‘look at me earrings’ wasn’t in my calendar anyplace.
Judy giggled as she shook her head. “Pliers? Hon they won’t work. First off the studs are driven into the back and locked in. Hand tools will definitely not be able to get hold of the right places to pull the studs and backing apart. The company advised in no uncertain terms against such an idea. Seems a customer lost the removal tool and tried pliers rather than ordering another tool from the company. The girl had to have her ears sewn back together after her over zealous boyfriend finished trying.”
“I’m stuck like this until they send the right tool?” I shook my head and the earrings tinkled. “Oh yes, that’s such a big improvement over the others isn’t it?”
Judy giggled. “Being sarcastic are we Barbara? Careful sister, or we will put the other cascading earrings back in. Momma will wonder what kind of girls live in Dallas, who go to church wearing evening earrings.”
I was positive I didn’t want Miriam wondering about what kind of girls lived in Dallas. “I’m sorry, I haven’t had a whole lot of experience being a church girl.”
Judy leaned down and gave me a hug. “I know hon. You’ll learn. You have a little catching up to do is all.”
I didn’t have a response to that. I looked at her in the mirror as she smiled and hugged me.
Judy brushed my hair down and forward around my ears. It didn’t completely hide the earrings, but it helped make them a little less obvious.
Judy slipped on small diamond studs and a very small diamond, single strand necklace.
She handed me a single strand, small gold necklace. “It goes with the earrings was her explanation. Okay, stand up and let me see.”
I stood up and straightened the skirt on the soft yellow dress. It was a full skirt and the hem came to above my knees. My matching heels were about three inch. I turned around as I looked in the mirror. I wasn’t bad.
Judy handed me a yellow purse as she picked up another one for herself. “Think you can manage to hang onto this one today and NOT leave it in church or any place else besides bringing it home?”
“Judy, I’m sorry. I’ll get the others back from Tug. I know he will hang onto them for me.” I watched as Judy straightened up her skirt and slid the purse strap up on her right shoulder.
She opened the bedroom door. “Let’s hit the kitchen for breakfast while mom and dad get ready.”
It was almost an hour later when Bill pulled into the church parking lot and killed the BMW. We all piled out of the car. Miriam, Judy, and myself straightened up our skirts before we grouped and headed toward the church entrance which seemed like it was a couple blocks away. Funny but I never paid any attention to how far I had to walk from car to building or visa versa before two days ago.
Judy and I walked together ahead of Miriam and Bill. I looked at the name on the front of the church. It was Mainstreet Baptist. Mom and dad weren’t Baptists but I kind of figured it was all the same.
There were people greeting one another at the door like old friends. A man waved at Miriam and Bill. “Bill, Miriam... good to see you this morning. Hello Judy, you bring a friend?”
Judy indicated with her left hand in my direction. “Marvin, this is Barbara Peck. She is visiting from Dallas.”
The man smiled at me. “Hello Barbara, it’s nice of you to visit our church. I hope you enjoy the sermon.”
“Thank you.” 'I’ll enjoy it a lot more if I make it out of here alive and God hasn’t placed His vengeance on me.' I muttered to myself as I followed Judy past the man into the church. I fully expected lightning to come from the pulpit and get me at any second.
“We go sit with the youth group class first before church.” Judy led me off down several hallways before going into one of the larger rooms.
There were fourteen or so kids approximately our age already there, along with a younger man about twenty four or twenty five standing in the middle of the room. The desks were formed in circles around the center of the room. The young man acknowledged Judy as we walked in and found empty seats. “Miss Mecham would you like to introduce your guest?”
Judy motioned back toward me. “Bryan, this is Barbara Peck. She is visiting us.”
“Nice to have you join our class Miss Peck or is it Misses Peck?” Bryan questioned.
“Miss.” My response wasn’t that automatic, but I managed to come up with it before Judy had to bail me out.
“Very good of you to join us today Miss Peck. This is a Christian youth group for fourteen to sixteen year olds. Please find a couple of seats and we will get started. This weeks lesson is on Daniel in the lion’s den.”
The lesson was interesting as Bryan tried to get all the kids to respond why Daniel wasn’t eaten by the lions after he was tossed into the pit with them. Forty five minutes later there were a couple chimes and Bryan looked at me as the others were leaving the class. “Miss Peck, if you are going to be around this summer could I interest you in being a counselor for our youth group?”
Judy snickered, “Be the youngest youth counselor this church ever had.”
Bryan blinked as he focused in on sizing me up for real. “Oh? I’m guessing twenty two or twenty three, but considering Miss Mecham is laughing I must be wrong.” He glanced in Judy’s direction. “How bad did I miss it, if I may be so bold to ask Miss Peck’s age and you would be willing to tell?”
“She is fifteen.” Judy responded with a Cheshire cat grin on her face.
Bryan blinked a couple times as his mouth dropped open to say something he obviously thought better of before it spilled out. “Um, hurrump” He cleared his throat. “I see, or maybe I don’t see. In that case, maybe we should invite Miss Peck to come to our youth rally this summer?”
I stood up as the other kids had already left the classroom. “Thank you but I’m only visiting for a day.”
“If you change your mind please join us this summer. Miss Mecham, please let Miss Peck know our schedule for the summer.” Bryan was trying his best to get a yes out of me.
“Thank you.” I took Judy’s hand and led her out of the classroom. I was positive I didn’t want to go to any summer youth camp as Barbara. Buddy was already away at a youth camp. There was no way I was doing double shift this summer if I could help it even if it was an imaginary Buddy at camp.
Judy stepped up beside me as she led me back down the hallways. “I think that would be a great idea. You spend the summer visiting with me and…”
“No way Jose! I’m not spending the summer as Barbara. Buddy comes home and that’s that.” I was determined to put the squelch on her idea before it gained traction.
Judy’s eyes were dancing as she turned her head to look at me. “We’ll see.”
“We won’t see. Cousin Barbara goes home and Buddy comes home. End of discussion.”
Judy steered me back into the church auditorium. Miriam and Bill were already there in the third row from the front. There were certainly a lot of heads turning when Judy led me down the aisle where Miriam and Bill were. Oh great! Get up close so God doesn’t have as far to reach when He steps into the church and notices I’m not a real girl. I sat down beside Judy wondering why we had to sit at the front of the church? Mom and dad always sat close to the back. I felt like everyone was looking at me. Judy slid into the pew a row ahead of her parents.
I was studying the carpet on the floor, the shoes I was wearing, and everything else so I didn’t have to be looking up. It wasn’t three minutes later when someone sat down beside me. I looked at his polished black shoes, his black dress slacks and refused to look up any further.
“Hello Tank.” Judy turned to her right and was talking in my direction.
TANK! OH NO! IT COULDN’T BE! I swallowed the lump in my throat before looking over at the handsome boy sitting on my right. I died a thousand deaths in less than a heartbeat.
He smiled. “Hello Barbara from Dallas.”
“Tug” I finally managed to acknowledge with a whisper.
He turned further to his left and looked behind me. “Hello Mrs. and Mr. Mecham.”
“Hello Tug, you sure look handsome this morning. It’s good to see you. You too Elliot.” Miriam responded from behind me.
ELLIOT! My head snapped over to look past Judy. Elliot sitting on her left. AH HA! Now I know how this came about. Elliot and Judy had this planned. Father please forgive me for I am contemplating murdering my no good rotten brother and his girlfriend. I grinned a wicked smile at Elliot. “Hello Elliot.” It was forced through clinched teeth.
“Hi cousin. You sure look pretty this morning. Mrs. Mecham you look awfully nice this morning.” He was beaming from ear to ear. He reached over and put his right hand on top of Judy’s left hand. “And you always look beautiful.”
Judy smiled. “Thank you Elliot.”
“I have two purses in my car. Do you want me to take that one now or do you want to leave it in my car later.” Tank was laughing as he looked at my yellow purse.
I dropped my right hand down on my purse. “You already have two and I only have one. I think I’ll keep this one if you don’t mind.”
“Well, if you are going to be stingy about it then I guess I’ll let you keep one.” Tank was still laughing.
“That’s big of you.” I shot back a volley.
“I’m a big guy, I can afford to be generous.” Tank bounced back the volley.
I didn’t have a reply as I shook my head and smiled at the idea Tug would trade low brow insults with me.
“You have a beautiful smile Barbara.” Tank reached over and put his left hand on top of my right one.
I blushed from my head down to my yellow heels. “Thank you.”
God didn’t toss a lightning bolt at me. All of us managed to make it out of church when it was over. I didn’t think I would be heading back home with Elliot as we moved out to the parking lot. I was hoping Judy and I would head back to her house for jeans and sneakers.
Elliot dashed those hopes when he turned his attention to Judy. “You and Barbara want to go get a pizza with Tank and me?”
'No, no, no, no, a thousand times no.' I was thinking in my mind.
Judy looked at her mother. “May Barbara and I go with Elliot and Tank for pizza?”
Miriam looked over at Bill who nodded in the affirmative. She looked back at Judy. “I know school is out, but I don’t want you staying out past twelve.”
Twelve? 'No, no, no! ask me! ask me!' I was waiting for someone to ask me what I thought of this plan.
“Thanks mom.” She reached up and gave Miriam a hug before grabbing my hand pulling me off in the direction of Elliot’s Mustang. “Let’s go Barbara, before they change their minds.”
'No, no, no, please give them time to change their minds.' I was silently begging as I reluctantly followed along with Judy.
Tank stepped up beside me and put his arm around my waist as Judy broke off and moved in beside Elliot where he put his arm around her waist as we walked to the car. 'Joy, oh endless joy I’m in a dress and heels until midnight.' I was positive Elliot would find a way to stay out that long even if he had to invent new things to do.
Tank opened the passenger door and held the seat up as I stepped into the back. I held my skirt and settled into the seat as I contemplated Judy and Elliot’s slow death. Tank worked his way into the back seat with me and I mean worked. That boy almost didn’t fit in the back. Judy settled in the passenger seat as Elliot held the door before he closed it and walked around to the driver’s side. Seconds later he was slowly moving out of the parking lot. Tug reached over and took my right hand in his left. I gave him a sincere smile. Little did Tug know I was smiling because of I was thinking of Elliot’s immediate pending death.
I figured the Pizza Hut because it was close to where we were. Oh no, Elliot had other plans. He drove out to Clarkston which is ten miles out of town. He pulled into Ken’s Short Stop and killed the Mustang. I had been there a time or two with Elliot. Great, just great, it was a favorite watering hole of the teenage set. Everyone managed to get out of the car and pair off as Judy and Elliot led the way into Ken’s. The first Sunday after school had finished for the summer and the place was packed with bodies.
“Hey Elliot, Judy!” Rang out from across the room.
“Jerry.” Elliot waved at a kid who had stood up and hollered.
Jerry was waving us over. I recognized him as a wide receiver for the Wildcats football team. He was with Jo Madden one of the Wildcat cheerleaders. There was another couple sitting with their backs to us.
We headed for their table across the room. Jerry indicated the chairs. “Pull up and take a load off. Hi Judy, Tank. Who’s the new face?”
Tank stepped up to the table and pulled back a chair. “Jerry, Jo, Sally Ann, Ken, this is Barbara Peck from Dallas. She’s visiting Judy this week.”
I thanked God Tug didn’t mention Buddy or the prom, or that I was Elliot’s cousin.
“Peck? Elliot, I know you don’t have a sister living in Dallas. Is Barbara your cousin?” Sally Ann was giving me a real close once over.
Obviously I thanked God prematurely. I recognized Sally Ann. She was another Wildcat cheerleader. Kenneth, her boyfriend, was a tight end on the Wildcat team.
Elliot seated Judy and found his place beside her. “She is.”
“Pretty girl. You and Judy are all dressed up. Did you come from church?” Sally Ann was data mining.
“We did.” Elliot was looking for a menu. “Has anyone ordered yet?”
“We ordered about ten minutes ago. I think their cook is on vacation. We might have to send the girls back to cook it for us.” Ken offered up, as he winked at Sally Ann.
“Not today.” Jo responded before Sally Ann could.
“Judy and Barbra might waitress. I bet no one would care if they got a plate if they were serving.” Jerry offered as he looked at me.
“And Sally Ann and I are also rans? I’m not sure I like that.” Jo looked like she was ready to leave.
I took a second look at Jo and then Sally Ann. The girls were cheerleaders for goodness sakes. They had all the right curves in all the right places. Maybe not as abundantly as Judy, but they had them. They were wearing jeans and blouses but were certainly beautiful girls, no matter how they were dressed. I looked at Jerry and shook my head. “Careful, Jerry, I suggest you apologize profusely and crawfish your way back out.”
Judy looked surprised as she glanced in my direction before looking over at Jerry. “Barbara is right. Humble pie should be on your menu about now, along with a little crow, and many many compliments to Jo and Sally Ann about how pretty they are. You also need to acknowledge how gracious it was of them to allow you boys to come along.”
Jerry took the hint. “Jo, I meant you and Sally Ann too. Have I told you how pretty you are today?”
Jo turned her head slightly away from Jerry and patted her hair. “That’s a start. A little more groveling and I might forgive you.”
That did it. I couldn’t help myself as I started laughing. It struck me as funny how easily the girls handled the boys. They used their beauty to their advantage. The guys knew it and they liked it as much as the girls did.
Judy got tickled when I did. She started laughing. Everyone joined in on the laughter, as all was forgiven for the boy’s mistake.
Jo looked over at Judy and checked her out from top to bottom. “You were a Junior Wildcat cheerleader. Have you decided yet if you want to be a High School Wildcat cheerleader?”
Judy nodded in the affirmative. “I didn’t fill out the form before the end of school though. I hadn’t made up my mind. I probably missed my chance since the openings are filled at the end of each school year.”
“Not always. We have transfers in the summer for unexplained reasons as parents move in and out. We had three cheerleaders graduate this year. I held an opening for you. I was hoping you would fill one of those vacancies.” Jo waited for an answer.
“Thank you. Sure, I’d love to be a Wildcat cheerleader.” Judy jumped at the opportunity she thought she had waited too long to sign up for.
“I’ll send you the details on the uniform.” Jo turned her attention toward me. “Barbara, how about you?”
“Me what?” I wasn’t sure what the question was.
“How would you like to be a Wildcat cheerleader?” Jo looked serious.
“Cough, cough.” I did my favorite trick again as I choked and turned beet red from the top of my head to the soles of my feet.
“Barbara is from Dallas.” Offered on my behalf, Judy was smiling as she shook her head.
“I heard. She could transfer, or her parents might move down here. One can never tell.” Jo was digging through her purse.
“Found it.” She pulled out several sheets of paper stapled together. She reached across the table and handed them to me. “Here Barbara, fill these out and send them back to me. You never know. You might want to transfer out of Dallas before you graduate out of high school. What school do you go to there, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“FFiigghhttinngg Mavericks.” Elliot and Judy said simultaneously.
“Fighting Mavericks? I know a cheerleader there. Shosho Lee, she has the prettiest eyes you ever saw. Do you know her?” Sally Ann joined in the conversation.
“I…, uh…, maybe. I’m not sure. The name sounds familiar.” I choked out.
“Oh you would know her if you ever met her. No one could forget that girl and her eyes, after they've met her one time.” She’s a senior this year. Look her up and tell her Sally Ann said hi. I think you should join her cheerleader squad.”
“Not now Sally Ann, Barbara is going to transfer and join our cheer leading squad. She wants to be a Wildcat not a Fighting Maverick. Don’t you Barbara?” Jo was indicating for me to agree.
“Uh, ah, sounds like fun.” I finally managed to get it out.
I was saved when the food was brought out to the table. Scott was the kid who brought the food. He played tight end for the Grant High Chargers. I didn’t know all the other kids names whom Elliot and I had played against, but I knew the outstanding ones. Scott was one of those who would make pro after college. I remembered the game three years back when Elliot and I played against the Chargers.
It seemed Scott always made all the right moves at all the right instances. By the time our defense reached their quarterback, Scott usually was receiving a pass downfield and making good yardage. I made all of Elliot’s games after he moved up to high school. Scott got better with each year. If there had been any other good players on the Grant High Chargers football team they would have been going to state the past two years that Scott had been playing for them.
Scott turned to Elliot, after he set the other kids meals on the table. “Hi Elliot, Tank, hello Judy, and friend. What will it be?”
“Burger and coke.” Judy ordered before anyone else.
They all looked at me waiting for me to make a decision. “Uh…, same.”
“Burger, fries, Dr. Pepper.” Elliot didn’t hesitate.
“Sounds good, I’ll have that burger, fries and a Dr. Pepper.” Tank finished up.
“Got it, back in a few minutes.” Scott was headed across the room to clean up a table other kids had left.
“Come on over to the club after you finish and try some moves with us.” Jo was looking at Judy before she nibbled on her burger.
Judy glanced in my direction. I was positive I saw a hint of the devil in her eyes before she turned her attention back to Jo. “We’ll be there.”
Silently, I moaned. I knew they were talking about the Pro Club. Jo’s dad managed the place. It was where the Wildcat cheerleaders practiced when school wasn’t in session. I had hoped we would go home, change clothes and Buddy would find his way home from Church Camp. Obviously it wasn’t going to happen the way I had hoped.
The others stayed until we ate our burgers. We headed for the cars and the drive over to the club. I was counting small favors as I was from out of town and didn’t own a cheerleader uniform. I couldn’t be expected to participate.
After Elliot and Jerry parked we grouped up and headed for the entrance to the club. Jo waved at the security guard as all of us walked in the big double glass doors.
He indicated he'd noticed as he stood up and took a good look at Judy and me. I figured he was one of the lifeguards or something. He was muscular and tanned and he could have stepped off the front page of one of the men’s magazines. “Jo, the guys have to wait in the gym.”
Jo pointed off to a doorway to our left. “Guys, to the gym. We will be out shortly. I noticed Brenda, Kaylee, and several of the other cheerleaders are already here. Go encourage them while we change.” She walked through a double set of doors to her right as she was talking.
I started to walk with the boys as they turned left. Judy grabbed my arm. “Barbara, come with us.”
“But…,”
Judy led me through the double doors as I was protesting. We followed Jo and Sally Ann down a wide hall to another set of doors leading off to our left. We walked through the doors into the women’s locker room. AND I FELT COLD FEAR CLUTCH AT MY HEART! I tried to turn to leave.
Judy wasn’t having any of it as she held my arm. “Jo, Barbara and I didn’t bring a uniform.”
Jo pointed toward a door at the other end of the locker room. “All extra uniforms are in there. Go pick out a couple and meet us out on the court after you and Barbara change.”
“Cough, cough, change!” I couldn’t believe Judy would think I would change into a Wildcat cheerleader uniform.
Judy had my arm and was pulling me toward the door Jo had indicated. Come on Barbara, let’s find a couple uniforms and work out with the Wildcats.”
“Work out…? Are you outta your ever loving mind…? What are you thinking, or not thinking?” I managed to whisper as we walked through the door at the other end of the room.
Judy waited until the door shut behind as before she turned loose of my arm. She put her hands on her hips and looked at me. “Okay Barbara, it’s just a uniform. Think of it as a bikini with a skirt and top. We really don’t show that much. The idea is we are showing everything when we aren’t. Think about it for a second. Have you ever seen any cheerleader show too much?”
“Well…,” Actually I hadn’t, come to think of it. It was a short skirt and their panties showed an awful lot when they were bouncing around, but then, girls showed more skin when they were in the pool or the lake.
Judy walked around behind me and unzipped my dress. “Let’s go play.”
She walked over to the row of Wildcat cheerleader uniforms hanging in plastic clothes bags along the wall and took one out of it’s bag. “This was Toni Dendons outfit. She graduated four years ago. It was nice of her to donate one of her uniforms to the Wildcat Cheerleader Club. I think it will fit you perfectly. Slip out of your heels, and dress.”
Reluctantly I did as Judy suggested. She handed me the maroon panties to the uniform and I slipped them on. The maroon uniform was next, as I let it slip down over my head. Judy zipped it up from the back. The top of the dress was sleeveless, with an open, v neckline. It was the short maroon skirt that worried me. It was short. I mean it just by the barest minimums covered my panties. I knew the girls wore them short. I didn’t understand how short until I was wearing one myself.
Judy removed another Wildcat cheerleader uniform from a plastic bag. The name on the left breast was Cynthia. I thought I knew all the cheerleaders in high school and junior high. Elliot played in high school and I went to all his games this past year. Even when a person is warming the bench, like I did in junior high, they get to know all the cheerleaders. I tried to recall a Cynthia, but no girl came to mind. She had to have graduated four years or better ahead of Elliot.
Judy was digging through a locker. She tossed a pair of sneakers back in my direction as she pulled out a second pair. “The girls who are trying out are supposed to wear sneakers, but just in case someone forgot, the ex cheerleaders toss in a pair when they donate a uniform to the club.
I was surprised by the condition of the sneakers Judy tossed at me. I honestly thought they would be well used, but they were just the opposite, they looked brand new. “These aren’t the ones they wore all year are they?”
Judy giggled as she motioned for me to turn my back to her. “I don’t think any of the girls donate any sneakers they ever wore. It’s kind of a unspoken agreement that if they want to donate their sneakers, they purchase new ones to donate.”
I turned my back and heard her unzip her dress. “Why would they do that?”
“Most of the cheerleaders are proud to be a Wildcat cheerleader. Every head cheerleader donates one of her uniforms to the club when she graduates. They may not have their names engraved on any plaques or trophies in the school hallways, so this is their way of receiving a place in history for their tireless work. They want to give every girl who comes along behind them the opportunity to be a Wildcat cheerleader. It has a lot to do with pride in being someone who supports the athletic teams and the school events. Most people think being a cheerleader is nothing but fluff. I promise you, it is everything but. We train hard to get our acts down so we look polished and professional. We try and give our teams inspiration to try a little harder by letting them know we are behind them one hundred percent. Okay, turn around.”
I turned back around. I was insanely jealous. Judy looked like the All American Girl. If there ever was a poster girl for cheerleaders she had to be the one, except for one small detail. The name over her left breast should have said Judy instead of Cynthia.
“Hang up your dress on the hanger you took the uniform off of. Let’s go see if we can compete with a few dozen other girls who want to be a Wildcat.” She was putting her dress on the hanger as she was talking.
“Few dozen other girls?” I was thinking it would be Jo and Sally Ann and us.
“Tryouts Barbara. This is one of the days Jo will look over the wannabes and decide who gets to go on to the next round and who becomes part of the pep club.” Judy had hung up her dress and was waiting by the door.
“Why don’t I go wait with Elliot and Tug?” I was positive I didn’t want to try out. I had no reason to want to tryout. It was foolish to even think such a thing.
“Not now. You’re coming with me. Come on, let’s go give it our best.” Judy opened the door and waited.
“I know your best and there isn’t anyone any better.” I mumbled, as I passed her back into the hall.
Judy giggled as she stepped up beside me. “That was a sweet compliment. The proof is in the tryouts, not in what we did last year. I don’t get an automatic okay because I was a junior high Wildcat.”
“Whew, thank goodness. For a minute there I didn’t think I stood a chance of beating you out. Nice to know we are on a level playing field.” I responded, hoping my voice was dripping with cynicism.
“More than you know Barbara. More than you know.” Judy opened the door leading into the gym.
Some boys were shooting baskets on the far end of the court. Jo and Sally Ann were on the left side of the basketball court talking to a dozen or more girls. Only three others were in Wildcat cheerleader uniforms. The rest were in shorts or wearing tennis skirts. I hesitated. “Judy, I don’t belong in this uniform. I know those girls who are wearing uniforms. They are all Wildcat cheerleaders, the same as you.”
Judy leaned over close to my ear. “Barbara, you belong in that uniform. Keep in mind you are visiting from Dallas. If anyone asks, you borrowed the uniform so you could tryout with me today.”
“I’m going to hell for telling lies on Sunday yet.” I was positive God was going to get me, even if He didn’t strike me down in church this morning.
Judy giggled as we walked up to the group.
Jo looked over in our direction and nodded. “Okay, now that everyone is here let’s see what we can do. Everyone, three rows, leave a couple yards between you and the person in front of you and two arm’s length to each side of you.”
She waited as we struggled to find our place in three rows. The first row ended up with four girls and the next two rows ended up with five girls. I was on the left outside of the last row and Judy was to my right.
Jo nodded in agreement when we finally settled into place. “Okay, the first cheer goes like this.”
“Wildcat, Wildcat is our name.
Wildcat, Wildcat is our game,
Wildcat, Wildcat can’t be tamed”
“Everyone on the count of three, one, two, three.” She immediately called off.
Judy was in perfect timing, along with four other girls wearing Wildcat uniforms. I had a couple of years sitting on the bench chanting with the cheerleaders. I stumbled on the first couple words and then caught up.
“Let’s do it again and tell our team we want them to win.” Jo stretched down and out with her right leg behind her as she put her weight on her left leg and crouched down. Her left arm was up against her left breast and her right arm was out behind her, in line with her right leg.
“Wildcat, Wildcat is our name.” She brought her right arm forward up against her right breast.
“Wildcat, Wildcat, is our game.” She stretched both arms out with her hands open, palm up.
“Widcat, Wildcat can’t be tamed.” She pushed up with her left leg as she brought her right up and jumped up in the air, both arms extended straight up, doing the splits, as she screamed. “GOooooo WILDCATS!”
“On three. One, two, three.” She called off.
Judy and I were down and stretched out, along with the other four girls who managed to get the chant right the first time. I was in serious trouble. All the time I was watching the girls do it and chanting along with them, they made it look easy and fun. It wasn’t easy to crouch on the left leg with the right extended out behind. It wasn’t easy to think of the chant at the same time one was putting in all the body English. It wasn’t easy to hold the arms out level. It wasn’t easy to push up with the left leg and bring the right up at the same time. I thought I was in pretty good shape playing football. I wasn’t in good shape. Not for competing with the cheerleaders. I thought cheerleaders were fluff bunnies. I was the one who was a fluff bunny. I managed somehow, as we jumped into the air and screamed our lungs out, “GOoooooo WILDCATS!” And no I didn’t do any splits either. I didn’t feel too bad though. Judy and two other girls were the only ones besides Jo to do the splits as they jumped in the air.
Every now and then I’d get a glimpse of the guys shooting baskets down the court, as they stopped and watched as Jo led us girls through the different routines. Elliot and Tug had come in from outside at some point and climbed up in the bleachers to watch. Jo had us go through a couple different cheers which were all too familiar. I had watched a lot of cheerleading from the bench the past couple years.
Ten or fifteen minutes later Jo shifted our positions. The three other girls wearing cheerleader uniforms, along with Sally Ann, Judy, and myself, moved to the front. Again Jo led us into more routines which they had done all last year. And the year before that. And the year before and…,
Finally, forty minutes later, tryouts were over. I was starting to hurt in places I didn’t know I had, as I gained a new perspective on how hard the girls worked as cheerleaders. Never again would I think of them as fluff bunnies. Judy motioned for me to wait as she walked over to talk to Sally Ann and Jo.
Several basketballs had been rolling toward the cheerleaders for the past forty minutes. The girls at the back would kick them back across the court. I strongly suspected some of those errant balls were on purpose as the guys wanted to get the attention of the girls. I walked out on the court as I waited for Judy so we could go home. I heard the basketball hit the backboard and roll across the court in my direction. Turning around to look, it was rolling straight at me. I dipped my right toe underneath it and picked it up catching it in my hands. Short as I was I could have bent down and picked it up easy enough. The idea was, in grade school I spent months perfecting that move, thinking it looked smooth. Elliot never could do that trick. Probably had something to do with his feet being a lot bigger than mine. His feet weren’t as easy to get under the edge of the basketball. I didn’t tell him why I thought he couldn’t do that trick when I could. I finally was able to do something in sports Elliot couldn’t do, even if it never counted in any official game.
“Over here, Princess.” One of the players across the court was holding out his hands, indicating he wanted a return.
Elliot and I had played a lot of basketball at home, on the driveway. I played in a lot of school games up to the seventh grade. I could still shoot a high percentage of baskets if no one was blocking my shots. The problem was, those kids who kept on growing also got longer arms. It didn’t take Einstein to figure out a five foot five kid, matched up against a six foot something player with arms like airplane wings, was at a terrible disadvantage. The concept was of trying to shoot past a moving, bouncing billboard. They could smother me with their height and their reach. I became a bench warmer in basketball too, until I finally dropped out in the eighth grade. Standing a few feet ahead of the half court line, I didn’t have the strength to pump a shot back into the basket from where I was standing, unless I put a lot of body English on it.
I ran forward and gave it my best. As soon as it left my right hand I knew I had it. I turned back around toward the girls while it was still airborne. I heard the snick of nothing but net as it passed through the rim.
“Hey Princess, I bet you can’t do that again.” Echoed across the court, as a ball started bouncing in my direction.
I turned around and caught the ball with the toe of my right foot, again tossing it up into my hands as it rolled up to me,.
“WHAT ARE THE ODDS?”
I recognized Elliot’s voice as he hollered across the gym.
“Hundred to one.” The guy standing by the basket hollered back.
“FIVE CENTS SAYS SHE CAN!” Elliot hollered back.
“You’re covered. Get out your money loser.” The guy yelled back.
“YOU GET OUT YOUR FIVE DOLLARS! Elliot dug up a nickel as he looked down at me.
I shook my head no, hoping Elliot would back out. I ran at the basket and launched the ball. I didn’t have to look. It also felt good as it left my hand. I turned and looked up at Elliot shaking my head no, as the ball hit the rim and rattled the backboard before passing through the net.
“DAMN!” Came from across the court. “Hey Princess, one more time, okay?”
All the cheerleaders had stopped to watch, along with the guys across the court.
I could hear the ball coming in my direction. I turned and caught it again as it reached me.
“She makes it, you get your money back. She doesn’t make it, you get your money back.” Elliot yelled across the court.
“What kind of bet is that?” Rang back across the court from the guy next to the basket.
“A sucker bet.” Elliot yelled back at him.
“You’re on. Okay Princess do your thing.” He yelled back.
I was working on percentages by now. I wasn’t too sure I could do it three times in a row from the distance I was trying. Just outside the three point circle I could make better than ninety six percent of my shots. From where I was standing I dropped down to less than eighty percent. I dribbled the ball a couple times to get my mental state built up. I was ready as I ran and launched. It didn’t feel that great when it left my hands but it didn’t feel bad either. It hit the rim, bounced up, hit the backboard and fell back through the net.
“SHE’S ON OUR TEAM!” Rang out from one of the other guys, who had been watching from across the gym.
“THE HECK YOU SAY! SHE WAS SHOOTING MY BALL, SHE’S ON OUR TEAM. PRINCESS, YOU CAN PLAY ON OUR TEAM ANY DAY!” Came from the guy by the backboard who had been catching the ball.
Jo was looking at me kind of funny. She was laughing as she shook her head. “She can be on anybody’s team she darn well pleases with that kind of power.”
Yeah, until they put a six or seven foot walking, jumping wall in front of my face, with arms like airplane wings. I was thinking to myself.
Judy was giggling as she walked up beside me. “Show off.”
Elliot and Tug walked down from the bleachers. Elliot gave me a wink as he nodded with his head it was time to go. “Way to go Barbara.”
We were walking across the court headed toward the exit when one of the guys called across the gym. “Hey Princess, want to give it one last shot?”
The ball was bouncing across the floor in our direction as all of us turned to look. I stepped up and caught it, picking it up with my toe. “Elliot you want to try?”
Elliot shook his head. “Show us how it’s done
Barbara.”
“Tug, Judy?” I was looking to see if they wanted to try it.
Judy laughed as she looked across the court. Everyone in there was watching and waiting. “They want to see you miss. Prove them wrong again Barbara.”
I really didn’t think I would be able to prove them wrong. Shooting from half court was as much luck as anything having to do with skill. I couldn’t power it that far, except by swinging it under handed like pitching a softball. I needed a lot of run before I launched it. I sighed as I took a couple steps backwards and bounced it to get the feel of it and a mental picture in my mind. It didn’t mean a whole lot. We weren’t going to win or lose a game on this one shot. I stopped, closed my eyes and got a mental picture. So I missed? So what? I held the ball before running forward and swinging the ball underhanded launching it into space just before I reached the half court line. From that distance it had to go into a high aerial arc just to get to the backboard.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the ball went up, up, up before it started its route back down toward the backboard. Everyone’s head was turning as all eyes followed the basketball through the air as it flew across the court. Of course it came down with the same force it went up with. It wasn’t clean and it wasn’t pretty as it clipped the rim. The whole backboard shook and rattled. With more luck than skill, I made the shot.
“SIGN THAT GIRL UP FOR THE PROS!” Rang out across the court.
Almost A Girl Chapter 6 of 10: Please direct all PM's to: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/user/barbielee
I was headed for the exit. I knew I couldn’t do that again even if my life depended on it. I was going to leave while everyone was fooled into thinking I could shoot. We made the locker and gathered up our shoes and clothes before heading out to the car. Judy and I were still wearing Wildcat cheerleader uniforms. She said we had to wash and iron them before returning them to the gym.
Sitting in the backseat, making small talk with Tug, I figured we were headed home. Until Elliot pulled up into the high school parking lot and killed his Mustang. “Now what?”
“Tank and I are going to go pick up our uniforms. We are going down to the photo shop to have pictures made with you girls. Come on.” He opened the door and walked around to open the door for Judy.
She slid out and pulled the seat forward. “Come on guys.”
“Sure, why not?” There weren’t a whole lot of things I could say with Tug there. First off I didn’t think anyone would be there to let us in. Second if someone was there, they surely wouldn’t let the boys borrow their football uniforms for some stupid photo shoot. I followed Tug out of the backseat of the car. This plan had to been hatched between Tug and Elliot while Judy and I were practicing with the cheerleaders. It was one more reason to kill my brother when this was all over.
My earrings tinkling reminded me of Judy’s tricks. I was positive I was going to be Barbara one more week now. Certainly I didn’t want them cutting my ears off to remove the earrings. Changing back to Buddy, with the kind of earrings Judy had placed in both ears, wasn’t an option.
Tank put his left hand in the small of my back as we headed for the school building. To my disgust the front door to the building wasn’t locked. We walked another block inside the building to the back, where the gymnasium was located.
Elliot knocked once on the coach’s door opened it and walked in. “Mr. Barney.”
I would have stopped before I walked into Mr. Barney’s office, except Tug was right behind me. He had his hand in the small of my back, pushing. Now a little push from Tug isn’t something I could have resisted unless I had been expecting it and had my legs locked in a defending stance. I didn’t have any of those things as I half skipped into the coach’s office ahead of Tug.
Coach Barney looked from Elliot to Judy. “Hello Miss Mecham. Joined the High School Wildcat cheerleaders did you? The name you have on your uniform doesn’t look right.”
Judy looked down at her left breast and giggled. “Borrowed Cynthia’s uniform for tryouts today. Hope I’m half as good as she was.”
Coach nodded. “I remember Cynthia Davies. Pretty girl, smart too, made three point six on her grade score. I watched you at the Junior High games. I have no doubt she would be proud to have you wearing her uniform.”
He turned his attention toward me. “And this is Miss...? Obviously another borrowed uniform. I remember Miss Toni Dendon. She is a senior at Texas University this year. She is going to be a computer engineer. Very smart girl.”
If it had been possible I would have slunk back out the same door I came in.
“Barbara Peck, she is from Dallas and was trying out with me at the gym today. We met Jo and Sally Ann at the Shortstop earlier. They asked Barbara to try out for the Wildcats.” Judy responded for me.
“How did she do in the tryouts?” Coach Barney glanced over at Judy for an answer.
“She did great. Jo wanted to get her signed up while we were there. Sally Ann said she was the second best one in the tryouts. It was the only time she had ever seen any girl who could perform as well, without coming up from the Junior High Wildcats cheerleaders squad.” Judy looked at Coach Barney and then me as she smiled from ear to ear.
Second best? I thought I had been klutzing it. I didn’t have to ask who was number one. Of course it was Miss Homecoming Queen herself. Need we ask?
“Thinking about transferring, Miss Peck? Hummmm, you kin to Elliot?” Coach Barney was looking at me as if he was studying the game plan.
I shook my head no before I thought about who I was supposed to be. “Cousins.”
“Never can tell Miss Peck. You might like us if you gave us a chance. Coach Johnson was in the Pro Club gym this afternoon while you girls were trying out for the Wildcat Cheerleaders.” He waited as if he expected me to respond.
I had no idea where he was going with this conversation. I knew Coach Johnson was the Lady Wildcats assistant basketball coach.
Coach Barney slightly shook his head as he studied me. “Called me a few minutes ago. Said he had witnessed something he was still having a hard time believing. Seems as if one of the cheerleaders is also a basketball player. Her name is Toni. Made some amazing baskets before she walked out of the gym. He called to ask me if I had ever heard of her before. Coach Johnson wants the young lady on his team this year.”
Coach Barney chuckled, as his eyes danced in amusement. “I can tell you, Coach Johnson is down at administration right now, checking school records for Toni’s last name so he can go talk to her parents about her playing for the Lady Wildcats. I’ll give him another ten minutes of searching before I call him and ruin his dreams of going to state with Toni as his star shooter.”
I didn’t respond as I had nothing to say. This whole mess was getting more messy by the minute. Okay Elliot one more reason to wrap my hands around your throat and cheerfully strangle you to death.
He pointed to the two football uniforms in the corner. “Bring them back when you can. I expect copies of the pictures. I plan on showing Coach Johnson pictures of Toni and watching him cry.”
“Thanks Coach.” Elliot picked up a uniform and tossed it to Tug before he picked up the second one.
I was closest to the door, and I wanted out of Coach Barney’s line of sight. I backed out before I turned around and waited in the hall for the others. Great! Just peachy! Now I was not only Barbara Peck in Coach Barney’s mind, I was Toni what’s her name in Coach Johnson’s mind. The school’s two top high school sports coaches, and I was now permanently framed in their minds as a girl. I could not begin to imagine what was going to happen when school started again in three months and they happened to meet up with Buddy, who just happened to look a lot like Barbara and Toni. God…, if you love me, take me now and spare me the misery.
Lucky me, Coach Barney didn’t spend a lot of time at the junior high games, except scouting the up and coming players. Up and coming players didn’t spend time bench warming like I had the past two years. Elliot made second string quarterback his sophomore year and actually played more games then Ronnie Denuk who was a senior and the first string quarterback. Elliot made first string quarterback, with Tug filling in as second string, their Junior year. Now both boys were going to be seniors and Coach Barney hadn’t filled in an alternate quarterback from the freshman team. It was going to leave a hole in the Wildcats team when Elliot and Tug both graduated next year.
I knew this coming year was the year the Wildcats would take state. With Elliot and Tug playing there couldn’t be any doubt. I didn’t know if I wanted to be a bench warmer on the high school team, or not. I hadn’t made up my mind yet. I was positive, with Elliot as quarterback, I would get to play some as wide receiver. I didn’t want to let my parents and Elliot down, but the cold hard facts were, I was never going to amount to anything as a football player without Elliot making me look good with his perfect passes.
I sighed as Tug stepped into the hall and put his left hand in the small of my back as he carried his football uniform in his right. I guess I was good for standing in with the other kids in photographs and not much else.
Tug glanced in my direction as he steered me back down the hall. “That was a deep sigh. A penny for your thoughts.”
“You would be cheated. My thoughts aren’t worth that much.” Maybe being a girl for a week or two was going to be the highlight of my pathetic life? I gave Tug a smile as I shook my head.
“You sure do have a beautiful smile Barbara.” Tug was smiling back.
“And you, kind sir, are a gentleman.” I could only imagine what Tug would have done if he knew I wasn’t a real girl. I gave a silent prayer, hoping Tug never found out or I would really be dead in the truest meaning. I made a mental note for Buddy to never meet Tug come next fall when school started. It was going to be hard keeping out of Tug’s line of sight, with him and Elliot being good friends and team players.
It didn’t take long for us to be back at Kingsmen Mall. Judy, the boys and I attracted more than our fair share of attention. I had a strong suspicion it was because Judy and I were wearing Wildcat cheerleader uniforms and escorted by two of the best looking boys in school. They didn’t have to change me into a girl to know Elliot was a handsome boy. He may have been my brother but he always was the best looking kid in school no matter what grade he was in. Tug wasn’t any second, also ran, himself. Different handsome but most certainly a good looking boy. Any girl who got him could count herself fortunate. I didn’t have to guess who was going to get Elliot. He had his arm wrapped around his favorite squeeze for the past three years. I may have only been fifteen going on sixteen, but I figured Judy would be Mrs. Elliot Peck before she graduated from college.
Minutes later we were in Bundy’s Studios for the second time in as many days. I think I had more photographs taken of me in the past two days than I had all my prior life.
The photographer motioned Judy and me over in front of a blue screen. “Ladies, while the boys slip on their uniforms, why don’t we take some cheerleader shots of the two of you?”
“Okay, come on Barbara.” Judy was pulling me along toward the props.
The photographer looked confused. “Barbara? I take it you aren’t Toni? Oh, you were the two young ladies David took prom pictures of Friday evening. The pictures are ready if you wish to take them home with you after we do the photo shoot.”
“Sounds like a plan. How do you want us to pose?” Judy had stopped in front of the blue screen.
“I don’t know exactly. What about the names on your uniforms? Didn’t David say he took pictures of Judy and Barbara? Are you Cynthia or Judy?” He lined up his camera as he was talking.
Judy giggled. “I’m Judy but it doesn’t make any difference. Call me whatever you want. I’m positive Barbara won’t mind if you call her Toni. If the names on the uniforms confuse you use the names you are looking at.”
“Thanks, that will make it easier. By the way, my name is Pete. Okay Cynthia, do you have any routines where you and Toni would be close together?” Pete waited for a pose he could use.
“Sure, the dragon chant. We line up one behind the other to imitate a dragon. Barbara.” Judy bent over at the waist and put her hands on her knees as she looked to the left, as if facing the crowd.
I knew the cheer. I lined up behind Judy and put my hands on her hips as I looked to the left.
“Great, smile.” There were several flashes as the camera auto wound for pictures.
“What else can you give me?” Pete waited for a fresh pose.
“Well, there is a pyramid, but we are missing three girls for that one. How about half a pyramid base? Barbara, face me and do the same as me.” Judy dropped to left knee and put her hands on her hips.
I stepped around in front of Judy, dropped to my right knee, put my hands on my hips and faced the camera.
“I like it. Smile ladies.” There were several more flashes of light as Pete exposed film.
Pete took several more shots of different poses, most of them from our side, looking at the camera. A couple were full front. Judy dropped down and did the splits on the carpet. I dropped beside her. I may have had my legs spread but there weren’t any splits to it.
Tug and Elliot were soon back and the photo shoot started fresh all over again, with Judy and me beside Elliot and Tug respectfully. The boys had their helmets in their arms, and then their laps, and then they were kneeling. Judy and I had our hands on their shoulders. Then it was Elliot and Judy, Elliot and me, and Elliot and both us girls before we did the same routine with Tug. I was sure everyone who saw those pictures would never figure out who Cynthia and Toni were. Well, maybe they would figure out Cynthia and Judy were one and the same. It didn’t make any difference what name she had over her left breast, she was still a fox, second to none.
It was almost an hour later before our group was headed out of the shopping mall. We received even more looks, if possible. Elliot and Tug were still in their football uniforms carrying their street clothes in plastic bags Pete had supplied. I kind of figured Bundy’s Studios sent out a lot of people wearing something different than they walked in wearing, because Pete handed out the bags as soon as he finished shooting film.
It wasn’t dark, but it was getting late as we walked out to the car. Tug opened the door for me and held up the seat. I managed to get into the back without showing too much rear. I thought Tug was going to have to take off his football uniform before he worked his way into the back. He filled up the back when he wasn’t wearing a uniform. With all that extra padding he had to double up his knees after he finally made it.
“Tank, you okay?” Elliot was looking at his best friend as Tug had his head bent over to keep from banging the top of the car.
“Let’s go. I can’t stand this for very long and I ain’t getting out so I can get back in.” It was plain Tug wasn’t comfortable.
“Hang tuff.” Elliot let Judy slid in before he shut her door and headed for the drivers side.
Minutes later we were out of the parking lot, headed west. Elliot glanced over at Judy as he turned onto Brooklyn Drive. “You look at any of those pictures from Friday night?”
“Not yet.” Judy opened the packet Pete handed to her before we left the studio.
“Nice.” Judy held up an eight by ten of a beautiful young girl in a black satin gown. It took me a second to realize that was me. I looked mischievous for some reason. The second picture Judy held up was Miss America in a liquid red, strapless gown. God was that girl beautiful! I was insanely jealous. I would have traded anything to look half as pretty as Judy. Judy held up a third picture. It was Elliot. He was beyond doubt the best looking boy I had ever seen. Funny, I wasn’t jealous, but proud that he was my brother. Elliot was the All American Boy every parent ever dreamed of having as their own son. I would always be Elliot’s little brother. The kid who never made it on his own, but lived in his big brother’s shadow. Again, funny because I really didn’t mind if that was the way my life turned out. Elliot was my hero too, even if he was my brother.
I looked down at the long red nails on my hands and smiled to myself. It was going to be a shame to kill him, but all heroes come to an end sometime. Even big brother heroes. Especially if they turn little brothers into little sisters.
Elliot pulled up in our parents driveway and killed the car. “Everyone out. You too Tug, if you can make it. Tug and I are going to go change while you ladies find us some snacks.”
I choked. Surely Judy and Elliot didn’t think I wanted to go into my own house and meet Buddy’s parents again? Because it was Sunday, of course they would be home. I shook my head. “I’ll wait in the car.”
Judy was already out. Tug was struggling to get out. He finally rolled out the door onto the ground before he could stand up.
Judy shook her head as she motioned for me to follow. “No can do. Come on Barbara. You can’t wait in the car. We are supposed to find goodies for the boys to snack on. We means you and me, not in the singular sense. Come.”
“I’m going to kill both of you.” I muttered under my breath as I slipped out of the backseat.
“I heard that! You need to find a new choice of words. That one is getting old and you have worn it out. Besides it sounds so…, ugly.” Judy shut the door behind me.
“A different choice of words escapes me at the moment. Besides, thinking of murder is the only thing that keeps me going.” I gave Judy my best, ‘you are dead meat’ stare I used on the opposing team when I played football.
I don’t think it had quite the effect it was supposed to have. Judy giggled as she gave me a smile. “You need to work on your dead meat stare Barbara.”
Tug was looking at me kind of funny as he put his hand in the small of my back and urged me for Ethan and Sherry Pecks home. I was positive my parents weren’t going to be fooled twice. Maybe in the restaurant they had been occupied visiting with Judy’s parents? Dad was busy discussing the coming football year with Elliot then too.
I walked into the house ahead of Tug, knowing I was going to be found out by my parents. The boys headed for Elliot’s room to change clothes. Judy steered me toward the kitchen. I didn’t need steering any more than she did. She had been in our home a thousand times. It was probably as familiar to her as it was to me.
Mom was in the kitchen setting food out on the table when Judy and I walked in. She glanced up and then took a real good look. “Don’t you girls look nice. Hello again Barbara. Are you going to be a Wildcat cheerleader?”
“Uh, ah, I…, mo…,” I was scared to death. If mom didn’t recognize me under Judy’s makeup tricks, she would surely recognize my voice. And to top it off I had almost called her mom.
“Barbara tried out with us today. Jo and Sally Ann said she was good enough to be on the squad. They were trying to get me to sign her up before we left.” Judy was positively beaming as she glanced from Sherry to me and back again.
“That would be wonderful wouldn’t it Barbara. I know they wouldn’t have asked you to join if you weren’t good at it. Did you sign up? If you transfer from Dallas it might be too late if you wait and do it later.” Sherry moved the sandwich spread away from the edge of the table where she had placed it when we walked in.
“Uh, cough, cough, I, ah…” I didn’t know what to say and was afraid of saying anything, lest my mother recognized my voice.
“Barbara came down with some kind of cough since flying down here from Dallas. Here is that agreement she needs to sign in order to join the cheerleaders.” Judy pulled a piece of paper from out of her left bra. She unfolded it and placed it on the table where my mother had cleared a spot.
Sherry smoothed out the wrinkles and lifted up the top page to look at the second page. “I don’t see why Barbara can’t sign this right now. Barbara honey, sign this so you won’t lose your place in the cheerleaders squad in case you transfer.”
“Cough, cough, uh…,” Okay God, pull out the lightning bolts and strike me dead now! Hesitantly, slowly, I walked around beside my mother to look at the papers Judy had magically produced. How could Judy do this to me? I was only going to be a girl until Judy received that tool for removing my earrings. There was no way on this screwed up little earth I was going to go back to school next fall as Barbara Peck.
My mother slipped a pen into my hand as I was reading that commitment to be a cheerleader. I could do this. I mean, really. I wasn’t Barbara Peck, so it wasn’t really a commitment on my part, was it? Do not sign it Buddy Peck. I signed Barbara Peck on the line where it asked for a signature of girl requesting permission to join the Wildcat Cheerleaders Squad. Not bad, not bad at all. I had out foxed the foxes. No court in the land would hold me to that contract. It was as phony as a three dollar bill.
My mother put her arm around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze. “See, that wasn’t so hard was it? Now if you transfer they will have a slot open for you.”
“Uh, okay.” I was positive my mother would know it was her son Buddy when she put her arm around me.
“I know you will want to transfer to join the cheerleaders.” Sherry handed the signed papers back to Judy. She turned her attention to taking lunchmeat and trimmings out of the fridge.
“I’ll help.” I stepped up beside her and reached in for the lettuce, pickles, and tomatoes. The same thing Buddy had done most of his life. Helping out in the kitchen.
“Thank you Barbara.” Sherry walked over to get plates out of the cabinet.
I followed her over to the counter and pulled out a platter to place the lettuce on, before peeling back leaves and spreading it out on the platter. The pickles were next as I opened the jar, retrieved a fork, and dug pickles up before spreading them down the side of the platter next to the lettuce. The cutting board was in the cabinet and the knives were in the second drawer from the end. I found my favorite serrated knife and sliced the tomatoes before spreading them out on the opposite side of the lettuce from the pickles. The platter looked attractive with the red tomato slices giving it the right amount of color. I carried it over to the table.
Sherry placed the plates on the table and snapped her fingers. “Glasses.”
“I’ll get them.” I walked back over to the left end of the cabinet and took out six glasses. Back to the table to set them down.
“Thank you Barbara.” Sherry was smiling with a smile I recognized. She knew something.
What was she smiling about? I had no idea except she knew something. “You’re welcome m…, Mrs. Peck.” I had almost called her mom again. Think before engaging mouth.
“I’m Sherry and my husband is Ethan. Mister and Misses Peck sounds so formal. Please call me Sherry or mom if you like.”
I started to turn to get the ice for the glasses and froze, as my blood turned cold. MOM! Did she know? I turned back around to face her. I know there was fear in my eyes. Fear was also written all over my face. She wasn’t looking at me but at Judy.
Judy smiled and giggled. “I call Sherry mom all the time. It seemed okay since I spend a lot of time over here. I also call Nathan dad a lot of times.”
My legs turned to rubber as relief flooded my soul. Judy did call my mother mom. So it would be natural for her to tell me it would be okay to call her mom. I turned toward the fridge so mom wouldn’t see my face. I was shaking all over, inside as well as out, as I tried to think, what next?
Judy walked around the table and retrieved a pitcher out of the cabinet. She handed it to me. “Here, I think this is what you need to get the ice in.”
“Thanks.” Barely made it out of my throat as I took the pitcher and pushed it under the ice bin on the fridge door. Ice started spilling into it as I grasped it with both trembling hands to stop it from shaking.
After I managed to get that ice pitcher back to the table, Sherry nodded in silent agreement. “Looks good. Let’s call the men. Barbara, would you be kind enough to tell the boys it is ready?”
“I guess.” I was still quivering jello inside as I headed toward the hall to call Elliot and Tug to the table.
The phone rang as I stepped into the hall.
“I got it.” Came from Nathan in the den.”
Seconds later dad hollered loud enough for the boys to hear him back in the bedrooms. “Elliot, Coach Barney wants to talk to you.”
“Got it dad.” Echoed back down the hall from the bedrooms.
Except for the one person who was out of place here, it sounded like everyday life at the Peck house. All the yelling back and forth had a normalcy about this whole strange situation. My nerves finally settled down. I walked down the hall to knock on Elliot’s door. “It’s ready.”
“Heard you, thanks Barbara.” Tug’s voice carried through from the other side of the closed door.
I could hear Elliot talking on the phone. It was impossible to understand what he was saying, except for the occasional word now and then. I wondered why Coach Barney would want to talk to Elliot? Had to be something about the boys borrowing their football uniforms.
I walked back down to the den. “Mr. Peck, it’s ready to eat.”
He looked up from his papers he had been reading. “Okay, did you call the boys?”
“Yes Sir.” I wasn’t too scared of dad recognizing me if mom didn’t. Mom and I seemed to be a lot closer than dad and I were. It seemed funny as Elliot and dad were a lot closer than Elliot was to mom. I guess in an odd way our family balanced out.
Dad put his papers down and stood up. “Barbara, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I don’t like being called Sir, except by those I am supervising, and those I don’t like. You don’t seem to fit in either category. I would appreciate it if you would call me dad.”
My heart jumped back up into my throat again. “…dad…,” came out as a hoarse whisper.
Dad laughed and shook his head. “Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea? You make it sound like a dirty word. Think you could give me just a little more respect than that? After all, I am older than you.”
“Cough, cough…, I didn’t mean to dad…, I mean…, I didn’t mean to make it sound like I didn’t respect you, Sir.” Cowards die a thousand deaths, a hero only one. I was dying a thousand deaths. I wanted nothing more than to slink away and truly die.
He walked over and put his arm around my shoulder as he urged me to turn around and walk with him back to the kitchen. “There you go again with the Sir bit. You are a beautiful, well mannered, young lady. I can only imagine how proud your parents are of you. I know I’d be proud if you were my daughter.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as I walked back into the kitchen with dad’s arm on my shoulder. Guess what dad, I am your daughter! I killed your son and took his place. Okay, Judy and Elliot killed your son and made me take his place. Don’t worry dad, I’ll get revenge for you. I’m going to kill Judy and Elliot for killing your son.
All of us sit down to fix our sandwiches when Elliot and Tug came into the kitchen. Elliot looked at his watch. “Coach wants us back at the court in thirty minutes.”
Judy looked up at Elliot and shrugged her shoulders. “What for?”
“Said he had some questions. When Coach says he wants something, you don’t ask why.” Elliot was slapping meat on bread so he could eat before we had to leave.
In a little more than ten minutes all of us were piled back into Elliot’s Mustang headed out of the driveway. It dawned on me we had left the football uniforms. “Elliot, the uniforms.”
“Coach wanted us not the uniforms.” Elliot checked for traffic before he pulled back up on the boulevard, headed back toward the high school.
I couldn’t imagine why Coach Barney would want Elliot and Tug to come back to the gym.
When the four of us walked into the gym I thought I had walked into a coach’s conference. The girls head coach, Mrs. Lilly Trander was sitting in the bleachers with her assistant, Coach Johnson. Coach Barney was there with his assistant, Mr. Benjamin Ackers. The baseball coach Mr. Irving Landers was also there.
Four high school girls were at the far end shooting baskets. I recognized all of them. They were going to be seniors and were first string players on the Lady Wildcats basketball team. Beverly Thomas stood six foot two. She was a guard and a fair shooter close to the basket. Linda Shaffer was six three and a decent shooter close to the basket. Jo was five eleven. Her numbers were erratic. She could be on fire one game and cold as ice the next. Sally Ann was six foot. She was a high percentage shooter inside the three point circle. Outside the circle, her numbers dropped to less than thirty percent.
Coach Barney pointed to our group as we walked into the gym. Mrs Trander picked up the whistle and blew it. The girls stopped shooting baskets. The basketballs spread out across the gym except for the one Sally Ann was holding.
Elliot leaned over and took my arm. “They want you to play with them.” He turned loose and walked over to the bleachers with Tug and Judy.
Naturally I followed him over. “What do you mean play with them? Elliot, those are seniors. I can’t play with those girls. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m five five. I’m outclassed, out sized, out of my league, and out of my mind.”
Elliot smirked as he nodded in agreement. “Well, you had the last one right. Give it a try and see what happens will you? Please Barbara?”
“Two players to a team.” Mrs. Trander yelled across the gym.
Sally Ann dropped the basketball and kicked it in my direction. “Offense, and Barbara is on my team.”
Jo headed for the bleachers to sit with Elliot and the others. “This oughta be good.”
Beverly looked over at Linda and laughed. “Like taking candy from a baby. Do we spot them fifty points now to keep from embarrassing them too much?”
I stepped up and put my toe under the basketball as it rolled up to me, kicking it up into my hands. “I am outta my ever loving mind.”
“Cute trick but it don’t score you any points doll face.” Beverly hollered across the gym.
“Bet you can’t do that trick.” Jo hollered from the sidelines where she was sitting.
“Tricks don’t put points on the scoreboard. Tell Miss Barbie Doll she is holding a basketball and it has to go through the hoop to score points.” Beverly volleyed back, in her best sarcastic voice.
Sally Ann walked up beside me. “We are offense, Miss Mouth and friend are defense. How do you want to do this?”
“You tell me. I’m not a basketball player.” I held the basketball out to Sally Ann.
“You going to let Miss Mouth get away without making her eat her words?” Sally Ann refused to accept the ball.
“They’re just words. Okay, they like to guard close into the backboard. We take it to them and put two points on the board before they figure out what happened.” I bounced the ball a couple times and bounced a pass to Sally Ann.
“That’s a plan.” Sally Ann started dribbling the ball and walked toward the two girls. I headed out across the court to the opposite side of Sally Ann. Beverly and Linda would hold their positions, thinking we would try and work in close for a shot.
Sally Ann did work in close. When Linda moved out to block her, Sally Ann shot the ball to me. I didn’t even bounce it as I caught it and sent it up and over Beverly, who had yet to move into a blocking position. Two points went up on the scoreboard as the ball hit nothing but net.
“Pure luck Miss Barbie Doll, I can promise it won’t be that easy a second time.” Beverly caught the ball and tossed it back in my direction.
Sally Ann and I took it back out past the half court line. I tossed it back into her. She started moving toward the basket. I stayed off to her left by about four feet. Beverly and Linda knew this was too easy. Sally Ann and I were an easy block as the girls moved out a couple steps to block us. Sally Ann made a line drive throw in my direction and I sent it straight for the basket. It clipped the rim and went in. Two more points went up on the scoreboard.
Beverly and Linda were looking more confused than serious. Beverly was glaring at me. “I’ll give you this much Little Miss Barbie Doll, you seem to be able to shoot when the pressure isn’t on. Don’t expect a free ride from now on. I got your number, wench.”
“You do? Darn, I thought it was unlisted.” I shot back, as Sally Ann and I headed for the half court line.
Sally Ann stepped across the half court line, turned and passed the ball into me. I started dribbling toward the basket in a slow walk as Sally Ann passed me and closed in on the backboard. Linda must have thought we were going to close in and shoot before they had a chance to set up a defense. She backpedaled to keep up with Sally Ann, who stopped and spun around before Linda could catch back up. I shot the basketball to Sally Ann. Linda was coming back to block the shot. Sally Ann sidestepped and faked a pump to the basket. Linda jumped to block the shot.
I darn near laughed as Linda and Beverly weren’t jumpers by any imagination. Getting air past one foot above the floor wasn’t in their game. One game I saw Sally Ann spring four feet up and pump a shot. When Linda was coming back down, Sally Ann was going up. I don’t know if she cleared four feet or not, but she was on oxygen when she hit altitude. The ball lazily drifted into the basket, rolling around the rim before it fell through. Six points were on the scoreboard.
“Okay wenches, we are through playing kids games. Gloves are off, and you bitches are though making points.” Beverly was using the oldest trick in the book. Get the opposing team mad and they start making mistakes.
“Bitches huh? I’m surprised it took you this long to recognize a girl when you are looking at one. I guess a late compliment from the gay crowd is better than none.” I hollered back as Sally Ann and I started back to half court again.
Sally Ann’s eyes got as big as saucers as her head snapped around to stare at me. “Barbara, be careful. Beverly and Linda get mean and rough when they get mad. They will run over you to hurt you, even if it draws a penalty.”
“Good. Let them get mad. If they are mad they have already lost the game.” I stepped across the half court line and tossed the ball back to Sally Ann.
Linda and Beverly came out to meet us this time. They weren’t laying back waiting for us to close in past the three point circle. Sally Ann headed off to her right with the basketball. I stayed about four feet to her left. Beverly and Linda made the mistake of giving me too much space, while trying to close in on Sally Ann. Sally Ann shot the ball in my direction, I caught it and jump pushed it toward the basket before Beverly could take up a defensive position. She held out her arm and made the effort, but it was too little too late. Three more points went up on the scoreboard.
“Don’t try it again Little Miss Bitch. It won’t work.” Beverly tossed at me as I turned to walk back to center court.
Obviously I had gone from Little Miss Barbie Doll to Little Miss Bitch. I was feeling testy. “Take up basket weaving sweety. It’s obvious basketball isn’t your game.”
“YOU ARE HISTORY BITCH! I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU EAT THAT BALL!” Rattled around the gym.
I accomplished on Beverly what she had been trying to do to me. She had lost her cool. Now she would be making gross errors in judgment trying to punish me instead of blocking me. I tossed the ball into Sally Ann. She was taking it to the basket when Linda came charging out. Beverly was charging in my direction. The girls were determined to shut us down. Sally Ann pumped a fake. Linda didn’t buy it. She knew Sally Ann wasn’t that good past the three point circle. I faked left and Beverly changed course to intercept me. The problem with big girls is they need a lot of time to change directions. I was at a full run headed across the gym toward Sally Ann as she shot a line drive into my hands. Beverly was too far behind me to catch up as I drove toward the basket. Linda moved to block, but she was too far away to be effective. I pumped an easy shot from a couple feet out. With my momentum the ball would hit the backboard and bounce back into the net.
What I didn’t expect was Beverly who had closed in behind me. When the ball left my hands, Beverly reached to block it. She managed to get enough of a piece of it to make it miss the center of the backboard. It hit the edge and fell to the floor. Beverly could have stopped. She didn’t as she drove me into the wall at the back of the gym. All hundred and sixty nine pounds of her.
I was road kill as I threw my hands up to keep my face from plowing into the wall. It may have been padded, but it was a wall never the less. As I crashed into the wall with Beverly on my back, things turned gray. I heard a whistle.
“Sorry Coach, I couldn’t stop.” Beverly backed off me.
Sally Ann was there as she held me up. “Barbara, you okay?”
“I’m okay. Did you get the license plate number of that truck?” My world was finally coming back into focus.
“You did that on purpose.” Sally Ann turned her wrath toward Beverly.
“I swear it was an accident. My feet got caught up and I tripped.” Beverly was trying her best to look ashamed. It wasn’t working as her mouth was smiling and her eyes were dancing with delight.
I caught Sally Ann by the arm. “Don’t let it get to you. Let’s get even by putting another few points up on the board.”
“You’re finished Bitch. No more points.” Beverly hissed so no one, besides Sally Ann and I, could hear.
I felt Sally Ann stiffen. “Let it go. Points, punish them where it really hurts. Points. Nothing else hurts nearly as bad.”
She relaxed as she looked into my eyes. “You’re not only pretty, but you’re smart. And you’re right. Let’s hurt her.”
I did a high five with Sally Ann as we headed back toward half court. “That’s the idea.”
I stepped across the half court and passed it in to Sally Ann. She took off at a dead run, headed straight for the basket and Beverly and Linda set up a double team block. This was their kind of basketball where they subdued the opposite team with brute size. I was right behind Sally Ann. Two feet from the girls Sally Ann passed the ball behind her back to me. Beverly and Linda were out of position to block me as Sally Ann was in between us. I sent it home. Three more points went up on the scoreboard.
I gave Beverly my sincerest smile. “How’s that Sugar?”
“Up yours.” Beverly shot back with venom.
I give Sally Ann another high five. I knew it would be getting under Beverly’s skin every time now. The sweeter I was to her, the madder she would get.
Beverly and Linda followed us out to the half court. They were going to take this one on one and shut us down. Sally Ann stepped across the half court. I headed across the court with Beverly right on my back. I faked in. She didn’t buy it this time as she stayed with me. The next step I spun and shot past her going back toward Sally Ann. Sally Ann tossed me the ball. I headed toward the basket with Beverly two steps behind. I didn’t try to fake her out, I just zig zagged and let it go. Beverly had too much body mass to keep up with my sharp turns and she fell behind. The ball was headed for net before she could catch up. I didn’t try and stop in front of her. I had learned my lesson. I was still at a full run as I zigged and charged toward the sidelines. Beverly plowed into the padding at the back wall.
I headed back toward the half court. Beverly was coming up breathing hard. She stopped and took up defense outside the three point circle. Sally Ann lobbed the ball up over Linda’s head. I caught it, turned, and took my shot, twelve feet out from Beverly and the three point circle.
Beverly turned as the ball sailed up over her head and watched in disbelief as it settled into the net. “NO WAY!”
Jo stood up in the bleachers and shouted across the court. “YES WAY! WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN?”
Beverly turned and looked at me with eyes questioning what they had just witnessed. “Do it again, Sweet Cheeks.”
The ball was passed back out to Sally Ann. Again she lobbed it up over Linda’s head who, by this time, was back peddling to try and block it. Beverly was charging from her position. I caught it, turned, and made the throw as I sidestepped out of the girls way. They barely missed crashing into each other as the ball passed through the net.
Beverly stopped and shook her head as she looked across the gym toward Mrs. Trander. “I can’t stop her. She’s too small. What am I supposed to be doing out here anyway?”
“Learning, Beverly. Watch and learn. Barbara, Coach Johnson said you could do that from half court. Care to show me?” Mrs Trander stood up as she answered Beverly.
“I’m not that good from half court.” My percentages went down to less than seventy percent from that distance.
“Let me see it anyway.” Mrs Trander wasn’t taking no for an answer.
“Me too.” Sally Ann rolled a ball across the gym floor in my direction.
I sighed as I caught it with my toe and tossed it up into my hands. I really wasn’t that good. I dribbled out past half court and took a mental picture of the ball going into the basket. I ran forward and launched it underhanded like a softball. I looked over at Elliot and shook my head. It wasn’t going in. It sailed up toward the ceiling and started down. Hitting the rim, it bounced six feet back up into the air before it sailed over the top of the backboard.
Another ball was rolling across the floor in my direction. I caught it and tossed it up before back peddling for distance. Again I ran forward and launched it. I turned and winked at Elliot as I headed toward him and the others. I was halfway there when the ball clipped the rim and shot through the net like a bullet. With the kind of energy needed to launch those balls, they either made an almost perfect basket, or they weren’t going in as they bounced off the rim.
“She couldn’t shoot like that if the teams were on the court. There would be too many girls and not enough room.” Beverly was positive what she was seeing wouldn’t work in a real game between teams.
Mrs. Trander looked in my direction and nodded. “Maybe, maybe not. The thing you aren’t seeing is the whole picture. Barbara is a threat to any opposing team who can’t contain her shots. Even if she isn’t personally putting points on the board, the other members of her team are able to get in and score because someone has to guard against letting Barbara get open.”
“She may be able to shoot but she’s too short to block. The other team would be able to run up the score.” Beverly knew short girls didn’t belong on the basketball court.
“So you are saying, the other team puts a girl up against Barbara and starts making points because Barbara is too short to effectively block the other girl? If your theory is right then the opposing team makes two points, Barbara goes down and makes three. It goes on until the end of the game. Who wins?”
Mrs. Trander was smiling. “Barbara, what is your grade point?”
I glanced at Elliot and looked down at my feet in embarrassment. “Four oh.” It was the only thing I was better at than Elliot. He carried a three point nine.
“What is your percentage from the free throw line?”
“Uh, about seventy percent, I guess.” I really didn’t care to explain my percentage.
“That’s a lie. She is a hundred percent. She never misses.” Elliot shot back at me.
Bless my big brother’s big mouth. I wanted to choke him. Actually I did miss from time to time, when I wasn’t paying attention.
Tug turned his head to look Elliot in the eyes to see if he was pulling a funny or was telling the truth. “She’s that good, really?”
Mrs. Trander shook her head as she studied me. “Barbara, can we talk you into transferring from your school to join the Wildcats? I promise you a place on the Lady Wildcats Team. With the uniform you are wearing it looks like to me you are already an honorary member of our cheerleaders.”
I glanced down at the name Toni embroidered on the left breast of my Wildcat cheerleader uniform. “Un…, thanks Coach. I’m going to stay where I’m at…, with the…, them…” I had forgot what school Judy told Jo I was from.
“She’s with the Dallas Mavericks, or Fighting Mavericks.” Sally Ann offered.
Oh thanks a lot Sally Ann. I’m still not transferring. I’m not really there am I? As much as I enjoyed this little game, I was wishing Elliot hadn’t brought me down here.
“I see. Okay, I hope you change your mind. Would you shoot a few more baskets for us?” Mrs. Trander glanced at the other coaches sitting behind her. They nodded in agreement.
Beverly moaned.
Mrs. Trander closed her eyes and shook her head. “Okay Beverly, I get the message. Jo, you want to see if you can block her?”
OH NO! Miss Greased Lightning. Jo was fast; I mean really really fast. She could turn on a dime and hand back a quarter in change. She not only had quick body movements, she had fast hands. It was a rare game when she didn’t steal the ball from the opposing team, usually three or four times every game. I wasn’t going to be able to out maneuver her or out run her. She could jump like a gazelle and run like a deer. She really could shove that ball back down into my face if I tried to shoot with her in front of me or in my back pocket. Think girl, think! My game plan was... I had none.
“I’ll try.” Jo stood up and bounced out onto the gym floor.
As she headed to the bench, Beverly looked in my direction and blew me a kiss. It was the kiss of death. Beverly knew I was toast. I had met my Waterloo. Her name was Jo.
Well guess what? I had no doubt Beverly was right! Jo was a grinder for anyone who went up against her. I wasn’t going to out psych her. Jo didn’t lose her cool. When she got mad she got faster. Call me Miss Hamburger and package me up now to spare me the shame and pain.
Sally Ann walked over and pulled me in to a huddle. “Jo is quick. Don’t think you can out maneuver her like you did Beverly. Her only fault is she is usually too fast to set her feet when trying to block a run. Don’t stop if she gets in front of you. Pull a foul and get your free shots.”
I shook my head. “Coach said I was a threat even if I wasn’t shooting. Right? I’ll pull her off and you make the shots. Linda favors her left when blocking. She is used to defending against right handed girls. It’s her weakness. I’ve watched you shoot. You do all right with either hand. Shoot with your left to get your baskets past Linda.”
Sally Ann turned loose and backed up to study me. “You figured all that out in the past thirty minutes?”
“Uh…, let’s see if we can’t get the ball into the basket.” I headed out to the half court line.
A ball came rolling out in my direction and I picked it up. Jo wasn’t crowding me. She knew I’d get the ball to Sally Ann. Jo wasn’t going to start her defense until the ball was in play. I passed it to Sally Ann and was at a full run before it left my hands, to get some space between Jo and me. It didn’t work. Jo was right with me step for step, making sure I didn’t get free to receive the ball from Sally Ann. I plowed to a stop, did a reverse and cut back across court. Jo was better than good. She probably hit the brakes faster than I did. She could certainly out run me. She was pacing me as I ran back past Linda and Sally Ann. It only worked because Jo had to make a swerve out to get around Linda. Sally Ann shot me the ball. I made a jump into the air to shoot. I knew it was coming but really didn’t believe it when Jo was up in the air with her hands out, making sure that, as that ball left my hands, it was going to end up in her hands.
I let the ball fly not where Jo was expecting, but back down for a bounce behind Linda’s back. Sally Ann was headed that direction. She caught it, ran up to the basket, and passed it in.
Jo was grinning as we walked back to the half court line. “That was smart. I like that.”
“Don’t expect it do it again, right?” Unlike Beverly, Jo didn’t let the other girl outfox her twice. She was one tough cookie and super smart to go along with it. It was a triple whammy, fast, smart, tough. A team didn’t need more than a couple girls like Jo to win their games.
Again I passed the ball in to Sally Ann. She was working hard to get close enough to the basket to take a shot as I zig zagged across the court, trying to lose Jo. I passed by Sally Ann headed toward the basket and she shot me the ball. Jo was closing in on my right. She reached out to steal the ball. I had watched too many of her games and knew what she was going to do. I braked left. Jo went by me and was instantly in my face. I made a jump to pump the ball into the basket. Jo went up with me. I shot the ball back down between my legs to Sally Ann who was behind me.
Sally Ann should have jumped and shot. Her problem was she wanted those two points too badly. She tried to close in on the basket to lower her percentages of error. Linda might have been left behind but Jo was in front. When Sally Ann finally decided to try it was too late. She went up, Jo went up with her. I figured both girls needed oxygen in the rare atmosphere they were breathing up there. Both of them were half deer.
Sally Ann pushed the ball toward the basket, Jo had both hands on it and came down with it in her arms. There was no doubt if we had been playing a real game Jo would be down at the other end in less than a heart beat and make two points for the Lady Wildcats.
Jo handed the ball over to me. “Two points for our side.”
“I know. I wish I could jump like you and Sally Ann.” I really did wish I could jump like those girls.
Jo walked beside me back out to the half court line. “I wish I could shoot half as good as you do. Each of us has our good points and our bad points. I’d take shooting over jumping any day, if I had a choice.”
She backed up to give me some space. “Come on girl let’s play ball.”
We did play ball for another ten minutes. Sally Ann and I only gained six more points. The only points I made were when I faked Jo out, up close to the basket. I was dribbling the ball pushing in hard, Jo was back peddling as she didn’t have a chance to set her feet and block without pulling a foul. I instantly started back peddling and took my shot as I gained a little space from her. Jo took flight to drag it down but it wasn’t to be. She could jump, but not quite that high.
Jo gave me a wink and a smile as the ball settled through the hoop. “Good shot!”
“Lucky shot you mean.” A compliment from Jo was as good as winning a medal. The girl was a super tough competitor.
Mrs. Trander blew her whistle. “That’s it. Ladies, it was a great exhibition. Miss Peck, I hope you will consider a transfer.”
“Thank you Coach. I don’t think so. It was kind of you to offer.” I was positive Barbara Peck wasn’t transferring from the Mavericks to the Wildcats. There was no way the Mavericks would ever find a transcript or a transfer for Barbara Peck, since I was the girl who wasn’t in their system. She was going to be a girl who never was from anywhere after Judy and Elliot decided they had their fun.
Jo held out her hand for a handshake. “Barbara, I wouldn’t want to play against you, except for fun. Give that transfer some serious thought. You’re already signed up for the cheerleaders.
I shook her hand as I wondered what she meant by I was signed up for the cheerleaders? “Thanks.”
I knew what a full court press was. Every year since his seventh grade, several of the coaches from surrounding schools tried to get Elliot to transfer to their particular school. I had no idea what Coach Johnson told these other coaches he had seen over at the Pro Gym, to make them want to see me shoot a few baskets. I might have been tempted to try out for the Lady Wildcats, except I wasn’t one. I was glad to be leaving this behind us as I walked out of the gym with Elliot, Tug, and Judy.
Chapter 7 will follow in a few days. Please don't forget to comment on the story, and kudo the author. This is a massive 80,000 word novel. Thank you, from the author and the editor.
Normal isn’t a word I would use to describe the next four days although they seemed to graduate toward normal at the time. I mean, do something often enough and it becomes acceptable, even if it isn’t what one would call normal. That week, day by day, Judy was slowly becoming my big sister. She couldn’t and wouldn’t replace Elliot as my big brother. It was a weird situation to say the least. The odd part was I beginning to like it. Of course I protested Monday morning when Judy laid out a pink mini skirt and pink satin blouse for me to wear that day. Really it wasn’t any shorter than the Wildcat cheerleader uniform I wore Sunday. There is a psychological difference between wearing a cheerleader uniform with a mini skirt, and an everyday mini skirt. Both show the same amount of leg. A lady must remember to keep her legs together when she sits down.
Judy picked out a soft pale blue miniskirt and a blue silk blouse to wear. That girl was so fashion coordinated she must have been handed instructions while still inside her mom’s womb.
Looking back, I realized Elliot and Judy planned awfully hard to make sure I was exposed to the world as Barbara as much as humanly possible. There weren’t any quiet days at home. Monday, mini skirt and all, we made two different malls and browsed all the stores. Thankfully Judy and I were wearing sneakers instead of heels or flats. Elliot gave me a hundred dollars to carry before we entered the mall. At Speeds Shoes inside the Kingsford Mall, Judy and I purchased sneakers to replace the ones we had borrowed with the Wildcat uniforms. It was one of the unwritten rules that, when a girl borrowed a uniform and sneakers, she replaced the sneakers with a new pair.
Actually it was kind of nice to think the sneakers I was wearing were picked out by a Wildcat cheerleader named Toni. It’s that psychological thing again. We made it back to Sherry and Ethan’s house around six for dinner. I guess I was getting use to mom and dad seeing me as Barbara instead of Buddy. I was hesitant instead of scared when Elliot pulled up into our driveway.
Sherry and Ethan were in the den watching TV when we walked in. Mom smiled as she turned her attention in my direction. “Barbara, you and Judy look…, cute. What did you and Judy do today? I bet you had fun whatever it was.”
“We went to the malls, Mrs. Peck.” Actually, I did have fun.
Sherry rose off the couch, walked over and put her arm around my shoulder as she steered me toward the kitchen. “Call me mom, hon. Ethan isn’t too keen on being called Mr. Peck either. Remember to call him dad while you’re here. If you don’t mind, help me set the table. I have a roast ready in the oven. You can tell me what you and Judy looked at while cruising the malls.”
Cruising the malls? I never heard mom say it quite like that. I guess it was a good explanation of what we had done all day. “Judy found a bracelet she liked at Gordman’s Jewelry. It was silver with a double helix filigree design. She called Miriam and asked if she could buy it. I think Miriam told Judy to think about it for a week. If she still wanted it then, she could buy it.”
“Sounds like good advice to me. Judy might not be so smitten by the bracelet if she has to wait to buy it next week. Was it worth the price they were asking? Gordman’s is an upscale jeweler. They are on the pricey side.” Sherry was taking the roast out of the oven.
Looking at the diamond tennis bracelet Judy slipped on my left wrist that morning, along with the matching watch, I gave it some thought before I answered. “The bracelet was on sale which is what caught Judy’s eye. I doubt she would wear it more than once or twice and then put it in her jewelry chest to be forgotten. No, I guess it wouldn’t be worth the price to wear a couple times. I think Judy realized as much before she called Miriam.”
Sherry turned to study me as she nodded in agreement. “Judy is a very level headed girl. If Ethan and I had a daughter I would wish for her to be as smart and as pretty as Judy.”
“I wish I was half as pretty as you and Judy…,” Slipped out before my brain engaged.
Mom’s face and her eyes changed in a very small indefinable way. It didn’t dawn on me at the time as I was too embarrassed by my verbal slip. Looking back, that was the instant I thought mom realized the truth about her daughter.
Mom walked over and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into her breasts as she laid her head up against mine. “Judy is a beautiful young lady. You have a different beauty than Judy. You’re a very beautiful young lady Barbara. I know your mom is proud of you.”
She pushed back and headed for the hallway. “Excuse me, I must have something in my eye.”
I couldn’t help but notice that mom’s voice changed pitch, like she was mad or upset. Mom and I were close. Close enough we usually could feel each other’s emotions without saying anything. At that moment there was no doubt in my mind she knew I was Buddy and not Barbara. Was it possible she was in on this situation with Elliot and Judy? If she did know, why would she go along with the charade?
Needing something akin to normal I set to finishing getting dinner on the table. The same thing I had helped mom do the past ten years. I was on auto pilot when I retrieved the meat platter out of the cabinet and placed the roast on it, before setting it on the table. Gravy, mashed potatoes were in the microwave. The green beans were on top the stove along with the cooked carrots. The garlic bread would still be in the oven. I knew where mom left the food as this was the same way we had done it since I could remember.
Mom walked back into the kitchen as I finished placing the plates and silverware on the table. It was time to call the others to dinner. She looked at me for long, long seconds, her lips quivering as she tried to speak. Shaking her head, she turned and walked back out of the kitchen.
There was no doubt mom knew and I had upset her. Was it because I was acting like a girl or...? I only knew I had upset her for whatever reason. I headed to the living room where the others were watching TV. “Dinner’s on the table.”
Dad was the first one up. “Great, I’m starved.” He headed for the kitchen.
I caught Elliot by the sleeve as he walked by me. “We gotta talk.”
Elliot stopped, with a puzzled look on his face. “What’s up Barbara?”
“Outside, the car.” I headed for the front door.
Elliot and Judy walked out behind me and followed me to the car. I didn’t get in. Instead I walked around to the other side away from the house and turned around to face Elliot as he and Judy approached. “This has gone too far. Mom knows. I’ve hurt her. We can’t do this any more. Change me back.”
Elliot and Judy looked at each other before he turned his attention back in my direction. “Barbara, we can’t.”
He held up his hand before I could say anything. “Hear me out. There are a lot of reasons we can’t. You, Barbara, has to go home to Dallas Friday. Everyone knows you are only here for a visit. Barbara has to go home.”
“But…,”
“Listen, I’m not through. There isn’t any instant out in this situation. I’m afraid the tool for removing the earrings hasn’t arrived yet. I’m sure my brother isn’t going to make mom and dad happy if he shows up wearing the earrings Barbara has been wearing the past few days. Are you positive mom knows? Are you that sure something else might not have upset her? Remember, we are talking about mom. I’ve seen her cry when the pie didn’t turn out to her perfection.”
“Well…,” No, I wasn’t that sure. I thought mom knew. Maybe it could have been something else that upset her?
“Barbara, don’t start counting yourself out unless you’re absolutely positive. Even then, Buddy can’t come home. He’s at church camp. It will be after the trip to Dallas before Buddy can come back.” Elliot waited for a response from me.
I wasn’t positive mom knew. I thought I knew. It was possible I could be mistaken. The idea of being Buddy with Barbara’s earrings didn’t appeal to me. If I had my druthers I would rather be Barbara wearing Barbara’s earrings. I looked down at my pink mini skirt and brushed it down with my hands. “I can’t hurt mom or dad. No matter what, I’m not going to hurt them. Barbara disappears and Buddy doesn’t come home from church camp if that is what it takes. Are we clear? I swear I’ll run away before I hurt mom and dad.”
Elliot got a dead serious look on his face. “We’re clear. Buddy, I’ve never lied to you. No one is going to get hurt. This was supposed to be fun. Tell me honestly, do you really mind being my beautiful cousin Barbara from Dallas? Didn’t you have fun at the prom Friday night? It sure looked like you were having fun at the park Saturday. It looked like you were having fun trying out for the cheerleaders with Judy and the others. I know you were having fun showing off for those guys by making those impossible shots in the gym. And…,”
I nodded in agreement. Some of it was scary. Knowing Elliot wouldn’t let anything happen to me made it less scary. Judy was a lot of fun as the sister I never had. I didn’t want them to think I was having too much fun. “Well, yeah, I guess.”
“Mom and dad are going to be wondering what happened to us. Let’s go eat.” Elliot put his hand in the small of Judy’s back. He motioned for me to step up to the opposite side. “Come on, cousin Barbara.”
It was the exact thing I needed to give me the courage to walk back into the house. Elliot always did have a way of making me feel he was between the world and me, no matter what might happen. I was the luckiest kid in the whole world to have a big brother like Elliot, whether I was Buddy or Barbara.
Mom and dad were seated at the table when the three of us walked back into the house. Dad looked up as a smile spread across his face. “I thought I was going to have to come drag you kids to the table. Sherry won’t let me eat until we say grace.”
It was one of the things we usually did around the dinner table, unless we were scattered due to sports or something and coming in at odd hours. We also took turns, after a fashion. It was Elliot’s turn to say grace. He usually klutzed it on purpose. The last time it was his turn he bowed his head and chuckled before he said, “Food is good when it is hot. Food is bad when it is cold. Let us eat it before we grow old. Amen!” If mom would have laid her hands on something I think she would have smacked him that time.
I really expected Elliot to get cute this time too as we sat down at the table.
He bowed his head. “God bless this food. We are blessed to have three beautiful women grace our table as we share this food. Thank you for showering us with such abundance. Amen.”
In shock I looked up.
Judy was looking back. She smiled and winked at me. “Thank you Elliot. Us girls appreciate the compliment.”
“We sure do. Thank you Elliot for the compliment. That was very sweet of you.” Mom gave Elliot a smile.
“Thanks” I mumbled as my face flushed in embarrassment.
“All true, I assure you.” Elliot’s eyes were dancing as he looked at Judy.
“May I eat now?” Dad was staring at the roast.
“Ethan…,” Mom looked at dad.
“What? I know I have three beautiful ladies at the table. I married the prettiest girl in the whole world. Barbara is a Peck. It stands to reason she’s a beautiful lady. Judy comes from excellent stock. She couldn’t help but be a beautiful lady, even if she tried not to be.” Dad’s voice was filled with laughter.
Mom looked around the table. “Ladies, we are dining with two handsome gentlemen this evening. Please let’s eat. Barbara helped set the table. Barbara your help was most appreciated. Thank you.
“You’re welcome Mrs. Peck.” Needless to say, I was extra careful to mind my manners as the food was passed around the table. I was still thinking mom knew. It was one of those feelings that wouldn’t go away.
Tuesday morning Judy’s parents left before I was wide awake. Judy motioned me to follow her as soon as I rolled out of bed. We ended up in the back sun porch. She dropped a towel around my shoulders after she had me sit down on a stool.
“What’s up?” I was curious what Judy had planned.
“I’m going to trim and shape your hair.” She started brushing my hair forward over my face.
“I like my hair the way it is. Judy, don’t ruin it. I don’t like it short.” Most of my life I wore my hair down past my shoulders.
“I’m not going to shorten it. I’m going to shape it. Hush and let me work.” She was busy with the scissors.
Twenty or thirty minutes later she stopped and backed up to look. “I like it. Let’s get dressed.”
“Okay, where’s the mirror? What did you do?” I could see hair on the floor around my feet.
Without answering she led me back to the bedroom and plopped me down in front of the dresser where she went to work with a vengeance with the makeup. After she was satisfied with the makeup she pulled a full slip out of the drawer and a red silk dress out of the closet. “Get dressed while I get ready.”
Forty minutes later Judy had transformed into a beautiful young lady. She was no longer a teenager, with the makeup tricks she had applied. If I had to guess, I would guess her at twenty to twenty two. She put so much sizzle into her makeup I figured there wasn’t any sizzle left for any other girl in the world. She slipped into a bustier style, black velvet dress with a matching bolero jacket. The jacket had white scrolled embroidery on it. She was wearing four inch, black velvet pumps with an ankle strap. A diamond choker, diamond bracelets, and diamond dangle earrings finished out her attire.
She picked up a black shoulder purse with a gold chain strap. She turned around one time and put her hands on her hips. “What do you think?”
I would have traded my whole life to look half as pretty as her right then. She was so hot! “Words aren’t enough. There isn’t a prettier girl in the whole world. I’m so jea…,”
Judy giggled. “Jealous Barbara? Hon, have you looked in the mirror? I don’t think you are running any seconds here. Step over here and let us finish you up.”
She handed me a bolero jacket that matched the red silk dress I was wearing. It had rhinestones in swirled patterns down both sides. There was a matching shoulder purse and stiletto heeled pumps with a four inch heel.
She handed me a second bracelet and finished up by placing long dangle, miniature, chandelier earrings in my ears. They softly tinkled and reflected and sparkled with the slightest movement of my head. I was beginning to feel a little 'wow' myself.
Judy took my hand and led me back over to the dresser. She brushed my hair so it shadowed my face. “What do you think now?”
When Judy trimmed my hair she had cut it, so it now feathered toward the sides of my face. I was looking into the mirror at a young woman. With Judy’s makeup tricks she had turned me into a twenty to twenty two year old. There wasn’t any sign of Buddy in there any place. The teenager was gone, along with the boy.
“Wow! Is that me?” I reached out to touch the mirror. It was impossible to believe I was the young woman I was looking at. There were no mirror magic tricks there. I was touching me in the mirror.
“You like?” Came from the young woman standing behind me.
“May I keep her?” I looked at Judy’s reflection after I thought about what I had said. “Judy…,” No matter how hard I wanted to say I would rather be Barbara instead of Buddy, I just couldn’t.
“We’re ready any time.” Judy pulled the cell phone out of her purse and was talking to someone on the other end. “Five minutes? Great.”
“Let’s get a snack and go.” Judy was motioning for me to follow her again.
“Where are we going?” For the first time since Judy and Elliot had transformed me, I wanted someone, anyone to see the person I was looking at in the mirror. I rose and followed Judy into the kitchen.
She dropped a couple popups into the toaster. “I am going to go apply for my driver’s license today.”
I stopped before I retrieved a couple glasses out of the cabinet. “And you dressed up for…, Wait a second. You are only fifteen, the same as me. You can’t get your driver’s license yet. Last time I checked, a person had to be sixteen for that.”
Judy laughed as she pointed toward the cabinet. “Glasses and milk Barbara. Elliot is going to be here in a few minutes to take us down to the license department.”
I retrieved the glasses and headed for the fridge and milk. “Did you hear what I said? Fifteen qualifies you for a scooter license. Is that what you are going after?”
There was the sound of a car horn outside as the toaster coughed up two popups. Judy snatched them up, handed one to me, took the extra glass of milk and headed for the door. “Ride is here. We eat in the car.”
The doorbell rang just as Judy opened the door. Elliot was standing there in a suit and tie. He blinked as he stared at Judy. He never said it but mouthed the word, WOW!
Judy nodded her head in my direction. “Take a look at your cousin Barbara.”
Elliot leaned over to look past Judy…, and coughed. “Oh my god! Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing? Is that really her?”
Judy nodded again. “Hot huh?”
“Uh…, ah…, gulp…, well…, I mean if she wasn’t my…, yeah…, yeah, she is.” Elliot stepped aside to let us pass.
He closed the door behind us and then beat it to the car to open the door for Judy and me.
I slid into the back before Judy slid into the front.
Elliot soon had the little Mustang headed out to the boulevard. Fifteen minutes later he was up on the freeway, headed east.
“You have the papers.” Judy finished up her popup and was licking her fingers.
“Got everything.” He slowed down, dropped off the freeway onto three eighty one headed north. The city was thinning out.
“Where we going?” I was curious as to why we were headed out of town? Judy said she was going to the DMV. I had no idea where it was at, but I was positive it wasn’t in the direction we were now headed.
“We are going to Vergus so Judy can take her driver’s license test.” Elliot glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
“Vergus? Why Vergus?” I couldn’t imagine why Judy would need to go to an itty bitty town sixty miles north, to take a driver’s test?
“No crowds, no waiting in line for hours. Enjoy the ride.” Elliot was talking like a big brother.
“Sure.” I didn’t think we were saving any time by driving for an hour each way instead of going to the DMV back in town. I leaned back to enjoy the scenery.
It was almost an hour and ten minutes later when Elliot pulled into a parking space in front of a small brick building in downtown Vergus. I wasn’t sure, but I bet the total population was one thousand to two thousand people.
Elliot killed the car, walked around and opened Judy’s door. “Let’s see.”
“Come on Barbara, you will get too hot sitting here in the car.” Judy slid out and waited.
I slid out and straightened my skirt.
Elliot held out an envelope toward me. “Listen to me. Even though you go by the name Barbara, your full name is Lady Barbara Peck. You mark all the sex questions as female. Tell me, what is your full name?”
“Lady? My first name is Lady?” I was wondering what these two were up to now?
“Lady Barbara Peck, mark all the sex questions as female.” He pushed the envelope into my hand.
Elliot gathered Judy and me up as he walked us up to the door. The building wasn’t any more impressive inside than it was outside.
There was a guy sitting behind a desk to our right. “May I help you?”
“We are here to take our driver’s test.” Judy motioned toward me as she answered.
WE! I felt my knees grow weak.
“Your names?” He was looking toward Judy to me.
“Judy Mecham” She pointed in my direction. “Lady Peck”
“Do you have the papers?” The man held out his hand.
Judy reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope like the one Elliot handed to me. She walked up and handed it to the guy.
He opened it up, pulled out a couple sheets, and unfolded them. He quickly scanned them before he looked up at me. “Miss Peck, your papers please.”
Hesitantly I walked up and handed him the envelope Elliot had passed to me outside.
He opened it up, took out the papers and scanned them even more quickly. “Okay.” He picked up a sheath of papers off the desk and handed it to Judy. “Miss Mecham, take a seat, answer all the questions, no time limit. Let me know when you are finished.”
He held out another stack of papers in my direction. “Miss Peck.”
It was an automatic response as I reached out and took them.
“Same thing, answer all the questions, no time limit, let me know when you’re finished.”
“Uh,” I was looking at a drivers test.
I followed Judy over across the room, where there were chairs and desks. What in the world was I doing? I picked up a pencil off the desk and started filling in the answers. It was only by sheer luck I had started studying the drivers manual a few months before, in preparation for driver’s ed this summer. Twenty four minutes later I was through. Now what? I looked up at the man on the other side of the room.
“Miss Peck I can’t help you. If you aren’t sure, take a guess at the answer, rather than leaving it blank.”
“Uh, no, I’m…, I’m finished.” I laid my pencil down.
“Finished? Okay, let me have it then.”
I rose from the chair, walked across the room, and handed him the papers.
He took a transparent overlay and placed it on the first page. Seconds later he flipped to the second page and laid another overlay on it. He went on to the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth pages. He laid it down and looked up at me. “Good. Ready for the driving test?”
“Driving test?” What in the world was I doing?
“Let’s see if you can drive as good as you can answer test questions.” He rose from the desk and headed for the door. “Miss Mecham, if you finish before we get back, lay your test sheet on the desk.”
“Yes Sir.” Judy was still working on the fifth page.
We walked out to Elliot’s Mustang. “Miss Lady Peck, if you will, get in and start the car. Turn on your right and then left blinkers while I check.”
“Sure.” I slid in and started up the Mustang. I turned on the right blinker, saw him nod, and then I turned on the left blinker.
He slid into the passenger side. “Back out, go straight down the street for three blocks and turn right.”
“I don’t have a license.” I was positive I didn’t want to be picked up driving without a license.
He laughed as he looked in my direction. “Miss Peck, this is one case where it is perfectly legal. The only way I am going to know if you are qualified to operate a motor vehicle is if you prove to me you can. Please, shall we proceed?”
I checked over my left shoulder, looked over my right for traffic. There wasn’t a car in sight so I backed out. Two and a half blocks down I turned on my right blinker and turned right at the next intersection.
“That’s good. Go down four blocks and turn right. Circle back around in front of the DMV and parallel park. It is marked for straight in parking. I want to see you parallel park. It isn’t a trick and it isn’t intended to make you do something illegal so I can flunk you. We don’t have parallel parking in this town so we make believe. I want you to make believe the only parking in front of the DMV is parallel parking.”
“Okay.” I made all the right signals as I circled around to park in front of the DMV building. I stopped in the street, checked for traffic and backed in parallel to the curb.
He leaned over to look at the curb. “Perfect. Okay, pull out and park it like it was before you got in it.”
I checked over my left shoulder for traffic, looked in the mirror, turned on my left blinker, checked the mirror and over my shoulder one more time, and pulled out. I circled the block and pulled back into the parking space in front of the building.
He nodded in agreement as he slid out of the car. “I usually get them the first time on that one. After they pull out they want to back down the street and pull into the parking space instead of going around. Everyone flunks the first time on that test.”
I killed the car and followed him back into the building.
He motioned me to a chair in front of a camera. “Please take a seat.”
He was adjusting the camera as I sat down in the chair. “Miss Peck, please do not look directly at the camera. It will give you red eye. Look off to about four or six inches to the side of the camera please.”
There was a flash. He walked to his desk and picked up the envelope I handed him earlier. He sat down and started typing into a computer. Minutes later he finished up and walked back across the room to the camera. There was a whir and a plastic card slid out. He reached up and pulled it the rest of the way out, inspecting it before he handed it to me.
It was still hot as I took it. I choked. I was looking at a Texas driver’s license issued to Lady Barbara Peck. There was no way this should be happening. How many legal papers did Elliot and Judy have to forge to make this happen?
Judy handed him her test sheets. He finished with them in minutes and motioned for the door. “You did good. Let’s go take the car test.”
“Good luck.” I hollered before I leaned over in Judy’s direction as she walked past me. “Don’t back up after parallel parking. Circle the block.” I whispered softly.
Twenty eight minutes later we were back in Elliot’s Mustang headed home. I was in shock. “I’m going to prison. God is going to punish me. I’m going to hell. Texas is going to send me to prison for lying on a driver’s test, for falsifying papers, for impersonating someone I’m not.
Judy turned around in the seat so she could look at me. “Barbara, listen to me. You aren’t going to prison. It is a hardship license. You can legally drive as long as you have a licensed older driver in the car with you.”
“Are you insane? I don’t qualify for a hardship license. Unless you and Elliot have completely lost all senses, I am certainly not the person on that license. That license was issued to Lady Barbara Peck. That is MISS Lady Barbara Peck. I’m going to prison if God doesn’t get me first. They will figure it out by morning. I’m going to prison.” I pushed the license up under her nose.
She took it and studied it for awhile. “You know, you’re very photogenic. You take pictures very well. The cameras like you.”
“I’m going to prison.” I wailed, as I rolled my eyes. “I lied on an official document.” What was it she didn’t understand about me going to prison?
She handed the license back to me. “Broken record hon. Let’s be very clear about this. You aren’t going to prison. Don’t do anything foolish with this license. Mind all your p’s and q’s when you are behind the wheel. Don’t do anything to get picked up for. If you are stopped, don’t panic. The license is a real license. It is registered in the DMV records. You are Lady Barbara Peck in the Texas Motor Department records. In four months provided, you haven’t picked up any tickets or violations, when you turn sixteen all you have to do is turn in this license. A new one will be issued without any restrictions.
“But I’m NOT Lady Barbara Peck. What is the matter with you two? I’m going to prison, if not tomorrow, certainly if I try to turn in this license.” I looked at the license, willing it to change to Buddy Ethan Peck. How could my life become so complicated in less than five days? Four and one half days ago I was Buddy, going to my last day in junior high. Now I was a career criminal, breaking every law in the country. I could see my picture, the picture I so willingly posed for in the DMV, going up on every Post Office wall in the country. I would be on the most wanted bulletin board. The FBI, CIA, NASA, FEMA, would have a rap sheet on me. I’d be on every milk carton, not as a lost child, but America’s Most Wanted.
I looked at that driver’s license which was my foray into the world of crime. I did look cute. The only redeeming factor was, when my picture ran on television’s Most Wanted, it wouldn’t look like a mug shot. I’d look cute. “I’m going to prison.”
Elliot glanced in the rear view mirror. “I heard that. Barbara, common usage still constitutes a legal name in some parts of this country. We may have stretched that one just a little. You are using Barbara Peck as a common usage name. We pushed the envelope a little, but we didn’t actually break it in the literal sense. Lady Barbara Peck is a common usage name. Think of it like this. Dad owns EDP. He signs the company checks as EDP, which is a legal name. It isn’t dad’s true name, but it's legal in every respect because he is EDP.”
“You are Lady Barbara Peck. Although you haven’t been using the name long enough to actually call it common usage, it is a gray area. One must start using a name at sometime before it actually is in use long enough to be called legal common usage.”
Studying the rhinestones on the front of my jacket I was wondering how I managed to get so deep into being Lady Barbara Peck? Not that I really minded, but wasn’t there something wrong with this picture? “I wonder if they are going to make me wear one of those ugly, black and white striped prison uniforms?”
Elliot and Judy burst out laughing. He glanced in Judy’s direction. “That is something I would expect you to say.”
“I’m not going to prison for that exact reason. Their uniforms are so ugly.” Judy giggled.
FROM THE EDITOR. Please remember that this is FICTION. It's NOT real life, so some things that would never happen in real life, might happen in this story. Also remember to comment and kudo. Quality stories like this need your encouragement and support. Thank you to everyone who has commented and clicked the kudo button. Barbie and I appreciate your support.
Elliot drove back to the Country Club. Country Clubs are the upper class clubs for people who like to golf, play tennis, or lounge around the indoor or outdoor pool. It was also where one could see the change in human maturity as people aged. With Elliot and me talking about those who went to the country club, I figured out a year earlier. The men usually grew fat, and bald from too many beers, martinis and rich foods. They liked their wives or girlfriends young, slim, trim, and beautiful. They displayed their wives and girlfriends the same way they would any trophy. Those old men could do all that because they had money, sometimes lots of money.
Mom and dad were in the early stages of the Country Club set. From the bits and pieces of conversation I overheard, I don’t think they thought very much of the crowd that went there. However when one is in business, like mom and dad, one doesn’t let the little things like snobbish people get in the way of socializing with the movers and shakers of the community. So, the same as Judy’s parents, they went to meet and make business deals which would never happen if they didn’t make the social route.
After parking, Elliot gathered Judy and me in each arm and headed for the club.
“Why are we here?” I wasn’t hesitant. I was glad we stopped. I was willing to show off what Judy had done to me. Whether the Lady Barbara Peck’s driver’s license made the difference, and why I was accepting I was her, was a matter of debate. One thing for sure, I had turned into a ham.
Men and women were turning to look at the fresh young things walking into their social atmosphere. They recognized Elliot right away. Judy was a fox second to none for most of her life. With her 'gosh gee dress' and 'wow' makeup, she was still Judy, just with a whole lot more pizazz. Needless to say, everyone recognized her immediately.
“Mom asked me to bring you ladies by after the trip to Vergus.” He opened the door to the Country Club.
“Mom’s here? Oh joy, be still my foolish heart. I can’t keep fooling her forever.” I was positive if I got close to mom too many times a light was going to come on and she would connect the dots.
Judy giggled. “Miss Peck, have you forgotten the young lady you were looking at in the mirror this morning? I can say without a doubt, if your mom didn’t know then, there would be an even smaller chance now.”
“Uh…,” I was running that back and forth though my mind. Something about that statement seemed contradictory.
Judy reached out and grabbed my hand. “Ladies freshen up after road trips. Come on and let’s make sure our makeup is still in place.”
“Uh…,” Seemed to be my favorite response. I was sure it would mean another trip to the ladies bathroom. Or was that the powder room? Ladies of refinement don’t call them bathrooms. They say, 'I need to make a trip to the powder room.' It didn’t make any difference. My kidneys were screaming for relief after sitting in Elliot’s Mustang most of the morning. I was positive the men would welcome me into the men’s restroom with open arms. NOT!
Only a couple women were in the powder room when Judy and I walked in. We completed the necessities and, with Judy’s expert guidance, I managed to reapply my makeup so it looked fresh. When Judy and I exited the powder room, heads turned. I didn’t mind the attention. I figured Judy was the star attraction and I was the side dish. It wasn’t me everyone was watching.
Elliot met us in the lobby before the guys circling could close in. Judy and I were saved from the sharks in the club. For the moment anyway, I thought.
“Hello Elliot, Judy, you must introduce me.” Came from behind me.
I didn’t turn around to look. He walked around in front of us. His name escaped me, but I recognized the face. He graduated the year before from Clawson High. He wasn’t a real athlete by any stretch of the imagination. He went out for baseball and warmed the bench. He went out for football and warmed the bench. The only reason he was accepted into any team was his father was a big contributor to school athletics. Thus the kid was put on the roster as a player. I knew why. It looked impressive on the resume and years later, it would give him bragging rights as he claimed he was the star player for Clawson High the year he graduated. I also had no doubt that his father bought him a place on the team in whatever college he was attending at the moment.
He held out his hand in my direction. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Edward Thruston, the THIRD. And you are?”
He pronounced the third like a badge of nobility. The kid felt oily before I touched him. Hesitantly, I took his hand.
“Lady Barbara.” Judy spoke up before I could.
“Lady Barbara? An English title no doubt. A beautiful name for a beautiful lady. Where are you from, Lady Barbara?” He held onto my hand and gave me a smile.
“Lady Barbara is visiting from out of town. She is looking into investments to fill out her portfolio.” Judy added quickly.
A big ol toothy grin spread from ear to ear. “Oh? And may I inquire as to what kind of investments you are looking, Lady Barbara?”
With difficulty, I managed to pull my hand back out of his. “I’m sorry, I’m not at liberty to say at the moment.”
Judy glanced in my direction with her eyes sparkling and a slight nod of the head. “Please Lady Barbara, I think our party may be waiting on us.”
“Yes, of course. It’s been a…, pleasure meeting you…, Edward.” I wanted to wash my hands after shaking hands with him.
“I assure you the pleasure was all mine, Lady Barbara. May I call you later?” He was reaching inside his jacket for a pen.
“I’m sorry, I…, I…, ah…, full schedule and don’t have a moment to spare. Maybe next time.” I wanted to give him the phone number of the child pornography enforcement unit. If I had known it, I would have. I promised myself I’d be ready and have it next time I met this slime ball.
“If you tell me where you live I may stop by and see you sometime.” His smile spread from ear to ear. I was looking at nothing but teeth.
“Next time.” Judy reached out and took my hand, leading me away.
I leaned over and whispered in her right ear, as we put some distance between Edward the third and ourselves. “I feel dirty. Is this what girls go through?”
Judy nodded in agreement. “If we don’t have Elliot protecting us from the sharks swimming in the waters. Yes it is. You’ll learn in time how to handle them. I thought you did a great job your first time.”
Elliot led us out to the garden club where mom and dad were seated with Judy’s parents. There was also a man and a woman I didn’t recognize at their table. I didn’t remember mom and dad socializing with Judy’s parents this much before. I was wondering if there was something going on I didn’t know about?
Seated facing us as we approached, mom was the first one to notice us. She looked surprised before she smiled. “The kids are here.”
Miriam turned to look. A knowing look full of love and pride showed in her eyes as she nodded at Judy. “Honey, you look absolutely beautiful. Barbara, I think you are a living doll.”
The compliment warmed my heart and I liked it. I blushed from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. “Thank you Mrs. Mecham.”
Laugh lines spread across Miriam’s face. “Honey, when are you going to start calling me Miriam?”
Elliot pulled a chair back for Judy and then pulled another one out for me. He waited for me to be seated before he sat down. I glanced up at Elliot as I slid my hands under my legs to gather my skirt as I sit down. “Thank you Elliot.”
“You’re most welcome, Lady Barbara.”
“Lady Barbara?” Mom was studying me. “That means you passed and have your driver’s license?”
“Uh…?” I was trying to think how mom and dad could be in this with Elliot and Judy if she knew about the driving test?
“Judy passed also. She has her driver’s license.” Elliot reached over and took Judy’s hand.
“That’s great sweetheart.” Miriam offered to Judy.
“Congratulations Judy.” Mom offered.
“Thank you. I wouldn’t have passed that test if Lady Barbara hadn’t handed me a hint before I took the driving test. She told me to not back up after the parallel parking test. It seemed a natural thing to do, but it is an illegal maneuver. The instructor fails everyone who pulls that trick. Lady Barbara took the driving test first. She warned me on what not to do.” Judy turned and gave me a wink.
“You would have passed it. I know you wouldn’t back up to park it into the parking space again.” I was trying to not stare at the two strangers at the table, who seemed to have their attention focused on me.
Bill motioned with his left hand toward the two extra people on his left. “I guess introductions would be in order. This is Doctor William Hurst and his wife Doctor Wanda Hurst.”
Bill pointed in Judy’s direction. “The young lady in black is our daughter Judy.”
He pointed toward me. “The other young lady in red is Barbara Peck. The young gentleman is Elliot, Ethan and Sherry’s son.”
Smiling, the woman acknowledged us. “Judy nice to meet you. I must say you are a very beautiful young lady…,”
“Thank you.” Judy responded politely.
“Barbara, I think I like the usage of your name as Lady Barbara better. Most appropriate for such a beautiful elegant young lady.”
Embarrassed, I blushed from my head to my feet as I looked down and muttered, “Yes ma’am, thank you”.
“Elliot I know Ethan and Sherry are justly proud of you and Lady Barbara. You and your sister look really nice.”
That got my attention! My eyes shot up to look at mom. I thought I saw her eyes widen. I could have been mistaken, but it might have been my guilty imagination.
Mom laughed and smiled at me before she turned her attention toward Wanda. “Lady Barbara is Elliot’s cousin and visiting from Dallas.”
Wanda scrutinized me for a few seconds before she nodded in agreement. “It was an honest mistake. She has your eyes and facial features. I assumed she was your daughter.”
Oh poop! Could this situation get any worse? Why not just stand up and tell mom it’s her other child Buddy and he is all dressed up as a girl? If mom didn’t suspect before, Wanda telling Sherri I was her other child should do the trick.
Mom laughed as she gave me a knowing look. “She’s such a beautiful well mannered young lady. I’d be proud to have Lady Barbara as my daughter. I guess I’ll have to ask her parents if I can keep her.”
Hopefully I brought up a sincere happy smile on my face as I silently prayed. Okay God, you didn’t strike me dead in church, you can do it now and get me out of this mess. I was wishing I was any place besides sitting here.
“Those are such pretty earrings. Are they permanent? Oh they are aren’t they? I love yours and Judy’s earrings. Are Judy’s permanent?” Wanda turned her attention from me to Judy.
Judy giggled as she shook her head no. Her multi loop earrings sparkling in the light. “No, mine are posts, Lady Barbara’s are permanent mounts.”
Now my eyes snapped over to look Judy in the eyes to see if she was serious. It was impossible to tell as she glanced back in my direction her eyes dancing in delight. No, no way the earrings she put in my ears were permanent. Was there? Surely she wouldn’t dare? The acid churned up in my stomach.
Thankfully the conversation turned away from Judy and myself, as our parents and the other two adults started discussing television shows, lawn care, fishing trips, and other things adults normally discuss. It wasn’t that long before the waiter showed up and everyone ordered lunch. I took my cue from Judy and ordered a garden salad. It wasn’t only because I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t think a steak dinner with all the trimmings would fit, with me inside the dress I was wearing. It must be one of the reminders for girls to watch their figure. I was finding a lot of hints to watch what passed my lips the past few days.
After lunch, I would have been tickled pink if we'd headed to Judy’s house for a change into jeans and sneakers. Alas, it didn’t seem to be in Judy and Elliot’s plans. The whole group moved out to the tables next to the tennis courts. With the adults at one table and us at another, we found seats around a couple empty tables. It looked like it was going to be a long evening.
“How long do you plan on staying?” I whispered to Elliot, after he had seated Judy.
His eyes gleamed as he looked over in my direction. “It’s a social evening. One mustn’t rush these things.”
“Why not? You can’t tell me you are enjoying this place. What you and Judy are enjoying is my pain.”
“Social skills are learned Lady Barbara. Ladies don’t play video games or go fishing when they have a free evening. They go to social groups or clubs and learn the art of patience and conversation…,” He held up his hand when I started to butt in. “And they learn to not interrupt when another person is talking.”
Judy reached over and laid her hand on top of Elliot’s hand. “At social clubs we don’t slap someone on the back and yell about the last ball game. We make our view known, subtly and softly. I can say and do things around Elliot I wouldn’t do with other boys. He is my boyfriend and also my best friend. Best friends say and do things with each other they can’t with any other person in the whole world. Do you understand?”
I choked as I looked at Elliot. “Yes, I do understand. He’s my best friend too.”
I tried my, ‘you’re dead meat stare’ on Elliot. “Which is why it is gonna make it twice as hard when I have to kill you over this.”
Elliot shook his head. “The look loses something coming from a beautiful girl.”
In spite of myself I was blushing. I couldn’t face my brother as I looked down and whispered. “Elliot…,”
Wanda Hurst and her husband were seated at the other table where they could watch us without being too obvious. It would have been easy to miss it if my senses hadn’t been on high alert. I was noticing all the little things I wouldn’t have ever paid any attention to before. One of those little things was watching other people’s eyes. I had lots of practice on the football field, reading other players through their eyes and body language. I usually left it there..., usually. Because of what my brother and Judy had done to me I was back to watching people’s eyes, looking for potential problems before they arrived. Wanda and her husband were focused in on me most of the time, even though they may have been conversing with our parents at the other table.
A couple of young men walked up to our table. “Elliot, may we join you?”
'No, no a thousand times no.' I was thinking as I looked up. It was Roger Plughe and Sam Houss. They were a few years older than Elliot. I watched them play for Clawson before they went off to college, or wherever, after graduating from high school.
They pulled up a couple of chairs and sat down between Elliot and me, before Roger looked across the table and nodded at Judy. “Miss Mecham, Elliot, would you please introduce us?”
Elliot gave a slight acknowledgement toward Judy. “Roger Plughe, Sam Houss, this is Judy Mecham. Judy, this is Roger and Sam.”
“The other lady is Lady Barbara Peck. Lady Barbara, this is Roger and Sam”
Judy gave a slight smile. “Roger, Sam.”
I followed suit as I looked at the two young men. “Gentlemen.”
Roger looked at Judy and then me. “Judy, Lady Barbara.”
He turned his attention back to Elliot. “You still playing football?”
“I was last time I checked. What are you and Sam into?” Elliot was studying Sam, who was studying me.
“We are starting our junior year at A and M. Sam and I were outclassed on the football teams. Neither one of us is playing. We do some scouting for the coaches and were wondering if you had any plans for any particular college?” Roger turned his head to look at Sam and then he focused in on me.
Embarrassed, I turned toward Judy and away from their attention.
“Thinking about Texas U after this year, if I can wangle a scholarship.” Elliot looked at me and shook his head as he smiled. “She is pretty isn’t she? Did you want to talk about football or stare at Lady Barbara?”
Roger laughed and his eyes danced as he looked back at Elliot. “Were we that obvious? Well, we did have best of intentions when we asked to sit down. If Lady Barbara would consider a date, I would see if A and M would offer you a full ride on an athletic scholarship.”
Elliot’s eyes were gleaming as he looked at me. Oh no, a thousand times no. I’m not dating anyone. That’s asking too much. Ain’t happening in this lifetime. I slightly shook my head.
It was obvious that Roger didn’t miss the signal. “That’s plain enough.” He tapped Sam on the shoulder. “Come on Sam, we have been properly chastised for being too bold.”
As they rose from the table, Roger held out his hand toward Elliot. “I’m still going to see if A and M will offer you a full ride. Coach will want Sam and me to come down and scout you this fall when you’re playing again.”
Elliot stood up and shook hands with Roger. “I appreciate the help.”
Sam held out his hand in my direction. “Lady Barbara, I hope to see you again.”
I took his hand and gave a slight nod. There was no way I was going to encourage this kid to look me up.
“Lady Barbara.” Roger leaned across the table and took my hand.
Again I gave a slight nod. Encouraging these guys wasn’t going to happen in my lifetime. Little did they know Lady Barbara was not going to be around after a couple more days.
After the boys had walked out of hearing distance Judy shook her head. “That was cold. You could have told them you would think about it or something along those lines.”
“Are you outta your ever loving mind? If I went out with either one of them what do you think would happen? I can tell you what would happen, I’d end up dead in a ditch someplace if I was lucky.” I couldn’t believe Judy thought I should encourage them!
Her mouth curled up as she gave it some thought. “You don’t know that. They acted nice.”
“Jeeze Louise, Judy! They could be the nicest boys in the world. It wouldn’t stop them from killing me when they found out I’m not a gi…” I choked. Tears started leaking out of the corners of my eyes.
Judy reached across with a napkin in her hand. “Dab hon, don’t wipe, or you will smear your makeup.”
“Tha… anks.” I sniffed out as I dabbed at the tears. When I managed to control the water works I looked to see if anyone had been watching. Besides Elliot and Judy, Wanda Hurst and her husband were the only two who seemed to take an interest in my emotional flood. It embarrassed me as I averted my eyes and turned away.
It wasn’t only the boys who were making an effort to stop at our table and pass cordial greetings. Not everyone in that country club stopped, but it seemed like it. I never said so many ‘pleased to meet you’s all at once in my whole life. After introductions, the men usually turned their conversations toward Elliot, while their eyes gave Judy and me the once over several times over. The women would talk to Judy and me about up coming socials and parties, while passing compliments about our dresses, hair style and, much to my chagrin, almost every single one of the females wanted to examine my earrings.
After a couple hours of socializing Elliot finally decided it was time to go. He gave Judy a wink. “Think we made a debutante out of her yet?”
Judy’s eyes rolled in my direction and a smile crept across her face. “She’s still on training wheels, but she has the basics down. Lady Barbara didn’t make any major gaffes. Unless I’m mistaken, the whole darn club set wants to know more about her.”
“In their dreams. I’m the one time act. They missed this one and they aren’t going to ever see the second act.” I was positive that, once Elliot and Judy were through playing their game with me, no one would ever see Barbara again.
“We’ll see. What’s today? Monday? Have you forgotten that Lady Barbara is staying the week before she flies back to Dallas?” Elliot got a smug look on his face as he gave me his plans.
If we had been home I would have jumped him and cheerfully strangled him. “I haven’t forgotten. I was hoping you had.”
Elliot rolled his eyes in mock shock, looking over at Judy. “Well, I had promised cousin Barbara we would look after her this week and I guess I MUST hold up my end of the agreement.”
“Look, if it pains you THAT much, and I know it’s paining me, let’s call the whole thing off. Barbara will fly back to Dallas tonight.” Hoping against hope Elliot and Judy were going to let me go.
Elliot shook his head. “Oh, no, an agreement is an agreement. I’m not one to back out after I gave my word.”
I gave him my best ‘you’re dead meat’ stare. “You better never ever close your eyes again.”
Elliot got tickled and was laughing along with Judy, who had been watching too.
“We’re leaving.” Elliot told mom and dad as we walked by their table.
“Don’t stay out too late Elliot. Lady Barbara, it was awfully nice to meet you again. Come by the house tomorrow if you kids are out running around.” Mom turned around and was looking at me.
“I don’t want to bother you Mrs. Peck.” I was positive every time I got close to my mother that my chances of her knowing were going up exponentially. All it would take was the right familiar word or action and she would be positive who Barbara was.
“Nonsense, you’re such a delight to have around. Ethan agrees don’t you dear.” Sherry glanced over at my dad.
“Sure, stop by, we insist.” Dad responded.
“You’re too kind. It’s not up to me. It seems what I do depends on what Elliot and Judy have planned.” I gave Elliot a twitch of my nose, knowing I had told dad I was being held hostage without really telling. Elliot and I did it to each other all the time. It was tattling without really tattling.
Mom covered her mouth with her hand and then closed her eyes for a second. Was she giggling? Did she know what I had just done? Habits will betray me. I had better keep a check on them as long as I was Barbara.
“Come on Barbara, let’s go powder our noses before we get back in the car.” Judy reached out, took my hand, and was urging me to follow.
“K.” I was glad for the interruption as I turned and followed her to the ladies room.
Although I was hoping we were headed back to the house after our little potty break, we weren’t. I knew we weren’t headed home as soon as Elliot turned out of the parking lot and headed east. Our home was in the other direction. I guess Elliot and Judy thought the day was young. Heck if I had been me, instead of Barbara, I would have thought so too. I mean, it was getting close to four in the afternoon. When Elliot and I were together we usually started getting things done about this time. We usually mowed the lawn, trimmed the hedges, washed the car, or worked on some other project in the afternoons.
About ten miles and many side roads later, Elliot pulled into Chiggers.
I moaned. Chiggers was a western swing club. Supposedly below the radar of the general public. The problem with being an unknown club is, everyone talks about it. Consequently it was a favorite watering hole for everyone, young and old alike. Elliot had brought me there once before. “Elliot, you can’t be serious?
He slid out of the car after he parked. He held the door. “Come on. It won’t kill you.”
“No but I’ll make sure to leave your dead body behind.” I picked up my clutch and eased out of the car.
He walked around the car and held the door open for Judy. “Same old broken record. I’m beginning to think Barbara has a one track mind.”
Judy giggled as she stood up and walked around the car to where I was waiting. “Come on Barbara, it’s too early for there to be anyone here. Let’s go listen to the band for a couple hours.”
Elliot walked up, put his arms around Judy and me, and urged us toward the front door.
I was surprised when Judy and I weren’t charged admission, but Elliot was. I leaned over toward Judy as Elliot dug out ten dollars. “What’s that all about?”
“Ladies night, Barbara. Girls get in free on Monday nights.”
I shook my head. If they only knew they would haul all of us off to jail.
The place was unusually empty. I counted nine men and one woman in there besides us. The guys were looking Judy and me over, many times over. Probably trying to figure out how to lose Elliot and take his place. There were empty tables and chairs for the picking.
Elliot guided us up toward the front next to the stage as he glanced at his watch. “Too early for the band I guess? I thought they started at four? Oh well, they will be here shortly.” He pulled out a chair for Judy.
Before he could pull out a chair for me, I found my own. “Thanks anyway.”
“You should have let me do that cousin. It would have told the guys in here you were my property. As it is, you just told them you were stag.”
“You’re joking!” I couldn’t believe something so innocent as finding my own seat was telegraphing so much data.
“Nope, it’s one of the little things girls must learn when they grow up into big girls.” He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
I know my eyes turned into two egg whites! “What in the heck did you do that for!”
“Property claims, cousin. I unconfused a dozen minds as to whether you were spoken for or not.” He leaned over and wrapped his arms around Judy’s shoulder. “Mine, they are both mine, so don’t even think about taking one, guys.”
Shaking my head in disbelief I wondered how Elliot had figured out all the unspoken codes for men and women? “I need a stiff drink.”
“Dr. Pepper or Coke?” Elliot winked before he looked at Judy.
“Coke, something with a lot of caffeine in it.”
“Dr. Pepper for me.” Judy added her request.
“Two stiff drinks coming up.” Elliot was headed for the bar to get our drinks.
Two guys walked up to the table as soon as Elliot left. I don’t guess they knew the off limits signs my bother had posted before he left.
“Mind if we join you girls? Buy you a drink?” The one in the plaid shirt was smiling from ear to ear.
“Yes, we do mind, and no, you may not buy us a drink.” Judy was quick with a response.
“That’s not being very friendly.” The second one seemed to have his smile frozen on his face.
“Who said we wanted to be friends? Why don’t you and your buddy find a nice dark place by the door and wait for some girls who want to play your silly games?” Judy wasn’t smiling.
“Stuck up bitches!” The one in the plaid shirt shot back, before he and his friend turned and walked off.
I was shaking all over as Judy turned to look in my direction. She reached over and cupped my trembling hands in hers. “Barbara, what’s wrong?”
“I…,” I didn’t know how to tell her those guys scared me to death. What if they hadn’t taken no for an answer? What if Judy hadn’t been there to handle them? What if they had found out?
“Barbara listen, it’s okay. They were a couple jerks. You’ve run into jerks before. Don’t let them get to you.”
I shook my head no as my trembling subsided. “No, you’re wrong, I’ve never run into jerks before.”
Judy looked puzzled. “Yes you have. I’ve been there when Buddy was…”
“Buddy has run into jerks, not me.” I corrected her.
“Bu…, Oh, I see. Okay Barbara. It’s the same thing. Usually girls don’t slug the jerks, but if you feel the need then be my guest.” Judy smiled and gave me a knowing wink.
Thinking Judy had just told me it would be okay if I had stood up and called the guy outside for a slugfest got me tickled too. I shook my head again. “No, I might break a nail.”
Judy and I were both laughing as Elliot returned with the drinks. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, private joke between girls.” Judy giggled, as she picked up her drink.
“I see.” Elliot looked over at me with a smirk on his face.
“I doubt that.” I retorted, as I gave him my best all knowing look.
“Hello Elliot, these the ladies?” Came from behind my shoulder.
“Calvin, the one on your right is Judy Mecham and the one on your left is Lady Barbara Peck.” Elliot was looking up and past me.
A hand came up past my right shoulder and dropped sheet music on the table. “Ladies, it doesn’t make any difference if you stay on tune or not. I appreciate you doing this on such short notice. June normally does backup, but she has laryngitis and Martha, who substitutes now and then, is out of town. Patricia is nursing a sick husband and she couldn't make it either. Let’s give it a go and see how it sounds, okay?”
I was watching as guys carrying guitars and fiddles filed past our table toward the stage before I turned my attention back to Elliot.
Elliot never said anything either as he was watching me.
Finally it got to be too much for me to stand. “Okay what was that guy talking about?”
“Calvin called this morning asking if Judy, or any of her friends, wanted to sing backup at Chiggers this evening. I volunteered you and Judy.”
“YOU WHAT? Are you outta your ever loving mind? You can’t believe I’m gonna get up in front of a bunch of people and act like I can sing.” I was positive Elliot had popped a cork. I knew Judy could sing. I had heard her on the occasional times she went to church with Elliot and me. I thought she had a prettier, more pure voice, than any of the people in the choir.
Elliot put his fingers to his mouth. “Shhhhhh. All you need to do is harmonize with Judy like the times you did when we were in church.”
It was obvious I wasn’t the only one who had been impressed by Judy’s abilities. “This is insane.”
“Judy, Lady Barbara, if you don’t mind, we’re ready.” Came from the speakers in the club as one of the men was adjusting the microphone by his mouth.
“Come on Barbara.” Judy shoved back her chair and was tugging on my arm as she picked the sheets up off the table.
“God is going to send me straight to hell for what I’m doing.” I rose out of my chair and followed Judy up on stage.
========
From the Editor: 2 chapters to go. Thank you to everyone who has read, commented or kudoed the story. Barbie and I really appreciate it. It has been a pleasure for me to work with Barbie on this tale and I hope we will work on many other stories in the future.
There were four men up on the stage. The guy in front was holding onto a guitar.. The base fiddle was off to the left of him. The steel guitar was behind him and the fiddle player was off to the right. All of them were picking chords and checking to make sure they were on key with one another.
The guy with the guitar motioned toward a microphone on a stand to his left as Judy and I climbed the steps up to the stage. “Ladies, we will start with Long Black Train. It’s the top sheet I handed you. Because we haven’t ever practiced together you will sing along rather than do the chorus. If you feel a breakout come on you, then do your thing. No rules here. Feel free to let your creative juices flow.”
Judy placed the music on the stand by the microphone.
“Ready, one two, one two three.” He counted off cadence and the violin started with a long drawn out wail, doing a good imitation of a train whistle. The others joined in and the guy started singing as he strummed his guitar.
Judy dropped in a few words late, but right in harmony. God could that girl sing or what? It sent chills down my spine to listen to her. I was mouthing the words before I decided to add a little noise of my own. I was off key and half a beat behind. I shut down as I tried to pick up the words and the right key. Again I tried, and again I was off key, but on the beat. I picked up an octave and it sounded like someone scratching their fingernails on the chalkboard. I dropped two octaves. I was so out of harmony with Judy it sounded like two dogs howling at one another inside a pipe. I picked up an octave but was still out of harmony. I went back to my first choice as I went up another octave and softened the pitch rather than trying to carry the song. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad. I softened it a little more as a compliment to Judy’s voice, rather than trying to match her. Better, but still not there. Again I softened my voice and found my compliment to Judy’s unequaled purity.
I was so busy concentrating on my spot harmonizing and reading the music, I never noticed when the guy stopped singing or when the band members and everyone else in the club turned to watch Judy. She had the voice of an angel, as pure as a midnight snowfall. She carried the notes so perfectly they could be felt, as well as heard. She didn’t sing the music, she was the music.
The last word was sung, the last note was played, and it was then I noticed how deathly quite it was in that club. I looked up. Everyone was staring. I glanced over at the guy center stage. He was staring with his mouth open. I watched as he silently mouthed, 'damn!'
The few people in the club started screaming, applauding, stamping their feet, and pounding the tables.
“Uh, I think that’s a take.” The guy center stage was looking kind of funny. He was headed off stage. “Excuse me for a minute.”
“Nice, really really nice.” Came from behind us.
I turned to look at the base fiddle player and nodded in agreement. “She can sing.”
“Yeah, she can do that and you too.” He agreed.
“I was all over the place.” I figured he was being nice instead of truthful.
“You found your slot and when you did, it really was sweet. I have never heard it done any better. Could we do it again?” He glanced over at the other players, who were nodding in agreement.
“Judy?” I was wondering if she minded?
“Sure.” Judy gave me a wink.
“Long Black Train, again.” The fiddle player pulled through the opening chords with the lonesome sound of a distant train. Judy and I dropped in on key, on beat, and in perfect harmony this time. Goose bumps ran up and down my arms as I closed my eyes and Judy’s pure voice made the words and music come alive.
The guy was back when we finished. “In case you didn’t catch it the first time, I’m Calvin. The one on bass is Paul, Jake is fiddle, Don is steel.”
“Nice to meet you.” Judy turned and acknowledged the musicians.
“Pleased, thank you.” I followed Judy’s lead as I looked over at the empty chair behind the drums.
“Our pleasure.” Paul smiled in return. He looked back toward the drum set. “Dale had a death in the family. He’s gone for a few days or maybe for good. Can’t say when he’ll be back.
I was thinking this band was losing members in a hurry with everyone sick or leaving.
“Judy, Barbara, a couple more and then you ladies can take a breather. We will do a couple instrumentals and take a break ourselves sometime about five thirty. I think we will be ready for the evening crowd about then. We take a ten minute break about every thirty minutes or so. I understand you ladies need to be home before twelve. Anytime you want to leave you may, although we hope you don’t until the last minute.”
He strummed a couple chords on his guitar. “Lonesome Me. And one and two.”
The rest of the band picked it up. Calvin and Judy started in together in perfect synchronization. Her pure soprano a perfect balance to his full rich baritone. I finally found the words and dropped in, harmonizing with Judy.
It was an hour or so later and people were pouring into the club. We had run through about five songs more or less and finished the last note on the last song when Calvin motioned for us to take a break. While we had been busy up on stage, two couples had sat down at the table with Elliot. They were dressed in a more western style than most of the patrons coming into the club. The two guys were darn good looking. The two ladies were exceptionally pretty. I didn’t think anything about it, since Elliot had that table all to himself up until that time.
Calvin motioned to the couple after we finished that song. “Don, Pat how you doing? When did you fly in?”
“This morning.” One of the men answered.
“Patricia, you want to give us some help up here?” Calvin motioned toward the musicians behind him.
“Love to.” The brunette stood up, followed by the blonde.
I figured Judy and I were through singing backup for Calvin. It was obvious he knew the ladies and they were going to replace us.
“It’s been fun.” I started off stage.
“What? Wait a minute. You can’t quit on me now.” Calvin was looking perplexed.
“You don’t need us when you have the other girls and they look like they belong up here.” I was positive Judy and I were finished.
“Uh…, I think there is a misunderstanding.” Calvin motioned toward the brunette. “Patricia plays the drums. Lenett plays the banjo, mandolin, guitar, and just about every thing else. They have their own band, along with Don and Pat.”
I studied the ladies as they walked upon stage. “Pretty girls.”
The brunette held out her hand. “I’m Patricia and this is Lenett. We’ll join in the vocals now and then if you don’t mind.”
I took her hand as I choked. “Mind? Not my place to mind.” I pointed to my left. “This is Judy and I’m…,”
“Lady Barbara, I know. Your cousin already mentioned your names. So pleased to meet you.” Patricia turned toward the drum set at the back of the stage.
“What do you have for me? I didn’t bring anything.” Lenett looked across the stage for something to play.
Jake held out his fiddle. “Take this and warm up while I go find you something to play.”
“Thanks Jake.” Lenett tucked the fiddle up under her chin and drew the bow, bouncing it across the strings.
I thought the opening chord was something I remembered. I wasn’t wrong, as Lenett did a repeat again and again.
Calvin shook his head and started strumming chords. “Guys, she’s gonna lose us. Let’s see if we can keep up.”
It was foot stomping time as that little band dug into Orange Blossom Special. I don’t remember hearing it played any better. It was seconds later the whole club was on their feet, stomping their feet and clapping their hands as Lenett played that fiddle better than anyone I had ever heard.
Chiggers filled up to capacity about six that night. By eight it was an overflow crowd. I heard later the staff opened the doors at ten and let the crowd flow in and out. When Judy and Elliot decided we had enough it was getting on close to eleven o’clock. It took a lot of gentle nudging and coaxing to make it out of that club into Elliot’s Mustang. That place was packed with people.
Elliot pulled back up on the highway headed home before I took a deep breath. “Whew, I thought that place was a low key club with a few patrons?”
“Usually is.” Elliot made the ramp up to the expressway.
“And clue me in. How and why did Calvin call you, asking if Judy could substitute tonight? I didn’t know you knew the guy.” I was curious as to how this situation started?
Elliot glanced into the rearview mirror at me. “I didn’t know him. I never said he called me. I said he called. Judy is the one he called this morning. He goes to the same church as Judy. I am guessing he heard her sing in church and thought she would be a good substitute when the other ladies he named couldn’t make it. I think he was well pleased tonight with his choice.”
Looking over at Judy Elliot smiled. “I know I sure enjoyed the evening. I knew you could sing, I didn’t know you could read music and sing country and western?”
Judy leaned back in the seat and took a deep breath. “I read the music. I didn’t know any of those songs. It was fun but I sure am tired and my throat hurts. It would take a lot of practice doing that every night.”
“What about you, brat? I didn’t know you could read music either?” Elliot shot a glance in my direction.
I shook my head. “Who said I was reading music? I was following Judy’s lead and trying to keep on key with her. I had no idea what all those squiggly little things meant. The words I could read so I didn’t have to guess about them.”
“Could have fooled me. You girls were good. Calvin told Judy she got two percent of the door. I guess if you want to be paid too you will have to beg Judy to split her share with you.” Elliot pulled off the expressway onto Harper Drive, headed toward Judy’s house.
Wednesday was a slow starter for Judy. I woke up and climbed out of bed without waking her for once. Glancing at the clock, it was past eight. I figured Miriam and Bill were already down at the store. So still in a nightgown after the bathroom pit stop I headed to the kitchen for milk and a popup. Where I ran into Miriam. I didn’t know whether to turn and flee or try and act normal. As if I had a clue how girls act normal?
She turned to check to see who it was when she heard my feet pad across the floor. “Morning. Judy still asleep?”
“Yes’m.” I was still thinking I might make an orderly retreat.
She took a sip of coffee from the cup in her right hand. “You don’t look like you’ve been up too long yourself. I’ve got to go. Calvin Speaker called this morning and wanted you and Judy back over at Chiggers after ten. He said it was important. He asked for you and Judy to dress up like you did last night. Has something to do with a demo. Said you girls would know.”
Miriam smiled, her eyes danced as she studied me. “Want to let me in on what he was talking about?”
“I…, uh, that is…, I’m not sure. Your daughter wowed them at the club last night. Judy is so pretty and so talented. I only wish I…,” I stopped as I realized what was about to escape out of my mouth. I blushed with embarrassment.
“Wish you were as pretty and as talented?” Miriam rinsed her cup in the sink before she walked over and wrapped her arms around me. “Barbara, you’re a very pretty young lady. And, to tell a secret, someone who was at Chiggers last night has already told me about the two talented young ladies on that stage. I know your mother is proud of you just as I am. Bill and I certainly wouldn’t mind having you for our own daughter.”
She turned me loose as she glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to go. Make sure to get Judy up. I’ll call Elliot and have him pick you girls up in about an hour and half so you can make that meeting with Mr. Speaker.”
I was still in shock as Miriam closed the garage door behind her. Pretty? Talented? Me? When Judy did her magic on me I felt pretty. It was awfully nice of Judy’s mom to say it, even if it wasn’t true. I headed to the bedroom to shake Judy out of bed.
Elliot was early so we were a half hour early getting back over to Chiggers. Judy was wearing a blue slim cut dress that hugged her body like paint. She had mentioned the dress was cobalt blue. All I know was it was a knock your eyes out blue, and the curves Judy was putting inside it were a double gotcha, I was insanely jealous. Judy managed to give me some curves, but mine were all fake, like me. I wanted to be real like Judy, but it would never be.
All the band plus Patricia, Lenett, Neal, and Pat were up on the stage and already playing when we walked in. Except for several men and women around a couple huge cameras on each side of the room, the place was empty. One of the women standing beside a camera noticed us and motioned to a table, indicating we should sit.
A half hour later, after listening to some of the best country and western music I had ever heard, Calvin and the others took a break. The lady that had planted us at the table walked over. “Who is Judy and which one is Lady Barbara?”
Judy gave a slight raise of her right hand. “I’m Judy.”
The lady looked at me. “And you’re Lady Barbara of course. Okay, separate mikes on the stage so we can split and work with the vocals in the studio. I was told Judy was the lead and Lady Barbara was the harmony. Is that right?”
“Yes, sometimes.” I offered.
“Sometimes?” She looked puzzled. “You also do lead?”
“No, sometimes I manage to harmonize.” I giggled and then choked when the lady didn’t seem to find it funny also.
“Don’t let her fool you. She might take a few notes to find her slot, but when she does, no one can do it better.” Judy was looking at me and nodding her head.
“Okay, this is a live recording. Don’t let it bother you. We can edit and mix in the studio later. Let’s see what you got.” She motioned toward the stage as the others were coming back again.
“Uh…, Miss, I can’t be across the stage and harmonize with Judy. I need to be beside her so I can pick up the notes. I don’t read music. I follow Judy’s lead.” I was positive this wasn’t going to work.
“That’s going to make it harder dividing vocals in the studio, but if that’s the way you do it, then I’m not here to change what I heard last night. Move your mike over next to Judy. Still separate mikes. Okay?” She waited to see if it was a working agreement.
“Sure.” I slid out of the chair to follow Judy up on the stage.
Calvin handed us the music. “We changed some of the music. Long Black Train first. You ready?”
“Not in this lifetime.” I muttered under my breath.
Judy leaned over in my direction. “Deep breath, pretend you’re home in the back yard singing to no one but the birds. You can do this better than anyone I ever heard.”
“You must be tone deaf then.” I lobbed back at her.
Lenett pulled the bow across the fiddle for the lonesome wail of a train whistle. A couple of notes and Calvin and Judy were on key and oh, so good. I was caught lagging and off key. What was that about two dogs howling at one another inside a pipe? They could carry a note better than me. I raised an octave. That was worse. I lowered a couple and softened to harmonize with Judy and found my place, but was still lagging behind. I picked it up until I found a place that was finally pleasing to my ears.
As soon as we finished Calvin had us do it again. This time I was ready and we did it right. I could tell we did it right because I had Goosebumps up and down my arms when Judy finished. I was positive no one had a more pure voice than Judy.
It was closing in on noon by the time everyone had decided they had enough. Calvin asked Judy if she wanted to be a regular in his band before we left.
Judy shook her head as she pointed at her throat. “No thanks. I’m not sure my throat would stand it. Singing is like any other sport. It takes practice and more practice to be able to do it regularly.”
“That’s true, it does. Can I talk you into coming back tonight then? Seems as if word has spread about you two ladies last night and there are going to be a lot of people coming here tonight just to hear for themselves.” He was hoping Judy would agree to at least one more night.
“Tonight what time?” Judy wanted to know how long the night would be.
“Eight to one or two is our regular schedule. Depends on the crowd and how long they hang around. If you and Barbara agree to come back tonight how does an eight to twelve schedule sound?” Calvin was hoping the two girls would agree if he shortened the time slot for them.
“Barbara?” Judy was looking in my direction.
I guess I was turning into a ham because I really did enjoy singing with Judy, even though I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. “I’m with you. Whatever you decide. You can do without me. I couldn’t sing with anyone but the howling dogs if I had to go it alone.”
I didn’t question about the wheels getting there and back. I knew Elliot would be more than happy to escort Judy back to the club later that night and he just might let me tag along. Obviously I was losing my mind because at the time I was not thinking I would be coming back tonight as a girl also.
Thursday was a slow starter for me. I think the combination of singing and the hours at Chiggers were emotionally draining, even if it wasn’t physical work. I awoke, catching snippets of conversation between Judy and Miriam in the living room.
Judy came into the bedroom and started looking through the closet. “Mom said Debbie Bruns called. We were invited to be hostesses at a fund raiser at the civic center this afternoon. It is for the church charity organization. They give financial help to children born with disabilities. We will wear heels today. Go take a bath and use plenty of bath oil. It is one of the girl secrets we don’t tell the guys.”
“How about I call Elliot and tell him to bring my clothes back.” I was positive I didn’t want to be in front of people, pretending to be someone I wasn’t, for a charity event.
Judy laughed. “Barbara, you could wear jeans. You would still be a girl. No sweety, we wear a dress. This is one of the times we use guerilla girl power to entice the crowd to open up their pocketbooks.”
“Guerilla girl power?” That was one I had never heard before. Was it another one of those secrets known only by girls?
Judy laughed as she headed for the master bathroom in her parents bedroom to take her own bath. “You’ll learn Barbara. We don’t need muscle to get what we want.”
It didn’t turn out to be a dress down day as Judy and I got ready. The dress Judy mentioned was for real girls. With Judy’s prodding, of course I packed the make believe curves inside it. What bothered me the most, besides it fitting like a glove, was the skirt. “I can’t walk in this dress.”
“Yes you can. You take graceful steps. The dress has a tight skirt.”
Until now I didn’t think brown was a color that could glisten. The brown dress had a sheen that kinda flowed over it as I moved. I took a deep breath and I walked across the room. “If you mean smaller steps then I guess.”
Judy nodded as she slipped into a red silk dress with a full skirt. She picked up the phone and called Elliot. “Talk you into a ride? About ten minutes, we haven’t had anything to eat yet. Okay, thanks.”
We were walking out the door when Elliot drove up. He hurried to get out of the car and open the passenger door for Judy and me. “You girls look fantastic. I need to run back by the house for a minute. Hope you don’t mind.”
Judy shook her head before she slid into the seat. “No, we are hours ahead of when they wanted us for the event. I thought we would go down there and have them walk us through what we were supposed to do. We have plenty of time.”
“Great.” Elliot was back in the driver’s seat and slowly pulling out for home.
It was after he pulled in our driveway and opened the door for Judy Elliot was motioning for me to follow. “Come on Barbara.”
I shook my head. “Elliot, mom is going to figure it out if she hasn’t already. I’ll stay in the car.”
“Ain’t happening. Come on, brat.” He waited.
Looking back that should have clued me in, but it was too close to normal dialog between Elliot and me. I slid out of the car and walked into the house with Elliot and Judy. Elliot led us to the back patio where mom was sitting at the patio table.
“You girls look nice this morning. Won’t you please join me?” She motioned to the chairs.
As soon as we sat down, Elliot stood back up and touched Judy on the shoulder. “I want to talk to you for a minute.” He motioned back off toward the house.
I started to get up along with Judy until Elliot motioned for me to stay put. “Private conversation.”
Mom watched them leave. “Judy is a pretty girl.”
I knew exactly what mom was saying. “I wish I was half…,” I choked as I almost said it again.
She turned her attention back to me. “As pretty as Judy? Barbara you are every bit as pretty as Judy in your own way. I know your mother is proud of you.”
“Thank you Mrs. Peck.” I wanted it to be true, even if it wasn’t..
She reached over, took my hands, and stared into my eyes. I knew at that instant mom knew who I really was. She knew from the beginning. Could she have been in on it with Elliot and Judy? I couldn’t bring myself to ask.
Holding onto my hands she looked off to the side into the distance before she cleared her throat and turned her attention back toward me again. “Parents don’t always have all the answers for their own children. The times and knowledge change and we don’t keep up. Elliot noticed things in his little brother that dad and I considered to be a different, softer son than Elliot. We noticed we had to strongly encourage Buddy to get into sports.”
By now my heart was in my throat as I was frantically making a million excuses why I was wearing makeup and one of Judy’s dresses. I didn’t say anything because I had no idea what to say.
Mom smiled as tears leaked out the corner of her eyes. “Elliot did a lot of research before he came to dad and me to tell us what he found. Elliot told us our youngest son was a girl not a boy.”
If I could have died right then and there I would have. “Mom…”
She shook her head. “Please let me finish. We love you with all our heart and soul. Your bother loves you just as much as we do. He said the reason you were joining all the sports and doing all the boy things was because you loved us as much and you didn’t want to disappoint us.”
“Honey, you could never disappoint us. There is a caveat in there. The only way you could disappoint us is if you weren’t true to yourself and made your life what you want.”
Mom gripped my hands as her eyes bored into mine. “Are you enjoying being Barbara? Do you think…, believe this is who you are?”
I swallowed, trying to figure out how to answer. The problem was, mom and I were so close we always knew what the other one was thinking before it was said. Swallowing again I tried to get the lump out of my throat. “I want to be who you want. I don’t want to hurt you or dad.”
There was no way I slid that one past mom. She knew!
“Do me a favor then?” She waited.
“Anything.” I figured I could kill myself later to save her and dad any embarrassment.
“Be Barbara for another couple weeks for me.”
That wasn’t the favor I thought she would ask. Maybe mom and I didn’t know each other that well? “A couple weeks?”
“When everyone planned on flying up to Dallas I knew there was no way I was going to let you go through airport screening. Not that you wouldn’t pass, because you would. You are a very beautiful young lady. Which means they might pull you to check you out. I would never forgive myself if I let that happen.”
“We chartered a plane. All of us are flying up on a private plane.” She turned loose of my hands and was wiping at tears trickling down her cheeks.
“Does everyone know?” My nerves were anything but calm.
“Your dad knows and Miriam knows. Elliot said Tug knows.”
I choked. “Tug knows?”
Mom smiled kinda crooked. “Elliot said Tug knew when he first saw you at the prom.”
Now I really was confused. “He knew! But he danced with me.” That caused me to blush from the top of my head to my toes. “Is he…?”
She shook her head. “Gay? Not from what your brother tells me.”
We sat in silence for more than a minute as I mulled all of this information over in my mind. I could justify being Barbara for another week or so if mom wanted me to. “Okay.”
She knew what I was agreeing to. As she rose from the chair I stood up. We wrapped our arms around each other and cried.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, honey.”
Elliot and Judy came back out to the patio. Judy walked over and hugged me. “When you finish with the water works we need to straighten up our makeup.”
As we left home behind, my mind was in a turmoil. It was hard to put a definition on my emotions. I was happy mom let me know she knew and accepted me. There was a catch twenty two. As long as I was thinking no one knew who I was, I thought they were accepting Barbara, the girl Elliot and Judy had invented. I would have bailed as Barbara if I hadn’t promised mom I’d be her for a couple more weeks.
Elliot pulled into one of those little quick stops that had booths inside. He opened the door for Judy and me. “Ladies.”
We managed to get soft drinks at the fountain before finding an empty booth. I was trying to see how many were staring while trying to not be obvious myself.
Judy shook her head as she watched me. “Relax Barbara. Nothing has changed. You are still all girl. Those wanting to get a better look are admiring a pretty girl.”
“Un huh.” Saying it and accepting it were two different things.
“May we?” Came from behind me.
My panic hit full blown overload at that instant. I knew that voice.
It wasn’t him that sat down beside me, but a woman. I glanced at her and then had to take a second and third look. She was in her early twenties. She had Indian Princess cheekbones, and heart shaped lips with a soft peach lip color. Her red satin dress had such a low cut neckline it was almost obscene, exposing lots and lots of cleavage.
While I was taking quick glances from the lady beside me to Tug and back, she held out her hand. A beautiful hand with beautiful long fingers and beautiful nails.
“I’m Billie, and you have to be Barbara.” She waited with her right hand held toward me.
Automatically I took her hand. There wasn’t a handshake like guys do. She clasped my hand and held it as she examined me.
“Such a beautiful girl. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Thank you…, I mean you’re pretty…, too, also…, I mean…,” Come on brain, engage!
Her eyes were twinkling as she laughed. “Why thank you. That was very sweet. Perfect manners too. What are the plans for today? A party no doubt as you ladies are dressed up.”
I shook my head as I remembered what Judy said this morning. “Judy said we were going to the civic center for a fund raiser I think.”
Billie nodded. “You are the two hostesses I was told about. I was given the glorified title of event manager. I can see, with two ladies as pretty as you, our charity will pull in an extra five percent. Have you decided what songs you are going to sing?”
“Songs?” Now I really was confused.
She laughed again as she shook her head. “These things never do get organized until the last second do they? Calvin said he would show up and do two songs for us if we could get the ladies who have been singing with him the past couple nights to join in. Well if he doesn’t show then count on singing without him.”
I looked across at Judy.
She shook her head. “Don’t look at me. I had no idea. Mom asked if I would mind if we did a charity event this afternoon. I thought we would pass out brochures and help with the snacks.”
Billie nodded. “Now that’s an idea I have to float past the organizers.”
She patted the back of my hand. “We have to get back to work.”
She stood up as Tug joined her. She glanced his way. “You ready?”
This time I had a good chance to check her out. She was more than wow in the curves department. I was sooooo jealous. I would never have curves. Not real ones.
Tug looked like he was struggling to come up with something to say as he looked at me. “You are a beautiful girl Barbara. Billie works at Tchrad in a different department than I do. She umm…, she makes impossible things work.” He looked over at Billie.
She nodded and then laughed as she reached back down and took my hand in hers. “Tug told me he had met the prettiest girl in the whole world. He insisted I meet you. I didn’t know you and Judy were going to be at the charity event this evening or I would have waited until later to meet the prettiest girl in the whole world.”
I know I was blushing. “Thank you for the compliment. It was very kind of you even if it’s not true. I would settle to be half as pretty as you.”
She squeezed my hand. “Sweety, the dream is yours if you want it bad enough.”
She stood up and slid her hands down her sides from her breasts to her hips. “There was a Bill inside this dress. I didn’t care to be Bill so I became Billie.”
“Now do me a favor will you? Just between us girls. Although my closest friends know, it isn’t public knowledge. I’m counting on you to keep my secret between us. Okay?” She gave me a wink before she turned and walked away.
Tug was watching me as I watched Billie walk away. She was so fluid and graceful in her walk. I shook my head to clear it as I wondered if she was making fun of me? “She was joking wasn’t she?”
Tug focused in on me. “Billie wasn’t joking on any of what she said Barbara. When she said you were pretty, she meant it. When she said you could have your dream if you wanted it, she meant it. When she said her name used to be William or Bill she was dead serious. It was the reason I asked her to meet you.”
“Billie is the most coveted employee in Tchrad. The girl is so smart she scares the rest of us. She has a photographic memory. I can ask her next month any detail about this meeting and she can describe you down to the lint on your dress. And the best part about Billie is she is so sweet and considerate of everyone else.”
“Billie is all woman through and through, even though she will never give birth to her own child. She said she was born with a hysterectomy. I gotta go. I’ll see you at the fundraiser this evening. Tchrad is one of the sponsors.” He turned and walked out.
Was it possible? My mind was going a hundred miles an hour and coming up empty. It was when I noticed Elliot closely watching me my mind started focusing again.
“I have a lot of information for you to look at, baby sister.”
Strange, I didn’t want to plow into him for calling me that. Just the opposite, I felt like giving him a hug. I knew Elliot and Tug had set up this meeting. I couldn’t wait to get another look at Billie. She was drop dead gorgeous. If I could only look half as pretty…?
Elliot drove over to the civic center. When we walked into the auditorium it was obviously apparent they were still trying to get ready. Legions of people were sitting up tables, chairs, working on the sound and light equipment and dozens of other jobs.
A harried looking woman holding a clipboard, cellphone, PDA, and carrying a shoulder bag stuffed full of papers came over when she spotted us. “Oh you’re here already. Okay, the uniforms are at the back of the stage. Find one that fits and change out.”
“Ha, ha, ha, Wanda, these aren’t your ushers. The two ladies will be part of the entertainment tonight. If I can talk them into it, they will be hostesses for the evening when they aren’t up on the stage.” Came from a recognizable voice from behind us.
We all turned to look as Billie walked up. “I have name tags coming if Judy, Barbara, and Elliot agree to be host and hostesses for the evening. Normally we only use the first name but in this case we use the whole name. Miss Judy Mecham and Miss Lady Barbara Peck will be used. We will also use Elliot Peck. I want our guests to know and remember our host and hostesses.”
She held up some pictures of Judy and me taken at the Country Club after we had taken our drivers test. “If you will, please do this again for the evening.”
Billie passed a couple pictures over to Wanda. “What do you think?”
“Wow, oh wow, but of course.” Wanda gave Judy and me a second look.
Billie waved a young man over. “Leonard, a second of your time please. You are our mayor. Please be seated. Ladies, pay attention.”
Leonard took a seat at one of the tables as Billie stepped up beside him. “Mr. Mayor, it is an honor to have your support at this charity for young children with disabilities. May I say how beautiful your wife Carla is?”
She looked over at Judy and me. “The one word that is taboo in your vocabulary this evening is ‘surprise’. Never ever say, 'I’m surprised you came. What a pleasant surprise Mr. Mayor.' You will not use the word. Period. It is an indication you didn’t think that person would show. That would be an affront to the person.”
“One of you will greet the mayor at some point in the evening. Give or take twenty minutes, the other will walk over and do the same thing. The reason you don’t do it together is I want Mayor Bryan to focus on each of you individually and remember your names. Later on in the evening both of you together will make the Mayor’s table a couple more times to drive the names home. In the future, as you host different causes and events, you won’t have any trouble receiving an audience with the Mayor and the press for your cause.”
“Elliot, your duties are a little less engaging and, I’m afraid, a little more boring. The men may want to talk politics with you. Don’t chose sides or name names, even if you have a preference. The women won’t talk socials with you because you’re not a girl. Some of them will try to seduce you. You’re a handsome young man. You would be another notch in their bedposts, so to speak. Their dreams of seducing the football star quarterback will bring out the blood lust in a few of them. Something they may or may not have accomplished when they were in school. Just be prepared and know what is coming.”
Elliot looked down at his feet before he looked back at Billie. He reached over and hugged Judy. “Yes ma’am. I have a girl. She’s prettier and sweeter than any other girl in the whole world. I’m not going to be tempted no matter what.”
I think that is the only time I ever saw my brother blush.
Looking back, the funny part is, it never registered at the time. I was driving home, big time in everyone’s mind from that evening on, I was Barbara. The girl from the children’s charity event.
Billie focused in on us. “Be yourselves this evening. Do NOT do anything you normally wouldn’t do. There will be liquor in abundance this evening to help loosen up their checkbooks. Don’t touch. Both of you may look over twenty one when you dress up. That does not mean you can try the drinks. Tug assured me you wouldn’t. I’m reminding you. There will be plenty of soft drinks this evening. Don’t drink out of the can or bottle. It isn’t done at these social affairs. Don’t ask one of the waiters to bring you a drink. They aren’t clued in. Make a trip to the kitchen, pour your drink into a liquor glass and make the social rounds.”
“I’ve been on the phone to both your parents since meeting you earlier. From what I heard I am not going to have to chaperone either of you. So…, I’ll see you around six thirty. The guests start arriving at around seven. The late comers will still be straggling in around eight or later. I want you to enjoy yourselves and have fun. Don’t worry about the small talk. Everyone you meet will be wanting to tell you all about themselves and their problems. Just be good listeners and pay attention. If you are asked what you do, tell them you are in school and leave it at that. Everyone will think you are in college. If they ask what you are majoring in, tell them business. That will put a damper on their prying into your private lives.”
“It has been said beautiful women are the hood ornaments. I doubt any of you understand that, as cars no longer have hood ornaments. Let’s put it in terms you may understand. Beautiful women are the ‘look at me wheels’ on a car. They do amazing things to the mind and testosterone of any man. Men want to attract the attention and show off for a beautiful woman. Like a peacock, they want to preen. Part of that is opening their pocketbooks. Thus the reason casinos have beautiful women circulating among the customers.”
She handed one of the pictures taken at the country club to Judy. “I expect to see those two beautiful ladies this evening. Any questions?”
I looked at Judy and Elliot before I turned my attention back to Billie. “Can we talk…? Privately?”
She put her arm around my shoulder. “Come. Let’s go have a private girl discussion.”
We were headed out in Elliot’s Mustang when Judy looked over her shoulder. While you and Billie were off talking I called mom. She managed to wangle us an appointment at Gale’s Beauty Parlor to touch up our hair. Gail has the magic touch when it comes to making someone look better than normal. You’ll like her. She’s a real sweetheart.”
That wasn’t the conversation I was interested in. “Thanks Judy. Elliot, when did you know?”
He glanced up into the rearview mirror at me. “About five years ago. Remember your birthday when dad bought you a football, baseball, a baseball glove, bat, and a basketball. Him and mom were so proud you were into sports like them and me. The little girl next door, Connie, was invited over. She gave you one of her Barbie dolls for a present.”
“You did a good show of being happy about getting all that sport gear. I don’t think mom and dad noticed that doll never left your side that day. If they did, they probably thought you were being nice. You never played with the doll in front of anyone after that. You kept it on the shelf by your bed. I know you slept with that doll. That was when I finally understood why you always helped mom in the kitchen. Why you and mom watch romance movies together. I thought you would tell mom and dad. When you didn’t, I talked to them. They realized after I told them, all the indications were there. You weren’t ever going to hurt them so you were never going to tell them.”
“The prom provided the perfect launch pad. The problem was getting you involved deep enough so you couldn’t back out after the prom. The earrings were Judy’s idea. If they couldn’t be removed then you couldn’t go back until they were. Actually, they can be removed anytime you want. That part was a lie.”
He glanced at me again. “I’ve never lied to you before and I promise I’ll never lie to you again as long as I live. I hope you forgive me for this one time.”
Judy turned around to look at me. “That goes for me too. I’ll never lie to you again. From here on out it’s your choice. Are you still going to the charity with me this evening or do you want to quit now?”
I sighed as I looked down at my dress. “I promised mom I’d be Barbara for a couple more weeks. Billie is a real woman isn’t she. She said I could be too. Not just pretend. I want to be like mom. I don’t want to pretend any more.”
FROM THE EDITOR: Please remember to comment and/or kudo the story. As you all know, it's the only way the author gets paid for the hard work of writing. Again, thank you to all those who have stuck with this story. I promise you won't be disappointed by the ending.
Judy was right about Gail. She knew the prefect dye and style job for each girl she touched. When she was through with my brown hair, it was more auburn with a reddish tinge. She gave me a modified feathering look with the lightest touch of highlights. My hair glistened like it had a life of its own.
Judy always had beautiful, almost, but not quite, blonde hair with that all natural look. She never dyed it. Gail lightened it, bringing it to an almost, not quite, strawberry blonde. When she finished, Judy’s hair was as fascinating a hair color as I had ever seen without being some garish punk color.
After leaving Gail’s, Elliot ran us over to Crystal’s Palace. It was an upscale dress shop. I was holding back as Judy looked over the evening gowns.
Mom came in, walked up beside me, and gave me a hug. “A young lady’s first dress that is her own should be something eloquent. A dress she will cherish and remember forever. Pick out a nice one to wear to the charity event this evening.”
Looking at my mother, I was in shock. “You mean me?”
She gave me another hug. “Yes, you, Barbara.”
I had noticed some of those price tags as Judy was searching through dresses. “Momma, we can’t afford one of those dresses.”
“Let’s look while we are here.” She led me over to one of the racks and started looking. Every now and then mom would pull out a dress and hold it up to me and have me try on. “Ummm, not your color.” Or, “Wrong size.” Or, “It’s cut wrong.”
She pulled a teal colored satin gown out. It had spaghetti straps and a matching beaded bolero jacket. “Try this one.”
With Judy’s help I managed to slip into it. It was floor length with a slit on the left side up to my thigh. It hugged me like body paint. The front draped low enough I was going to be in serious trouble making believe I had boobs.
Honestly, I felt naked wearing that dress. Crystal was there talking to mom as I stepped out of the dressing booth.
Mom stared with her mouth open for a few seconds. “I believe that dress is a little too mature for you.”
Judy backed up to take another look as Crystal laughed. “Mrs. Peck, it is for a charity. You do want your daughter to shine all on her own this evening don’t you?”
Mom shook her head. “Shine yes, but…, I had a daughter this week and she has already grown into a young lady.”
Crystal handed Judy a pair of realistic fake boobs. “Until they are glued on and airbrushed they won’t look perfect. Try again with these.”
Judy took me back into the dressing booth and added the boobs to my chest. Which did amazing things to my mind as I looked in the mirror. It looked like a real girl was wearing that dress. “Wow!”
Judy nodded. “Yes WOW!” She led me back out to stand in front of mom and Crystal.
I thought mom was going to cry. “You look lovely sweety.”
She looked over at Crystal. “We’ll take it.”
Crystal glanced at her watch. “Call me after the girls have taken their baths. Gail’s team will be ready.”
“Ready?” I was wondering what was going on?
“We will do the prosthesis and makeup.”
Was she suggesting what I thought she was suggesting?
When Judy didn’t pick out a dress I figured she was going to wear what she wore that day for our driving test. I was wrong. When I thought makeup was going to be what Judy had been doing to me all week, I was wrong.
Mom went with us back over to Judy’s house where Miriam was waiting. They stayed with us the rest of the evening up until we headed back to the civic center. We didn’t slip into dresses after getting cleaned up at Judy’s house. It was jeans and sneakers and head back to Gails, where I found out how Hollywood makes movie stars. I thought an airbrush was for painting cars. That isn’t all they are used for. After Gail’s team finished their magical artistry on us it was to Crystal’s to change from jeans into dresses, four inch heels, and jewelry.
Elliot had changed into a dark gray suit with a charcoal gray tie. If he wasn’t my brother, I would date him. He was soooo handsome.
When we returned to the civic center it was a different place from that morning. Tables with tablecloths, flowers, plates, silverware were arraigned. Women in black waitress uniforms and men in black waiter uniforms were placing place cards with numbers on them on the tables.
When we walked in everyone started looking and pointing at us. I looked down to make sure my boobs hadn’t fallen off. Judy noticed and started giggling. “Courage girl. They can’t eat us. We aren’t on the menu.”
A mind blowing beauty was coming across the room headed our way. Her silver gown reflected light like a flowing river with every graceful fluid step. Her long brown hair spread across her head and shoulders like a cape. I was looking at a princess with the face of an angel.
Billie’s eyes were dancing as she stepped up in front of us. She looked each of us over in turn. “I believe the event is going to be better than any of us had planned. Ladies, if we don’t have to call the paramedics to jump start a few old men’s hearts this evening, they were already dead before they arrived. Judy, you and Barbara look absolutely stunning.”
She got serious. “This may be a charity event, but men are still men. You will be asked for a date and propositioned. Get your mind into their game. You will be patted, pinched, hugged, and fondled... discreetly of course. Try to not return the gesture by slugging them. You want them killed, come to me and I’ll arrange for it to happen. Any questions?”
Billie motioned back toward the stage. “Your name tags are up there on the table. With those dresses you won’t be putting them above your left breast. Put them on your left above your waist.”
Calvin and the rest of them came in. He looked at us and turned his attention to Billie. “You said you wanted thir…,”
He turned to take another look at Judy and me. His eyes grew two sizes. “Judy? Barbara?”
Billie laughed as she looked. “You like?”
Calvin nodded. “What’s not to like?”
The charity event was a serious learning curve for me. I’m sure it wasn’t that easy for Elliot and Judy either. Our parents were there keeping an eye on us. Not too sure our dads had any buttons left on their shirts after Judy and I did our part up on the stage with Calvin and the others. Especially since we left the stage, walked over to where our respective parents were, and gave them hugs. It let everyone in the center know those particular people were special to us. Billie seemed to have a sixth sense for problems. She always was there right beside Judy or me when any of the men wanted more than social talk.
Tug and his parents were there and yes, he received special attention from me as he introduced ‘Lady Barbara’ to his parents for the first time.
Shock was clearly visible on his moms face with that introduction. “This is the girl you have been dating!”
Tug leaned up close to his mother so as to not tell the whole world. “Mom, she is fifteen almost sixteen.”
She took another hard look. “Only…,”
Tug put a finger to his lips and shook his head.
If it had been possible I think his mother would have asked for an ID.
The charity event lasted late. It was around one AM by the time we went back to Judy’s house with her parents. Around two before we had washed, and deglamorized for bed. And around eight AM, we were being roused out of bed to get ready for the flight to Dallas. Whoever said girls have it easy obviously was never a girl.
Judy managed to get dressed in a soft polyester brown, sleeveless dress. She found me a blush pink, sleeveless dress. We were both wearing sneakers as it promised to be a long day with lots of walking. Judy packed extra jeans, underwear, and blouses in a suitcase in case of any unforeseeable accidents.
I guess I had become Barbara, because I was no longer embarrassed by everyone knowing I wasn’t a real girl. Maybe it was because Miriam, mom, Judy treated me like I was a girl? Or because Bill, dad, and Elliot treated me like a girl? Or maybe because everyone at that charity event knew me as Barbara? Whatever it was, I knew I was exactly who I was supposed to be. A girl.
Most of Friday afternoon was spent at the trade show. That evening we went to dinner and a play. Saturday we went cruising the malls. Mom bought me two dresses and underclothes. Miriam and Judy were treating me like I was one of them and everything was perfectly normal. Mom and Miriam each bought a swimsuit and sundress. Judy bought a tight skirt and matching blouse.
The following week I went to see Dr. Wanda Hurst. Then I went to see her husband, Dr. William Hurst. There were lots of tests, both physical and mental. Both who had been at that charity fundraiser. They gave me shots and prescriptions to stop what they said, was the girl from becoming a boy. The week after that mom, dad and the doctors, had a conference and then, the next day, I was included in the family conference.
The short story was they agreed I was a girl. The brain scans and other tests indicated I was. There was a small detail, which was that my body didn’t agree with my mind. I would have to wait until I was eighteen before any corrective surgery could be performed... unless I wanted, and my parents agreed to surgery outside the United States. Four weeks before school started I became a real girl in virtually every respect. I would never give birth to any children, but that was because I had a hysterectomy at birth, like someone told me they had.
“Are you sure?” Mom was giving me that concerned mother look.
“I’m sure.” I knew she was asking about the skirt I was wearing with the white blouse.
“Girls wear pants now you know.” She was offering me an easier first school day.
“I know. I don’t want them to think it’s Buddy now. He’s still here inside me and always will be. I want them to meet Barbara.” I gave mom a hug as Elliot honked the horn indicating he was waiting.
Mom wiped tears from her eyes. “I love you with all my heart. I always have and I always will. The administration and teachers have been notified Barbara is taking over for Buddy. You have any problems, you call me.”
“I can handle it mom. Girls are tough you know.” I gave her another hug.
She wiped off the last of the tears. “Your friend Billie had a meeting with everyone in administration. There was gossip that filtered back down through the kids. Elliot said she told them there would be fire and brimstone raining down upon them if they treated you any different than normal. Your dad and I like her.”
“She’s cool.” I headed for the door as Elliot honked again.
Schools are notorious for lots of things. Top of the list is the gossip mill, which can churn out stories faster than a tornado can eat a barn. The stories are a mix of lies and truth, never all the truth, and never all lies.
Elliot picked up Judy before he pulled into the school parking lot. When we got out kids were looking and pointing. Elliot and Judy walked with me to the admin office.
Miss Sanders looked up when I stepped up in front of her desk. She looked at Judy and Elliot before turning her attention back to me. “Miss Peck did you fill out your admission slip?”
“Yes ma’am.” I pulled it out of my purse and handed it to her.
She looked it over and smiled. “Everything is in order. Your records have been changed to Lady Barbara Peck. Do you wish to be called Lady Barbara or how are you to be addressed?”
“Please if you don’t mind. Use my middle name, Barbara.”
“So noted.” She put it into the computer. All your teachers and counselors have been notified.”
She handed me several cards. “These are your class schedules. You may change your electives the first week. After that you will be locked into the schedule. Coach Barney wants to see you and Elliot. Mrs. Trander wants to see you. Jo Lockder, the cheerleaders captain wants to see you and Judy Mecham before the day is out.”
“Your schedule has PE listed. I think the coaches want you to list that slot as sports. Although Coach Barney is football…, what could he want?”
She looked off in the distance, riding her own thought train for a second. “Never mind. Make sure you see them today.”
“Yes’m, is that all?” I was checking out my schedule.
She nodded. “Let me know if you have any problems.”
“Problems?” Did she think I was going to cause problems or what?”
“Billie Meddows is my sister.” A smile spread from ear to ear.
“Oh…, I didn’t know. Thank you.” I couldn’t help but wonder if Billie had run into those ‘problems’?
I found Mrs Trander at lunch break. She wanted me to sign up for basketball. She gave me the form to fill out and have my parents sign so I could play. I told her I’d have to think about it. I couldn’t imagine her wanting someone as small as me playing on her team. I wasn’t even sure I could still shoot a basket. A lot of things had changed on my body this past summer.
Jo found me during PE. She wanted me to start practicing with the cheerleaders. She had the papers I'd signed at our kitchen table, agreeing to join the Lady Wildcats Cheerleaders. I told her I didn’t want to make anyone mad. Everyone probably thought I wasn’t a real girl, although I thought I was. She left that slot open for me, telling me I was signed up.
Elliot, Tug and the others started football practice weeks before school started. It was after school I made it out to the football field and found Coach Barney.
“Your brother tells me you’re a wide receiver.” He was watching the practice while trying to talk to me at the same time.
“I haven’t played since seventh grade. I kept the bench warm after that.” I was positive he wouldn’t want me.
“TWEET” He blew his whistle and motioned for Elliot. “Throw her some passes.”
Elliot looked at my skirt and sneakers. “She’s not dressed for it.”
“I don’t care how she’s dressed. I want to see how she catches.” He picked up a football from the grass and tossed it to Elliot.
Elliot looked at me. “Want to do this?”
I didn’t think it would make any difference. I'd flub the catch and go home. “Sure.”
“Long fifteen, slot right, back two.” He stepped out into the field.
“Guys huddle. My sister isn’t padded up for this. Anyone slams into her and we will have a discussion later off the field. It’s a simple pass pattern. Hike the ball and watch. No tackling.”
They lined up and I stepped out to wide right. Elliot called it off. “Hike one, hike two, hike three, hike.”
I ran fifteen yards down turned a hook to my right and ran two yards back toward the scrimmage line. The ball was there, wrapped up in my arms. I hooked left because, if that had been a real play, the center of the field would be full of players looking to crush me. I ran five yards downfield with the football tucked in both arms up against my stomach.
There was a whistle blowing the play dead. “Again.” Echoed across the field.
We huddled up again. Elliot looked at me. “You okay?”
“We need ten yards. We were penalized that last play for unnecessary roughness.”
All the guys laughed. Elliot grinned. “Okay, ten it is. Fifteen break.”
We lined up, the ball was hiked. I ran fifteen yards straight ahead, braked and did a side dance to let the defense that was hot on my tail run past me. I was at a full run back for five yards. The ball was there. I wrapped it up in my arms and belly and fell over backwards to keep the tackle from hitting me from behind and pushing me forward. Of course the tackle wasn’t really there except in my memory from so many games past.
And then I remembered I was wearing a skirt not a football uniform. I rolled over and jumped to my feet, brushing down my skirt.
Coach Barney waved everyone over. He looked at me and shook his head. “I’m going to do something I hope I don’t regret. Gentlemen, Barbara is now a part of the team. If anyone has any problems playing football with a girl let me know. Barbara, go down to junior high and find a uniform that fits. I expect you to show up for practice from now on. You’re two weeks late already. Our first official game is with the Sentinels in two weeks. You will play on the field in that game.”
He clapped his hands. “Okay men, practice, practice, practice. In two weeks you will no longer be practicing. Let’s go.”
Before Tuesday morning, word had already spread across the campus that I was signed up for football. I was a curiosity Monday. Now, I was a leper. The girls didn’t want to get close to me, thinking I was some freak of nature. The boys figured I was a faggot in drag. If they had one word to describe me it was abomination.
There was a rally in the gym at the end of the day. The football team was at practice. I wasn’t, because my schedule hadn’t been changed yet, so I made the rally along with everyone else. Jo, Judy, and all the other cheerleaders were on the gym floor, kinda warming up. They weren’t into cheerleader mode yet. I found a seat up in the bleachers. When I sat down, others started getting up and moving away. Within minutes I had about a ten foot circle of empty bleachers around me.
Tina Dalson was one of the cheerleaders. She was black and cute as a bugs ear and always smiling. She was one of the few cheerleaders whose boyfriend wasn’t a football player. She looked up at me, walked over, and said something to Leroy Herron, her boyfriend.
Leroy stood up and started climbing bleachers until he was standing beside me. “This seat saved for anyone?”
I shook my head no.
“Mind if I sit down?” He sat down beside me.
LaWanda Cane came up and sat down on the other side of me. She reached over and took my right hand in her black hand, giving it a light squeeze.
As he stared off across the court, Leroy innocently reached out and took my left hand in his big hand.
Kids started moving in and filled up the empty circle. The teachers had been watching, along with all the rest of the school.
Jo jumped up in the air, did the splits, and rocked the gym with a shout. “GOOOOO WILDCATS!”
That day I knew I would never be accepted as something human by some of the kids. It didn’t make any difference. That was their loss. I was accepted by those who would become my friends.
The football team made the playoffs that year. We were two games away from the championship. First we had to defeat the Raiders. They were known to be down and dirty players. It was said they played football because it gave them a chance to hurt everyone and not go to jail for it.
Coach Brusen was looking at the Wildcats team on the other side of the field before kickoff. “Joel, I want you to take out the freak. They play as a bother sister team. Take her out and their team is crippled. We will take the penalties. Flatten that bitch and make sure she doesn’t play any more.”
Joel rubbed his knuckles together. “Got it coach. The freak is toast.”
The coin toss gave us the choice. We took it as receiver. Their kicker sliced the kickoff and it went out at the forty yard line. We tried testing their defense with two running plays which gained a couple yards each time. It was passing time.
Elliot called for a reverse sweep across the field. Early in the game it was one of our best plays. The defense got confused which receiver they were guarding as both wide receivers crossed in the middle of the field.
Watching the snap I was already at a full run on the crossing pattern. I was at the point where the ball would come if Elliot picked me instead of Tommy, who headed to the other side of the field. The ball was in the air. I set up to catch it when I was hit from behind and driven into the turf. Whistles blew and flags were thrown as the Raiders were penalized for illegal contact.
I managed to struggle back to my feet. When I looked at the Raider that slammed me, I realized it wasn’t an accident.
He was grinning. “Go home bake some cookies, little girl.”
“Only if you let me borrow your boyfriend ma’am.” I headed back to the huddle as his face turned blue. Was he holding his breath?
With the penalty we had our first down but it came with a price. I hurt. There was no way I could take that kind of punishment all evening.
Elliot noticed. “You okay?”
I nodded. “I’m fine.” I didn’t want him to know how bad I hurt.
Our next play was a fake. Elliot ran right, handed off to Corbin headed the other way. I don’t care how good you are, when two football players are passing a football between them at a full run going opposite directions, it’s hard to hold onto that ball. It fell free. We recovered, but it set us back seven yards.
Elliot called for the hook. I had to make twenty yards before I turned to get the yardage we now needed for that first down.
The ball was hiked. Elliot was back peddling to keep away from the defensive rush. I made the twenty yards and made the hook when I was slammed. He literally picked me up in the air and body slammed me down onto the turf. I bounced a couple inches back up into the air.
I didn’t hear the whistles that time but they were blown. Coach Barney was on the sideline, screaming bloody murder. The crowd was booing from both sides of the field. I managed to get back to my feet before the coaching staff made it out there. If they had got there first I would have been benched while they called in the doctor to look for a concussion.
I made it back to the huddle. We still needed five more yards for a first down even with the gain due to penalties. I wasn’t going to be able to take more than a couple of those open hits.
Elliot was looking at me. “Tank, you’re quarterback.”
Tug shook his head. “The hell you say. I’m tight end.”
Elliot looked over at Shane. “Okay, you’re quarterback.”
Shane looked confused. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Shotgun and throw the ball in Barbara’s direction.”
“I’m not that good.”
“Doesn’t make any difference. Throw it in her direction as hard as you can. Make sure no Raiders can catch it.”
When we lined up I could hear the announcer. “Wait a minute. The Wildcats have shifted positions. I’m not sure who is supposed to be playing what position. Let’s see that’s…, can you make out the number on that jersey? Shane Walters is quarterback? Has he ever played quarterback before?”
I watched the snap and ran for my life downfield to my designated spot even if it wasn’t Elliot passing to me. I was almost there when someone shoved me to the side. Tank closed in on my spot. The Raider was there with his shoulder down intending to drive into me again. Only it was a ‘Tank’ he met instead.
Tug had his shoulder down and dove into the Raider who had met the immovable object instead of the girl. The kid was stopped and slammed back when someone else as big and tough as Tank hit him from behind. He did a somersault up and over Tug where he bounced on the turf.
Of course whistles blew and flags were flown. We were penalized for unnecessary roughness, clipping, and a half dozen other infractions. The kid didn’t walk off the field.
Coach Brusen was yelling at the referees we should forfeit the game for fighting on the field. He sent in Damon. “Kill that girl.”
“You got it Coach.” He slipped on his helmet and trotted out to the field.
Our setup was the same as the last one. The ball was hiked. I ran like mad. We had a fifteen yard penalty to make up plus that ten yards we didn’t get the first play.
Damon focused on the girl cutting across the field and set up his angle of attack. She was looking for a pass. Receivers were so easy to mangle. They were stretched out to gather in a pass instead of protecting themselves.
He lowered his shoulder to plow her into dust when his lights went out.
Tank came in from one side and lowered the boom bouncing Damon into Elliot who was coming in from the other side. Elliot rode Damon into the turf and power drove it home. Damon didn’t walk off the field.
The Wildcats were penalized another fifteen yards.
Coach Brusen was livid as he screamed at the referees.
Hank Wilson the head referee walked over where Coach Brusen was. “It looks like Coach Barney’s boys have come to play by your rules. We can either play football out here or we can play take out. So far they are ahead, two zip.
You either call off your boys trying to send the girl to the hospital or I’m going to start missing some of those penalties the Wildcats are doing.”
Coach Brusen was sputtering. “I’ll have your job. You’re a disgrace to the profession.”
Hank pointed up toward the press box. “It’s all on camera. I’ll take my chances with the review board any day of the week. Do I make myself clear? You either start playing football or I’m going to find so many penalties against the Raiders the Wildcats can send in their cheerleaders and win this game.”
The final score was ten to seven. None of the players walked off that field in good shape that night. It was anything but a ‘sport’. The Wildcats pulled out a squeaker by a field goal. I heard after the football season was over, Coach Brusen was let go. We carried our bruises and pain to the finals. Despite how bad we were banged up everyone sucked it up and gave a hundred and ten percent at the finals, running on pure adrenalin. We made all the TV stations statewide and newspapers nationwide as the Wildcats playing a brother sister team. It wasn’t Elliot and me that made the team successful. The team adopted me as their little sister and if truth be known, the team mascot. They played their hearts out protecting me.
It was my last time to play football. Elliot would graduate from high school. My time as a football player was intertwined with Elliot. Siblings know each other better than anyone else in the world. Mom and dad had their trophies of Elliot and I playing football, but it wasn’t one of those things one puts on their mantle. It was pictures and newspaper clippings, and magazine articles, and videos of TV news reels and movies of all the games we played.
Tug and I dated through the school year. He was the only one I dated. It wasn’t that I didn’t like boys. I mean, I played football with them. It was I just wasn’t interested in dating other boys even though I was asked many times. I think a lot of those boys asked out of curiosity, wondering what it would be like to date someone like me.
When basketball season started I played with the Lady Wildcats. Mrs Trander was right about other teams not knowing how to handle me. I was too short to be a real basketball player. Wrong. Get those tall girls out of my way and I could still nail that basket way out past the three point circle.
I was Tug’s date to the Junior Senior Prom that year. I wore the same dress I wore to the charity event. And although my body was filling out in all the right places I still needed help. The fake boobs were used again. I think the gossip mill burned down that night. There were so many beautiful girls, and handsome boys, there that night. And I was a girl, a real girl, even if I did have some help in the curves department.
I can only imagine that the hate Gus had been feeding all those years finally drove him to the edge. It was our last week of school that year. Most of the other kids had accepted me as a different kind of girl. Those that hadn’t probably still considered me a freak or something else. It was between my math and history classes when I was getting my books out of my locker. The hallway was full of kids. I really wasn’t paying attention to those beside me or those moving from one class to another. I had just closed my locker door when he shoved my back and I slammed up against the locker. I thought one of the other kids had tripped and bumped into me before I turned around to see who was so clumsy.
“You’re a freaking freak! Say it! Say you’re a freak! SAY IT!” Gus yanked my left arm, causing me to drop my books.
“Leave me alone.” The other kids were backing away. I knew this wasn’t going to be my kind of fight as Mike and Jerry closed in from my left and right side.
“Mr. Stall, you leave Miss Peck alone.” Came from Mrs. Nordon our Social Science teacher, as she came up behind Gus.
Gus turned and gave her such a hard push she stumbled and fell backwards. “BACK OFF! This is between the freak and me!”
Gus was smiling as he turned his attention back to me. “You think you’re something don’t you freak?” He swung his right fist into my stomach.
That knocked the air out of me. I grabbed my stomach and bent over in pain. Gus hit me in the back of the head with his fist when I doubled over. I went to my knees.
“I’m gonna mess you up so bad, you’re gonna be even more ugly than you already are.” He brought his right foot back and swung forward to kick my face in. That kick was loaded with all the hate he had been building toward me since grade school.
I saw it coming. Instinctively I dodged to the left as I twisted my body right to make a more narrow target for Gus to aim at. All those years of playing sports had taught me something about dodging hits.
Gus’s boot slammed into the locker and crushed the door in. The boom could be heard throughout that end of the school.
Gus pulled his foot back to stomp me again. I didn’t think I was going to be able to dodge him a second time as I was almost lying down with no room to move. Mike kicked at my head. His aim wasn’t that good as it glanced off my skull and shoulder. Jerry kicked at my legs the same time. Gus was reloading his kick, intending to plaster my face against the lockers.
Those who were watching swore Elliot was airborne eight feet out. He launched from a dead run. Tug was one step behind when he launched. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something coming. I flattened out on the floor and covered my head with my arms. Elliot was flying horizontal when he slammed into Gus. He carried Gus into Jerry who was to the left of Gus and all three of them went skidding down the hall. Tug flew into Mike taking him off his feet carrying him past me as they went skidding on the floor.
Mr. Kysar our principle and Mr. Himmer our school security guard were coming down the hall at a trot as I raised my head up to see what happened.
Elliot and Tug were on their feet staring down at Gus and the other two boys who were still trying to get their bearings after being hit with a flying tackle.
“Gus…” Elliot was pointing his finger at Gus, the rage in his voice clearly understood. “Gus…, damn you!”
It was the only time I ever heard Elliot cuss. It wasn’t the word he used that carried the threat of impending doom but the tone of his voice. Slowly he moved over to where I was and lifted me up on my feet. “You okay?”
Mr. Kysar was trying to get a handle on the situation as Mrs. Nordon found her feet. She pointed toward Gus. “He is the one who started this. Him and his two friends. I saw him hit Miss Peck.”
Mr. Kysar pointed at the three boys still on the floor. “My office. Mrs. Nordon, you bring Elliot, Tug and Miss Peck. Mr. Himmer and I will bring the other three.”
Gus slowly got to his feet along with Mike and Jerry. He glared at me. “This ain’t over, freak.”
I can only guess at the hatred poisoning his mind at that moment. He lunged at me obviously intent on finishing what he had started. I back peddled from his attack knowing I was no match for his weight. Elliot and Tug both started closing the hole between us at the same instant. Gus never played sports. The only fighting he knew was bully tactics, beating up his opponents by brute force. Elliot and Tug were running on a lifetime of training as two of the best athletes this school had ever known. As Gus charged Elliot lowered his right shoulder, Tug lowered his left and they did a pile driver body slam on Gus. He went down hard. I heard a crack as his head slammed into the floor. Gus wasn’t going to be getting up on his own steam from that one.
Mr. Kysar looked shocked as he glanced from Elliot to Tug to me. He turned to Mr. Himmer. Call nine one one. This has gotten out of control.
Can we say school was over for us that day? Of course we can. Paramedics were called for Gus. He left school that day in an ambulance. Mike and Jerry left school in the back of a high performance black and white. All three were expelled for the rest of the week and would not graduate. They would have to repeat their sophomore year over. What they wouldn't do was return to Wildcats High School. I heard they never returned to school, any school. They took their bully tactics to the streets, peddling drugs or some such.
If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Nordon, I believe Elliot, Tug and I would have been expelled too. She had seen the whole thing from beginning to end. She told Mr. Kysar and Mr. Himmer there weren’t to be any decisions about our punishment until our parents were present.
Thirty minutes later the office was more than full. Mom and dad came in minutes after Ripley and Ellen Bagget arrived. Billie Meddows and a man in a suit arrived shortly after.
Mr. Kysar tried to stop Billie and the man at the door. “This is a private meeting. You aren’t allowed.”
The man pulled a business card out of his pocket. “Lynn Wrathers. I’m here as legal counsel for Barbara Peck, Elliot Peck and Tug Bagget. Miss Billie Meddows is legal liaison for the aforementioned clients.”
Lynn gave Mr. Kysar ‘the look’. “Are you refusing to allow legal counsel for the clients so named?”
Mr. Kysar hesitated. He had never been handed a situation like this before. Lawyers always showed up after someone felt their child had been wronged by the school administration. “Well…”
“Let’s hear the story of what happened before either of us jumps to any conclusions, shall we? All I know at this point is there was a fight and one boy was sent to the hospital. We can either hear the rest of the story from the ones in your office here and now, or we can iron it out in court. Courts can get very expensive. Really exorbitantly expensive if someone is punished unfairly.” Lynn smiled, as his eyes danced with the look of a predator looking for a meal.
Mr. Kysar opened the door and backed up. “Okay, the police do the questioning.”
As soon as she saw me, Billie walked over and gave me a hug. “I heard you were the center of attention.”
“Un huh, Elliot and Tug saved me. I’m not in the hospital or dead because they came along when they did. They were only defending me.”
I started crying. “They don’t deserve to be punished. They didn’t do anything wrong. They were protecting me.”
Billie passed me over to mom. “We will iron it out hon. If you were…,”
She lifted my head up. “Lynn, I’m looking at fresh bruises. Look here at her left cheek…, She has some swelling around her left eye.” She parted my hair and came up with blood on her fingers. “Scalp lacerations. Her left shoulder is scraped.”Billie turned her attention on Mr. Kysar.
“School is supposed to be a learning center of education not a survival class. You let something like this happen and stand there thinking of what punishment you are going to mete out to these children in your care. What you should be doing is thinking what you did wrong to let something like this happen.”
Looking over at the officers she nodded her head toward me. “Miss Peck needs medical attention. NOW! We can go in my car or yours. Which one will it be?”
The two officers looked at one another, as if making a decision was beyond them. Finally one managed to gain his wits after Lynn cleared his throat with a loud 'harrumph.' “Call an ambulance.”
“I’ll agree to that. Make the call.” Billie started checking me over even more carefully. “Bruising and scrapes on the legs.” She ran her hands down my sides. I flinched and pulled back when she got to my stomach. She gently pushed on my stomach. I pulled back. She shook her head. “They punched you didn’t they? I’ll call for x rays to check for broken ribs and internal bleeding.”
I was crying again. It wasn’t from the pain but a kind of pity party. I hadn’t realized how bad Gus and the other two boys had worked me over until Billie started looking. I didn’t deserve to be beat up.
Billie straightened up and looked Mr. Kysar in the eyes. “The sad fact this happened is bad enough. To make it even more egregious, Elliot and Tug were the ones who rescued her from even more harm. You should be pinning medals on those two boys.”
To add fuel to the school gossip mill, I was taken out of the office on a stretcher. I wasn’t allowed to walk out. I never did figure out if that was part of Billie’s plan or regulations for the EMP? Personally I bet it was Billie. Mom said that first day of school Billie had promised fire and brimstone would rain down on that school if problems arose. I think that was more than an empty threat.
Mr. Kysar’s policy was that everyone was expelled if there was any fighting. He covered fighting with a group policy. All were guilty. He didn’t expel us though. I was positive we had Mrs Nordon, our parents and Billie and her lawyer friend to thank.
Thankfully Elliot, Tug, and I weren’t suspended. The next day was ‘sore day,’ covering up bruises and scrapes with jeans and a long sleeve blouse. The funny part was, I was glad it didn’t happen before the prom, or I wouldn’t have been able to wear the dress.
We finished out the week in school. Elliot and Tug were through with high school and would be headed to college the next year. I got to advance to Junior next year, but it wouldn’t be the same. Elliot had protected me all my life. He would no longer be there. I dated Tug that summer. Judy and I joined Calvin at Chiggers off and on over the summer. We did another charity drive with Billie Meddows toward the end of the summer. It was when Elliot and Tug packed up and left for college that I began to feel that life was going by too fast. I wanted Elliot going back to school with me.
Coach Barney stopped me in the hall that first day of school. “Barbara, you going to play for us this year?”
Shaking my head, I tried to smile through the loss I felt of not having Elliot there. “Sorry Coach. I’m not that good without Elliot making me look like I know how to play. It was kind of you to ask. Thanks for asking.”
He knew why I turned him down. He smiled. “Okay. I had to ask. The rest of the team told me if I didn’t ask they weren’t going to play. Think we will make State again?”
“It’s possible if you can teach Andy to accept the ball instead of charging for it.”
He hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“Every player has a different way of catching a ball, whether it is a football or baseball. When it comes at them, some want to be reaching for it, rather than accepting it into their hands. When an incoming ball speed meets speeding hands coming at it, the result is they can’t hold onto it as it smacks into their hands. Andy is always in position to receive that ball, but he’s too eager to get it, so he reaches for it. He needs to learn to let it come to him and then wrap his hands around it. He will be your best receiver if you can get him to wait for it. And maybe State will be a possibility then.”
Coach Barney got a grin on his face that spread from ear to ear. “Barbara, will you come out to the field and show the others what you told me? They will listen to you. You’re the best wide receiver I ever had the pleasure of coaching.”
“I don’t have a football uniform.”
“Not needed. You said you didn’t want to play. How about becoming an assistant coach?”
“I’m signed up as a cheerleader this year. Conflict of timing schedules.”
Coach Barney started laughing so hard tears came to his eyes. “A cheerleader is going to teach our football team how to play football? This is too much. Barbara, football field after school. I can’t wait to see the expression on their faces. Wear your cheerleader uniform. Please.”
We did make State that year, but were beat out. Coach Barney wasn’t too disappointed. All except two of the kids would return for their senior year. He planned on taking State with most of them coming back as seasoned players.
Time never stops. Our Junior year went by so fast I couldn’t figure out where it went. Elliot came home and went to work that summer for Glidders, which was a world wide construction company for the oil and gas industry. Most of the summer Elliot was off in another state or another country.
I missed my brother with all my heart, even if Judy and I were kept busy with Calvin and charity events. I wanted things to stay the same way they were before Elliot graduated from high school. Many nights mom would come into my room after hearing me crying on my pillow. She missed him too. Every now and then I would see her wiping tears from the corners of her eyes after we talked about the things we did together.
Tug filled in a lot of empty spots that summer. He worked for Tchrad, so he stayed home when he wasn’t in college. We spent a lot of time at Trotter’s Park that summer. Not so much on the rides ourselves, but watching the kids laughing as they enjoyed the rides. I enjoyed watching and helping Tug do his magic as he fixed the equipment when it broke down.
Senior year was a repeat of our Junior year, except for different subjects and different teachers. I became involved in a science project that year, splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. My project made the state science fair. I had discovered that water molecules were more easily broken by a differential charge if an ultrasonic vibration was applied at the same time. Then I found that a blue laser was even more efficient than the vibration project. Both projects made the fair. I received a writeup in the fair paper, not because I won a prize, but because I had two projects entered at the same time.
At the Junior-Senior prom I went stag. I knew it was the last time for high school, but I didn’t feel like a date. And then there was that last day of school. I knew I had left childhood behind as I walked across that stage and received my diploma. I don’t think I was the only one who knew how proud I was as I crossed that stage as a young woman instead of as a young man. Elliot was there, and mom and dad along with Tug and Billie. Judy and I hugged backstage until we were both crying. I never would have made it without everyone’s support. I was the luckiest girl in the world.
The lightning was flashing in my bedroom, with the following thunder shaking the house. Not that I was scared, I just wanted things to be the way they used to be. I wanted to walk over to my bother’s bed and climb in with him like I used to when the lightning and thunder rattled the house. I slipped out of bed and hesitated at the door, afraid not of the lightning and thunder, but of the things that had changed. Opening the door slowly so as to not make any noise, I padded down the hallway to Elliot’s room and slowly turned the door handle.
Easing the door open far enough to peer into the room, it was black except when the lightning periodically flashed through the window. “Elliot” I called across the room softly. I didn’t want to wake him if he was already asleep.
Elliot raised the edge of the cover. “Come on, Brat.”
Softly I padded across the familiar bedroom I had grown up in, along with Elliot. Reaching down with my right hand I lifted my satin nightgown a few inches so I wouldn’t have to struggle with it when I laid down. I slid under the covers with my back up against Elliot’s chest. His left arm was under my head. He put his right arm around me and held me.
“This is the last time. Okay?” Elliot whispered to my back.
The tears started, gently and slowly. I tried to not let Elliot know I was crying. There were a lot of problems with that as the tears fell on his arm where I was resting my head. Trying to hold in the tears caused an involuntarily intake of breath as I choked up and needed more air than what my stopped up nose would allow. “huuu...”
Elliot gently squeezed me with his right arm. It was the kindest thing he could have done. Elliot always seemed to know exactly what I needed.
I knew I had lost the special bond two brothers have. Maybe I wouldn’t have ever crawled back in bed with him if nothing had changed, but it had. He was still my brother, but we were no longer brothers. I had changed the equation. It could never be changed back.
When we were little I always climbed in bed with Elliot when the thunder and lightning shook the house and lit up the room. Elliot had always protected me from the imagined nightmares. It couldn’t ever be again... and I cried for that loss. Wrapped up in my brother’s protection one last time, I softly cried. Part of my life was gone forever, but a new life lay ahead of me, filled with hope and the promise that at least it wouldn't be boring. Old friends would always be there, but new friends and new challenges lay ahead of me and I felt optimistic, now that I finally was who I'd always needed to be.
I finally drifted off to sleep, my brother's arm still protecting me from the frightening storm outside... just like it had always done.
The End
BCTS Publishers, Writers, Readers Party
by Barbie Lee
no copyright enjoy
The invitation I picked up in the mailbox kind of surprised me. It was an announcement from BCTS to attend a party the owners and staff decided to give for all those who surfed and or gathered on BCTS. The party was RSVP, the cover charge was a hundred dollars. The event was in Vegas in thirty days. Looking at my smartphone, opening up the calendar that date was open for me, I could make that. Reading on further down the notice it was a ‘come as you wish’ party. That was pretty explanatory, I didn’t need any brain power to figure that one out. It would give the girls and guys a chance to shine all on their own without any uncomplimentary comments.
The only problems I could foresee were some of those girls were drop dead gorgeous and could outshine me on their sloppiest days off. I started counting on my fingers who may or may not be there? Bru was in Czechoslovakia the last I heard from her when I asked to borrow her blue gown she wore to the Queen’s Ball. Not England’s queen, Sweden’s queen. Or was it the Russian Princess? Or…, never mind it was someone’s ball. Obviously another undercover job for one government or another. Damn girl was a double, double, triple, foreign agent for half a dozen different governments. The only thing keeping her alive was she could disguise herself as a hundred different people in a heartbeat. It was doubtful she remembered who she really was? Anyway she informed me she gave that gown to a charity of some kind. I think it was Broken Hearts, Wounded Lovers, Hearts Healed Charity or something like that. That leaves her out of the BCTS party. Thank God!
Humm, Jill, was headed to a business meeting in Taiwan to close in on a multi billion dollar contract with some company making air cars or some such. This is what she told me when I called her asking to borrow the blue gown she wore to the President’s Inauguration Party. She said it had acquired a non removable stain when red wine was spilled on it. Right! Well thank God she is going to be out of the country so she won’t be at the party. She’s going to lose her ass on that pie in the sky pipe dream some shyster sold her. Flying cars indeedie, hah, she’s been watching too many George Jetson cartoons and it fried her brain.
Number three, Daphne, oh yes another best girlfriend the lovely Daphne. When I called asking to borrow her gorgeous, sequined, turquoise gown she wore to the Texas Governor’s Oil Field Appreciation Day’s party, she claimed it had got lost between the party in Texas and her trip back home. She was headed to New York to Fashion Week and then California to Designer’s Spring Showing. From there she was headed to Paris and Affairs of Heart fashion show, then to Milan. She would end up in Monaco at the Fashion Splash Week.
The girl has designer gowns strung around her business, her home, and in storage worth millions and she wouldn’t loan me one? I’m questioning this girlfriend thing?
Who else? Nuuan of course, such a sweet lovely girl. It was her black dress she wore to the CMA I asked to borrow. Damn that girl looked hot. If that dress only did half that for me I’d be tickled pink. She’s on a six month tour with the Cowboy’s Dreams group, country western band. All them girls are pure country charm in looks and talent. Nuuan said that dress was back home and she was in Nashville at the time or she would loan it to me. Un huh, Surely she isn’t still pissed at me for selling her and Jill ocean front property in Oklahoma? I thought it was funny and I really didn’t get that much money from either one of them. Her and the Dreams are headed to Berlin next and then tour Europe for two months.
All the ones I knew personally who would look better than me were going to be gone and not be able to make the party. I decided I’d make the reservations. Erin would be there of course as one of the owners. She could look a lot better than me. If she was working up to and then making sure the party was on track she would look like ninety miles of bad road and a working girl. There was Piper, a real sweety, but she lived on the other side of the country and she too was a working girl. She’d probably stay home and make sure things kept running on her end. I could count her out, thank goodness. She was a real cutie whether she was in jeans and tee or all dolled up. One of those kind of girls who looked hot no matter what she was wearing.
The rest of the BCTS team I hadn’t met. I was sure with being able to count two of them out as, either not there or hotter than me, the percentages were really good the others wouldn’t be a problem looking better than me. This was going to be such a fun party! I’d show them what a real girl looked like when she’s painted up and ready to party. My gowns might not be up to snuff like those who aren’t going to be able to make it. But then again, they weren’t coming. Just call me Queen of the Party and give me my crown now. I mailed in my hundred dollar check. You bet your booties I was going!
Arriving in Vega a couple days ahead of the party, I made the casinos loosing some but not much. My main purpose was to be there and check out the competition before the party. The strange thing was, I didn’t recognize any publishers, writers, or anyone who might be the kind of person who would write or would read the kind of stories on BCTS. There were a lot of beautiful women and handsome men but the other kind wasn’t there. Maybe they planned on showing up for the party and leaving again? The day before the party new faces were checking into the Sahara. Still all good looking men and women of all ages. I was right. Everyone was going to show up for the party and then leave.
That evening I saw Erin in the dinning room with Piper. Erin didn’t look tasseled and Piper was…, both girls looked hot, hot. Damn! Those other women at the table couldn’t be BCTS staff or owners too could they? God I hope not. Get a grip Barb, only a couple beautiful women and you’re still in the running even if you are in third place now. Provided those other women aren’t going to the party.
Lunch was no longer looking that good. I made it to the bar and woke up in my room the next morning. Someone had steered me to my room after? I didn’t remember. What I do remember is I don’t drink. Okay, I never drank before. That one time in college doesn’t count. That was to get rid of the flu. Really.
Rolling off the bed where I had been face planted, I struggled to the bathroom, managed to shed my dress, nylons, panties, bra, and slip into the shower without bothering to look for a shower cap. The appointment at the Girls R Us beauty salon that afternoon before the party would take care of my hair. Fifteen minutes or an hour later, who’s keeping time, letting the water pulse down on me, I felt I might live. A note to myself, no more drinking anything with alcohol in it. Alcohol and me do not play well together. This was the second time in my life I learned that lesson. Which finally got me to wondering who the hell brought me to my room?
Finally dried off enough to face the next step and look in the mirror. Wish I hadn’t. I was looking at road kill. If that beauty salon didn’t have madges working there I was going to be toast going to that party this evening. Blood shot eyeballs, bags and dark circles under both eyes, a worn out non removable expression on my face where I would swear I had been working livestock for a week. Maybe thinking I looked like road kill was being kind? I was positive death didn’t look this bad. The beauty saloon was gong to be a make or break situation for me. I could always skip the party and go home if they didn’t have someone with a magic wand working there. Who put me to bed? That bothered me.
By the time noon rolled around I was looking a whole lot better. Makeup can hide a lot. Now I only looked like death warmed over. The appointment was at three with the beauty saloon. Jeans, blouse, big cowboy buckle, cowgirl boots, hat…, a lot can be hidden under a hat, and big mirrored sunglasses. I made the dinning room for lunch. People either mistook me for a crazy tourist or one of the comedy acts as every one was taking more than a passing interest in me. Maybe I should have left the mirrored glasses in the room? I thought Vegas was a cowboy, cowgirl town? Well, besides all the put your eyes back in your head stunning females who were everywhere. There were a few good looking men. Most of them were older, carrying too much fat, and should have remembered to take off their wedding ring while ogling the girls.
I might have been staring at the girls myself, but it was to check out the completion. Most of them could have been run a way models. I take that back, most of them were too well endowed to be runway models. They had been more than blessed by their mother’s DNA or a doctor’s skills. I placated my mind with the idea beautiful women were dime a dozen around here. See one beautiful woman and you’ve seen them all, right?
None of the BCTS members were in the dinning room, nor was there anyone else I recognized. Thus the girls I saw last night were the only real competition. You can crown me Most Gorgeous third runner up. I was still in. Provided the beauty shop had a Witch or two working there who could do spells and incantations. If that beauty shop has an old wizard wearing a robe, I’ll be outta there so fast no one will know I entered.
The Girls R Us beauty solon worked their miracle for me, or was that on me. By the time I walked out I felt like a heifer who had found the clover field. Still wearing jeans, I looked fantastic. By the time I slipped into my sleeveless, golden, satin gown decorated in swirls of beads and sequins on the bodice, the other girls would look like left over liver. Those other writers might be able to write better stories with more emotional impact. That’s not my opinion. I’m more beautiful than any of them. And that includes the girls I saw in the dinning room last night. Grab a saddle horn and hold on world, Barb has arrived. And that IS my opinion!
The invite claimed refreshments and hors d’oeuvres (why do they want to bring the French in? Call them mouth stuffers) would be served at six and until the party was over at two A.M. Naturally I was fashionably late and didn’t show up until six thirtyish or a tad later. When I walked into the banquet room where it was being held, it seemed the party was a bust. Besides the owners and staff of BCTS there were only six more ladies there. Of course I didn’t smirk as everyone looked at me when I walked in. Eat your heart out girls, the belle of the ball has arrived. Yes, you may all curtsy to me. I don’t think they got the message, none of them did.
Oh well I can be gracious this once and forgive the pheasants…, um peasants. I have trouble with that when I’m writing too. Gracefully walking over to the buffet table I picked up a napkin and dropped a couple shelled pickled shrimp on it along with one of those tiny little dainty forks which are great for stabbing the critters. Plastic cups for drinking? Really, how droll.
While I had my back to the door a dozen more women had come in sounding like a gaggle of geese, laughing, joking, and getting acquainted with one another. Slowly I turned around to impress them with my stunning beauty. And dropped my napkin upon which shrimp had been placed. I couldn’t believe it.
Bru was there in her stunning beauty wearing an iridescent blue gown, showing off every abundant curve. Gag! The girl made supermodels look like farm hands. I hated her! I hope she dies next assignment she is sent on!
Jill, was that sweet little Jill? What in the hell was the color of the dress she was wearing? Is silver, pearlesent white even a color? She had to be cheating! I don’t remember her having a figure like that? Problem was that dress she was wearing wouldn’t let her cheat, too much of her was exposed. I hate her!
Francesca? She told me she wasn’t coming. Is she wearing the red cocktail dress I asked to borrow last month? She is! I hope she breaks her neck wearing those five inch heels. She must have went to Girls R Us too. Her makeup brought out all her natural beauty. I hate her!
It can’t be. Daphne the fashion model who “had” a dozen fashion shows on her schedule is here? And her dress has to be a Marceni Original. Crap, a forty thousand dollar gown! It would make a goat look beautiful. On Miss Fashion herself she looks delicious, good enough to eat. Which is what the press does every time she steps out on the runway. Wonder they get any pictures salivating on their own cameras. I hate her!
Crap, Nuuan, walked in behind them looking like the Prima Donna of the country and western set. The brocade dress she’s wearing has enough beads and sequins to make Porter Wagner jealous. Girl was smoking hot. Her talent with the banjo, guitar, violin, and every other instrument she picked up made her the star of every concert. Her beauty fanned the flames. I hated her too!
Over a period of a couple hours the banquet room filled up with publishers, writers, readers, and groupies. And how in the hell did groupies get invited? My opinion of the owners and staff of BCTS had taken a hickey. Publishers and writers were talking about their next book. Readers were talking about the stories they loved the best. The only real attention I received was from the damn groupies who wanted to know who I was? Who I was? That hurt. They didn’t even know me. What hurt even more was no one asked for my autograph even though everyone else was being asked. Some of the readers asked who I was and if I was a writer or reader. When I mentioned some of the stories I wrote they would politely nod as if they had heard of it and move on.
By twelve I was thoroughly chastised. With my tail between my legs I left the party and headed back to my room. Once there I undressed and repacked all my clothes. By the time I finished it was the next day. Maybe only one thirty but still, I was to be checked out by noon anyway. Dragging my suitcases I head out. My swelled ego had been deflated in a big way. Among all the owners, staff, writers, and readers on BCTS I wasn’t the Queen Bee like I thought. Not even sure I ranked as a worker bee? Well, maybe? They contribute to the honey supply and I make small contributions to the stories. I’d settle for being a worker bee.
I couldn’t stay mad at the girls. They were all beautiful, talented writers, and good friends. It was me who had taken advantage of that friendship. In the lobby when I dropped the room key on the check out counter, the lady looked at it and then turned her attention on me. “Miss, there are several dresses, gowns we have been holding for you. Some of the other ladies dropped them off and said they were yours.”
“What?” She obviously had the wrong person.
“Over there by the dinning room entrance. We put them there for our other guests to admire them as they passed by. They are all so beautiful and I bet cost a small fortune for each one. Each lady gave us explicit instructions to not let Miss Barbie Lee leave without taking the dresses and gowns with her.”
It was a miracle unto itself I found a settee and sit down before I fell down bawling my eyes out. I had thought such hateful words and acts against each one of the girls only an hour before. Now who was really the false girl friend? It was me who tried to use each one of them. How low is a snake’s belly? I felt lower than that. I finally found an end to the water works. Walking back over to the lady I shook my head. “Tell each one of them I love each and every one of them more than words can express. I’m driving a big Ford diesel pickup and don’t have room for the dresses. Even if I did, I don’t have room at home for them. You understand don’t you? I live in an old farm house. It’s small and old. I can toss the cat out the door or the window without opening either. I have nowhere to go in one of those dresses. I’m positive the livestock would appreciate me dressing up for them. I’d look better than anyone ever has out on the tractor wearing one of those dresses.”
“No, those dresses are so beautiful they must be worn and shown off by those who can do them justice without being over shadowed by the dresses themselves. That is the ladies who left them here. Each one of them are beautiful in their own unique way. They have a heart of gold and better friends seldom ever come along in a lifetime. I’m going home with some of the happiest moments of my life going with me because of what those dresses meant, not in dollar value but in love value.”
Picking up the handles to my suitcases I headed for the parking garage rolling the suitcases along behind me. Everyone has their world where they belong. I realized where mine was. Erin, Piper, all the owners, staff of BCTS, all the writers, readers, and those who surfed through had their world. Maybe those who stopped to read some of the stories were whisked away on a magic carpet made of imagination but they always returned to their world after a few hours of pleasant escape?
To all those who pass through BCTS, this story is fiction…? Or possibly maybe not. You’ll have to decide.
Backing into Life
copyright
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
I have no qualms about anyone storing any of my stories on their computer. Please don't post to other sites.
Barbie Lee
“Joe, would you hand me the nine sixteenths box end?" Came the request from under the ATV.
“Let me find it. I found it. Here daddy, by your right leg." I tapped him on the leg with the wrench.
An arm came out from under the ATV with the palm open faced up. I laid the wrench in his hand.
“The whole thing is turning. Need another nine sixteenths.”
“Just a sec.” Pulling a stool over to the tool cabinet I started digging for another wrench. “Got it." Dropping down off the stool, I walked back over beside the ATV and tapped daddy on his right leg. His hand came out and the wrench disappeared back under the ATV.
The door leading from the garage to the kitchen opened. Mom stood there for a second watching Joe and Jim work on the four wheeler. She smiled as she slowly shook her head. Her six year old probably knew more about mechanics than Jim did. To some people it came naturally and Joe was one of those who took to it like a duck to water. But then, everything Jo did seemed to come naturally.
“If you can spare Jo I need someone peeling potatoes. That is if you want dinner in a half hour.” Lori called out to her two mechanics.
“Okay, I got it lose now. All I need to do is drop the drive shaft down and get Gabe to replace the U joints.”
Joe headed toward Lori and stood there for a hug without hugging her back. "Don’t want to leave greasy hand prints on your dress.”
“That never stopped your daddy.” Turning loose of Jo she backed up into the house.
“Your fault, you didn’t raise him right." Joe was following Lori into the house to wash hands and peel potatoes.
“Isn’t my fault. I didn’t get him early enough to train him right. Judy was the one slacking in that department"
“mmmmm, I’m gonna tell Grams you called her a slacker.” Joe sprinted for the bathroom before finishing the sentence. It was what was coming, as Lori swatted and missed.
“Joey, you’re up at bat next. I’m asking Billy to bunt toward the third baseman. He’s hanging back looking for a foul. Billy will get on first. You bring him home, we win the ballgame.” Donald Shones knew Joey would slam that ball out of the ballpark if he got a decent ball over the plate. The other team, the Brown Tigers had a great pitcher. As good as Mike was, Joey was better. Donald was counting on Mike hurling his curving fast ball. That particular pitch usually faked out the best batters. It would look like a ball as it left Mike's hand. Then it would curve back in across the plate.
It was sheer luck their team, the Trojans had managed to stay only two behind in the bottom of the ninth. The betting odds had the Brown Tigers beating the Trojans seven to one. It was illegal to bet on high school games. It was also illegal to speed along with hundreds of other illegal things. People did what they wanted to anyway as long as they didn’t get caught.
Knowing Billy couldn’t hit a fastball eighty seven percent of the time, Mike let his fastball rip. Straight in no curve, the ball was clocked at eighty nine. Billy swung his right leg out across the plate as soon as Mike’s hand started coming forward. Mike realized what Billy was going to do as the ball left his fingertips but it was too late to change the pitch. Billy put his body over the plate, the bat held horizontally in both hands and bunted. The ball was bouncing toward third just inside the diamond.
The third baseman was good. Cade was closing as soon as Billy changed his stance. The Trojan player Rich had left third at the same time headed for the home plate. Cade caught the ball on a bounce, still at a full run he let the ball fly toward home. As the ball whizzed by him Dale stopped. The catcher was caught in a dilemma he never faced before. If he threw to first to get the runner out the player between him and third would make it to home plate. He held the ball as Cade closed in behind Dale. Dale knew he was caught but this way it was only one out not two if the catcher had tagged him out and then sent the ball to first to tag out Billy. The Trojans still had a chance with Joe coming up to bat.
The Trojans had a runner on first and second. The only thing the Brown Tigers had to do was make sure no runner made it to the home plate. Which is what it looked like would be what would happen at the moment. The top player on each team now faced each other. Mike watched his coach call for a ball. He was going to pull Joey into swinging and a strike. Mike threw his famous fastball curve thinking Joey would believe it was going to curve back over the plate. The ball was outside the plate by an inch or two and Joey didn’t swing. The coach called for another ball. Surely Joey would be counting on Mike to put it over the plate. If possible the ball was even closer to the plate without going over it and still Joey didn’t swing. The coach signaled Mike to strike Joey out. Mike grinned from ear to ear. This was what he lived for. The first ball would be inside corner. Too close for Joey to swing and get a hit on it. Mike let lose with his famous fastball curve just as Joey took a step back. The Brown Tiger's coach and Mike both stared in disbelief as Joey swung and his bat connected on the sweet spot. The ball went up and up and up and it was gone. Every one heard glass breaking somewhere out in the parking lot.
It was Joe’s junior year. At five eleven he was a tall willowy boy. He had muscle but it wasn't bulk. Everyone else on the football team outweighed him by fifty pounds or more. As the Trojan’s quarterback he could still out throw Eddie Wang their senior. He was also a lot more accurate with his balls. The receiver and the ball seemed to magically find each other when Joey was quarterback. Thus coach Neal Burrows, a big six foot four hunk of solid muscle, used Eddie only if the team was playing a really weak team or the Trojans were far ahead. He would pull Joey to keep him from getting banged up any more than he already was.
“Joey, are you gay?” Billy was staring at Joey in science class.
“No, why?” Joey turned to give Billy his full attention.
“Since school started this year you seem to be dressing more…," Billy wasn't sure how to phrase the question to his friend.
“Okay Billy, spill it."
“uh, kids are starting to talk. That shirt you are wearing looks like one the girls would wear." Billy was sure it was a shirt for girls. A lot of the clothes Joey had been wearing looked more like they belonged to a girl rather than a boy.
Joey kinda smirked. “It's a shirt, Billy. Are you saying boys can’t wear shirts any longer because girls wear shirts?”
“No, I mean that isn’t what I mean. Awe man, Joey, if David was wearing it maybe it would be a shirt.” Billy was trying his best to explain.
“I guess if David was wearing it, most certainly it would be a shirt. Even if it wasn’t no one would dare say any different. Are you now claiming there are shirts for one kind of boy but not for the other?” Joey looked like he was going to laugh.
“You're putting words in my mouth. David would cream anyone who said he was wearing girl’s clothes." Soon as he said it Billy looked away too ashamed to look at his friend. That wasn’t exactly what he meant to say even though he was thinking it.
“Do you think the clothes I am wearing make me a girl?” Joey was wondering what kind of answer he would get from Billy. He decided since he had got this far he would push on. “The clothes you’re wearing turned you into a boy? What were you before you put on those clothes this morning?"
Billy didn’t get a chance to answer as Mr. Franklin came into the classroom as the bell rang. Immediately he started handing out test sheets. “Books in your backpack or on the floor under your seat. Cell phones and calculators off. This is to test how much you have learned so far, not how good you are at cheating or looking up answers on the web. When you get out into the real world you will need to know where to start looking for answers even if you become a research scientist. Prove to me I'm teaching geniuses in this advanced class. Everyone of you are enrolled because you showed exceptional talent and grades for the past two years. Now, show me. Begin.” He handed out the last sheet and walked back to his desk to wait out the hour. Provided one of his students wasn’t having a bad day, he knew everyone of them would probably ace the test. It was the same test he gave his average students. He wasn’t that proud of what the average kids turned in for test scores.
It was Friday Night Lights as everyone named it and Eddie Wang wasn’t a happy camper. Joey had taken the spotlight off him from the college scouts. He could still count on a sports scholarship but if he wasn’t playing the perks weren’t there. Joey was ahead of his game tonight giving the Eagles a shellacking. Eagles were the favorite to win this game. The half wasn’t even over and they were behind twenty one to nothng. Joey had marched the Trojans down the field for three touchdowns in two quarters. The Trojan defense had felt the spirit and held the Eagles from getting close enough to even kick a field goal.
In the Trojan locker room at half time everyone was pumped full of adrenalin. The team doctor was looking over two players who had got roughed up. Even they were grinning ear to ear. The whole team was proving the bookies picked the wrong school to win this game. And it felt good.
Coach Neal Burrows called for quiet. He knew they might get to thinking this game was in the bag and slack off the second half. He had to bring the team back down to earth. “Listen up men. The Eagles have a good team. I know we are ahead right now. If you get to laying back thinking you don’t have to play just as hard the second half as you did the first, you’re wrong. They are good, damn good. They weren’t picked to win this game thirty one to six because they can’t play. Tonight you guys have proved you can play better. I want all of you to give that extra push the same as you did the first half when we return to the field. I know you can do it, you proved that already."
Eddie knew this was his chance. As the quarterback when the team won the game, the scouts would credit him with bringing it off “Put me in, Coach. I’ll keep the team charged up. I won’t let them slack off."
Coach Burrows shook his head. “The Eagles are too good for us to have any missteps. Joey stays in as quarterback. This isn’t up for debate.”
“bastard” Eddie whispered.
Several of the players close to him heard it. They weren’t pleased. Eddie was full of himself and made mistakes trying to make his own plays instead of working as a team player. Joey was the best quarterback this school ever had. Everyone felt they would make Class Three A in the finals with him. Joey never said more than thanks when the Coach and the team bragged on him. He always claimed it was the team who won the games. When reporters asked to interview him he started naming the players who made exceptional moves in the game. Then he would start talking about why it was a great play each player made as he named them. He bragged about how good the offense and the defense was. Joey wasn’t only the school hero, he was a hero to the team too.
Eddie was furious. Joey, Joey, Joey, every thing was about Joey. Eddie was the last one out of the locker room to begin the second half, he spit on Joey’s locker as he walked by it. The team ran out ready to play. Eddie walked out. His actions didn’t go unnoticed by the coaches. Eddie's attitude could drag the team down. One bad apple applied to teams as well as it did to a barrel of apples. Coach Burrows decided at that moment Eddie was no longer needed on the team. Jerry Hartshore was only a sophomore but he was already a better quarterback than Eddie. The only reason he hadn't released Eddie from the team was he was a senior and looking at a scholarship. Scholarship or not, Eddie had gone too far tonight. At that moment Eddie was no longer on the team. He would be told Monday when they reviewed the film from the game.
After the game several of the high schoolers headed to The Hangout, a local fast food watering hole. “Great game,” Janice and three other cheerleaders walked by the table where Joey and seven members of the football team were discussing what each thought of the game.
Everyone looked at Joey. A hint of a smile touched his lips along with a slight blush of embarrassment. “Everyone pulled together tonight. Ron did a heck of a block on Jason as Kyle jumped up and pulled in my pass which was too far over his head to be caught. Roger’s tackle on their quarterback Nicolas, set them back fifteen yards and pushed them back out of field goal range.”
The boys all smiled as the cheerleaders giggled. Joey didn’t fool any of them with his praise of the team’s efforts. The thirty one to six win over the Eagles was the upset game of the season. The game was being picked apart by the armchair coaches as the top discussion on every radio and TV station that night.
Chairs were moved as the boys made room for the girls at the table. Each one of the exceptionally pretty girls felt they had struck gold when they were invited to join the boys. The boys knew they had. It wasn’t the idea many of the cheerleaders had steady boyfriends. It was an intangible thing adults understood and teenagers were learning. No matter what, boys liked girls and girls liked boys and it was nice to share time.
Monday morning the you know what hit the blender in the gym as the team gathered to discuss Friday’s win over the Tigers. Coach Burrows pulled Eddie into his office. He was going to do this as quietly as possible to not embarrass the boy. “Eddie, your attitude doesn’t work with this team. And that is the problem. We function as a team. Every player is a key component in every game. You want this to be about you. You don’t have the understanding of what it takes to be part of a team. You’re no longer on the team. Clean out your locker when class is over.”
Eddie looked surprised. The coach wasn’t serious. The team needed him to win games. “Coach, I’m a team player. You don’t understand. If you don’t allow me to play of course I can’t prove to everyone I can bring the right plays to win games."
Burrows shook his head. Eddie still didn’t get it. In Eddie’s mind he was the star, the coach, the core of the football team. “Eddie, this isn't a debate. Like any other class, when you fail, you don’t pass. The test in this class are you a team player? It's a black and white answer. You're off the team because you never were on it. You think everyone is out there to provide you a supporting cast so you can show off to all the world how hot you are. This isn’t the movies, you aren't the leading actor like you think you are.”
Eddie’s face contorted into a look of pure hatred. "Fuck you, Coach. Fuck the team. Fuck this school. I’ll transfer over to West End Boxers and lead their football team to the championship. I don’t need this school, you needed me. Well, you fucked up. I'm transferring."
He spun on his heel and walked out, pulling the door closed with such force the racket made everyone turn to look. Eddie picked up one of the footballs lying on the floor and hurled it at the door. Burrows could see it coming but there was no way to stop it as it hit the glass and shattered it, scattering pieces of glass across the office. Eddie wasn’t through as he headed for the object of his hatred. Closing in on Joey he took a swing at his face.
Joey had been watching as Eddie stormed out of the office and then threw the football at the glass. He wasn’t caught unaware as Eddie swung a fist at him. He had been playing sports since grade school. His reflexes were honed to the point it was automatic as he leaned back from Eddie’s fist. Because he was walking away from the office, Eddie’s hadn't noticed Coach Burrows had stormed out chasing him down after he threw the football. Two strong arms wrapped Eddie up and lifted him off the floor.
“Eddie, that's enough. You and I are taking a walk down to the principle's office. Tomorrow if you decide to come back and clean out your lockers, you better call ahead. Security will give you an escort. After your little exhibition, I’m positive Blake will be happy to entertain you while you take care of the problem gathering all your things before you are expelled from this school." Burrows released his bear hold on Eddie, wrapped up his left arm in his right hand and was dragging him toward the gym door.
Most of the players felt the same way about Eddie. He was an egotistical bastard never giving anyone else credit for the exceptional effort any of them put out in moving the ball downfield or making a great tackle. He was always bragging it was him. Even so, this little display of pure hatred shocked even those who felt that way.
“All right guys. So much for the distraction this morning. Brad, what made you decide to NOT block Hershel? That kid darn near creamed me as he came across from the right hand corner.” Joey was pulling the team back into focusing on the plays they made Friday night.
Brad looked down at the floor before looking up and smiling at Joey. “Hershel isn't that fast. I knew you were faster. Paul needed his guard pulled off of him if he was going to get downfield far enough to get us a first down. Provided you passed to him that is. I didn’t block the kid, that would have been illegal. I only ran in front of him causing him to fall too far behind Paul to get in his face if you tossed him the ball.”
Joey glared at Brad before a smile broke out across his face. “Lucky for you it worked and Hershel didn’t pound me into the turf. Paul, that was a great catch, by the way. Your fifty one yard touch down run on the third play of the game took the wind out of the Eagles. They weren’t as good as their fat heads and the bookies told them they were.”
Everyone of the players voiced their agreement. Joey had brought their focus back onto the game. Eddie’s temper tantrum was forgotten.
============*
Tuesday, Joey came to school wearing a coral shirt, some of the girls knew it was dark pink and it was a blouse. They had seen it at the LaPier, an upscale fashion store…, for women.
Billy was staring at Joey when they both took a seat in Mr. Franklin’s class. “Joey, that’s a girl’s shirt. Are you sure you aren’t gay?”
Joey curled up the corner of his mouth and looked up the ceiling. “Hummm, let me think.” He turned his head to look at Billy. “No, I don’t feel gay, pleased, maybe. Happy? Um possible but not that happy. I guess I’m not gay if I’m not happy, so nope, not gay.”
Billy was exasperated. “You know what I mean. And what is going on with you letting your hair grow out this summer? Jeeze Joey, I’m surprised the principle lets you get away with it that long. Coach Burrows is probably having kittens. If you weren’t their ticket to the playoff I bet he would drag you down to the barber himself or eject you from the team.”
Reaching up with his right hand Joey brushed his hair away from his face and pushed it back over his shoulder. It was long enough to reach his shoulder blades.
Billy shook his head. Joey had the prettiest head of hair among all the kids. A reddish auburn it glistened like it had been washed and then each strand polished. Billy could almost understand why Joey let it grow out when it was that beautiful. But that was a problem in of itself. It was beautiful and Joey was looking more like a girl every couple of weeks. If he hadn’t known Joey since the second grade…, watching from behind as Joey walked down the halls, Billy would swear he was looking at a girl. Which got Billy to thinking even more about Joey. He didn’t have a masculine trait, not one. Growing up with Joey, Billy never realized Joey didn’t look like other boys in the face or his body. His features were too delicate…!
Billy had fallen down the Rabbit Hole as it came to him. NO it wasn’t possible…, Was it? Joey? His dad always called him Joey. His mother always called him Joe…? Or was that Jo? NO! It wasn’t possible! He was over thinking the possibilities.
Swallowing hard, Billy reached over and tugged on Joey’s sleeve. “Jo?”
“No I’m not gay.” Joey turned his attention to Billy as Mr. Franklin walked into the room.
The science class was the last thing on Billy’s mind. His analytical mind was running all the possibilities of Joey being what he suspected. The problem as it turned out, it was possible. But why? If Joey was really Jo why didn’t he act like one? And that idea made everything worse. Joey did act like a girl at times. Billy had been there when Joey was cooking supper for the family, when Joey was cleaning the carpet, washing dishes, washing clothes and folding them. At the time Billy never thought it strange. Just Joey doing things for his mother. Unless he had his head stuck under the hood or laying under one of the vehicles helping his dad.
Billy put his head down on his desk and moaned. Joey didn’t fit the typical boy image. Trouble is he didn’t fit the typical girl image either. But if one had never seen him before…, almost all the sales people or strangers called Joey ma’am when they first talked to him. Ooohhh it was too much, it was impossible. Surely…, OH CRAP! When Billy had been in Joey’s bedroom and asked about the dolls he had on top his bookcase, Joey had replied they were collectors dolls. Collectors! Right! And Jo was the collector. Joey’s bedroom wasn’t a typical boy’s bedroom but it wasn’t like any girl’s bedroom he had been in either. Joey or Jo, either one would fit into the bedroom and it all depended on what sex one considered Joey or Jo to be when they looked.
Billy couldn’t believe he was so blind he hadn’t ever seen it before now. His buddy was a girl! Did the coaches know? How about the principle? Surely the teachers? Possibly not the teachers there was no need to know there. How did Jo get by in the locker rooms? Bathrooms? He had never seen Joey in the boy’s bathrooms? Nor the girl’s for that matter. How blind can a person be? What was now obvious wasn’t that obvious if one isn’t looking for it? What was the saying, hiding in plain sight. That hour while Billy stared at his friend, the mental picture of Joey being an effeminate boy slowly morphed into Jo being the prettiest girl in their school despite not wearing any makeup. It was so obvious. How could he have ever not seen it before now? Billy decided he knew the concept of brainwashing better than anyone else at that moment.
When the class ended, Billy was immediately besides Joey’s desk. “Wait just one minute mister. You and I are gong to have a talk.”
“Can’t we talk while we go to our lockers and get our books for the next class?” Joey looked from Billy toward the door as the last kid walked out behind Mr. Franklin.
“No, here and now.” Billy decided to go for the jugular and god help him if he was wrong. “The Homecoming Dance is coming up in a month. I’m asking you to go to the dance with me. Provided non of the other guys have asked you and you already have a date.”
A slow hint of amusement spread across Joey’s face as his eyes sparkled. “I didn’t know you dated boys. When did this start?”
“I don’t date boys. I only date girls. So…, is it a date?”
Joey shook his head. “What makes you think I date boys? I kinda like girls.”
Billy knew without a smidgen of doubt he was right. “I kinda like boys but I don’t date them. You said you weren’t gay. That means you aren’t lesbian which is the same thing. WHICH means if you do date, it’s boys.”
“Okay, only if you can keep the secret until the dance. Otherwise no.”
“YES!” Billy screamed as he fist pumped the air. His buddy was a girl! He was going to keep the secret until the dance even if it killed him. Wait until he walked into that dance with the prettiest girl in the school on his arm and they all realized what he had figured out. Joey was Jo.
===============*
Jim coughed and choked when Lori told him the cost of the gown. The price was forgotten the moment Jo came down the stairs wearing it that evening. His heart and his love for both women in his life soared to the highest heights as he stared at his daughter. He got a mischievous thought. If Lori could turn out daughters this beautiful, maybe they should have tried for a dozen more. He was so proud of Lori and Jo, for they truly were the most blessed treasure of his life. He was so in love. He walked over, took Lori in his arms and gave her a passionate kiss.
Of course she returned the embrace with full passion. Lori looked kind of amused when Jim released her. "What was that for?"
“No man should be as blessed as I am. I don't deserve you. I love you and Jo so much words don’t suffice. I love you Lori, I love Jo.”
The Homecoming Dance was one all of those who were there would remember the rest of their lives. The best quarterback the school ever had swept into the gym in a light blue, chiffon, elegant gown, body hugging bodice, with swirls of beads. The amount of breasts and cleavage the beautiful senior was showing almost gave the Superintendent a heart attack. The school had dress codes but no one had given this problem any consideration. Her long, natural, reddish auburn hair lay across her bare shoulders and down her back in soft easy waves. The girl…, young lady was as elegant and as beautiful as any Disney Princess.
Jo didn’t start wearing skirts, dresses everyday after that night. Like every other senior girl, some days might catch her in jeans. What was added each day was impeccable makeup enhancing her natural beauty even more if possible. She was the boy, girl everyone in her school would remember forever.
Sometimes those outside looking in know us better than we know ourselves. The life they choose for us would never be the one we would admit to wanting. Much less having the courage to follow. A push in the right direction places us on the path we will follow for the rest of our lives. Those who share that path have their lives enriched at the same time.
Copyright 2014
Broken Cup
I worked for Wafco. It was a New York company that made gas line fittings. You know, the flared fittings that connect your washer, water heater, stove and other gas appliances to the gas line. Okay, the barbecue grill to the propane tank is one of those connections we make. There are literally over two thousand different fittings and gas line connectors our company manufacturers or carries. A lot of them are made overseas but that’s the way business is done in the USA now.
Good salesmen are given the job of making trade shows when a wholesaler is pushing sales. Jim Link was a heck of a salesman. He was full of shuck and jive. When he was telling it, most people believed him. I think Jim believed it himself which probably made him even better. If any of Wafco’s customers had a problem they could call Jim and receive an answer. It might be the wrong answer but Jim always had an answer no matter what the circumstances.
That spring, Jim and I were handed the dubious honor of making the trade show circuit starting in Springfield, Missouri and ending up in San Diego, California. Of course we were going to hit every major city along the way at the rate of one every day. That meant we had to hit the city, set up our booth, display the company products, pass out literature, answer ten thousand questions, and be friendly to everyone. About five every evening we would pack up the van , hit the road to the next city, check in the motel, and be up by five the next morning to set up our booth and do it all over again. It was a killer of a schedule. Our boss Merle Ackland thought it was a reward to his good salesmen to go on the road trip. I know he wouldn’t have thought that if he had ever done one himself.
Jim and I had our display and wares shipped out to Springfield. We flew out and leased a van to start our bruiser of a cross country trip. The first few cities are always a learning curve. Springfield and Tulsa were par for the course. We were late getting set up and failed to find or unpack some of our literature along with some special fittings some of our wholesalers wanted to know about. Amarillo wasn’t that bad. We were finally finding our groove. We had everything out ready to pump the sale when our wholesalers asked about gas lines or fittings.
I was loading up the van after the show in Amarillo when I noticed we had a flat on the left rear. Jim was pushing boxes into the van. I took a deep breath knowing we would have to unload some of it to get to the spare. “Who’s turn is it to drive?”
“Yours. Why do you ask?” Jim’s voice carried through the van as he pushed to find a spot for his box.
“Darn, I was afraid you would say that. Pull it out and let me get the spare. I was thinking if it was your turn then I would let you change the tire.” I moved up behind him to start unpacking boxes.
Jim backed up empty handed. “Let’s call service and let them fix the darn thing. We don’t want to be on the road without a spare. That trip from Oklahoma City to here looked long and empty. I didn’t see a whole lot of places to fix a tire in the middle of the night. I bet there aren’t that many more in the daytime. If Amarillo to Tucumcari is as bad or worse then we might as well be on the moon if something breaks or quits.”
I nodded in agreement. I hadn’t thought about calling for service. “You have that Triple A number?”
Jim pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and started dialing. “That’s one number I memorized before leaving home.”
I guess if one is home or doesn’t have to drive to the next city down the highway, it wouldn’t matter how long it took to get on the road. Problem was, we had a long drive ahead of us that night. Although Triple A came through for us, it took over forty minutes for the service truck to show up. It took another fifty minutes for the guy to jack up the van, pull the tire, fix it, and put it back on. It took another twenty minutes to fill out the forms, sign the tickets, get it signed off on the company credit card and get on the road. It promised to be a long drive and a short nap if any at the motel before we had to set up our booth in Tucumcari the next morning. We had been on the road for four days. I was already burnt out.
We were in the van headed west. I was wondering if any place to eat in Tucumcari would be open by the time we arrived? I was positive after looking at the vast wasteland between Oklahoma City and Amarillo there weren’t going to be any places in between. I glanced over at Jim. “Another burger?”
“I guess I can handle it. Be better than nothing. You see a place?” Jim was looking down the highway for a burger joint.
“Not yet.” I was scanning for signs along the interstate as I checked traffic and maneuvered to the outside lane. I wanted to be ready to hit an exit if we saw a burger place.
Five miles later we left the main part of Amarillo behind. Neither one of us had seen any places that served hamburgers or any food for that matter. I kicked the van up to seventy four and punched the cruise control. “Rats, any of those cookies left we bought at noon?”
“We ate all of them for lunch. Let me see what’s in the cooler.” Jim reached over the seat and pushed boxes away from the ice chest.
He turned back around in the seat and held up a Dr. Pepper. “Ice is gone and it’s hot. You want it? That’s all we have.”
“Hot pop? I’ll pass. Surely there will be a gas station along the way.” I was thinking tonight would be a candy bar and another cold soda for supper. If the steady diet of soda and candy didn’t make me sick it would wreck havoc on my body and probably give me an ulcer. I wondered how long it would take? A week? A month?
Jim slid down in the seat and closed his eyes. “Call me for dinner mom.”
“Yeah, count on it.” I sighed as I let my mind wander. I tried to think about other things besides the pain in my stomach and my tired butt.
Almost two hours later it was dark city. Cars on the interstate had thinned out to few and far in between and still no sign of a service station from the time we had left Amarillo. I was double glad we had fueled up that morning after leaving the motel and before the trade show. Still, I wasn’t positive we could make Tucumcari on one tank of gas.
The van coughed and things went silent.
Jim rose up in the seat wiping his eyes. “What you stopping for?”
“Engine quit.” I was edging over to the shoulder.
“You’re kidding aren’t you!” Leaning over, Jim was scouring the instrument panel and checking to make sure the key was still in the ignition and turned on.
“Wish I were.” We coasted to a stop. I tried starting the engine but it never caught even though the starter was grinding away.
A couple minutes later I gave up. I was mumbling curses as I slid out, walked up to the front of the van, and popped the hood. “This can’t be happening. See if your phone works out here. Call us some help.”
“I’ve heard of guys running out of gas on their dates before. I want you to know this is the last time I’m going out with you.” Jim was punching numbers into his phone.
“Up yours.” I raised the hood. I have no idea what I thought I would find. I guess it’s human nature to raise the hood when the engine quits. Who the hell would know why an engine quit unless it dropped out of the car? I have seen mechanics with their truck load of tools and instruments not figure out why an engine quit until they had worked on it for a day or two.
I was looking at an engine. Obviously the engine didn’t drop out some place back down the interstate. I pulled on one of the wires leading down beside the engine. “Turn it over.”
The starter was cranking but again, nothing. I looked into the van at Jim. “It isn’t starting.”
Jim quit trying as he shook his head. “No lie Sherlock! Did you figure that one out all on your own or did you have help?”
“Up yours Ace!” I looked up and saw some lights slowing down and pulling over on the shoulder back down the road.
“You said that already. You need a larger vocabulary. By the way, nothing on the phone. Try your phone. Maybe you have a longer reach.” He slid back over into his passenger seat.
“Mine is dead. It stopped taking a charge. I think the battery is gone or something. I think we may have help. I see lights coming our way.” I walked up beside the van and closed my door to keep anyone from taking it off if they happen to get too close.
“I hope it’s not someone going to rob us.” Jim turned around in the seat to check out the lights as they stopped about thirty feet back.
Red and blue started flashing on top the car that had stopped as a couple of spotlights lit us up.
I looked over at Jim. “If they are going to rob us then they sure are brazen about it. I think we have the police. Hope their radio works. They can call us in a tow.”
“Trouble?” A silhouette stepped in front of the lights.
All I could make out was the outline of a huge man wearing a cowboy hat with what appeared to be a gun hanging down on his side. “Engine died. Can you call us a tow?”
“Ten nine, I have a six eight at two four. Request tow.” The silhouette was walking toward me as he was talking.
“Lightstick is two miles behind you Carl. He is in his wrecker. Said he would stop and give a tow if that’s okay.” Came from a speaker inside the patrol car.
The silhouette turned into a man wearing a uniform and a badge as he stepped up beside the van. “Jimmy said he would stop if you want. Unless you have a preference and want me to call someone in particular?”
I shook my head. “No one in particular. It’s a rental van from Hertz. Can your man charge it to Hertz or we have a company credit card if he accepts Visa or Master Charge?”
“I’m sure he can charge Hertz. He is authorized to work with most of the rental agencies.” He leaned down to look inside the van at Jim. “Where you boys out of?”
“New York. We work for Wafco. Been working trade shows the past five days. We finished Amarillo today and were headed to Tucumcari to do another one tomorrow.” I watched as a huge wrecker slowed and pulled over on the shoulder in front of our van.
The thing was big. I was positive that wrecker could pick up a battleship. Blue, yellow, and red lights came on across the top of the thing. Spotlights came on and lit up the whole neighborhood. “What is that?”
The officer laughed. “Overkill, I imagine. That’s Jimmy. He was called out earlier to pick up an over turned semi. They slid it up on a flatbed and took it on in to Amarillo.”
A guy opened the door and climbed down the side of the wrecker. He walked up to me and held out his hand. “I’m Jimmy. What seems to be the trouble?”
I took his hand for a handshake. “Don’t know. Driving down the road and it quit like I turned the key off. Won’t start.”
He glanced at the van. “Last years model. The ECM burned out on you. They were bad. Should have been replaced on a recall bulletin. I’m surprised they sent you boys out on the road without checking to make sure the ECM had been changed out.”
“ECM?” I was wondering if this was scam? How could he diagnose the problem just by looking at the van? And what the hell was an ECM? Probably some make believe thing and the van probably didn’t really have one.
“Sorry, electronic control module. It’s the computer that tells your engine how much fuel it should be using. When it quits then the fuel is shut off. It’s like you turned off the switch. Sound familiar?” Jimmy turned around and wrapped his hands around a couple knobs inside a box at the back of his wrecker. A sling started unreeling as a couple plates came down and settled on the pavement.
He pulled a cable out from his wrecker and laid down on the pavement in front of the van. “Take it out of park please.”
Jim reached across and dropped the shift out of park. “Got it.”
Jimmy stood up behind his wrecker and reached into that box again. The cable tightened up and the van was pulled up onto the plate behind the wrecker.
It was obvious the guy had done this a kazillion times already. I don’t think he missed a beat as he wrapped a net around each front tire and slowly raised the plate off the ground taking the front of the van up about a foot. “Got it. You ridding with me or with Carl?”
The officer shook his head. “I have some rustlers working M Bar Four. I’m going to mossy down that way and see if I can’t head them off at the pass tonight.”
I looked at Jim who was blinking as he looked back at me. We didn’t know if these two were trying to lay it on thick because we said we were from New York or what? Maybe we were in the west and maybe there were rustlers? Somehow I didn’t buy it and from the look on Jim’s face, neither did he.
“I guess we are ridding with you.” I pointed toward the wrecker.
“Let’s go then. Climb in.” Jimmy was headed toward his cab.
When Jimmy said ‘climb in’ I found it was more than a figure of speech. Jim and I did climb up and up and up before we reached the cab of that wrecker to open the door and slid in.
The ride wasn’t as bad as I figured it would be in a big truck as Jimmy took to the highway. We traveled down the interstate for about half an hour and then turned off on an exit ramp with a sign pointing north. It had Clious printed on the sign.
I looked over at Jim. “What is a Clious?”
He shook his head. “I was going to ask the same question.”
“Small town about ten miles north. It’s where my shop is.” Our driver was smiling and shaking his head at our ignorance.
“Funny name. Anyway, do you have the part for our van? Can you get us back on the road tonight?” I was trying to figure out how late we were going to be making Tucumcari.
“You couldn’t get that part anywhere tonight. All the warehouses and part stores are closed now. I’ll fax it in to Custer Auto Parts when we get to the shop. Their pickers will pull it out of the warehouse and hand it to Wanda. She is an overland UPS driver. Makes the drive from Albuquerque to Amarillo every week day. She will stop and check her rig at the interstate exit and leave your ECM module in a drop box there. Be about six when she goes by. I’ll have Terry or one of the others pick it up and bring it to the shop. You’ll be ready to roll about six thirty if you are so inclined.” He picked up speed as he took the middle of the blacktop pavement.
I signed. “I guess it will have to do. I don’t see an alternative. Calling for another van would take longer because we can’t call one out before eight tomorrow morning. They would have to drive it out here from Amarillo or Tucumcari, whichever is closest.”
Jim was shaking his head in agreement. “This Clious have a motel?”
“No. Sue takes in boarders when necessary. She has a big house a couple hundred feet down from my shop. Clious is small. Because we are off the interstate we don’t get many visitors. There is a general store where everyone hangs out. They have a few pool tables, serve a decent meal at times, and that is just about it as far as anything interesting.” Jimmy reached up to the dash and turned off all his flashing lights that had been going from the time he stopped on the interstate.
Minutes later I was shocked by what I didn’t see as we slowed down and pulled past a sign that read, Clious. I was looking at a whole lot of nothing. There were about forty or fifty houses spread out on both sides of the highway we were on. That was bad enough but the highway quit on the other side of the town. I could make out Jimmy’s shop. It was a standout with all the vehicles scattered around it. Besides, it was the only building big enough to allow the big wrecker we were riding inside the building.
I looked over at Jim who was shaking his head in disbelief. “Great town.”
We passed a building with a big window in front. It had to be the general store. There were a bunch of people inside and six sitting outside on a bench leaning back against the building. There was one lone gas pump out front. “I hope they are still serving meals.”
“Oh don’t worry. They will serve you any time of day or night. It’s the closest thing to a twenty four hour store between Amarillo and Albuquerque.” Jim pulled up in front of his shop and killed his rig.
“Six thirty?” I wanted to make sure we were on the road as soon as possible.
“Give or take five minutes.” He pointed down the street toward a two story house. “Stop and see Sue first. She will need to know she has guests before she turns out the lights. Then mossy on down to the general store and find something to eat. Judy makes a wicked hot beef sandwich or a chicken fry that will melt in your mouth.”
“I can’t wait to get back and tell everyone I stayed at Clious, New Mexico.” Jim was climbing down out of the truck as he was muttering to himself.
“Behave and be nice. It’s certainly better than sleeping in the van on the interstate.” I followed him down out of the truck.
“I guess.” Jim was pulling his suitcase out of the van.
I retrieved my suitcase and followed him to the two story house. After I knocked on the door I was taken back by the black haired Indian girl that answered. She was slender built and had more beauty than what should have been allowed one woman.
“Jimmy called and told me to expect you. I’m Sue. Come on in and refresh yourselves.” She backed up from the door and pointed down a hallway.
“Uh…, I’m not carrying a whole lot of cash. I don’t guess you can accept credit cards?” I had no idea how we were going to pay for our rooms. I didn’t think she would let us stay with the promise to mail her back a money order.
She laughed and it brightened the room. “We live on the same planet as everyone else. Believe it or not, I can accept a credit card. The rooms are ten dollars a night. You can share a room or have separate rooms if you like.”
“I like the way you talk.” I was fishing in my pocket for my billfold and credit cards. Wafco was going to pay for two rooms tonight.
Half an hour later, Jim and I were walking down the street toward the general store. The same six men were still sitting in front. They were Indians too. I glanced over at Jim. He eyed me back and shrugged his shoulders. I guess we were expecting something other than a town full of Indians.
The inside of the general store was a lot bigger than it looked from the outside. There were eight pool tables lined up going way back. Those tables were occupied with boys and girls and men and women playing pool. All Indians. Over on my left were ten round dining tables. There were two couples at one and a family of four at another. Again, all Indians. Back behind them was a bar where a couple more Indians were drinking.
Jim leaned over in my direction and whispered. “I know what Custer felt like before he died.”
Shssssss. Sue said they live on the same planet. Be nice. Remember we took their country away from them and shoved what was left of them onto reservations. They owned this land first.” I headed for an empty table. I wanted some of that food Jimmy was talking about.
After we found our seats, an Indian princess walked up to our table. She was every bit as stunning and beautiful as Sue. “What’ll it be gentlemen?”
I knew it was on Jim’s tongue to say, “I’ll have you.” So I jumped in first. “Jimmy said you make a wicked chicken fry.”
“Good choice.” She turned to Jim. “And you?”
I shook my head as Jim opened his mouth. “He’ll have the same as me.”
“Saved by your friend.” She gave Jim a slight nod.
“What would you like to drink?” She turned her attention back to me.
“What’s good for a couple of tired salesmen?” I was hoping for more than a coke.
She pointed back over her shoulder toward the bar. “A cactus twister will make you forget how bad you feel or a coyote will sneak up on you without you feeling a thing.”
“I’ll have that cactus twister.” I had no idea what I had just ordered but the princess made it sound good.
“I’ll have a coyote.” Jim was devouring our waitress with his eyes.
“Coming up.” She walked behind the bar and set one tall skinny glass and one short fat one up on the bar. I watched as she poured a lot of different things into both glasses. I was thinking it was a mix of whiskey and vermouth and a lot of other things but I was probably mistaken.
She slipped one of those funky little umbrellas on top of each glass before bringing them back. She set the fat glass down in front of me and the skinny one in front of Jim. “Chicken fry will be out in a minute.”
I took a sip of my drink as I watched her retreat. I would almost swear I had pricked my tongue with a thousand needles. It didn’t hurt but it was an odd sensation. I could understand why they called it a cactus twister. The odd thing was, it didn’t taste like alcohol. I was wondering what it was made of?
Jim took a sip of his after he dropped the umbrella on the table. “Mine is coke or something. There isn’t any alcohol in it.”
“Enjoy it and don’t say anything. She didn’t say it was an alcoholic drink.” I took another sip and received a repeat of the same thousand needles sensation. How did it do that?
The princess brought out our plates. They were stacked up with mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, and a huge battered steak. It was a truck drivers plate. She set the plates down and left. Almost immediately she was back with hot rolls and salad bowls heaped up with crisp tossed salads and a mix of salad dressings. My stomach was dying to get a chance to digest something besides a greasy burger.
“Thank you.” I didn’t care what it cost. I was going to enjoy every bite.
“I’ll be there if you need anything.” She walked over to one of the pool tables and picked up a cue.
I could hear three or four balls hit the pockets when she took her shot. I looked up at Jim and mumbled past a mouth full of salad. “Remind me not to play pool with any of these people.”
“I can take her.” Jim mumbled back past his bite of steak.
Some time that night my lights dimmed. I don’t remember when. Maybe I ate my meal or maybe not. What I remember in my fogged over brain was very little past that third sip of cactus twister. Whatever was in that drink should be labeled unsafe for the white man. If those Indians drank that stuff without it killing them then why did they ever lose the country? They could give it to the white man and ship them all back to Europe or where ever after they passed out.
Jim faired no better with his coyote drink. I think I remember Jim offering to play the Indian Princess a game of pool? I think I remember her beating him? I think I remember something about a bet on the next game? I think I remember her beating him again. And the game after that and the one after that, and the one…, I think I remember or maybe I don’t?
I was listening to a damn rooster crow in my ear when I started remembering again. The sun wasn’t peeking over the horizon yet. I pried an eye open and looked at the clock. It was a little after six. I rose out of bed and dressed feeling remarkably fresh and wondering if I was dreaming about Jim and the Indian Princess or what? Some how I made it back to Sue’s and found a bed in spite of not remembering what I was trying to remember last night.
I could hear Jim moving in the room next to mine. I slipped out into the hall and tapped on his door. “You up?”
“Yep, almost packed, meet me at the van in five minutes.” Came from the other side of the door.
“You got it.” I picked up my suitcase and headed for the door.
“Pancakes will make that trip a little easier.” Came from down the hall.
I could smell them when Sue mentioned pancakes. “Sure.”
Following my nose, I headed for the kitchen. Sue placed a plate of pancakes on the table as I walked in.
“Help yourself. There is plenty.” She was dishing up some more on another plate as Jim walked into the kitchen.
“I thought I heard someone say pancakes.” Jim pulled up a chair and forked a couple pancakes over on his plate.
“Jim, mind your manners. Thank our hostess for our breakfast before you start.” I admonished as Jim reached for the syrup and butter.
“Thank you.” Jim never hesitated as he knifed the butter and slathered his pancakes.
“Sue, my ill mannered friend and I thank you for breakfast this morning. It was totally unexpected and a pleasant surprise. I will pay you for the meal.” I waited for our hostess to sit down at the table with us.
“My pleasure, I assure you. Breakfast is included in the room price. Jimmy parked your van outside the door. Said the ECM was three hundred and five dollars. The tow bill was sixty since he was coming home anyway and you were on the way. His labor was forty dollars for installing the ECM. He said Hertz would pay for everything since it is a rental van.” She turned off the burners on the stove and wiped her hands on a towel.
“Will you have breakfast with us?” I was hoping she would sit and visit. She was easy on the eyes.
“I ate an hour ago after tending to chores. Thank you. If I can talk you into looking at some of the pottery I make before you leave.” She hesitated.
“Sure.” I offered before Jim had a chance to tell her we didn’t have time as we were late for a trade show.
It didn’t take long to wolf down a couple pancakes. I did feel supercharged with decent food in my stomach instead of a candy bar and coke. I pulled twenty out of my billfold and left it on the table as Sue walked out of the back door to show us her pottery.
Jim and I followed her out into a shed or lean to attached to the back of the house. I took a double take at the woman working the potter’s wheel. At first I thought it was the Indian Princess and then on second look no, but this woman was just as stunning. Barefoot, she was turning the potters wheel and molding up a clay cup, her hands expertly handling the clay and bringing it up as it spun on the potters wheel.
On the wall were four shelves. The bottom shelf held six exquisitely designed and intricately detailed cups. They were works of art. The next shelf held five cups. The cups were beautiful cups but not as exquisite as the ones below. The third shelf held even less artistically created cups. The second shelf held cups designed with obviously less talent and then the top shelf held one brown cup with a few drawings painted on the sides.
Sue pointed at the cups. BeLinda made all those cups except the first one. I made that one. They are for sale of course. A dollar apiece.”
Jim pulled out a dollar. “I want one off the bottom row. Souvenir for this trip.”
The lady at the wheel stopped and cleaned her hands. “A gift of course. What is your wish?”
Jim, crass as usual, cupped his privates with his hands. “I wish to be well endowed.”
“As you wish.” The lady handed him the cup in exchange for his dollar.
“I want the top cup Sue made if that’s all right with her.” I pointed toward the little brown cup. For the rest of my life, I knew it would remind me of our gracious hostess every time I looked at it.
“And your wish is?” The lady reached up and retrieved the little brown cup.
“For everyone to know how much I appreciated all their help the past twenty four hours. I don’t think I have ever felt better.” I pulled out a five and handed it to the lady.
“I’ll get your change.” She was reaching for a box at the bottom of the wall.
“No thanks. Consider it a gift or a tip. I think the room and the meal was worth every cent. I don’t remember when I ever felt better.” I was waiting for her to hand me the brown cup.
“The cups have been filled with wishes. I know what your heart desires. It was added to your cup. When the cup is broken it can no longer hold the wishes and they are released.” She handed me the cup.
“Yeah, right.” Jim shook his head in disgust. “Let’s go. We have a trade show to meet and we are late.”
I was thanking the ladies and apologizing for Jim’s rude behavior before I turned and followed him out to the van, collecting our suitcases on the way.
Jim placed his cup on top the van as he opened the door and tossed his suitcase into the back. Jim’s shaking the van caused the cup to roll off the top of the van. It shattered on the ground. Jim looked down at it in disgust. “Shit, well there went my dollar. Let’s go, we are late.”
“Jim, pick up the pieces. Don’t leave your trash for someone else to clean up.” I admonished him as he walked around the van to get in on the driver’s side.
“We are late. Get your ass in here or think about walking to Tucumcari.” Jim hit the starter and the little van came to life.
I tossed my suitcase in and slid in on the passenger’s side. “You are getting more cranky by the day on this trip. Another two days and I’ll have them put you in a straight jacket.”
“Shove it.” Jim dropped it into drive and hit the gas tossing gravel and dirt every where as he spun the van around onto the blacktop.
“Did you get any sleep last night? What is wrong with you? You are becoming unbearable by the minute.” I settled back in the seat for the drive to Tucumcari, glad I wasn’t driving this leg.
Jim never answered as he pushed the speed up close to a hundred.
“If there are any cows or any traffic on this road then we are both dead at this speed.” I was hoping to get through to his logic. I should have left it alone. Whatever was eating at him this morning wasn’t going to be smoothed over.
Lucky us, at the speed Jim was running we hit the turn onto the interstate in no time and were soon whizzing down the freeway along with several other cars. We were back to civilization, Clious was a memory. I closed my eyes and day dreamed about the beautiful Indian ladies I had the pleasure of meeting.
“Let’s go.” Jim was sliding out of the van.
I looked up at the building we were parked next too. I had gone back to sleep as Jim drove us to our next trade show. “I’m with you.”
We walked into the building, met with Clayton Wains, our distributor for the Tucumcari area, explained our problems on the road, and started setting up our booth.
Jim was very little help all morning. He kept running to the bathroom for whatever reasons. I was wondering if he had picked up a bug or something back down the road? Maybe he had it before leaving home? He didn’t look sick but he sure was irritable and he was keeping the restroom hot.
By noon, I sent Jim off to find us something to eat. I figured he was worthless anyway and food might make a difference. It was a moderately slow day as many of the contractors scheduled to show didn’t make it. I wasn’t having to demonstrate a whole lot of our products. And for some reason I couldn’t get those beautiful Indian women off my mind. I was on auto pilot. I might have been telling someone about one of our special gas connection fittings but I was thinking of Sue or the Indian Princess or…,
Sue’s brown cup was in my handbag I carried along with all the junk we men don’t carry in our pockets. I took a break while Jim was off searching for lunch. I washed the cup out and emptied a soda can in it from one of the vending machines in the trade center.
I was carrying it back to our booth, when I heard a loud crash over to my left. I turned to look. One of the display racks from one of our competitors had tipped over and fallen. Someone bumped my right elbow and the cup slipped from my hand.
“Oh no!” I was turning my head to follow the cup and dropping down trying to catch it at the same time. It shattered against the concrete floor of the show room.
“Excuse me.” Was the soft voice above me.
“Doesn’t matter. It was just a cup of wishes.” I was gathering up pieces and looked up…, She was slender built. Long silky black hair hung down her back. Her beautiful black eyes were dancing with mischief. She was wearing a tailored black pantsuit that fit every curve of her slender frame. She was wearing tall black stiletto heels. She was the Indian Princess…., no not quite but every bit as stunningly beautiful.
I rose up and stared. Was it possible they were sisters? “It was my fault. I should have watched where I was going.”
“I can assure you it wasn’t your fault.” She smiled. Her voice was filled with a lyrical quality.
“Mr. Dana Smyth.” Came from behind me.
I turned around to see who was calling my name. I was looking at a Fed Ex uniform. “Yes, that’s me.”
He handed me a large brown envelope and an electronic clipboard. “Sign here please.”
“Sure.” I signed it and handed the clipboard back to the driver.
“I wonder what this is.” I turned back around to find myself talking to no one. She was gone. I looked up and down the aisle. She wasn’t anywhere in sight. I checked the booths within the vicinity. There was no way she could disappear that quick but she did.
Ambling back over to my own booth I was checking over the address on the envelope. It was from Diva Records. I had no idea who Diva Records were. Didn’t ring a bell in my memory.
There were two men in our booth Bill Mackney and Kevin Stutter. They were a couple up and comers from Wafco. They were young studs who thought they knew everything about everything. The few times I had been around them they felt oily. A little too slick for my taste.
I waved as I approached the booth. “Passing through?”
Bill gave me a big cheesy grin. “We are replacing you. Merle Ackland checked the motel last night and you weren’t there. He was here this morning to check on you and you weren’t here. He called us in to take over.”
“Up yours, Bill. We had van trouble last night. We never reached our motel. Had to stay at Clious while the van was fixed. Try getting your car fixed out in the middle of no where in the middle of the night and see how you fair.” I was pissed Bill and Kevin would try and move me out of my schedule even though I would have welcomed it any other time. It was a shitty job but it was my shitty job.
“Should have called in. Merle Ackland, doesn’t like it when his staff doesn’t keep him informed or when they don’t tend to Wafco business.” Kevin offered his two cents.
“Up yours too Kevin. I couldn’t call in last night because the phones weren’t reaching out. Jim phoned it in this morning. Go kiss Merle Ackland’s ass and get out of my booth.” I was getting more and more steamed at these two clowns every time they opened their mouths.
“You kiss it. He’s right behind you.” Kevin had a serious look on his face for a change.
“Yeah, right. And I’m the Fairy Princess.” I wanted to punch his lights out.
“You’re fired Fairy Princess.” Came from a familiar voice behind me.
A cold numbing feeling spread from the top of my head clear down to my toes. I knew that voice and it belonged to my boss, Merle Ackland. “Mr. Ackland, I…,”
“Gather your personal things and leave. I don’t want you associated with Wafco any longer.” He didn’t let me finish my apology.
“But…” I was trying to explain our problems last night and this morning.
“No excuses. I’m positive I don’t want you kissing my ass as you suggested to Kevin. Don’t bother checking back in at the office. Your check will be mailed to your last address.” He glared at me.
“Thanks for the favor.” I scanned the booth for my things. Except for the coffee cup from Sue, I hadn’t unpacked my things. I picked up my shoulder bag and slid the shoulder strap up on my shoulder.
Kevin leaned over in my direction and whispered in my ear. “You even look like a Fairy Princess.”
That did it! I came unglued. I was already fired. What else could they do to me? I turned around swinging a round house right. I hit Kevin in the face with all I could put behind it. It was a solid connection. He went flying backwards into the display at the back of the booth. Shelves and wares went flying. It caused a chain reaction as the whole booth collapsed. The table with all the pamphlets and literature went down sending a mess of papers everywhere across the floor and aisle.
Merle Ackland was trying to back out of the way when he tripped and stumbled backwards into the booth behind him. It went down as he reached out to grab anything to keep from falling. He dragged everything down in on top of himself.
I guess Bill thought he was the hero of the day and would save everyone’s honor by clobbering me. He leaped for me. I dodged to my right but didn’t pull back my left foot. Bill tripped on my foot as he went past me. Off balance, he was leaning too far forward for his legs to catch up as he ran across the aisle and plowed into the booth opposite us. It was a water purifying booth from Liquid Distributors. Filters, bottled water, hoses, and gallons of water went flying every where. Bill was at the bottom of the mess as blue and red dye from the display poured out across his back.
I had to laugh as I turned and walked out of the building leaving the fiasco behind. That dye was indelible. If Merle Ackland wanted Bill manning his booth then he was going to have a red and blue salesman for about a month until it wore off.
As I walked out the door, Jim drove up in the van. “I have a couple of hot meals. Who’s taking care of the booth?”
I slid into the van and took a deep breath. “The booth needs some serious rearrangement right now. Merle Ackland, Bill Mackney, and Kevin Stutter came in to take over. I was fired because the van quit on us last night. I wouldn’t take bets on whether you still have a job or not either. I don’t think it would be a good time to go in and check but that’s up to you. It’s your life and your job.”
Jim started up the van and was pulling away from the building. “I saw a little park a couple miles back. Let’s go there and eat our dinner.”
“What about your job? You might save it by going in and helping.” I didn’t want Jim to get fired because of me.
“I called back home this morning. I’ve been looking for another job for the past month. They want me to come back to New York and start work immediately. I’m going to be manager of a shipping firm. Pays twice what I’m making for Wafco and they have so many benefits it’s not funny. I was going to tell you after lunch I was quitting and heading home this evening.” Jim shrugged his shoulders.
“Flying back?” I was wondering if I should fly back or drive the van back? It would take them a few days to cancel out the company credit cards. In the meantime gas and expense would still be paid for by Wafco.
“Flying back. I don’t want that job to get away.” Jim pulled up to the park and stopped.
“Yeah, I get the idea.” I picked up the sack Jim had brought back and opened it up. Looked like we were eating chicken. Well, at least it wasn’t crow. Merle might have fired us but he didn’t escape unscathed by his deed. He would never get that display booth back up for today. He would be sorting papers for several days. Bill wouldn’t be any help in public for a month until that dye wore off.
We ate our lunch as we watched the kids playing in the park. The squealing of kids as they ran and chased one another brought back memories of my own childhood. I wondered if everyone had childhood memories they took out and dusted off at the appropriate time?
“What’s Diva Records?” Jim pointed at the manila envelope lying in the front seat. I had forgot it when I slid into the van.
“I don’t know. Some driver dropped it off before I was fired.” I picked it up and opened the rip strip.
A check fluttered out and landed in the seat. I stared at it positive I was looking at someone’s idea of a joke.
Jim blinked a couple of times and then picked it up. “Is it real? Who is Candy Masters?”
“I don’t know. Obviously a mistake. They delivered the wrong package.” I checked the name on the manila envelope again. It was addressed to me. There were some papers inside. I slid them out.
The note begin:
Dear Ms Candy Masters,
Last year you sent in a demo to Julie Cuthli at Search Studios. The tape has been brought to our attention and we would like to sign you to a contract. Because you are an unknown you will be the warm up act for the tour of several of our artists we already have on contract. If you are in agreement then please sign the consent form and Next Day mail it back to our office.
If you have any questions please phone us at 1-800-225-9911 extension 29
Sincerely
Roberta Love
Diva Records
Jim had been reading the letter along with me. He looked up with a funny look on his face. “You send in a demo to Search Studios?”
“I don’t know what they are talking about…, unless…, I did send in a tape to a company last year. I forgot all about it. I was just goofing off. I didn’t think anything would come of it. Probably a mistake anyway. I’m not Candy Masters. They must have mixed up the envelopes or something. Ms. Masters probably received a rejection letter addressed to Dana Smyth. I should call them so they can call Ms. Masters and tell her she has been accepted.” I looked at the check addressed to Candy Masters wishing it was mine.
“Drop me off at the airport. You can do what you want with the van. I’m flying home to a real job.” Jim picked up our trash walked over to a trash bin and dropped it in.
I slipped out of the van. “Give me your phone and a minute to call in the mistake. I’ll be right with you.”
It took longer than a minute, a lot longer in fact. I was even more confused when I slid back into the van.
“What’s the deal?” Jim noticed the doubt in my eyes.
“I talked to Roberta. She said there wasn’t any mistake. She told me to drop into Matey Studios in Albuquerque tomorrow and do a recording. If I pass then I’m in.” I was mulling that one over in my mind.
And the check? What about the check and who is Candy Masters?” Jim was trying as hard as me to make sense of what I was telling him.
“I think I am. Or at least that was the idea Roberta gave me. I’m not sure. I told her I was Dana Smyth. She said that was correct. I just don’t know.” I was wondering what kind of group I would be warm up for?
A smile spread across Jim’s face. He fell back into the seat laughing. “OH THIS IS RICH! NOW I GET IT! YOU SENT THEM A RECORDING OF YOU SINGING DIDN’T YOU? OH YEAH!”
“And?” I wondered what he was getting at?
“I’ve heard you sing. You sound just like a girl. They think they are signing a girl for a warm up to their concerts.” He was laughing as he was talking.
“NO I DON’T!” I couldn’t believe Jim would say I sang like a girl…, but then Roberta agreed I was Dana Smyth. “Oh shit! You don’t think they expect me to sing like a girl before a live audience do you?”
He picked up the check and waved it back and forth. “Ms Candy Masters is the stage name they gave you. Now what do you think?”
“Oh no…, it ain’t happening. They can’t pay me enough to make me do something like that.” I had no idea what they expected. It most certainly wasn’t going to be me as Candy Masters.
Jim nodded. “I see. Okay, you are unemployed. You don’t have a banking account. You said your credit cards were maxed out. Your ex is bleeding you for everything she can get. Two days ago you said you had ninety dollars cash. Did I miss anything?”
It was the comment about my ex wife that hurt me the worse. Catherine and I had only been married for six months when she moved out. I received divorce papers at work that same day. The bitch had a damn good divorce lawyer. Between the two of them they took everything I had and everything I would have. The house was sold. Catherine received the hundred and ten thousand from the sale. I received the mortgage payment for the next thirty years on a house I no longer owned. I was paying alimony at the tune of three thousand a month on top of everything else. Of course I couldn’t afford it. So every three months I was dragged back into court and more charges were added. Last I counted, I owed the bitch and her lawyer close to three quarters of a million dollars.
“No, I think you covered the bases. You wouldn’t be interested in floating me a loan till I find a job would you?” I was thinking a couple thousand would get me by until I found my next job.
Jim shook his head as he waved the check back and forth. “Catch 22. I’ll float you a loan only if you accept this job. In that case, you don’t need the loan because this check will make your world look comfy. Anyway, you’re single. That doesn’t make you a good loan risk.”
“You’re a real friend.” I wasn’t warming up to the idea of being Candy Masters and my options weren’t looking too good at this point.
“I really am your friend. I’m gonna stick around and drive with you over to Albuquerque.” He held the check out in my direction.
“Up yours.” I took the check and sighed.
“Buckle up, I don’t want a ticket.” He adjusted the steering wheel and started up the van. “Even though they don’t know it, Wafco is going to pay for your appointment with your agent.”
The drive was actually enjoyable. We weren’t pushing our day to make the next motel and the next trade show so it didn’t drag on our nerves. I have to admit I was a little antsy thinking I was going to be singing as Candy Masters but that check I kept looking at made it easy to accept. Funny how money makes a lot of unbearable things, acceptable.
Wafco credit cards paid for our motel and breakfast the next morning. We asked and received directions to Matey Studios. There were several people waiting in the reception area when we walked in. I headed for the counter and the receptionist across the room.
A cute little red head looked up when I stepped up to the counter and slid the manila envelope in front of her. She slid a ledger in front of me. “Sign your name and your agent’s name if you have one.”
She opened up the manila envelope and hesitated as she read the letter. She looked up. “You are Candy Masters?”
“I don’t know.” It wasn’t a question I could answer with any truth.
She sighed as she looked at the name on the envelope. She turned the ledger around I had signed and took a look. “Okay, from now on, you answer as Candy Masters. Any questions?”
“No ma’am.” My ears were burning as I was positive everyone in the reception area was listening. I was beginning to think this was a bad idea.
She pointed to her name tag. “I’m Susan. Are the names clear in your mind, Miss Masters?”
“Yes ma’am.” I was positive my face and neck were red by this time.
She pointed to her name tag again. “And my name is…?”
“Susan?” I was getting the message loud and clear.
“Good. I love progress.” She pointed off to her left and a hallway and slid the manila envelope back up on the counter. “Door at the end Miss Masters. They will listen to you now.”
“Yes ma’am.” I picked up the envelope.
She sighed as she pointed to her name tag again. “I hate when we regress don’t you?”
“Yes…, Susan.” I hated being lectured like a four year old almost as much as I hated being called Miss Masters.
“Last door, Miss Masters.” She was looking down as she pointed down the hallway again.
“Thank you…, Susan.” I wanted to run from that building. But then, I was broke and needed a job. If they accepted me I had a paycheck already in my hands. For the kind of money that check represented they could call me anything they wanted. Miss Masters wasn’t really that bad come to think of it.
I opened the door at the end of the hall and stepped into a small room with another door straight across. I opened that door and was inside a audio sound booth. There was a mixed bunch of musicians in the studio doing a warm up. I counted one guy and one girl on guitars, a girl on keyboard, a girl on drums, a girl on violin, and a girl on a mandolin. The snappy music they were generating was enough to make my feet want to dance in rhythm.
One of the guys in the sound booth looked up when I walked in. “I see her. She’s here. Got it. We are ready.”
He picked up a handful of music sheets and held them out in my direction. “Pick the songs you know and let’s see what you got.”
I took the sheets and scanned through them. I knew most of them but not by heart. “Now?”
He pointed into the studio where the others were still playing. “Not here, there. Sing into the mike by the stool that’s empty.”
“Okay.” My stomach was rolling with butterflies and I was feeling like I was going to faint. Not my finest moment for sure. I opened the door and stepped into the studio where the real musicians were still swinging away.
They never skipped a beat or hesitated as I walked over to the empty stool and looked through the music sheets. I looked up into the mixing booth at four faces looking back at me. I held up a sheet of music and pointed.
One of the men in the booth picked up a set of headphones and made a motion of putting them on while pointing back in my direction. I looked around for a set of headphones. They were lying on the floor by the stool. I picked them up and put them on. Again I held up the sheet music.
“Don’t show us, tell us. We can’t read it from here. What do you want them to play?” Came back over my headphones.
“Uh, ahhhh…, well, I thought…., could they…., I mean if it’s not too much trouble…,”
“Damn woman, stop beating around the bush and tell them. We have a schedule to keep. We want to get out of here sometime before next week.” Came back over my headphones.
“FOOLISH MIND!” I screamed back into the mike in front of me.
The music stopped and it got deathly quiet. I knew I had messed up. I was afraid to look behind me at the musicians.
“On three. One, two, three.” Was the beat and the intro chords into Foolish Mind as it played back into my headphones.
I missed the opening chords and broke into the music trying to catch up, off key, off beat, and just off everything. “My foolish mind keeps trying to…”
“Stop, stop. Let’s go again. On three, one, two, three.” Came over my headphones again as again they picked up the intro chords.
Again I was late, off key, off beat and missing harmony with the music. I wasn’t only bad, I was really bad. A screech owl would have done a better job.
“Stop. Linda, a little support if you don’t mind.” Came over my headphones.
The violinist stepped up beside me. “Okay sweetheart, watch me and follow my lead. On three, one, two, three.”
The musicians led into the opening chords and Linda leaned up to the mike between us. “My foolish mind keeps trying to tell me our love is the same…”
Her voice was soft and pure as a gentle spring rain. She was not only good, she was super star material as far as I was concerned. I was wondering why I had never heard of her before? I was too infatuated to sing in the beginning and it wasn’t until the second verse I finally got into the song with her. Her voice carried me in sync, in rhythm, on key, and off to a place where there was nothing but us and that song. The studio, the musicians, and the guys in the audio booth were gone. It was just Linda and me and our song.
“From the beginning one more time.” Came over my headphones when we finished the song and the world came back to reality.
“On three, one, two, three.” Linda had backed away from the mike but it didn’t make any difference. I was there one more time. She brought her violin up and made it wail a lonely cry of lost love before the second verse. Her subtle touch in with the melody was pure heart wrenching magic. The girl was gifted in voice and her touch was golden on the violin.
“That’s a take. Next one.” Came over my headphones after we finished the song.
“Vixen in the Red Dress.” I was ready for a fast, hot, number.
“On four, one, two, three, four.” And the band wound up into the song.
It was one of those songs that makes everyone want to clap and stomp. It’s lively, quick, and fast paced. The reason I liked it was because it didn’t take talent to sing it. The lyrics were so fast one could seldom understand the words anyway. As I belted that puppy out, everyone was smiling.
“I’ll take that one. Next.” Came in over the headphones when we wrapped up Vixen in the Red Dress..
I wasn’t keeping track of time or the songs we ran through. I was having fun. I think everyone else was too. We came to the end when I ran out of sheet music. I didn’t count but I was thinking we had run through eleven our fourteen songs. “Are we finished?”
“That’s it for today.” Came over my headphones.
I took off my headphones and turned around to thank the musicians. “Thanks for putting up with me. It was kind of you to not walk out.”
“You’re kidding, right?” The girl on the keyboard was laughing as she headed for the door. “See you Friday night.”
The others followed her out. They were turning off the lights so I followed them and closed the door behind me. Only one guy was left in the audio booth. I waved at him. “Thanks for the session.”
He nodded in agreement. “Check with Susan up front for your schedule. See you Friday.”
“Friday?” I was wondering what was so special about Friday. That was tomorrow night. I watched as the door closed behind him. He was gone. Boy, they don’t hang around after the lights are turned down.
I walked back down the hall the opposite of the way I had come in. Susan was still behind the counter. She slid some papers up on the counter without ever looking up. “Miss Masters, take your contract and look it over. Have your lawyer look it over if you have one. Have your agent look it over if you have an agent. I would like to have it back by six tomorrow evening. If you need longer that can be arraigned.”
“What is happening tomorrow? Everyone kept saying they would see me on Friday. Do we have another session tomorrow?” I was curious as to what was happening on Friday I was missing.
Susan looked up. “I’m sorry. It’s in your schedule. Please check your schedule. If you have questions after that then I’ll answer them.”
“And my schedule is?” I was thinking these people have done this so often it was old stuff and I was trying to play catch up.
She tapped the papers she had placed on top the counter. “There along with your contract.”
She glanced at her watch. “Miss Masters, I strongly suggest you go down to Brown and Brown for your fitting. Time is of essence and you are wasting it by standing here.”
“And Brown and Brown are located? I’m not from here and the names and addresses mean nothing to me.” I was hoping Susan was finally getting the idea I needed some guidance.
Susan looked up and studied me for a few seconds. She pushed a paper up on the counter. “Okay, sign this and I’ll get you on your way.”
I looked at what I was suppose to be signing. It was an agreement between Matey Studios and signee. Matey Studios was acting agent for signee until at such time signee found another agent or signee terminated agent agreement with Matey Studios.
“And that’s it?” I didn’t see any legalese in that agreement. It was a simple contract. “How much do agents get or what is this costing me?”
Susan was looking down when she giggled. “Boy, you are green aren’t you? Matey Studios pays for your agent. Honey, the agreement is you agree to let Matey Studios be your representative agent. They are paying themselves to be your agent. It’s a legal form for the lawyers. It allows you to have a limo and driver to take you where you need to be to meet your schedule. It allows us to legally arrange for your room and board as necessary. It allows us to pay for your expenses and deduct it out of your expense account.”
She looked up and studied me. “In other words, it allows us to be your agent and do what agents normally do without tying you up in some legal formality you can’t break or end if it doesn’t suit you.”
“Thank you.” I signed it and pushed it back in her direction.
“You are welcome.” She pushed a couple numbers on her phone. “Limo and driver will pick you up out front in ten minutes. Lad has experience at this. Let him walk you through it. He will make sure you are ready and prepared for tomorrow night.”
“Sure, thanks again Susan.” I had no idea what I was going to prepare for.
“My job Miss Masters.” She pointed toward the front door. “Limo will be there in a few minutes. Take your friend with you if you wish.”
“Friend?” I looked around and saw Jim still waiting on me.
He and a dozen other people in that room were staring at me for what ever reason. “Oh, okay. I’ll see if he wants to go along or if he’s still flying back to New York this evening?”
I headed for the door, motioning Jim to follow. I was waiting on the sidewalk when he caught up. “I need my things out of the van and then I guess if you are headed on to New York you can turn it in at the airport.”
He shook his head. “I overheard the conversation. If you don’t mind, I think I will stick around to see your warm up act tomorrow night.”
“Warm up act?” I was getting a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach again.
“Everyone in the reception room was talking about you. They piped your audition back into the lobby. I wouldn’t have believed it was you except for that awful screeching you were doing there at the beginning. And who the hell was that other lady? She was awesome. The funny part is, as good as she was, you were better. I still have goose bumps running up and down my spine. From the reaction of everyone else I think they had the same problem.” He pointed toward the van. “Let’s get our things and wait on that limo of yours to give us a ride. I’ll call Hertz and tell them to come and pick that van up.”
“I guess.” I wasn’t too sure if I wanted to turn lose of that van or not after what Jim said. I might still want to run if things got any worse. Warm up act? I wondered how big a crowd we were going to entertain and what would those people think when they saw me instead of…, Oh no, they can’t be thinking I’ll dress like a girl? Could they? They wouldn’t dare!
It turned out worse than I expected. The problem was that ‘slippery slope’ everyone keeps mentioning when things start going bad and keep going from bad to worse. Looking back, the name Candy Masters was the first step. When I accepted the name I was doomed. My life was over. The second step was the audition. I was dragged into believing I could sing thinking that was all they would require. The third step was signing that damn legal form allowing Matey Studios to be my agent. Agents run their clients lives and keep up their schedule for them. The forth step was letting my limo driver drop me off at Brown and Brown. It wasn’t the clothier I thought it was when it was mentioned. It was in fact a Body Shop or a makeover spa and lounge for the well to do woman or the aspiring movie actress, or…, in my case, the aspiring wannabe female vocalist.
I should have fled when I walked in and it looked like a Body Shop for women instead of a clothes store for men. I should have fled when the babe with Wanda printed on her name tag met me and asked if I was Miss Candy Masters? I should have ran screaming from the building when she didn’t even raise an eyebrow when I stammered yes.
Don’t you like my pierced ears and long multi loop diamond earrings? Courtesy of the Body Shop of course. The piercing not the diamond earrings. The long, bright liquid red fingernails are beautiful for a girl who doesn’t wait tables don’t you think? They are non removable and tough as titanium plate I’m told. Impossible to break they said. I believe them after banging them on everything the first week. I found it’s impossible to do a lot of things with fingernails that long. It takes a whole new way of handling everything. Picking up something small and flat was impossible until I learned to slide a nail under it to lift it up first. They said I would get use to the eyelashes in a couple weeks. They lied. Those long lashes almost drove me out of my ever loving mind. I never did get use to them. Every time I get in a breeze they flutter and irritate my eyes, and I start blinking. They were implanted so I didn’t have to put them on every morning was the story they told me. They were nighttime stage length so the crowd and the cameras could see them from a distance. Women definitely don’t wear them nearly as long as I do. In the daylight I definitely stand out as a woman of the evening if all they were looking at were my long, thick, heavy, lashes.
If it was only the long painted nails and lashes I definitely would no longer could be a guy. But that was only a couple of the things they did to me that evening in the Body Shop. They pushed, molded, padded, and pinched me in all the places a woman would love to have stand out or in depending on where it was on the body.
It was after eleven when Lad picked me up and dropped me off at the Hotel Western. The desk clerk handed me a room key without even asking my name. “We were expecting you, Miss Masters. Welcome to Hotel Western.”
“Thank you.” My bracelets tinkled as I took the key and slipped it into my shoulder purse. All I wanted was a bed. I didn’t like walking in heels. I didn’t like pantyhose. I didn’t like the corset I was wearing. I didn’t like the silk slip I was wearing. I didn’t like the polished liquid red, silk dress I was wearing. I didn’t like the long platinum blonde hair I was wearing. Most certainly I didn’t like myself because I didn’t stop them before it was too late.
What was the icing on the cake was trying to get out of that dress and the rest of the rig. I couldn’t reach the zipper on the dress after I pushed it down a few inches from the top. It was impossible to reach coming up behind my back. “I’m in purgatory.”
I flopped on top the bed and was instantly asleep clothes and all. It was a hell of a night in more ways than one. I was dreaming I was a woman. When I tried to sing it came out all scratchy and raspy. The crowd hated me and tossed things at me. I ran crying from the stage only to find everyone had abandon me and I was all alone trying to find a job on the streets. The only offers I received were from dirty old men in shiny new limos. I woke in fear only to find my dream wasn’t all dream. I was wearing a dress and…, I fell back asleep to dream of more nightmares. I was on stage singing my little heart out and when I finished I looked and no one was there except me. It was a huge auditorium and it was empty. I fled the stage only to find I didn’t know the way out. There were hundreds of doors and every door I tried only led to another room. I was trapped…, I woke struggling for my life. I was bound as I fought my way free only to find I had been wrapped up in the bed covers and not all of it was a dream. I was wearing a dress and…,
“Morning, Miss Masters.” Came from a female across a distant void.
I tried to open my eyes and they wouldn’t. They felt like they were on fire, all scratchy and irritated. I reached up with my right hand to try and pry an eye open.
A hand caught my wrist before I was able to stick my fingers in my eye. “No wait. You don’t want to do that. Let me put some drops in them to numb then and lubricate them. Roll over on your back and lie still for about five minutes.” Came from the same voice.
I went to sleep in Hell, I woke up in Hell. Why oh why did I ever agree to this? I’ll tell you why! Money! Money is evil. It will drag you into Hell. I knew personally how evil money is. I did as told even though I wanted to rub my eyes and get them open. I felt something drip on my eyelids as I listened to someone moving around the room.
I wanted to say something but my mouth wasn’t working any better than my eyes. My tongue felt alien inside my mouth. It felt dry, swollen, and thick. My lips felt numb. I was positive the Sahara Desert had parked in my mouth and sucked all the moisture and life out of it. I reached up to touch my lips. I poked myself with those damn long nails. I tried again with the flat of my finger. They felt swollen. I vaguely remembered them sticking needles in my lips yesterday in that Body Shop. What had they done to me? Mentally I dropped a few more feet down into purgatory as I pushed on my numb, swollen lips.
“The eyelashes will irritate your eyes for a about a month until you adjust to them. Wanda was supposed to explain some of the dos and don’ts to you last night. She had an emergency in the family. Her little girl swallowed a coin. They had to rush her down to emergency.”
“Anyway, don’t rub your eyes as you will only make them worse. If you rub them you may also get them infected until they have healed. The drops lubricate and numb your lids. The Vegas stage length lashes are a real pain to get use to. Girls don’t op for them that long. They sure look great from out in the audience, fifty or sixty rows back though.”
“Stand up.” A hand wrapped around my right hand.
I felt my eyes loosening up as I was led from the bed.
“Let’s get you out of that rig and into the shower. You don’t have enough star power to be a prima donna yet. You have rehearsals in an hour.”
I felt the zipper on the dress slid down as light started filtering through the crack in my eyelids.
“Okay, shoulders forward.” She slid the dress forward off my shoulders.
“Step out, arms up.”
I did as fuzzy outlines came into focus.
She lifted my slip off up over my head. “Corset next. Turn around.”
It felt sooooooooo gooood when she unlaced that medieval torture device. My body was stinging all over but it felt wonderful to feel the air brush softly against my skin. “oooooooooooh”
“Yeah, right. Pantyhose and heels and hit the shower.” She patted my butt as she pointed to the bathroom.
“Umph oot!” I felt a rush of pain in my kidneys from a violent need to make bathroom as the air sensitized my body. I was headed to the bathroom as fast as I could run in high heels.
I made the shower. Held my mouth under the spay head to get enough moisture in it to start working again. After the shower I knew I didn’t want to look in the mirror but curiosity and the cat thing is in all of us. I had to see. I wish I hadn’t looked. It wasn’t me I was looking at. I held my finger up to my eyelashes and measured. Now an inch and half isn’t much but in some places it’s too damn much. And they were thick and heavy and caused me to be constantly blinking as if I was flirting all the time. They certainly made me look like a Vegas showgirl or worse. The problem was, it didn’t stop there. My eyebrows had been arched and swept out. Extraordinarily, uncommonly beautiful on a woman but…, My eyes had permanent black eyeliner tattooed top and bottom and swept out Cleopatra style. It heightened and widened my eyes and gave me that sultry look behind those impossible long lashes.
Reaching up with an index finger I pulled my right eyelid down. My eyelid had been permanently colored. A light florescent tan on top the black eyeliner faded out to a darker florescent tan to the top of the eye socket. I slipped a few more feet down into Hell as I stared. They had turned me into a Vegas Showgirl. Hell, I would make a Vegas show girl look like Mother Teresa. And mine wasn’t coming off when the show was over every evening.
There was no need of looking at the lips but of course I did. I had sweetheart lips every girl would have killed for. They were extra full and pouty begging to be kissed by every full blooded male. They also promised to turn on a lot of those that weren’t full blooded. They were outlined as if they needed any help standing out more. They were a wet vibrant, ultra bright, polished, liquid red. It was as if I was looking deep into the liquid red. Guaranteed to have the guys falling all over themselves trying to get a kiss. I was positive I had slipped into the abyss of Hell.
The only place I was going to look good was up on stage. Any other time I was going to look like a tart. I was a night time girl only. I had sold my soul to the devil for a few pieces of silver. My life was over. I could never walk into a store again like normal people. Everyone would be staring at the Vegas Showgirl.
Gwen was the name of the girl who helped me get ready for rehearsal. When we left the hotel I looked like a Vegas Showgirl and my voice had returned by then. The red dress was beaded and sequined in swirl design from the spaghetti straps to the extra full skirt. I was wearing a matching bolero jacket. My red heels and red purse matched the dress with beads and sequins. The earrings and bracelets I was wearing had enough diamonds in them to start my own diamond mine. I walked up to the limo by the curb. I could see sparkles and light reflections splashing all over that big black car as I approached. The outfit I was wearing was all glitter.
On the ride over to the auditorium it was impossible to keep from licking my lips. They felt numb, out of place, and swollen. It was a natural reaction to want to unconsciously lick them.
Gwen was watching. “You’ll get use to them.”
“But they feel so damn big.” I touched them with my finger in disbelief.
“Certainly turns the guys on. They were reshaped for a reason. The more attractive you are the better you sell.” She gave a slight nod of her head.
I don’t want to turn the guys on.” Involuntarily I ran my tongue across them again.
“Yes you do. Your whole image is to get the audience involved with you. It takes lots of glamour to do that to a huge audience. Ugly girls don’t sell on stage.” She turned and looked out the window.
“My lips are numb. I won’t be able to carry a tune.” I knew my voice was going to be off key.
“It’s the colored silicone injected in them. Your body will put it’s own collagen in your lips to seal the color. They will get feeling back in a couple days. You only have to lip sync the songs. They pulled your vocals off yesterday and will feed it back on stage. All you have to do is act tonight.” She offered as she took a quick glance at my lips.
“Colored silicone? Is that legal?” Maybe I hadn’t reached the bottom of Hell? It looked like I might fall down a few more flights.
“Oh, it’s not the old stuff that wouldn’t stay in place. The injections are cohesive colored silicone. It is what gives your lips that deep wet, hot red look. The color won’t fade or wear off as it’s permeated into the cells more than skin deep. They are begging to be kissed.” She gave me a slight smile.
“Yeah, you said that already. Lucky me.” My life was over I was positive. I owned permanent deep vibrant, liquid red, swollen, sweetheart lips that begged to be kissed. I was NOT a happy camper!
Lad dropped us off at the Ford Stadium. It was big enough to hold a football game. I learned afterwards, that was exactly what it had been designed for. The stage was huge. There was a huge screen in the center of the auditorium and another huge screen rising above the stage. Anyone in the auditorium was going to be able to get a real good view of the stage act by looking at the screens.
Gwen led me up to the stage. The musicians I had worked with yesterday were already picking melodies and various chords.
The violinist, Linda, took a good look as I walked up on the stage. “Un huh, Candy. Not bad. You look hot girl.”
I tried to smile but it wasn’t in me. “Thanks.”
Linda gave me the once over. “Okay, let’s go through the routine. Candy, singers are dime a dozen. Girls not only have to be able to sing, they have to perform too. That means you give the audience a show while you are singing. Otherwise you’re just another singer and you will be working one night stands in every beer joint from the Atlantic to the Pacific to pay the meal ticket.”
She gave me a serious look. “You act like you are having fun when you are up on stage even if you aren’t. The audience picks up what you project. You give them a sour puss and they won’t pay ten cents to go to your next concert. So what you do is smile, put laughter in your voice, and parade your body across this stage for all the boys and girls who paid good money to see you act.”
“I’ll try.” I knew she was right even if I was green in the acting department.
“No, you won’t try. You’ll do. The audience doesn’t buy try. Gwen is our choreographer. She has designed most of our routine. So when you are out of the try mood and into the can do mood then let’s give it a whirl.” Linda lifted her violin up to her chin and pulled her bow across as she drew out a low note.
Gwen stepped up beside me. “Watch and follow. When you get the dance routine down then you can think about singing at the same time but until then, we work on the dance routine.”
I stepped up beside her. “I’m ready.”
“Lonesome Me on four. One, two, three, four.” Came from the drummer behind us as she led into the beat.
I was watching Gwen as she sidestepped to the rhythm. I tried following her as I sidestepped. There were two problems I could instantly see. Gwen was wearing pants and sneakers and I was wearing heels and a dress. Her smooth movements did not translate into smooth movements when I tried to imitate her.
We went through the whole song with me clumsily trying to follow along. When it was over, Gwen gave me a smile. “Not bad.”
“Yeah, for a duck.” I responded.
“You’ll get better. Rome wasn’t built in a day. All you have to do is get good enough to please the guys. There are no mistakes up here unless you have a partner. Only a very few of us know the dance number. If you goof no one will be able to tell except us.”
“Lots of body English. You are up on a big stage. You have to project in huge proportions to reach your audience. I want lots of hip movement. Swing your arms out when you spin and flick up your skirt. When you kick I want that foot to touch the ceiling.” She looked back over her shoulder. “Again.”
I looked up at the ceiling that was a hundred feet or more up over my head. I couldn’t even get my leg up past my knee. “Better raise the ceiling then.”
Everyone laughed. They had already seen my high kick. Gwen smiled and nodded. “That’s the spirit. Okay, I want all of that and more. Again.”
The drummer picked up the beat, Gwen sidestepped bouncing off to our left. I tried my best to bounce as I followed her. She spun and flung out her arms. I spun and flung out my arms, my skirt bellowing out around me.
Gwen stopped and held up her hand. The music stopped. “Flick up your skirt as you bring your arms up.”
“Now?” I wasn’t sure when I was suppose to respond.
“Yes now.” She waited.
I reached down, grabbed a handful of material with both hands and flung my arms out turning loose about shoulder level.
“No. The movement is suppose to be invisible to those who are watching. Don’t hold onto the material. Roll your hand into it as you move past the skirt. The material will collect on the back of your hand. As you bring your hand up it will slide off. It’s an innocent movement but suggestive as hell. The guys get to see under your skirt and it wasn’t your fault. You do that every time you swing your arms down and up.”
“Again.” She took her position beside me.
We did it again, and again, and again, and…, I didn’t think the morning was ever going to end. I was tired beyond description. I was also mentally tired of hearing them tell me to smile, kick higher, swing your hips, pick up your skirt, and so it went.
We quit for lunch. As bad as I didn’t want to, Lad drove Gwen and me out to a large fancy restaurant. The name on the front was Flamingo Club. Everyone was looking when we slid out of the limo.
“Smile Miss Masters. You want them to talk about you and come to the concert tonight.” She was smiling as she led me into the restaurant.
I smiled in spite of all my misery. There wasn’t any alternative. I was either going to co-operate or I was going to go back to the hotel and ask for a large sharp knife and slit my throat.
Gwen was leading the way to the matrie d’. “Miss Candy Masters and party.”
He nodded as he looked at me. “Certainly. This way Miss Masters.”
He seated us at a table just inside the door. I accepted the chair as he pulled it back. Great! Everyone could look me over coming and going. I wonder if they will bring me a long sharp butcher knife from the kitchen?
Gwen leaned over in my direction. “Smile Miss Masters.”
I was smiling as I leaned back over in her direction and whispered. “Up yours sweetheart.”
Gwen laughed as her eyes danced with delight. “That’s the spirit. You’ll need that to get through the concert tonight.”
I tried to not look around but it wasn’t possible. Back to the curiosity killed the cat thing. I had to see how many were staring. There was another problem of course. When I looked back I was batting my eyelashes at them. Not on purpose but because it was involuntary and necessary. Those long lashes I was endowed with were bothering my vision and my eyes were still irritated. The result was lots of blinking to lubricate the eyes.
The guys loved it because I was flirting with them and the ladies hated me because I was a flirt. NOT MY FAULT! If that wasn’t enough, I was unconsciously licking my lips. Now put it all together and you can imagine what kind of emotions I was causing in that restaurant. I look at a guy, bat my eyelashes as I flirt with him and then lick my lips suggestively. There wasn’t one single woman in that restaurant that wouldn’t have cheerfully slit my throat for me. There wasn’t one guy in the restaurant that wouldn’t have hesitated to carry me off to the nearest bed. My life was in jeopardy from both sexes and it wasn’t really my fault.
Gwen knew what was going on. Bless her black heart, she was relishing every second of it. She was enjoying my discomfort too much. She knew exactly what I was doing to both sexes. She was just enjoying the whole situation too much.
What Gwen understood and I didn’t was controversy causes talk and sells tickets. The more people talked about the concert or anyone connected with the concert the more tickets they sold and the more money they made per concert. Barnum and Bailey understood the marketing of the circus before it opened. They sent people ahead to plaster the town with fliers a week before the circus came to town. Then they paraded the elephants down main street the day of the circus. Elephants are big and showy and people really don’t get to see anything besides a big elephant. The real show is that night inside the big tent.
I didn’t know it at the time but I guess one could say, I was the elephant act. I was all glitter and Vegas Showgirl fluff. Everyone could look and get all excited. They had to buy their ticket for the real show that night.
Photographers were waiting outside the Flamingo after we finished lunch. “Miss Masters, how long have you been singing? Where did you start out? Who’s your agent. Please give me a pose.” Came from half a dozen people all at once.
Gwen held up her hand in front of me to keep the photographers from taking shots. “Please, Miss Masters had a hard schedule and will answer all questions in due time. She isn’t answering any questions at the moment. You may take some pictures and then we have to go back to rehearsal.”
She leaned back up over my shoulder. “They want poses so give them what they want. Do poses out of the dance routine. Smile hon.”
I smiled as Gwen stepped out of the way. I spun and lifted my skirt. I pulled my shoulder forward as I turned sideways and looked at the cameras. I put my hands on my hips and looked off in the distance. I also did those other things like batting my eyes and flirting and licking my lips suggestively but not on purpose.
The photographers went wild. They were loving ever second of it. Lots of expensive film was rolling through those expensive cameras.
The limo rolled up to the curb.
Gwen took my arm. “Gentlemen, it was a pleasure but we have to go. Catch Miss Masters at the concert tonight. Thank you.”
“Miss Masters where do you call home? Where did you go to school? What was the last band you worked for? Are you married or engaged? Do you have a boyfriend? Who is…”
The limo pulled away from the curb and left the reporters and all their questions behind.
I could not believe what I had got myself into. When the reporters found out who I really was that would be the end of it all. No one would want to go see a guy who sang like a girl. I would be washed up before I ever began. I was looking at nothing out my side window before I turned my attention back to Gwen. “Who called in the wolves?
“The wol…, oh, you mean the reporters? Hon, you need to learn a cold hard fact of life in this business. They are wolves if you let them tear you apart or eat you alive. They are also your best allies if you use them to your advantage. You can’t buy the publicity you just received back there. Your name and picture will be on the front page of the Albuquerque News this evening. The Television six o’clock news on all seven channels will do a blurb about you along with the complimentary video. You are fresh blood. That’s good news. There is fresh blood and old blood that makes the news. All those in between have to beg for a little printed ink or air time to get their names mentioned.”
She gave slight nod. “You are the former. If you don’t work them now you won’t have enough gas to make it to the top because there is that long dry spell between the bottom and the top when no one is interested in you no matter how good you are.”
I felt my lips. “But I look like a Vegas Showgirl or a tart!”
“Vegas Showgirl? That’s a possible angle we can use. In our business tart is a drawing card.” She took a quick look as Lad pulled up to the curb. “It’s time go back to work for a few hours. We will break about four and you will go on at six.”
“What time is the concert?” I was curious as to how long I was going to be warm up act.
“It’s at seven. You cut enough songs yesterday to lip sync for fifty minutes. The band will carry ten minutes by themselves.” She opened the door, stood up, and waited on me to catch up.
Gwen and I worked for three solid hours on my dance routine. This time I was wearing a voice mike and trying to sing as I tried to remember the steps Gwen was showing me. When four finally rolled around I was hot, tired, and more than miserable. I had no idea what those people paid for a ticket but it wasn’t enough for the hard work I was putting out. I was wishing for my life back.
I thought the four to six o’clock break was going to be a break. I was wrong. It only meant I wasn’t dancing across the stage. The band gathered me up and we spent another hour backstage before another band showed up and set up. Then we all rehearsed together. Linda joined me in vocals and we sang as a duet when the second band joined us. It was a good thing because I was really off key. Everyone knew it. I could see the different members wince in pain every now and then when I messed up big time. I could also see doubt in the new band members thinking we were going to be their warm up act. Probably figured they wouldn’t have any audience left by the time we finished. Despite the better than good music our band was playing I was causing everyone pain.
By the time six o’clock rolled around all the musicians that had been practicing with me that morning managed to change into costume. The girls had changed into beaded and sequined evening dresses with full flouncy skirts and full makeup. The guy had changed into a tux. They looked like they belonged in an orchestra rather than a rock band. But rock music was what we were going to give the audience.
Gwen stepped out and took my arm. “Take a deep breath and forget what you learned.”
“Say what?” I couldn’t believe I had worked my little tail off all day and now I was suppose to forget it all.
“Mistakes are going to be made. Only you and I will know. Get out there and move with the music. Let it carry you. I’ve seen it in you from the very beginning. You have a natural rhythm. Go with it.” She backed off to the side of the stage.
“I guess.” I took a deep breath. The curtains were closed and I had no idea how many people were in front of me.
“On four, one, two, three, four.” The drummer picked up a steady beat. The rest of the band dropped in and laid out the opening chords. I wasn’t ready but I could hear my own voice as pure as a mountain stream drop in right on cue and in harmony. It was the dub over they were piping back in from the first day.
“Pick it up, Candy. Lip sync and move.” Came from Gwen off to the side.
The drummer gave a machine gun beat on her drums. I should have been off to the left side of the stage at that cue, spinning and bouncing back to the right side of the stage. It was too late to catch up now so I waited and counted beats, mentally projecting my motions coming back across the stage to where I was standing. When my mental picture caught up with my actual position on stage I was ready and swung in rhythm with myself bouncing and spinning across to the right side of the stage. I was lifting my skirt as Gwen taught me and singing in a soft voice to myself.
“She’s got it. Curtain.” Came from backstage.
I wasn’t paying any attention as my full concentration was on the dance routine and the song. My voice was pure as I sang my heart out. Only it wasn’t really me. It was yesterdays recordings. There was a thunderous noise I didn’t recognize. Actually it sounded like a jet plane taking off. We must be next to the airport? The song lasted three minutes and fourteen seconds. When we finished I heard another jet plane taking off.
There wasn’t any time to think about those damn jet planes as the band wound up into the second song. Unbroken Love was the second song. I liked that song a little better than most. It was fast, had a good beat, and Linda sang melody with me. It was a fun song for me. It would have been more fun if I had actually been singing it rather than lip syncing.
I noticed the audience about the middle of the third song. By then I was wired and high on adrenalin. It was only the band and me. I figured out what that jet engine roar was when we finished that third song. It was the audience screaming for more.
The forth song was Changing Hearts and it was Linda’s turn with her violin. If there ever was a violin player it was her. She made that instrument come alive and talk straight to the soul even though it was a fast number.
I had backed off stage beside Gwen. “She belongs up on stage in front of an orchestra.”
“She does play up on stage in front of an orchestra. Linda is a trained concert violinist.” Gwen gave me a wink with her left eye.
“What is she doing here?” I was having a hard time swallowing that one.
“Doing what she loves. She loves rock bands. Roberta Love sent Linda a copy of your demo tape. Roberta wanted to know if they signed you if Linda would be interested in joining in the band. Linda canceled her date with the Philharmonic and here she is.”
“You’re kidding?” By now I was sure Gwen was pulling my leg.
“Bobby, your base guitar is from Jerry Daniels band. Amber, your lead guitar is from the Rodeo Girls band. Sharon, your drummer was playing for Brittney last week. Brenda on the keyboards was playing with Blackjack three days ago. Sherry on the mandolin was playing with Dalton and Gang in Houston Wednesday night.” Gwen was looking into my eyes to see if I was buying what she was selling.
“No way!” I was positive I was being lied to. There was no way a musician would quit a high end band or gig to play for an unknown.
“Yes way. They heard the tape, liked the idea of starting as Candy Masters Band and seeing if it went all the way to the top. They were at the pinnacle as far as the bands or in Linda’s case concert. They wanted to see if they could make that ride all over again. This time, if things work out they will be the band and not just another member in a top band. They like the idea and the challenge.”
She got serious. “They are betting their future you are top material and will make all of them stars. Don’t take away their dreams Candy.”
It was a responsibility I wasn’t prepared for. “And you? What are your dreams?”
“To make you the best damn singer and performer to ever hit the stage. We either go as a team or we don’t go at all. You have the gift. I’m just going to polish it if you let me.” She was studying me.
I held up my hand and looked at my red nails. It was a sigh as I motioned down the front of my dress with my right hand. “And this? This is part of the plan? Is this part of the polish you are working on?”
“Part of it, yes. You had the voice. You needed the looks to match if you were ever going to make it to the real money. Do you really mind? Is it that bad?” She waited for an answer as Linda finished up with her music.
“No, I guess I can adjust. I wish you had asked before you turned me into a Vegas Showgirl. I might not have agreed.” I took a deep breath to calm my emotions. I would have to flounce back on stage when the band picked up the next number.
“Smile Candy Masters. The audience wants to see lots of beautiful white teeth when you perform. Beautiful girls make it to the top, ugly ones don’t, no matter how good they can sing.” Gwen held my arm as the band led into the opening beat. On cue she gave me a nudge. “Go. Smile. Lift your skirts.”
And on cue I automatically flounced out on stage, spinning, and lip syncing to Cruel Lover. The audience screamed.
An hour later I was emotionally and physically exhausted. I was ready to collapse where I stood as the curtains closed and Gwen collected me. The other band set up and I found who we were the warm up for. The Boys Club wasn’t in the top ten but they were in the top twenty in the nation. I had heard some of their music. They were good but they were only good. With the right agent and the right breaks they might make it to the top ten but it wouldn’t happen on their vocals or their performance.
Our band split as we were through. Gwen led me back to the limo. I figured it was back to the hotel and then another week of practice before did another gig. When the limo pulled up to the curb I was looking at the Body Shop.
“Oh no. Now what?” I didn’t think there was anything else they could do to me.
Gwen opened the door, slid out and motioned for me to follow. “Come on.”
Dutifully I followed along unconsciously I licked my lips. “What happens now? They can’t be thinking I need something else? There is an end to this isn’t there?”
“A little more of that polish I was talking about.” She led the way into the store.
By two A.M. I was back in the hotel thinking I had dropped down a few more flights straight into Hell. Gwen’s little polish job consisted of shots in my breasts, and hips, and butt. I wasn’t big in those places but I didn’t like the idea of what they were doing to me. My padding wasn’t bad for a guy. The shots didn’t add a lot but it was the idea they added anything. And besides, it felt strange. It was another set of stair flights I had fallen down. I was headed straight into Hell. It was one more definitive door closing on my past life. Maybe it would all turn out to be a bad dream when I woke up in the morning?
Gwen helped me get out of the dress I was planted back in when the Body Shop finished with me. Not the red beaded and sequined dress I wore on stage that evening but a soft blue satin dress. I fell into bed wearing nothing but the birthday suit God gave me when I was born. Plus all the additions the Body Shop had trimmed my body with. The money wasn’t worth it. I would have gladly backed out if it was possible to have me back in one piece. I think I would even have crawled on my hands and knees to beg Merle Ackland and kissed his feet to get my old job back. If it were possible. But…, Miss Candy Masters had taken over my body. I wasn’t in any condition or position to change my life back now.
I fell into a fitful night of sleep filled with nightmares. The audience was screaming but it wasn’t because they liked me. They wanted my blood. They were swarming up on stage like ants. And they grabbed me and lifted me over their heads and I was sent out on a sea of hands to the middle of the swarm. They were screaming for my blood.
I woke in a sweat. I was rolled up tightly in my bed sheet. I fought my way free. My eyes were glued shut. I unconsciously started to pry them open and poked myself with those long damn fingernails. I was on a serious female learning curve. I tried again with using the flat of my fingers. When my fingers brushed up against the long eyelashes it came back to me what Gwen had said about irritating them. I stumbled to the bathroom feeling my way. I made the pee stop and stumbled back to bed. My breasts hurt, my butt hurt, I vaguely remembered those shots earlier in the evening and chalked it up to the medicine or whatever it was. With my eyes glued shut it didn’t take long to fall back asleep and more nightmares.
Jim and I were in the Indian town. That little Indian town…Clious or whatever. The Indian Princess was smiling at me. Sue handed me a little brown cup. It was full of a brown liquid. When I took the cup it burned my hands and I dropped it. The liquid rose up and wrapped itself around me and covered me and the Indian Princess pointed to a wall mirror. I looked into the wall mirror. I was looking at the Indian Princess only it was me.
“Lay still and let me put some drops in your eyes.” Was the distinctive voice of Gwen.
I slowly came out of my stupor. “Thanks. They are stuck again. I had to feel my way to the bathroom last night.”
“Sorry. Another week and they won’t mat up on you like that. You are speaking better this morning.” Came from the side of the bed.
I felt her lean over and the drops touched my eyes. “My mouth isn’t all dry like it was yesterday. My lips still feel swollen though.”
“Your lips are just fine. They aren’t swollen.” Came from a few feet from the bed.
I licked my lips. They weren’t any better than yesterday. I reached up and touched them with my fingers. “They aren’t swollen? Why do they feel so thick?”
“That’s the natural kiss me look girls want now days. It drives all the boys crazy. Your lips turned out beautifully. They have that deep liquid red, glossy shine to them. With those sweetheart lips every guy wants to know what it’s like to kiss you.” Was her response.
“Be still my foolish heart.” I put as much sarcasm in my voice as I could muster.
“Remember, beautiful girls sell. You take care of the voice, I‘ll handle the looks department.” She had moved across the room.
I could hear her taking clothes off hangers. “I couldn’t be lucky enough to be jeans and shirt day could I?”
“Not in this lifetime. That can come later. For now, you are the commodity we have to sell. We can’t sell you if you don’t look like star material. That means you look and project that Vegas Showgirl image you keep talking about. You do that full time. Next question?”
Fuzzy outlines were starting to appear in my vision as my eyes were slowly coming unglued. I could see her laying clothes on the bed. “When is the next rehearsal?”
“Everyday, all week. This is our job. It’s not a part time job but a real job. It’s not easy as most people think. It’s not as much fun as we make the public believe. We work our tails off because it is our job. When we aren’t rehearsing you will be working the public and the press for coverage. Next question.” She headed for the bathroom to turn on the shower.
I sit up on the edge of the bed as my eyes finally opened up. The long lashes were even more irritating than they were the first morning if that were possible. They felt heavy and they bothered my vision. And they made me look like a tart. And women really didn’t wear them that long. Not real women anyway. Only Vegas Showgirls and they took them off and left them on the dressing table when they left the club. I was positive mine were longer than any those girls wore.
The shower felt good. By the time I had brushed my teeth and wet my mouth, I felt a hundred percent better until I looked at the girl looking back at me from the mirror. I touched my lips. They looked wet. It was only an illusion. They had a sweetheart shape. They also looked swollen. At least I didn’t have to look at them or my eyelashes all day. Every time I looked at myself the first thing that jumped into my mind was tart. I tried real hard not to look.
Gwen helped me get dressed. There were the panties and then the corset. I felt like toothpaste when she laced me in. Then she called Lad in. He tightened up the laces some more and took up another four inches more or less around my waist that I didn’t have to spare to begin with.
I couldn’t breathe. “It’s too tight.”
“Relax. You are fighting it. Just relax and take shallow breaths.” Gwen coached me as she reached in the front of the corset. She pulled my breasts up and that hurt. They were tender to the touch.
“That hurt! They are sore this morning. What was that medicine they gave me? Are you sure they were suppose to give it there” I was trying to wiggle around inside that corset for relief.
“I’m positive they gave it in the right places. Yesterday they took samples of your tissue. They divided out the good cells and added stem cells to the mix. They reinjected you with your own tissue. The replaced cells regenerate until they are told to stop.” She picked up a black lace slip and waited.
“And that means?” I didn’t understand any of what she had told me.
“Science has learned how to make things grow by cell division. Because it is your own cells it doesn’t cause the body to reject it.” She held up the slip.
She had me hold my arms up and she dropped a full black lace slip down over my head. The beaded, sea foam, green gown was next. It had full sleeves and a draped, plunging neckline. There was enough of my breasts exposed it was daring. There was just a hint of the black lace slip showing with my breasts giving me that thought provoking bad girl look. The dress wasn’t belted. It didn’t need one. It hugged every curve of my body like paint. Those curves might have been pinched into place by a corset but I did have curves and cleavage even if I couldn’t breathe.
“Are you saying what I think you are saying? Are you telling me I’m growing my own breasts and that’s why they hurt?” I finally managed to say it even though I didn’t want to believe it.
“That’s it in a nut shell if you want to say it that way. The clinic prefers to call it body sculpture without the scalpel. Isn’t science great?” She had me sit down on the chair.
I looked down the front of my dress. “Just grand. And they are going to get how big?”
Black nylons with a seam up the back were next. I found out what those garter straps on corsets are for. There were four inch stiletto heels that matched the dress along with a matching shoulder purse. The long black pearl dangle earrings and black pearl choker was a plus along with diamond bracelets and a diamond watch.
Gwen stood back to study her handy work. “You look stunning.”
She didn’t fool me. I noticed she never answered how big my breasts were going to get. It was one more nail driven in the coffin of Dana Smyth’s past. A past I could never hope to return to. I hoped they had things under control. “I look…,”
“Like a rock star, Miss Candy Masters.” Gwen finished up for me.
That wasn’t the thought that was on my mind but I knew she was trying to get me to thinking along those lines. “Okay, I look like a Vegas Showgirl.”
“I’ll settle for that.” Gwen motioned toward the door. “Let’s go to work, Vegas Showgirl.”
Gwen’s idea of work was the Butterfield Restaurant, for breakfast. She steered me toward an empty table close to the door. She ordered eggs over easy, ham, biscuits and gravy for both of us.
It was impossible to not look around to see who was staring. Everyone was of course. No one dresses up in a beaded evening gown first thing in the morning for breakfast. No one except those who are asking for attention. Four men at a table straight across the room from me were staring. Involuntarily I batted my eyelashes and unconsciously ran my tongue across my lips. I would have never done something like that consciously. It was more than a flirt gesture. Flashing my big baby blues was flirting. Licking my lips was a sexual innuendo. Add both of them together and it’s an unspoken ‘let’s get together’ suggestion. I have to plead ignorance as I wasn’t doing either one in the manner suggested.
The men smiled. I blushed because they smiled at me not because I had any idea why they were smiling. If I had known the reason they were smiling, I would have jumped up and ran. Instead of fleeing I batted my lashes and licked my lips.
Gwen was watching me. “Perfect. You are doing it perfectly.”
“What?” Did she mean I was blushing perfectly?
The waitress brought our breakfast as everyone in the restaurant stared. I didn’t think two eggs would go down as tight as I was cinched into that corset. Funny how one’s appetite is suppressed when there isn’t any room to be hungry. I played with my eggs and managed to get one of them down one tiny bite at a time. With abundant use of my napkin to wipe my lips. They had gone from numb yesterday to over sensitive this morning. I kept licking them and wiping them because they felt…, swollen and strange.
We finished without eating most of what was on our plates. I managed most of one egg. Gwen did a number on the eggs and biscuit. Before we could leave, a lady walked up to our table.
“I was there at the concert last night. “May I have your autograph Miss Masters?” She placed a notepad on the table.
“Uh?” I looked over at Gwen who nodded in the affirmative as she pushed a pen across the table.
“Sure.” I had to think about it and take my time to sign Candy Masters. It wasn’t a name I had signed before.
“Me too, please.” A young man reached across from behind me and laid a sheet of paper on the table.
“And me.” A young lady was walking across the restaurant toward us.
“I want one too.” Came from some man behind me.
“Candy, we want an autograph. When is your next concert?” Came from a group of six people sitting three tables from us.
“Candy is performing this Friday in the auditorium the same place as yesterday.” Gwen answered as the people walked toward our table.
It took twenty minutes of signing autographs before we made it out of the restaurant and back to the limo. I was surprised. “What were so many people who saw the concert doing in the restaurant this morning?”
Gwen laughed as her eyes danced with delight. “Show business, girl. They were hired to be there.”
“Hired? By who?” I was working to figure out the equation in my mind.
“Matey Studios paid them to be there and ask for your autograph. The four gentlemen you kept making eyes at are newspaper men. They meet there every Saturday for breakfast. Each one of them is head of their respective papers. I can promise with you making eyes at them and giving them the come on, and the fans asking for your autograph, they are going to put reporters onto your story. You will be the topic of the town before your concert next Friday.” She sighed in contentment. “You did it perfectly.”
“But I wasn’t making eyes at them.” I was blinking as I said it.
Gwen shook her head as she watched me lick my lips. “Hon, I guarantee you, every male in that restaurant was having strong thoughts about jumping your body. Probably most of the women too. I don’t have an ounce of lesbian in me but your actions are irresistible. You have made me wonder what it would be like to kiss those luscious sweetheart lips.”
I gave that one some thought. Kissing some guy was alien to me. Gwen was anything but a guy. I reached over and pulled her in before she had a chance to protest. I planted a big passionate kiss on her and added a little tongue to stoke the fire.
She hesitated and then pulled me in. She added a little tongue of her own.
For whatever reason, it fell flat. Normally I would of had the girl lying down in the seat after a kiss like that. It just didn’t start my internal fires. It felt like I was kissing my brother or sister or aunt if I had one. Maybe it was like kissing the cat? There was nothing there. I chalked it up to the idea I was wearing a dress. My self image was shot to hell. Maybe it was the corset and I couldn’t breathe?
Gwen giggled as she pulled back. She reached up and touched my lips. “Nice kissable lips. I love them.”
“Okay, you can have them. Give my old ones back.” I slid over in the seat.
“Not in this lifetime. You are a commodity I’m selling. The packaging has to be better than everyone else is selling or it’s just another box of oats.” She gave a slight nod.
“I’d rather be a box of oats.” This talk of me being a commodity wasn’t setting too well. Maybe the idea I was still wondering what went wrong when I kissed Gwen was upsetting me?
“You tried that. Now we are going to repackage you and the public will eat it up.”
“I thought I was already repackaged? What else can you do that hasn’t already been done? These long nails keep me from doing anything with my hands. My eyelashes are too long and are irritating me. My lips are swollen.” I cupped my tiny little waist. “And I’m wearing a dress.”
“And looking better all the time, I might add. You had the voice to sell. I’m making sure people love and accept where that voice is coming from. You can’t have one without the other and make it work Candy.” She waited for my response.
I took a deep a breath as I could and sighed. “Okay.”
The musicians weren’t there at Matey Studios where Lad dropped us off. The audio guys were. And Gwen was a serious task master as we did one dance routine after another. She was constantly chiding me. “Smile Candy. The groupies want to see you smile. Exaggerated movements Candy. They can’t see you that good from the back row. Sing Candy, they want to hear you not just watch you dance.”
And we did. Gwen was always one step ahead of me, leading me, scolding me, encouraging me, and praising me. I worked my little tail off for her.
The same schedule was followed every day without a break . It was grueling and I was dying a little every day. I was sore, stiff, and tired. I figured out later why Gwen was holding me to such a meat grinder of a schedule. It served a dual purpose. It kept my mind off me and I was learning how to entertain an audience. It worked on both counts. It was weeks later before I thought about Jim and wondered if he ever made it back home to New York?
Tuesday we rehearsed with the band. I started learning the names of the girls and boy that had voluntarily formed the band. Sharon’s hands could turn into blurs when she did a hot drum beat. I was sure she was second to none on drums. I wasn’t the only one who thought that. When she dropped into a beat everyone within hearing range would start toe tapping as they were caught up in the beat with her.
My voice was slowly returning as the week rolled by. It’s amazing how quickly Tuesday can turn into Wednesday, and Thursday, and…, Suddenly it was Friday.
Gwen dropped in about six just as she had all week. “Show day.”
“Thanks for reminding me.” My eyes weren’t completely matted shut. I could see slivers of light and shadows.
She walked over and dropped some drops in my eyes. “Looking better.”
“They are still irritating me.” I waited for the drops to do their magic.
“That’s not such a bad thing. You keep batting your eyes at all the guys.” She was picking out a costume for me for the day.
“I do not. I’m blinking because they are irritated.” I wanted her to understand I wasn’t flirting with the guys.
“Same difference. You are the only one who thinks she isn’t making eyes at them.” She held up a vivid blue beaded chiffon dress with a full skirt.
I was finally able to see. “Who do we lead in for tonight? You haven’t mentioned any names all week.”
“You know them. Get dressed, we have a photo op with the press in forty minutes. If we are lucky they will run your pictures and do a couple columns about you in the evening paper. The early edition comes out at four. That will generate a few thousand more tickets if the guys do your story in the paper.” She laid the dress down on the bed.
“Okay.” I headed for the shower. Maybe I was adjusting? The idea wasn’t distasteful to me like it would have been a week back.
Lad and the limo were going to be a thing of the past after tonight. Matey Studios had paid for a weeks worth o f limo. I figured tomorrow it would be me and a second hand Yugo or a Ford Festiva if I was lucky. So far I had been too busy to see if that check from Diva Records was any good. I figured there was going to be a problem with that check. I didn’t have any identification except as Dana Smyth. I was positive there wasn’t a bank in the world that would cash a check for me when it was made out to Candy Masters.
Lad dropped Gwen and me off at Capital Photography Studio. The band members were already there. They were in costume dressed to the nines. The girls were wearing beaded evening gowns. Bobby was wearing a white tux with tails. I took a second look at Bobby. He had a wide mustache. It had to be fake. He didn’t have a mustache yesterday. The group looked like anything except a rock band. I could tell this was going to be a parody. Instead of shock on how wild they could look, they were going to try culture shock in the refined and sophisticated look.
One of the men motioned for me to join the group. “Miss Masters, in the center please.”
I took as deep a breath as I could as Gwen had me laced in and padded. I was cinched in all the right places and padded out in all the places a girl is suppose to stick out. I walked over between the rest of them and turned around. The staff was setting up a couple of cameras and lights. Behind us, another rolled out a poster with a southern mansion and trees printed on it.
“Let’s see.” One of the men was looking through his camera.
“Bobby, move into the middle beside Miss Masters and put your arm around her waist.” He rose up to look over the top of the camera while Bobby moved in beside me.
Bobby wrapped his arm around me. I glanced over at Gwen. I guess doubt was in my eyes. She smiled back. The cameras clicked.
“Bobby, stand behind Miss Masters. Okay, Miss Masters if you would, lean back in Bobby’s arms and look back up at him.” The second cameraman was adjusting lighting as he spoke.
“Are you okay?” I turned my head to look at Bobby.
He laughed. “It’s only publicity pictures Candy. Relax, I don’t bite.”
“Thank you.” I leaned back into Bobby, he wrapped his arms around me, I pulled his arms in and looked up over my shoulder at his face. The cameras were clicking away.
That was fine as far as it went but then I saw something in his eyes that spelled trouble. He was looking at me like he wanted to kiss me. I panicked as I squirmed out of his arms. The idea any guy wanted to kiss me made my nerves tighten up and my stomach roll.
“Blue drop.” The first cameraman called out.
They removed the poster of the mansion and rolled in a blue background.
“Everyone line up. Bobby, you are at the left, Miss Masters to the right. Everyone put their left hand on the shoulder of the one in front of them and turn sideways to left. Now turn half that back right and look toward the cameras. Hold it.” Cameras clicked away.
“Miss Masters, move to the other side of the room please.”
They were still taking pictures of the band as I did as they requested. There was another background set up and the second camera man turned in my direction to take pictures. Gwen had all of us changing outfits for different settings and poses. The last dress she had me put on was a soft pale blue. The material was ultra soft and light. I was only wearing a body brief underneath which was necessary for holding most of me in place. The low plunging neckline would have been nice if I had lots of cleavage to show. I was surprised I had some, actually my breasts were a small handful and more than expected after Gwen showed me how to position them. The idea I had breasts was pleasing to me when I looked in the mirror. I guess Gwen’s packaging concept was starting to take root in my mind.
The photographers had us group together for more pictures. This time the band was in jeans and tee shirts. I was the odd man out in the soft blue dress, nylons, heels and lots of jewelry. They wanted several pictures of Bobby with his arms around me. He was sitting to the left of me. I realized just how thin that dress was when Bobby put his hands around my waist. I guess I jumped.
Bobby laughed as a smile spread across his face. “Easy Candy.”
“Watch where you put your hands.” I gave him a quick look over my left shoulder as my heart raced up into my throat. I don’t know what he was feeling, my adrenaline was in full flow at the moment.
“I’m watching.” Bobby gave me a slight squeeze with his right hand.
I jumped again as I grabbed his hand. “Careful.”
They shot several pictures. “Okay, Bobby, Candy, we need some sizzle. Bobby put your right hand under her right breast.”
I tensed up as Bobby slid his right hand up flat against my rib cage under my right breast.
“Candy, smile and relax. I’m not looking for a deer in the headlights shot.” Came from the first cameraman.
I smiled as I rolled my eyes to the left to look at Bobby. I wanted to warn him this was just pretend and not get too personal.
Bobby leaned over my left shoulder and kissed me full on the mouth as he pulled me in tight. That’s when my world fell apart. I went straight past shock and into emotional meltdown. Then my emotions took over where my mind had stopped. My emotions kissed him back as my right hand came up and softly touched the back of his head. It was a signal the kiss was inviting. All done without my mind’s consent.
“We got it.” Came from the second cameraman.
Bobby finished the kiss. His eyes were dancing as he studied me. “Nice, very, very nice.”
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. What the hell did I just do! Part of me wanted to puke. That was the old mind logic thinking. Part of me wanted to grab him and drag him back in for another kiss. That was the hormones raging through my body. Just what the hell had they done to me at that Body Shop?
Gwen took my hand. “Time out. Let’s go take a break.”
In a stupor I let her lead me out of the room. She took me down to an office and sat me down in a chair. She was looking down at me. “I can tell that look. You liked it didn’t you?”
“NO! I mean…,” I was trying to figure out my emotions. “No.”
“Don’t give me that. You liked Bobby kissing you. Now you are trying to figure out why. Candy, you are a woman whether you want to admit it to yourself or not.” She folded her arms across her chest as she waited.
“No…, I…, it…,” Tears started leaking out of the corners of my eyes.
Gwen pulled up some tissue off the desk behind her and handed them to me. “Don’t get stains on the dress. Do you want to kiss Linda or Amber or the other girls?”
“I…, no.” That didn’t feel right either. I dabbed at more tears. Something was all screwed up inside me.
“Did you like kissing Bobby?” She was going for the last nail in my coffin.
I had to think about it as I dabbed at tears. “yes”
“Now that we have that out of the way, let’s go back and shoot some more pictures.” She backed up from in front of my chair.
“Do I have to let Bobby kiss me again?” I wasn’t sure I was ready for a repeat performance.
“It’s for the papers and tabloids Candy. Controversy sells. Miss Candy Masters and a certain member in her band are romantically engaged. It is good publicity to generate gossip. Gossip means people are talking about you. If people are talking about you the papers like to run articles about who people are gossiping about. It’s self generating news, people talk, papers print, people talk.”
She walked over and held open the door. “Think about it this way. Each kiss is worth about one million dollars in free publicity. We would never be able to buy that kind of publicity.”
I stood up and wiped off the last of the tears. “I can handle that.”
“Bobby is going to kiss Linda, Sherry, Brenda, and Amber. He’s going to be playing the field while he’s the only boy in the band. I don’t want you to get jealous.” She mentioned as I walked past her out the door.
“Jealous?” I never could tell when Gwen was leading me on or when she was working toward a goal.
“Oh, I see the tabloid headlines now. Candy Masters threatens to fire her guitar player when she finds him messing around with the violinist. Miss Masters says she won’t play second fiddle to anyone.” Gwen giggled as she said it.
I had to laugh with her. Where in the world she came up with some of those ideas of hers was a puzzle. The woman had a warped mind. Even more warped than me. “Second fiddle? Woman, you are one sick puppy!”
“Agreed.” She laughed with me as we headed back to the photo shoot.
I watched as they took pictures of Bobby kissing the other girls. It dawned on me about the time he was kissing Amber I had thought of him as kissing the “other” girls. I stepped over to the full length mirror they had in the studio and took a look. The liquid red, full sweetheart lips, the too long, extra thick and lush lashes, the gracefully arched eyebrows, and long blond platinum hair left no doubt I was looking at a woman. I brought my right hand up and touched my right breast. The long, long, sharp, liquid red fingernails were part of the total package. And yes, I had breasts. The soft blue dress caressed gentle curves on a feminine body. There was no lingering doubt, I was one of the girls.
Gwen had been watching as I looked in the mirror. I think she knew what I was coming to terms with. She walked up beside me, put her arm around my shoulder and looked back at me through the mirror. “There’s a woman there Candy. Not fully developed yet but most certainly a woman. The wish isn’t finished.”
“Wish?” I was missing part of the conversation.
She laughed as her eyes danced. “There’s work left this morning. You have to add to the gossip mill by playing the field.”
“Just what do you mean, playing the field?” I was growing suspicious again. Every time Gwen left little innuendoes I dropped another level further down into purgatory.
“Bobby isn’t the only one you are romantically involved with. Hon, you are one hot girl. You think someone as hot as you is going to be dating only one guy? Not on your life. You are dating two more that we know of and we have pictures to prove it.” She was leading me back over in front of the cameras.
“And who am I dating?” I could sense trouble the size of a truck headed my direction.
“We don’t know their names, but some savvy paparazzi was able to take some pictures.” She motioned with her hand for the first cameraman to step up.
I guess my eyes grew two sizes as he stepped up in front of me.
He was smiling from ear to ear. “Let me see if I can get this right without help from the cameraman.”
He wrapped his arms around me and was leaning me back.
It was reflex reaction when he started leaning me back to throw both arms around his neck to keep from falling backwards. When I did that, he kissed me.
“The angle was wrong. Dave, all I caught was your back to the camera. Candy has to be plainly visible for it to be a paparazzi shot.” Came from the second cameraman.
Dave took his time about giving up his kiss. He was grinning from ear to ear as he stood me back up. “Darn, I thought I was doing it right.”
From what I could see in his eyes, he knew exactly what he was doing. He ruined that camera shot on purpose.
He gave a slight turn of the body and again I was leaning over backwards with my arms around his neck holding on as he kissed me.
“Dave, take your time but next time I want both of you in the picture, not your back and her shoulder.” Came from the second cameraman.
Dave did take his time before he let me back up. “Darn, you mean we are going to have to do this again? What a cameraman has to go through for his job and country. Some times it’s all a body can stand.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, now turn so Candy is in the picture, fuzzy brain.” Came from the second cameraman.
We did six more shots before they decided they had one they liked. I wasn’t sure I liked any of them. And then the second cameraman, Arland, took his turn at kissing me while Dave took the pictures. Arland made sure he was as bad at getting in front of the camera and ruining the shot as what Dave had been. From never kissing any man to kissing three of them a couple dozen times in one morning was working on my mind and my emotions. Part of me liked it, part of me wanted to scream and run. By the time Gwen had me change dresses three more times and go through the kissing routine each costume change, I wasn’t in that much of an emotional upheaval. It was part of the job, I kept telling myself.
Gwen had me change into an ultra soft powder blue dress before we left the studio. The dress had silver thread or something as it sparkled like diamond dust in the sun. It was so soft it clung to my body like static electricity. I kept checking to make sure I was wearing a dress it was so light and soft.
The next stop was back at Matey Studios where a dozen news photographers and a couple cameramen were set up in the parking lot.
“Planned this didn’t you? What did you tell them to get them to show up?” I was looking at Gwen before she opened the door after Lad pulled up to the curb.
“Someone must have broke the story about you and Bobby. Maybe it was the one about you are ready to release your album? Could have been their bosses told them to get some pictures after that incident in the restaurant this week.” She opened the door and slid out.
She was waiting as I stood up beside her and before the cameras moved in. “What incident in what restaurant?”
“Saturday morning where you were flirting with all the guys and inviting them to your hotel room.” She gave a smile.
“I DID NOT!” I knew what she was saying was the truth but I wasn’t doing it on purpose.
“Smile at them Candy. They like to see lots of teeth. It makes for good pictures and makes them happy to write about you or talk about you on TV.” She closed the door and Lad moved the limo away.
A smile spread across my face. If I had to do this then I was going to do my best but I wasn’t going to make those subtle sexual innuendoes like I had been doing. A small breeze brushed against me. It caused those long lashes to flutter and that caused me to blink my eyes.
The reporters thought I was flirting with them.
Out of habit and unconsciously I ran my tongue across my wet, glossy red, swollen, sweetheart lips.
The reporters knew I was inviting them back to my hotel room. They all wanted an interview and pictures of the siren in the powder blue dress.
Gwen was watching the reporters and me. She was elated. As the reporters crowded around she leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Keep it up honey. You are driving them crazy.”
Those long lashes were driving me crazy also as they irritated my eyes and I blinked. I couldn’t help it. It was like a constant itch that had to be scratched. There was no way I could wipe them with my fingers. I would put an eye out with those long fingernails. I might look sexy and cute but not from my side. All I wanted was to get the photo op over with and move in out of the wind.
The reporters moved in close, real close. One of the female reporters took a close look. “Her eyelashes are real. I’ll be darn.”
“She’s a real Vegas Showgirl.” The woman added as she backed up and her cameraman locked in with his video camera. “Candy, I was at the concert last Friday and was wondering if that was your last warm up act? Tonight you are the act. Does this mean you are through as a warm up for other bands?”
I glanced over at Gwen as I wondered how much of that was set up by her before this interview?
Gwen stepped forward. “Candy Masters has answered her many fans, many requests. They have asked her to be the star and she has responded. She is taking her band on the road. Tonight it’s Albuquerque, next week she will be back in Vegas at the Garden Towers for a two week performance. A copy of her concert schedule will be given to you after the interview.”
“Jack?” She pointed at one of the television reporters.
“Candy how long have you been performing? Where have you…”
Gwen cut him off. “Candy Masters has been performing in Vegas where she will return for the next two weeks. She has performed under Diva Records in New York. Please everyone here will receive a free pass to Candy’s concert tonight. Come and see for yourselves. Candy is the singer on her way to the top of the billboards.”
There were a couple dozen more questions from the reporters. Gwen handled them all nicely before she told me to pose for the reporters. I did as she asked. It seemed like it was thirty minutes or more before she cut the photo opportunity session and led me into Matey Studios.
My eyes hurt from the wind and the strain. I didn’t dare rub them. “Do you have any of those eye drops on you?”
“No but Susan does.” Gwen walked up to the front counter and leaned over the top. “Eye drops for Candy.”
“Got some.” Susan set a bottle up on the counter.
Gwen motioned me to lean my head back and then she dropped some eye drops in each eye.
It wasn’t instant relief but it was getting better. “Thanks.”
“We go over to the auditorium for a short workout with the band. Then we take a break until your concert tonight.” She was headed back out front.
I was trying to keep up with her. To my surprise the reporters and cameras were gone. “Jeeze, didn’t take them long to gather up and leave did it.”
“They had their story. They have a schedule to keep same as you. Everyone has a schedule Candy. The television crew wants to get their editing done for the six o’clock news. The newspaper reporters want to get their stories typed up and matched with their best pictures before the evening paper comes out at five. And if it doesn’t rain a couple hundred more people will call in for tickets.” Lad had brought the limo back and Gwen slid in after opening the door.
I followed her into the limo shutting the door behind me. “It doesn’t look like rain to me.”
She smiled. “Now you are getting the big picture. It’s all a game Candy. We work the press and they work the people. We sell more tickets, they sell more papers or go up in ratings if it’s television, and everyone wins.”
“And me?” I wondered if I was going to end up as so many other hopefuls? Working one night stands in beer joints from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back. I could do that until I was too old and too ugly even for the drunks to appreciate. I would finish up as a bag lady pushing my shopping cart down the alleys of some nameless city telling, everyone who would listen, I use to be a star as I dumpster dived for another half cent aluminum can. And…, to top it all off, that bitch I had been married to and her damn lawyer would probably be by every week wanting their cut of my finds.
Gwen gave me a wink. “Beautiful girls sell Candy. Beautiful girls who flirt sell even better. Everyone at that photo opportunity thought you were flirting with them or inviting them back to your hotel. I promise you, they were all dying to see what it would be like to kiss your lips.”
“But…,” I started to tell her I wasn’t flirting.
She held up her hand. “Sweety, they will go back and write their stories and be thinking about only you when they do. They will write a story, describing the best they can, your eyelashes and how beautiful and gorgeous they are. They will write about your sweetheart lips and how they are begging to be kissed. And they will write about you and your sexy figure because all they could see was you. And when they are through writing, people will come because they will want to see and hear for themselves.”
“I wasn’t flirting.” There I had said it and I meant it.
“We know that but they don’t and I’m not telling.” Gwen’s eyes were dancing with delight.
It was a short drive over to the auditorium. The band and I worked our butts off in rehearsal to make sure we were in sync with one another. Everyone in the band may have been accomplished musicians and singers. Bringing it all together with those one hasn’t worked with before took practice. So practice we did.
Linda did a duet with me and a solo in that practice session. Man could that girl sing. She had so much talent. It was then I realized talent only goes so far in this business. One could be the best there is and not advance beyond the little country clubs and bar rooms. There had to be the promoters like Gwen who pushed all the right publicity angles before one became a headliner and started making more than motel rent and gas money.
We were taking a break in the back before our opening as a local band by the name of the Dusters was warming up the audience. “Please, I’d like everyone’s attention.”
The room got silent as they turned to look. “I…, uh…, aw poop. In the two weeks I’ve come to know all of you and what you gave up to become a part of this adventure. Thanks. I know I’m not the leader nor am I the reason for the success we had so far. You guys are. That includes Gwen and all those behind her pushing the promotions. Each of you is so talented and gifted in your own right. Each one of you should be center stage. I know I’m only the pretty wrapper, thanks again to Gwen. The real talent is all of you. If I ever get the fat head and start thinking I’m the talent in this group, please reel me back in. Send me out on stage by myself without the support of each of you making me look good. That would be a real embarrassing moment and a reality check.”
“Gwen told me what each of you gave up in your successful careers to join this band. I pray I don’t let you down or we don’t let each other down. Each one of us is valuable to the success or failure of what happens from here on out. We are a team and like any team, all it takes is one to bring it all down. There are going to be good moments, bad moments, and squabbles among us. Someone will get pissed over a wrong whether real or imagined and decide their old job wasn’t that bad as they pack up to leave.”
Looking over at Gwen I knew it would happen. It always does with any group. I just hoped it didn’t get so bad someone really left. “If any of you get to the point where you believe you aren’t being treated fairly. If you think one of the others pissed in your Cheerios. Talk it over with Gwen or me. If we can’t sooth over hurt feelings I’ll rent a boxing ring. You can beat each other’s brains out until some sense is knocked back into your heads.”
“I pray I don’t say or do something where anyone gets so mad at me they want to quit. Since I’m the greenest member here in this group I ask each and every one of you to give me advice and guide me. Let me know if I’m out of line. Which I imagine will happen pretty often.”
Walking over to where Gwen was standing I picked up her hands and looked into her eyes. “Every one of them is star material. Give them the chance to shine up front center stage. Give the rest of the world a chance to know each one. I remember an old number called Wipeout focused around the drummer. Sharon is second to none. Amber can make a guitar talk like none other. Brenda’s hands turn to magic on the keyboard. Sherry handles a mandolin like it was made for her. Bobby can rattle the rafters with his base guitar. Linda makes a violin sing like no other.”
“Open up some numbers for each of them. I don’t want this to be about me. If we are successful it’s a team effort.”
Gwen’s eyes were dancing as she held onto my hands. “If we are successful? There isn’t an if in there. As you pointed out and drove it home. It is a team effort for success.”
She turned and looked at the others. “Right?”
They all gathered round Gwen and me in a group hug. “Goooooooo Team.”
Four years later watching from the side of the stage as the others went through several songs, I wondered how I could be so lucky? We did two tours around the world in that time. Every one in the band was still enjoying what they were doing. If one has a job they love, it really isn’t a job. Gwen finished her body sculpture on me before that first year was past tense. I would always be a Vegas Showgirl after what the clinic had done. I thought it was extreme even if I did give my consent. The times we flew commercial I would usually be pulled off to the side by TSA. They got to see was all girl from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. Gwen reminded me I projected well to the audience. As long as I didn’t act like a prima donna that is. Yes, I got out of hand several times with the big head. Luckily the others and Gwen were there to deflate my fat ego and reel me back in each time I got to thinking I was something.
Gwen walked up beside me and held out her hand.
I was looking at a brown cup. “What?”
She smiled as I took the cup. “This one holds no wishes. Sue hopes you enjoy the life you wished for.”
I stared at the cup wondering if it was really possible to fill a cup with a wish? But then that meant Gwen had to be a part of my wish. And how did Sue know what was in my heart? I never told anyone. Looking at Gwen I shook my head. “And you’re part of my wish? What about your life?”
She smiled. “I was rock collecting and ended up on a dead end road with a quaint little town out in the middle of nowhere. I purchased a cup like the one you’re holding. Sue said it contained my wish and when it was broken it could no longer hold the wish. I packed it carefully. The next day a coyote ran out in front of my van. I slammed on the brakes, everything was thrown forward. The box of rocks I had collected ended up on the bag in which I had so carefully packed my cup.”
Nodding in agreement I laughed. “And the cup was broken releasing the wish.”
She smiled. “I worked for years for Maty Records as an expediter. I was the go to person for whatever was needed and no one else could find or fix. I made good money. I wanted more. I wanted to take an unknown and make them the one the crowds went wild for. I wanted to be the manager not for the money but because I could do it better than anyone else in the business.”
“Of course in this business that would be almost impossible. I didn’t have a company, I had no references, and no one but an off beat garage band would even consider me as a manager. You have heard them. They show up at the local club, belt out a few off key numbers thinking they are the next Elvis.”
That made me wince as I remembered when I first stepped into the studio for a demo. “No one could be as bad as I was.”
She gave me a hug. “The Swan was there all along. All you needed was a little polish to shine.”
Pointing out to the others winding up their number, I was curious. “And each of them?”
She turned her attention to the rest of the band as the audience screamed their approval as the number finished. “No broken cups but they have what they wanted. They aren’t part of a band. They are the band. Each one taking over the spotlight in turn and becoming exactly what they always wanted. Someone who could play their instrument and possibly sing better than anyone else at that moment. The audience knows each one by name. Each member has their own fan club.”
Gwen looked back and smiled. “You see Dana Smyth, Candy Masters wish was a gift to all of us.”
Pulling her in I gave her a long hard kiss on the lips before I bounced out on stage waving my arms. My mike was hidden in my hair. Only those at the foot of the stage would be able to tell I had one. “Aren’t each and everyone of those in the band talented? Please, give them another round of applause to show how much we appreciate the tremendous effort each of them puts out to be on this stage.”
The audience had rose to their feet screaming when I bounded out on stage. Now they redoubled their screaming and shouting as they clapped their appreciation. I let them go on for a full minute before I turned back to the band and nodded. “On three, My Only Love.”
The band wound into the number. The audience slowly quieted down to hear the music. I flounced across the stage singing. Bobby and Linda filled in the chorus and harmony.
=======================================================================
My ex wife, Catherine, and her lawyer were married a couple months after she divorced me. It was a year after I signed on with Matey Records I went back to New York court to try and stop the alimony. Gwen talked Matey Records into loaning me their lawyer, Diana Karoll. She teamed with another New York lawyer, Mindy Nadin. Before court appearance they scheduled me with a gynecologist, Dr. Rebecca Woodson. All of us ended back up in court.
These things don’t work like the movies. There wasn’t a jury and I wasn’t placed on the witness stand. It was Catherine’s lawyer husband, Bryan telling the judge why I should keep on paying alimony and making payments for a house I didn’t live in. Then Mindy had a chance to tell the judge why I shouldn’t have ever had to pay to begin with and all past debt should be voided.
Judge Haroldson kept looking back at me during most of that court session. He didn’t believe them when they claimed I was a man. The really soft clinging pale blue satin dress I wore to court that day left absolutely nothing to the imagination. The scoop neck barely covered my nipples. The hem was cheerleader short. I ‘forgot’ to put on a bra and slip and the thong panty outline was plainly visible.
Wasn’t my fault there was so much static electricity in the air that dress clung like a second skin and kept hiking up.
“Dr. Woodson, do you hold a medical license in the state of New York?” The judge was questioning the Dr.
“Yes I do your honor. I’ve been practicing medicine as a licensed gynecologist for twenty three years.” She responded.
He nodded. “And exactly what gender would you in your opinion define Miss Masters?”
She looked over at me and nodded. “Miss Masters is a woman in virtually every respect as far as I in my lifetime experience can tell.”
“In every respect?” He was studying me.
“Yes your honor. In virtually every respect.”
He turned his full attention on me. “Miss Masters what is it you do?”
“I’m a professional entertainer your honor.”
His eyebrows went up. “Professional entertainer!”
That caught me off guard. I could tell what kind of entertainer he might be thinking of the way I was dressed. “uh…, not that kind your honor. I’m a singer with a band.”
I thought he was going to chuckle over that one but he managed to contain it. “What is the name of the band Miss Masters?”
“We are UF2, your honor.”
“U F too?”
“Yes sir.”
“What does that mean?”
“It is kind of an acronym your honor. It’s not official but it stands for Ultra Fine Too or Ultra Fine Also.”
He nodded. “I guess that would explain why you thought it would be okay to come to my court dressed the way you are. Miss Masters this is not a stage for your performance. If you EVER return to my court I expect you to be dressed in a more conservative manner like your legal counsel and doctor. Are we clear?”
Bowing my head in shame, even though I wasn’t because I knew the way I was dressed had the desired effect. There wasn’t any doubt in the judge’s mind I was all woman. “Please excuse my ignorance and lack of respect for your court your honor. I promise it won’t happen again.”
Diana gave me a pinch on the leg under the table. One could call it a high five under?
From the look in his eyes I was positive that old judge would have welcomed me back in his court dressed the way I was as he cleared his throat. “Thank you Miss Masters. I find for the defendant Mrs Catherine Smyth-Johnson the claim Miss Masters owes continuing alimony. Void.”
“I find for the plaintiff, Miss Masters her grievance she is paying unjust alimony to be true. The courts should have been notified and this should have been corrected at the time Mrs Smyth-Johnson married Mr. Bryan Johnson. In the interest of legal fairness Mr. Johnson being a lawyer and legal expert abused the system in not notifying the courts at the appropriate time. Thus I agree with Miss Master’s legal counsel the back payments and interest is also null and void.”
Catherine’s husband stood up. “Your honor I object.”
The old judge gave Bryan a frown. “Mr. Johnson, you should count yourself and your wife extremely lucky Miss Masters is not suing you for her legal fees and emotional stress. You tried gaming the legal system and it caught up with you. My judgment stands.”
Bryan wouldn’t let it go. “I’ll appeal.”
The judge looked at him, at me, at him and shook his head. “Okay then, I dismiss your lawsuit with prejudice and grant Miss Master’s lawsuit with prejudice.”
My ex looked at her husband. “What does that mean?”
He was glaring at me. “Means we can appeal but it won’t do any good. She…, he…, whatever that abomination is doesn’t even have to show up in court to defend herself…, itself.”
=====================================================================
Looking at the audience from backstage in Atlanta I had the beginnings of a song playing in my mind.
If you had a cup of wishes
What would that wish be for you
Would you wish for something grand
And would that wish be true
If you had a cup of wishes
Would you hold them never let go
Thinking planning that wish forever
Growing old every wish just so
If you get a chance to catch one of our concerts come and see us. Gwen said she would have most of the schedule arraigned for next season by next week. You won't be disappointed in the talent any of our band members has. I'd say they are gifted each in her and his own way. I still find it hard to believe they would give up what they had to join up with a new unknown when each of them was already known in their own right.
As a reminder.
Linda is violin
Bobby,is the base guitar. He is from Jerry Daniels band.
Amber, is our lead guitar. She's from the Rodeo Girls band.
Sharon, is our drummer. She was playing for Brittney.
Brenda on the keyboards was playing with Blackjack.
Sherry plays the mandolin, banjo, guitar, and darn near everything else. She was playing with Dalton and Gang.
Looking up as the gentleman sat down across the table from me, I tried to calm my nerves. Sometimes it is the little tricks of patting one’s hair into place or brushing imaginary lint off helps. I did both and it didn’t help.
“Miss Hart, I’m John Case. We have a mutual friend Don Strickland, set up this meeting and insisted I talk to you about your research.” He set a recorder and a camera up on the table. “I won’t start until you tell me it is okay.”
“Let’s order something to drink first. Do you mind?” I motioned for a waiter.
“Sounds good.” He waited for me to order first as the waiter walked up to our table.
“I’d like a Dr. Pepper, please.”
A hint of a smile touched John’s eyes. “I’d like a coffee, cream and sugar.”
The waiter dropped two menus down and the table and left.
“How much did Don tell you?” I was closely watching John’s face for small tell tale signs.
He grinned. “Enough to spike my curiosity. He said you do really weird things with harmonics and I’d be a fool to not talk to you. I don’t think I’m a fool so here I am.”
The waiter returned with the drinks and stood by waiting for our order for food. I handed my menu back to him. “I’ll have the lunch special.”
He looked over at John who handed his menu back just as quickly. “I’ll have the same.”
We were alone again. I cleared my throat wondering if I was going to lose any normal life after I shared my story. “There was a man who experimented with harmonics or frequency and found everything is tuned to a specific frequency. He built a lab and began testing his theory which was actually not just theory. With each different frequency tuned to a specific virus, disease, insect, animal, plant or virtually anything physical he could kill it, heal it, or destroy it.”
John looked like he had swallowed a bug. “You mean everything?”
Nodding in agreement, I continued. “Needless to say, he was murdered. People are afraid of what they don’t understand. They are willing to kill those who rock the status quo.”
John shook he head. “Not everyone. Most like progress.”
“Yeah, progress in short baby steps so the system isn’t shook up.” I took a sip of my drink.
“I had no idea what the frequencies were the gentleman used. Being a dumb kid with more moxie than brains, I set up a sound system in my room. I had tweeters, woofers, bass speakers, plastered all over the room and was cranking up the amps when…”
======================================================
“Harold, turn it down. I think they can hear you on the other side of the world.” Janet was yelling at her son.
Getting no response she turned to her husband Aaron. “Pull the breaker.”
Aaron put the magazine down and headed for the garage. Minutes later the ear grating noise suddenly stopped.
“MOM!” I yelled out from the bedroom. I knew what they had done. Everything went dark.
“Don’t you mom me young man. Turn everything off and get your butt out of that room. I expect the police will be here in a few minutes. I want you to be out in the yard mowing. Tell them that must be the noise the neighbors were complaining about.”
I knew she was right so I quickly shut everything off and headed for the garage and the lawnmower, passing dad on the way. He shook his head. I had made two passes across the yard when the patrol car pulled up in front of our drive.
The big guy was grinning as he slid out of the patrol car. He walked over to where I shut down the lawnmower. “Trying to play innocent again are you Harold?”
I looked over at him in perfect innocence. “The neighbors complain about me mowing the yard?”
He couldn’t stop the grin. “No son, they complained about you rattling their windows, causing their dogs to howl in pain, their cats to crawl under the bed and all the birds fleeing for their lives. I don’t think it was you mowing the grass which caused such a fracas. Harold, it isn’t just the neighbors next door but the whole damn neighborhood. You hit a new high this time. Cindy received thirty nine calls complaining about the noise. I’m going to give you a summons if you don’t quit.”
He pulled a ticket book out of his back pocket. “This is the last time I write a warning. Next time it will be the real thing.” He filled in the spaces and wrote warning on it.
I took the ticket. He returned to his patrol car and left. “But I’m so close. I can feel it.”
That was Friday. Saturday came along. Before mom and dad left to visit some friends for lunch and play cards she pulled me into a hug. “No turning up the screech sounds. Okay?”
I crossed my fingers as I hugged her. “Okay mom.”
Ten minutes later I had everything ready. I was going for the ultra high frequencies humans can’t hear. Kicking the amplifier on, I dialed it in and started adding the speakers to the mix one by one. What I didn’t notice was the room growing dimmer with each added speaker.
And then…, There she was. A girl appeared in my room standing in front of me. She looked as surprised as me.
She pointed her finger at me. “Who are you and what are you doing in my room?”
Well, that was a lot calmer than I felt. I was totally freaked out. “YOUR ROOM! THIS IS MY ROOM!”
She shook her head. “No bozo, this is my room. And…, oh shit, you split the dimensions didn’t you? You’re my alternate. We both can’t exist in the same dimension. What did you do!”
She began to fade. “How could the other me be so stupid?”
She was gone. Talk about freaking out, I was out there. Looking around the room I realized it wasn’t my room. It was in a girl’s room. I had no idea where I was, how I got there, or how to get back home. It was time to calm down and figure out where I was. Her purse was on the vanity. Something I assumed was a computer was on what I assumed was a computer cabinet. It didn’t look like any computer I had ever seen. A lot of things in that room didn’t look like anything I had ever seen. I headed for the purse. ID and addresses were priority. The billfold I retrieved from the purse had lots of pictures in it, along with funny money, and an ID driver’s license of some kind. The license was issued to Juliann Elizabeth Hart. The address was twenty one sixty eight Sandburg Drive.
That was my address? The city was Chapel which wasn’t my town. The state was Brendort? I never heard of it. I was beginning to suspect I had teleported. The problem was to what part of the world? As I was trying to figure out just where I was and how I was going to get home, she returned.
She pointed her finger at me again. Girl was good with the finger pointing thing. “YOU STUPID IDIOT! I figured out what you were doing after I was shifted to your room. You split the dimensional portals. The frequency was still set. God how did you stand all that before you jumped? My head still hurts.”
She slapped what looked like a tiny cell phone on me. “We can’t exist in the same dimension. One of us has to go. Tag, you’re it sweety.”
“I’m in love. You’re the prettiest girl I have ever met. By the way, where are we so I can come and get you for a date.” Yeah, there was nothing wrong with my sex drive, it was my brain that was fried.
“You still don’t get it do you? You’re me. You caused a rift in the dimensions and fell through. I’m not going to miss me because you aren’t too bright.”
She was starting to fade. “Wait, don’t go.”
=================================================
Looking across the table at John I shook my head. “I was in my room. Or what used to be my room. Somehow she had fixed it so the whole harmonics system I had put together fried itself. Slowly I was beginning to realize there were more problems. I didn’t seem to be myself. Well not true. I was myself or herself. Somehow she imprinted on me as I transported through the dimension portal. Looking in the mirror I saw the girl I had left behind.”
It didn’t take a counselor to see the look on John’s face and realize he wasn’t buying the story. It didn’t matter. “I know you don’t believe me. I was born Harold Chervenski. After they returned home, my parents had a hard time believing I wasn’t some girl who abducted their son and took his place. It took days and weeks of my parents grilling me about everything we did as I was growing up as Harold. At least I retained his memories. What I didn’t retain was his emotions and feelings. I still love my parents but other things changed. I date boys now. I like girls as girlfriends. I have her emotions and feelings inside me.”
John shook his head. “I don’t believe it. You and Don set me up for a spoof didn’t you?”
Laughing, I ran my finger around on the top of the water glass causing it to sing. “I have her memories too. My parents explained to the school board Harold had gone to stay with his uncle Dave Chervenski in Albania while I, his daughter’s daughter, came to stay with them, mom and dad. It was my senior year of high school. Harold was a C and D student. Juliann Elizabeth Hart in this dimension is a straight A student bored out of her ever loving mind with Physics, Trigonometry, Chemistry, and computer science. I was offered a scholarship at MIT. I’m not sure this dimension is ready for what Juliann already knows. I pray I didn’t get Harold’s memories in my other dimension.”
Juliann slid back from the table and stood up. “You don’t believe me and that is probably a good thing. You don’t seem interested in taking any notes so I’ll be going. It was nice talking to you John Case.”
Walking out of the cafe I was smiling. I still had a crush on the girl I had met in another dimension. She was the prettiest girl I had ever laid eyes on. Yet, here I was able to look in the mirror and see her whenever I wanted. I no longer felt like I wanted girls in my bed but there was one exception. Juliann would be welcome in my bed anytime and that isn’t the one in the mirror.
Introduction:
Some time ago, I created a little universe called Deity Arms. I created it because a number of fans asked for permission to write Ovid stories. Something I couldn't allow since many of the tales in the Ovid cycle are interconnected. I thought it would be easier for writers to tackle Deity Arms tales since the stories were completely independent of each other. I even encouraged writers to create new gods of their own.
Sadly, I failed. Although simple on the surface, Deity Arms proved to be more complex than first blush would indicate. Writers, at first enthusiastic about writing Deity Arms tales soon abandoned them due to lack of knowledge of the New York locale or concerns about how to handle the chaotic neighborhood of Deity Arms and its residents.
Finally, I gave up hope, resigning myself to writing my own Deity Arms stories when the mood struck me (or when I came up with a story idea that was a little too edgy for Ovid).
Then, a couple of weeks ago, Anne-Mal informed me that an enterprising author had written a Deity Arms tale and wanted to make sure it was all right to post it. With a certain amount of trepidation, I offered to review the story first. To be honest, since no one else had attempted a Deity Arms story, I didn't hold out much hope for a story written by a person who had never even posted a short, simple tale before.
Imagine my delight when I received Barbie Lee's story. I could tell just be reading just a few random paragraphs that this new author had captured the essence of Deity Arms better than I had ever dreamed possible. I was hooked!
Is this a great story? I'll have to let you decide that for yourself. I think so, though. Plus I had the additional treat of watching the strings of my own characters pulled by a master puppeteer.
I hope you enjoy this story, and I hope you take a moment to encourage Barbie to write additional stories in this genre. She has told me that she has no plans to write more TG tales, but maybe with the right encouragement, she'll change her mind. I, for one, certainly hope so.
The Professor
Deity Arms–Bridget
by Barbie Lee (© 2001)
Set in The Professor’s Deity Arms universe, a businessman, ruined and disgraced by his partner and by his lover, is rescued from suicide by the mysterious Mr. Logan.
(With an introduction by The Professor.)
Introduction:
Some time ago, I created a little universe called Deity Arms. I created it because a number of fans asked for permission to write Ovid stories–something I couldn’t allow since many of the tales in the Ovid cycle are interconnected. I thought it would be easier for writers to tackle Deity Arms tales since the stories were completely independent of each other. I even encouraged writers to create new gods of their own.
Sadly, I failed. Although simple on the surface, Deity Arms proved to be more complex than first blush would indicate. Writers, at first enthusiastic about writing Deity Arms tales soon abandoned them due to lack of knowledge of the New York locale or concerns about how to handle the chaotic neighborhood of Deity Arms and its residents.
Finally, I gave up hope, resigning myself to writing my own Deity Arms stories when the mood struck me (or when I came up with a story idea that was a little too edgy for Ovid).
Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was informed that an enterprising author had written a Deity Arms tale and wanted to make sure it was all right to post it. With a certain amount of trepidation, I offered to review the story first. To be honest, since no one else had attempted a Deity Arms story, I didn’t hold out much hope for a story written by a person who had never even posted a short, simple tale before.
Imagine my delight when I received Barbie Lee’s story. I could tell just by reading a few random paragraphs that this new author had captured the essence of Deity Arms better than I had ever dreamed possible. I was hooked!
Is this a great story? I’ll have to let you decide that for yourself. I think so, though. Plus I had the additional treat of watching the strings of my own characters pulled by a master puppeteer.
I hope you enjoy this story, and I hope you take a moment to encourage Barbie to write additional stories in this genre. She has told me that she has no plans to write more TG tales, but maybe with the right encouragement, she’ll change her mind. I, for one, certainly hope so.
–The Professor
It was a small company but I had done well. We made software for companies who were looking for a quick way to make something work. You wanted your MS Word to talk to your Paradox? Of course it was in the manuals if one took the time to look it up. Didn’t make any difference, people liked to insert disks into their machines and have the software do all the manipulations. When it came down to it, people had been trained almost from day one to look for software to do something for them. We wrote software to make that happen for almost anything people wanted. In return I made money, lots of money.
Fresh from college with an MBA and a commercial pilot’s license, I figured I was going to fly the world as a pilot for some large airline. Reality hit home after I had sent out more than fifty résumés to the large air carriers. The truth was, I wasn’t flying for any large airline. The name brand airlines had their choice of hot jet jocks straight out of the military. Those kids had years of experience handling the big, fast iron. I was so outclassed in pilot training it wasn’t even a contest as to whom the major airlines would hire. My best efforts landed me a job flying for a commuter line out of Salt Lake City. Twice a day we flew from Salt Lake to Los Angeles and back. There was none of that ‘I’m the Captain’ swagger out to the plane and go fly business. We worked our asses off loading and unloading luggage, helping with the passenger lists, complaints, and yes, even working on the damn planes when the mechanics needed a hand. There were no flight attendants or stewardesses along to help with cranky passengers. I quickly understood why the hot jock ex-military pilots passed over the job I accepted. To get rid of my frustrations I enrolled in several martial arts classes. To a man, my instructors kept telling me to control my anger rather than expressing it in class. Needless to say, I never made black belt in anything besides anger class.
Eighteen months into my dream job with Salt Lake Carriers I decided I didn’t want to spend my life that way. I began sending out résumés again and taking courses in computer programming. That was when I figured out a better way to make a living. People are naturally lazy and I could make a living selling software programmed to do what they were too lazy to look up. What college never teaches anyone is how to make money. They also never teach anyone to think smart. Now don’t get me wrong, colleges input one thing and that’s information. Students either figure out how to learn so they can make the grade or they fail the course. Thinking back, I realized there was nothing a college provided except a centralized place to study and a schedule for that study. Everything else was up to the student. I digress.
At first I only made a little pocket change selling software. My software was simple. In fact that was the problem. It was too simple. It did the job and nothing else. When I added installation icons I sold more software and I could charge more. Instead of four dollars and ninety nine cents, I could sell it for nine dollars and ninety nine cents and the amazing thing was greater numbers of people purchased it. Again a revelation in marketing came to me. People perceive something too inexpensive as being ‘cheap’ even if it does the same job as a product costing four times as much. Based only on price, people will buy the higher priced product thinking it is better.
Now I was on a roll and my marketing skills had kicked into high gear. I started putting my programs on CD’s and adding tons of worthless bytes to make them look like heavy high end programs. Of course I raised the price again. The demand was growing by leaps and bounds. My job at Salt Lake Carriers was interfering with my ability to make money so I quit flying and went into the software business. Demand was more than I could handle. I hocked myself up to my eyeballs at the bank and hired a couple of women. Women usually work cheap and seldom complain. I opened a little business on the second floor over a doughnut shop.
I was unstoppable now. I moved my operations to New York because it was the commercial and financial capital of the world. I hired one of the kids I had known at college to repackage my CDs in attractive customer-appealing boxes. Again the boxes were for appeal so the wrapping was like my programs, lots of fluff and little substance but the public was buying my programs like candy. We expanded, and expanded some more as my business kept growing. I added a programmer to take care of writing the programs as I was becoming too busy as an executive to keep up with the demand. We added more and more filler to our simple little programs. Hell, the customers only knew they were buying a good solid program that took up ten to twenty megs on their hard drive. Little did they know a couple of thousand bytes was the program and the rest was fluff. Attractive CDs, designer packaging, and beautiful load icons, were the selling point. I was selling the cotton candy of programming, all fluff and almost no substance. But it worked and it worked beyond imagination.
Life couldn’t get any better than what I was living. I was filthy rich. I was under Bill Gates’ Microsoft radar so he wouldn’t ever want into the business I was in. I was over the top of the radar of the lesser software companies: they wouldn’t want in my territory because they didn’t see what I was doing. They wrote real programs not fluff darlings like I did. Sure, a few programmers had figured out what I was doing. I even saw a few articles in trade magazines about me. The funny part of that was, the public would never see any of those articles so it didn’t matter. Bill Gates made billions, I made millions and I had found my niche in life.
Robert Drake was a friend of sorts as he owned the advertising company we used. It took over a year but Robert convinced me I needed to go in partnership with him. Our combined companies would be able to more efficiently handle customers, billing, public relations, and of course selling. Looking back in retrospect I wonder what I was thinking or more properly why I wasn’t thinking. My company was worth millions and Robert’s company was not even a million dollar one. I never thought about it as money from my company flowed over into ‘our’ company as we grew. Eventually my company was absorbed into our company. I don’t even remember when nor how it happened. Some business accountant I was. Color me the dumbest person in the whole world.
I think the company did better than Robert had envisioned. With the capital leverage from my software company funneled into the combined business, our little company became a huge advertising company. Of course it didn’t hurt when companies bought our software and we stuffed the boxes full of flyers with information about our ad business. Our company was not only named Hot Topics, it was also a hot topic in the financial news. We were on everyone’s lips. We were invincible.
Maybe I should have seen it coming but I didn’t. Robert was a womanizer and he wanted his women employees to be beauty queens and dress like Hooters. The unstated dress code was the shorter the skirt, the better one made it up the corporate ladder. I chastised Robert many times for the way he unofficially ran the dress code in our business. It was a bluff and Robert knew it. Hell, I enjoyed the view the same as Robert even if I didn’t try to get every unattached female in bed like he did. In advertising we moved in a man’s world where men used beautiful women’s bodies to sell just about everything, including men’s briefs. It’s an undisputed fact of life: sex sells. We were in the business of selling sex for the brain. Boy was it working.
You could probably say the beginning to the end was poetic justice. We had been in need of a financial wizard to step in and take over our accounting. Kelli Stalwart was a name on a résumé that returned when we sent out a search to fill the position. I read that résumé a half dozen times. If Kelli was a tenth as good as what her résumé showed then she was the girl for us. I set up an interview.
It was raining cats and dogs outside my window but I didn’t care. The appointment with Kelli was at ten that morning. At ten minutes to ten Lena, my secretary, buzzed me on the intercom. “Miss Kelli Stalwart is here for her interview.”
Great, the woman was prompt. That was a good beginning. I picked up her résumé off my desk as I turned my chair toward the window. “Send her in.”
I heard the office door open and shut. I waited as she walked across the carpet to stand in front of my desk. “Mr. Rands, I...”
I acknowledged her with a wave of my hand. I wanted to impress on her she was messing with one of the movers and shakers of the world. That huge oak desk she was standing on the other side of probably cost more than her car. My deep cushioned leather office chair was extravagant in its own right. I figured I had made her understand who was in charge after she had waited a couple minutes. As I turned around to begin the business of negotiating her salary I darn near choked.
The woman standing on the other side of my desk wasn’t the prim little woman with big horn rim glasses I had visualized in my mind from her résumé. A girl who could handle numbers like her should have been wearing a dress that buttoned up the front clear to her collar, and the skirt should have been down to her ankles.
This woman obviously wasn’t attired as such. Her shoulder length platinum blond hair framed a face men only dream of. High cheekbones, sweetheart lips, pert little upturned nose, and bedroom eyes were part of the ingredients. Those huge tits of hers looked even more exaggerated on her slight frame, their nipples pushing pointedly against a soft pink, see-thru, silk blouse.
“Miss Stalwart?” came out as an unexpected gasp.
“I’m Kelli Stalwart.” She smiled at the effect she had on me.
In one swift second the events had been completely changed. I intended to have her negotiating for her job as she understood I was the undisputed boss. Now I would pay her anything she desired. She could be her own boss if she would come to work for us. I was ambushed by my own mind. She was the epitome of what Hot Topics sold. She was pure sex packaged up in female form. She had more curves than a backyard path leading to the white lightning still.
Holding her résumé up I managed to cough out a few more words. “This your résumé?”
Laugh lines spread across her eyes as she looked at me and then the papers I was holding in my left hand. “I don’t know. Is it? I can’t read it from here.”
Embarrassed by my own lack of class, I struggled to regain the high ground in this meeting. “Do you really work for the IRS?”
“Yes I do but I’m looking for a better salary. Government jobs are stable and the retirement is something one can depend on if you live long enough. I can do a whole lot better and set up a retirement that will do a lot more for me in the private industry.” She waited to see if I was going to offer her enough to quit the government and go to work for Hot Topics.
“Uh, yeah, okay then, I see. Sure, why not?” My mouth was running but my brain hadn’t been engaged.
She waited for me to say something she needed to respond to.
“Uh, what kind of salary are we talking about? I mean what would it take to get you to be, I mean work for us?” I almost dropped my head down on the desk and cried. My negotiations had fallen short. Hell, why mince words? I offered her the company if she would name her price and go to work for us.
“Sixty thousand plus benefits would buy me.” Again that beautiful smile of hers.
I knew, she knew, there was no doubt we both knew she had dropped a double meaning in there. My little friend peter, was getting excited as I tried to keep my mind on the tits... I mean ballgame. “Sixty thousand? Oh, yeah, sure, I mean it was more than we had been thinking of but I guess...”
Sixty thousand was a steal of a deal even if she couldn’t add two and two. I would have dropped that much in her hand just to keep her around the office. I certainly wasn’t going to let her know how much she could have talked me out of. “Benefits are medical and dental insurance. Sick leave and a week’s vacation come after you have been with the company for a year.”
She shook her head. “Benefits are medical and dental, sick leave is a week each year and it is accrued each year not used, rolled over into vacation or paid work days. Three week’s paid vacation each year which can be accrued if not used.”
She was still cheap as I added up the expense in my mind. “Okay.”
“And Hot Topics will furnish me a company car and my own parking space at the office. I will also have my own office.” Kelli was watching me for my reaction to how far she could push her demands.
“Are you finished?” I figured I had better close up my end of the negotiations or she was going to keep adding them up until she might not be that cheap.
“Yes.” Again it was still the cat and mouse game with her as she studied me for a reaction.
I stood up and walked around the desk. I was after two things. I wanted to see where that skirt of hers ended, and I wanted to shake her hand on a business agreement. As I walked past the corner of the desk, my eyes locked on two beautiful legs in four-inch black heels. The micro mini, black leather skirt wouldn’t have covered anything if she had sat down. I wanted to kick myself for not giving her that opportunity.
“Miss Stalwart, let me show you to your office.” It was the best thing I could think of at the moment. Normally I would have called up Lena as I sent the potential employee out of the office. I was afraid if I let Kelli out of my sight for one second and Robert got a shot of her, my chances would be over.
As I steered Kelli down the hall to what would be her office, my mind was madly running amok trying to figure out how I could keep her from Robert. Then it dawned on me, if she was married things would get sticky. “Uh, Ms. Stalwart how is your husband?”
She giggled as she held up her left hand showing me empty ring fingers. “I’m not married so I guess you could say my husband is a dear.”
“Thank... uh of course. Would you like to have lunch? I know a little place a few blocks down that serves a great meal. I mean if you haven’t already eaten that is.” I pointed her into the office that was to be hers as I spoke.
“It’s only a little after ten. I don’t think I have had the chance to eat lunch yet.” Again that laugh of hers as we walked into her new office.
“No, I mean of course. Yet, that is.” I wanted to pound my head on the floor to engage my brain before I said anything else stupid. “Well, I guess I’ll give you a chance to settle in then. It will give you an opportunity to make a list of material and equipment you will need. If there is anything I can do...”
“Sure, I need a PDA if you don’t mind. I left mine at the IRS building not thinking I would be going to work so soon.” Kelli walked over behind the desk and sat down in the chair. She rolled the chair out from behind the desk.
It was a perfect beaver shot from where I was standing. I know my eyes bugged out of my head before I looked back up into her eyes. There was no doubt she had made the offer to have sex. Was it worth the risk? Could I shut the door and have sex with her right here and now? There was no doubt Robert would have. My heart was pounding.
I looked at my watch never seeing what I was looking at. “I’ll pick you up in an hour and we can beat the noon rush.”
Nodding her head, she was studying me knowing what she had done. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll be ready.”
Ask me what I did for the rest of the morning and I won’t be able to answer for I don’t remember. I had one thing on my mind: Kelli Stalwart. At eleven I was back down at her office. I wanted to make sure I had her out of the building before Robert saw her. The girl was a magnet for attention from both sexes. Kelli was a solid forty double D, twenty-six, thirty-six. Men ogled her and women hated her for being so much woman. I was in love for the first time in my life.
It’s funny now when I think back about how I believed it was my manipulations, as I managed to keep her out of Robert’s radar for the three weeks before Kelli moved in with me. It was a natural situation as I had been having sex with her from day one. Kelli moving into my apartment was a given under the circumstances. The following morning after she had moved in we met Robert in the foyer as we were arriving for work.
As he looked up, an astonished expression crossed his face. I could see him drooling as he sized up Kelli. “Well hello, and who are you?”
Robert glanced in my direction. “Jer, my old friend, aren’t you going to introduce us?”
Instinctively, I put my arm around Kelli. “Sure. Robert, this is Kelli Stalwart, our head accountant. You remember, we hired her a month back?”
Leaning forward to take her hand, Robert was drooling. “Damn Jer, you didn’t tell me this was the Kelli Stalwart we hired. Why didn’t you tell me before now, you old rascal?”
As he took Kelli’s hand in both of his, Robert tried to edge me out of the picture. “Miss Stalwart, I’m so pleased to meet you. I’m the other half of Hot Topics. We must have dinner together. How about tonight?”
“I’m sorry Mr. Drake, but I’m already spoken for.” She smiled at Robert as his eyes showed disappointment.
My head swelled ten sizes as Robert asked the next question I already knew the answer to. “And may I ask who’s the lucky man, Kelli?”
Kelli pulled her hand free from Robert and wrapped both hands around my right arm. “Jerry and I are engaged.”
Poor Robert looked like road kill at that moment. I had the most beautiful woman in the world and he had missed his chance at screwing her. It only took a second but he regained his composure and glared hatred at me. “Congrats, Jer.”
What he really meant was, he wanted to stab me for not giving him the chance at Kelli before I took her off the market.
“Thanks Robert. That’s terribly kind of you.” I couldn’t help but rub his nose in it.
Robert turned and walked off without answering. I had the woman he wanted and there was nothing he could do about it.
I tried to set a wedding date, but Kelli kept finding excuses not to. It didn’t make a whole lot of difference. We were already sleeping together and she was mine even if she wouldn’t walk down the aisle with me at the moment. Six months passed and Kelli finally told me she wanted to be Ms. I was on cloud nine. I was rich, I had the woman every man drooled over, and my future was guaranteed to be abundant.
It was the start of the first week in December and Kelli was slow in getting ready for work. I shouted at her through the bathroom door. “Hurry hon or we will be late.”
“I’m not going to make it darling. Go ahead and I’ll be there in a little bit,” she answered me.
“You okay? Are you sick or something?” I tried to remember if it could be her time of the month or something but men never keep track of things like that.
“No, I’m fine. It’s nothing. I’ll be a little late this morning. You go on and I’ll catch a cab in thirty minutes or so,” came back from the other side.
I tried to open the door. For the first time since we had moved in together it was locked. “Uh, I can wait.”
“I don’t want you to wait. Go on,” was the answer.
“Uh, okay, I guess. You sure you are all right?” I was confused as to what could be wrong? Bad hair day? Maybe she felt like being late and nothing else. Sometimes women are like that.
“For the last time, yes, I’m okay. Nothing to worry about. I’ll see you down at the office.”
Kelli didn’t show up that morning but someone else did. The IRS came into my office with warrants to seize all my records. “Mr. Jerry Rands?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
One of the six men standing in my office slapped a subpoena in my hand. “You are to appear before the judge tomorrow.”
“What’s this for?” Surely this was a joke.
“Tax evasion.” He motioned for the other men to start picking up equipment and files.
“Wait a second, you can’t just walk into my office and start taking things.” I was in shock they would even try.
“Wanna bet? Call your lawyer because you’re sure going to need one.” He started taking things off my desk and dropping them into a box.
I picked up the phone and did call Legget and Legget, our company lawyers. Charles Legget told me, yes, the IRS could come in and pick up things but not to worry, we would get it back.
I should have worried. Kelli never showed up that day. She wasn’t home when I got there after a very trying day fighting with the IRS as I watched them haul everything off and lock down our building. I called everyone I knew as I tried to find Kelli. It was useless, she had vanished. I called the police to report her missing. I knew she had been abducted between the apartment and the office. They were polite but not very enthusiastic about filling out a report before three days were up.
The next day as I walked into court I felt and looked like hell. Kelli was missing, my company was shut down by the IRS, I couldn’t get in touch with Robert, and I had no sleep.
My lawyer Charles Legget was the only person in that courtroom I knew. He held out his hand as I walked in. “Morning Jerry, you don’t look too good.”
“Hi Charles, I don’t feel good either. I can’t find Kelli, Robert is out of touch, and I didn’t get any sleep.” I took his hand and returned the handshake.
“All rise, court is now in session, The Honorable Judge Windslow is presiding,” the bailiff announced before I could find a seat.
A wizened little man in black robes walked in and slid up to a chair behind the bench. “Let’s get this started. Who’s first?”
“IRS versus Mr. Jerry Rands doing business as Hot Topics, your Honor,” the bailiff intoned as he slid a stack of papers up on the Judge’s bench.
“Wait a minute. I’m only a partner, where is Robert and why isn’t he named in this?” I turned to look at Charles.
Charles shook his head. “The company was incorporated in your name. You bought out Robert’s share last month. Don’t you remember?”
“I DID WHAT! I DIDN’T BUY OUT ROBERT’S SHARE! I...”
“Mr. Rands, I will not tolerate shouting in my courtroom. Counselor, if you can’t control your client I will have him removed from this court and we will proceed without him.” The judge was staring at me.
“But...”
Charles grabbed my arm. “If you want to stay in here then I suggest you keep quiet.”
“But...”
Charles shook his head.
I was in total shock. I had to defend myself against the lies I had heard. Why wouldn’t they let me tell the truth?
There was a lot in that courtroom I didn’t understand as the IRS presented its case against me for tax evasion. I didn’t keep the company books. Kelli did and what could have happened to her? I knew she wouldn’t have left me. It had to be Robert. Robert had her kidnapped or more likely done it himself to keep her from testifying at my hearing. That bastard! I was going to get even with him. I would kill him for taking Kelli. He’d better not hurt her!
I guess the short story was, I owed the IRS over a million dollars in back taxes. A small inconvenience was all it was. When I pulled out my checkbook to pay them I was in for another shock before I could write the check.
“Your Honor, we request you inform Mr. Rands we won’t accept a check with insufficient funds.” The IRS representative had watched as I started to write the check.
“Insufficient? Why you pissant, I have a couple hundred times that amount in the bank. My check is certainly not insufficient.” Was this nightmare never going to end?
The judge looked at the rep and then me. “What bank Mr. Rands?”
“First National your Honor.” I held up the checkbook for the judge to see.
The judge nodded at the bailiff who took my checkbook and left. He came back in a couple of minutes. The bailiff walked up to the judge and whispered in his ear.
The judge looked out at me. “Mr. Rands, you have no funds in the bank in question. Is there any other bank you do business with?”
“Well, no, but I have stock in several corporations.” They obviously gave the bank the wrong name on the account or maybe even called the wrong bank. I would clear it up as soon as I left the court.
“You have thirty days Mr. Rands. If you have not made arrangements by the end of that time you are to report here in court before me for sentencing for tax evasion.” The judge picked up his papers and left the courtroom.
“Thirty days?” I turned to Charles as I asked the question.
“Only a formality Jerry. Pay the fine and that will be the end of it.” He was putting papers back in his briefcase.
“Sure, no problem.” I had other more important things to worry about such as where was Kelli.
I was locked out of the company so I returned to my apartment and begin calling everyone I could think of who would know where Robert might have gone: any of his old girlfriends, his old buddies, and any of the companies we did business with. It was a futile effort. Robert had disappeared and I was sure he was holding Kelli hostage. The police listened to my story and did nothing.
I had a second bad night with no sleep as I walked the floor worrying about Kelli. When I heard a knock on my door at eight I bounded for it sure Kelli had returned. I flung it open. “Kell...”
The guy on the other side slapped a subpoena in my hands. “Mr. Rands, court this afternoon.”
I wanted to slug the guy as I slammed the door in his face. “Get out of my life asshole.”
As I was looking the summons over I noticed I was due back in court at two that afternoon. Would the world stop snapping at me long enough to let me find Kelli?
“Mr. Rands, I seem to have a problem with you clogging up my court.” Judge Windslow was staring down at me from his bench.
“Not my fault, your Honor.” I felt like shit from not sleeping for two straight nights.
He looked at the papers in front of him. “Of course it’s not your fault. You are innocent. Someone took out an eighty million dollar loan in your name and you don’t know anything about it.”
I felt relief. The judge knew my circumstances. “Yes your Honor.”
“Bullshit Mr. Rands.”
That shocked me. I thought the judge understood my problems. “But...”
“No buts here in my courtroom Mr. Rands. You took out a loan with the First National Bank for eighty million using your own money as collateral. Then you withdrew your money and moved it to the Fidelity Bank where you again pulled the same scam. I find you are in arrears to the two banks for a hundred and sixty million dollars Mr. Rands. Let’s see, what’s this next sheet? A business loan to Hot Topics for two hundred million you have defaulted on. You have been a very busy man Mr. Rands. You have until tomorrow morning to repay these funds. If your creditors don’t call me by nine o’clock tomorrow morning and advise me you have returned the funds, I will have you arrested. Do I make myself clear?”
“Three hundred and sixty million?” How could I borrow that kind of money and not know it? Robert had done this. I knew deep in my heart it had to be Robert. With a sinking feeling I was beginning to realize the only way Robert could have done it was with help. And the only one who had enough access to my personal information to help was Kelli.
I was going to prison. There was no way to get it back nor convince anyone what had happened. I would die in prison while the woman I loved and trusted was living the good life on money she had stolen in my name. To top it off, that damned business partner whom I had taken in as a friend, had screwed me royally. I was betrayed by people I befriended.
“Your Honor, if you would check out my fiancée Kelli Stalwart and my business associate Robert Drake, I believe you will find the three hundred and sixty million dollars you are looking for.” I had to convince the judge I didn’t have the money.
“Mr. Rands, the IRS has already checked all your books at Hot Topics. They informed me you were keeping a double set of books. I’m not interested in your fairy tales. Tomorrow morning Mr. Rands or else.”
I walked out of the courthouse in time to see them hauling off my car on a wrecker. Great! What else could they do to me? I caught a taxi back to my apartment and received another shock when I tried to walk into the building.
“I’m sorry Mr. Rands but you can’t come in.” Jimmy the doorman was holding up his hand.
“Why in god’s name can’t I? I have one night left before they arrest me and I can’t even go back to my own apartment?”
“Sorry sir. I have orders. Your credit has been canceled. Your apartment and everything in it has been seized by the IRS.” He looked at me sympathetically.
“IRS? Damned IRS is killing me.” I would rent a hotel room for the night. I hailed another taxi.
The desk clerk was apologetic as he took one credit card after another and scanned them. “Sorry Mr. Rands, none of these are any good. They have all been canceled.”
“All of them?” I had a platinum card for everything, Visa, Master Charge, Bank Americard, etc. How could all of them be canceled? Had to be that damned IRS again.
I took out my billfold and looked. I had twenty dollars in it. “Thanks anyway.”
Walking out to the street, I decided I would never go to prison. A cold freezing rain had begun and I was getting soaked as I hailed another taxi.
I slid into the cab as he pulled up to the curb. The driver looked up in the rearview mirror. “Where to?”
“As far as this takes me.” I handed him the twenty. I would ride as far as the money lasted and get out and kill myself.
“Sure, any place in particular?” He pulled the cab back out into the traffic as rain beat down on the roof.
“No.” I had accepted my fate. I would not go to prison for something I didn’t do. Either way I was a dead man. I could either prolong it by lasting out my years in prison or I could control my destiny by ending it at my choosing.
“No problem.” He concentrated on his driving as the rain was getting worse and any driving was becoming hazardous.
I slipped my billfold and watch down between the back and the seat. I could be identified by them. I didn’t want the IRS or anyone to know I had escaped their plans for me. Maybe my plans included more than escaping the IRS and prison? This way Robert and Kelli would never see my picture in the paper as I missed the judge’s sentencing and life in prison. In a small way I would be getting even with both of them. They would always be looking over their shoulder wondering if I was still out there, waiting to get even.
It was a long ride and I would have known it was more than a twenty dollar ride if I hadn’t been so caught up in planning my death. If my ride ended near the water I would jump in. If I was in a residential area I would step out in front of a vehicle. Downtown meant I could jump from a high rise. It would soon be over.
The taxi stopped. “Twenty dollars is used up Mac. You wanna go some more, you gotta pay some more.”
“No, that’s fine. Thank you. I hope you have a good life. Thanks.” I slid out of the cab into a downpour of freezing rain and was immediately rewarded by being soaked to the skin. The cab disappeared in less than a second as it pulled away in the rain. Looking around I couldn’t make out anything except the glow of a light coming from a lobby directly beside me.
My teeth were chattering and I started to shake as the rain soaked me to the bone. I wasn’t going to have to do anything to kill myself. I was going to freeze to death right there on the spot. Somehow that option didn’t appeal to me because I hadn’t planned it. Starting for the shelter of the lobby I slipped and fell down in the gutter. What wasn’t soaked before was certainly soaked now. I thought about laying there and letting nature take its course. For some reason I got up and headed for the lobby.
There was a big man behind the desk inside the entry. “May I help you sir?”
“Uh... n... n... no,” I managed as my teeth clacked and my body shook.
“Sir, this is not a public building. If you are not here on business or to meet someone then I am sorry but you will have to leave.” He rose up out of his chair. I only thought he was big when he was sitting down. The guy was absolutely huge.
Before I could turn to leave, another man opened an office door and walked out. “What’s the problem Horace?”
“No problem Mr. Logan. This gentleman came in off the street. I informed him this wasn’t a public building.”
The man named Logan put his fingers together and formed a temple in front of his face. “I see. He looks soaked and seems to be freezing. It would be uncharitable to send him back out in this icy rain before he has had a chance to warm up.”
“Mr. Rands, if you would step into that room and remove your clothes, we will take them down to the furnace room and hang them to dry before you go back out into the rain.” Mr. Logan pointed toward a door on the opposite side of the room.
I started to decline. A chill hit me and I was shaking so badly I thought my eyes were going to fall out. “S-s-s-s-s-sure, th-th-th-th-th-thanks.”
Stepping into the room, I found it was no more than a closet. I had second thoughts about taking off my clothes, before a really bad chill made my bones rattle. I took off my shirt and pants and handed them outside the door.
“Everything, Mr. Rands. Hand all your clothing out here so we may dry them out.”
“S... s-s-s... sure.” I removed my shorts, socks, and shoes and handed them out the door.
“There are some clothes on a hanger on the wall behind you Mr. Rands. Put something on while yours are drying so you don’t freeze to death,” came from the other side of the door.
Turning around I looked for something I could slip into. A long, white satin gown was the only stitch of clothing in there with me. He had to be kidding? I started to tell them someone was mistaken when a chill hit me so bad I thought I was already dead. Why not? It was only a piece of cloth. Sure, it was cut into the shape of a dress but it was still only cloth. I slipped it off the hanger and stepped into it. Immediately I felt warmer. There was no way I was going to get that back zipper up. It didn’t matter. I felt better already.
“Please step out of the closet Mr. Rands. It is going to take some time to dry out your clothes and you can’t spend all night in there.”
As I stepped out of the closet, Mr. Logan motioned for me to turn my back to him. I did and he zipped up the dress. It felt weird to say the least. One, because I had never worn a dress in my life, and two, because a man zipped me up. I was finally comfortably warm for the first time since I had stepped into the rain.
Within seconds, a tall, excellent example of man and an Arabic woman walked in the front door. She immediately focused in on me. “What are you doing wearing my dress?”
“I uh, it was, ah, I...” I had no idea what to say.
“Hello Morgan. How are you dear?” Mr. Logan looked pleased.
She wasn’t to be distracted from her target. “That is a designer original. It cost twenty one thousand dollars. I expect you to pay for it.”
“Ha!” escaped involuntarily as the idea I could pay for anything crossed my mind. “Get in line.”
“You don’t intend to pay?” She folded her arms across her ample chest.
“I couldn’t if I wanted to. I owe the IRS a million, I owe the banks a few hundred million and I have absolutely nothing of value. I’m afraid if you want me to pay for anything it’s going to be a long wait.” Why was everyone wanting something from me when I no longer owned anything?
She pointed at my hands. “What about those?”
“Those what?” I looked down at my hands. I had a class ring and a Masonic ring.
“Those will be a start.” She held out her hand.
“Fine.” I pulled them off, grateful she had asked for them. I had forgotten them and I could have possibly been identified from them. I didn’t want the IRS to find my body and know I had outfoxed them.
“What else do you have?” She was waiting for something else of value.
“Absolutely nothing. You can have my life.” I figured she was going to be disappointed when she found out I was going to end it in another hour or so when my clothes were returned.
“A contract given and a contract accepted. So be it.” She smiled for the first time and I noticed she was a very beautiful woman.
She looked over at Mr. Logan. “You are witness to the contract.”
“I am, Morgan, and I think you have done well.” He looked at me with amused eyes.
“Mr. Rands, your life belongs to me, given in contract.” She backed up as she studied me.
I started to laugh and thought better of it. These people were crazier than a Hoot Owl.
She walked around me as she studied me. “I have a fashion show at Miami tomorrow. That’s too soon for you. The one at Rio will work out better. That’s three days from now.”
“The dress you are wearing was supposed to be in the Miami show. It will wait. Please come with me.” She walked over to the elevator as she was talking.
Why not? I was a dead man. There was nothing these crazy people could do to me that would bother me at this point. I started to walk over to the elevator.
Morgan shook her head. “Hold your skirt up dear. Don’t drag the hem.”
Reaching down with my hands I wrapped up material in both hands and hiked my skirt as I stepped in the elevator.
She sighed as she shook her head. “I have my work cut out for me I can tell. Don’t crush the material hon. It’s not a bag of groceries. Gently roll your fingers into the material and lift. You don’t want to leave wrinkles when you turn it loose.”
I almost cracked up. I was receiving a lesson in etiquette an hour or two before I died. How funny could it be? “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m Morgan, dear. I am not ma’am.” The doors slid open and she stepped off.
I followed her to an apartment as I held my skirt up the way she instructed.
She opened the door and motioned me in. “I’ll be back in three days. Do not sleep in my bed naked. You will wear something appropriate. I expect you to take a bath before you go to bed. You smell like you fell down in the gutter.”
I chuckled over that one. If she only knew.
“You find that amusing?” She had a smile on her face.
“Yes I did.” I turned my back to her. “Would you unzip me please?”
“Ladies manage by themselves. Three days.” She shut the door and I was alone.
Talk about weird people! I was positive if I had been able to make out the sign on the front of the building it would have said ‘Psycho Ward.’ Okay, first things first. I walked over to the window and pulled back the curtains. I couldn’t see the ground and it was still raining cats and dogs. I was up high enough so when I jumped I wouldn’t break a leg and suffer. I would definitely be dead after impact. The rain meant it would be sometime before anyone found the body, which was another plus. Lots of things start degrading after that last breath. The longer it took to haul my body to the morgue, the less chance they would identify it.
Looking around the apartment was not encouraging. I wanted to find pants and a shirt before I jumped. I might be dead, but I didn’t want anyone to find me in a dress. I was tired of life and wanting to escape. I did not want anyone to think I was one of them weird people you see running around New York. Glancing around the room, I felt a growing suspicion in the pit of my stomach my desire for a dignified suicide wasn’t going to be that easy. The apartment didn’t look like a pants and shirt type woman lived in it.
More than a half hour later I wasn’t thrilled to find I had been right. I searched the drawers, the closets, and the shelves. The woman wore expensive designer dresses. Pants weren’t in her wardrobe. I was tired and it was time to get it over with. Satin gown or no satin gown I was going to jump. They could pick up one more weirdo when they found the body.
Walking over to the window I took a deep breath. The IRS could kiss my ass. I wasn’t going to die in prison. I put my hands up on the window frame to lift it open. A flash of lightning lit up the night. Two monsters were sitting on the window ledge looking back in the room at me. Not much scares me but something as ugly and fearful as two gargoyles sitting on one’s window ledge could bring up the fear in virtually anyone. It was a self preservation reaction as I screamed and involuntarily flung myself backwards away from the awful sight in front of my face. I fell over a chair, my head hit the floor, and I was out cold.
“What’s her problem?” Gorm looked in through the window at the woman lying on the floor where she had fallen.
“I think we frightened her.” Grim snorted and steam escaped out of his nostrils.
“You don’t look frightful to me. Do I look frightful to you?” Gorm shook off the ice that was beginning to form on his back and wings from the freezing rain.
“You know what they say. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I guess she didn’t think we were beautiful.” Grim sighed as he looked out across the sky. “Such a beautiful night, isn’t it?”
Gorm reached up and scratched his nose with one of the talons on his right front paw. “A little more lightning would make it better. But yeah, it’s not bad.”
Grimcost flew in and landed beside Gorm. Pressing his nose up to the pane, he looked in the window. “Another one? She looks different from any of the others for some reason.”
Garmon landed between Gorm and Grim, lost his grip and fell off the ledge backwards. Seconds later he was back. This time he landed with a definite purpose. “Make way, I want to see too.”
Grim reluctantly moved over to make room. “Stop your damned pushing would you? She’s not going anyplace.”
Garmon looked over at Grim and wrinkled up his lips exposing long rows of teeth and prominent fangs. “You keep talking like that and Logan will wash your mouth out with soap.”
Grim slapped a paw over his mouth. “Yuck, how nasty. The thought makes me shiver.”
Garmon turned his attention back to the woman. “She looks different.”
“I just said that,” Grimcost snorted in disgust.
“But she does. She has little life force around her. Is she dead?” Garmon pressed his face to the window as he stared at the woman lying so still on the floor.
Grim shook off the ice forming on his body as he looked down at the lights below. “Humans die, but not here. Mr. Logan wouldn’t allow it. I was watching when Kemel dropped him out of the cab. He was as good as dead before he fell down in the freezing water in the gutter. Unlike us, humans don’t take to temperature extremes very well. I think he presented an unusual challenge to Mr. Logan. An interesting project for sure. Humans are funny creatures. Can you take one who wants to die and make her want to live?”
Dreams are funny as one can never choose what they may dream. The other thing about dreams is, one never knows when they will end. It’s a game of chance. Wake up and poof they are history, gone never to be remembered. Or they are so real one has to wonder if it was a dream? I was dreaming I was Kelli. Had to be, it was the only explanation I could think of. I should know. I had my hands on her body a million times. Only this time her body was my body. Or was it my body was her body? Whatever, no one ever said dreams had to be rational.
It was time to get up off the floor where I had fallen and knocked myself out. It was with effort and certainly a lot different than the way men do it as I rolled over to leverage myself, my huge breasts a constant problem by being in the road. Long, jet black hair ran in a river from my head, over my left shoulder and spread out across the floor beside me. As I stood up, I moved my hair around to my back and brushed the wrinkles out of my dress. I admired how beautiful the white satin designer gown was. It had brocade, seed pearls, and lace interwoven from what I could see looking down. Of course I couldn’t see much of the dress, but I did see a huge expanse of seductive flesh. The scalloped neckline of the dress barely managed to cover my breasts at the extreme limit before obscene. In other words, my nipples were covered as they pushed pointedly at the soft material.
There were mirrored doors on the closet in the bedroom and I was curious. Without thinking I gathered up my skirt which now swept out in a huge cloud of white satin around me. The dress rustled as I walked on heels into the bedroom. The fullness of the skirt barely made it through the bedroom door and that was only by severely crushing it. How did I know I was on high heels?
Slowly I walked up to the mirror as I watched the reflection of the woman approaching. The white satin dress was absolutely, stunningly gorgeous. A wedding dress no doubt and the most beautiful one I had ever seen. The delicate brocade, seed pearls, and lace covered the bodice of the dress. My breasts were delicately poised wrapped in white satin. The full skirt bellowed out in radiant glimmering white satin. A long train was attached.
Was Kelli a bride? Was this the wedding I was going to have with Kelli? I looked at the face staring back. No, it wasn’t Kelli. This woman was a lot prettier and I thought Kelli was a beauty. Beautiful deep black eyes, exquisitely arched eyebrows, long lush eyelashes any woman would have died for, a cute little pert nose, full sweetheart lips, and high Indian Princess cheekbones. The woman had almond skin hinting at Indian ancestry.
My eyes were drawn down to the huge breasts she was endowed with. Those puppies were big! The waist was incredibly small. And the hips? Even under the full skirt, I could tell they were ample. The woman I was viewing would make Kelli look like an also ran. There was no doubt when she walked out into public, grown men would salivate, boys would think dirty thoughts, girls would toss their Barbie Dolls, and women would hate her.
Funny dream for sure. It was time to shuck the dress and go take a shower. Without thinking, I reached up behind my back and unzipped the dress. I stepped out of it and pushed piles of petticoats down past my hips at the same time. There was a dress form in the corner of the bedroom. I slipped the dress over it, taking time to straighten it up and take care of the train. Walking back over to the dressing table, I felt the soft sway of my body as my hips rolled with each graceful step. Because the dress wouldn’t allow it, I wasn’t wearing a bra and my breasts felt weighty on my chest with any movement. I slid my petite little hands up under them and lifted. Those puppies weighed a ton! How did a woman put up with them? I was thinking of the old saying, ‘any more than a handful is a waste.’ I was thinking how right that was. Anything more was strictly for men’s entertainment.
Sitting down on the cushioned seat, I leaned over and removed my heels. White satin pumps, they had a five-inch heel or it could have been more. They were perfect. Carefully I slid long red fingernails under the straps from my garter belt and unhooked my nylons. My fingers were long, delicate and sensitive. Things men could never begin to do without making a mess of it come second nature to women. I slid my fingers between the nylons and my leg and pushed them down off my small feet. I laid the nylons out on top of the dresser before I stood up and slipped off the garter belt. The multimillion dollar necklace was next and it went onto the form on top the dresser. The long dangle diamond earrings had to be a couple hundred thousand themselves. They had a screw back on the post that went through my ear lobes. No one wanted to lose a hundred thousand dollar earring because the back slid off. They had their place beside the matching necklace. It was absurd when I thought about it. I was broke and in my dream I’m wearing designer clothes and jewelry that would make a hefty down payment on my debt.
Talk about a strange dream! I was wondering when it was going to end as I headed for the shower. Black lace panties were all I was wearing. I slid them off before I gathered up my long black hair under a shower cap. The shower felt so real I knew I had to be waking up soon.
Stepping out of the shower, I admired the body I was dreaming as I toweled off. My dream body was sensitive to the slightest touch. The petite frame made the huge breasts even more overstated than normal if that were possible. I ran my hand down my side and cupped my waist. Impossibly small was the idea that ran through my mind.
It was time to get dressed and find something to eat. Funny, I never remembered being hungry in any dream before. Okay, I wasn’t ever a woman in any of my damned dreams before either, but it seemed natural. Or was it natural because it was a dream? I walked over to the dresser and selected black lace panties. Must have a thing for black lace panties or something? I picked up a black lace brassiere and looked at it before I slipped it on. Forty four double D was obviously the size this girl wore. Busty, choice Vegas stripper material for sure. A garter belt was next. The one I had discarded earlier was okay to use. Nylons were next and I walked to the closet. Brown leather, open strap, five-inch heels of course. A matching brown silk, almost dress. I said almost because it covered the bare necessities and nothing more. I put slightly less expensive, drop dangle diamond earrings back in my ears and slipped on a diamond necklace. There was a diamond ladies watch laying on the dresser and it went on my left wrist.
It was a white mink jacket I took out of the closet as I picked up the brown leather shoulder purse off the dresser and headed for the door. I checked for an apartment key and then looked in the ladies billfold before I stepped out. A license was issued to Bridget Renee Tonue. I was Indian with French ancestry? Strange dream. There were a couple of hundred dollars in the purse but no credit cards. So I could obviously dream up money but I couldn’t dream up credit cards? The funny thing about dreams is one can’t steer them where they want them to go. ‘I was living proof of that,’ I thought as I checked myself out in the mirror before stepping out in the hall.
As I stepped off the elevator in the lobby, the security guard looked up and smiled. “Good morning Miss Tonue. You look stunning.”
I walked up to this huge mountain of a man. He was the same guy I had met last night when I wasn’t dreaming. I noticed his nametag. “Horace, it’s kind of you to say so. And it’s Bridget if you don’t mind. I’m starving. Is there any place to get a bite of lunch close by?”
“Sure, there is Swanks down the street to your left as you leave the building. There is the Southwest Grill across the street. And...” He was pointing with his hands as he gave directions.
“I’ll try that grill place. Food okay there?” I don’t know why I cared about staying close to the hotel. I mean after all, when my dream ended I would get up and jump out the window. A few blocks or a few thousand miles certainly wouldn’t make any difference in where I was going to be when I awoke. I was going to be lying on the floor of an apartment belonging to a woman named Morgan when this dumb dream ended.
Mr. Logan stepped out of his office before Horace could answer me. “Miss Tonue, you look absolutely beautiful, which is why I don’t think you should be out on your own. Please allow Mr. Luk to accompany you to lunch.”
A short nondescript man stepped out from behind Mr. Logan.
“You are Mr. Luk?” I thought it was strange I wasn’t turned off by the short fellow. In fact, I think I preferred him to Mr. Horace or Mr. Logan. I wouldn’t be attracted to Mr. Luk and it could be a strictly platonic relationship with no strings. With an escort I wouldn’t have to fend off any men who wanted to hit on me. I warmed up to the idea in a hurry.
“Yes, I he.” The short guy seemed unsure of himself.
“Good, let’s go eat. I’m famished.” I held out my hand for him to take and walk me across the street.
Hesitantly, he walked over and wrapped his hand around mine. As his hand took mine, I felt secure, comfortable, a flush of euphoria I had never felt before. The world seemed a little brighter and the sun was already shining after a soggy night. I was more alive than I had ever been. Little things Jerry Rands would have never noticed were things of wonder to Bridget Renee Tonue.
As Mr. Luk opened the door, I walked out into a fresh world scrubbed clean from a freezing rain. The world smelled new. Wondrous scents assaulted my nostrils as I stepped out onto the sidewalk with Mr. Luk. The smell of food cooking across the street was plainly distinctive. The... I had my eyes closed taking in all the mind numbing pleasures when I thought of them.
Turning around I looked up at the parapet at the top of the six story building and waved. “Hi guys.”
Grimcost never wiggled as he talked out of the side of his mouth. “Did she just say hi to us?”
Garmon looked down at the woman before he realized what he had done. “Oh shit. I didn’t mean to do that. She’s looking up here and waving and she ain’t waving at the ducks or pigeons in the air.”
Grimcost slightly shook his head, hopefully not enough for the woman to see them from six stories down. “Mr. Logan ain’t gonna like this. Get real still. Maybe she will think she’s seeing things.”
It was the funniest thing I had ever seen. One of the gargoyles had looked down when I shouted and waved at them. Now he was acting like he hadn’t done it. Cute! I wrapped both my hands around Mr. Luk’s arm and pulled him into me as I leaned on him. “It’s so intense isn’t it. All the little things flood the mind and to think I never noticed them before.”
Mr. Luk was embarrassed by the closeness of the young lady. Humans were so emotional. He turned his head and smiled at her. She was also beautiful. “Yes.”
Horace was standing in the door watching along with Mr. Logan. “She seems over-charged. Did Morgan give her an extra boost or something?”
“No, she’s seeing life for the first time my old friend. As Jerry Rands she never stopped long enough to sample the little things in life. He was always looking for the big money and the fast dollar. He was lost, as he thought money was happiness.” Mr. Logan felt the euphoria sweep back from Bridget as she reveled in the wonders of her world.
“But, she’s rich now according to human standards. Morgan left her with designer dresses, fashion jewelry, and ...” Horace realized she wasn’t rich. She had no money besides the few hundred in her purse. Beautiful dresses didn’t make her rich. The jewelry was certainly no claim to wealth by itself.
“She’s a lucky woman. I hope she finds what she desires. She seems so content with what Morgan did to her. I’ve never seen one adapt so quickly.” Horace was wishing Bridget wasn’t going to find despair now she had found happiness.
“She adapted because she thinks she’s dreaming all this. Humans can accept a dream in any state. Reality has to have rules one doesn’t wander outside of. Bridget is Bridget at the moment. Jerry Rands is asleep someplace. She thinks he will wake up and Bridget will be a dream past.” Mr. Logan watched and admired her walk.
Mr. Logan wasn’t the only one watching Bridget cross the street as she held onto Luk’s arm. A couple of young men happened to be walking out of Backwater Sports Shop at that moment. “Oh my god! Would you look at that!”
“WHAT, WHERE?” His friend was looking for some terrible happening someplace down the street before he glanced over and gazed where his buddy was looking.
“Shazam! She’s definitely a hot fox. Look at the guy she’s with. Why do all the good looking ones take up with the homely guys?”
The first one shook his head as the woman and man walked into Southwest Grill. “I don’t know.”
Luk escorted Bridget over to a table and waited until she sat down before he took his place. A man with Indian bloodlines walked up to their table. “Luk, good to see you. And who is this exquisite creature?”
Luk looked uncomfortable as he tried to decide if he should introduce Bridget to Trick. Mr. Logan might not be pleased if Trick did anything. Morgan might decide to intervene also. “She’s a guest of Mr. Logan.”
“Then introduce us my friend. Stop being so standoffish.” The man waited.
Luk decided Mr. Logan could take care of Trick if any problems arose. “Trick, this is Bridget.”
Trick held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you Bridget. Would you like me to take your jacket?”
I took his hand and shook it before I stood up and turned my back toward him as I slipped off my fur coat. “Pleasure is mine. Thank you, it was kind for you to offer.”
Trick held onto my coat as he stared at me. “I am going to have to ask for the recipe from Logan. She is awe inspiring. Candy will bring your menus. It’s been a pleasure Bridget.”
I was trying to figure out what kind of recipe Trick would want from Mr. Logan? “Luk, what was he talking about? Is it an old family secret?”
Luk looked startled as he stared at me. “Family secret? No, I know of any old secret. What secret?”
“What kind of recipe was Trick wanting? Had to be something good.”
“Luk looked embarrassed as a smile spread across his face. “Good, most definitely.”
This was getting nowhere fast. Luk was spared by the waitress bringing us a menu.
The steak was the best I had ever eaten. The salad was to die for, it was so fresh and crisp. The asparagus was swimming in cheese and my taste buds were in heaven. I was glad this was a dream otherwise I would soon be waddling everywhere as I would be fat as a pig eating like this. I have no idea where Trick could come up with red wine that smooth. It was a taste of pure heaven in a glass. I believe I ate most of my meal with my eyes closed as I savored every single taste. Maybe I had already committed suicide and this was heaven? I’d have to check and see if I was still lying on the floor when I got back to the room. I was praying this dream would never end even if I was a girl.
The lemon meringue pie? I wasn’t able to eat but a couple bites I was so full from pigging out on lunch, but ooh-la-la what a sweet tart taste it had. No one could make a lemon pie that could compete with Trick’s. When my palate had finally settled down again I managed to look around before the check came. Half the restaurant was watching Luk and me. The other half was taking quick glances, trying to not look obvious.
I looked down to see if I had fallen out of my dress? No, I was still in it almost. The little short number I was wearing wasn’t going to leave much to the imagination.
Trick walked over. “I am terribly sorry Bridget. Some thief stole your mink coat while you were eating. The meal will be on me and I’ll replace the coat of course.”
I pulled a hundred out of my billfold and laid it on the table. “Don’t be silly. I’ll dream up another. That was the best meal I have ever eaten. It was divine.”
He looked at the hundred dollar bill as Luk and I rose from the table. “I’ll get your change.”
I waved my hand with a flip of the wrist. “Keep the change. I’ll dream up another one of those too. And maybe some credit cards to go with next time.”
Trick looked over at Luk. “Something was left out of the recipe. She’s a few bricks shy of a full load.”
Luk started to say something and then decided not to. “Let’s go back to the hotel Miss Tonue.”
“We can’t walk around and look over the stores for awhile?” I wanted to window shop while I was having this much fun.
“Your coat is missing. You could catch your death of cold.” For the first time he looked serious.
We had walked out the door and were standing on the sidewalk. “Don’t be silly. This is a dream and I can’t catch my death of cold in a dream.”
About that time a gust of winter air blew across my bare shoulders and scurried up my skirt. Involuntarily I shivered. “Boy, that’s fresh.”
Luk took off his coat and wrapped it around my shoulders. “Please, Miss Tonue, let’s go back to the hotel.”
“Okay why not? We can go window shopping as soon as I find another coat. Huh?” For the first time I looked up at the name over the door of the hotel. Deety Arms? Hard to tell if that was an e or an i. Could it be Deity Arms? I waved at the gargoyles before we walked in the foyer.
“She waved again.” Grimcost was still as a statue should be as he mumbled out of the side of his mouth.
“That girl is gonna be trouble, I can tell.” Garmon was looking to see if anyone else had looked up when she waved.
“Would you be still. We are supposed to be stone monuments.” Grimcost was getting exasperated at his friend.
“Quit your whining. No one is looking. The girl is the only one who knows.” Garmon scratched his ear with his back leg before he stopped moving.
Inside the hotel I walked over and wrapped my arms around Horace, giving him a heartfelt hug. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”
I could feel him hesitate before he hugged me back. “What is wonderful, Miss Tonue?”
It was on impulse I kissed his cheek before I backed up. “Everything. Can’t you feel it? The world is alive with sights and sounds. Ta, ta, Doll. I gotta go see if I woke up yet.”
Horace blinked as he watched Bridget get on the elevator. He looked over at Mr. Luk who was also staring. “What did Trick do to her over there?”
“Nothing. You had to be there to believe it. She was enjoying each bite of food so much, all the rest of us had to stop and enjoy with her. She had the whole restaurant entranced. I think Trick was as fascinated as everyone else.” Luk was saddened by the thought she would find reality and lose her charm. Only in newborn babies had he seen such enthusiasm with the world around them.
It was surprising to not see me lying on the floor when I walked into the apartment. I was positive I would open the door, see me, and I would wake up from this dream. Oh well, I could wake up and die anytime as long as the IRS or that judge’s minions didn’t find me first. Looking around the apartment, I decided the odds of them searching for me here was one of the longest odds anyone could face. I walked over to the window and tapped on it, hoping my little friends would come down. No such luck. They were obviously busy at the front of the building. I wonder if one can make a pet of a gargoyle?
Mr. Logan would know. They were on his building. When the elevator stopped at the ground floor I bounded over to his office. Horace was trying to say something before I opened the door. “Miss Tonue, you can’t...”
Mr. Logan was working at his desk when I skipped into his office. “Mr. Logan, what do you feed your gargoyles?”
His hands stopped moving, and he looked up at me out of the corner of his eyes. “Come again?”
“I want to feed the gargoyles. They have to eat too.” I plopped my butt into a chair beside his desk as I waited for an answer.
“Miss Tonue, they are stone statues. They don’t eat.” He pushed his papers back on his desk and diverted his full attention in my direction.
Tugging the hem of my dress down, I sat up in the chair like a proper lady. “Sorry. Now about the gargoyles, they may be stone but they are alive. What do they eat? I tried to get them to come to my window. They are ignoring me.”
His eyes twinkled as he looked at me in amusement. “Aren’t you the one? Trust me Miss Tonue, they don’t eat a whole lot. I don’t think you can entice them over to your window with food.”
“Okay.” I turned slightly in the chair and rose up like a real lady would. Mr. Logan’s office was full of wonderful smells. The leather chair I had been sitting in smelled like old leather. Closing my eyes, I tilted my head back and smelled. The old books on the shelf behind Mr. Logan smelled like a thousand years of knowledge. The wood panel in his office smelled like a hundred years.
I walked around his office reveling in the scents I could almost feel as they passed my nose. The picture of ancient gods on his wall smelled like thousands of years old paints. The chair he was sitting in? Old leather and wood. I picked up his arm as he patiently watched in amusement. Mr. Logan’s clothes smelled like a grandfather would, warm, inviting, and of a life well worn. Mr. Logan himself smelled like anybody’s grandfather. He smelled like comfort, trust, and places only imagined. Impulsively, I threw my arms around his neck and gave him a life squeezing hug before I kissed him on the cheek. I wanted this dream to last forever and ever.
“It’s grand isn’t it? It’s the way life was supposed to be before we took a wrong turn and wanted material things.” Backing up I was wiping tears of happiness. It felt so good it hurt. Suddenly I no longer wanted to wake up from this dream. I really didn’t want to end my dream and kill myself.
Walking over to the door, I stopped and turned around before I left his office. “I wish they would come and sit in my window. I’d like to tell them my story before I die. It would make it easier if I could tell someone even if they are gargoyles.”
Wiping the tears as they trickled down my cheeks, I never wanted to wake up because I would have to die. I wasn’t going to prison to die in a six by ten cell. “It’s been fun. I wish you were real instead of my dream. I would like to share it with you also. But it’s not real is it? When you walk into your office in the morning you will never know I was here.”
My heart was breaking as I turned to leave. “Thank you for the best dream of my life Mr. Logan. I’ll never forget you.”
Horace saw me crying as I ran from Mr. Logan’s office. “Miss Tonue...”
Mr. Logan walked into the lobby and watched. Bridget was wiping tears as she stepped in the elevator. “She’s so inquisitive and so fragile.”
Horace nodded. “I have a hard time handling her emotional flood when she touches me. It’s been many centuries since I have seen anyone like her.”
Mr. Logan looked at his old friend. “I know. You need to wipe the lipstick off your cheek where she kissed you.”
Horace reached up with his left hand and rubbed his left cheek. “That one almost undid me. I would have married her on the spot if she had asked me.”
“As I, my old friend.” Mr. Logan wiped his right cheek to make sure he had removed any signs of Bridget’s affections.
Crying my heart out, I fled back to the safety of Morgan’s apartment. If one could trade life for their favorite dream, what a life we could have. I ran into the bedroom, flung myself across the bed, and cried, and cried. I finally cried myself to sleep.
“Poor girl. I wish I could help.” Gorm was sitting on the ledge looking at the girl lying on the bed. She was gasping in little sobbing hiccups after crying herself to sleep.
“We have seen girls cry themselves to sleep. Why does this one bother you?” Grim pushed Gorm aside so he could get a better look in the window.
“She’s not like the others. They were fighting for the life they had left behind. She’s fighting to leave that life. It’s not the same. She wants to be Bridget with all her heart and soul.” Gorm turned to look out across the cityscape as he didn’t think he could bear the pain of watching her suffer.
Grim snorted in disgust. “You didn’t think of that all by yourself. Mr. Logan must have told you.”
Gorm shook his head. “It doesn’t take a god to tell me what she’s feeling. Look at her. Tell me you can’t feel it too.”
Grim looked and then turned his back to the window. “That’s disgusting.”
“What are you two yapping about over there?” came from Garmon at the front of the building.
Gorm raised his head and hollered back over the roof. “It’s that new girl. She’s in pain.”
Gorm looked over at Grim. “You felt it didn’t you?”
Grim spread his wings before he stepped off the ledge. “No, and I don’t want to talk about it any longer either.”
Gorm watched his friend circle out across the sky before he circled back to the other side of the building. “He felt it. He’s too stubborn to admit it.”
“Morgan, we have a problem. Bridget is going off the emotional charts. She needs something to keep her busy as her mind settles down.” Mr. Logan was talking into his speakerphone.
“Logan, I can’t do anything for her right now. We are in the middle of a fashion show. Two days and I’ll send her to Rio for our next show,” the phone answered back.
“She won’t last that long Morgan. She isn’t your usual run of the mill life-shift. I remember now why we never get involved with the ones wanting to die. They have nothing to hold onto emotionally. She will kill herself trying to live the life you gave her. She must be kept busy until she realizes she isn’t dreaming.” Mr. Logan looked across the room at Horace who was nodding his head in the affirmative.
“Can she wait tables? Send her over to work with Trick as a waitress,” Morgan’s voice came back through the wires.
Mr. Logan sighed. “I thought since she was your project, you would handle it Morgan. I’ll come up with something.”
He clicked the phone off as he paced the office. “Atlantic Airlines could use a girl like her.”
Horace knitted his eyebrows together before he answered. “It may work.”
“Have Mr. Luk place some uniforms in her closet. I’ll have them notify her.” Mr. Logan sat down at his desk and was dialing as he spoke.
“Bridget, you’re going to miss your flight. Come on girl and shake a leg before you make us both late.”
I heard a woman’s voice as someone was gently shaking me. I was slowly waking up. “What?”
“We are barely going to make it if you hurry. Let’s go hon. I called a cab. They will be here in twenty minutes.” She wasn’t letting me get back to sleep.
“Uh, sure. You wouldn’t believe the dre...” I was awake, or not awake and still in the same dream. This gets weirder and weirder. Can one dream they are coming out of a dream into a dream? I pushed my hair out of my face. I even had some hair in my mouth. I spit it out as I tried to work some moisture back up into my mouth.
“I’m Bridget aren’t I?” I rolled over and sat up in bed. Hair was hanging down in front of my face. I put my thumbs up against my forehead, divided my hair, and pushed it back over my shoulders. The lady who had been shaking me was a seriously attractive young redhead about twenty or twenty-two and had enough vital curves to be labeled ‘dangerous to hold.’ Those emerald green eyes of hers made me think of leprechauns.
Her laughter filled the room as she walked over to the closet and lifted out a pink flight attendant’s uniform. Similar to the uniform she was wearing, it had a white silk or polyester blouse that had a wide collar and a pink jacket. The white blouse collar spread shoulder to shoulder on top of the jacket. The short pink skirt was a mini. “Take a quick shower. I’ll help with the makeup in the cab. We are going to be late.”
Donna had a nametag on her pink uniform when I came out of the shower. Or maybe I had missed seeing it before? It was a pair of silver wings over her name. She was packing a small suitcase and an overnight bag. “I think I have most of the necessities in here. Jump into your clothes and let’s go. We don’t want to be late.”
Underclothes and a uniform were laid out on the bed. It took me less than five minutes to put on a black lace bra, tan pantyhose, a black lace slip, and my uniform. I slid my feet into pumps with a five-inch heel as I finished up. I pushed my long black hair over my back as I stood up. “I’m ready.”
Donna shook her head as she reached back into my closet and retrieved two-inch heels. “Bridget, I know you wear those damn heels like the rest of us wear flats. Just in case your feet rebel I’m gonna toss these in your bag.”
“Sure, thanks Donna. I appreciate the help.” She was headed out the door with my overnighter. I grabbed up my suitcase and purse as I ran after her.
Horace was watching as Donna and I stepped off the elevator. “Miss Tonue, Miss James, you ladies flying out this afternoon?”
Donna pointed to a suitcase and an overnighter beside his desk as she looked out the front door. “Horace, our cab is here. Would you be a sweetheart and take those out for me?”
“My pleasure Miss James.” Horace reached down and swept up the objects mentioned as he pushed open the door.
As we slid into the cab, Horace loaded our suitcases in the trunk. Our driver was pulling away from the curb before I had a chance to catch my breath.
Donna helped me put my face on as our driver sped us off to wherever it was we were going. I’m glad he and Donna knew, because I didn’t have the foggiest idea. That’s the nice thing about dreams, you don’t have to know where they are headed. I guess that is the reason they are called dreams.
I managed a good look at the cab driver as he helped set our suitcases on the sidewalk in front of the terminal. He looked to be of Egyptian or Arabian descent. His name tag said Kemel. “Thanks for the ride. What’s the charge?”
Donna wrapped her hand around my arm before I could get my purse open. “It’s been taken care of. We are definitely late. Grab your bags and let’s go.”
I was thinking tip but it was only a thought. Before I could put it into action, Kemel was back in his cab and Donna was about to get lost in the crowd going into the terminal. My suitcase had one of those little snap out handles and wheels on the bottom. Luckily I didn’t have to carry it as I picked up the handle and charged into the crowd trying to keep the back of Donna’s head in sight. I parked the prerequisite, ‘coffee, tea, or me’ smile on my face all good flight attendants use. I was thinking Ronald McDonald and I had a lot in common. He sold Happy Meals, and I sold Happy Flights.
Donna turned a lot of heads as she worked her way toward the concourse. She was more than well-built. Do women think of women like that? I guess they do because I did and I was a woman. For right now, anyway. I never understood the term men used when describing exceptionally curvaceous women. ‘She’s built better than a brick outhouse.’ I guess the meaning in there was, she was well designed or solidly designed. As I watched Donna thread her way through the pedestrian traffic, I decided that would describe her. She had a fluid walk as her hips swayed with each step. Donna was a lot better proportioned than Kelli or myself. She carried herself elegantly on her two-inch pumps.
It was amusing to watch men react as Donna approached them, or the reactions of other men as she walked past as she hurried toward her destination. If they were with other male companions their eyes would get bigger and they would nudge their friend to make sure they also saw her. If the men were with women companions they would look, avert their eyes, and look again, and again as they tried to sneak in peeks without their wives or girlfriends noticing what they were doing. It was doubly funny because the women knew what the men were doing, no matter how discrete they were trying to be. Women aren’t as stupid as men want them to be.
If Donna wowed them, then I guess I was the shock wave. Don’t get me wrong, Donna was more than a beautiful sexy redhead. Those long gorgeous legs of hers belonged in a chorus line such as the Rocketts at Radio City Music Hall. As I passed the men, I heard the good, bad, and ugly comments. “Jesus Christ, there are two of them! Look... look at this one! What airlines do those babes fly on? Holy cow, did you see the knockers on that second one! Oooo... weeee, baby, come fly with me!”
Donna walked straight up to the head of the security line and dropped her suitcases on the belt. I don’t think the security men looked at Donna’s luggage as she passed through their stiles. An older lady was protesting, as Donna picked up her luggage on the other side.
“Well, pardon me, I was here first. Why didn’t she have to wait her turn like the rest of us? I’m going to complain to the airlines. I think it’s terribly rude when she can go on through and I had to wait.” She was still yakking as I walked up beside her.
“What, another one? Young lady, you can wait your turn. I was here first.” She was glaring at me, defying me to challenge the right to go ahead of her.
“Yes ma’am. You go on ahead ma’am. You were here before me.” I waited as she sent her luggage through the screeners.
“That’s right. I was here first. I’m a customer and I should be treated as one.” The lady picked up her bags on the other end.
Before I set my suitcase up on the belt I checked with the man who had been standing behind the elderly lady. “Do you mind? I’m late for my plane.”
“No, go right ahead. I don’t think there are too many of us who would want to serve ourselves in the air.”
“You’re very kind.” I dropped my suitcase on the belt and was walking through the turnstile.
“Repay the favor when I get onboard. I’m praying I’m on your flight.”
Turning to look to see if he was serious, I saw laugh lines around his eyes. I gave him a wink as I made sure I would recognize him if he was on my flight. “I’ll do my best to make you comfortable.”
One of the men behind him muttered loud enough for everyone within ten feet to hear. “Damn, I changed my ticket from Atlantic to Southwest. I wonder if it’s too late to change it back.”
Everyone laughed as I scurried to catch up with Donna. I saw pink disappear around the corner at the end of the concourse. It was more luck than anything else when I caught a glimpse of her going into the Atlantic Airlines terminal.
The lady at the door motioned me behind the booth as I approached. “Good to see you Bridget. We have a full passenger complement this afternoon. You will be up front with Sue in first class section. I was told there are going to be several VIPs on this flight. Be extra attentive on this run.”
“Sure. Anyone in particular, or wing it?” I knew I had made a pun after it left my mouth. I checked her nametag, Laura.
Laura shook her head as she chuckled. “That’s the spirit girl. Be nice to everyone. They will be noticing little things like that if you don’t. Now go. I see our first passengers headed this way.”
I made my way down the ramp onto the plane. Donna was nowhere to be seen. She could be in back getting things put away. I had flown enough miles to know a hostess didn’t have a glamorous job like most people thought. They worked their pretty little tails off for starvation pay. The passenger manifest was lying in the seat by the door. I picked it up and waited as I saw a passenger coming through the tunnel.
“Your name and ticket please sir.” I put the hostess, coffee, tea, or me required smile on my face.
“John Blair, seat one oh four.” He had stepped onto the plane.
I ran down the list and matched the name. “Certainly Mr. Blair. It’s about two thirds of the way toward the back. I hope you enjoy your flight with Atlantic.”
“I always do Bridget, I always do.” He was smiling as he headed toward the rear of the plane.
The passengers started coming in streams almost immediately. I was wondering where Donna was, or whoever was supposed to direct traffic. I knew there were always two attendants who checked passengers onto the plane. The other three attendants directed those who invariably got lost looking for their seat. Five flight attendants on a two hundred and ninety passenger plane was normal fare. The two pilots made their appearance within ten minutes. I was envious, as I always had to help load the luggage and the passengers when I was flying these birds. It was probably about the same time I had that thought, that a small doubt seeded in the dark recesses of my mind.
The first pilot purposely bumped me as he stepped on the plane. “Bridget, we are going to need some coffee after takeoff.”
“I’ll see what I can do, captain.” If I could have dropped a Mickey in it, I would have done that too. I already didn’t like this guy with the name Baker on his jacket.
The second one stopped and devoured me with his eyes like I was a slave on the auction block. These were the kind of pilots who thought the stewardesses on their plane belonged to them. I didn’t look down at my nametag. I was positive, ‘fly me, screw me’ wasn’t on it anyplace. Jerry had flown with these kinds of jet jockeys. They were invariably egomaniacs who thought every female was dying to jump into their bed.
“New girl huh? We will get you broke in real quick,” the second one offered before he too headed up to the cockpit.
Jerk! His idea of ‘broke in’ didn’t mean I would figure out how to be a good hostess to the passengers. My train of thought for derailing those two clowns was ended by Laura boarding the plane. She turned to close up the door as the loading ramp was moved away.
“Sue and Sharon aren’t going to make it. We are going to have to fly with two attendants short. Sue got a call about twenty minutes ago. Her husband was in an accident. Sharon’s husband was involved too. I called everyone I could, but the subs are either flying already, can’t be reached, or they can’t get here in time.”
Laura had the door shut and the engines were winding up. “This is going to be one long trip with only three of us. I’ll go tell Donna the good news.”
“We can handle it Laura. Take a deep breath and remember we are the best they have. Don’t rush, don’t panic, and don’t let them fluster you if they all start screaming at the same time. Put a smile in your heart and your passengers will smile too even if they don’t understand why.” I was putting away the passenger list and fastening things down as I remembered what it was like flying for Salt Lake. This would be a piece of cake even if we were two attendants shy. And our two bozos flying this bird could bite me if they didn’t get the attention they thought they deserved on this flight.
Heading toward the rear of the plane, Laura was shaking her head. “I’ll go back and tell Donna that Little Miss Sunshine said not to worry.”
The ground crew places all the lunches, snacks, and other necessities on the plane. They don’t organize it. That’s up to the stewardesses after they board. I moved into the forward galley and began arranging the equipment as best I could remember from watching the girls when I had to take hops to catch my commuter flights.
Donna tapped me on the shoulder. She was holding a pair of pink nurses’ shoes in her hands. “You and I wear the same size shoe. I had these in my bag. Slip them on before we start. I know rules say we are supposed to wear heels and wiggle our butts for the passengers. This flight is going to be a marathon for us with two attendants shy. Any of the brass says anything they can take it up with me.”
I slipped out of my heels and into the shoes Donna offered. “Thanks, I know my feet will be grateful later.”
“Turn around, let’s take care of your hair so you don’t have to hold it with one hand every time you lean down or reach over a passenger.” Donna took my long hair, pulled it up in a ponytail, and caught it with a ponytail holder.
“Thanks again Donna. I guess you are my guardian angel.”
“Sam is the flight engineer. He has been in the back visiting with me. You have eighty-four passengers in first class, we have one hundred and seventy six in cabin. Laura is going to be working the back along with me. We will try to make it up front as much as possible. Don’t count on a lot of help from either of us. Sam said he would help out in front. We date often but he’s not a steady. If he asks you for a date and you feel like it, go ahead. He’s not spoken for.” Donna was helping with the trays as she was talking.
“I have to go back and give the safety rules. It will be on the public address system. Do your show and tell up here as I go though it in the back.” She gave me a wink before she turned and headed toward the back.
A pilot was coming my way at the same time Donna was headed for the back. They passed in the aisle. A couple feet away, he stopped and held out his hand. “I’m Sam. After we get this bird off the ground and into the air, I’ll be your assistant.”
I took his offered handshake. This guy was seriously handsome. He was also wearing the emblem of a captain on his uniform. I was looking at his name. “Uh, Captain O’Donald, I thought Donna told me you were the flight engineer?”
A smile spread clear across his face as he winked at me with his right eye. “I am the flight engineer this hop. I’ll be your captain on the flight back tomorrow. And please, Sam will work. Only those I don’t like address me as Captain.”
Steady girl, get a grip, those he doesn’t like? Sam was a lot like Horace and Mr. Logan, I felt comfortable, safe, and peaceful being close to him. “Sure, captain... uh, Sam.”
“Bridget?” He looked into my eyes and laugh lines spread across his face.
“Yes, Captain... Sam... Sir?”
“I need my hand so I can go take my place in the cockpit for a few minutes.”
I looked down. I had been holding onto his hand with a death grip. I let it go like I had touched a hot stove. What was the matter with me? “I’m sorry, Sir... Sam...” I wanted to sit down and cry. Brain where did you abandon me? I should have been blonde. I certainly was acting like one. Okay, that’s an uncalled for remark against blondes.
Sam chuckled as he walked past me toward the cockpit. “It’s mutual admiration Bridget. You are one of the prettiest flight attendants Atlantic has on their roster.”
My heart did a flip flop right inside my breast. Tend to business Bridget. You have a plane full of passengers who will want someone to hold their hand clear out to...? Wherever this dream was going I guess. That smallest seed of doubt had sprouted but I didn’t have time to work on the concept of dream or not dreaming. I had work to do. Donna had come on the PA system and was addressing the passengers what to do in case of loss of cabin pressure, turbulence, impending crash, how to exit in an emergency, and so forth. Up in first class, I was mimicking her as she went through the procedures. And yes, absolutely no one paid the slightest bit of attention to the instructions. I put passengers in three classes of people. Those who have flown so often they already heard this a hundred times. Those who were macho and thought they knew more than the flight attendants did so they didn’t listen. And then those who were arrogant and weren’t going to listen to any instructions no matter what.
It was a flight from New York to Los Angeles and I walked all the way. I don’t believe there was a single customer in first class who didn’t want two or three drinks every hour. It’s against policy to let passengers get drunk on a plane. After that first drink I started diluting their alcohol with lots of seltzer. Sam was a lifesaver when it was time to serve meals. Atlantic Airlines customers wanted Miss Hooters to give them the personal touch and I did my best. Sam loaded up the food cart and kept it coming as I handed out meals. He made sure he had the cart handy when it was time to pick up empty trays. He saved me so many trips up and down the aisle, I would have had his baby if he had asked at that moment. The pilot and co-pilot received their coffee but not from me. Sam was also taking care of that responsibility.
We managed to get the trays locked back up before landing. When that plane rolled up to the terminal, I wanted nothing more than to drop into a chair and die. My feet weren’t sore thanks to Donna’s shoes, but my legs were killing me. We flew three thousand miles and I walked every foot of the way. Rest was out of the question, as it was time to give the customary ‘thanks for flying Atlantic, hope you enjoyed your flight, and please come back’ as I smiled and gave each passenger the message we would love to have them fly us again. Silently, I was hoping all these people took the bus next time.
Donna and Laura dropped in the seat behind me after the last passenger had deplaned. Donna looked up at me. “Never again! Next time someone can’t make it they better count me out too because I’m getting off before it leaves the ground.”
Laura kicked off her pumps and was massaging her feet. “I agree. I can’t believe I let Little Miss Sunshine talk me into sticking it out.”
I wanted a long hot bath in a whirlpool tub to relax my legs, I was in serious pain. “Okay, I made a boo boo. But we managed and we are still alive.”
Donna shook her head as she leaned back in the seat. “Speak for yourself girl. I’ve joined the walking dead.”
The pilot stepped up beside me and took my right arm in his hand. He was urging me towards the ramp. “Let’s go get a couple drinks.”
“No thanks. I’m tired. I’m going to find a hot bath, a sandwich, and a mindless TV program I can watch from bed.” I was refusing to move.
His grip tightened as the co-pilot stepped up behind him. “Come on Bridget, we’ll have some fun.”
I was thinking these guys’ idea of fun was probably me drunk in the middle of their bedroom while they took turns screwing me. “Captain Baker, you are pinching the fire out of my arm. I suggest you remove your hand before I break it off and feed you your own damn fingers. It’s going to seriously jeopardize your career as a pilot if you don’t own both of those hands you now possess.”
Cal Baker looked shocked one of the flying bimbos would talk to him like that. What he didn’t know I was just as shocked as he. It had to be the doubt that germinated in my mind back in New York and sprouted on the flight. Jerry wasn’t dreaming no matter how impossible the idea might seem. For whatever reason, in some convoluted way, Bridget Renee Tonue was Jerry Rands, or vice versa. Now the old Jerry Rands had reverted back to the uncontrolled rage his instructors had always cautioned him against. My body was too small to hurt Cal with a punch. I would have to fold his legs up under him by catching the backs with my right leg. He would start down dragging me with him. If I didn’t follow him down he would pull me over on top of him and I would be helpless. I would squat as he went down and somewhere about floor level he would instinctively release me to protect himself against hitting the floor. I would palm his forehead driving it back into the floor. Hopefully he would be too addled to return the blow. I would back up out of his range to see if he or his partner were going to want more or if they had enough.
Cal blinked as he stared at me. “Listen Bridget, I invited you to a party. There’s no need to get hostile.”
Cal and his friend obviously thought the flight attendants were part of their personal harem. They would anoint their chosen one for a night of orgy and she was supposed to swoon to their demands.
“Captain, I never ask three times. Remove your hand or lose it.” I knew I was going to have bruises where he was gripping my arm.
He turned me loose and stepped off the plane. “Your loss. I couldn’t care less.”
The co-pilot, Eddie Crockers, stopped in front of me. He started to say something.
I shook my head. “Not in this lifetime. You tell Cal there is a one foot area around me I consider my personal space. When you invade that space without an invitation, you are asking to be hurt and I will oblige you. There will be no warning next time anyone lays a hand on me. I won’t say please.”
Eddie Crockers shrugged his shoulders. “I’d watch myself if I were you. I may turn in a report on you for threatening us.”
“Before or after I show them my bruises and turn in my report? Don’t get in a war you can’t win Eddie. You’ll be loading baggage for Greyhound if it comes down to push in this.”
“You can be replaced tomorrow. We are pilots and they can’t fire us. We belong to the union.” He was furious as he tried to scare me with words.
“You are so stupid it’s not even funny. The union won’t back you in a sexual harassment suit. They will not only drop you like a hot potato, they will also help bury you. Haven’t you heard? Women aren’t part of the slaves’ quarters any longer. This is the twenty-first century and we are equal. For all you men who thought women were supposed to worship the ground you walked on, you missed the revolution.” I knew it was a lost cause. Those like Cal and Eddie thought women were their personal playthings. They would never change even if someone slapped them with a sexual suit and sent them to prison. Little minds like theirs never seemed to have reasoning or understanding powers.
Sam had stepped up where he could be seen. Eddie took a look at Laura, Donna, and Sam. “I didn’t touch her. You can’t get me for sexual harassment.”
“Harassment is more than physical contact Eddie. It can also be verbal. Quit while you’re ahead and go join Cal before you dig a hole you can’t get out of.” Sam walked up beside me as he was talking.
Eddie smiled a weak smile. There were too many witnesses for him to dispute. “No harm. Cal only asked if she wanted to go party. I didn’t touch her.” He turned and walked off the plane.
“Make out a report and I will witness it along with Donna and Laura.” Sam had a serious look on his face as he glanced over at the two of them to make sure they were going to agree.
“I don’t know. I have a few bruises but no real damage. I probably should let it slide.” I walked over to pick up my luggage and slip out of Donna’s shoes. I slipped on my heels and handed her shoes back to her.
“We aren’t going to let it slide Bridget. This isn’t going away because you don’t want to go to the effort of filing a report. Cal has two harassment reports in his file jacket. If they keep piling up then he will be fired, but we can’t fire him without the paper trail.”
“But, I wasn’t...”
“No buts. What about the girl who doesn’t want to, but doesn’t have the courage to say no? We tell all the attendants it won’t help their careers by dating a pilot. Some of the inexperienced ones fail to listen. What about them? You’re going to let Cal keep on harassing the attendants because you don’t want to be bothered with filing a report?” Sam was watching as I picked up my overnighter and my suitcase.
“Okay, I hear you. I’ll type it up when I get home.”
He nodded. “That’s more like it.”
“Now, how about me taking you ladies out to Friars for dinner?” I promise to have you back to the room in time for that hot bath and mindless TV before ten.” Sam was checking faces to see if he was going to get a nibble on his offer.
Laura shook her head. “I promised a friend I would make a birthday party this evening. No can do but thanks anyway.”
Donna shook her head as she looked at Sam. “You told me before liftoff you were going to take Bridget out tonight and now it’s a threesome?”
In shock I turned to look at Sam.
He shrugged his shoulders. “She never was any good at keeping secrets. I figured after that little altercation with Cal and Eddie you would turn me down cold if I asked you by yourself.”
Laura looked at Sam and then me before she headed out the door with her luggage. “You three work it out. I have a birthday party I’m going to.”
She stopped outside the door. “Bridget, I’d give it some serious consideration if it were me. Friars has some of the best food on the west coast, Sam is the number one eligible bachelor on any coast, and Donna is a lot of fun when she isn’t telling all.”
That made me blush. I looked at my feet before I got the nerve up to look at Donna. She was nodding her head. “Bridget, say yes. I promise you won’t regret it.”
I was still blushing as I looked up at Sam. Jerry Rands had been pushed back and forgotten again. Sam was seriously handsome and if Donna was along, nothing could get out of hand. “Okay.”
Sam smiled from ear to ear as he winked at Donna. “Your little end game worked. She doesn’t know if we were in cahoots together to get her to go out, or if it was a bet before takeoff.”
“End game? Now wait a second. I think I’ve been set up and snookered. Donna!”
Sam dropped us off at the apartment Atlantic had reserved for its flight attendants. I wasn’t sure what I made, but if I was starting out I was earning eighteen thousand a year. That didn’t leave a whole lot for necessities and rooms at the end of our flights. The larger airlines lease apartments as part of the package for their flight attendants. It wasn’t because they had a big heart. It was because they would have never kept any flight attendants if we had to rent a hundred or two hundred dollar room at the end of each flight. An eighteen thousand dollar salary doesn’t pay for thirty six thousand dollars worth of rooms each year. Flight attendant isn’t a job for someone looking for financial security.
Donna beat me to the shower. By the time I stepped out of the shower she was already dressed in an emerald green, polyester dress with a Princess Anne neckline and a short but full, flirty skirt. She had brushed her red hair and gave it a slight tease to give it fullness. Those green eyes of hers were sparkling. Any guy who saw her and didn’t instantly fall in love had to be gay. I imagine even a few of them would still be in love. She was wearing nylons and flats. I had to take a second look at her shoes. “That ought to knock his socks off. Are you going out like that?”
“Bridget, my dogs are still barking from being made to run up and down that airplane a thousand times. I refuse to put on anything with a heel. My feet wouldn’t stand it.” She slipped on a pearl necklace and long pearl earrings.
“Suit yourself. Sometimes a little pain is necessary if you plan on putting that little band of gold on his finger, or getting him to put one on your finger.” I was digging through my suitcase. I had little nothings packed. It was then I remembered Donna packed for me earlier.
I lifted a small purple dress out of the suitcase, and held it up on the tip of my index finger. It shimmered in the light. That flimsy little sheer, darling dress was going to leave more uncovered than what it hid. “Was this planned too?”
She looked over at what I was holding on my finger. “Bridget, you have the body for it. I tossed in a slip. Get dressed. I know Sam and he will be knocking on our door in a few minutes. He doesn’t waste a lot of time when he is ready to go out.”
It struck me as funny as I dressed. Everything I was wearing added up to less weight than a pair of jeans. It didn’t take long, as I wasn’t wearing a lot. Dark pantyhose, bra, slip and dress were it. That took all of three minutes more or less. Donna helped me with my makeup and jewelry. I had rhinestone earrings and necklace along with a rhinestone bracelet and watch. Donna brushed my hair and let it cascade down my back.
She held me out at arm’s length to study her handiwork after she finished. “You have the prettiest hair. You are so much wow bottled up in one package.”
Unbidden tears came to my eyes as I studied her face. I pulled her in and held on because my life depended on it. “Am I really Bridget? There isn’t a Jerry Rands anymore is there?”
I could feel her stiffen. Slowly she pushed me back to look in my eyes. “Yes, you really are Bridget.”
That did it. The dam burst as I let go of Jerry Rands. He was a dream and Bridget was real. Jerry had escaped prison, death, and suffering a wrong he didn’t commit. Jerry was gone forever. Donna held me as I cried on her shoulder. They were tears of pain for having to leave behind a life, tears of joy for escaping that life, and tears of fear because I had no idea what kind of life I was now living. I had no idea who or what Bridget was. That aspect bothered me more than the idea of dying. Death has a finality we know will happen to all of us sooner or later. No one can escape so what is there to fear from death? Die now or die later, but it will come. As Jerry I knew what I had left of life was pain with no escape except death. I wanted to shorten the pain part and get on with death.
There was a knock and a soft male voice called through the closed door. “Donna, Bridget, you ladies all right? Is someone hurt? Can I help?”
Donna reached over and pulled a handful of Kleenex out of her purse. “We’re fine Sam. Give us a minute to get ourselves together and we will be right out.”
She handed me the Kleenex. “Go in the bathroom and dry your eyes. Everything will be fine Bridget. I’ll hold Sam off for a few minutes. We will go out to Friars and enjoy the heck out of the night.”
“Thanks, Donna. I’ll try to have fun.” Wiping tears with the back of my hand, I started to head for the bathroom.
She took my arm and stopped me. “Bridget, there are no guarantees in life. Don’t try to have fun or it won’t work. Live it as it happens. Life will be fun only if it’s really enjoyable. You can’t fake it. Now, go dry your eyes and let’s party.”
I managed to dry my eyes and get my makeup straightened up before I walked out of the bathroom straight into... Sam who happen to be standing on the other side of the door. I wobbled and he wrapped both arms around me as he looked down.
“Whoa!” His eyes kept growing bigger as he held me.
I tilted my head back to look up at him. Without my heels he was at least a foot taller than me. Sam bent down and kissed me full on the mouth. Without thinking, I kissed him back as I wrapped my arms around his neck. Was it a reflex reaction on my part or his? Or was it mutual consent? If there was any lingering doubt about who I was, it cleared up at that instant. I was Bridget Renee Tonue!
How long did the kiss last? A couple of lifetimes or only the briefest of seconds? I had no idea, but it was forever and ever as an emotional thrill ran through my heart and soul. Someone coughing brought me back to reality.
I looked over at Donna who had the corner of her mouth turned up in disgust. “If you two think you can find a stopping place, I’d like to go eat.”
Sam smiled from ear to ear as he winked at me. “I was having dessert before dinner.”
I blushed from the top of my head to my feet as I slid out of Sam’s arms to look for my heels. “Sorry.”
Sam walked over to Donna, wrapped an arm around her shoulder, leaned her back, and gave her a passionate kiss on the mouth before he let her back up. “Mmmmm, hard to tell which is better–the red candy or the black candy.”
It took me a few seconds before I realized he was referring to Donna and me by our hair color. “My guess is Casanova is sampling and we’d better lock up the store before he carries off the stock.”
Donna giggled. “You got that right. Watch him Bridget. He’s not called a smooth operator because he knows how to land planes without bouncing passengers all over the cabin.”
Sam opened the door, made an overstated bow, and an exaggerated sweep with his right arm. “Ladies, I believe we have a table reserved at Friars. If we want that table before they give it to someone else, I suggest we get going.”
Donna and Sam were right, the food was exquisite. As good as Tricks? I don’t know, but I savored every single bite. I don’t believe I ever danced as much in one evening as I did that night. It was a revelation in scents the different men carried with them as they held me in their arms. I guess I was too busy on the plane to pick up on all the different smells. Maybe that’s why we don’t get involved with life as we pass through from birth to death? We are too busy to stop and smell all the pleasures of life. I liked dancing with Sam most of all, but he had two women to share so more often than not I was being asked to dance by some stranger. The men wanted to dance slow dances, up close and personal. Most of them wanted to pull me in tight where those big puppies I carried on my chest were crushed against them. It may have been a turn on for the guys, but it worked just the opposite for me. The harder a guy tried to pull me up against him, the more I was turned off. I didn’t dance a second time with any of those guys. The men who held me gently and tenderly, making sure they didn’t brush up against me aggressively received a second dance if they asked.
Never in my life had I been on a double date where it was two girls and one guy, but it was fun even if Donna and I shared the same man. It was after two in the morning before Sam dropped Donna and me at the apartment. If I thought I was tired after that trans-country flight, I was sadly mistaken. Now I was tired, but it was a different tired. I was deliciously tired.
Sam kissed Donna goodnight before she walked in the apartment and closed the door behind her. I thought that was strange. Then Sam took me in his arms and laid a really sexy kiss on me before I responded. My emotional gates unlocked, and I went into orbit as I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him in. My breasts were crushed against his chest. That sent what was left of my mind into oblivion. Feelings unknown until that moment in time surfaced and raced through my soul. Without a doubt, I was a woman in heat and in love. Not altogether positive which came first but it didn’t matter. Sam was lucky Donna was in the apartment, or I would have raped him right then and there.
I was panting as I pushed him back. “We have a flight tomorrow. I need some sleep.”
“Sure.” He pulled me in and kissed me again as he reached down and opened the door with his left hand.
That was my cue to leave while my rubber legs could still carry me. I broke off the kiss. “Thanks for the best evening of my life.”
“Mutual I assure you Bridget.” He turned and walked off as I watched through the door. My heart was racing faster than that jet we flew on.
Donna was already in a baby doll. She was hanging up her dress. “Sam is a sweetie. You couldn’t do any better.”
“It wasn’t a date Donna. We went to dinner and danced a few times. I’m not going to steal your boyfriend. I don’t think I could if I wanted. He likes you a lot. You and he seem to get along perfectly.” I unzipped my dress and slipped out of it before reaching for a hanger.
Donna slid under the covers before she answered. “Bridget, the reason Sam and I get along so well is he is like a brother. Of course he loves me. Just like a brother would. I love him the same way. I can’t possibly dream up any concept where I would marry him. It would be too freaky. One doesn’t marry her brother.”
Sitting down on the edge of my bed, I slipped off my heels and pantyhose. “You sure didn’t kiss like brother and sister. You can’t tell me that was a brother-sister lip lock he laid on you.”
She giggled as she looked at me. “Sam did that for your benefit hon. He only kisses me with a peck on the cheek. He figured if he and I kissed, you might not want to slap his face if he took liberties with your affections also. Now let me get to sleep. My flight leaves at six. Yours and Sam’s flight leaves at noon. I’ll leave the alarm set for ten so you will have time to get ready and make the airport.”
“I thought we were going back on the same flight? Who are you flying with?” I couldn’t believe our schedules didn’t match going back.
“I’m flying with the ugly boys Cal and Eddie. Lenna and I have the first class section. Judy, Wanda, and Betty have passenger. Now, stop talking so I can get a few hours.” She pulled the covers up over her head.
The buzzing finally brought me up out of a deep sleep. Bless Donna’s malicious heart, she had set the alarm over on the table where I would have to get out of bed to shut it off. I made the shower and slipped into a fresh uniform. It took me awhile, but I managed to get my face put together. I missed Donna’s help. I didn’t bother making my bed since Donna had left hers in a mess. I picked up the room in case this apartment didn’t have maid service between flights. A short courtesy van ride and I was dragging luggage through another airport and asking directions to the Atlantic terminal.
Sherry and Sam were behind the desk as I walked up to the boarding ramp. He smiled and winked with his right eye. “Thought you might have decided to pass on this flight after last night.”
Sherry had been looking at the manifest and hadn’t seen me coming. Her head snapped up to see who or what Sam had been talking about. Her eyes widened two sizes as she swept from my face down to my breasts. She blinked a couple of times before she focused on my nametag. “You’re late Bridget.”
“Yes ma’am.” From past experience, I knew most of the flight attendants showed up an hour before the flight to organize the kitchens and to give managers time to make substitutions in case someone didn’t show. Taking off at noon, this flight wouldn’t be serving meals. I hadn’t really thought about what time I should have arrived before takeoff.
Sam reached down and took my suitcase and carry on. “No problem Sherry. I clocked her in an hour ago.”
“Certainly sir.” Sherry studied me with renewed interest.
I followed Sam onto the plane before I caught up with him in the galley. “It isn’t that I don’t appreciate the help, but I would rather play by the same rules everyone else has to abide by.”
Sam set my suitcase down on the cabinet and took out a pair of pumps with a two-inch heel. “Donna said you would be wearing stilts when you arrived. She also said to make sure you had sensible heels before takeoff.”
I looked down at my pumps with the five-inch heel. I hadn’t given it any thought when I dressed this morning. Donna really was my guardian angel. I traded shoes with the ones he was holding in his hand. “Thanks and don’t change the subject. I’m not looking for favors. It causes hate and discontent among the crew when one is favored over another as infractions are covered up and forgiven.”
Laugh lines formed around Sam’s eyes as he looked at me. “You really are something Bridget. Okay, it won’t happen again. I promise when you are late they will put it in your folder. Too many infractions and you won’t be able to fly with anyone but me.”
“What do you mean? Why only you and not fired?”
He was chuckling as he picked up the manifest and handed it to me. “You have passengers boarding. It’s time to go to work. Make them feel like you are personally pleased they are flying on ‘your plane’.”
I could hear footsteps coming down the boarding ramp. I took the passenger list from Sam and put on my coffee, tea, or me smile. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
We soon had the passengers loaded and our pre-takeoff routine done. It seemed like only minutes and we were in the air climbing for blue sky. I was wishing it was me up there talking to the tower and making the small adjustments to the flight path as we climbed out over the clouds. There was little time for woolgathering as we now had to make our passengers feel like they were flying with Hooters in the Sky. Cindy was the girl working up front with me. She wasn’t seriously endowed like I was, but she did have curves. It didn’t take long for me to put my hair up in a ponytail to keep from fighting with it as I bent over seats to serve drinks and help with pillows or magazines. There were a million other things our passengers could think of to keep me reaching as they looked down between my breasts. It was funny, I really didn’t mind. If that was what turned them on then more power to them. Men have such weak little minds.
I kept Sam and Darrel–our pilot and co-pilot–supplied with hot coffee. Jeff, our flight engineer, was also on my keep happy list. Darrel and Jeff teased Sam every time I walked into the cockpit about me being his newest girlfriend. Then they would tease me for a date.
“Bridget, if you can stand our Captain, I know you will like me. I’m better looking, I have more money, and I treat my dates like a lady wants to be treated,” Darrel teased for the umpteenth time, as I replaced his coffee with a hot cup.
Darrel was a handsome cuss, but I didn’t tell him that. “Ask me again in a few days Darrel. I won’t have so much on my agenda.”
Really, I had no idea what my agenda was, but I didn’t want to get in a date I couldn’t keep.
Jeff wasn’t to be left out. “Bridget, forget those two losers. They are the bottom of the barrel. Ask any of the other girls who have been on one of their miserable dates. If you ask them about me, they will tell you I always treat a lady to a good time.”
Laughing, I shook my head. “Jeff, I’m looking forward to our good times, but not for awhile. I really do have a lot of things I need to straighten out first.”
That caused a good-natured argument among them about who was the best date. It was all done in good taste, and the men were gentlemen about it.
I didn’t say no to an offer from any of them. I just didn’t lock myself into a time.
I was doubly glad when we touched down and I said my last, “Thank you for flying Atlantic, hope you enjoyed your flight, please come again.” For the second day, it wasn’t my feet, but my legs were killing me. Cindy and I didn’t serve meals, but it was worse than the day before. Without a meal to entertain their weak little minds, those men wanted me wiggling my ass up and down the aisle for entertainment. So, wiggle I did for a very small paycheck. There had to be a better way to make a living. I was going to have varicose veins in my legs before I reached...? I had no idea how old I was. Okay, before I aged another six years or whatever.
Like the flight yesterday, I had a couple of dozen business cards in my purse from men who wanted a date. I also had four in there from guys who offered instant marriage. I guess my coffee, tea, or me smile was working.
Before Jeff and Darrel stepped off the plane, they made me promise I was going on a date with them some time in the future. Before she left, Sherry made it a point to tell me I was supposed to be at the plane an hour before boarding, or I was late. Cindy, Wanda, and Darla were only seconds behind Sherry.
Sam came out of the cockpit carrying a suitcase and a clothes bag. “Still here?”
I picked up my overnighter and pulled the handle out on my suitcase. “Not for long.”
Sam escorted me out to the sidewalk where he hailed a cab. After the cab pulled up to the curb, Sam loaded my suitcases in the front with the driver and put something in the driver’s hand. He turned back to where I was standing. Before I could get in the cab he took me in his arms. “Would you mind if I kissed you again?”
“No.” I think I wanted that kiss more than he did. I wrapped my arms around his neck and laid my heart and soul on him with a kiss. He hesitated and then he pulled me in as he returned the passion, crushing my breasts against his chest. My heart, my mind, my emotions went into orbit.
Sam’s eyes were seriously studying me after I let him back up for air. “I would definitely call that a kiss.”
Opening the door to the cab, I slid in without answering him. First, I didn’t have an answer. Second, I was emotionally unstable at the moment. I needed to put some time and space between us as my body wanted to stay in his arms.
The driver pulled away from the curb as I shut the door. I was in a fog as I tried to sort out my feelings. What was I doing? I accepted Bridget as an escape from Jerry’s death spiral. What came with the package? Was I a whore and going to jump in bed with everything wearing pants? No, because I didn’t want to jump in bed with Cal or Eddie or a couple hundred other men who tried to put the make on me in the past few days. Okay, so at least I wasn’t a nymphomaniac. Because I had been a programmer, I ran though my head cause and effect a couple of dozen times before the cab stopped.
“We are here at your apartment Bridget.” The cab driver was getting my bags out of his cab by the time I collected my thoughts and looked at where we had stopped.
I slid out of the rear seat and was opening my purse when he held up his hand. “Sam paid for the fare Miss Tonue.”
Only then did I look at the driver’s face as I had been deep in thought until that moment. “Kemel, what a small world. Let me give you a tip.”
“Sam took care of that too Miss Tonue.” He slid behind the wheel and was pulling out into the street almost before it was out of his mouth.
I waved at the gargoyles before I picked up my bags.
“It’s that girl again. Don’t answer her and don’t look.” Grimcost was talking out of the side of his mouth as he held real still.
Garmon looked down. “I told you she was gonna be trouble.”
Grimcost felt like pushing his friend off the ledge. “Do you think you could be a little more obvious? Why don’t you hang a camera up here and sell home movies? Mr. Logan isn’t going to like this.”
“She knows, so what’s the big secret? I’m telling you, she’s trouble with a capital T.” Garmon was watching the girl gather up her suitcases.
Grimcost decided his friend was right. The girl most definitely knew. He looked down as she walked into the building. “She’s a beautiful lady. Morgan done right by her.”
Mr. Logan was talking to Horace as I walked in the door. He turned to look. “Welcome ba...”
I dropped my suitcases and ran up to Mr. Logan wrapping my arms around him. I laid my head up against his chest. “I’m Bridget, aren’t I Mr. Logan?”
Hesitantly, slowly, he put his arms around me and held me tenderly as a father would. “Yes dear, you are most definitely Bridget.” He was talking to the top of my head.
Tears of happiness leaked out of the corners of my eyes. “Thanks Mr. Logan.”
I stood up on tiptoes and kissed him on the left cheek as I cried. “Thanks for everything.”
He reached up to my cheek with his right hand and caught some of my tears on his fingers. Tears are raw emotion boiled down to solid form. They could be emotions of happiness or emotions of despair. “Bridget, I...”
Backing out of his arms, I gathered up my suitcases and headed for the elevator without looking at him or Horace. I wanted to tell my friends I was me if I could get them to come to the window.
Horace watched as the elevator doors closed behind Bridget. “She hasn’t settled down one bit. I thought Donna was going to tell her she wasn’t dreaming any longer.”
Mr. Logan shook his head. “She knows, my old friend. Donna said Bridget figured it out the first evening. Rarely do we get one so willing to give up one life for another. She is most definitely a breath of freshness.”
Horace was laughing as he looked over at his friend. “Wipe her freshness off your cheek.”
Mr. Logan laughed as he reached up with his left hand and wiped his left cheek where Bridget had applied her affections for the second time. “If this keeps up, we will have to go back to carrying handkerchiefs like we did in the thirties and forties.”
Horace nodded. “I think we are going soft. I like it.”
Slapping Horace on the back, Mr. Logan nodded in agreement. “Most definitely.”
Mr. Logan held his hand over the desk and dropped the two tears he had wiped from Bridget’s cheek. They fell to the desk making no sound. Glistening like stars in the night, they held their form. “I think I may frame them. Lest we forget in centuries to come, we can look at them and be reminded of Bridget.”
Horace pushed one of them with his finger. It flashed and sparkled as it rolled across the desktop. “How could we ever forget?”
In my apartment I ran over to the window and slid the blinds up. There were two gargoyles on my ledge looking in. I raised the window, grabbed the one on the right by his head and planted a big kiss on the end of his nose. “I’M BRIDGET!”
“Whuhhhhhh!” He backpedaled and fell off the ledge.
I tried to grab him to stop his fall. I was too late. I knew he had fallen to his death like Jerry had planned on doing. Seconds later, he circled up and back over the top of the building.
By this time, the second one decided it was useless to try and make like a stone statue. He started to back off the ledge. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and held on. “Oh no you don’t. You aren’t getting away that easy. You are going to stay here and listen to my story whether you like it or not.”
He bared his fangs and growled at me. “Grrrrrrrrr.”
I leaned up and kissed him on the nose. “Don’t you dare bark at me, you ruffian.”
His eyes were blinking and he stopped trying to pull away.
“Now that I have your undivided attention, I want to tell you my story. Come back up here before we both fall. It’s a long story and I don’t want to tell it while I’m leaning out the window.” I turned him loose, hoping he wouldn’t run as I backed up from the window.
He thought about it for a second, before he stepped up and put his head inside the apartment.
“That’s more like it. Okay, where do I start? Jerry was born in Utah, in a little suburb outside Salt Lake City. He was the only child of a moderately well-to-do family. They...”
The gargoyle lay down on the ledge and crossed his front paws, as he listened attentively to my story.
Grim had flown back over the roof to land behind Grimcost. He was spitting and sputtering. “Patooie, cough cough.”
Grimcost looked over his shoulder. “What is your problem?”
“That stupid girl kissed me.” Grim was wiping his nose with both front paws.
“WHAT? You mean Little Miss Troubles?” Grimcost turned around to look.
“Who else but? Germs, human diseases, yuck, patooie.” Grim spit on his paws and wiped his nose again.
“What about Gorm? What happened to him?” Garmon had joined in the conversation.
“I think he’s still over there talking to her.” Grim wiped his nose on the roof.
“You’re kidding! This I have to see!” Garmon took to the air before Grim could stop him.
“Hey, wait for me.” Grimcost was right behind.
“They will be sorry.” Grim watched as they dipped down below the roofline.
Two more gargoyles landed on my window ledge as I was talking. “Well, hello there.”
I reached up and scratched the one on my right behind the ears. “Glad you could join us.”
The other newcomer received a pat on the head. I recognized them as the ones who stood guard over the front of the building. “Where were we? Well, by this time I was in the second grade and...”
Grim kept waiting for his friends to return. Finally, he walked across the roof to where he could look down where the three gargoyles were lying on the ledge listening to the girl. She had a pleasing voice and soon he was listening also.
Mr. Logan and Luk were watching from the other side of the room as Bridget talked to the gargoyles. She put her hands behind her legs and held her skirt as she folded her legs and settled down on the carpet by the window.
Luk cocked his head as he watched and listened. “She bewitched them. What power does she possess to capture them so?”
As a smile crept across his face, Mr. Logan closed his eyes and took a deep breath before answering. “The same power she has over all of us. Honesty, curiosity, unselfish love, the eyes of a child seeing everything for the first time.”
Her melodious voice was pleasing to the ears, soothing to the mind, and made one want to listen when she spoke but he had work to do. Mr. Logan left Luk in the room as he reluctantly returned to business. He was wondering who had bewitched whom? Each lifeshift was different, some good, some bad. Everyone accepted it in a different way. Bridget was so unusual in the way she embraced her lifeshift. She was the one in a billion odds. Morgan had done right by choosing her.
“Girl, are you going to sleep your life away?” She was shaking the bed to keep me from going back to sleep.
“I’m trying if everyone would leave me alone. We flying again?” I opened my eyes and was looking at the Leprechaun I had last seen in Los Angeles.
“You got it. No rest for the wicked. Now shake a leg and let’s get our show on the road.” She was pulling clothes out of the closet and packing my suitcase again.
I sighed as I rolled out of bed, pushed my hair out of my face, and looked out the window for my friends. Of course they were gone. They had a job to do same as me. They had to guard the building as gargoyles during the day. “Uh, Donna, if I remember Morgan said she would be back today. I need to make arrangements with Mr. Logan or go find another apartment someplace else.”
“Change of plans Bridget. Morgan set up a fashion show in San Francisco. Our plane is headed to Los Angeles. We wiggle our little tails for the guys on the way out and you will catch a commuter up to San Francisco to work with Morgan.”
She had my suitcase packed as she looked up. “Why are you still here? Hustle girl. We are late as usual, and should be at the plane by now.”
I was headed for the shower before I thought about it. “We do have a full complement on this flight don’t we? If any stewardesses are missing, then I am going to be one of those also.”
Laughing, she pointed toward the bathroom. “Go! I had my fill that last trip too. That plane isn’t getting off the ground with me on it if everyone isn’t there.”
Moments later, I was headed out the door behind Donna when I noticed something wasn’t right. It took me a second, but the wedding dress in the corner was missing. I caught up with Donna in the elevator. “Someone has been in Morgan’s apartment and took the wedding dress. I need to let Horace know we have a thief in the building. On my salary, I’ll be paying on that original for years.”
“The dress is in the San Francisco part of the show.” Donna stepped off the elevator at the ground floor.
“Morning ladies. Miss James, you look lovely this morning. Miss Tonue, as do you.” Horace was picking up Donna’s suitcases as he spoke.
“Thank you Horace. Cab here?” Donna was following Horace out the door.
Horace was loading up suitcases in the trunk as I stepped out on the sidewalk. It was a beautiful morning for sure. I could smell the doughnuts in the little pastry shoppe down the block. Trick was cooking breakfast across the street. I turned and waved at the gargoyles up on the parapet.
Garmon raised his right front paw in response before Grimcost admonished him. “What do you think you are doing? What if someone sees you?”
Garmon looked up and down the street. “No one is looking. Besides, I like her.”
Grimcost checked to see if anyone was looking. The coast was clear. He raised his right front paw to wave back to Bridget just as Donna and Horace looked up to see who Bridget was waving at.
Grimcost and Garmon got stone cold still as they tried to look like the gargoyles they were.
Grimcost whispered out of the side of his mouth. “Oh shit! We are in deep doo doo now.”
Garmon looked down without moving his head. He whispered back. “I knew that girl was trouble.”
Horace tried not to, but the harder he tried to hold it in, the worse it became until it was no longer possible to contain. He burst out laughing as he ducked his head and shook it. The idea the gargoyles had waved back at Bridget was funny. The idea they tried to conceal it like little kids caught in the cookie jar was hilarious.
Donna wasn’t going to either but when Horace lost it she had no choice. She started laughing. She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at Horace. It didn’t help. It was so funny she fell into the back seat holding her head and her side.
I was looking around to see what the joke was and why I didn’t see it?
Kemel was trying to tell Bridget it was time to go but, he couldn’t talk. Every time he opened his mouth to say something he would laugh. He walked around to the driver’s seat as his shoulders shook while he tried to contain the laughter.
I climbed into the cab still wondering what was so funny.
As we pulled away, I looked back at Horace who had one arm up against the building, the other holding his side as he laughed.
Donna finally managed to get herself under control. She sat up in the seat wiping tears out of her eyes. She had her mouth all screwed up trying to not giggle. She did real well until she looked at Bridget who was looking back with a puzzled look on her face. That was Donna’s undoing. She lost it again as she leaned back in the seat and positively howled with laughter.
Horace managed to walk back into the building as he wiped tears out of his eyes. Mr. Logan walked out of his office. “What’s so funny?”
Horace shook his head a couple times while he tried to find his voice. He pointed up in the air. “Your pets. Bridget has ruined them. She waved at them and they waved back. They tried to act like they didn’t do it when Donna and I looked up.”
“I’ll look into this.” Mr. Logan didn’t appear pleased.
“You can’t blame Garmon and the others. They aren’t able to handle her spell any better than the rest of us. It’s no different than what she’s done to us all.” Horace wiped the last of the laugh tears off his cheeks.
Mr. Logan sighed and nodded. “You’re right. She’s bewitched us all. I’ll restrict them to the hidden part of the roof until she leaves us.”
Horace’s smile turned into a frown. “She will leave, won’t she?”
Mr. Logan looked out the front door. “Yes, it’s the way it has to be. She will find her place in the world again. She will leave.”
Horace found his chair behind the security desk. “The thought pains me. She is one of the best we have had.”
Mr. Logan turned to his friend. “Enjoy the time she shares with us. There will be others.”
“Yes, but only one Bridget. Only one.” Horace looked wistfully out the front door.
I paid Kemel for the cab fare as we unloaded our suitcases at the airport. My hundred dollar bill was now forty six dollars and eleven cents. If it was the customary two weeks after starting work before I received my first paycheck, I was going to be begging on the streets for money. It wasn’t a funny situation. In spite of my mental distractions I managed to keep up with Donna on the way through the terminal. Despite some real rude comments by a few men, Donna and I managed to keep our coffee, tea, or me, smiles intact as we threaded our way through to the Atlantic terminal.
Cindy was checking traffic at the boarding tunnel. She looked up as Donna and I approached. “Miss James, Miss Tonue, you are late ladies.”
It seemed I was going to be habitually late for every flight. It wouldn’t take long for me to get fired as my personnel file filled up with tardy slips. I was thinking I’d better find my schedule and start taking care of getting myself to the airport, or I really was going to be serving coffee in some café. I was also dragging Donna into my life and making her late because she had to come and get me for my flights. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Who’s riding coach?” Donna stepped up beside Cindy to check the duty roster for the flight.
Cindy flipped over a sheet and pointed. “Karen, Brenda, and myself. You and Bridget are in the first class section.”
“K.” Donna ducked into the boarding tunnel.
I followed her on. “Donna, I can work coach if one of the other girls wants to work first class.”
Donna dropped an overhead and was putting her suitcase and overnighter away. “Hand me your bags.”
Picking my suitcase up, I shoved it in beside Donna’s. The overnighter followed. “Thanks.”
She walked into the galley and was putting equipment in its place. “Bridget, every girl in this company will rotate coach and first class.”
She stopped and turned to look at me. “Except one. Look in the mirror hon. Atlantic isn’t called Sky Hooters because it has men serving meals and drinks. Every flight you have been on, the men have been dragging their tongues when they leave the plane. You want to know what the number one question has become as the passengers buy their tickets?”
“Well, yes, they want to know if it’s going to be on time.” That was the question everyone always asked me as they climbed on our little commuter out of Salt Lake.
“No doll, they really don’t care if it ever arrives if Bridget is serving. The number one question the past few days has been, is Bridget on this plane? The question that immediately follows is she in coach or first class? Men are changing their tickets from coach to first class. If you think the brass hasn’t noticed you are mistaken.”
Donna pointed back down the boarding tunnel. “Cindy will file a late slip. It will never make your personnel jacket. The brass will round-file it as it crosses their desk. With the passengers changing their tickets and the extra money it brings in, the brass is going to make sure no complaints are put in your file.”
“But I’m no different than any of the other girls.” I couldn’t believe what Donna was saying.
“Oh? Name one other flight attendant with a forty-four, um, what, twenty-one, thirty-six, or thirty-eight measurements. If that wasn’t enough, you don’t mind wearing heels and flirting with the passengers.”
Someone behind me wrapped their arms around me and nuzzled in my ear before I could protest.
“And she feels good, too.”
I recognized the voice. “Hello Captain. You flying this bird today?”
“I sure am. What’s on the breakfast menu? I didn’t get a chance to eat.” Sam released me as he stepped up beside me.
I started to pick up our manifest to see what our flight menu would have on it. “I haven’t looked yet. Let me check. You want it now or after liftoff?”
“Now would be great.” Sam took me in his arms and planted a big one on me.
I started to pull back and then thought why not? I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him in as I returned the kiss. It was a mistake. I felt my heart race into my throat as electricity filled the air.
There was a cough behind Sam. “When you two think you can disengage, we might think about getting organized in the galley before liftoff.”
Sam had a twinkle in his eyes as he turned me loose and backed up. “Nag, nag, you would think she owns this company. By the way, dessert was great. I’ll have a sweet roll and coffee for breakfast after we are off the ground.”
Donna sighed. “Thanks for giving the crew an official welcome aboard Captain. Did she pass inspection?”
“Put a cork in it Donna. Jealousy doesn’t become you.” Sam turned and gave Donna a kiss on the cheek.
“Yes my Captain. Now get out of the slaves’ quarters before I Shanghai you and make you take my place.”
Sam was moving toward the cockpit. “I’m going, I’m going. Mutiny already and we haven’t even left the dock yet.”
I could hear footsteps coming down the boarding ramp. My nerves were still strung tighter than a high wire act. Picking up the passenger manifest, I glanced over at Donna. “I won’t steal him from you.”
Donna shook her head as she snickered. “Bridget, he’s not mine to steal. Go get him if you feel like it.”
It was back to business as I put on my smile and met our first passengers. Donna was standing to the side ready to lead them to their seats if they had trouble finding their way.
It was an easy flight out to Los Angeles. Our breakfast run was bagels, sweet rolls, and doughnuts. Donna and I were kept hopping. I finally figured it out. Our customers wanted to see Donna or me wiggle our little tails up and down the aisle. As soon as we sit down, someone would buzz for magazines, coffee, movies, music, pillow, blanket, or whatever crossed their feeble little minds. I guess that old airline hostess saying, ‘coffee, tea, or me’ really wasn’t that far off the mark.
After the last passenger deplaned in Los Angeles, Donna sat down and slipped off her heels. She leaned over and was rubbing her feet. “I’m going to find that jerk who thought stewardesses were supposed to wear skimpy little uniforms along with heels and turn him into a toad.”
I laughed. My legs weren’t nearly as sore as before. Although my feet were tired, they weren’t killing me like Donna’s obviously were. “A toad isn’t enough punishment for making us go through this.”
Donna’s emerald green eyes were sparkling as she looked up at me. “No, you’re right. I’ll turn him into a bitch in heat.”
“Worked for me,” I mouthed out of the side of my mouth as Sam, Jeff, and Larry came out of the cockpit.
“What worked for you?” Sam glanced over at Donna and then back at me as he moved up beside me and put his arm around my waist.
“None of your cotton-picking business.” I figured if I told anyone what I thought had happened in the past few days, I would be sent off to the mental ward so fast it wouldn’t be funny.
“We going out tonight? I know of a great little place called Lupe. Darn good Mexican food and of course they have American too.” Sam was eyeing me, waiting for an answer.
“Bridget is headed for San Francisco in a few minutes,” Donna injected, before I could answer.
“Okay, passing through.” Jeff motioned Sam and me out of the way as he and Larry stepped off the plane.
“What’s in San Francisco? Atlantic starting a route there?” Sam turned to look at Donna.
“Bridget is hosting a fashion show there. Atlantic isn’t her only job. She’s a model for Guys and Dolls Magazine along with several other rags.” Donna pointed up toward the overhead. “Be a gentleman and pull our suitcases out for us would you please?”
“Sure.” Sam reached up and casually moved the suitcases and overnighters to the floor. “What you doing tonight Donna? Lupe is a great place to eat. They even have a Mexican band.”
“Oh? If Bridget is busy then you’ll settle for me?” She turned her head so Sam couldn’t see and winked at me.
“That’s not the way I meant. It was an open invitation to both of you. You game or you going to act like a snotty little sister?” He picked up his suitcase as he waited for an answer.
“Whose turn is it to buy?” Donna pulled her nurse’s shoes out of her overnighter and slipped them on before putting her heels in the suitcase.
“If I remember rightly, I bought last time. So who do you think should pay?” Sam was waiting on Donna.
Donna motioned for me to follow. “Come on Bridget, I’ll point you to your next plane. Uh, is that a trick question Sam? I mean, if we go by salary then you should pay for eight meals for every one I have to buy.”
Sam was laughing as he followed Donna and me off the plane. “Nice try Donna, but that stinks like week old fish.”
Donna led me down the concourse for what seemed like a mile as she and Sam bantered back and forth whose turn it was to buy dinner. Finally, she pointed off toward a boarding ramp. “Alaska Airways to San Francisco.”
She pulled a ticket out of her purse. “Fare trade ticket Bridget. You get to relax on this flight and let them wait on you.”
She leaned up and gave me a kiss on the cheek as she pressed the ticket in my hand. “Keep your cool doll. I’ll see you in two days.”
I was wondering what there was about that fashion show I had to do to keep my cool? I returned the peck on the cheek. “Thanks Donna, you’re my guardian angel.”
Sam was feeling through his pockets. “Two days? That better be my flight. Where’s that schedule? Morning or afternoon flight? Donna, what flight?”
Donna was shaking her head as she turned and was walking back down the concourse. “Come on Romeo. Bridget is a big girl. She can handle a flight without you.”
Sam leaned down and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. “Better be my bird!”
He turned and was trotting to catch up with Donna. “WHAT FLIGHT!”
Okay Bridget, you are on your own and you have a plane to catch. I sighed as I walked up to the desk by the boarding ramp. I handed the ticket to a lady named Janet.
She never looked at the ticket as her eyes scanned my uniform and me. “So you’re Bridget. Welcome aboard Alaska Air Miss Tonue. You have first seat. Please make yourself at home on the flight. If you want to visit with the crew, then you are most welcome.”
“Thanks Janet, my legs are tired. We just arrived from New York and I walked all the way. I may sit this one out.”
Janet handed me my ticket as she marked ‘arrived’ on the passenger manifest by my name. “Of course. I know the feeling. We are on time. Liftoff in ten minutes. You were the last one.”
She followed me onto the boarding tunnel and closed the door behind us. Sherrie and Donald met us as we stepped on the plane. Sherrie held out her hand for the boarding pass. “Welcome aboard Miss Tonue.”
I heard a lot of mumbling spread throughout the plane as some of the people started pointing in my direction. I knew what they were looking at. I would have to be brain dead to not understand they were spreading the word it was one of Atlantic’s Hooters girls.
As Donald took my bags and put them up in the overhead, Sherrie pointed toward a seat beside the door. “Please make yourself comfortable.”
And I really did make myself comfortable. I sat down in that big ol’ chair, pulled my hair back up over my right shoulder, buckled my seatbelt, relaxed and immediately went to sleep. The next thing I knew, the tires were squealing as they touched down on the runway.
After the plane pulled up to the terminal, I gathered my bags as the boarding tunnel was docked to the plane. Janet popped the door. “Thank yo...”
I nodded as I stepped off the plane. “I know the speech well Janet. Thanks for the lift. Have a safe one.”
“You too Bridget.”
As I walked into the concourse I was trying to decide what now? I should have asked Donna more questions about what I was supposed to do after I arrived in San Francisco. I don’t know how many people got whiplash as I made my way toward the front. There were more than the average number. I guess Los Angeles and New York had seen enough Atlantic Airlines girls we didn’t create that much of a shock to the system. A lot of it had to do with the uniform. If a Dallas Cheerleader had walked through the terminal wearing her uniform, I imagine it would be about the same result. Atlantic’s girls dressed the same provocative way.
Someone grabbed the handle to my suitcase. I was ready to deck them as I turned my head and saw a big smile. It was the guy who had been with Morgan that day I saw her.
“I’m Mike, Miss Tonue. Welcome to San Francisco. I have a car and driver out front. Please let me carry your other bag too.” He held out his hand for my overnighter.
“Thank you, it was getting heavy.” As I handed Mike my bags, I checked him out. About six foot four, he was slightly built. I would guess him at one eighty to a hundred and ninety pounds. Blonde hair, unusual for a man, and no rugged masculine features. I guess one would call him unassuming if I had to put a name to it. As much as I stood out in a crowd, Mike would blend in.
He led me out to a white limousine parked by the curb. Mike opened the door for me and then put my bags in the trunk. He slid in and the driver pulled out into traffic leaving the airport. “Did you have a good flight?”
“The flight from New York was busy as usual, but I slept all the way from Los Angeles.” I was watching all the familiar sights I had seen a hundred times before when I was flying in and out from Salt Lake. Jerry spent a lot of time in San Francisco.
“That’s good. We will make the hotel where you can freshen up. I’ll give you an hour and pick you up. Then you have an appointment with the makeup people. We will go to the Del Casi Ballroom for a dry run through the fashion show. You are the MC for most of it. Morgan will take over for the finale. Any questions?” Mike picked up the car phone and was pushing numbers.
He held up his hand when I started to speak. “A minute please. Yes, we picked her up. We are headed toward the hotel now… Okay... Okay... Got it... No, we will be there on time.”
“May I have your purse?” He hung up the phone and was reaching inside his jacket.
I thought about it for a second. Well, it wasn’t really mine. It was Morgan’s because nothing was really mine. “Sure.”
He opened up the purse and took out the wallet. He put some money in it along with several credit cards and identification cards. “Morgan said you needed a little money. You were down to... forty six dollars and eleven cents.”
“How...?” Look in the mirror Bridget. And I was about to ask how did she know. Duhhh.
“Thank you. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to pay her back.” I looked into his blue eyes and then turned to look out the window. I almost started crying. Money doesn’t pay back a life. I would never be able to pay them back.
Mike reached over and took my chin in his fingers turning my head so I had to look at him. That was my undoing. Tears started trickling down my cheeks.
“Don’t cry Bridget. Morgan didn’t do it for the money. After tonight, your debt will have been paid in full.”
The first thing that sprang into my mind was, they were going to kill me. That scared the living daylights out of me. As much as Jerry wanted to die, Bridget wanted to live. It scared me badly enough that it stopped the tears. How much longer did I have to live? A couple of hours? Were they going to use me in one of those death shows where they really kill the actor or actress? So that was what Jerry was saved for? Of course it would be a lot better for ratings thrills if Bridget was killed rather than a guy who was ready to die.
I couldn’t say another word. Every time I looked at Mike, my heart started thumping like a runaway train. I was a dead person, for I was sure there was no escape. Certainly not from who or what could do this to me.
The limo pulled up to the Regency Towers. Mike slid out and took my suitcases from the trunk. I finally managed to get out and was standing beside the car. He put the suitcases under one arm and reached out his left hand. “Let’s go check you in, so you can get ready.”
I was shaking like a leaf as I put my right hand in his open one. Mike turned to look at me with a puzzled look in his eyes. “Bridget, you okay?”
Speech was beyond me. I nodded my head and let him lead me to the front desk.
“Bridget Tonue checking in. Room key please.” Mike held out his hand as he talked to the girl on the other side.
“Certainly. Miss Tonue is in room two fourteen.” She dropped one of those magnetic keys in Mike’s hand.
Mike led me to the elevators and then walked me to my room. He opened the door and followed me inside, sitting the suitcases on the bed. “Wear the blue dress after you freshen up.”
He looked at his watch. “You have an hour. Are you sure you are okay? You catch a bug or something? You look kind of pale. You want me to send up a doctor, or pick up some aspirin for you?”
I shook my head. Funny, they were going to make sure I was healthy before they killed me. Aspirin? Sure, about nine or ten bottles so I wouldn’t feel it coming. Send up a gallon of Jim Beam while you’re at it. I’ll flush the aspirin with lots of whiskey.
“Okay then. I will be back in an hour.”
GO DAMN IT! I DON’T NEED TO BE REMINDED A DOZEN TIMES YOU WILL BE BACK TO TAKE ME OFF TO DIE! I wanted to scream at him, but my voice wasn’t working.
Mike closed the door on his way out. I fell onto the bed crying my heart out. I wanted to live! Please God let me live! I would have gladly given them Jerry, but not now. Not Bridget! It was almost thirty minutes of crying remorsefully when I finally decided there was nothing I could do to stop them. I was a sacrificial lamb for the altar. Jerry made a pact with Morgan. He gave her his life and she accepted. Now it was time to fulfill the bargain Jerry had made. I pushed myself up off the bed and slid my heels and skirt off for the last time. My jacket and blouse were next. Walking into the bathroom, I started the bath and wondered if I could short circuit their plans by drowning myself. No... Jerry might have had the courage, but Bridget didn’t. I dropped my panties and bra, wrapped my hair up in a towel, and stepped into the bathtub.
Twenty minutes later, I knew I was running late as I dried off and walked back into the bedroom to pick up my makeup out of my overnighter. It was funny as I thought about it. What could they do to me for being late, kill me? Ha! I was headed that way already. I was wondering if Donna knew about this. She seemed so sincere when she told me she would see me in two days.
I managed to get my face presentable and put on my panties when there was a knock on the door. I walked over and opened it. Mike was standing there, and his eyes kept growing as they darted from my face down to my naked breasts and back to my face. “Uh, I mean... do you want me to wait outside?”
“No need. I’ll slip into the dress and heels. It will only take a sec. Come on in.” I turned and walked back across the room to the closet where the powder blue dress was hanging. A long evening gown, it had sequins and beads in swirls across the bust, diagonally down the front from left to right where it splashed out in sequined and beaded flowers on the right hip. It was no doubt designed to maximize my measurements as the observer’s eyes were drawn from breasts to waist to hips.
Slipping it off the hanger I stepped into it and pulled it up over my hips. It was strapless with a bustier top. I held the top up with my left arm as I shook my hips and pushed with my right hand to get it to settle in place. Turning my back to Mike, I pulled my hair over my shoulder out of the way. “Zip me up please.”
Mike stepped over and zipped me up and then put his hands on my shoulders. “Bridget, what’s wrong?”
I couldn’t deny everything was all right because it wasn’t. I know he could feel my shoulders trembling under his hands. “Mike, I don’t want to die.”
There, I said it. As hard as I tried not, I was crying again.
Gently he turned me around. He reached up with his right hand and gently wiped the tears running down my chin. “Die? Who has threatened you Bridget? You’re not going to die. Not if Morgan has anything to do with it. I imagine Mr. Logan would make sure there was hell to pay if anyone hurt you. Give me a name or tell me when it happened. No one can threaten you and get away with it.”
I was confused to say the least. “Morgan is killing me tonight.”
Mike looked astonished as he studied my face. “Morgan? Where did you get that idea? Morgan isn’t going to kill you. She thinks you are the best thing to come along in centuries. Where did you get the idea Morgan would kill you?”
“From you.” Why was he trying to deny it? Was it so I would go with him without causing a scene?
“From me? When? I never said any such thing. What were you drinking on that flight up here?” Mike’s eyes were blinking as he tried to fathom where Bridget had pulled all this up from.
“You said my debt with Morgan would be paid tonight.” Why was I having to repeat what he told me?
I was hurt and couldn’t believe it when he started laughing. “Paid in full doesn’t mean she is going to kill you. It means you will have fulfilled the contract and she will break the agreement. You do the fashion show for her and she will accept that as full payment.”
I was in shock. “That’s it?”
“Need there be more? Morgan doesn’t have a need for money or things of material value. She enjoys people. In Jerry, she saw something of value.” He was watching my eyes as he spoke.
“Jerry had nothing of value. He had lost everything. His life was over.”
“No, you’re wrong. Look in the mirror Bridget. There was gold in Jerry. A beautiful person who only needed a little help was dying to live.”
Slowly, I closed the distance and wrapped my arms around his neck as I laid my head up against his chest and cried. “Thanks Mike.”
He wrapped his arms around me and held me as I cried. “Thank Morgan, I had nothing to do with it.”
I finally managed to get my emotions under control to a limited extent. I backed up and looked for tissue. “I’m sorry, I think I ruined your jacket.”
He glanced down and brushed at the wet spot and the makeup I had wiped on his suit. “No problem. No harm done. I have another in the room. Get your shoes on, dry your eyes, and let’s go see about turning the world on its ear at a fashion show.”
“My makeup is messed up. Give me a minute to put myself back together.” I pulled a handful of Kleenex out of the holder as I slipped on my heels.
“No time. Dry your eyes. Let’s swing by my room for a change and see if LeAnn still has that limo waiting downstairs.” He opened the door behind him as he was speaking. “Donna said it was impossible to get you there on time. Let’s go Bridget. The makeup people will want to do it over anyway.”
I picked up my purse off the bed as I headed for the door. “This black purse doesn’t go with this dress.”
Mike crossed the room to the closet and lifted a bolero jacket off the hanger that matched the gown. He walked out behind me closing the door. “Bridget, I promise with the dress you are wearing no one is going to be looking at your purse.”
In the hall I stopped, put my hands on my hips, and turned around to look at Mike. “I look nice?”
“Nice? Damn it Bridget, you look... Let me put it this way. If there is any competition your equal, I have yet to see her.” He shook his head as he walked over to the next room and opened the door.
“Give me a minute.” He disappeared into the room.
I think he took a little longer but not much. He was back and had changed into a different suit. Mike held out the bolero jacket for me to slip into before he pushed the elevator button. He was looking at his watch before the elevator arrived. “Donna was right. She said it would take a miracle to get you there on time. We are late.”
He held out his hand. “I also agree with you. The purse clashes with your dress. Let me carry it for you.”
I was thinking it a strange request for a man as I handed him my shoulder purse. “Sure.”
As I watched, slipping the shoulder strap up on his shoulder was natural to Mike. He either carried a lot of camera equipment with straps or he was like me, having started life as something other than what he was now.
He held open the doors on the elevator after it reached our floor. “Let’s go see how many people came to a fashion show.”
The hem on the sequined dress wasn’t long enough to drag on the floor, so I didn’t have to hold it up. However it’s human nature to want to do something with the hands if they aren’t occupied. I hung onto the hem of my jacket as we walked out of the elevator, through the lobby, and to the limo.
We were headed across town as I did the best I could with my makeup. Riding along in a car isn’t the place to be sticking a sharp eyeliner in the eye and trying to define the eyes. Mike offered to help and I accepted. He was an expert and definitely had done this before as he rested the heel of his hand against my cheek and made up my eyes. I wanted to ask if he had been she, but didn’t. It wasn’t a question one asked another person.
It gave me pause to think as I remembered that first evening I met Morgan. “Mike, I think I remember Morgan saying her fashion show was going to be in Rio. Of course I was in kind of a mental meltdown. She could have said San Francisco.”
“She did say Rio. Morgan pulled in a lot of favors to get this San Francisco showing. Shi Kasonsu originally set up this show you are attending. He swapped with Morgan and is doing her show in Rio.” Never looking up, Mike opened up a laptop as he spoke.
“Why?” It was a non-question because I had no concept of what made a fashion show except what I read accidentally in some magazine. Commonsense told me they were a combination of long range planning, hard work, and intensive arm twisting to get the fashion show blurbed in all the right papers.
“Because Mr. Logan asked her to.”
“Again, why? What’s so special about San Francisco?” I was having a conversation with Mike about something I had no idea of, and the reasoning was out of my mind’s grasp. I should have let it drop. I was out of my depth.
Mike stopped typing and looked at me for a long time before he spoke. “Mr. Logan asked her to change to San Francisco because he likes you. He said you deserved to find out. Morgan disagreed, but she hasn’t been around you for the past two days like Mr. Logan and Horace have.”
I wanted to ask questions, but I didn’t know where to start. It was like waking up in the middle of a barroom brawl and not knowing who started the fight. The best move is to not move.
Mike looked out his window as he took a deep breath. “You will meet some people here tonight. Stay cool and don’t... Just don’t is all.”
“Who am I going to meet?” Finally some solid information I could relate to.
“You’ll know when you meet them. Mr. Logan must like you an awful lot. He put out a lot of effort to have these people found.” Mike turned his attention back to his computer.
“Who? Mike, tell me who.” It was to no avail. Mike had stopped answering questions.
LeAnn stopped the limo in front of a huge building. There were six or eight policemen inside a roped off corridor holding back a throng of people. Mike closed up his laptop. “Bridget, wait for me to open your door.”
Before Mike could maneuver himself into position, a young man opened my door. He held his hand out. “Please, allow me.”
As I turned in the seat I placed my left hand in his and stood up. It felt awkward but from a distance I guess it looked chivalrous. Mike stood up beside me, turned, and held out his arm. I arranged my hair before I slipped my left arm up in his as I gently rolled my right fingers into my skirt and slightly lifted. In my mind I was thinking, pomp and grace were more for show than for ease of doing something. I never knew ladies had it so difficult to look elegant. It wasn’t easy for sure.
Mike gave a slight nod. “Perfect Bridget. Shall we go in?”
“I think that’s why we came.” I knew it sounded like sarcasm as soon as it left my mouth.
He chuckled as he led me toward the building. “But of course.”
“Is that one of Morgan’s gowns?” came from the crowd as we walked toward the building.
“That’s Bridget Tonue. Miss Tonue could you please remove the coat?” Miss Tonue, please?”
Mike stopped. “They want pictures of you and Morgan’s gown. Let me hold your jacket while you give them what they want.”
They were taking pictures as I slipped out of the jacket and handed it to Mike. They wanted pictures of a dress? Who was wearing it was probably immaterial. I put my right hand on my hip as I rolled my hip out. I slid my left up under my hair behind my head and lifted á la Marilyn Monroe pose. I was wishing I had put my makeup back together at the hotel but it was too late. Not too late for the prerequisite coffee, tea, or me smile though.
There was rash of clicks and a crash over to my right. Mike and I turned to look. A guy had dropped his camera but not his attention. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Mike leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I think you got his attention.”
Laughing, I winked at the man. “Honey, they work better if you don’t bounce them around on the ground.”
It was a mistake. The crowd turned into a mob as each one of the reporters tried to get personal attention. Photographers and reporters were screaming questions at me that I couldn’t hear. Mike put his arm around my waist and urged me toward the building as the police did their best to restrain the mob.
Morgan was waiting as Mike led me inside. She held out her hand. “You look absolutely stunning.”
I took her hand, leaned forward, and kissed her on the cheek. “With all my heart, thank you for my life.”
Morgan took a step back as she held my hand. She was looking into my eyes. “Logan said you were a surprise. You certainly are. You are released from the contract. You may leave now if you like. LeAnn will drive you back to the airport, no questions asked.”
“May I stay? Mike said I had a job as master of ceremonies for the event. I mean, if you will allow me that is.” There was no way I could repay Morgan for my life but I did want to stay. Mike told me Morgan changed shows for me and I was going to meet some people. Curiosity as to what the evening held probably was as big a reason for staying as my life debt to Morgan.
“You think I may change you back?” Morgan was wondering why I didn’t take her up on her offer to leave.
“God I hope not! Jerry isn’t going to prison for something he didn’t do. I’ll kill myself first.” It scared me that she might actually bring Jerry back.
“Hmm, I see. Let’s go through a practice run then if you are ready. Mike, take her to makeup and then meet me on stage.” Morgan took another look before she turned and walked off.
Mike put his arm around my waist and urged me for one of the hallways leading off the entrance. “Let’s see what makeup can do that I couldn’t, shall we?”
Wrapping my arm around his waist, I leaned into him as we walked. “Mike, what are Morgan and the others? Are they witches, or magicians, or aliens or what?”
“None of those Bridget. They are gods.”
That shocked me and I stopped short. “You’re kidding? You mean God?”
Turning me loose, Mike turned his head to look at me. “No, not The God. They are lesser deities. Morgan? She is Mahuru, the Polynesian goddess of spring. She is the fresh start to the season or life if you want to look at it in that respect.”
Holding out my right hand I took a look at the long slender fingers, the long sharp nails, and delicate hand. “Fresh start is one way of saying it. There is no way I can repay her for what she’s done for me. I don’t know if I would have picked this particular way to start over but it’s agreeable.”
Mike motioned with his left hand as he put his right arm around my waist again. “Do you think it will ever be possible to get you any place on time? Makeup is waiting.”
Walking along with Mike I had a million questions to ask. “Mr. Logan, Horace, and the rest of the tenants at Deity Arms are gods also?”
“No, not all of them.” Mike never hesitated.
“Is Donna a god?”
“No.”
“A Leprechaun?” I wouldn’t swear she had magical powers but she sure seemed to know a lot.
Mike shook his head. “Everyone knows Leprechauns are small men, not girls or women.”
“Yeah, and gods are fairytales too. When one myth is broken then all the rules are banished.” I gave Mike an extra one arm heartfelt hug as he steered me into a room full of people.
We did makeup. Along with makeup they swept my hair up and into a twist style on my head. Mike took me into a huge banquet room with a runway where we went through a dry run for the evening’s fashion show. I had a handful of notes and a teleprompter to keep me on track as I described each dress, gown, or costume as the models walked down the runway and back. Of course the models weren’t there yet. Mike was giving me pointers on how fast or slow I should be reading, how much inflections I should be putting in my voice on certain descriptive comments, and my posture as I did my Master of Ceremonies performance.
Men in suits, women in gowns, and lots of people with cameras started filtering into the banquet room at half an hour before seven P.M. Mike took me out to ‘mingle’ with the guests as he put it. It was a shock to hear many of those I was introduced to already knew me. “Oh, I saw your picture on the front of Culture magazine yesterday.” “So pleased to meet you Miss Tonue. I loved the article on In Edition.” “You’re as beautiful as your pictures and that gown has to be a Morgan original. I have to add it to my must have list.”
At ten after seven, Mike escorted me back to the podium and five minutes later gave me an introduction. I don’t remember all of it but it began, “Ladies and gentlemen welcome to Morgan’s San Francisco Fashions Show. Our master of ceremonies this evening is the lovely and talented, Bridget Renee Tonue...”
One at a time, Mike escorted the models out from behind the stage. I would describe the dress or gown as the model walked down the runway and back. Mike than escorted her off the stage and brought back the next one. I thought Mike added a lot of class to the show.
The fashion show was a lot of fun. Jerry had done more than his fair share of business promotions and presentations. This was the same thing. The only difference was that instead of software, I was promoting designer dresses, evening gowns, and leisure wear for the well-to-do woman. I knew Morgan’s designs would be copied and put on the discount rack in less than a week. Heck, it was the same thing in software. Pirates are pirates whether it is designer clothes, software, or anything of value to copy and sell.
At the closing of the show I introduced Morgan. It dawned on me as I was introducing her that she only used the name Morgan and no other. “Ladies and gentlemen, our hostess for the evening, Morgan.”
Morgan stepped up to the podium as everyone rose and gave a rousing round of applause. “Thank you Bridget. Ladies and gentlemen thank you for coming this evening. I hope you enjoyed…”
I walked backstage and slipped off my bolero jacket and pulled on white opera length gloves. I was carrying my jacket on my shoulder as Mike escorted me back on stage as Morgan mentioned my name.
“And here she is one more time, Miss Tonue wearing a powder blue, silk, floor-length evening gown. The gown has a bustier top. The design on the dress is by Dasher, hand sewn seed pearls and sequins. The dress is accessorized with a matching bolero jacket which carries the same design as the dress. For those special evenings…”
Mike stopped at the edge of the runway. I kept going and halfway down dropped my jacket to one of the photographers taking pictures. Except for Morgan talking as she described the dress it became deathly quiet in the banquet room. Everyone was wondering if I had made a mistake. A twelve thousand dollar outfit and I had tossed the matching jacket for it.
I pulled off my right glove as I walked to the end of the runway. I tossed it out to the audience. The photographers went wild taking pictures as everyone screamed. They had finally figured out I was either going to tease them or I was a striptease act. I rolled off my left glove and tossed it. The audience roared in excitement.
Looking back at Morgan she nodded approval to continue as she had prompted me before the show. I bent over, put my hands on my knees, stuck my butt out and wiggled my shoulders at the photographers in front of me.
They were ready. Cameras flashed, smiles spread from ear to ear, and the audience screamed, ‘more!’ I turned around to the other side of the runway and did the Marilyn pose for them as I shifted my hips to the right, put my right hand on it and put my left hand up under my hair. The crowd went wild as they screamed. Every girl knows that pose exaggerates all the curves. The hips look even wider than they are, the breasts are pushed up and out as the left arm is brought up and back, and the waist becomes an optical illusion of tiny as it’s lost between. Marilyn knew what she was doing and so does every girl who follows her.
I turned and strolled up the runway where Mike was waiting to escort me off the stage. I was wondering if the guys who had the gloves would keep them or toss them in the trash. What can a person do with one glove? What about the guy who caught the designer jacket? Would he buy the dress so he could have the outfit or would he toss part of a twelve thousand dollar outfit? Would Morgan’s idea of a burlesque make front page news or be a bust. Okay, so it was a partial burlesque. I didn’t really strip.
Morgan kept a running dialog going as she thanked everyone for coming while I changed into the wedding gown that had been in Morgan’s apartment. It only took a couple minutes to shed the powder blue gown and step into the white satin, strapless, wedding dress. The dress was absolutely, stunningly gorgeous. I still thought it was the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. Delicate brocade, seed pearls, and lace covered the bodice of the dress. My breasts were delicately poised wrapped in white satin. The full skirt bellowed out in radiant glimmering white satin. There was a ten foot long train attached.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the finale for the evening, once again, Miss Tonue.” It was Morgan’s cue to me.
My arm was through Mike’s left as he escorted me back on stage. I could hear a couple of gasps as I walked up to the runway. There would be no striptease act this time. Morgan wanted nothing but class and I was determined to do my best. Mike handed me a bouquet of white roses as I stepped out to center stage. The dress rustled with every step as I began my journey down the runway.
“The wedding dress is white satin. The bodice is delicately embroidered white satin. The...”
I lost Morgan as I walked down the runway. I could only imagine the ultimate dream of any little girl would be to be wearing a wedding dress similar to the one I was wearing as she walked down the aisle of a huge church as the man of her dreams waited at the altar. I was wondering if Kelli ever made that trip after she abandoned me. Ironic isn’t it? Although I didn’t have the man of my dreams waiting at the end of my walk, I had switched places and was now wearing what Kelli would have, provided we had married.
I never saw the flashing cameras, nor heard Morgan as she described the gown. I was lost in my own world. I have no idea if I did it rightly or not. A reality check came home when Mike took my arm, leaned over, and whispered in my ear, “May I have this dance?”
“What? Oh, I guess. Did we do it already?” I was trying to figure out if I had made the walk or not?
“We did.” Mike escorted me backstage and a couple of girls unfastened the train.
The models were headed back out to the banquet room to mingle with the guests as Morgan stepped backstage where Mike and I stopped. “You did it perfectly Bridget. I imagine I will receive the reviews I was hoping for. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Thank you Morgan. You are too kind. I know you would have managed with or without me. It was kind of you to say so though.” I was studying Morgan as I answered her. I had no idea what a god should look like but maybe they should look like her. I had thought of her as Arabic when I met her that first day. After what Mike had said I realized she was Polynesian. Tan skin tone, high cheekbones, dark eyes, beautifully arched eyebrows, long lashes, sweetheart lips... a Hawaiian goddess for sure.
She smiled as if she was sharing a secret when she glanced toward Mike before turning her attention back in my direction. “Let’s go work the clients Bridget. See if we can’t get a few more lines of ink printed about the show.”
“Sure.” Holding up my skirt I followed her out to the banquet room where Morgan’s other models were already “working” the press and the clients.
Morgan led me over to a cluster of six men. “Gentlemen, did you like the show? Ben, Pete, I want you to meet, Bridget Renee Tonue.”
One of the other men held out his hand for a handshake. “I’m Earl, editor of the Coming Times. I saw your pictures in Guys and Dolls. Rumor has it you are going to be Morgan’s calendar for next year. Care to comment?”
I took his hand and I bet my eyes glazed over because I was lost. Before I could make a fool out of myself and say, ‘I have no idea what you are talking about’ Morgan stepped in and let me off the hook. “Hopefully Bridget is doing a calendar layout for the coming year for my company. It hasn’t been inked yet. She has a tentative with Casual Magazine for the April issue. I’m sure she would be glad to talk to you about her coming schedule. Earl, would you try and focus on this evening.”
Another man looked hurt before he smiled and winked at me. “I thought that was what we were doing? Focusing on the evening that is. And a lovely evening it is too Morgan. You always have the most beautiful girls in your shows. Bridget is one of the most exquisite models you have shown us to date.”
“And her gown? That is the reason you came isn’t it Jimmy, to look at my new line of gowns?” Morgan reached over and touched my dress for emphasis as she spoke.
The man she called Jimmy stared at me for a few seconds before he answered, “Morgan, your designs are the best, that’s a given. You can’t deny you put damned beautiful ladies inside those gowns to make every woman who sees them think she could look as good if she bought your dress.”
A smile spread across Morgan’s face. “Jimmy, you think I would be as devious as that? I’m hurt you would suggest such an idea.”
“Morgan, I not only think you would, I know. Now tell me how I can do the same. I want Bridget for a layout in Travel Treasures.” He reached in his pocket, pulled out a business card, and handed it to Morgan.
“Gentlemen, if you want to work Bridget into any photo ops, I strongly suggest you contact her agent. Jimmy, I’ll pass along the message and your card. Come Bridget, I want you to meet Lynn Johnston.” Morgan took my hand and was urging me over to our right.
I had never thought of models as a merchandising gimmick, but I guess they are. I also never thought of models needing a business agent to handle their schedules, but I guess they do, just as Jerry needed a secretary to schedule his appointments. One of the reasons I had never given any thought to any of these things was because up until today, I never considered myself as a model. But then I hadn’t given very much thought to what I was. Was I a flight attendant? I had the uniforms but no schedule except Donna waking me up and telling me I was late for my flight. I guess when it came down to it, I was here and nothing else.
Morgan led me over to where a woman was talking to a group of men. She pointed to the lady. “Bridget, this is Lynn Johnston who writes for Fashionable Times. Lynn, this is...”
The lady had turned her attention to us when Morgan started to introduce us. “I know who she is. You needn’t introduce us.”
Lynn gave me the once over from head to toe. “Everything I have heard is true. Yesterday an associate dropped Guys and Dolls on my desk. She told me to take a look at the new face. She said Bridget was going to be a household name within six months. She’s probably right.”
“Morgan, your gowns are sure to send a few wags running to the boutiques. If I had any hope of filling it out like Bridget does, I think I would be tempted to spend this year’s income on one myself.”
“Thank you Lynn. Does that mean you will say something nice in your review tomorrow?” Morgan touched my gown for emphasis.
“Well, I don’t know. You let me borrow Bridget’s powder blue gown for the charity ball next week and I’ll write two columns about your show.” Lynn’s eyes were gleaming with mischief as she glanced from me to Morgan.
Morgan laughed as she shook her head. “Lynn, I hate to tell you this but you’re dreaming if you think you can wear the same gown Bridget is wearing.”
A smirk spread across Lynn’s face. “That hurt Morgan. Just for that, I’m only going to write one column about your show. The second column will be about Bridget and the gown she’s wearing.”
“I really didn’t see anything here worth writing about.”
My heart jumped up in my throat as I recognized the voice behind me.
Morgan and I turned around at the same time. I must have run a thousand options through my mind in less than a heartbeat. Murder, killing them with my bare hands, jumping on them and beating the holy shit out of both of them, screaming at them they had ruined my life, damning them for eternity... Then I took a second look at the woman. She was but she wasn’t. I mean, the face was her, but her body...? She always had beautiful platinum blond, shoulder-length hair. The woman in front of me had mousy brown, short-cropped hair and her bust was anything but the one I remembered.
He was the same though. Nothing had changed about him. He still had the weasel smile and his eyes were devouring me with the same look he had cast upon all the women who worked under him. I knew his thoughts better than he did. He was trying to figure out how to get me in his bed for a romp under the covers. If that wasn’t an option then he would settle for getting in me from any position.
“Bridget, I want you to meet Robert and Nancy Drake. Mr. Drake is an advertising executive and his charming wife Nancy is a florist.” Morgan pointed with her left hand in their direction.
“Nancy? Married? Drake?” I was choking down every word as my mind fought with what I was hearing. When we were living together it was Kelli Stalwart and she was a platinum blonde with a forty, twenty-six, thirty-six figure on a five-seven frame. The face was the same, but this woman was what, a thirty-four, twenty-eight, thirty-six?
“She doesn’t seem too bright, does she? She always repeats everything?” Nancy reached out with her right hand and prodded my left breast. “They look so fake. I had some done by Dr. Ketchner. They were so realistic, it was impossible to tell.”
She cupped her right breast with her right hand. “I had the implants removed. Men fell all over themselves talking to my tits. They could never stop staring. Men are so stupid. I had one who wanted to marry me because I had large breasts. I should have left them with him. He could have married them. He would have lived happily ever after.”
Reaching over with her left arm, she wrapped it around Robert’s waist. “My husband isn’t that shallow. He married me because he likes me, not my tits. Don’t you honey?”
I wanted to scream at her that Robert married her because she helped him screw me out of my business, my money, and my life. Money was the key word for sure. “You have one in a million, Nancy.”
“I sure do... Bridget is it? That your stage name? It sounds so shallow. Kind of artificial like your tits.” She smiled. “No offense of course.”
My god! I couldn’t believe I was in love and had asked this bitch to marry me at one time. Why was she trying her best to slice and dice me now? “No, of course, no offense taken.”
“When you get tired of men following you around wanting to feel your tits then call Dr. Ketchner. He is the best in the business. He can remove those breast implants you have without leaving any visible scars.” Nancy looked into my eyes to see if she had struck a nerve yet.
“Thank you dear. You’re so kind to give me special advice.” I wanted to deck her. Instead I managed to bring up my coffee, tea, or me smile.
“Bridget has more than beauty going for her. For a few thousand dollars she purchased an option in a software company. It should come up on the market in a few months. She scooped the competition.” Morgan nodded in my direction.
“I know something about software. Owned a software company myself at one time. Got out at the right time. Sold it for millions. What’s the name of the company you picked up Bridget?” Robert had joined in the conversation.
Morgan looked over at me. “I forgot what you told me the name of that company was? Uh, Not Lotions...? No, that doesn’t sound right. Let’s see. Hot Topics? Sure that’s it. Hot Topics.”
I was positive I was in shock. I know Nancy and Robert were. They both turned white.
“Hot Topics? How much did you pay for the option?” Robert coughed out after he found his voice.
“Well, Bridget told me not to tell but she said she paid sixty thousand for all the software rights and the rights to purchase the name. I understand the company machinery and many of the personnel are still available to begin production. I only wish I had been notified of the offer. Bridget is going to make millions on that transaction.” Morgan shook her head in disgust at a missed opportunity.
A smile spread across Robert’s face. “Small world isn’t it. That was the company I owned at one time. Listen, you need a partner, and I already know all about that business. Sixty thousand did you say? I could go for half at thirty thousand. Of course, the profits would be fifty-fifty, but you could run the office.”
I wanted to stick my finger down my throat and puke. How I ever let these two con artists close to me once before was beyond my reasoning. What had I been thinking? “Uh, that’s very kind of you Mr. Drake. I’ll keep it in mind if the option goes through.”
“No need for waiting to see. I’ll take a gamble on a fifty percent share for thirty thousand. I’ll write you a check now.” Robert was reaching inside his jacket for his checkbook.
“No, I’m sorry but I can’t take your money at this time. It wouldn’t be right. If it fell through, I would feel I owed you for talking you into sharing in a shaky agreement.” I was thinking that if I had a gun, I would shoot both of them and put them out of their misery right here and now.
Morgan nodded at me as if she knew what I was thinking. “Bridget also bought some sort of well-drilling invention, or equipment or whatever. She was trying to describe it to me, but I didn’t understand it. The only thing I understood was that if she could find the backing, then it would make her rich.”
“What kind of well-drilling equipment is it Bridget?” Robert’s curiosity had been pricked.
“Uh, well, it’s hard to explain. Easier to show someone, rather than explain it.” I was running through my mind all the trash I had read about anything to do with drilling and it wasn’t much.
“Uh, it, that is, it’s called a core bore.” I was desperately searching though my memory for anything I could think of about drilling.
“That wouldn’t interest us would it darling.” Nancy faked a yawn of disinterest as she put her hand up against her mouth.
“Probably not. Doesn’t sound like much. What is it supposed to do?” Robert glanced over at Nancy for a second before he turned back to me.
“Uh, well, it, ah, it works without all the equipment one normally associates with drilling rigs. Like I said, hard to describe. I guess it you might say it would be akin to sending an electric drill down into the ground.” I was floundering as I searched my mind for ideas and wondering why Morgan had sent me down this path.
“I see.” Robert looked at his watch. “It’s been interesting...”
“I’m investing everything I own in Bridget’s Core Bore enterprise. I’ve seen a test. They tell me they will do a real bore in search of raw energy or oil in a few days if they can get enough cash to keep it going.” Morgan’s eyes were gleaming as she enthusiastically pitched my imaginary drilling proposal.
“How much are you investing Morgan? I mean, not that I would be interested but I was curious.” Robert hesitated for a second.
“I had two million and borrowed two more to invest. I know this is going to be the next evolution in energy production. Core Bore will make Bridget the richest person in the world and I’m going along too.” Morgan had sweetened the bait.
I had no idea what Morgan was fishing for. The only thing I was positive of was that Nancy and Robert were the intended victims of these fabricated lies.
Nancy pulled on Robert’s arm. “Let’s go dear. I have a terrible headache and all this business talk is making it worse.”
Reluctantly Robert agreed. “Sure hon. Morgan, you have a business card?”
Morgan reached out her hand with a business card. “Call me anytime Mr. Drake.”
I watched as Robert took the card and walked out with Nancy. “Morgan?”
“Later Bridget. Mingle hon, mingle. These people may have shown up because it was my show, but it was you they wanted to see with their own eyes. Be nice to them Bridget. I need to sell a few more gowns to pay for this extravaganza. It is never cheap to put on one of these shows. This one was twice as expensive because of such short notice. Smile at the photographers and visit with the fashion writers for a few hours.”
Several hours later, tired wasn’t the word for how I felt. After LeAnn drove Mike and me back to the hotel, I was totally exhausted. In my room, I slipped out of the wedding gown, hung it up, and died before I touched the top of the bed.
There was a knock on my door. Opening my eyes, I looked for a clock but there wasn’t one. It was bright outside so the sun was way up. My wristwatch had been left with my black purse and that was? I had no idea. Again there was a light knock on my door. “I’m coming. Give me a minute.”
I didn’t pack a housecoat, so I pulled the top cover off the bed and wrapped it around me before I opened the door. A maid was standing there. “You are not ready for me to clean your room?”
“No, do you mind? Can you come back in thirty minutes? I’ll be dressed. Do you have the time?” I was wondering how long I had slept.
She glanced at her watch. “Of course. It’s twelve fifteen.”
“Thanks.” I had slept most of the day away already. It didn’t take me long to drop the cover on the bed, run a quick bath, and find a shimmering green, polyester dress in my suitcase. It took even less time to slip on pantyhose, bra, and a slip before stepping into the green dress. The dress had long sleeves, and a rather daring hem. I added four-inch white heels and diamond earrings along with a choker. I found enough makeup in my overnighter to halfway get my face on before I headed out the door.
I had no idea where to go, so I headed for the elevator and lobby. Mike was waiting there. He rose off the couch and headed across the room toward me. “Afternoon Bridget. You certainly look like a model.”
“Thank you Mike. You look nice this morning.” I honestly meant it as Mike had on a brown suit and a gray tie–something of a rarity in our age of casual dress.
He swung a white purse strap off his shoulder and handed it to me: “Your purse.”
“Thank you again. Is it your job to look out for me?” I was curious how he seemed to always know what I was needing.
“Let’s go into the dining room, order something to eat, and talk.” He motioned me toward a hallway leading off the entry.
“Sure.” I took the purse and slid the strap up on my shoulder as I slipped my left hand into his right. It felt like the natural thing to do.
Glancing in my direction, Mike smiled. “You are amazing.”
“How’s that?” I had no idea what was amazing.
He never answered as he walked with me over to a table and pulled out a chair. “Please.”
I sat down in the offered chair as Mike walked around the other side of the table and sat down. He motioned for a waiter and ordered two lunch specials without ever looking at a menu. When the waiter had left, Mike took a deep breath as he studied me. “Here goes. Bridget, Morgan wondered why you didn’t get upset when you met Nancy and Robert last night.”
“Upset? Upset? I was absolutely livid. I wanted to jump on them and strangle them with my bare hands.”
“Then why didn’t you?” Mike put his elbows on the table, placed his hands together, and rested his chin on his knuckles.
I felt like a kid being examined in kindergarten by the teacher. “Because it wasn’t physically possible. I may have been able to beat the living daylights out of Kelli or Nancy as she calls herself now. Robert could have taken one swipe and knocked me senseless. Bridget isn’t a prizefighter in case you haven’t noticed.”
“You didn’t retaliate against Nancy’s sarcasms. Again, why?”
“I was a representative of Morgan. Nancy may or may not have been buying Morgan’s gowns. The fact was, what Nancy did or didn’t do was immaterial. There were dozens of reporters there who would have jumped all over the case if I had gone ballistic. I was there as a guest of Morgan. Guests don’t air their dirty laundry in the host’s home.”
“I see. Morgan was impressed. That was the reason she baited the trap for you. The rest is up to you.” Mike picked up his napkin and spread it out as the waiter set down a couple of glasses of water.
“I don’t follow. What bait? What is up to me?” I was lost in this conversation.
“In your purse are two credit cards, a check book to your checking account with twenty four thousand dollars, and seven hundred dollars in your billfold. You have all the certificates and papers to live your life as Bridget Renee Tonue. You have that life now.” He picked up his water and took a sip as he watched me with his eyes.
“There is something else isn’t there?” I had been in enough business meetings to know when there was an incomplete report.
“As I said, Morgan baited the trap. It is up to you to decide if you want to see if you can catch a couple of rats. Morgan is out of it from here on. She won’t help you any further. Last night Morgan told Robert you had purchased a well-drilling business and needed investors. You added it was a business named Core Bore. Robert has called Morgan four times already this morning wanting to see your business and trying to get information on what it’s all about. He smells an opportunity. It’s up to you to see if you can reel him and Nancy in.” He waited for me to digest his speech.
“I’m supposed to set up the Core Bore operation to get Robert to invest?” I wanted to see if I had it figured out.
“Yes. The catch is, you are on your own. You will probably max out your credit cards and spend everything you have in the bank to set up the scam. If it fails then you will be in debt for a very long time. It’s a win or lose it all situation. Your call.” Mike wiped his hands on his napkin after he wiped the corners of his mouth.
“Revenge isn’t best served up cold. It’s best served up hot. Kelli and Robert stole everything including my life. I think I owe them something extra. I had nothing when Morgan saved me from myself.”
I winked at Mike. “Now I have a life. Money isn’t life. I can lose everything. I’m not going to look back and wish I had given it a shot. I want the opportunity to return the favor to Robert and Kelli. Or Nancy as she calls herself.
“As you wish. Do you have a plan? Morgan needs to give Robert some samples while he’s still drooling over the prospect.”
“Sure. I know a guy in the business... Okay, Jerry knew a guy in the business. Let’s see... I need to fly down to Houston to talk to him. He wouldn’t do this over the phone. We will set up a dummy corporation, a down hole shop, and a location in the field.” Mike was right. I was going to max out my life to set this up. It was going to take several hundred thousand dollars if not ten times that much to get the sting in place in less than a week.
“When are you going to Houston?” Mike pointed toward me as the waiter set a salad bowl down in front of us.
“Immediately. Today if possible. Oh... do I have a show with Morgan? I mean I’ll...”
“Morgan has gone to France. You have a flight out tomorrow afternoon on Atlantic from LAX. Until then it’s your time.” He motioned to the waiter. “Blue cheese dressing please for the lady and me.”
“I need to call the airlines and see about a flight to Houston. Wait, I’d better call Jim Castle and see if he’s there. He probably won’t give me an appointment. He and Jerry were thick friends. If he’s at the office I’ll fly in and he will see me even without an appointment.” I picked up my fork and was taking huge bites of salad as I was talking.
“Bridget?
“Yes?”
Mike pointed his fork at my salad bowl. “I’ll get you to Houston after you make the phone call. Morgan didn’t say I couldn’t help. You’ll have to fly in your Atlantic uniform for me to get you on board. It’s a trade courtesy thing between the airlines. You can take time to taste your meal. Slow down.”
My fork was halfway up to my stuffed mouth. Mike was right. I was gulping my meal down in my haste to get my plan started. I laid my fork down as I relaxed. I couldn’t reply. My mouth was full.
I had no idea what I ate for lunch. I was too excited about getting to Houston and talking to Jim. Mike let me pay for our lunch as he made a couple phone calls. I then headed for my room and a change of clothes. I was soon back to looking like an Atlantic stewardess when Mike knocked on my door.
“It’s not locked come on in. I’m dressed.” I was brushing my hair as I gathered up my things.
Mike nodded his approval as he walked into the room. “You look professional Bridget. Here’s the plan. I have a ticket for Houston on American. You can come back here after your meeting or go to Los Angeles. What’s your choice?”
“Los Angeles would probably be a better idea. I’m flying out of there tomorrow back to New York. Save a few air miles. What about a room? They aren’t expecting me there. Maybe I need to come back here? I need to be saving my money for the sting operation if I can get Jim to put it together for me. It’s going to take bunches of money to rent a drilling rig, men, equipment, a shop, office, and have decals printed up for the trucks and equipment so it will look like Core Bore Drilling Company.”
Mike walked over and opened my suitcase. “I’ll help you pack so you can switch to Los Angeles. You will share a room with Vivian, Atlantic’s room.”
“Thanks Mike, I couldn’t do this without you.” I pointed toward the wedding gown. “That isn’t going in my suitcase. Where does it go?”
“My job. I’ll take care of it. He emptied the hangers and laid my clothes on the bed so I could fold them into the suitcase.
Mike walked me down to the curb after I had everything packed. He had called for a cab and they were waiting. He put the suitcase in the cab and held the door open with his right hand.
“Thanks for everything Mike.” I leaned up and gave him a kiss on the cheek before I slid into the backseat of the cab.
“Good luck Bridget. I really do hope it works out for you. Go to American. The tickets are waiting for you.” He closed the door.
The cab driver pulled out before I could answer Mike. I was praying it would work.
The gentleman at American was more than courteous as I approached the ticket counter. “Bridget, we were expecting you. I have your tickets. Do you want to check one of your bags?”
I took the offered tickets as I shook my head. “No, I’m in a hurry and don’t want to have to wait on luggage on the other end. Do you mind?”
“Of course not. It’s a pleasure to have one of Atlantic’s own flying with us. Your plane is almost loaded. They should be closing the doors in fifteen minutes. Have a good flight.” He pointed off down the concourse toward his right.
I made it with time to spare even if that plane was parked clear down on the other end of the terminal. Denna was the name of the stewardess taking boarding tickets. She waved me on without even looking at my ticket. “Welcome to American Airlines Miss Tonue. Hope you enjoy your flight.”
Thanking her, I walked on the plane and was given a seat next to the stewardess. A few minutes later we were airborne and I was asked to visit the cockpit. I knew why. Pilots are pilots no matter what the name on their uniform says. American, Atlantic, Southwest, they were all the same. They wanted to see an Atlantic Hooters stewardess up close.
I was game so I walked up to the cockpit. “Good afternoon Captain. May I get you and your co-pilot a cup of coffee or some juice?”
The pilot turned around to get a good look before he answered. “Coffee would be great thanks.”
The co-pilot’s eyes kept growing after he turned around for a look. “Uh... orange juice for me if it’s not too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all. How do you like your coffee Captain?”
“Cream and sugar, please.” He was still staring.
I looked over at the flight engineer. “May I bring something back for you?”
“Sure...” He was eye level with my breasts and I thought his eyes were going to fall out.
“And what would that be? Coffee or juice?” I was thinking maybe these guys would shift over to flying for Atlantic so they could fly the Hooters Skies.
“Orange juice I guess.” He finally realized he was staring at my breasts and tried to look at my face.
“One coffee, two orange coming up.” I walked back to the galley to get their order.
Karen, American’s stewardess met me in the galley. “I can get it for them Bridget. You shouldn’t be doing this. It’s not your job.”
“In a way it is. It’s our job to keep the crew and the passengers happy. That’s what we do for a living. Atlantic, American, whatever makes no difference. I know they wanted to window shop the merchandise Atlantic is flying. Don’t worry Karen, I’m not on the market.”
Karen kneeled down and pulled a magazine out from the cabinet. She laid it down on the counter and opened it up to the centerfold. I was looking at me wearing a powder blue evening gown. I was tossing the jacket. ‘Bridget Renee Tonue that says it all’ was the caption.
Karen sighed. “I can’t compete with that.”
I gave Karen the once over. Angelic face, way above average beauty, and a curvaceous body that would be labeled ‘too hot to handle’ under normal circumstances. “Hon, you can compete with any woman but it would be a lost cause because anyone else would be second best. Which one is on your shopping list?”
“Kyle, he’s the navigator. I can’t get him to get serious.” Karen closed up the magazine, Fashion Fortune.
“Are you handing out samples?” I finished the drinks for the crew.
“Sa... uh... yes.” Karen looked embarrassed.
“That’s a secret just between us. Okay, tell him the market is closed until he proposes.” I looked to see if she was going to give it any thought.
“I can’t do that. He can snap his fingers and a dozen women will jump in his bed.” She looked astonished I would suggest such a thing.
“Let them jump if that’s the outcome. Why should he offer to purchase the product when he’s getting it for free? You aren’t ever going to get Kyle to propose if he can have what he wants without any commitments. Give it some thought Karen. And drop me out of the picture. Like I said, I’m not on the market.” I picked up the drinks for the crew and headed back to the cockpit to pass them out.
Before the flight was up I was invited to the rear galley. I knew that was to give American passengers a look at what Atlantic was flying as hostesses. I saw the humor in it so I did the walk down the aisle to the rear of the plane. On the way I stopped to visit and ask a dozen or so passengers if they were comfortable. I had a short chat with the American crew before I returned to my seat.
At Houston I caught a cab to Castle Fishing Tools. Jim didn’t make tools to catch fish. He designed tools to pull lost pipe string up out of an oil well or dry hole. I had to run a gauntlet of secretaries to get to Jim’s personal secretary. I honestly believe if I hadn’t been wearing my Atlantic uniform I wouldn’t have made it past the secretaries. There’s something about a uniform that says ‘professional’ even if it was skimpy like the one I was wearing. Jim’s secretary wasn’t giving up Jim for anyone who didn’t have an appointment.
I wasn’t going to give up even if I had to wait for him to come out of his office. “Tell Mr. Castle that Jerry Rands sent me. I have a personal message for Jim.”
“Give me the message and I’ll deliver it.” Carla wasn’t a gatekeeper for nothing.
“I said it was personal. Would you mind calling him and telling him Jerry Rands sent me?”
She looked like she wasn’t going to give up her boss. Finally she capitulated as she picked up the phone. Carla knew Jerry Rands also. She had talked to him on the phone several times. She knew Jerry and Jim were good friends. “A Miss Tonue here to deliver a message from Jerry Rands.”
Carla hung up the phone as she motioned toward the door beside her desk. “If you lied to me, I’ll make you pay. Mr. Castle said he would talk to you.”
“Thanks Carla. Jerry said you were the best secretary Jim could have. I know he appreciates it.” I opened the door and walked into Jim’s office.
Jim stood up as his eyes grew two sizes. “You know Jerry? I heard he was dragged into court. How is he?”
“Dead.” I knew that would kick this conversation into high gear.
It took a lot longer than I had anticipated to talk Jim into what I needed from him. It was also going to take a lot more money than I had counted on. It was after ten P.M. and everyone had gone home from the office. Jim and I were left alone with the exception of the building security guard. Jim accepted the story I told him with the condition I let him check it out come morning. I left him a check made out for twenty four thousand dollars. It was the amount Mike told me I had in a checking account. I also handed Jim the seven hundred dollars I had in my purse. It was everything I had except my last forty two dollars. Jim gave me a ride back to the airport.
At the airport I gave Jim a kiss on the cheek as he handed me my luggage out of the back seat. Jim looked embarrassed by the kiss. I reached up and wiped the lipstick off with my hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
He studied my eyes the way he always use to study Jerry’s eyes when we were talking. “I can’t believe it. I mean you look so damn much woman and you act like one too. I’m still thinking this has to be a joke.”
“No joke Jim. Forget Jerry. He had a life and he’s gone. I’m the replacement. I can’t do this without you. Kelli and Robert killed Jerry. They took his life as sure as if they had shot and buried him. I can’t let them get away with it without at least trying to pay them back. Please tell me you will help me.” I backed up to give him a little room to think.
Never losing his concentration on my eyes, he sighed. “What can it hurt if you are lying? I mean, this has so many holes in it, no one will buy it. All I’m going to lose is a little money and time. I’ll have Core Bore Drilling Company set up in two days. Send me the fish by Friday at one o’clock, no later. This has to be an up and gone situation no matter the outcome. The government will be all over this if we run it for five days. I’ll have the rig up and drilling, you’ll get your gusher, and two hours later the location will be plowed under to keep the EPA from hauling all of us off to Federal prison for pollution. I can think of three dozen Federal and state laws we are breaking.”
“Thanks Jim. Win or lose, I always thought you were the best friend a guy could ever wish for in any life.” I picked up my carryon and headed for the plane as I pulled my suitcase along on its rollers.
“Two days, no longer. After two days we close up shop and I never heard of you.”
I waved a hand in the air to acknowledge I heard him as I headed for the plane. Jim said he might lose a little money. That was an understatement. He was going to lose a lot of money if Robert didn’t take the bait. Jim could also lose a lot of money if the government found out sooner than he expected. Maybe even prison if the government caught us. This really wasn’t Jim’s fight. Jim agreed to do it because he was Jerry’s friend.
I made the trip from Houston to LAX on Southwest Airlines. Vivian was sound asleep by the time I found the apartment. I found a hanger for my uniform and the bed in short order and was out of it in seconds.
“Are we going to go through life like this?”
I opened my eyes as someone was shaking me. I recognized the voice. “Time again Donna?”
“You got it sleepy head. I have your bath water running. We have the two o’clock flight and it’s after twelve. You have to hustle again girl.”
I rolled out of bed, stood up, and gave Donna a hug. “Jim is going to set it up for me.”
She backed out of my hug as she pushed me off. “Bath, dress, plane, talk later.”
“I have to call Mike and let him know so Morgan can let Robert know there will be a meeting.” I gathered up underclothes as I headed for the bathroom.
“Morgan has already talked to Robert. She let him know. Morgan told Robert he and Nancy are one of the few to see your Core Bore Company before stock is opened to the public.” Donna took my uniform off the hanger and laid it on the bed.
I stopped in the door to the bathroom. “Morgan has already told him? I thought she was out of this as of yesterday?”
“There is out and then there is out. Morgan won’t help you reel them in Bridget. She won’t be there to coax you when you do your sting as you try to get Robert and Nancy to invest.” Donna picked up my suitcase and tossed it on the bed.
“Will you be there?” I waited for an answer.
“Me? You gotta be joking. Why would you want me there? I can’t help you.” Donna turned to look at me as she put her hands on her hips.
“Flaming red hair, green eyes, fun in everything you do, tell me you aren’t a Leprechaun.”
“Okay... I’m not a Leprechaun. They are funny little men from Ireland and only a myth. Now get a bath, you stink like old cabbage.” A smile crept across her face as she watched me.
“Yeah, and I’m the Easter Bunny too.” I closed the door behind me, dropped my panties, walked over, and slid into the hot bath.
Vivian was checking tickets as Donna and I approached the boarding tunnel. “Ladies, you are late. I’m going to have to mark this on your report.”
Donna picked up the passenger manifest. “It’s all Bridget’s fault. She wants to sleep her life away. Mark her report twice.”
Looking up sharply at Donna, Vivian frowned. “Don’t get smart with me. I’ll flag your report with an attitude mark also.”
Donna glanced over at me. I was wondering if Donna was going to keep talking and get both of us fired? “Donna was only joking. I’m sorry, it was my fault we were late. I didn’t set my alarm and Donna came to get me. Please don’t dock Donna too.”
Vivian looked satisfied with the apology. “Both of you get a late report. Don’t let it happen again.”
Donna winked at me and then held up the manifest. “We promise. Well, surprise, guess who is in first class? Bridget is serving our first class passengers... again. I have the also rans in coach. I guess that should make our pilots happy to know Miss Tonue is their hostess on this flight.”
“It sure makes me happy,” came from behind us.
“Hello Captain.” I recognized the voice before I turned my head to my right to look.
He leaned up over my shoulder and gave me a kiss full on the lips before I had a chance to respond. “I expect appropriate service for the pilots on this trip.”
A smirk curled up the corners of Donna’s mouth. “And that includes kisses from the stewardess? I’m afraid you have taken the meaning of hostess too literally Captain.”
Sam reached up with his left hand and cupped Donna’s chin as he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Can it Donna. Like I said, jealousy isn’t your best feature. And that is MISTER Captain to you.”
“Listen MISTER Toad. I’m not jealous. You are sadly mistaken if you think I see anything of value in you I could be jealous of.” She turned and walked into the boarding tunnel as she was talking.
“Toad? Hey, have you forgot who’s flying this bird? Let’s show the Captain a little respect here. This sounds like mutiny to me. And who conveniently left their purse and money at home and made me buy that last dinner? And...” Sam was lost as he followed Donna onto the plane.
Vivian looked like she had been smacked. She pointed her finger at me. “This doesn’t change anything. You could know the president and I would still mark you late.”
“Yes ma’am. Only fair ma’am.” I followed Sam and Donna onto the plane.
Before takeoff Donna handed me a cell phone. “Keep it handy. Robert is wanting to fly down to Houston to find out about Core Bore. He will be calling you shortly for an address so he can look over the company.”
I took the phone and made a pretense of sliding it into the nonexistent pockets our flight uniforms didn’t have. “Silly me! It seems I left my pocket in my closet when I dressed this morning. Where would you suggest I carry it while I’m serving our passengers?”
Donna pointed between my breasts. “I would suggest there but I can only imagine the pandemonium it would cause when it started ringing and you reached in to pull it out. Adjust the ringer to high and leave it on the counter in the galley. And you didn’t get dressed this morning. It was afternoon before I managed to drag you kicking and screaming from your bed.”
I wrapped my arms around her and gave her a heartfelt hug. “No matter what happens, no matter how this works out, no matter if I have to sell pencils on the corner after this, I want you to know I will forever be in your debt. I owe everyone so much I can never repay all of you. Thanks, I’m glad I met a Leprechaun.”
Donna hugged me back before she backed up and looked me in the eyes. “I’m glad I know you. It’s an experience I’ll never forget.”
“Let’s get this bird loaded and into the air.” She turned and picked up the passenger list out of the seat as people started up the tunnel toward the plane.
Pat was the Atlantic stewardess who was assigned to first class with me. A strikingly attractive petite blonde, she was so cheerful and quick I immediately thought of her as a pixie. She was all of five-four and if she weighed a hundred pounds then I was monkey’s uncle. She was amazing to watch as she bounded (that’s the only way I can explain it) down the aisle to serve a passenger and then back to check on someone up front. There was a family traveling with two small boys on the port side six seats back. Less than an hour into our flight the boys started bickering, fighting, and screaming. The mother and dad tried to hush them but to no avail. When the boys started standing up in their seats to annoy the other passengers I figured it had gone on long enough. I headed over to see if I couldn’t reason with the two monsters when Pat hustled by me.
She admonished the two tiny terrors. “Please sit down in your seats. Do you climb all over the furniture at home like this?”
“My dad doesn’t care.” The oldest one piped up as he turned in the seat to see who had questioned his right to be a little snot.
“I see. Okay, would you like to see a movie or go look for treasure?” Pat put her fists on her hips and stood as straight and tall as her petite frame would allow.
I almost laughed it was so funny. It would be like Peter Cottontail trying to act tough.
“Treasure!” They both shouted in unison.
Pat nodded. “Okay, follow me and let’s go see if we can find that treasure.”
I watched in amazement as Pat walked off toward the back of the plane with the two terrors following. I was positive she would be back in minutes with the little devils crying they had been tricked. As far as I knew, Atlantic didn’t carry treasure on its planes to pacify the kiddie parade that might happen to be flying.
The phone Donna had loaned me was ringing. I walked up to the galley to answer it. “This is Bridget.”
“Bridget, this is Robert Drake. I met you at a party a couple nights back,” it answered me.
“I remember.” I swallowed as my nerves tightened up. I was praying I didn’t mess this up.
“Your friend Morgan mentioned something about a revolutionary new concept in energy production. She said you had bought the idea from the inventor. She mentioned you might be looking for investors.”
“That’s correct, and you know someone who might be interested?” I hoped my voice didn’t give me away as my throat went dry.
“Possibly but I need to have something to tell him. Can you send me some information?”
“Mr. Drake, you have to understand this is really confidential information. It wouldn’t be possible to send out any information before we release it for public shares.” How hard do I try to hold back to make him think it was a real insiders dream? If I hold back too much do I lose his interest?
“...I see. Then there isn’t a chance to look this business over before it goes public?”
“Uh, I didn’t say that. I said I couldn’t send out printed information. I can get you an onsite visit but no cameras, no friends. You have to understand if the Securities and Trade Commission finds out I had let someone outside the company look at this before public trading I could lose it all.” I felt faint as I had bet my whole future on Robert wanting a look.
“Um... yeah. I’ll call you back.” There was a click as the phone went dead.
My stomach did a flip flop. Had I lost him? Should I call Jim and tell him to stop now before he spent any more money? I was shaking all over as I found a seat and laid the phone down. What do I do now? What was Robert doing? I realized Jerry didn’t know Robert as well as I had thought. Hell, the guy had stolen my life and I never saw it coming. What made me think I could figure Robert out now?
The light was blinking for passenger number twenty four. I rose out of the chair and put on my best smile as I headed back to see what he wanted. My smile must have been on crooked because he looked at me kind of funny as I asked him what he needed.
I didn’t realize when Pat made it back with the two tiny terrors. At some point she must have because they were in their seats and acting like little angels as they colored in their coloring books.
By the time the plane landed in New York, I was strung out tighter than a banjo string. I was praying for Robert to call me and at the same time wondering if I should call him. Had I lost him? Would calling him scare him off?
After Sam parked the plane at the terminal, I put on my coffee, tea, or me smile and bid each and every passenger a ‘thanks for flying Atlantic’ farewell at the door.
Donna was walking up from the back, Pat was waiting for someone to help get her luggage down from the overhead, and the crew had come out of the cockpit. Sam walked up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.
“Bridget, ho...”
It was the last thing I heard as things turned black.
“Bridget… BRIDGET!... BRIDGET! CALL MEDICAL!” Sam picked up the limp body in his arms.
“DONNA, CALL MEDICAL!” Sam was headed down the boarding ramp at a trot as he carried Bridget in his arms.
“GET OUT OF THE WAY! OUT OF MY WAY!” He was trying to make the crowds move over as he trotted through the concourse and headed toward the nurses’ station.
The nurse checked for pulse and then dropped a stethoscope on Bridget’s left chest. “Symptoms?”
Sam shook his head as Donna crowded into the little examination room behind him. “None. We just arrived from Los Angles. She seemed fine the whole flight. She collapsed on the plane after all the passengers had left.”
The nurse pushed on the stomach of the woman lying on the table before taking a second pulse. “She have anything to eat recently?”
Sam turned around to look at Donna. “She eat lunch before she got on board?”
“No.” Donna was shaking her head.
“Did anyone see her eat anything on the plane?” The nurse took the woman’s blood pressure.
“We usually don’t eat on the plane. It’s pretty hectic waiting on passengers most of the time.” Donna edged up closer to the table to look at Bridget.
The nurse examined the arms of the woman and then walked over to the medicine cabinet to get a vial. “I get one or two of these in here each week. I keep telling the airlines you girls are not zombies. You don’t eat so you can look like models. Then you work your asses off running all over those planes keeping everyone happy. No food means the body can’t make energy. No energy means something has to give when you keep working.”
She pointed to the woman lying on the table. “This is exactly what happens when you keep punishing your bodies to fit into those damn little nothing uniforms the airlines want you to wear.”
She broke the vial in her fingers and swept it back and forth under the woman’s nose. “This will get her back to life. She has to eat or she will be back on my table or someone else’s table the next flight or the flight after that.”
I coughed as something terribly pungent wrecked my smell. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Donna laid her hand on my shoulder. “Lay still for a minute until you get your bearings back. When was the last time you ate?”
I wanted to put a fire hose up my nose and get rid of that terrible smell. “I don’t remember. Yesterday noon when I had lunch with Mike, I guess. Why? I passed out didn’t I?”
Donna shook her head as she looked over at Sam. “Did the nurse nail it or did the nurse nail it?”
The nurse waved her hand toward the door. “Out, everyone out. I have real people come in here with real problems. I don’t have time to hold someone’s hand because they want to fit in some damn little Atlantic stewardess’s uniform. Go!”
Sam took my arm and then wrapped his arm around my waist as I sat up. I swung my legs off the table and stood up. The world rocked for a little bit before it settled back down.
“We are going out to Alfonzos over on one thirty fourth before I let either of you ladies go back to wherever you are staying.” Sam was guiding me toward the door.
Donna pointed back toward the plane. “Our luggage is still there. I’ll go find someone to make sure it gets home. Sam, you still live up on Twins Addition?”
“I’m still there. My luggage has my name and address on it. Tell delivery to drop it in the lobby.” Sam had stopped as he was talking to Donna.
“Why don’t we go back and get our luggage? Seems the simplest solution.” I tried to push Sam off in the direction of the plane.
He looked at Donna and she nodded okay. “Fine. Then it’s Alfonzos and dinner. Momma Severto will make us a meal that will make your stomach thank you.”
We picked up our suitcases, found a cab, and Alfonzos in that order. Sam was right, the food was great but better than Tricks? I didn’t think so. We were enjoying the meal when Donna’s cell phone rang.
Tentatively I answered it. “Bridget.”
“Listen, Bridget, I’ve been thinking. I need to see this operation you have talked about. When can I see it?”
I thanked god for Robert’s lust for money as I worked a plan through my mind. “They aren’t letting any outsiders in. I’ll have to fly you down or meet you in Houston and then take you out to the location. I have a day off tomorrow. Does that fit your schedule?”
“Well, I had hoped for a little quicker than that. I guess if that’s the earliest you can arrange a looksee.”
Robert must really be cooking if he wanted a look tonight. I could visualize Jim still setting up the location as I was talking. “Can you meet me at Clear Lake Airport north of Houston at ten tomorrow morning?”
“Does that airport take private jets? I’ll see if my pilot knows it.”
Jim told me we were working on a four hour window. He would have the business operation up and going first as that was the easiest part. The location would be up and drilling at twelve noon tomorrow. By tomorrow evening the whole operation would be nothing but a ghost in someone’s imagination.
“It’s big enough to accept private jets. I’ll meet you there at ten and we will go down and look over the company offices. If agreeable then we will go look at one of the test locations where they are running drill string.” I had no idea what I was talking about. I hoped Robert didn’t either. Lies and deception are a house of cards. One mistake or one little light of truth and everything comes tumbling down.
“Ten, Houston time?”
“Yes, central or Houston time. Ten o’clock.” Was Robert buying what I was shoveling or was he going to smell a rat?
“I’ll be there.”
There was a click and my phone went dead. I remembered Robert seemed to be able to talk on the phone for hours about nothing to women customers. I hoped that because he was short with me it didn’t mean he was baiting me while I was trying to bait him.
Sam looked at me with a puzzled glance. “Houston, location, private jets, company offices? What are you into Bridget?”
Donna reached over and laid her hand on Sam’s arm. “Listen Mr. Nosey, people who poke their nose in other peoples’ business shouldn’t be surprised when it’s cut off. Bridget has a life other than flying hostess. If you want to know about other peoples’ affairs, why don’t you come over to my apartment tonight and I’ll let you in on my deepest darkest secrets?”
Sam tried not to, but he couldn’t stop it from coming, he started laughing. “Donna, love of my life, you don’t have any deep dark secrets. You are an open book. If I wanted to know about any of your unusual excursions, I would buy a supermarket tabloid and read about you.”
“Sam, you know what your problem is? You don’t take me serious enough. Just for that I’m not telling you any of my secrets. Bridget being my friend isn’t telling any either. So there mister smarty pants, you blew it by being so uppity.” Donna ducked her head and gave me a wink Sam couldn’t see.
I had no idea if these two were brother and sister or not? They sure needled each other like siblings.
Sam was right about the food. The problem was, I felt like a stuffed turkey by the time we left the restaurant. I ate more than two grown men would. Sam kept looking at me wondering where it was all going. He didn’t know I was wondering the same thing, but it sure felt nice and wonderful down there by the time we split up outside the restaurant and took separate cabs home.
My cab dropped me at the curb and left after I paid him. I waved at the gargoyles up on the parapet before I walked in the building. One of them waved back.
“What are you thinking?” Garmon shook his head.
“I like her.” Grimcost looked about nonchalantly.
“Mr. Logan said we could sit here as long as we didn’t wave to the guests. You are going to get us banished to the back of the building.” Garmon was certain their days were numbered.
“Bridget is not a guest. She’s a nice girl and I like her and she tells us stories. I’m going to go over to her window and see what she’s doing.” Grimcost spread his wings and stepped off his post.
“That girl is nothing but trouble.” Garmon followed his friend over to Bridget’s apartment.
I was already working on how to get down to Houston before I ever walked in the lobby of Deity Arms. Horace looked up from behind his desk as I pulled my suitcase through the front doors. “Good evening Bridget. It’s good to see you home again.”
“Thank you Horace. It feels good to be home. I’m afraid it is only for a few hours though. I need to get up and fly to Houston after a few hours sleep.”
“I know. Mr. Logan has arranged for a private jet. It will max out your BankAmericard though. You will want to be there before six to familiarize yourself with your business Miss Tonue. Then a few minutes before ten, your private jet will take off and come back to land a few minutes after Robert and Nancy arrive. I’ll have Mr. Luk give you a wakeup call at three A.M. You can catch up on part of your sleep on the flight to Houston.” Horace was watching for a reaction from me.
“Morgan...”
“Morgan had nothing to do with this Miss Tonue. Mr. Logan offered to get you in position is all. He won’t help with selling the idea to Robert Drake. Scheduling the private jet was Mr. Logan’s contribution to your plans.”
I set my suitcases down and walked up to the mountain of a man in front of me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him. “Thanks Horace. Tell Mr. Logan I appreciate the help.”
He hugged me back as he whispered in my ear. “Three is going to come awfully early. I suggest you get a little sleep before then.”
I backed up and picked up my suitcases. “You are right.”
I was wired as I was thinking of what tomorrow might bring. After I laid out my clothes and repacked my bags for the trip I was thinking I would never sleep after a bath. I was wrong. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was out.
“Miss Tonue, please wake up Miss Tonue.”
I licked my lips and spit my hair out of my mouth. “Thank you Mr. Luk. I’m awake. Is it time already? Seems as if I just closed my eyes.”
“Yes ma’am. Are you awake enough to get up if I leave now?” He had moved over by the door away from the bed.
“I think so. Would you mind waiting in the other room for a few minutes? If I’m not out in a few minutes come back in and get me.” I tried to keep my eyes open but they wouldn’t co-operate.
“Certainly, no problem Miss Tonue.” He closed the door behind him as he stepped out of the room.
I made it, but I don’t know how. I slipped out of bed and into nylons, bra, slip, a lurlux, shimmering red dress that hugged every curve of my body. I added five-inch red patent leather heels. The front of the dress was a bustier style with a deep plunging vee. The short hem was thigh high. Robert liked his women to be almost dressed and I was. There was a whole lot more of me out of that dress than there was in it. I was positive if I bent over my breasts would fall out. I had repacked my necessities in a matching red patent leather purse.
I picked up my cosmetics case and overnighter. I would be back tonight either very, very broke or maybe on my way to being very rich. Robert and I were going to trade wealth if I had my way. I was going to take everything he owned the same way he did... Actually it wasn’t me he screwed. He stole everything from Jerry. I looked in the mirror before I left the room. I definitely was no longer Jerry. Look out Robert, here comes Bridget and she’s gonna do to you what you did to Jerry.
Mr. Luk carried my case down to the cab. Before sliding in, I waved to the gargoyles. All four of them were up there this time. “Wish me luck guys.” I slid into the cab without hearing them answer.
“Good luck Bridget,” Grim responded as she slid into the cab.
“Good luck Bridget,” Mr. Logan had his hands behind his back as he watched from inside the foyer.
“Goes for me too.” Horace reached up and put his right arm around Logan’s right shoulder.
Horace took a deep breath and sighed. “We aren’t going to help?”
“No my friend, we don’t help. Bridget does this by herself. Win or lose, she’s on her own. No magic, no gentle persuasions in someone’s ear, no cheating. I hope she accomplishes what she’s going after.” Mr. Logan turned and walked back into his office.
“So do I.” Horace watched the taillights of the cab disappear into the night.
The cab took me out to a private jet. We were soon airborne headed toward Houston. I was asleep before the wheels left the runway.
The squeal of tires on the runway woke me. I looked at my watch as I ran my tongue across my lips to moisten them. “Houston?”
“Yes Miss Tonue,” came from the pilot up front.
We wheeled up to a hanger. There was a pickup waiting out front. It had big Core Bore Drilling Company signs on the sides. I recognized Jim Castle in the pickup. I dropped the landing door before the wheels on the jet stopped rolling. “Thank you for the ride Captain. Do I need to sign for the fare now or what’s the plan?”
“Sign for it when you get back to New York Miss Tonue. I’ll be here waiting for you at nine thirty. We will take off and come back after Mr. Drake’s jet lands or that’s the information I was given,” came from the cockpit.
“That’s the plan so far. Thank you Captain. I’ll see you in a few hours then.” I stepped down off the plane and headed for Jim’s pickup.
Jim was shaking his head as I opened the passenger door and tossed my purse up in the seat before I climbed in. I never realized a pickup was so high up off the ground before. I literally had to step up on a railing and then step up into the pickup. “It’s a long ways up to the seat in this puppy.”
“Fasten your seatbelt Miss Tonue. I don’t need a ticket. It isn’t the cost of the ticket I mind. We don’t have time to stop and gossip. Your Core Bore Drilling Company is getting the finishing touches as we speak.”
Jim broke the speed limit as he headed north of Houston. It was a short time later that we pulled up in front of a spiffy new building with a sign out front and another huge sign on the front of the building. Core Bore Drilling Company was the name. There were a couple of dozen new cars and trucks out front with Core Bore Drilling Company signs on them.
I couldn’t believe it could happen in two days. “How did you manage this?”
“There are two things that make things happen in this world Miss Tonue, money and knowledge. Money wasn’t a problem and I know people who know where and how to make almost anything happen. The vehicles are all from a dealership. They can’t be traced with tags once this day ends. The building belongs to a company that has no idea we are using it for one day. If anyone comes back here after today wanting to know who was here and where they went, no one will know. The people, the equipment, virtually everything will be gone by five. You are the owner of a one day business only.”
He stopped the pickup in front of the building. “Come on in and get acquainted with your employees Miss Tonue.”
“Jim, you and I were friends a long time. I never remember you calling me Mr. Rands. I would appreciate it if you would stop calling me Miss Tonue and call me Bridget.” I opened my door to step out of the truck.
Jim met me at the front of the pickup. He gave me the once over which left nothing out. “If I remember right, Jerry never dressed like you do. I think I would remember something like that. If you don’t mind I’ll call you Miss Tonue and so will your employees. When your fish shows up he will be a little more impressed as everyone addresses you in a more formal, respectful manner. I remember Robert real well. He’s an egotistical bastard. I never did understand why Jerry ever hooked up with him.”
Jim held up his hand before I could say anything. “Let me finish my little speech since we are soul cleansing here. I checked on Robert after your visit. Overnight, Robert became worth a small fortune. Jerry has disappeared and he owes a small fortune in debt. I can swallow all of that up to a point. Robert screwed Jerry and ran with Jerry’s live in. The problem was, Jerry’s live in was Robert’s wife. Kelli was Nancy Drake two months before she went to work as Kelli Stalwart. She never worked for the IRS but was an accountant for National Cable for a few years.”
Jim shook his head. “If you are Jerry, then I’m the president of the United States. However, since you plan on getting even for what Robert did to Jerry then I’m in. I hated that son of a bitch before I learned what he had done to my friend. What I feel now is way beyond hate. If your scheme doesn’t pull him in then he had better be making out his will. If I decide what Robert did caused Jerry’s death in any way, I’ll ask a friend to settle the score.”
I knew Jim was a friend but the depth of his friendship with Jerry was beyond comprehension. Would Jerry have done the same if the situation had been reversed? I honestly couldn’t answer that. I started to give Jim a kiss.
He saw it coming and held out his hand to hold me back. “Not that I don’t relish your kisses Miss Tonue, but I’m not allowed right now. You are undoubtedly the prettiest woman I laid eyes on. Any man would have to be insane or gay to not want to hold you in his arms or be kissed by you but we are strictly business for the rest of the day. Maybe tomorrow I’ll ask you for a date. Not today.”
“I’m sorry Jim. I didn’t mean to be so forward. It’s hard for me to adjust to being Bridget. I get emotional so easily now.” I stepped away out of his space.
“We are wasting time Miss Tonue. Let’s go check out your business. Then we need to drop over by your shop before going out to your location where they are punching down a well with your new invention.” He motioned toward the door as he was talking.
At nine we were headed back to the airport. Jim used a drive thru to pick us up some breakfast before dropping me off at the plane. The jet had Core Bore Drilling Company signs on the fuselage in front of the engines. I slid up into the co-pilot’s seat after getting an okay from the pilot. He was listening to air traffic. When it was mentioned that Robert’s jet was a hundred miles out, we took off. We made a loop sixty miles out and headed back.
Robert’s jet had pulled up to the hanger where Jim had parked earlier. Now there was a big stretch limousine in his place. It had Core Bore Drilling Company on its side. I had no idea how much all this was costing me. Mike had been right when he said it would take everything and max out my credit cards. And that wasn’t going to cover the cost by a long shot. I was going to be paying for this until the day I died if Robert didn’t take the bait.
Our jet pulled up beside Robert’s jet. The limo driver walked up and opened the landing door. I stepped out carrying my red shoulder purse and an attaché case hoping I looked like everything Robert ever dreamed of in a woman.
When the limo driver saw me, a shocked look crossed his face but he quickly recovered. He tipped his hat and then held up his hand in assistance. It was a thick British accent when he spoke, “Miss Tonue, good to see you again. I hope you had a pleasant trip?”
I glanced at his nametag. “Yes it was pleasant enough Seth. Kind of boring but I had the Core Bore numbers faxed to me on a secure line this morning. It seems it’s working a lot better than everyone thought.”
“Yes Miss Tonue, I’ve heard rumors to that effect.” He walked over to the limo and opened the door.
“You’ve heard rumors? I’ll have to check into this. It’s totally unacceptable someone is leaking out information about our operations before we go public.” As I looked in the limo I realized it was wasted dialog. Robert hadn’t deplaned yet.
The landing door on Robert’s jet was opening. I put my left hand on the door frame Seth was holding open as I reached up with my right hand and adjusted my hair. I never looked as I heard someone stepping off Robert’s jet, but it was time for a little more pizzazz. I twisted around as I leaned over and ran my hand up the back of my right leg. “Thank goodness, I thought I had a run in my nylons.”
“Probably caused by not shaving your legs,” was the sarcastic remark behind me.
I recognized the voice as I straightened up and turned around to greet her. “You are probably right Ms. Drake. So good to see you again.”
“And you too Mr. Drake.” Robert was behind Nancy with his eyeballs hanging out. I was elated to notice the red dress and heels had the desired effect on Robert’s weak little mind.
I backed up from the limo. “Please, after you.”
Nancy stepped into the limo and tossed another barb in the process. “But of course. We should be first.”
The only thing that kept me from strangling that woman was the idea I was going to hurt her a lot worse if I was nice and she agreed along with Robert to buy into my scheme.
The ride out to the office gave me an opportunity to prime Nancy and Robert with the graphs, charts, and numbers Jim had made up for me. Jim gave me the basics but I was winging it from the word go. I pulled out a projected cost analysis, and income graph. “My manager tells me our venture is working out much better than expected which is unusual for an initial pilot project. If we stick to selling our design to the oilfield and water well drilling companies the graph you are holding represents the projected cost verses the projected income factoring in material increases over a five-year period.”
Robert nodded as he looked at the graph. “That’s unbelievable. You are projecting a hundred thousand percent income the third year.”
“Yes, I know the figures are low. My engineers plotted the conservative estimates due to unforeseeable events such as a slowdown in the economy, recession, drop in energy costs, and worldwide market glut of oil and gas as our equipment becomes available globally.” I sighed in disgust. “Sometimes it can be too much of a good thing.”
I handed Robert some more graphs. “My engineers went on to widen our projected distribution base from oil, gas, and water drilling to thermal energy resources. As you can see, as an energy glut of oil and gas floods the market, our secondary sales to thermal energy resources becomes our mainstay in the drilling business.”
Reaching into my attaché case I pulled out a thick folder and handed it over to Nancy. “We will have to diversify to keep from shooting ourselves in the foot with our own design. My engineers came up with a plan to put a thermal energy source in every commercial building which has more than two hundred thousand square feet.”
I put my fingers together absentmindedly as I spun my web of lies. “Our drilling equipment is so versatile we can set up in the basement of any commercial building and drill a hole twenty thousand feet into the ground. We drop a pipe loop into the hole and hook it up to a thermal generator. We pump a silicone-based fluid down into the pipe loop and get back steam. That drives the thermal generator which provides electricity, heat, and air conditioning for the building. Every commercial building becomes a steady source of residual income as they purchase the equipment and buy our service contract. We replace the utility companies. Even the nuclear power plants can’t compete with what we will be providing.”
“What about residential customers?” Robert jumped on the idea he could be the power king of the world if he bought into Core Bore Drilling Company before it became public. He wanted more. He wanted the world, not just the commercial businesses.
My mind faltered for a second. I hadn’t planned on explaining individual home power plants. I started to say it would be the same in smaller size but really it wouldn’t. I was scared I would give Robert a lie he could see through and it would be all over. “Uh, but of course. My engineers looked at the aspect of selling energy to individual homes. It wasn’t feasible with the equipment we have.”
Robert looked disappointed. He wanted more than a slice. He wanted the world. “You have no plans for residential power plants then?”
“I didn’t say that. It has to be like a block of houses going on the same system rather than individual homes.” I brought up my old reserve of coffee, tea, or me smile, as I struggled to grind a plan out of my mind.
“We looked at the aspect of individual homes and the numbers couldn’t be justified. However if we could talk owners into going in as a collective on each square block, the concept would be... uh... a doable situation.” If one holds a lie up and looks at it, the transparency becomes evident. Like cobwebs over a window, lies have no substance.
Robert’s eyes lost their focus as his mind fed his ego. He could visualize himself becoming the most powerful man in the world. He would be controlling everyone’s lives through energy supply. If people wanted to stay comfortable, they would have to buy Robert’s energy plan. Of course there was one little hitch. So far it was not Robert’s business. He knew he would soon rectify that little glitch.
Nancy knew that look also. She was bound and determined to squelch Robert’s ambitions. “Honey, this is all speculation. The lady hasn’t shown us anything yet besides a few paper ideas. This is nothing more than a wild idea. She has shown us nothing Robert.”
Robert was brought back to earth by Nancy’s doubts. He held up the sheets I had given to him. “My wife is right. Not much here besides pretty numbers on a sheet of paper.”
My mind was going into overdrive. Do I tell Robert I didn’t care if he bought in, or should I ask him to think about it? “Mr. Drake, you are right and I certainly don’t blame you for being suspicious. The whole idea sounds preposterous. Why don’t we turn around and take you back to your plane? You can forget this whole day ever happened.”
I turned my attention toward the driver. “Seth, please take Mr. Drake back to his plane.”
“Certainly Miss Tonue.” Seth pulled the limo over to the side of the road and stopped as he prepared to go back to the airport.
Silently I was dying. Thanks to Nancy, Robert didn’t swallow the bait. I would be paying for this for the rest of my life and then some.
“Uh, Seth is it? I’ve changed my mind. Take us on out to Core Bore offices.” Robert was looking at the charts again. His curiosity had got the better of him. He wanted to see if this item was real and what this technology was.
“Miss Tonue?” Seth was waiting for me to okay the second change in plans.
“I guess. Okay, take us to headquarters Seth.” My heart was pounding as I tried to put a disgusted look on my face.
“Mr. Drake, my time is too valuable to be running aimlessly about. You wanted this meeting not me. I canceled a lot of appointments and changed plans to accommodate you and your wife. If you aren’t serious enough to look at our operation, please let me know now and we will go back to the airport. I need to see other people who are willing to throw their financial weight behind this business to get it into worldwide production.” By now I was positive Robert was hooked. I wanted to make sure he understood that next time he hesitated, someone else would step in and take up the golden opportunity to invest.
Nancy leaned over and wrapped her hands around Robert’s right arm. “Let’s go home hon. I don’t think we need to look at this, whatever it is.”
Robert’s eyes were fixated on the papers as he was counting his billions from his investment. “No, let’s take a look first. We owe it to Bridget to at least look at it.”
Nancy glared daggers at me. She had the five hundred and sixty one million they stole from Jerry and Hot Topics. She was positive she didn’t want to invest it even if it made her more money then she could count. “I’m sure we don’t owe Bridget anything.”
Nancy sat back in the seat sulking as Robert stared at the graphs and discussed percentages with me.
Seth turned off the highway into the Core Bore Drilling Company parking lot. Everything from the brand new pavement we were driving on to the brand new cars and trucks with Core Bore Drilling signs on them spoke of money and lots of it. The brand new building gleamed in the noon sun. People were busy coming and going from the building. Others were busy inside.
Seth parked the limo in front, got out and opened our door. “Miss Tonue.”
“Thanks Seth. I slid out and waited for Robert and Nancy to catch up as I straightened my skirt and checked my hem–all for the benefit of Robert of course. “You wanted to see me... my operations.”
Nancy glared daggers at me a second time. “He’s married… bitch! Turn off the estrogen.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply I was trying to hustle your husband Ms. Drake.” I looked hurt she could accuse me of such a thing.
Robert took Nancy by the arm. “Don’t ruin this before we get a chance to see what it is, or I’ll ship you off to China as a slave girl.”
Nancy picked up the pace as she and Robert headed for the office. “Don’t you threaten me you bastard. I was the one who managed to get all his records so you could move his money.”
Robert looked sharply at his wife. “Later dear. Let’s discuss our business affairs in private instead of out here in front of the whole world.”
As we stepped into the office of mass confusion, a man wearing Core Bore Drilling Company on his jacket met us. He held out his hand to Robert. “I’m Ed Reach. You must be Mr. Drake? Miss Tonue said she was bringing someone by to look us over.”
I rolled my eyes as I looked at Jim shaking hands with Robert. Ed Reach indeed.
Ed held onto Robert’s hand. “I’m afraid there isn’t a whole lot to explain here. This is our main office. The staff does all the contacts and financial dealings here. Our machine shop is down the road a half mile. Come on back to my office and I’ll get one of the contracts for you to look over. Then we will head over to the machine shop and look at the core bore itself. Quite a revolutionary idea to say the least.”
Ed put his hand up on Robert’s shoulder and led him down the hall to the back of the building. They passed a couple of dozen offices jammed with people, computers, faxes, ringing telephones, copiers, and high end color copiers and printers. The place was a veritable anthill of production.
A man was in Ed’s office talking on the phone as they walked in. He motioned to Ed he would be through in a minute. “No, we have the financial capital to carry us for another week. You tell them they must have the financial papers drawn up by Monday or they are out of the picture. I don’t give a shit if they don’t want to move that quickly. Listen, I have a dozen more companies wanting in and they will be knocking on my door come Tuesday. Your clients want in then they better have the five hundred million transferred by Tuesday.”
He hung up as he looked up at Ed. “Sorry, I thought you were gone to the shop. It was Jack Silvers; he said Canadian Bank and BankOne wanted to wait until Wednesday to look over the test from the location you are drilling.”
“Monday? Tuesday? When is Core Bore going public? I thought it would be a few weeks yet?” Robert looked at the man who had been on the phone.
“We have the okay from Securities to launch our offering on Monday. Seems as if information has been leaking out about our project and everyone is tossing money in our direction wanting in. And by the way, who are you?” The man looked at the newcomer standing beside Ed.
Ed shook his head as Robert started to answer. “He’s a friend of Miss Tonue, just passing through. Miss Tonue had to stop at the office for a second. He is only visiting.”
Ed picked up a briefcase by the desk and ushered Robert out the door.
“Tell Miss Tonue’s friend he isn’t to repeat anything he heard here. That is privileged information and not to be repeated.” The voice drifted through the door behind them.
Ed urged all of us out the door as he brought Robert back up front. “Let’s go over to the shop. This is getting out of hand. If Mr. Drake buys any of the company and Securities and Exchange gets wind of this, we could end up in prison for insider trading.”
All of us slid into the limo for the short ride over to the machine shop–another new building with a fancy Core Bore Drilling Company sign on the front. There was a heavily armed guard who met us inside the front entry. “Miss Tonue, Ed, who are your friends?”
Ed stepped up in front of the guard. “It’s okay Bill. These are guests of Miss Tonue.”
Bill looked doubtful for a few seconds. “I guess it’s okay.”
Ed took us to the back part of the shop where there were rows and rows of tubing, heavy machinery, test equipment and large spools of electric cable, steel cable, and motors stacked all over the shop. Men were busy everywhere as Ed took us over to where a man was plugging some wires into the upper end of a cylinder approximately ten feet long and two feet in diameter. It had fins on the sides. There was a drilling bit on the other end.
I counted a couple dozen men in that shop. All of them had on bright red coveralls with Core Bore Drilling embroidered on the back. I could see thousands of dollars in uniforms, much less what all that equipment might have cost. I was going to be paying for this for a mighty long time.
The man by the cylinder looked up at Ed. “I’ve finished this one. We will be able to make them smaller with the new motors. Just a sec and you can see it run.”
He walked over to the bench and plugged in the wire leading from the cylinder. Flipping a switch, a high pitched whine filled the air as the bit on the opposite end begin to spin.
Ed leaned over toward Robert. “The whole concept is built on the idea of drilling with a revolving bit on the end of a stationary guide. If you ever saw a drilling rig you know they need lots of pipe, lots of men, and big rigs to drill an oil well. With Core Bore we send a self-guided bit into the ground attached by an electric cable. The new permanent magnet motors are powerful enough to make this technology work and we are the only ones who have this right now.”
Ed put his arm over Robert’s shoulder and pulled him in closer as if he was an old friend sharing a secret. “Before when using the old way of drilling, it took several million to drill a six thousand foot hole whether it was productive or not. With this invention we can drill a hole for less than a hundred thousand. Dry hole, wet hole we don’t care. We will be drilling down to twenty thousand feet and tapping into earth’s thermal core. If we hit gas and oil along the way and it still pays to move it to the surface we will do so, but I wouldn’t put any of my money in oil royalties from now on. Oil is going to be good for lubricating your door hinges in a few years as thermal energy and electricity will be the thing that makes the world turn.”
“Let’s go out to the location. I will show you how it works.” Ed moved us toward the door and the limo.
I don’t remember all the BS Jim (Ed) was pumping into Robert and Nancy on the drive, but it was good. I was ready to buy a few thousand shares of Core Bore myself. Seth pulled into a location that had a couple of dozen buildings, a huge drilling tower, and miles of pipe stacked by the tower. That wasn’t counting the batteries of tanks and the large sludge pit off to the back.
Ed pointed toward the equipment and the couple of dozen men in front of the car. “This is how it’s done the old way. The logistics of moving all the equipment and men in to this place before they even begin to drill is a huge, hundred thousand dollar expenditure. Then they will sit out here for four months to a year and half, drilling a hole whether it’s dry or not. That’s millions of dollars of expense, and finally they have to pick all this up and move it to another location to do it all over again. That costs another hundred thousand or more.”
“Let’s go out to our site driver.” Ed turned his attention back to Robert and Nancy and ran the comparison costs between our Core Bore operations and the operations we had witnessed.
At the location, Seth parked about fifty yards back from a small drilling rig mounted on the back of a huge truck. Ed continued to carry the ball for me as he put his arm over Robert’s shoulder after we stepped out of the limo. Ed pointed off toward the rig with his left hand. “Look at the small black line going down into the hole. That’s the power line feeding the electric motor at the other end of that bore. They started this two weeks back and they are down to eleven thousand feet now. We leased this site for test only. Most of the wildcatters wrote this section off as unproductive years back.”
Ed waved a man over. Again the guy was wearing red coveralls with Core Bore Drilling embroidered on the back. “This is Carl, our tool pusher and geological engineer. What do the tailings look like?”
“Ed, I think we might bring one in. Heavy petroleum spotting in the tailings. Sure looks like we might be flooded with oil. I hope not. I would rather not mess with it before we reach twenty thousand and do our thermal test... Uh oh...” The man looked frightened.
“What?” Robert jumped and Ed stepped off to the side.
The ground started trembling. I was thinking earthquake.
“GET IN THE CAR!” Ed was screaming to make himself heard over the terrible roar coming from the direction of the well.
All of us dove for the car as a jet of black stuff blew up out of the hole pushing a cylinder before it. The cylinder few up in the air and embedded itself in the ground less than fifty feet from the car.
“Seth, get us the hell out of here. One spark and this whole place will look like Dante’s Inferno.” Ed had his face pressed to the side window watching as a black oil plume poured out of the hole and into the drilling tower of steel above it.
Seth had traveled a mile down the road before Ed looked over at me. “I’m sorry Miss Tonue. I know you didn’t want to hit any oil. There wasn’t supposed to be any there. Carl will get it capped with a Christmas Tree and get to drilling again in a couple of weeks or so.”
“A couple of weeks? Ed, our investors won’t wait a week. This is going to be a problem with the Securities and Exchange people. We promised them a thermal well by the end of the week, not an oil well. I don’t know how we can keep our financial base going until our thermal well is finished. I hate to tell you this, but I’m out of funds. My bank has told me they won’t loan me any more until they see some results.” I was distraught as I wrung my hands together.
Robert looked over at Nancy. He had been handed the opportunity of a lifetime. “Bridget, maybe I might be able to help.”
Nancy looked back at Robert. The same idea had struck her too. “We can help.”
Puzzled I looked up. “I don’t see how.”
“I can give you that needed operating capital for ninety six percent of your company.” Robert had a gleam in his eyes like a cat in the cream.
I was surprised he didn’t ask for the whole company but I didn’t tell him that. “Ninety six percent...? No, it’s not possible. This company will be worth billions in a few months. All I need is half a billion to keep it going until we bring up the thermal well.”
“From where I sit you seem to have run out of options Bridget. Unless you sell to me, you are going to lose it all. I’m not that cold or insensitive, I’ll let you keep four percent.” An evil smile crossed his face as he knew he had me.
“Ed...?” I looked over at Ed for help.
“I’m afraid he’s right Miss Tonue. You are going to lose it all. The finance people will shut you out without a good day to you.” Ed shrugged his shoulders in resignation.
I was a beaten woman. I had lost a billion dollar company when I was so close to having it all. “All right then, but we must have an immediate influx of funds or you will have nothing also. We need five hundred million to keep this company from closing its doors.”
“I have three hundred and sixty million in liquid funds. You sign the company over to me now and I’ll write you a check.” Robert knew he had won. He was pulling a checkbook out of his pocket.
Nancy looked doubtful. “Robert, that’s most of our money. Are you sure about this?”
“Sure I’m sure. In a month you can count billions instead of millions.” He was ecstatic.
Ed opened up the briefcase he had retrieved from his office. “When I planned on writing up a contract, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. Mr. and Ms. Drake you are about to own ninety six percent of Core Bore Drilling Company and the world’s next energy source.”
Ed filled out a contract and handed it to me. “Miss Tonue, I know this hurts. You would have lost everything if Robert hadn’t bailed you out. At least you get to keep four percent this way.”
“And that is supposed to make me happy?” I took the contract and signed it.
Robert reached for the contract and Ed pulled it back. “The check Mr. Drake.”
“Sure.” Robert wrote out a check for three hundred and sixty million dollars and handed it to Ed as he took the contract with his left hand.
Robert showed the contract to Nancy where they owned Core Bore Drilling Company. “We are rich beyond our wildest imagination.”
Nancy held out her hand as she visualized the diamonds, rubies, and other jewels dripping off her fingers. “I can imagine a lot.”
The ride back to the airport and jets was in dejected silence on Ed’s and my part. Robert and Nancy went on and on about all the money they were going to have in a month or less. They never acknowledged Ed and I existed as they climbed aboard their jet and it took off.
I watched the jet leave the runway before I turned around, threw my arms around Jim’s neck, and wailed. “I’m ruined. They stole my company.”
Jim could feel me shaking. He pushed me back to see if I had lost my mind and was crying. I was dying laughing. I leaned up and gave Jim a kiss on the lips he wouldn’t ever forget.
“I can never repay you for what you did. Can you get those funds transferred before they figure it out?”
Jim looked over at our driver Seth. “Pete, you get that money moved yet?”
Pete stood up and took off his chauffeur’s cap and jacket. “As of about three minutes ago Mr. Drake has a zero bank balance.”
Reaching down to the company sign on the limo, Pete slid his fingers under the edge and peeled it off. “I quit. Miss Tonue, I want you to know I loved working for you. You are the best employer anyone could want but I refuse to work for Mr. Drake. The man is a mean bastard and besides that he’s broke. I’m going back to my old company.”
Pete walked around the car and pulled the company sign off the passenger side.
As Pete walked back around to get in the car, I met him and held out my hand. “Pete, it’s Bridget. I thank you for everything you did for me.”
Pete looked down at my hand and then back into my eyes. “Bridget, I want one of them hugs you gave Jim. I’ve never held a beautiful woman who looked like you. I want to know what it’s like.”
I laughed before I leaned into Pete and wrapped my arms around his neck and gave him a heartfelt hug. He put his arms around me and pulled me in softly and gently as he hugged me back.
“Thanks for your help Pete.” I remembered from being around Jim and his crew that they were rock solid hard working men who would give you their last dime. They never sidestepped a meaning or feeling. If they liked you, they were your friend for life. If they didn’t like you, they would never be your friend. Unlike Cal Baker, Pete didn’t have any hidden meaning in wanting to hold me in his arms. Pete really did want to hold a beautiful woman if only for a few seconds.
Pete was grinning ear to ear as he backed up and stared. “You are an awful lot of woman Bridget. You need anything, anytime, anyplace, you call me. I’ll be there.” He slid into the limo and drove off.
Jim shook his head. “Bridget, where do I send your money?”
“Give it back to the people Robert stole it from. I imagine it will take anything that’s left over and then some to pay for what it cost to set all this up. What about that oil well we came from. They going to be able to shut that off and clean it up?”
His eyes danced in amusement as a smile spread clear across Jim’s face. “That oil well was less than three hundred barrels of Saudi Black Crude purchased with your money. Mix in a lot of water, pump it up to a couple thousand pounds, mix in a little oil and send it into a swirl chamber before jetting it out of the casing and it looks like a million gallons of raw oil. Your oil well is an engineering marvel sunk thirty feet down in the ground so it will have the right look and force as it gushes riches up into the air.”
“But… the ground was shaking and all that noise...?” I couldn’t believe Jim and his engineers could fake everything we had left behind.
“Ground shaking was a thumper. It’s a seismograph truck that is designed to shake the ground so the engineers can get echo readings back from deep in the earth. At one time we used dynamite and blew holes in the ground. Now we use thumpers. Jerry didn’t tell you a whole lot about our business did he?” The corners of Jim’s mouth curled up as he knew he had out guessed me.
I closed in on his personal space, put my hands on his shoulders, and looked him in the eye. “Remember six years back on November the eighteenth when you and Jerry went hunting up in Montana near Cold Creek? You and Jerry had been out most of the day walking the woods without seeing a single deer. Lots of tracks but no deer.”
Jim slightly nodded his head. “So? That don’t mean nothing. Jerry told you that much.”
“I’m not finished. About sundown, you made a bet with Jerry you could write your name in the snow in piss and he couldn’t. Jerry said that wasn’t a fair bet as his name had two more letters in it than yours did. You told him to pull out his pecker and write Jer if he could and you would write Jim.”
Jim’s eyes closed to slits as he studied my face. “Jerry told you that too.”
“You pulled your peter out and Jerry started laughing telling you he would be ashamed if that had been his, it was so small. You said it was the cold and it had shriveled up but you could still write your name in the snow. Jerry then did the same and you looked and asked him where all of his went if he had such a big wiener? You started peeing and at that instant both of you looked up. Standing less than twelve feet away in the brush was a twelve point buck with a huge rack. You got so excited as you reached for your rifle you stuck your peter back in your pants and peed all over yourself. You kept pulling the trigger on the rifle as the buck turned and walked off but you forgot to take the safety off. Jerry was laughing so hard, I fell down in the snow and peed all over myself.” I was looking Jim in the eyes and seeing doubt.
He shook his head. “Jerry told you that story.”
“You both made a pact you would never tell the story to another living human being. Do you honestly think Jerry would tell anyone? Would you?” I waited for an answer from my best friend.
“Jerry? My god... Jerry...” Jim looked like I had whacked him with a two by four.
“It’s Bridget now. Are we still best friends? Let’s do it again this fall. Only some things have changed. I’ll bring a camera and a scope to shoot my deer. I don’t think I can shoot any deer with a gun.” I backed up to give Jim a little room.
Still in shock, Jim nodded. “I would like that very much. I’ll bring a camera too. I don’t think I will want to shoot any deer either this time.”
“Jim, I honestly don’t know how I can ever repay you for everything you have done for me. The money from Robert probably won’t be enough to cover the expenses. I really don’t have much anymore. My old software company had to fold when Robert and Kelli... I mean Nancy stole all the money out of it. They cleaned out my personal account at the same time. Send me a bill. I’ll try to pay it. You may have to wait for me to pay it out a little at a time.” I looked over at the jet where someone was removing Core Bore signs off the fuselage.
“It will be a cold day in hell before I send you a bill for getting even with Robert and Nancy for what they did to Je... you. You were a good friend once. I hope that never changed. It’s going to be a little difficult adjusting to the new look you have. Deep down inside I think it’s still the same ol’ Jerry. Take care Bridget Renee Tonue. You call me if you need anything and let’s make a date for that hunting trip.” Jim held out his hand for a handshake.
Handshakes were great for Jerry but I needed more. I closed in and gave Jim a hug. “Soon. We will get together soon.”
I turned and walked over to the jet. As I climbed onboard and was closing the landing door, I looked and Jim was waving bye. I waved back as I heard a familiar voice from the cockpit.
“You want this bird off the ground, you better get up here and drive.”
Squealing, I rushed up to the cockpit to find Donna in the co-pilot’s seat. “What’s going on? Where’s our pilot? How did you get here?”
Donna started bringing the jet to life. “You’re the pilot. The one that flew down here had another job to do. Are you going to talk, or you going to get this bird in the air? You know, Robert could have second thoughts and come back to check over his Core Bore business.”
I slid over into the pilot’s seat and helped Donna bring the jet to life. “You file the flight plan already? Are we legal?”
“Legal as we will ever get with two women playing like jet jocks. Hello Clear Lake Tower, this is Alpha Whiskey Sierra Charlie requesting permission to taxi to the end of the runway for takeoff.” Donna was on the radio
It had been a long time since I had flown out of a small airport like Clear Lake. I had forgotten that they didn’t tell you when to taxi and what taxiway to use. We were quickly airborne. Donna was efficient as she brought up flaps and gear. At thirty one thousand we leveled off headed toward New York.
I turned on the autopilot. “Robert won’t quit looking for me. I know him well enough and he will kill anyone he thinks may have helped me if he can find them. Morgan is in danger for being close to me. Mike will be on Robert’s death list because he was at the fashion show with me. I think Jim can cover his tracks well enough that Robert won’t be able to find out he helped. I need to move out of Morgan’s apartment as everyone in the building is in danger if Robert finds where I live.”
A smile spread across Donna’s face as she glanced in my direction. “Morgan can handle Robert if he goes after her. Mike is in France with Morgan. I sure wouldn’t take any bets Robert could hurt Mike either. You don’t think Jim could be connected with your sting or Robert could ever find him. I agree with that. I guess that leaves you.”
“Yes it does. I’ll move out tomorrow so it won’t endanger the rest of the residents in Mr. Logan’s apartment.” I had no idea where I would go. I figured I could keep moving to stay ahead of Robert.
“You’re moving tomorrow, but it’s on a flight to Saint Louis and then to Chicago and back to New York. I think Mr. Logan would be very upset if you moved out at this time. Plan on hanging around a little longer.” She changed the radio frequency after we were told to switch.
We dropped into New York and parked the jet next to the hanger where I had boarded this morning. I picked up my overnighter and purse as we stepped off the jet. “It felt good to fly again Donna. I forgot how much I enjoyed it at one time.”
Donna put her fingers in her mouth and whistled. A taxi pulled out from inside the hanger. “We will have to do it more often then, won’t we?”
“I’d love to, but on flight attendant’s pay I don’t think it will happen again. Where do I pay for this trip at? The pilot told me he would have a bill for me when we returned.” I looked inside the hanger. There wasn’t an office in there.
I recognized Kemel as the taxi pulled up. “You are always there when we need a ride. Are you that fast, or are there dozens of you who look just like you?”
Laughing, Donna opened the cab door. “You ask too many questions. The company will invoice Jim Castle and he can deduct it out of the money Robert gave him.”
“But...” Before I could complete my sentence, Donna pushed me into the cab.
“Tomorrow morning at eight, your flight to Saint Louis, try and not be late.” She tapped the window by Kemel. We left Donna and the airport behind.
At the apartment, Kemel let me out and then sped off before I could pay him.
“I’m so in debt, I’ll never see daylight again.” I waved at the gargoyles on the roof before I walked into the apartment. “Hi guys.”
Garmon looked down without moving his head. “It’s little Miss Trouble Maker again. Don’t move.”
Grimcost already had his paw up. “But I like her. She’s nice.”
Garmon closed his eyes and shook his head. “You are going to get us fired. Between you and Miss Troubles waving at each other Mr. Logan is going to banish us for sure.”
Inside the door I dropped my cosmetic case. Horace could see it coming as I ran toward him. For the first time he smiled as he held his arms out and accepted me as I wrapped my arms around his neck.
“I did it. I made him pay it back. Or everyone else did it for me. I’m sure Donna helped. It’s hard to tell with a leprechaun. Horace, life is so wonderful.”
I wiggled back out of his arms and got serious. “I’m afraid I put you and Mr. Logan, and everyone here in jeopardy by coming back. Donna told me not to worry. I can’t help but worry. Robert is dangerous. He will be willing to kill everyone he thinks may have had a hand in me taking the money back. I will pack my things... I don’t have anything to pack do I? It’s all Morgan’s things and her apartment.”
The tears came unexpectedly and without warning. “I don’t mind now though. I may not have any more than Jerry had, but I gave Robert a taste of the same. I only wish he knew it was Jerry who paid him back.”
Horace started to reach out. I wanted solitude instead and ran for the elevator. I was crying my heart out as I reached the top floor. The lock was difficult through the tears, but I made it. Slamming the door behind me, I ran to the bedroom and threw myself down on the bed as I cried.
“She sure does cry a lot.” Grim had his nose pressed up against the window.
“She’s sensitive and caring; the world is cold and insensitive. It’s a clash of emotions.” Gorm pushed Grim over to the side so he could look in at Bridget crying.
“I think she’s spoiled. She had everything and now she has nothing. She’s crying because she wants it back.” Grim turned his back to the window.
“Did I ever tell you, you have a heart of stone?” Gorm glanced over at Grim in disgust.
“Takes one to know one,” Grim retorted as he looked out across the New York landscape.
Grimcost came in too fast. He hit the ledge and then bounced up against the glass. “Awww, she’s crying. I wanted her to tell us where she’s been. She tells such nice stories.”
Mr. Logan and Horace were standing at the edge of the bed as Bridget cried herself to sleep. She was sobbing in little hiccups as her breathing came in gasps.
“I tried to tell her not to worry. She ran away before I could say anything.” Horace reached down and brushed Bridget’s hair back out of her face.
“She’s had an emotional day. She thinks she has put all of us in danger by her actions. I don’t remember when we had one like her. She’s unique for sure. Morgan made a wise choice in her.” Mr. Logan reached over and picked up one of the tears Bridget had on her cheek. As he held it up it glittered and cast a rainbow of colors though out the room before it disappeared.
“So much emotion in a tiny little tear. Don’t worry Bridget we have plans for Robert and Nancy.” Mr. Logan looked out the window to see four gargoyles looking back in. A hint of a smile touched his mouth. He shook his head as he left the room.
“How many times are we going to have to go through this? Bridget? Get your butt up out of bed and let’s go. I swear girl, you are going to get both of us fired for constantly being late.”
Licking my lips I raised my head up and looked into an upside down face of Donna. She was bent over looking back into my face. “It’s morning?”
“Yes, and you look like shit! You slept in your clothes. You sure don’t look like someone who managed to get their money back yesterday. Were you out drinking or partying all night?” Donna straightened up and backed away to look for my suitcase and overnighter.
“Donna, I can’t do this anymore. I have to leave before Robert tracks me back to this apartment. You don’t know him like I do. He will kill everyone he thinks had anything to do with him losing his money.” I rolled over and sat up, pushing my hair back out of my face.
“Go take a shower and jump into your uniform. I’ll help you put on your face in the cab. We are definitely going to be late.” She was pulling clothes out of the closet and folding them into the suitcase.
“Donna...” I was trying to make her understand that Robert was not the kind of person they could reason with.
Donna stopped and pointed her finger at me. “Listen to me. Robert is in Clear Lake this morning looking for Core Bore which we both know he won’t find. He is going to go ballistic by the time he drives from the empty office, to the empty shop, and out to the location which will be empty also. I imagine Robert will be on the phone trying to stop payment on the check only to find out the money has already moved out of his account. Not only that, but virtually all the money Robert owned has moved out. That includes the millions he kept in reserve to live on for a week until Core Bore made him a few billion.”
She dropped her hands down to her hips and curled them into fists. “At the location Robert will find a notebook obviously left behind and missed in the haste of cleaning up the site. In that notebook will be names of associates who helped you set up your sting.”
“OH NO! It’s not possible. I didn’t have any such notebook. Who would do that to me? Robert...”
“Of course it’s not your notebook. Robert will believe it is. Fell out of the limo as you and he were inspecting the location yesterday. In the confusion of the well blowout it was dropped and left behind. In a few days, Robert will have traveled over a large part of the country chasing those names and addresses in the notebook–all of them freshly empty like the places he is looking at in Clear Lake. Everything he finds will be pointing back toward New York. Sooner or later he will figure out he will have to start looking here if he’s ever going to find you and get his millions back.”
“I have to end it then. I’ll let him take his hate out on me. I can’t involve anyone else in this. It has to stop before Robert kills someone besides me.” I was headed for the door.
Donna wrapped her hand around my left arm and stopped me. “You innocent, naíve, thing you–Bridget, don’t you understand? Robert has been invited up here. Mr. Logan wants him to come. Jeeze girl, look in the mirror for god’s sake. You think someone who can do what has been done to you is scared of some clown with a gun and a grudge?”
That stopped me in my tracks. Thinking of it rationally, Donna was right. I better than anyone should have thought of it from that angle. I turned and headed for the bathroom and a shower. “Give me five minutes. Did you call a cab?”
I couldn’t believe it when Donna and I walked up to Atlantic’s terminal. Vivian was the one checking boarding tickets. She frowned as Donna and I approached. “Ladies, this has to stop. As usual you are late. What is it about schedules you don’t understand? I imagine this will be your last time flying as hostesses with Atlantic or any other airline. Too many infractions do get one terminated.”
Donna lowered her head. I thought she was crying before she turned her back to Vivian and wiped the tears out of the corner of her eyes. The lines on her face told a different story. She had been laughing instead. I put my arm around Donna’s shoulder to keep her from looking or talking to Vivian as I was praying Donna didn’t giggle out loud.
Donna straightened up as she sniffed and wiped her eyes. She deadpanned as she reached for the duty roster on Vivian’s desk. “Let’s see who is up in first class? Oh dear me, Bridget is on the entertainment schedule for our illustrious crew and passengers.”
Shaking her head, Donna looked at Vivian in amusement. “That girl isn’t on the rotation schedule. I wonder why she never has to take care of those back in coach? I wonder why first class seems to sell more tickets when Bridget is flying? Do you possibly think management has figured out Bridget is drawing in first class fares?”
Donna looked at her watch and sighed. “Bridget is sixteen minutes late... again. That girl has no sense of time. She wastes too much time looking after the passengers, too much time running refreshments up to the pilot and crew, and way too much time is wasted on each individual passenger as they board and later as they get off.”
Slowly Donna raised her head and took a measured look at Vivian. “You really aren’t too bright are you? Or else you would have noticed the same thing everyone else working or flying Atlantic has noticed. Bridget not only sells tickets, she has infected everyone around her with her enthusiasm.”
Donna laid the schedule back on Vivian’s desk. “I wouldn’t be too hasty in filling out that late slip if I were you. Management might think you have a grudge against Bridget. But then you do what you think is best.”
In shock, I followed Donna into the boarding tunnel. “Donna, that’s not fair. Vivian wasn’t the one who was late. I’m sorry for making you late also.”
Picking up the passenger manifest, Donna ran her finger down the list. “Bridget, paying for one’s tardiness doesn’t have to be in pay withheld, shortened working schedules, or job termination. You make your payment in the extra service you provide for passengers and crew. Besides, you haven’t ever had a schedule sheet handed to you, have you? If you think anyone besides Miss Hardnose cares if you are a few minutes late then you are sadly mistaken.”
“Smile hon, we have passengers headed our way.”
The smile was sincere as I looked into the tunnel and heard footsteps. “Welcome aboard Atlantic Airlines sir. I hope you enjoy your flight with us. If there is anything you need, please let me know. May I see your ticket please?”
Atlantic’s Hooters was back to business.
The flight to Saint Louis was quick and a lot of fun. David and Randy were the pilot and co-pilot. Jimmy was the flight engineer. Trish was the stewardess up front with me in first class. We worked our little tails off. Since the flight was short, we didn’t get a chance to get tired. Donna went on with the plane to Albuquerque and then to Las Vegas. I switched planes headed to Chicago.
I had a two-hour layover before heading back to New York on yet another plane. I wasn’t interested in waiting inside the plane. I wandered through the concourse absentmindedly. Most everyone took a second and third look at the Atlantic hostess in her short little pink nothing uniform. One little ten-year-old pointed at me: “Look, a pilot.”
His mother took his hand to lead him on. “No dear that’s not a pilot.”
“Yes she is. She has wings on her chest.” The little boy turned completely around and walked backwards to make sure he was right.
“She is not a pilot. She’s only a waitress.” The mother said it with disgust.
Only a waitress? What’s wrong with being ‘only a waitress’? I had no problem with being ‘only a waitress’. I’d like to see that mother go to a restaurant or ride a train, or ship, or fly without those like me who were ‘only a waitress’. Let her find her own meals, her luggage, help entertain her child when she was too tired to care if he ran wild on the public carrier.
Someone wrapped their arm around my waist and laid their head up over my shoulder as he whispered in my ear. “You’re my favorite waitress.”
Of course I jumped out of my skin. Robert was on my mind as I dropped my purse, grabbed the arm, and was rolling the owner of that arm up and over my shoulder as I leaned forward and dropped to my knees. About halfway through the toss the voice registered in my mind. It was too late to stop him from coming over and landing on his back.
Sam was lying there looking up at me with a stunned look on his face. “Was it something I said?”
Virtually everyone for a hundred feet or more had stopped and was pointing and staring. I was embarrassed to death. I know my face turned beet red.
“I’m so sorry Sam. You startled me. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” I offered my hand to help him up.
Sam rolled over on his side and rested on his elbow as he laid his head down on his left hand. He was looking up at me. “I think I’ll stay here. I don’t want you to hurt me no more.”
“SAM! Get up! People are looking at us.” I wanted to hide my face.
“Not until you apologize.” Sam smiled from ear to ear.
“Okay, I apologize. I’m sorry. Now get up. People are staring.” I was thinking about walking off and leaving him lying there on the floor to get away from the embarrassment he was causing me.
“And a dinner date. Donna said you own a red dress that will make grown men cry and young ones wish they were grown.” Sam waited for me to capitulate to his demands.
I was thinking it had to be the dress I wore yesterday in Texas. It was one of Morgan’s gosh, gee, wow, dresses I had borrowed. “Okay. Now get up and stop embarrassing me.”
“And...”
“SAM!” I started to pick up my purse where I had dropped it.
He jumped up and swept up my purse in his left hand before he held it out to me. “I had a few other demands in mind. As long as I was on the gravy train I was going to milk it for all it was worth.”
I took the purse and slid the strap up on my shoulder. Sam walked off down to where the mother and boy had stopped along with everyone else when I tossed Sam down on the floor.
Sam crouched down where he was eye level with the boy. He pointed toward the wings on his own jacket. “I’m a pilot but you know what? That lady down there your mother called a waitress is more than that. I take care of one job and that’s fly an airplane from one airport to another. She takes care of dozens of jobs. The airplane would never leave the ground if it wasn’t for her and thousands of others like her. She makes sure you have a ticket, she makes sure you have a seat, she makes you and me and all the other people on that plane comfortable. She makes sure you understand what to do if anything goes wrong and she makes sure all of us don’t worry when we feel frightened. And when that plane lands, she makes sure you don’t leave any of your things behind you brought with you.”
Sam stood up as he looked at the young boy. “I’m just a pilot but she’s more, a lot more than that. That lady your mother called a waitress could fly the airplane if something happened to me. I couldn’t do her job if something happened to her. She’s one of our angels in the skies. I wouldn’t want to be up there without her and all those like her.”
Sam took a quick look at the mother before he walked back over where I was standing. He slipped his arm around my waist as he gave me a wink. It had been nothing but dead silence when Sam was giving his speech. A spontaneous applause erupted along with a few cheers and whistles from the crowd around us.
I leaned into Sam as we walked back down the concourse toward our terminal. “I really couldn’t fly your plane you know.”
“That’s not what Donna told me. She said you were a fully-fledged, honest to god jet jockey. She said you could fly anything with wings and a lot of things that didn’t have wings. Donna may be a lot of things, one thing she’s not is a teller of falsehoods.”
“Why aren’t you sitting where I normally sit when that bird takes to the air?” Sam had stopped and turned me so I had to look at him.
I sighed. “Impossible to believe story. The funny part is, I really do enjoy waiting on the crew and passengers. I love my job more than anything I have ever done in the whole wide world and... Everyone should have a job they like as much as I like mine.”
Sam put his fingers under my chin and lifted so I was looking up at him. He bent over and kissed me. I went off the emotional charts as my heart and mind raced into oblivion. I wrapped my arms around him and returned the passion as my whole world stopped in time and space. Seconds? Minutes? A lifetime? Time ceased to exist and there was only... the kiss.
Whistles, hoots, and laughter brought me back to earth as those passing around us, and those who had stopped to watch shouted encouragement.
I pushed back from Sam as my world came back into focus and reality struck home. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...”
He put his fingers over my lips. “I won’t accept an apology because you did mean it. I mean it too Bridget. I love you with all my heart. Marry me and give me some relief. Twenty-four hours a day, you are all I can think about. I’ve become the world’s worst pilot since the first time I met you. I take off thinking not of the passengers and plane but of you. I land without ever thinking of what I did. I don’t remember if I went through a landing list or not. Ask any of the crew that flies with me. They will tell you I’m not there anymore. They ask me questions and they say I answer, Bridget. They ask me what flight I’m on and I answer, Bridget.”
The tears started. I hid my face on his chest as I cried. I couldn’t involve Sam in my life. I had no life except getting up every day and flying. I owed Morgan, and Logan, and Horace, and Donna, and Jim, and Mike, and dozens of others. I owed them money and Bridget owed them her life. If Robert found me, that would be the end of my life. I knew Robert and he wouldn’t quit until he did find me be it today or ten years from today.
Sam rested his chin on the top of my head as he held me with tender love. “You have my heart, my mind, and my soul Bridget. Please don’t cry. I didn’t mean to hurt you or make you cry.”
“I can’t Sam. I love you too but I can’t. It’s not possible. My life is so messed up I refuse to involve you in my mess. Please don’t ask me again. My heart won’t stand it. I want more than life itself to marry you but I can’t. Please, please, don’t ever ask me again.” I was crying with my face buried in his jacket.
Sam never answered as he wrapped his arms around me and held me in his strong embrace protecting me from my world.
Patti was at the boarding desk when Sam and I walked up. She took one look at me and held out her hand toward me. “Captain, you take over here. Bridget, you come with me onto the plane and let’s straighten up your face.”
I was hustled into the boarding tunnel by Patti. “What’s going on Bridget? Do you want to talk about it?”
“I’m sorry Patti, it’s a personal problem. I have it under control now. I can take care of my makeup.” I was trying to explain as Patti led me to the bathroom.
She didn’t take no for an answer as she helped me clean up my face. She put some eye drops in my eyes to get rid of the redness. “You pregnant? Did Sam tell you to get lost after you told him you were going to have his baby?”
That shocked me. “No, it’s nothing like that. I’ve never been to bed or had sex with Sam... or any man for that matter. It’s...”
“You’re a virgin?” Patti backed up to take a good look at me. Her eyes were two egg whites.
“Well... yes…, I guess I am. Is that difficult to believe?” I wondered why that surprised her.
“Hell yes it’s hard to believe. You have the face, the looks, a body that drives men insane and you haven’t been to bed with anyone. I’m having a hard time swallowing that story. If you aren’t pregnant, what did Sam say that made you cry?” She was rapidly blinking her eyes in disbelief.
“He asked me to marry him.” I rolled my lips in and held my breath to stop the tears I felt coming again.
Patti looked shell-shocked as she stared. Then it hit home and she screamed in hysterics as she held her stomach with her left hand and slapped her right knee with her right. She was laughing so hard, unable to stand; she plopped down on the floor. She finally stopped laughing long enough to stand up. She did okay until she looked at me and that was all it took. She staggered out the of the bathroom laughing.
Billy, our co-pilot stepped on the plane a look of puzzlement on his face as he watched Patti stagger toward him laughing. She looked up, tried to speak, pointed back toward me, and doubled over in hysterics again. She staggered down the boarding ramp like a drunk as she laughed. About every ten feet she would get her laughter under control until she pointed back toward the plane. Then unable to speak, she would start again.
After Patti took over, Sam came onboard with a puzzled look on his face.
I shook my head. “Don’t ask.”
Sam nodded and walked up to the cockpit without saying anything.
I imagine our passengers thought Atlantic had hired the happiest go lucky hostess in the whole world or they thought Patti was crazy. Patti would look at their boarding pass and point back toward the plane and giggle most of the time. Other times she would be talking to them and giggle right in the middle of a sentence. Laughter is infectious. As the passengers boarded the plane, most of them would have a big smile on their faces or they would be laughing, not understanding nor caring why.
I didn’t try to avoid Sam on the flight back to New York. It would only have made matters worse. I had lost my heart to him, but the fact was I didn’t deserve him. He deserved a nice normal relationship with a woman who had an honest to goodness background, not some spook like me. There would be too many complications in a relationship with someone like Sam. I could imagine all the questions I could never answer. “Let’s visit your family Bridget.” “Let’s go to your school reunion Bridget.” “Who was your best friend when you were growing up Bridget?” “Where are your family photos Bridget?” “You were flying for whom and when was that darling?”
At New York I was giving the customary departure speech and the last passenger had deplaned when Sam walked up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. He pulled me back into his chest and rested his chin on my head.
“I’ve given it some thought and decided no is not an option. You’re not married or Donna would have told me. You’re not going with anyone or she would have warned me. You aren’t lesbian. That only leaves one answer.”
He turned me around to face him as he looked into my eyes. “I cannot take no for an answer. That’s too painful for me to contemplate. The only answer that’s possible is yes.”
He studied me as I had nothing to reply. Shaking his head, Sam sighed. “You promised me a date. I’m holding you to your promise. Tomorrow, it has to be tomorrow. I’ll pick you up in the morning at nine.”
“Nine? In the morning? But I couldn’t possibly...” I was running through my mind how we could start a date at nine in the morning?
“I said, ‘no is not an option.’ Where do you live?” He was needing an address to come and get me.
“I don’t know.” I could see doubt register in his eyes and I held up my hand. “I honestly don’t know. The apartment is called Deity Arms. I’ve always taken a cab and never thought much about the streets getting there.”
“Okay, I’ll take a cab. You will wear the red dress Donna was telling me about?” He waited for an answer.
“I haven’t sent it to the cleaners since I last wore it. I’ll check and if it doesn’t have any spots or stains on it then I’ll wear it just for you.” I noticed the crew had gathered up behind Sam to hear our conversation.
“Tomorrow then, it’s a date.” Sam leaned up and gave me a light kiss on the cheek before he walked off the plane.
Billy and the rest of the crew were smiling like kids on the playground who had just seen their first kiss between a boy and girl. I waved my hand in their direction. “It’s only a date. Grow up people.”
Patti walked past me smiling as she nodded in agreement. “Sure, just a date. He asks you to marry him and now he asks for a date. Don’t tell us to grow up. We aren’t the ones who have the situation all turned around backwards. We date and then ask for marriage, not the other way around.”
Billy pointed toward the disappearing Patti. “I agree with her. You and Sam are coming at this from the wrong direction.”
Raising their voices in unison, the rest of the crew agreed. I could only shake my head in disgust as I left the plane.
At the apartment I paid Kemel for the fare. He shook his head when I asked him about the fare for the other times I didn’t pay. After he drove off, I counted my money. It was getting down to nothing. Two dollars and fifteen cents. I gave Jim all the cash Mike had endowed me with in Los Angeles when I set up the sting. I didn’t figure I would get a paycheck from Atlantic–I never filled out an employment form. I was the person who showed up in one of their hostess uniforms, took a flight, and disappeared when it was all over. I needed to find a real job and soon but that was going to be iffy. Anything that paid a decent wage would want a history which was one thing I didn’t have. I still had the credit cards but had no idea what amount was allowed to be charged. Then there was the payback when I used one of those cards.
I took a deep breath and promised I would pick up the help wanted classifieds tomorrow and call all the employment agencies. Sam’s date was interfering with me finding a job. I waved at the gargoyles before I walked in the building. “Hi guys, meet me by the window and I’ll tell you about my day.”
“Don’t answer,” Grimcost whispered out of the side of his mouth.
Garmon looked down as she walked into the building, “But I like her.”
Grimcost looked at his friend. “Weren’t you the one who called her Little Miss Troubles?”
“Yeah, but she’s cute and I still like her.” Garmon backed away from the front and spread his wings. “I’m going over to her window. She promised to tell us a story.”
“Mr. Logan ain’t gonna like this. Wait for me.” Grimcost followed Garmon over to Bridget’s apartment window.
Grim watched them fly by. “What’s up? She’s back isn’t she? Leave room for me, I’m coming too.”
Gorm leaped off the side of the building. “Dibbs on the middle spot.”
Horace was watching as I walked into the building. I walked up to his desk and slid my purse up on top. “Horace, I need a job. You know of any job where they don’t ask too many questions and pay enough to live on?”
“A job? Uh, I thought you had a job as a stewardess for Atlantic Airlines. Is there something wrong with that job? You quit or you don’t like it?” Horace looked puzzled.
“Oh no, I love flying for Atlantic. I couldn’t ask for something I enjoyed more but I need to find one that pays. I have a couple of dollars from what Morgan initially gave me and... well, I’m broke again.”
A serious look crossed his face. “You aren’t...”
“Thinking of suicide? No, the thought never entered my mind until you brought it up. I’m not the suicidal type. Jerry only wanted to because his life was over and prison wasn’t an option.” I shrugged my shoulders.
Relief showed on his face. “I’ll see what can be done. Don’t worry about it Bridget. These things have a way of working themselves out.”
I had to chuckle as I leaned over and gave him a hug. “Easy for you to say, you have a place to call home and a job. Thanks Horace, I’ll go see what my friends know about a job.”
He had his hands on my waist and I felt him hesitate. “Friends?”
“Sure, I’ve told them all about me and they are fun to talk to. I would give them something to eat but I don’t know what they do eat. Well, provided I had anything in my... Morgan’s apartment to eat that is.” I backed up and slid the purse strap up on my shoulder as I moved my hair out of the way.
“You’re talking about the gargoyles?” He was looking to see if he had nailed it.
I nodded yes as I headed for the elevator before I stopped and turned to look at him again. “Sam O’Donald is a pilot for Atlantic. He said he would be by to pick me up around nine tomorrow morning. If he can find the place that is. And provided I’m not flying tomorrow. I guess if he doesn’t show and I don’t fly it will give me time to look for a job.”
Logan stepped into the lobby as the elevator doors closed behind Bridget. Horace turned to look at his old friend. “You heard?”
“Yes, it’s time to send her on. I’ll miss her.”
“Me too. Sometimes being a god isn’t any fun.” Horace sighed centuries of living.
Logan nodded in agreement as he stepped back into his office and closed the door.
Walking into the apartment I saw four noses pressed up against the window. I waved at them as I tossed my purse over into a chair. “Hi guys, wait till I tell you what I did today.”
I raised the window and rubbed one behind the ears with my right hand while I rubbed another under the chin with my left hand. “There was the businessman who boarded in New York and went on to Albuquerque with Donna’s flight. You remember her from my last story. Donna is the Leprechaun I was telling you about. She has the prettiest flaming red hair and the brightest emerald green eyes and...”
“I’m beginning to believe I am going to spend my life getting you out of bed.”
I opened my eyes to look at those emerald green eyes I was telling the gargoyles about last night. “Hi Donna, morning again? We flying? I need to call Sam and tell him our date is canceled.”
“No, we aren’t flying. Not for Atlantic anyway. Get up and get dressed. You’re leaving.” She picked up a suitcase and opened it up in a chair.
“Leaving? They are throwing me out aren’t they? I can’t blame them. Not my apartment, I’m not paying them anything.” I rolled over and sat up in bed as I pushed my hair back out of my face.
“Take a shower and let’s pack your things. You won’t be back.” Donna walked over to the closet.
“I don’t have anything to pack. These are all Morgan’s things. I’m not even sure if Atlantic’s uniforms are mine. Don’t put anything in that suitcase. The suitcase is Morgan’s too.” I looked around the room. There was nothing there that belonged to me.
Donna took the red dress that I wore to Houston out of the closet. She held it up. “Bridget, look at these clothes. Who do you think besides you could possibly wear these dresses? Morgan? She has a darling figure but it’s not um... She isn’t a forty four, hon. Let’s get you packed with some necessities and the rest can come later. A few dresses, a couple of those damned heels you seem to be able to wear without complaining, and underclothes.”
I was confused as I headed for the shower. Not Morgan’s clothes? But it was Morgan’s apartment. After the shower and drying off, I walked back into the bedroom. Underclothes and the little nothing red dress were spread out on the bed. The front door opened and shut after I finished dressing.
“Bridget, I asked Mr. Luk to carry your suitcases to the cab. You ready?” came from the living room.
Looking around the apartment I picked up the red purse and checked. Donna had moved all the contents from my other purse into the red one. I slipped into the five-inch red heels, smoothed out my skirt, slid the purse strap up on my shoulder, and walked into the room where Donna was waiting.
“You ready?” Donna opened the door.
“I guess. Where are we going?” I followed her out and closed the door and that part of my life behind me.
“Find you someplace to live. Sam called me last night wanting your address. He told me he had a date with you this morning. I kind of canceled your date until tonight. We had to get you moved today. Morgan called and said Mr. Lsuka Quinn is going to meet us at the courthouse in an hour. I believe you have the opportunity to close your option on Hot Topics.”
Donna handed me a PDA and a schedule book before we stepped into the elevator. “Here’s your flight schedule log. I can’t keep coming to get you for every flight. You fly from Atlanta to LAX two days from now. Morgan told the CEO of Atlantic to give you a light schedule because you had a photo op with Fashion Trends, Guys and Dolls, Modeling Designs, and a host of others too numerous to mention. You will be on Good Morning America and the Tonight Show on the eighteenth.”
The elevator opened up. In shock I stepped on as Donna held up her left hand and counted silently on her fingers. “Um... no, yes, yes... Oh, did I mention I talked to Jim Castle? He has your money. Didn’t you say Robert and Nancy stole eighty six million dollars from Jerry? No...? Wonder where I heard that at then? Jim has it. He said he would make sure it was safe this time. No one besides you will be able to get their hands on it.”
Horace looked up and smiled as Donna and I stepped off the elevator. I started crying as I walked over and slipped into his arms.
Donna headed for the door. “I’ll wait in the cab.”
“I wish I didn’t have to go. I’ll never forget you. Thank you for everything.” I cried as I laid my head against the chest of this huge mountain of a man.
He held me in his arms, gently, tenderly. “I’ll never forget you Bridget. It’s been many centuries since I have seen anyone like you. It was kind of you to drop by and share a little of your life with us.”
I rose up on my toes and gave him a kiss, mixed with tears, on the cheek. “I love you Horace.”
Mr. Logan was waiting by the front door. I walked over and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Will I ever see you again?”
Logan put his hands around the back of my head and pulled me in to his chest as he rubbed the back of my neck. “Ever is a long time Bridget. We will have to wait and see.”
Through the tears and sniffles I tried to smell him one last time to lock the memory in my mind. “Forever is a long time. Please don’t wait forever.”
I backed up and then leaned up to kiss him. I had to see what it was like to kiss a deity. The kiss? Impossible to explain. Explain light to a blind person who has never seen. Wiping the tears I backed up. “I love you too Logan. Thanks for everything. Thanks for my life.”
“It is Morgan you should thank. I only gave you a place to stop for a little while.” Logan cocked his head and smiled.
“I will, I’ll thank her next time I see her. Please don’t let this goodbye be a final goodbye.” I was wiping tears as I took one last look around at Deity Arms, Horace, and Logan, before I walked out the door.
Before I slid into the cab I waved at the four gargoyles sitting on the roof. “Come see me.”
“Well, Little Miss Troubles is finally gone.” Garmon watched the cab drive off.
“You liked her as much as the rest of us did,” Grimcost admonished his friend.
“I didn’t like her.” Grim stuck his nose up in the air in disgust.
“Yeah, and your mother was a cat.” Gorm shook his head as he backed up to go find his perch on the other side of the building.
Logan stood at the door with his hands clasped behind his back. “She’s one of a kind.”
Horace walked over and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “She’s certainly that. I wanted her to stay.”
“You know as well as I it wasn’t possible. Human’s are like butterflies, they are prettiest when in the wild on their own. She would have grown tired of us in time.”
“I wonder if humans know we have as much pain and sorrow as they do. Being a god and living for centuries isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Horace shook his head sadly.
“Sometimes it’s more than fair. Look alive, here they come.” Logan turned and walked into his office closing the door behind him.
Horace walked back to his desk and waited. The evil could be felt before the cab pulled up to the curb. The man and woman reeked of it as they got out and argued with the driver about the fare. “You stupid bastard, you don’t think I know what you were doing? You drive all over the city to run up the meter. You ignorant bastards come over here to America and take our jobs. You’re nothing but stupid savages.”
The man pulled a twenty off a roll of bills. “Here, this is all I’m paying you. You tried to screw me and now I’m screwing you. Fuck off you little bastard. Go home. Go back to the sewer you popped out of.”
The driver said something before giving the man the finger and driving off.
The man kicked the cab door as it pulled out. “Fucking foreigners, come over here and take over the country.”
“You told him honey. He didn’t get away with cheating us.” The woman patted the man on the back for a job well done.
“Fucking A,” the man agreed.
He looked up at the name on the building. Deety Arms? “I think that fucking little weasel dropped us off at the wrong building. This is Deety Arms and I definitely told him Deity Arms. Asshole can’t even understand English. Let’s go see if these bozos know where Deity Arms is.”
He pushed the door open and they walked into the lobby.
Horace winced as the evil that flooded the lobby was almost overwhelming. “May I help you?”
“Yeah, where’s the fucking Deity Arms Apartments? Driver dropped us off at the wrong building.” The man sneered as he wiped his nose with his coat sleeve.
“Maybe it would be of some help if you told me who you were looking for sir.” Horace was ready to air out the place before the stench became overpowering.
“Yeah, maybe you heard of her. Bridget... Bridget Tonue. Young bitc... Young woman. Has big melons clear out to here.” The man held his hand way out in front of his chest.
“But they are false. She doesn’t have real ones. You can tell they are fake a mile away,” the woman added.
“Yes, we have a tenant by that name. Beautiful young lady with intelligent black eyes and long silky black hair reaches to her hips?” Horace was baiting the trap.
“Yeah, that’s her. What apartment is the bi... woman in?”
“I’m afraid I can’t give you that information sir. I’ll buzz her if you will tell me who’s calling?” Horace picked up the phone.
The man moved his right hand inside his jacket. “Give us the apartment number!”
“What’s the problem here?” Mr. Logan stepped out from his office. He almost raised his hand to sweep the evil away from his face but resisted the urge.
“This gentleman and lady wish to see Miss Tonue,” Horace pointed in the man’s direction.
“I see. Do you know Miss Tonue?” Mr. Logan clasped his hands together in front of his chest.
“Yeah, we’re good friends. In fact we are better than good friends. We are business associates. The bitc... uh, she has something for us and we stopped by to pick it up.” The man slipped his hand out of his jacket.
“I see. I don’t guess there would be any harm in letting them go up to Miss Tonue’s apartment if they are business associates. Horace, please guide Miss Tonue’s guests.” Mr. Logan smiled and nodded his head.
Horace smiled as he waved toward the elevator. “Miss Tonue’s apartment is six oh nine.”
The man motioned for Horace to stay where he was. “We can find it. Don’t call her, we want it to be a surprise.”
“As you wish sir. I’m sure someone is going to be surprised.” A smile spread across Horace’s face and he almost laughed.
“They sure the fuck are. The bitch is going to get what’s coming to her,” the man mumbled as he and woman stepped in the elevator.
“Call the fumigators, open the doors, and air this place out.” Mr. Logan was waving his hands back and forth as he walked to the front door to hold it open.
“Shall we go up to Morgan’s apartment and wait?” Horace was smiling from ear to ear.
“But of course. Let the games begin. Robert and Nancy are about to find out what happens to those who threaten one of our guests. After you my old friend.” Logan pointed up.
Logan and Horace stepped into the room the same instant someone else did. Logan shook his head as he looked at her. “Morgan, you look stunningly beautiful as always.”
Morgan nodded as she looked around the apartment. “You always were a smooth talking devil Logan. You did send everything along didn’t you? Bridget will need her full wardrobe to keep up with her schedule.”
“Mr. Luk packed everything as you requested. Shall we open the window and let Bridget’s friends in? I don’t think Mr. and Mrs. Drake had the chance to meet them before they came into the building. I’m positive Bridget’s friends wouldn’t approve of Mr. Drake threatening Bridget with a gun.”
There was a heavy knock on the door. As Morgan walked over to open it, Horace opened the window. Four shadows slipped into the room snarling and growling.
Mr. Logan put a finger to his lips. “Ssssssssh!”
Morgan opened the door. “Robert, Nancy, please do come in. We have been expecting you. I’m afraid Bridget is unavailable right at the moment but...”
“Unavailable my ass! Get out of the way bitch! Where’s that little cunt hiding? She’s gonna be sorry she ever fucked with me.” Robert gave Morgan a hard push with his left hand as he stormed into the apartment. He pulled a thirty eight out from under his coat.
Nancy followed Robert into the apartment and slammed the door behind her. “We got her now. Get Miss Tits out here! I’m going to beat the living shit out of her. She will beg us to take the money back before I’m through with her. She fucked with the wrong people this time.”
Mr. Logan stepped forward. “Actually, someone ‘fucked’ as you say with the wrong people but it wasn’t Miss Tonue. I think Jerry Rands would probably have said it was his money in the first place.”
Robert pointed his gun at Mr. Logan. “Who the hell are you and where’s the fucking bitch at?”
“Such language. More appropriate for a prostitute working in an S and M brothel, wouldn’t you say?” Mr. Logan glanced over at Horace who had walked up beside him.
“Listen asshole, I asked you a question. I don’t intend to ask again. In case it has escaped your attention, I have a gun and I will use it.” Robert waved it back and forth for emphasis.
Mr. Logan blinked in shock. “Did the gentleman call me an asshole? I fear he has threatened me with his weapon also. I’m not sure I approve of his language nor his manners. Boys...”
A low ominous growling rumble came from several places around the room. A cold chill ran up Robert’s back as four monsters stepped into view. They were drooling with their lips pulled back exposing long fangs. The hackles were raised on their backs.
Something impossible to believe takes awhile to register on the brain even when the eyes are looking at it. Robert and Nancy were looking at four gargoyles who were not stone but alive. Screams of sheer terror escaped from apartment six oh nine followed by the sound of gunshots mixed in with hideous screams, growling, and the crash of furniture being destroyed.
Horace looked over at Logan. The room destructed in front of them as Nancy and Robert fought with the gargoyles. “He was right. It was a surprise.”
Stepping around the raging fight, Morgan walked over beside Logan and Horace. “I’m afraid this is getting a little messy for me. I’ll be going. You have plans for Bridget’s guests?”
Logan watched as Grimcost clamped his teeth down on Robert’s ankle. “Oooooh, that’s gotta hurt. Yes, I’ll take care of them after Bridget’s friends give them a little attitude adjustment. What did Nancy call Bridget? Miss Tits? And Robert called Bridget a bitch? I’m sure something appropriate can be reciprocated, with interest of course.”
After Donna and I left the apartment, I managed to get my emotions under control. I had to know. “Donna, why me?”
“Why you what?” Donna didn’t understand the question.
“Why was I chosen? Why didn’t they let me kill myself? People die all the time. Why me?” I was curious why I had been chosen to be saved from death.
“Game of chance. It was fate if you believe in such things. Chance if you don’t.” Donna opened up the makeup kit and took out cascading diamond earrings and a necklace. “Here, the dress you’re wearing demands it.”
“You’re kidding! I wasn’t chosen because of some reason or another?” I couldn’t believe the life I was living was pure chance. Absentmindedly I slipped the earrings in my pierced ears before I put on the necklace. It never dawned on my mind I was wearing a couple of million dollars worth of Morgan’s jewelry.
Donna reached up and tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Kemel, why did you pick Jerry up that night?”
The driver glanced up in the rearview mirror at me. “I was coming back from that part of town after a delivery. The guy was standing on the curb. I thought, ‘why not make a few extra bucks.’ So I stopped and gave him a ride. That was it. When he handed me a twenty and told me to take him as far is it lasted, that raised my curiosity. I watched as he ditched his watch and billfold down in the seat before we had gone two blocks. That told me the guy had either stolen it and wanted to get away from the crime scene, or he was on his last leg and wanted to disappear from life. I decided to run him by Mr. Logan and see if he wanted to play with him.”
“Play with him? It wasn’t all planned days, months, years before?” I was desperately trying to understand.
Donna pulled out the eyeliner. “Hold your head up and look at me. Be still now. No planning. Morgan was there and she wanted you. That’s really all there is to it hon. You think they plan everything? Morgan and the others are deities, not omnipresent beings. They don’t know everything and they make mistakes like you and me.”
“You and me? But you’re one of them.”
“I said hold still. No I’m not one of ‘them’. I know a lot about them and understand a lot but they hold a lot of secrets back from me. There, now your eyes look like the model you are.” She put up the eyeliner and took out a blush.
“Kemel is one of them then. He’s always there when we need a cab.” I glanced up front at our driver.
“Yes, Kemel is one of them. He really enjoys meeting people and giving them rides. You will find out they are like us in a lot of ways. There are good ones, bad ones, and they have good days and bad days too. Now lean over here again and let me bring up your cheeks, although Morgan blessed you with so much beauty I don’t know why I bother trying to improve it.”
I looked at my long slender fingers and dark red painted fingernails. “So this is only chance? Donna you aren’t going to leave me are you? I need your help to find my way. Besides, you’re my best friend and the only one I can talk to now that I no longer have an apartment where my life began.”
Kemel pulled up to the curb and stopped. “We’re here. How long you gonna be? I need to pick up a guy in Queens and run him back to Trick’s. He’s the guy who stole Bridget’s mink jacket. Trick is going to make sure the guy looks good in it.”
Donna opened her door and slid out motioning me to follow her. “This is going to take awhile. Bridget should get her Hot Topics back after the judge gives the okay for transfer of ownership from bankruptcy. Drop her suitcases off at the plane. We will catch another cab to the airport.”
I opened the front door and leaned in. I held out my hand. “Kemel, thank you for everything. Thank you for picking me up that night. I don’t have any money but I have a credit card Morgan gave me. Can you run it through?”
Kemel took my hand, leaned across the seat, and kissed the back of it. “Bridget, never have I enjoyed a passenger as much as I have you. When you come back to New York I’d like to be your driver if you don’t mind. As for the money?” Kemel pulled up his sleeve as he held out his left arm. I was looking at Jerry’s watch on his wrist. “A three thousand dollar watch pays for a lot of rides. More than twenty dollars worth. Take care Bridget. When you need a New York cab I’ll be there.”
Donna edged me back out of the way and closed the door. Kemel was gone. She pointed toward the courthouse. “I know they never had a client dressed like you. Let’s go see if we can talk them out of Hot Topics while their minds are fried.”
I glanced over at Donna and shook my head. She was wearing a lime green dress. The full skirt was as short, or shorter than mine. The top had a scalloped neckline and full length sleeves. The light played tricks as the dress seemed to be a flowing liquid even when she wasn’t moving. Her sensible heels were two-inch and her purse matched her dress. Her gold earrings and necklace were perfect with her dress. There was no doubt in my mind she was one of ‘them’ even if she denied it. She was a Leprechaun for sure.
It was two sixteen before we left the courthouse. The men seemed to have trouble keeping their minds on the bankruptcy case. I honestly thought the judge was going to call Donna and me prostitutes and toss us out of court, but he didn’t. He probably stared at us harder than any of those five corporate lawyers who were trying to block the sale of Hot Topics. In the end the little lawyer Donna had hired for me, Mr. Lsuka Quinn, convinced the judge I had a prior claim on Hot Topics. When I said little, I meant little. The guy was Indonesian or some such and stood about five-six. If I wasn’t wearing heels we would have been looking each other in the eye. I don’t think he weighed a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. But his mind was sharp and his understanding of the law was second to none.
Donna and I caught a cab and headed out to the airport after the judgment. I was wondering how I was ever going to get Hot Topics back into production as we pulled up to a private jet. I was seriously out of funds. It takes money to put a business back into business even if all the pieces are already in place. I was positive the kind of money I was making... as I had yet to see any, would never pay the light bill for Hot Topics much less any of the other overheads. So far I had been living on other people’s graces. I was up to my eyeballs in debt to Morgan. I owed the lawyer Mr. Quinn, whom we just left at the courthouse. Jim Castle’s bill had to be a couple of hundred thousand dollars or more. I was going to be working for nothing for the rest of my life to pay off my debts. At least Robert and Nancy didn’t have it either. Donna said Jim cleaned out Robert and Jim had the money they stole from me. I found that hard to believe. Robert didn’t write that kind of check.
Donna pointed to the jet as she slid out of the back seat. “The guy onboard has a briefcase for you. It has your flight plans and your apartment address in Atlanta. I’ll see you around Bridget Renee Tonue. Have a good life hon.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Donna had told me goodbye in her own way. I started bawling as I wrapped her up in my arms. “Please Donna, please don’t leave me.”
She pushed me back as tears gently fell from her eyes. “Not forever Bridget. We will fly together some day. Leprechauns have friends too.”
I pulled her back in and held on for dear life as I cried on her shoulder. “You’re my best friend. I love you Donna. Please don’t wait too long before you come back.”
“That’s so you can steal my pot of gold isn’t it. You think if I hang around long enough you will figure out where I’m hiding it.”
Donna’s wisecrack had made it possible to let her go. I kissed her on the cheek. “We are best friends. Friends don’t steal from one another. Don’t make me wait too long or I’ll call up Sam to find where you live.”
“I promise. Go find the life that was supposed to be yours Bridget. It won’t be all sunshine but I’m betting you make the days with lemons into lemonade.” She gave me a hug along with a kiss on the cheek.
Biting my lips so I wouldn’t cry any more, I walked over to the plane and climbed aboard. I turned to close the landing door. Donna was standing there by the cab waving. That ripped my heart apart. I was crying again as I waved bye to her.
As the door closed the world off between us, someone wrapped his arm around my waist and nuzzled in my ear. “She always pops up whenever you need her. It’s what she’s best at.”
I settled back into his chest before I reached up behind me and wrapped my hands around his head. “I don’t want her to pop up when I need her. I want her to be there to share a joke only she understands. I want her to be there when we greet the passengers. I want her to be there when we enjoy an evening after a hard day. Life is more than sharing needs Sam. Life is also sharing fun. That’s a different kind of need but it’s the same.”
He turned me around to face him. “I know. I also know I want to share those things. The person I want to share with, I’m holding in my arms.”
He gave me a kiss between my tears and held me for a long time in his strong comforting arms. Finally he led me up to the cockpit. “Donna showed me your pilot’s license. You really do fly everything with wings and a lot of things without don’t you?”
I started to sit down in the co-pilot’s seat and Sam steered me over to the pilot’s one. “Hey, no free rides this time. On Atlantic you make me do all the flying. This time it’s my turn to take care of the passengers while you fly.”
I glanced in back. “We don’t have any passengers.”
“Not my fault it turned up empty on your flight Captain. What say we kick the tires, light the fires, and get this buggy off the ground? I’m dying to see that apartment north of Atlanta Donna found for you. It’s within walking distance of the airport. She said all you have to do is hop down to Atlanta for your flights out on Atlantic Airlines.”
I slid into the pilot’s seat and started bringing the little Lear to life as Sam slid into the co-pilot’s seat. “Sounds good to me. You have the flight plan filed?”
“The Captain is supposed to do that but since you were late, as I knew you would be, yes, I filed it.” A self-satisfied smirk spread across his face.
“Then let’s see about getting this bird in the air.” I inched the throttles forward and we started rolling.
Sam turned to stare at me after we parked at the end of the runway before our turn for liftoff. “Is that the uniform you’re going to wear when flying for Atlantic? Not that I mind nor am I complaining. Quite the opposite, I think it’s the uniform all female pilots should be made to wear.”
“I’m not flying for Atlantic except as a hostess.” I heard the okay for takeoff from the tower and inched the throttles forward to full power. We were quickly picking up speed headed down the runway.
“Not what I heard. American and Southwest has sent over headhunters to see if they can hire you over to their airlines. Atlantic decided to see if they were really serious and upped the ante. Donna said next week you fly out to LAX and back as a co-pilot.”
“WHAT?” I know the controllers in the tower thought we were drunk as the little Lear wallowed all over the place on takeoff.
I finally managed to get the plane leveled out again. “I love being a hostess. I meet a lot of interesting people. I really don’t plan on being a pilot.”
“You’re going to be the only hostess with pilot’s wings on her chest. Is it true you’re worth millions and own a software company making millions more every year?
“Do you honestly think I would be working my little tail off as an Atlantic Hooters Hostess if I had THAT kind of money?”
“That raised my suspicions too. I guess Donna does lie about some things.”
“You can’t trust a Leprechaun.”
“Who said she was a Leprechaun? They are little men from Ireland and only a myth.”
“That’s what I thought too. Don’t bet your life on it. Are you her brother?”
“If I were her brother I would be a Leprechaun. I’m six foot five. Leprechauns are little people in Ireland.”
“Oh my god... you are… aren’t you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What will our babies look like?”
“Miss Tonue did you just propose to me?”
“Are we going to have real babies?”
“They will be real babies. They will be happier when we put a pot of gold under their crib.”
“...oh my god...”
The End
Deity Arms–Mike
by Barbie Lee (© 2002)
Mike meets Bridget Tonue for lunch. It brings up memories of his own childhood and life as Susan Kalvers. Is it really important to be a boy or a girl, or is it because we are programmed from birth to be one or the other? Mike finds his answer as he dines with the beautiful Bridget.
She had my full attention as I watched her walk toward me. A very beautiful woman, she had long silky, jet black hair down to her hips. She was wearing a metallic-blue dress. In the reflected light from the lobby it shimmered like flowing water. The hem of the full skirt was just above the knee and I was thinking it was perfect. She walked with a grace few could manage on five-inch, blue, stiletto heels. With each graceful step her hips swayed with the fluid movement of a hula dancer. She had a face women dream of owning and men dream about, sweetheart lips, beautiful arched eyebrows, long lush lashes any woman would have killed for, and a cute little pert nose. High cheekbones and natural almond skin tone defined her Indian ancestry. Her beauty was extraordinary when one considered her beginnings. One of the prettiest women I had ever met, she smiled as she approached.
I couldn’t help myself as I heard a crash of plates behind me. A smile came to my face. From previous experience, I had seen the effect this woman had on people. She was one of those who commanded a room when she walked in. Men would watch in awe as if their wet dream had come alive. Women would be wondering if she was real while thinking there was no way she could be a product of Mother Nature.
As she walked up I held out my hand, “Good to see you again Miss Tonue.”
Taking my hand, she closed in and gave me a kiss on the cheek before she backed up. “And you Mike. And it’s Bridget. How is Morgan?”
I had forgotten Bridget was so affectionate. I guess that was one of her many charms and she had a bunch of them to say the least. “Morgan is fine. She sends her love. You are looking beautiful as always. How’s Sam O’Donald and when is the wedding?”
“The wedding date hasn’t been set. Sam is still flying for Atlantic as am I. We both enjoy what we are doing and plan on staying with it. How’s Mr. Logan and Horace? I would love to see them again.” She had my hand still clasped in hers as she looked into my eyes.
That was one of her other charms. Bridget always made the person she was talking to feel as if he or she was the only one who counted as she made full eye contact and gave them her undivided attention. I motioned to the dining room. “Please, I have a table waiting. Let’s continue this conversation over lunch shall we?”
Bridget laughed and it seemed as if the room became a little brighter. “I was wondering when you would mention it. Please, I would like that very much.”
I knew she wasn’t starving but she made me feel as if I had just saved her from death by inviting her to lunch. I had no idea how she could do what she did. It all came naturally to her. Morgan didn’t give Bridget any of those traits. The physical beauty? Yes, that was a contribution from Morgan. The inner beauty or the glow that seemed to come from within her? That was Bridget and only Bridget. No magic there.
As I turned to walk her to our table, she slid her hand into mine. She made the man she was with think she was there only for him. Another one of her charms and it came so naturally to her. Reluctantly, I retrieved my hand and pulled her chair out at the table. “You are so amazing. Please, allow me.”
Smiling mischievously, she gave me a wink. She slid her right hand up her neck and lifted her long hair over her right shoulder, letting it drape across her ample right breast. Although suggestive, it was natural for Bridget. She turned slightly to the chair before sitting. She was graceful and elegant. As she slid her chair up to the table, she whispered, “Thank you. You’re too kind.”
I could only shake my head as I walked around to the other side of the table to find my own chair. I waved for a waiter which was unnecessary. All of the waiters along with the patrons were already watching us. “Would you like to order a drink first?”
“Would you be kind enough to order for me?” A smile flashed in her eyes as she placed her shoulder purse in the chair to her right.
“As you wish.” I glanced up at the waiter who was paying absolutely no attention to me. Instead he was focused in on Bridget. “A Chablis fifty nine for the lady and me.”
“Yes sir, very good sir.” He nodded and left.
It was a guess as to if she would like the wine. I was sure she would make me think I had made an excellent choice even if she didn’t. Bridget was like that. Like making me feel as if I had saved her from death by starvation when I invited her to lunch. Bridget would make me feel like the wine was an excellent choice even if she didn’t care for it. Of all the people in the world I had ever met, Bridget was one of the few who made everyone think they were doing her a favor no matter how small the incident. She was amazing! I guess you could say her inner beauty matched her outer beauty. The woman’s beauty was more than skin deep.
Looking at Bridget it was easy to get lost in her eyes. Her concentration never wandered. She made everyone feel as if she was hanging on every word. Maybe she was but I knew this woman could buy and sell a lot of corporations around the world and never borrow the money to do it. The idea this lady who was so classy and elegant flew as an Atlantic Airlines hostess would boggle the mind if I didn’t know her personally.
I opened my napkin and spread it on my lap. “Mr. Logan and Horace are doing great. I talked to them a couple of days ago. Mr. Luk wanted me to tell you how much he misses you... Oh, I almost forgot. Mr. Logan said your friends have been doing a terrible job of watching over the place since you left.”
Her eyes were twinkling as a smile spread across her face. “I’ll have to stop in and see them.”
The waiter placed a wine glass down in front of Bridget and... He was holding onto the second wine glass and wine bottle while he stared.
It wouldn’t have done any good to admonish the waiter. Bridget infatuated everyone who got close to her. I snapped my fingers as I looked at his nametag. “Carl, over here buddy.”
“Sir? Oh certainly. Sorry sir.” He set a glass down in front of me along with the bottle and walked off.
Looking over at Bridget, her eyes were dancing with delight as she rolled in her lips in to keep from giggling. She knew what she had done to the poor guy. I guess I was a little better prepared for Bridget than what the other patrons in the restaurant were. It started me thinking how much our lives were alike in some ways.
My daddy was a mechanic in one of those tractor places that sold farm tractors. They sold a few industrial tractors too but it was mostly farm equipment. Borger, Texas was a farm community. Momma was a typical housewife if there is such a thing. She took care of the cooking and cleaning. Occasionally she would work odd jobs at the convenience store or wherever to help make financial ends meet. Daddy’s job was great when he worked, but it was seasonal. Farming is seasonal business. When the farmers were in the fields needing their equipment running, then daddy made good money. When their crops were laid by, then daddy spent most of his days gossiping with the locals, because no one needed a tractor worked on if it was sitting in the barn. That was when momma would work part time to keep food in the house and shoes on my feet.
Susan Shirley Kalvers was the name my parents laid on me when I was born. I guess I had the typical little girl childhood. My best friend, Linda Rostman, lived four houses down and across the alley from our house. We were like sisters. Usually where you saw one you saw the other. The problem with sisters is they can talk you into things you wouldn’t normally do on your own. Eddie Shorer was the boy next door to Linda. He was in the same grade as us but a year older. I don’t know what goes through little boys’ minds. It seems they are always looking for ways to be mean. I remember when Linda and I were about six. We were playing house in the back yard. We had pulled a blanket off the bed and spread it out on the grass which was “our house”. Of course, we had to do cooking if we had a house. We strung out the garden hose where Linda’s dog Speck had dug next to the fence and made a mud puddle. Gathering up a hand full of mud we carried it over to the back porch and spread out our mud cakes.
Eddie had been watching from his yard. When he saw the mud he came over. I thought he was going to play house with us. It shows how dumb girls can be. He started digging up mud and throwing it at us, tossing handfuls on the blanket, and at the house. About the time he tossed a big mud ball at Linda, Cindy Rostman walked out the back door. Eddie’s aim wasn’t that good and the mud ball hit Cindy in the face. As you can imagine, Linda and I received a whipping. Not because we had tossed the offending batch of mud: but because we had mixed up the mud in the beginning. Eddie didn’t get a whipping as he ran home. His parents explained, “boys will be boys.” I think I developed a hatred for boys about then. I received Eddie’s punishment and it wasn’t fair.
Small towns like Borger aren’t big enough to have social elite. I mean who would the social higher ups socialize with? Even if one has money they have to live and work with the rest of the lower class of people. Instead of social layers, smaller towns develop social cliques or groups. That is one group of people who think they are better than the rest and have their own little clan. If you ain’t ever lived in a little town then you are in for a real rude awakening if you think they are all friends. Since daddy was only a mechanic and we didn’t have money, then I was in the lower echelon of the social clique. Linda and I figured it out about the sixth grade. We weren’t part of the in crowd.
Karen Stern’s parents owned the Fashion Boutique on the corner of Main and Park Ave. She was most definitely part of the in crowd. Laura Fulser’s parents owned the IGA grocery store so she was definitely part of the in crowd. If your parents owned a piece of the town then you were in. If they didn’t own a business then you were in or out by the social graces of what kind of girl you were.
In junior high, Linda and I were placed outside the inner workings of the society clique. We remained best friends as we acted in the same school plays, were cheerleaders together, played girls’ softball, and girls’ basketball as Lady Cougars. Our team won the state championship in girls class A basketball in our freshman year. Linda had grown into a tall girl at five foot eleven. Her uncanny ability to make almost any shot outside the three point circle along with her height advantage over most of the schools we played made her the Lady Cougars number one point shooter. I think our junior high coach, Mr. Peach, cried when she graduated from junior high.
Our junior high prom opened my eyes to what boys wanted and how our little Borger society clique worked. I was beginning to show all the signs of teenage maturity by then and had been voted to be the Cougars’ Freshman Prom Queen. I had a couple of dozen boys ask me to the prom. Dusty Mavis had asked me to be his date. I liked Dusty a lot. His dad worked with my dad at the same equipment company so we had something in common. I chose to date Dusty instead of Eddie or any of the other jocks or school studs. Dusty was kind of shy and really cute. Eddie and some of his friends told me I would regret dating Dusty. I was thinking they were trying to make me believe Dusty was going to go for sex on our prom night. In all my innocent youth, I didn’t realize the threat was that I would never be accepted into the Borger Society Clique if I didn’t date a jock and spread my legs for them. Our freshman banquet was a dream come true for me as I was the Prom Queen. The week before the big night, mom and I drove to Amarillo and picked up a burgundy, sleeveless prom dress with a full skirt and lots of petticoats. We added four-inch open strap heels and pantyhose that had a seam running down the backs of the legs. It was the prettiest dress I had ever owned. I knew I was one hot-looking fox, second to none when I was wearing that dress. Looking back, there was only one girl there who didn’t hate me because of my title. Linda didn’t have one jealous bone in her whole body. But then she had her own glory. Linda was the Lady Cougars’ star basketball center and the Lady Cougars’ star softball pitcher. She was also the best actress in the whole darn school.
I have no idea where Dusty came up with an orchid for my corsage. I was the only girl in Borger, Texas with an orchid that night. Dusty took me out necking after the prom and yes, he tried a few moves on me besides kissing and petting. I think I would have been disappointed if he hadn’t tried. Dusty was a gentleman and he didn’t push the issue when I stopped his roaming hands from going up my skirt. He managed to fondle my breasts while my mind went off the charts, but I think we both knew there wouldn’t be anything beyond kissing and petting.
By the time high school came along, I had matured and my body had filled out as a young woman. Linda kept telling me I was the best looking girl in school, but she was my friend. That’s what friends tell you if they are true friends, even if it’s not true. There was a wee problem even if I was the best looking girl. All my clothes came from the discount shopping malls at Amarillo, Texas, not from some designer boutique. Sally Prich didn’t have parents who owned property, but she had bigger boobs then me and she also made out in the back seat of more than one football jock’s car. She was part of the society clique because she made out.
It’s kind of a complicated system the way the society clique works in small towns. If your parents had business property then you were in. If you were a football stud then you were in. If you were a football stud’s girlfriend then you were in as long as you were a girlfriend. If the stud dropped you then you were out.
High School in Borger was sophomore, junior, and senior years. Linda and I were cheerleaders, acted in several school plays, and I cheered her on as she played basketball. At five foot four, the coach thought I was too small to play basketball even though I made most of the baskets. Linda grew up to be six foot two and was the star player on the girls’ team, the Lady Cougars. She was also a much better shooter than any of the boys. Our school made the Class A finals in Linda’s senior year. Many a time I saw her take a shot from half court and make the basket. The college recruiters were drooling all over themselves as they lined up to talk her into going to their college.
The jokes about “the short and tall twins” were only a few of the things Linda and I put up with in school. Linda and I dated a lot of the boys and yes, we shared notes on who was nice and who wasn’t. All in all, I still liked Dusty best, but it wasn’t developing past like. He was a good kid. Dusty just never tripped my heart strings.
In my senior year, I was nominated as a homecoming queen candidate. Everyone told me I was a shoo-in. They didn’t understand small town politics. Eddie Shorer was the football quarterback. He had tried unsuccessfully to get me to have sex with him since our freshman year. I guess I was an old fashioned girl. Also, I never forgave him for that whipping I received because of his offense with the mud. Eddie turned me off, not on. Eddie warned me that if I didn’t drop my panties and spread my legs for him, I wouldn’t be homecoming queen. He was right. Karen Sterns made the offer I had refused. Eddie told all his buddies Karen was to be the queen not me. Between threats of bodily harm from Eddie’s buddies, from the football team, and the social clique Karen belonged to, I was voted in second. I cannot begin to explain all the anger and hate I felt toward Eddie and boys in general. I didn’t go to the game, as I could not bear to see Karen in her high dollar gown being crowned Miss Homecoming Queen because she was willing to put out for the privilege.
Dusty and I made the senior prom together, which was nice. He had grown up from a gentle boy into a gentleman. I didn’t have to fight him off on our drive out to see the stars that night. As much as I tried to turn my feelings of friendship into stronger ones, it never happened. The kisses were nice but they didn’t send me off to listen to the bells. The petting was awesome as he ran his hands over my breasts but... There was never any chemistry there.
I hated small towns, boys, and social sluts. That was a lot of hate packed in a young girl as Linda and I headed off to Texas University. Linda had a free ride to college through a basketball scholarship. I was going to have to struggle. I had a Pell Grant and a little help from mom and dad of a couple of hundred a month. I was going to have to work my way through with part time jobs. Linda didn’t know what she wanted to major in, but it didn’t make any difference: she could go as long as her scholarship held out. I was sure I didn’t want any more small town. My major was going to be business management.
That first year was a real struggle. I found I had time for class, study, and work. I don’t think sleep was in there anywhere. Linda and I went different directions when summer came, along with our college break. She went to New York to audition for acting in commercials and short documentaries. I went home to Borger and a job at the Jiffy Stop to save money for my next year at college.
That was where I was working when Eddie walked in. He smiled from ear to ear as he walked up to the counter. “I need a couple of Coors.”
I pointed off toward the reach in coolers. “Over there Eddie. Help yourself.”
“Go get me a couple then Susie.” He looked around the store as he spoke.
“Get them yourself Eddie. This is not a Honk and Holler in case you forgot how to read. This is a convenience store. You help yourself.” I was trying to make an order list for my manager, Danny Gist, and Eddie was ruining my concentration.
Eddie placed both hands on the counter and leaned forward. “Bitch, you always thought you were too good for me. You’re not. You’re a fucking slut and you will never be any more than a slut.”
I sighed as I lost the numbers I had counted up. Pointing up toward the camera on the wall, I nodded and smiled. “Why don’t you smile when you say that Eddie? You are on candid camera. Believe it or not they have sound with those too.”
Eddie looked up at the camera and then back at me as he tried to decide if I was lying or not. He leaned up a little closer as he whispered. “You’ll never amount to anything because you are a loser. You were born a loser and you’ll die a loser. I have the Raiders looking at me for next year’s draft. I’ll be making millions by this time next year. You’ll still be pumping gas and selling beer.”
He had managed to get under my skin. I hissed back. “Fuck you Eddie!”
“Don’t you wish bitch. But you may still get that wish.” He was smiling knowing he had got to me. He turned and walked out of the store.
I wanted to throw something at him but there wasn’t anything I could lay my hands on that would hurt him bad enough. I watched as he climbed into a Firebird and drove off. I was so mad I could bite nails.
Small towns are not the place to keep secrets. I found out Karen had a baby nine months after homecoming night. I guess she really did lay it out for the right to be Homecoming Queen. That had to be a double meaning that night. Eddie didn’t marry her, claiming he wasn’t the dad.
Toward the end of summer the week before I left for college, Eddie returned to town and stopped in at the Jiffy Stop. I saw him coming before he ever got out of his car, so I stopped my work and waited.
“Still working for nickels and dimes Susie?” he offered as he opened the door and closed the space between us.
“It’s an honest living.” I slid my fingers under the counter to the silent alarm. Eddie was one the one person in the whole world I always expected the worst from.
He turned his back to the counter and hopped up, sitting down on my counter by the cash register. “Go get me a couple Coors would you Susie gal?”
I pointed off toward the reach in coolers. “Name on the front hasn’t changed this summer Eddie. It’s still a convenience store, not a Hoot and Holler carry out. The beer is still in the same spot it was six years ago when you were too young to buy it. So you got Marion to buy it for you. Whatever happened to him? I heard he was sent to prison for drugs or something.”
“He turned to look over his shoulder. “Susie, be nice to me this one time. Go get me those two beers please?”
“Not in this lifetime Eddie. First off, I not only don’t like you, I hate your guts. I wouldn’t walk across the room to get you a drink of water if you were dying of thirst. You are the lowest form of humanity. You prey on others weaker than you. One of these days you will get what’s coming to you. It isn’t going to be like that day your parents patted you on the head and said ‘boys will be boys’.” I put the key in the cash register and locked it so it couldn’t be rung open. Eddie was too close to the money to suit me.
“You’re a fucking cunt and will always be a loser Sues. You want to know why? Because you have penis envy. I have one and you don’t. God made men superior to women. That’s why you have to squat to pee and we don’t.” He had seen me lock the register. He slid down off the counter grabbing up a handful of cigarette packs on the way.
I thought I could count six or eight packages in his hands before he stuffed them in his pockets. “I need to ring those up Eddie. How many did you take?”
He leered at me as a crooked smile curled up the corners of his mouth. “Let’s go to the back room and I’ll show you.”
I pushed the alarm under the counter. “Eddie, I’ll send your ass to jail in a heartbeat if you don’t put those cigarettes back or pay for them.”
“Screw you bitch. Either meet me at the old mill road thirty minutes after you get off work or I’ll call up Danny and tell him I caught you selling packs without ringing up the sale.” He was smiling as he turned and walked out to his car.
Eddie was concentrating on watching what I was going to do, or he would have noticed Henry’s old police car pull in behind him. Henry had effectively blocked Eddie from pulling out.
Henry talked on the radio for a few seconds before he slid out and walked up to Eddie’s door. Henry was past middle age and only five feet eleven, but he was barbwire, strung tight and ready to make one bleed if they crossed him. “Eddie Shorer. How you doing son? I haven’t seen you since you graduated from high school. How’s the world treating you?”
Henry opened up Eddie’s car door and motioned for him to step out. “You and Susan rehashing old times were you? Step up to the front of the car and put your hands on the hood for me will you son?”
“What do you want Henry? I didn’t do anything. This is an illegal search you know. I’ll sue the pants off you and that whole damn police department for harassment.” Eddie was refusing to move.
Henry reached behind his back and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. “I see college hasn’t taught you any manners Eddie. You always did have a potty mouth even when you were in grade school. Maybe college didn’t teach you anything but I might. I’m going to ask you one more time to step out of the car and put your hands on the hood. You do that and I won’t add resisting arrest to the charges. You mess with me it won’t be pretty. You may be thinking because you are a football jock you can out wrestle me. I can assure you, I know ways to hurt you that haven’t even been invented yet.”
The only way I can figure it, Eddie must have thought he could lay Henry out and escape to never return to Borger. I watched as Eddie came rising up out of the car swinging a right hook.
Henry easily leaned back out of the way grabbing Eddie’s arm as it came past his face. Henry kept it coming pushing down and rotating it down and back as he twisted it. Eddie’s momentum carried him out of the car. It was all over in less than the blink of an eye. Henry had Eddie face down on the pavement with his arm twisted behind his back. I think Eddie’s face had plowed into the parking lot. His feet and legs were still up inside the car. In one swift movement Henry had Eddie’s other arm behind him and he was handcuffed. The little Borger town policeman had the big six foot four college quarterback down for the count.
Cigarette packages spilled out of Eddie’s pockets in the short struggle. Henry picked them up tossing them on the car hood. He pulled more packages out of Eddie’s pockets. I watched in surprise as Henry tossed even more from the front seat up on the hood.
Walking out the door I counted a couple dozen packages before Henry quit. “Henry, all those aren’t from here. Eddie only walked out with six or eight from my store.”
“I didn’t steal them. The bitch gave them to me if I would meet her later. I didn’t want to but she threatened me saying she would toss them in the trash and claim I had stole them.” Eddie was trying his best to talk while still down on the pavement.
Henry helped Eddie to his feet. “Sure, Eddie, sure. I believe it. And Rhonda at the Seven Eleven on the other end of town will tell the same story? She got scared after you left and called us. If this adds up to more than fifty dollars I’m afraid you will be spending you next semester in Iron Bar University.”
Eddie glared hatred at me before turning his attention to Henry. “You can’t arrest me. I’m a quarterback. I’m the star of the team. You will have so much heat come down on this little jerkwater town before this is over, you will wish you never saw me.”
“You have part of it right Eddie. I wish I had never seen you. I think your folks should have put you in a toe sack and tossed it in the gully after you were born. Come on Star Quarterback, I’m going to introduce you to something you have been missing in your education. The justice system and what happens to crooks. Even famous ones.” Henry led him to the patrol car.
Eddie’s little crime spree ended his football career. Oklahoma University decided they didn’t need him that semester he was locked up in jail. They canceled his scholarship and wrote him off. The Raiders didn’t want him if he wasn’t proving his stuff in collage. For a few dollars, Eddie screwed up his future. That time he had to pay for it instead of someone else taking the blame.
It was back to Texas University for me. That fall semester I was really struggling with mounting bills. Mom and dad’s two hundred dollars a month check had stopped. It had turned dry again and dad’s work had ground to a halt along with the farmers’ crops. I didn’t have a car because I couldn’t afford it. One Saturday, our manager at the Seven Eleven where I was working had messed up the schedule and I wasn’t working. My roommate in the dorm, Judy Lanst, wanted to go to the mall and asked me to ride along.
“Come on Susan. The fresh air will do you good. You go from class to work and back to class. I heard there is a little boutique in the mall that sells the most darling dresses.” She had picked up her purse and keys and was waiting at the door.
I started to decline and thought, why not? I couldn’t afford anything but it didn’t cost anything to look. “Free ride? I can’t afford gas any better than I can afford my room payment. I’m a month behind and only halfway through the school year.”
“Sure. I’ll even spring for the coke and burger or split a submarine with you. I heard that mall has the best subs in Dallas.” She jangled her car keys as an enticement.
I was ashamed to have Judy give me a free ride and buy my lunch but it was a heartfelt offer. She knew as well as I how much I was struggling to stay in college. I honestly didn’t think I would last out the semester as my debts wiped me out of an education. “Thanks Judy, you’re the best.”
Judy’s folks were upper class. Both had college degrees and made excellent money at a company called LTV. Judy owned a new Trans Am. The sports car was a status symbol only. Judy took care of that car as if it was her baby. She drove it like a little old lady. All of which suited me just fine.
We made the mall in less than thirty minutes. It was small as malls go, but it seemed to be upscale. When Judy pulled up and stopped at the boutique, I knew I was out of my league by looking at the dresses in the window. It didn’t stop me from window shopping though. I might not be able to buy anything but I loved to look and feel all the pretty dresses, even if I would never be able to own one.
I followed Judy into Morgan’s Fashions. We were met by a very attractive woman of Mexican or Spanish decent. She had all the statuesque features of royalty. If I hadn’t known better I would have sworn she was receiving us as guests to her kingdom.
“Good morning ladies. Please let me know if I may assist you in finding anything. Would you like to look at our specials? We have some dresses in the back on sale.” She talked with a definite Spanish accent and there was a musical quality in her voice.
Judy nodded her head. “I’m looking for a dress for a dance next week.”
“But of course. And this is an informal dance? You would like a dress with a full skirt or a narrow skirt perhaps? I have several that should be about the right size and style for you. Let’s see now... you are an eight aren’t you? I see a thirty-four, twenty-four, thirty-four do I not? Please, let me show you what I have.” She motioned for Judy to follow her across the store to a rack of party dresses.
I didn’t follow them. Looking at the price tags on the ones I was standing next to told me I couldn’t afford to look, much less try one on. It had been a long time since I had seen an eight hundred dollar dress. The short little hot number I was looking at had that kind of price on it. I couldn’t resist touching it. It was a red dress that seemed to be flowing in the lights of the room. The back was cut clear down to the “you gotta be kidding!” The front was held up by a single strap that wrapped around the neck. There was less material in that dress then the kerchief most cowboys wore. I was thinking it had to cost fifty dollars per square inch of material.
I found my way into the back where the saleslady said the dresses were on sale. “Not much they aren’t.” I was looking at a short sleeveless metallic blue dress. The tag was half-price for five hundred and twenty seven dollars.
“Perhaps you would like to see something more in your price range?”
The voice was definitely female. It was soothing and melodious. I turned to look at the owner of that voice. She was strikingly beautiful, Asian descent, beautiful black eyes, and silky black hair. She was one of the prettiest women I had ever met and I thought the other saleslady was beautiful. “I’m sorry. I was only looking. You don’t have anything in a price range I could afford.”
“You may be surprised. Let’s see, you’re a petite size four. I think I may have a four in one of my returns. It had a defect and I was going to ship it back. Nothing that would be noticeable but never the less I don’t sell merchandise that has a defect.” She walked over to a storage room, reached in, and brought out a black dress.
It was a beautiful black dress. In some way not understandable, it packed more ‘wow’ than my prom dress I wore back in junior high. Sleeveless, with a turtleneck collar, and a short hemline to a tight skirt. “I’m sorry but I’m wasting your time. I really can’t afford any dresses. I can’t even afford lunch. My friend in there with the other saleslady is buying my lunch. I should have stayed in the dorm.”
“You didn’t ask the price.” She smiled and slipped the dress off the hanger. “It doesn’t cost anything to try it on. Why don’t you indulge yourself that much?”
I was shaking my head no, when my mouth answered, “Yes.”
There was no way I could afford that dress but I had to try it on. I took the dress as she pointed me toward a dressing room. In the dressing room I slipped out of my blouse, and slipped on the dress while still wearing my jeans and sneakers. I stepped out of the dressing room to check out the dress in the mirror.
The lady held her hand up to her chin in deep thought. “Susan, I really don’t think you can get the full effect if you are wearing jeans. Why don’t you take them off?”
Again I started to tell her it wouldn’t make any difference but as my mind was thinking ‘no’ my mouth was saying something totally different. “Okay.” I slipped off my jeans right there in front of the mirror.
“And the uh, I think you kids call them tennies?” She pointed at my sneakers.
This time I didn’t argue as I stepped out of my shoes. I was looking better and better all the time as I remembered what it felt like back during my freshman year when I was Prom Queen.
“Let’s see if we can’t do a little more than look acceptable shall we. Try these on.” She was holding up dark pantyhose and black four-inch spike heels.
“But I...” I accepted the hose and heels and disappeared into the dressing room.
It only took a minute to slip into the hose and heels. I stepped back out to check myself in the mirror. There was the beginning of what I remembered from a long time ago, a young woman who could turn heads. I had forgotten her as I struggled with money and college.
“Let me see if there is anything we can do with the face.” The woman stepped up in front of me with a makeup kit.
“I really can’t afford the...” I had forgotten what I couldn’t afford.
It only took her a couple minutes. My eyes were highlighted with eyeliner, my eyelashes looked long, lush, and my cheeks were brought up. My lips looked ravishing with the wet kissable look. I was one hot foxy babe even if I was looking at me. The dress finally had its place on a beautiful gorgeous, sophisticated woman.
I was thinking Cinderella had been freed for a few minutes but it couldn’t be. I had to return to reality. I was broke and way behind in bills. My college future was in doubt. Any purchase such as this dress was going to drive one more nail in the casket of my future education. I could look forward to working in convenience stores for the rest of my life if I didn’t get that degree.
“Miss, I really, really can’t afford this dress. I have wasted your time. I’ll pay you for the pantyhose but anything else I’m sorry, I honestly don’t have the money to pay for anything.” I was looking for my jeans so I could dig up the ten dollars I had hidden way down in the bottom for emergencies.
“Susan, I could use a salesperson. Why don’t you go to work for me? I will pay you four times what you are making at that convenience store and you can work the hours you need.” Her eyes were studying me waiting for an answer.
“But, it’s so far down here? I mean...” I was thinking of all the problems I would have making it to work and then back to classes.
“If it was close, do you think I would be paying those kind of wages? Think about it. If I was close to the campus, I could get a couple of hundred girls to work for minimum wages. There is a bus that runs past the college and makes a straight line down to the corner out front. You can catch the bus for fifty cents each way. I really need another salesperson and you are such a beautiful woman, I know you would be an asset to my store. Say yes.” Her eyes were sparkling as she glanced down at my heels and back up to my eyes.
“Okay, I can try it. I mean I’m probably going to be a drop out pretty soon anyway. I’ll certainly need a job that pays more than a convenience store wage if I am going to survive.” I turned to look at myself in the mirror again. I took a second and third look. I didn’t remember styling my hair. It looked like I had teased it and then brushed it down to give it a full style. It went with the dress.
“Good. You go ahead and enjoy the day with your friend Judy. Tomorrow is Sunday. We are not open on Sundays. I will expect you to be here after classes on Monday.” She turned and was walking toward a door off to the side.
“Wait, the dress? I can’t...”
She stopped and turned to look at me. “I expect you to be appropriately attired when working in my shop. The dress is yours. I will withhold part of your wages to pay for the dresses you need to wear while working for me. Do not come to work in pants or jeans. You will wear a dress and heels. Makeup is not an option. Any more questions?”
“What’re the hours?” I was wondering if I was going to be working to pay for my clothes rather than my education?
“Your last class is at four except on Friday which ends at two. You will show up here at four thirty every day except Saturday. Saturday I expect you here at nine to help with the stock. We open at ten and close at eight. I expect you to bring your books. When we don’t have customers you will be studying. I will make room for you in the office. I don’t expect you to disappoint me Susan. Put your jeans, blouse and tennies in a sack and put them in the empty locker.” She pointed off toward the door where she was headed.
“Put your makeup and your ten dollars in the black purse you find in the locker.” She walked through the door closing it behind her.
Well, I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. I was adding up the wages. Four times what I was making, and three and a half hours of work every week day...? I still couldn’t afford a five hundred dollar dress. I looked the dress over as closely as I could, but didn’t find a price tag on it. I also didn’t find any defects. I was wondering if I could measure up to her... I had no idea who I was working for. A beautiful woman was all I knew. Shoot, some observant saleswoman I was. I needed a crash course in sales.
Judy was by the cash register with the saleslady when I walked back up to the front of the store. I was carrying the black shoulder purse wondering if that was going to cost me–another couple of hundred–and having no idea how I could pay for any of it. The saleslady glanced up and smiled before she slid Judy’s purchase into a clothes bag. I was thinking a ten or twenty dollar clothes bag was no big deal if one purchased an eight hundred dollar dress.
Judy picked up her purchase, looked at me, and then headed toward the back when she stopped dead in her tracks. I could see the wheels turning as she stopped dead still for a couple of seconds before she turned around for a second look. Her eyes were rapidly blinking as her mind processed the information. I could only imagine she was trying to figure out if she was looking at a twin or a doppelganger.
She finally decided it couldn’t be. She turned and started walking toward the rear of the store. “Susan?”
“Yes?” It was all I could to do to keep from laughing out loud.
Again she stopped and slowly turned to look. “Susan?”
“How many times do I have to answer? What is it?” The smile was more than I could resist as it spread from ear to ear.
“You are kidding me! I didn’t take that long. How did you manage to get yourself together like that in a few minutes? It takes me an hour to get my face on. I know you weren’t wearing makeup when we walked in.” She closed in the distance and was seriously studying my face. “Girl, you are one hot number! I have never seen you like this. How did...”
“I have a new job Judy. I talked to the manager and she offered me a job.” I was feeling giddy from Judy’s praises.
“Obviously she offered more than a job. That dress looks so hot on you! You sure don’t look like the farm girl that walked in here a few minutes ago.” She grabbed my hand. “Come on. Let me dump this dress in the car and then go over to that sub place. I can’t wait to show you off. I want to be there when the boys start falling all over themselves trying to get your attention.”
On Monday I showed up for my new job. I worked there for a couple weeks before I found out the lady who hired me was the owner not the manager. I also found out that Morgan didn’t spend a whole lot of time at that store. In those two weeks I only saw her one time and that was when she handed me a paycheck. The Spanish lady I worked with was Selena Constance Rohas. She taught me about makeup, color coordination, fashion sense, and acting like a lady. She taught me more then I never knew existed. A lot of the things Selena taught me were not in any books. Before the college year was up, I had paid my back rent and even managed to save a few hundred dollars. Of course that was due to my benefactor, Morgan, charging me almost nothing for the dresses and accessories I picked up at her store. I have no idea what I paid for those dresses. Morgan would tell me it was on the books when I wanted to know how much I owed. I wasn’t stupid: I knew if I had been paying full price I could have bought a new Continental for what those dresses should have cost me.
My best friend and I had gone separate paths in life. Linda was one of Texas University’s star shooters–exactly what the recruiters wanted when they looked her over in Borger. She had a social class of friends who ate and breathed basketball, drama, and entertainment films. By the end of the second year, Linda had become something of a minor star in commercials and endorsements for basketball-related products. I was proud of her but I also missed our times together as best friends. That summer, neither one of us headed back to Borger. I stayed put and became a full time help in Morgan’s Fashions with the understanding I was going back to college come fall.
Funny how all your life you try to escape from small towns only to find out when you are gone too long you yearn to go back for a visit. Morgan talked me into taking three days off and going home to see my mom and dad before I had to start fall classes. It didn’t take a whole lot of talking as I was really becoming homesick for a little of that small town ‘howdy Susie’ greeting everyone always gave.
Morgan talked me into driving her Jaguar for the three days I was going to be gone. Being young, it never entered into my mind how much trust that implied. I packed my bags and headed toward Borger. The town hadn’t changed since I had left. But then they never do. My first stop was the Jiffy Stop. My old manager Danny was working the cash register. Earl Counts and a couple other men were standing there also.
As I slid out of the Jaguar, Danny was looking out the window at me. I could read his lips as he spoke to the others inside the quick stop: “Jesus Christ!”
My dress was black velvet, sleeveless, with a scoop neckline. The skirt was tight and the hem was four inches above the knee. I was wearing black four-inch patent leather heels with matching shoulder purse. My black sheer nylons had a seam that ran up the back of the leg. Between Morgan and Selena, I had learned exactly how to put my makeup on to look better than any fashion model in any old magazine. My silver necklace was multi strand loop with a small heart locket placed strategically between my breasts. My breasts were pushed up and enhanced with a bra that had ample under padding on the shelf to do exactly that. I had let my hair grow out where it brushed my shoulders. With the right amount of teasing and back brushing, I was the girl on the poster in any beauty parlor. My earrings were silver spiral coils. They were perfect with my hairstyle and the dress. Any less and they would have not been noticeable. The long red nails were also perfect for the complete picture.
As I stepped into the Jiffy Stop, every eye in the place was staring, trying to figure out if it was really who they thought they were looking at. “Hi Danny. Been busy?”
The voice was what they recognized. Danny was staring harder than any of the rest of them. “Susan...? Susan Kalvers...? My god girl, you are all grown up!”
That got me tickled and I laughed as I did my best Jane Mansfield walk to the cooler and picked up a Seven Up. I walked back up to the counter. Never losing their focus, the men parted like a wave before me to allow me up to the counter. “Was that a compliment Danny? I mean kids grow up all the time.”
He coughed. “Yeah, but not like you. Sheesh Susan, you look great. I looked for you to return this summer but you never called or nothing. Dana Rivers took your job. You remember her don’t you? She was a grade behind you in school.”
“Does that mean I can’t have my job back?” I pulled my billfold out of my purse and took a dollar out of it to pay for the soda.
Danny choked and coughed. “Yeah, I mean no, I mean...” He looked into my eyes. “You’re pulling my leg aren’t you?”
I leaned forward and looked down at his legs on the other side of the counter. “I don’t have hold of them. You’d better check to see who is grabbing them because it isn’t me.”
Earl burst out laughing along with the other men. Danny looked embarrassed as he looked down at his feet. “Aww, Susan. You sure do look good. You back or just visiting?”
“Two days to see mom and dad and a few old friends. Dusty still working at the store?” I handed Danny the dollar and waited for my change.
“Dusty is still there. You know he married Janice Litner this summer don’t you?” Danny didn’t look too comfortable sharing the information with me. In small towns everyone knows who was dating whom. They all knew Dusty and I had been an item of sorts all through school.
“I’m truly happy for him and Janice. She’s a sweet girl. She was two grades behind me. I’m sure they will be very happy together. I can’t imagine a more perfect couple.” I really was happy for Dusty and Janice. In small towns there are not too many choices as to who one gets to marry.
Danny handed the money back. “For old times’ sake, it’s on me Susan. I can’t get over how good you look. God Susan, if I didn’t know you I would have thought you were one of those fashion models passing through town.”
“Passing through Borger? Danny, Borger isn’t on the main highway through life. When was the last time you had a fashion model pass through here?” I put my money back in my purse.
He smiled from ear to ear. “Why, you know we get four or five models a day through here Susan.”
“Or...” He shook his head. “Only one in a lifetime if we are lucky. All of us are lucky today.”
It was a sweet compliment and Danny meant it from the heart. I blushed. “Thank you Danny that’s very sweet.”
I slid my shoulder strap back up on my shoulder before I picked up my soda. “Thanks for the Seven Up. That was very kind of you.”
“Kind? Susan, if you want, I’ll let you have the whole darn store. I’m sure Earl and the others wouldn’t mind.” He had a silly grin on his face.
Laughing I shook my head at him before looking over at Earl and the others. “Why would they mind? Not their store. Danny, it has been nice talking to you again. Earl, Merle, Alvin, Jason, good to see you again.”
Walking out the door I heard the guys talking among themselves. “My, my, my, who would have thought Bob Kalvers’ little girl Susan would grow up to look like ‘THAT’!” “Well, she sure didn’t get her looks from her daddy that’s fer sure.” “Hell, she didn’t get her looks from her mother either.” “Must have been one of them traveling salesmen passing through because she didn’t get...”
Morgan and Selena had taught me a lot that summer. I did it the way ladies of breeding do it as I opened the car door, set my purse and soda inside, turned my back to the seat, sat down, and swiveled my legs in. Sure it takes a lot more time and effort than plopping one’s butt into the seat while one leg is inside and the other is still hung outside. The reality is, a lady keeps her legs together if she does it right. I did it right.
The tractor place was on the other side of town. I stopped there to see daddy and yes, I wanted to see Dusty too. Walking through an equipment shop is a lot like walking through the barnyard. Better watch where you put your feet or you might step in something you didn’t want to. His back was to me as I walked in the big overhead door. He was elbow deep inside a tractor rear end. I knew that was daddy even if I all I could see were his legs and back. A little girl never forgets her daddy no matter how old she gets.
I walked up beside him and looked off down into the innards of a greasy nightmare of gears, sprockets, and shafts. “I believe you are working on the wrong end mister. My husband said it was in the transmission, not the rear end.”
“Tell your husband to come down here and fix it himself if he’s so damn smart. I’ve been working on these for forty years. I believe I’m qualified to know where it’s broken at,” echoed back from inside the hole daddy had his head stuck in.
“Well, my husband said you were the dumbest mechanic down here at Borger Equipment. He said if you knew half of what you claimed, you would be working for Cat drawing union wages and retired by now.” I had to bite my lip to keep from giggling as I needled daddy. It was so funny because he had no idea who the stupid woman was and why she was giving advice on something she had absolutely no idea what.
“Lady, I strongly suggest you take your complaints up to the front office and talk to them if you don’t like what I’m doing in here. You tell that husband of yours if he was so smart he would have fixed this stupid tractor himself.” Daddy was wiggling around trying to get something loose before he had to come out of the tractor.
“There’s nothing worse than a dumb mechanic who thinks he knows it all because he has been working on these dumb tractors for forty years. I agree with my husband. You’re not too smart. My daddy is smarter than to let some stupid woman tell him how to work on a tractor.” I could see the lights come on in daddy’s mind even if I couldn’t see his face. He got real still.
“SUSIE!!!” He came up out of that tractor with a smile spread from ear to ear.
He was reaching for me as I screamed and held out my hand to hold him back. “NO DADDY! IT’S A THOUSAND DOLLAR DRESS!”
Thank god I got his attention before he wrapped his greasy arms around me and dragged me into his greasy coveralls. He stood there in shock and admiration. His little girl was all grown up. “My god Susie! Look at you!”
“Did I hear someone say it was Susie?” came from over on the other side of the shop.
“Dusty, Rick, Manuel, Wayne, guys come over here. I want you to see the little girl who used to run around this shop in pigtails.” Daddy was beaming all over as he stared at me.
Then I saw something trickle out of the corner of his left eye. He reached up and brushed his cheek with the back of his left hand leaving a grease smudge across his cheek. “Got something in my eye in there.”
A tear trickled out of his right eye and he brushed it off before the rest of the guys in the shop crowded around me. Except for Dusty, all these guys were working in this shop when I was growing up. Dusty was staring. He was in total shock his old girlfriend was back looking like Hollywood.
Rick pointed at me and grinned. “Susie, you think you will ever grow up? What are you thinking? You know that isn’t the uniform for working on tractors. Go home and change right now.”
“Ricky my love, if you think I’m still going to chase down sockets, wrenches, and parts for you guys then obviously you need your eyes checked.” I fluffed up my hair and straightened my dress. “I do NOT gopher for mechanics, darling.”
Everyone burst out laughing except daddy. He only stared at me as he wiped his cheeks.
I nodded at Dusty. “I heard you and Janice were married. I’m happy for you. I’ll have to send a marriage gift when I get back to Dallas.”
He shook his head. “No need Susan. It’s been almost ten months now. I knew you were never coming back to me when you left that last time. You always had your heart set on big city lights. Obviously you found what you were looking for.”
He smiled a sad smile. “I’m happy here in Borger and so is Janice. I guess we both got what we were looking for.”
The conversation was getting to the awkward stage. It was best to let bygones be bygones. “I guess we did.”
I looked over at daddy. “I’m headed to the house. Let me take you and momma out to Sizzling Sirloin for supper tonight. What time you think you will be home?”
“How long you staying? A couple of weeks at least?” His eyes were begging me to answer a couple of weeks.
“Daddy, I can’t. Classes start next week. I’ll be a junior. I have two more years to go to get that degree. I’ll be here three days. Today, tomorrow, and I’ll have to leave by noon on the third day to get back.” I regretted I hadn’t taken off more time but I had to have the work and the money to make it through this year. Each year was a financial struggle for me even with Morgan’s generous help.
The tears started trickling out of daddy’s eyes again. “Okay, I’ll be at the house as soon as I clean up some.” He turned and walked off.
The other guys acted as if they didn’t notice as they told me how good it was to see me again. Dusty turned and walked off. Maybe I shouldn’t have stopped?
It was a short drive over to the house. I left my house key the last time I headed to college, but people never lock their doors in Borger. I opened the door and walked into a home a little girl had grown up in several lifetimes ago. Momma was busy with laundry. She never heard me come in. Mechanics are hard on clothes. It seemed momma was always washing greasy clothes. Thank god for automatic washing machines. I walked up to the door to the laundry room and waited.
Momma looked up and jumped before she screamed. “Susie, is that you?”
We met in the middle of the room as we hugged. Little girls never grow past the point of needing a hug from their mother no matter how old they get. “I love you momma.”
“Wait ’til your daddy sees you. I’ll have to call and tell him to come on home. How long you staying?” She had backed up to look me over.
“I stopped and talked to daddy already. I’m taking you two out tonight. I borrowed Morgan’s Jaguar and I want to show you and daddy off to the social elite of Borger. No one in Borger has a car like this momma. I promise when you sit in it you will feel like somebody.” I reached out to take momma’s hand and lead her back into the kitchen where we could sit and visit.
“Susan Shirley Kalvers, you listen to me young lady. I don’t need a car to make me be someone. If you think like that then I didn’t raise you right.” She had stopped me as she held my hand.
“Momma, I didn’t mean it like that. I know the car doesn’t make us any more than we already are. The dress I’m wearing doesn’t make me any more than I already was. You and daddy made me what I am, not some accessories I wear or drive. I haven’t forgotten where I came from. I only want to show off a little. Remember when I was Prom Queen and we drove to Amarillo for a dress? You know it wouldn’t have been the same if I had worn one of those cotton print dresses I wore everyday to school. Don’t take this from me momma. I don’t have any more than I did that freshman school year but I want to show off anyway. Please?” I was watching her eyes to see what kind of reaction I was going to get.
Tears came to momma’s eyes as she rolled in her lips. “I’m sorry hon. Sure, we will go out and show you off to the world. I was worried you had been at that big city so long, you forgot who you were. I should have known you would never forget.”
She looked over my outfit from head to toe. “I’m afraid you will have to go out with a couple of your poor kin. I don’t have anything that will match your dress.”
“I’ll help you momma. I think you will find we big city girls have a lot of secrets to share with our poor country kin that will shock the locals. Daddy said he would be home as soon as he could. Go take a bath and don’t do any makeup or use any perfume. Let me do that for you. I’ll get my makeup out of the car and I’ll be right back.” I was backing up to let momma go for her bath.
Morgan and Selena had taught me makeup tricks that hadn’t been published yet. Six months of lessons paid off as momma sat before me at the dressing table. I used every single trick I had been taught. I outlined her eyes, and extended her eyelashes. I did an earth tone on her eyelids and shaped her eyebrows. Years of being a housewife had left momma centuries behind in the skill of women’s makeup. I brought her lips to the front with gloss and liquid lipstick giving them depth only movie stars know about. Gently I brushed her cheeks with earth tones to recess them and gently highlighted her cheekbones to bring them into focus. I shaded the creases beside her nose to send it back and make it a subtle attraction to her face. I styled her hair and put enough spray in it to hold it for a week. The perfume was Me by Fransiscan. It was something Selena had told me about. It shouted, “all woman.” My ‘Piá¨ce de Résistance’ was the blue dress I had brought with me. I know Morgan had deeply discounted it to me, but it was for my mother. It was all I could afford. It was a six hundred dollar dress and Morgan let me have it for two hundred. When I finished up with momma, she no longer looked like someone’s mother. She could have stepped off the pages of any fashion magazine. Unlike a lot of housewives, she had never put on the extra pounds that go with being secure in a marriage. I was proud of her.
Daddy had dressed in a suit and tie, something he only did for funerals. He only agreed to dress up when I told him I was going back if he didn’t. I told him to close his eyes before I led momma into the living room where he was waiting. When I told him to open his eyes I wondered if I had done the right thing? His eyes kept growing and growing and... I never knew someone’s eyes could get so big.
Daddy’s Adam’s apple was bobbing up and down as he was swallowing while staring at momma. When he spoke, his voice was several octaves too high. “Brenda, I must have died. You are the prettiest woman I ever laid eyes on. I thought you were the most beautiful girl I had ever seen when we were kids in school. I have no idea what you saw in this old farm boy, but I have been doubly blessed. I have the prettiest woman in the whole state of Texas and I have the prettiest daughter in Texas. That means I have the two prettiest women in the whole world because there ain’t any prettier women than Texas women.”
Momma giggled like a school girl as she rolled her right hand in daddy’s direction. “Bob, I married you because you are one silver tongued devil and know how to flatter a woman with all the right words. Being the best-looking boy in school didn’t hurt your chances none either.”
We set that restaurant on fire with gossip that night. Momma and daddy were the best looking couple in Texas that evening. They were both glowing from a romantic fire deep within. I knew what that glow was all about. I was no longer a little girl. Momma and daddy knew everyone in town and I think the whole town had to stop by our table to get a closer look at momma. I knew they also were trying to get a closer look at me to see if it really was Bob and Brenda’s little girl Susan Kalvers. Yep, it was and I was her. That night daddy got lucky or maybe momma got lucky? There was no doubt their romantic fires were burning when we returned home.
My mini-vacation ended all too soon. I made an effort to see Linda’s parents and some of my teachers but I missed a lot of friends. One person I didn’t miss was Eddie Shorer. I heard he was in town. I didn’t see him, for which I was glad. I had my bags packed in the car and gave mom and dad a tearful farewell a little before noon the third day.
I stopped at the Jiffy Stop on the way out but Danny wasn’t there. I bought a Seven Up and was soon headed down the highway south toward I-40. Ten miles south of Borger a red Firebird came up behind me so fast I thought I was backing up. I looked in the mirror at a face I would never forget. Eddie Shorer was behind the wheel of that car. He was driving foolishly as he would speed up to within inches of my back bumper. Then he slowed down and dropped back before he would do it again, and again. Finally he pulled around me and sped off down the highway at what I could only imagine was over a hundred miles an hour. I thought that was the end of the problem. I was wrong, dead wrong! Eddie slowed down until he was right back in front of me and he kept slowing forcing me to slow down too unless I went around him.
At thirty miles an hour I had enough of Eddie. I stomped the gas pedal and whipped out to the left lane. Eddie saw me coming but his Firebird was no match for a Jaguar already on a roar. Before he had a chance to get in the left lane to stop me I shot by him like a bullet. I dropped the Jaguar on a hundred and ten and thought the problem was solved as the miles quickly rolled past. Eddie was either braver than me or more stupid than me because he was running way past what I was speeding. He closed the distance in less than ten miles, pulled up to my left rear and bumped the rear of the Jaguar as he steered into me.
Any race car driver will tell you in real life it doesn’t work like what the movies show on the big screen. Any physics teacher will tell you inertia and gyroscopic forces are put into motion that cannot be stopped until the vehicle comes to a complete stop. The wheels are gyroscopes and do great at directing the vehicle down a straight path. When Eddie bumped me he sent those gyroscopes off on a right angle tangent to their line of travel. The rear wheels act as if they are on ice from that point on as they lose all traction with the pavement.
I tried to catch the skid as I turned into it but again, it was to no avail. It was physically impossible to make the front of the car keep up with the lateral movement of the back of the car after Eddie transferred lateral energy from the front of his car to the rear of my car. I was doomed at that briefest instant in time. A lifetime is wiped clean in the smallest most infinitesimal measures of time because of one stupid mistake.
The rear of the car kept moving to the right as I desperately tried to get the front to respond. Time and life slowed down to measurements not understood. Morgan’s Jaguar was skidding sideways along the shoulder of the road as it started to spin. I was looking through the passenger window at the bridge abutment coming at me. I screamed, “MORGAN!”
The right side of the Jaguar folded in as the car wrapped itself around the railing. Airbags are for stopping forward, not side impact. The bag inflated as I was thrown against the collapsing right side of the car. The seatbelts were virtually worthless as my head was bashed against the roof that had caved in to meet me as I was hurled toward that side. I was killed in that instant as the right side of my skull was crushed. It takes a little while for the body to realize it is no longer living.
Inertia and momentum were not done with the Jaguar as it spun off the bridge abutment and tumbled down the ravine. Rolling over and over, it shredded car parts and even human parts. Something not recognizable as a car stopped at the bottom of the dry creek bed. Something even less recognizable as human was crumpled up inside it.
“Daddy... please help me... Daddy... I’m so sorry...”
My world turned black and then I was in a blinding flash of light. Morgan was standing beside me looking at the mess in front of us. “Come Susan, there is nothing I can do for you here.”
Obediently I turned and followed her up the embankment to the pavement. A late model car was coming down the highway. Morgan waited as the driver slowed and then stopped beside us without looking at us. He was sitting behind the wheel looking straight ahead. “Get in Susan.”
I slid in the back having to struggle to do so. Morgan slid in the passenger side and the driver started off down the road again; still not looking at either of us nor was he talking. It seemed odd but I didn’t question it. Morgan picked up his cell phone and dialed. “Logan, I have a problem and I need your help. Meet me at Conway, Texas please?”
Morgan hung up the phone and turned in the seat to look at me. “Susan, I can’t go back and undo what has already been done. The past is not fixable. I can’t teleport objects or people through time nor distance. I almost lost you. It was nip and tuck there for a sec but I managed. You don’t understand any of this but you will. I could not give you Susan’s body. She was dead. I cannot revive the dead. What I gave you was another form. It’s not female, but male.”
Morgan took a deep breath. “In time you will understand why I won’t return you to female. You would want to go back and try and convince your family, friends, and others it was still Susan even if the body wasn’t her. As a male you will come to grips with the stark reality you are not a woman and definitely not Susan. The essence of Susan is still there. You have her mind, her memories, her traits, but not her body.”
Morgan was right. I didn’t understand any of this. Why did she keep telling me I wasn’t Susan?
At Conway, our driver pulled up to one of those roadside stops where a big black limousine was parked. Morgan motioned me out. We walked over and got into the limo. The driver in the other car left without saying a word or even acknowledging he had two passengers on his trip. Strange.
The guy in the back seat was a good looking man–a distinguished gentleman for sure. I immediately felt comfortable, at ease, and liked him. Morgan pointed at me. “It was a rush job. I was in Atlanta when she screamed. I was too late and couldn’t help.”
The man studied me. It felt like he had looked into my soul. “You did well on such short notice Morgan. He’s young, athletic, and about the same age. She will have to come to terms with it on her own. You know I don’t do that. Is a ride back to Dallas all you want, or is there more?”
“The man who did this to her: I saw him race away after stopping to look at the destruction he caused. Would you please handle that? I’m afraid I might not be able to contain my anger. I liked Susan a lot more than most. She was an extremely beautiful young lady, quick to learn, resourceful, and kind. She didn’t deserve this.”
“I’ll take care of it Morgan. Anything else?” The gentleman waited as he studied me.
“No, that’s it. I appreciate your help Logan. Give me a few weeks and my wrath will calm. Right now I want to hurt that other driver in the worst possible way.” Morgan reached over and took my hand in hers.
I was confused. My hand was twice as big as hers. I didn’t remember that.
The man she called Logan chuckled. “Morgan, I believe I am going to deliver your wrath. You know some of them don’t take a lifeshift very well. I will be sure to make this particular lifeshift the total opposite of what he would want.”
“Thanks Logan, you always were a good friend.” She slipped her hand out of mine and offered it to the man she called Logan.
“My pleasure Morgan. Call me anytime.” He took her hand in his and...
He was gone. I was looking straight at him and he was gone. The accident must have scrambled my brain more than I realized.
The ride back to Dallas gave me time to know without a doubt my brain had been scrambled a lot more than I had first thought. Before we pulled up to an apartment building I was thinking I was a man. I had to get an MRI and see an optometrist first thing.
Morgan slid out of the limo and held out her hand. “Come Susan. I need to figure out a way to get you started in your life.”
“Morgan, I think I better go to the hospital. I’m hallucinating something awful. I need to call mom and dad. If the sheriff finds your car and they hear about it they will want to know I’m all right. Oh... I’m sorry about your...”
She reached up and put her hands on my shoulders. “Susan, listen to me. Bob and Brenda Kalvers’ daughter Susan Kalvers died in a wreck thirty miles south of Borger. You may be Susan Kalvers but only in memory hon. I am sorry. It was the best I could do.”
Her eyes were showing great sadness. “I’m so sorry Susan. It’s time to accept you are not Susan any longer. I guess the first place to begin would be a new name. What would you like? Would Michael Eugene Brown work or you want something different?”
“A new name? Why would I need a new name? Is this a game? I like Mike James Shepard. It’s a good strong name.” I almost laughed as I was wondering what kind of game Morgan was playing with me.
“Mike? Not Michael?” She had backed up to study my face.
I looked down at her wondering if I was standing on a curb. I never noticed Morgan being so short. “Yes, Mike. Michael sounds pretentious doesn’t it? Anyway, people always shorten it to Mike so why not start there?”
Morgan held out her hand. “Mike it is. Come with me and let’s see about getting Mike a bed.”
Obediently I followed her into an apartment building. “I need to call my parents and I need to get to class tomorrow to pick up my schedule. I probably should go back to the dorm. I have to get my books and...”
Opening my eyes I was looking at Selena. “What happened? I was talking to Morgan and I don’t remember anything past that. I must have a concussion.”
I looked around for the strange man who was mimicking my words but it was only Selena and me in the room.
Selena sat down on the edge of the bed and brushed her hand against my cheek before she laid it on my forehead. “I’m only going to say this one time so listen real close to what I have to say and don’t interrupt me. You are Susan but you aren’t. Susan was killed yesterday in a car accident. You were given a reprieve by Morgan. She couldn’t save the body. You are Mike for the rest of your life. If you want to scream, cuss, shout ‘this is all a bad dream’ then go ahead. I won’t blame you. The reality will come sooner or later. The more you fight it, the harder it will be. If you accept it as a gift of life and realize the past is beyond us then you will take your first step toward accepting who and what you are.”
I pushed her hand away as I sat up in bed. “Selena you are talking out of your...”
The hand that pushed her hand away was definitely not mine. I sat there as I stared at it trying to figure out why my eyes were showing me a man’s hand. The accident, it had to be the accident. I tossed the covers back to swing my legs off the bed. I was stark naked or someone was stark naked. It wasn’t me! I slid my hand or that stranger slid his hand down my stomach. It wasn’t my stomach but I could feel the hand as if it was. The stranger stopped at the patch of hair between my legs and that thing only men have was in the middle of the patch. The stranger touched it and I felt that touch in the stranger’s hand and on my...?
Oh god it can’t be! It just can’t be! It’s not possible. The stranger grabbed for breasts that were no longer there. He screamed and the walls shook.
I was panting in rapid breaths, close to hyperventilating, as my mind raced for solid ground. “No, it’s not true. No... I’m Susan. I have a mother and father in Borger, Texas. I go to college at Texas University. My best friend is Linda. We grew up together. I work for Morgan. I had a bad nightmare is all. I’m dreaming all this. This isn’t real. THIS ISN’T REAL!”
Selena held out her arms. “Mike, do you think I would lie to you? I thought you were a real cute kid. You’re still a cute kid but in a different package.”
“No Selena, make it all go away. Please make it all go away. Please give me back. I’m not Mike I’m Susan. Please Selena...”
Selena laid down on the bed and took me in her arms, softly and gently. She wiped my tears and rubbed my head. I don’t know how or when it happened but Selena had her hands down around that horrible penis and was fondling it. I wanted to scream in terror but there were other emotions, more stronger. I guess fascination was one of those as it grew in length and stiffened. Feelings of sexual arousal were surging through my loins as she bit my ear lobe and then stuck her tongue in my ear.
My mind was screaming in sheer terror as my body was demanding more of Selena’s gentle persuasions. She ran her tongue inside the corner of my mouth at the same time she squeezed my penis. My mind had achieved lift off and stopped fighting with my body. Those small hands of hers playing with the man thing were unlike anything I could imagine. She kissed me and I readily responded. Then she laid a French kiss on me and if I thought I was in orbit before, I was sadly mistaken. Until that moment, I never knew what emotional sex drive men could feel when their fires were lit.
I had to have Selena. I had to put part of me inside her or I was going to die again–a different death for sure but a death nonetheless.
Selena guided the man thing up inside between her legs. She rolled us over in the bed where I was on top. “You want it, you are going to have to work for it.”
I had no idea what I was doing but Mother Nature builds in all of us the basic ideas. We add to those ideas for added pleasure. I was on Mother Nature’s auto-pilot as I ravished Selena. When I was spent, I collapsed on top of her with her wrapped up in my arms never wanting to let her go.
“You can do better than that.” Selena rolled over on top of me and begin kissing me and biting on my ear lobes. She lifted her right breast out of her dress and teased my lips with the nipple as she rubbed it back and forth. “Bite it gently.”
I sucked her nipple up in my mouth and gently bit it as I ran the tip of my tongue back and forth on her nipple.
Selena pulled back as I held on. She gritted her teeth and pulled harder. “That’s the idea.”
Reaching down between her legs she wrapped her hand around my man thing and it instantly sprang back to life. Selena had long sharp nails and she gently pressed the tips of those nails into that thing that was driving my emotions. It was more than my poor mind could bear. I had to have her again.
I didn’t count the times Selena and I made love that day and into the night, but it was several. I was totally spent and slept like it was normal when night time came. I was Mike James Shepard in case anyone asked. Did the sex with Selena make me realize I wanted to be a man? No, I would never want to be a man, but I had resigned myself to my fate. I would always want to return to Susan and the life I had. It wasn’t to be.
Selena was a beautiful woman of Spanish descent. She was the epitome of what every man could dream up in a fiery, high-spirited woman. When she became upset, her Spanish kicked into high gear and her words came like bullets. I understood absolutely nothing she was saying at those times. I never asked her measurements as it had never entered into Susan’s mind. I am not saying I never guessed but that’s different. As Mike, I wanted to know what my lover’s sweeping curves were. Selena was a rock solid thirty-two, eighteen, thirty-two. She had an ultra slim body for a woman. When she was dressed up she could melt snow a block away with her body heat. She was no less sexy in pants than she was in a dress. Selena was the one woman who could give men, women, and boys whiplash as she walked by them no matter what clothes she was wearing.
I missed the fall semester of college and went back for the spring and summer classes to make it up. I was no longer a saleslady at Morgan’s Fashions. Morgan made me an offer to keep her books but I declined. Whether it was because I wanted some space from what did this to me or because I was still coming to grips with being a male I can’t answer. Every day I woke, I prayed for this to be a dream and I would wake up as Susan. But the dream kept on going in spite of my prayers.
I guess I was carrying a load of other kinds of pain too because I moved out of Selena’s apartment and back to the dorms. Although I loved Selena, it was a troubled kind of love. I hated her for being the woman I no longer was. I hated her because she was fulfilled as a woman and could make love as only a woman could. I on the other hand was a male and could not make love as a woman. I would never know that kind of love. I hated Selena and Morgan for my pain. I should have been kissing the ground those two women walked on for my life and for easing me into that life. It’s not funny what we can’t see when we are filled with hate.
It was my senior year and I was working at the same Seven Eleven Susan had started working at when she began college. It was late at night. Even though the store was close to the campus we had times when things were slow and it was one of those times. I was cleaning up the walk-ins when someone came in the front door and the buzzer announced a customer.
I stepped out of the walk-in and saw a girl almost as tall as me waiting at the counter. “Yes ma’am. May I help you?”
“I need some aspirin. Excedrin if you have any.” She had her hands on the counter with her back to me. She never turned to look.
It made me suspicious as I walked by the pharmaceutical aisle and picked up a bottle of Excedrin as I headed to the counter. “Yes ma’am. I have a bottle right here. Small bottle or big bottle?”
“Anything, I don’t care.” Slowly she set her purse on the counter and opened it.
Warily I walked up to the cash register and waited before I put my key in it to unlock the drawer. I wanted to see what she had in that purse and if anything besides money was coming out in her hand.
She was looking down so I couldn’t see her face. Her hands were shaking as she pulled a ten dollar bill out of her purse.
A couple drops of blood dripped down on the counter under her face.
“Ma’am, are you all right?” I reached out my hand, put it under her chin, and lifted her head so I could see her face. I darn near choked. It was Linda! She had a big cut on her right temple. Her eyes weren’t really focusing.
I was reaching for the phone when a big burly kid opened the door and walked in shouting. “I DIDN’T TELL YOU TO LEAVE, BITCH! GET BACK IN THE CAR. NOW!”
I jumped out of my skin. It took me a second to remember I was no longer a bitch. “Leave her alone. She’s hurt.”
“FUCK YOU BUDDY! STAY OUT OF THIS! THIS IS STRICTLY BETWEEN ME AND THE BITCH!” He walked up beside Linda and grabbed her arm.
At that instant I felt a rage unlike anything I had ever felt in my whole life. I reached across the counter and wrapped my hands around the back of his head as I wedged my knees under the counter. I pulled forward and down with a strength I didn’t know I had. His head came down and was driven into the counter with all my might. I didn’t know it at the time but his nose was busted, his front teeth were knocked out, and he was addled so badly that the fight was over before it started. He wilted as his knees buckled. He slid backwards off the counter like a limp noodle.
I picked up the phone and called nine one one. Then I called my manager as I knew I was headed to jail and someone needed to watch the store.
Hopping over the counter after I made the phone calls, I pulled Linda back into my arms as I laid her down on the floor. I sat down on the floor and held her in my arms as the guy lay beside us moaning in pain. I made up my mind if he got up I was going to do my best to put him back down again.
“Tell me again how it happened?” The officer was taking notes as I explained it for the sixth time.
“I was back in the coolers and Linda came in asking for aspirin. By the time I made it up to the register I could tell she had been hurt. The guy came in and started screaming at her and told me to stay out of it. When he grabbed her I grabbed him. That was the end of it.” Lloyd Breason, my manager, was standing by the front doors keeping out everyone except the police.
The policeman nodded. “Okay, she has a concussion. I’ll see what her story is when she can talk. How do you know her?”
“Uh, everyone knows her. She’s the center for the girls’ basketball team. I doubt you could find one person in this school who didn’t know her.” I was struggling for the answer hoping it sounded true.
“I see. I have her as Linda Roastman.” He was writing in his book again.
“No, that’s Linda Rostman, not Roastman.” I guess you had to grow up in little towns to figure out the names.
“Got it. And you don’t know the guy?” He looked up at me as he stopped writing.
“No, never saw him before tonight. A lot of kids pass through here and I don’t remember them all. I think I would have remembered him but maybe not.” I shrugged my shoulders as I wondered when he was going to get around to arresting me.
“I’m surprised you were able to handle him. He is probably twice your weight and has several inches over you. I’ll keep you informed if we keep him or not. He had weapons and drugs in his car and was carrying a handgun. It may be enough to hold him before we get to lock him up for awhile. Never can tell though. Sometimes the smallest technicality lets them walk. You might want to apply for a gun permit just in case.” He closed up his notepad and motioned to the other police officers he was through.
I was surprised when they left without me in the middle in handcuffs. “Lloyd, they aren’t going to arrest me?”
Lloyd looked at me kind of funny as he cocked his head. “For what? You do something I don’t know about? Mike, I was listening. There isn’t a single one of us who don’t wish we had been there. But then we probably would have got our butts kicked by that guy. He was a big boy! I called Charles to come and take your place for the rest of your shift. Go home, get over the nervous excitement and I’ll see you tomorrow night. I expect you to fill out that carry permit before you come to work. Now go home. I think you caused enough excitement around here for one night.”
I walked back to my dorm and waited in silence for almost an hour before I walked down to the hall phone and dialed Linda’s parents.
Linda’s mom answered. “Hello.”
“Cindy, Linda was in an accident tonight. She’s at Mercy Hospital in Dallas. She’s okay but it might be best if you or Bud drove down here to be with her for a day.” I was wishing that was the kind of phone call someone had made to my parents almost a year and a half ago.
“How bad was she hurt? You say she’s at Mercy in Dallas? Who am I talking to?” The voice was rising in panic on the other end.
“Mrs. Rostman, I didn’t call you to frighten you. I only called because Linda should have someone with her right now. The accident was bad enough to give her a concussion but other than that she is fine. Please, don’t get excited and don’t worry. Take your time and drive down to Dallas to tell her you love her. After I hang up call Mercy and check on her. They will have her signed in by now.” I hung up as the tears started.
If only I could tell my mom and dad how much I loved them. Morgan had logically explained it to me. If I contacted them it would only reopen wounds of pain that had started to heal. There was no way I could call them. Hello mom, it’s Susan, yeah, the voice has changed and that wasn’t really me in that terrible accident.
I could never go back. Eddie had taken my childhood, my family, and my life when he pushed me off the highway. I was crying my heart out as I made it back to my room. With all my heart I wanted to walk in the door at home and tell mom and dad I loved them.
A plan came to my mind as my remorse of what I had lost overwhelmed my brain. I knew Selena kept a gun in her desk by her computer. I was going to end this pain. I headed out the door wiping tears hoping none of the other guys saw me.
I caught a bus over to Selena’s apartment and let myself in. I was thankful she had never changed the locks after I moved out. I was also thankful she wasn’t at home for what I planned on doing. I opened the desk drawer and stared at the 8 millimeter gun.
“You should focus on what you have. Not what you have lost.”
I damned near jumped out of my skin. The idea someone else would be there besides me wasn’t in my plans. The idea it could be Morgan was even less of a blessing. “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE! I HATE THIS LIFE! I HAD A LIFE AND IT WAS TAKEN FROM ME! I’M TIRED OF FIGHTING THE FEELINGS I LOST! I’M NOT A MAN, I’M A DAMNED GIRL! YOU’LL NEVER KNOW WHAT THAT’S LIKE! I DON’T WANT A PENIS, I WANT A VAGINA, AND BREASTS, AND...”
“If that’s all, why stop there? Tell me, Mike...”
“DON’T CALL ME THAT! I HATE THAT NAME! I’M SUSAN!” I slammed the drawer shut.
“Sorry. Okay, Susan, tell me what you want that you can’t have as Mike.” Morgan walked across the room and took a seat in one of Selena’s stuffed chairs.
“I want my life back. I want to go see my parents and tell them I love them. I want...” I was crying as I spoke.
“There’s a wee problem Susan. Susan is dead. So you wouldn’t have ever been able to go back. I don’t think you understand the meaning of dead. That means the life as you knew it is over. Is that what you want? You want to go back to dead? I don’t think you can go back and tell your parents how much you love them if you are dead. You seem to be hanging onto the past rather than embracing the future. In your past Susan is dead. You can either accept that or I made a terrible mistake. In your future you have the opportunity to see all the things this world has to offer. I promise you will see things most mortals don’t even believe exist.”
She pointed at me. “Look in the mirror Susan. How many people receive a second chance at life? How many would give anything to have that chance? And you are complaining because you received it? If you love your mom and dad, don’t make them more miserable by trying to convince them Susan never died. The sheriff’s department picked up pieces of Susan all over that creek bottom. Your mom and dad buried Susan once. Don’t make them keep on burying her.”
Morgan took a deep breath. “Your problem is you never buried Susan. Everyone else has. I think it’s time you did too. You have come to the crossroads of life. Are you going to keep on carrying Susan as dead weight holding you in the past or are you going to let Mike lead you into the wonders of what the future brings?”
Tears started trickling out of my eyes. “I don’t know what I want. Help me. Please help me.”
Morgan was holding me in her arms. “I can only do so much. I cannot change what is inside you. That has to be you. I can give you a shell or a structure you call a body but the thing that gives it life and makes it unique is what you put in that form.”
I cried on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be ungrateful but it’s so hard. It’s just so damned hard!”
“I know hon. I honestly and truly know. The place to start is to let Selena and me help. Selena wants you to move back. I want you to come work for me. It’s not busy work. I promise it will never be busy work. It will be honest work. Let us show you some of the things you never knew about this world. I think you will find your place in time.”
She backed up from me and held up a denim jacket. “Here, slip this on and let’s go visit Linda. She received a bad concussion–the doctors don’t give much hope of her living. Lots of fluid on the brain. I want to show you what I can do when I have something left to work with. Your friend is going to make a miraculous recovery.”
I wiped the tears off with my sleeve. “You can save her?”
“You bet, doll. But not when they are already dead. I don’t bring the dead back to life. A fraction of a second longer and I wouldn’t have been able to save you.” She was walking toward the door as she held out her keys to her Jag. “You drive. It’s one of your job descriptions from now on. And I expect you to finish college. I will not have a college dropout working for me.”
Brenda Kalvers answered the knock on the door. A smartly dressed young woman was standing there with an attaché case in her left hand, a shoulder purse on her right. Brenda wondered if the dark haired beauty was a saleslady? “May I help you?”
“Brenda Kalvers? I’m Lorrie Thorton. I’m Linda Thorton’s daughter. My mother is your husband’s cousin. I was on my way from Vegas to Dallas. My mother told me to drop by and say hi.” The young lady smiled a warm sincere friendly smile. She knew Bob Kalvers would never remember if he had a cousin named Linda.
Brenda pushed open the door. “Please won’t you come in? I’m sure Bob would like for you to see him if you could manage to stay a little while. He’s working down at the farm store right now.” She glanced at her watch. “But he should be home in a little.”
“Thank you, that’s very kind. Momma told me Bob had married his sweetheart straight out of high school. What she didn’t tell me was how pretty you are.” Lorrie stepped inside the house.
Brenda blushed as she pushed at her hair with her right hand. She hadn’t been to the beauty parlor or put on makeup since Susan’s funeral. That was over two years ago. “I don’t feel very pretty but it was kind of you to say so.”
“Au contraire, I see a very pretty woman. I understand having a day off now and then.” Lorrie leaned over toward Brenda as if to share a secret. “Between us girls, I do the same thing myself now and then.”
“No, it’s not that. I mean it...” Tears started forming in Brenda’s eyes as she thought about the last time she saw Susan.
Lorrie reached out, took Brenda’s hand, and led her over to the couch. “Want to talk about it?”
“No.” Brenda shook her head as she reached for the tissue on the end table.
“Momma said you lost a daughter, Susan. She said you and Susan looked a lot alike.” Lorrie sat down on the couch and waited.
“She... she...” Brenda’s heart broke as she remembered Susan and bawled.
Minutes later she got hold of her emotions. “I’m sorry. She was our only child and we loved her dearly.”
“I know. It helps to talk about these things. I also know you can’t stop living because you lost someone. Believe me, I know very well. I had friends help me get over a loss.” Lorrie smiled.
Brenda had to take a second and third look. For a second there, when Lorrie smiled she looked like Susan. “You look so much like my daughter.”
“Probably because I’m family. Even distant cousins look a lot alike at times. When did you say Bob was coming home? Momma said to be sure and say hi.” Lorrie knew it would take several trips to get Brenda wearing makeup and living in the world again. She was looking forward to the many ‘trips’ she would make to share all the makeup secrets with Brenda. Again. After all, she grew up in this house.
Brenda glanced at her watch. “Bob should be home any minute now. What do you do for a living Lorrie?”
Lorrie put her hand on top her attaché case. “I’m a fashion consultant. Would you care to look at some of my samples while we are waiting on Bob? After all, they are free. Companies give me samples to try in our branch stores.”
“I believe Velvet Rose might be a color that would look great on you.” She opened up the attaché case and picked a lipstick. Lorrie was thinking this might not take as long as she thought when she asked Morgan if she could come back.
Brenda held her hand up to her mouth in thought. “I don’t know. How long can you stay? You’ll stay for supper won’t you?”
Lorrie’s eyes gleamed as she nodded yes. “Sure. I’ll take you and Bob out to supper. My treat.” She knew if she could make the evening last long enough they would invite her to sleep over.
“Mike? Mike?”
“What, Morgan?” I looked across the dinner table at... Bridget. A vision of lovely if there ever was one, and Morgan’s finest work.
“Morgan?” She laughed. “I thought you were woolgathering. Sounds as if I was right.”
She smiled as her eyes showed wisdom way past her years. “I know, we never forget do we? The past is always there just below the surface waiting to drag us back down if we ever stop hanging onto the here and now. It’s a mixed blessing isn’t it? We understand the feelings and emotions of both sexes and wonder what if we could do it all over again? Would we choose this particular sex if we had a choice?”
Bridget laid her hand on the table. Her long slender fingers along with her long sharp fingernails were perfect for a beautiful woman. “Think about it. How much choice do we have when we are born? Maybe someone asked me if I wanted to be a boy or a girl but I don’t think I had a choice. It’s probably a lot like the army. If you’re there when a job needs doing they tell you to do it and you don’t get to choose.”
I laid my hand over Bridget’s hiding her hand underneath my larger one. I was satisfied with what Mike was. Morgan had shared things with me mere mortals would never see. I also was allowed to switch hit and be Lorrie or any woman I wanted. I was also allowed to be Susan as long as I wasn’t around Borger, Texas. Being a girl really wasn’t that great after all. I found out being a girl wasn’t what I really wanted. I wanted to be Brenda and Bob Kalvers’ daughter Susan. The girl part was not the issue. As Lorrie I had made many trips back to visit my parents and they were beginning to think of me as part of the family.
There were a lot of reasons I liked being Mike. I liked being taller than most everyone around me. Height has a lot of advantages. I liked walking through a parking lot and not worrying about being mugged. One of the reasons I like being Mike was Selena. My lover was something else. I also found out she was no mere mortal. But she was an excellent teacher.
I sighed as I looked at Bridget. Trade places? No, I don’t think so. Bridget could keep her millions, her fancy dresses, and all them things. Because I was a close friend of Morgan’s and her personal assistant, I learned things most humans would never know. Bridget had found her niche in life and so had I.
“The reason I wanted to talk to you was because of a lifeshift. We need a job for her. We were wondering if she could work in your Hot Topics company?” I motioned for a waiter. It was time to order lunch.
“Another one? I see. I don’t know why not. Tell her the dress code is miniskirts only: no pants for the training period. I expect her to look and act like a lady. What’s her name? I need to call and let personnel know who to look for.” Bridget looked amused.
I laughed as I shook my head. It was funny. If anyone could take a lifeshift and mold them into a lady, Bridget could. Miniskirts only? That should start this one on the right road to the world of being a woman and a sex object. She would either learn the rules of how to handle men from a woman’s perspective or she would be one miserable... should I say it? “Bitch.”
Bridget was looking at the fashion wreck in front of her. The girl was wearing a red and blue horizontal striped, long-sleeved sweater. The baggy pants were purple with a checkered print. The girl’s long, platinum-blond hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed in over a week. Her nails looked like she had been chewing on them and that wasn’t the only thing she chewed. She was chewing bubble gum and blowing bubbles. Makeup was non-existent except for the black lipstick that covered more than just lips.
“Miss Christine Brubaker is it? I see where you put on your resume you are good at computer games and you were a parking valet. Those are admirable traits but they hardly qualify you for gainful employment.”
To Bridget’s annoyance, Christine popped a bubble right then. Bridget rose from her chair, picked up the wastebasket, and walked over in front of Christine. “Put your gum in the trash right now.”
Reluctantly Christine did as she was told. “Wusn’t doing nuthing fucking wrong.”
Bridget loved a challenge. She put the wastebasket down, placed her hands on the young woman’s shoulders, leaned down in her face, and smiled. “Your life belongs to me. I’m going to make you into a young lady even if it kills you. Lesson number one. You cuss or use bad language and we wash your mouth out with soap to clean up your language.”
Christine squirmed in her chair. She didn’t think life could get any worse after that taxicab driver turned her into a girl. All because she had run into his cab with a customer’s limousine and cussed him out. How was she to know he was some kind of magician? As she looked into Bridget’s eyes she wasn’t too sure she hadn’t dropped down a few more levels in Purgatory!
Christine certainly didn’t want to upset any more magicians, or wizards, or witches or whatevers. “Yes ma’am.”
Bridget nodded as she straightened up and walked back over in front of her desk. “That’s better. We have a mandatory dress code here. You will look and act like the young lady you are. That means nylons, heels, miniskirts, bra, and slip.”
Bridget noticed the pained expression on Christine’s face. “I’m sorry, did I forget to mention makeup is not an option. You will wear lipstick, eyeliner, blush, and style your hair. Appropriate jewelry is also part of the dress code.”
Picking up a sheet of paper off her desk, Bridget walked over and handed it to Christine. “This is a list of dos and don’ts. Sue will take you in hand and help you get your act together.”
Christine was looking at the rules. This was worse than a girl’s finishing school and all she wanted was a job. She was positive once the magic wore off she would be back to her life as Christopher Brubaker. There was no way she was wearing any of that sissy stuff to work. She would wear pants and…
Bridget rolled her right hand over and looked at the long painted fingernails. “When you come to work tomorrow you will look like a young lady. You might not act like one but you will look like one. Don’t disappoint me Christine. You don’t want to find out what happens if you disappoint me.”
“Yes’m.” Christine was positive she didn’t want to disappoint Miss Tonue. She could imagine hundreds of things that could be worse than dressing according to Miss Tonue’s rules.
The End
She walked across the park and took a seat on one of the empty park benches furthest away from the others. She looked out of place as everyone else was casually dressed or worse. She was wearing a soft brown three piece suit dress of obvious quality to those who knew what quality was in our day and age of anything goes. Her auburn hair touched her shoulders and was perfect with every strand in place with streaks of gray sprinkled throughout. Her makeup was stunning as it looked like she wasn’t wearing any as it enhanced her hidden beauty. Her lipstick was such a soft peach it almost looked like it was her own natural lips. Her gold and diamond earrings matched her necklace and her bracelet. Her legs were wrapped in silk nylons. Not the industry Walmart special kind. Her three inch polished brown leather heels matched her shoulder purse perfectly. If there were any of breeding left who knew what class was they would instantly know she was one of those of class.
The lady placed her purse down beside her and watched the families and kids as they played in the park. Nine young thugs were slowly making their way across the park annoying everyone and bullying others. They were snatching up items adults had left alone and unattended while taking care of their kids.
The lady watched as the rowdy bunch knocked a boy down who was trying to defend his girlfriend. Then they grabbed the girl and fondled her before they lost interest and moved to their next victims. She would have got up and left except the riffraff was between her and her car. She kept a wary eye on them as they slowly moved in her direction. She slowly slid her purse strap back up on shoulder and moved her hand inside her purse.
“Let’s see, there are nine of them and the gun you have in your purse is a revolver holding five shots. What are you going to do to the four you didn’t shoot when they are still coming at you?”
I looked up. To my right was a young woman of about seventeen or eighteen. She was wearing a long white dress which looked an awful lot like a robe. How did she know what I carried in my purse? “Maybe the others will run when the shooting starts. I won’t allow them to lay a hand on me.”
She walked around the end of the bench and sat down beside me. “Maybe and maybe not. But then, you’re afraid of them killing you if they found out. Aren’t you? Four can kill you just as easily as nine.”
“Find out about me?” I managed to cough out after I found my voice again.
“Hon, there isn’t a person out there who wouldn’t believe you aren’t all woman. Until the young brainless bullies tear your clothes off. They are going to demand you give them your purse and you are determined to give them lead instead. Kind of a lose lose situation for you. Say the others flee after you shoot one or two of them. The cops are going to pull you down to the station even if it is self defense.”
“On the other hand you give them your purse. Your ID along with your home address and everything else personal is in your purse. I’d bet a million dollars they would be at your house tomorrow demanding everything you own or they will spill your secret.” She turned from looking at the trouble makers slowly working our way and looked at me.
I shook my head. “You’re not helping. Either way I’m outed. I’ll take my chances with the police and jail.”
She was looking me in the eyes. “Did you love her?”
“What? Who? Who are you?” I couldn’t follow this weird conversation.
“Your wife, did you love her?” A hint of a smile touched her lips.
I was in total mental shock. How did she know? It took me a minute to compose myself. “yes” I whispered trying to get that much out. “I loved her with all my heart and soul. I would have gladly took her place.”
“And died in her place? It wasn’t an easy death.” She was studying my face.
“yes, I would have died in her place if God had given me the choice.” I couldn’t stop the tear that leaked out of the corner of my right eye.
“She was loved by everyone. She had it all, beauty, charm, intelligence, grace, and a photographic memory. She was the prettiest girl to ever walk this earth and why she married me I’ll never understand.”
She reached over and took my right hand out of my purse and held it in her left hand. “Because she loved you with all her heart too. Why didn’t you take the opportunity to have SRS when you had the surgeon and hospital lined up?”
“because…, because she said she would leave me. That wasn’t who she married. I loved her more than my own life. I made a choice to be the person she wanted instead of the person who is inside me. I canceled the surgery and shoved the woman inside me back into the darkness. It wasn’t easy and at times she demanded to be turned loose. For a few hours I would take out the clothes and let her come out of the dungeon I kept her locked in.”
More tears follow the first one leaving streaks in my makeup and eyeliner. I had no idea why I was spilling my life to this young girl? Maybe it was because it was time to tell it to someone, anyone? “I worked away from home time to time. Those times I was full time girl when I wasn’t on the job working. I looked pretty damn good too even if I do say so myself. I got hit on several times when I was out shopping or…,”
“Sitting in the park like now?” Her eyes were smiling now.
“Yeah, like now. I’m too old to get hit on now. Except by the hoods coming our way. They aren’t going to be asking me for a date.” I nodded toward the trash coming ever closer.
“If you had it to do over again, what would you change?”
“….I want to say, God make me a real girl. But…” I shook my head.
“But she wouldn’t be in that life would she?”
“no”
“What is your answer? What would you change?”
“nothing, not one damn thing. Except….”
“Except?” She kept pushing.
“Except, could God make me a whole male? This bit of half and half sucks big time. I hate what she had to put up with. She hated that half of me but she stayed with me anyway. She was everything I could never be. Remember the Johnny Cash song Teenage Queen? She was all of that and more. I lived my life through her. God should have taken me too when I lost her. I have nothing left to live for. We don’t live for ourselves but for the others we love. When I lost her I lost all purpose in life.”
She tightly held my hand to keep me from reaching for my gun as the pack of thugs stopped in front of us.
“Hey, old lady, give us your purse. I’d look good carrying a purse like that.” One of the tall dirty ones stepped up in front of the others.
“Yes you would. However I don’t feel obligated to help you in your self improvement. So if you want to look good I suggest you get a job, work for what you desire and spend your money and your time wisely.” I desperately wanted that gun in my hand and to be standing up to confront these thieves. The girl was keeping any of it from happening. I was beginning to wonder if she was with them?
She put her hand on my shoulder holding me down as she stood up. She had a black ribbon in her right hand she let unwind while holding onto the end. It was about four feet long. She wrapped it around her waist and tied it off. “Gentlemen, my friend and I are here to enjoy trading stories, watching the children play, and relaxing from the day.”
She clasp her hands together in front of her breasts and made a slight nod toward the nine gang members. “My boss believes in retribution if evil gets too far out of hand. Give everything back you have stolen and beg forgiveness for your sins.”
Everyone in the gang started looking at each other and laughing. I didn’t think the young girl understood what she was facing. I wanted to get up and help her but couldn’t.
“Bitch, you’re dumber than shit.” The one who had first spoke up stepped toward her as he brought his fists up.
I was off to the side and when she smiled it scared the hell out of me. I’d swear it was a ‘lunch is served smile’.
“I was going to say the same thing to you.”
Was that a kick to the side of his head? He was going down and she was bouncing on the balls of her feet. The others charged in mass, all eight men of different weight and height.
I knew she didn’t stand a chance! It was over before it began. Nine bodies on the ground in serious hurt. Some of them moaning and others weren’t.
She untied her black sash and it rolled back up into her hand. She held out her left hand toward me. “Come. Police will be here shortly. They were called twenty minutes ago about a disturbance in the park when these men first walked into the park. Not a priority on a police call and they are now getting around to sending someone out.”
Now I was able to stand up. “Who do you work for?”
She giggled. “You know the answer to that question.”
She walked beside me out to my car and got in when I unlocked the doors as if it was a normal thing for her to do.
“Why me?” I tried to focus on my driving instead of staring at her.
“You wanted answers and seemed to not be listening.”
“I’m tired of living. It was rough before and now…”
“Suicide isn’t the answer. You were given a gift. When people commit suicide they toss that gift back in His face telling Him it wasn’t good enough.”
I took a quick look in her direction. “How did you know?”
“He knows everything but gives everyone a choice. I was sent to make you think about the choice you were about to make.”
“You’re who I think you are. So now what? I hate this life. Are you going to change it for me?”
She shook her head. “You finish it the way it started. What you do with it is your choice. I’m not here to change anything for you. I only came by to make you think about what you planned. I won’t stop you if that is what you are asking. There are millions of people out there worse off than you and they aren’t contemplating suicide. If you want to dwell in that black hole called a pity party until it drags you in then I won’t stop you.”
Taking a long hard look at her I shook my head. “You’re not much of an angel. Not what I expected angels to act like.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot.” She giggled.
“How long you going to hang around?” She was awful cute even if she was out of my league.
“Oh, I’m through here. I was to make you think about what you have instead of what you lost. I did that so I’m good to go.”
“Would it be asking too much if I asked you to stick around for a little while?” I really wanted her to hang around so I had someone to talk to about things I couldn’t talk about with others.
She was looking at me and smiled. “I’m allowed to do that since you asked. I’ll have to go though when I get a new assignment.”
“I can accept that. I thought we were all supposed to have an individual angel assigned to us. What happened to mine?”
She laughed and I could feel it in my soul as well as hear it in my ears. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”
Faeries and Such
Copyright 5/2/18
Barbie Lee
FAERIES AND SUCH
Perception is in the eye of the beholder, sometimes no where the truth or reality. Many of those who know me think of me as a mature attractive woman. Some believe I am possibly a young beautiful girl. And then there are those who think of me as the perfect example of a vicious, vindictive, wicked, ugly hag. My life wasn’t always like this. It started out simple enough as my mom gave birth to a perfect, healthy, happy baby. I heard stories later on as friends, relatives, and of course my loving parents, said I was cuter and prettier than any Gerber Baby. Of course I didn’t mind at the time. I was too young to know what problems came along with being called pretty and cute. There were other disasters on the horizon in my life that none the family knew about. Of course how could they know?
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He had tracked her kind for many years. He didn’t know what they looked like since they had many disguises, but one could tell. They were practitioners of the dark arts. They were spell casters, witches. It was by the god’s intervention he had chanced upon her. Even witch hunters must eat. He had left his horse behind in the area he designated good enough for a camp. Sheltered to one side by a small rock cliff, another side by lake, the thick growth of trees provided cover against any eyes unless they happened to walk upon his camp. By that time any bandits would be dispatched back to the gods. His accuracy with bow and arrow would make sure of that.
As he made his stealthy way through the forest he kept an eye for game trails along with any movement of any game. It was only moments later when he saw some movement. Silently he nocked arrow to bowstring without drawing it and crept closer. Best to bring down game with one arrow rather than wounding it and having to track it down as it fled. He wasn’t prepared for what his eyes showed him after he got past the last dense brush.
There were animals there alright, deer and rabbits in abundance. The trees were adorned with birds of all kinds. A figure was down on its knees digging roots up from the ground. She started singing in the most beautiful lilting voice he had ever heard.
“Your gifts of love fill my heart and soul.” She looked up and smiled at the animals and birds.
“Your gift of bounty for my needs carries me through the years.” She made some kind of sign across her face and breasts
“Your gift of giving me the knowledge of wisdom is more than I deserve.” She looked up to the sky and smiled.
She turned her attention back to digging up small tubers and bulbs of some sort as she kept singing.
He slowly stepped into the open area where the witch was digging. The animals and birds melted back into the forest. He readied his bow.
“Are you going to shoot me in the back?” Came from the woman kneeling on the ground.
“I take witches however I can. There is no dishonor in killing a witch.” He was disturbed that she knew he was there. It didn’t stop him from drawing his bow and letting the arrow fly.
The arrow sped through her cloak and on into the ground. She stood up and turned to face him. “You are an evil, misguided man Sir Bertand du Basaul. You are neither worthy of the title of Sir nor are you worthy of being a man. The eight women you have killed in the past were neither witches nor sorceress. You took them from their villages when you murdered them. Their wisdom and the arts of healing were no longer available to the villages they served. Many more have died because of those losses. Sickness spread in some villages. Others died because their wounds became infected and no healer was there to treat them.”
“You see me with all my friends around me and you immediately believe I am a witch. Thus in your mind I am automatically guilty of witchcraft and my death is justified, as were all those innocent women you have already murdered.”
“LIES! ALL LIES! IT IS NO USE WITCH! I KNOW THE TRUTH! I HAVE SAVED MANY FROM THE EVILS OF WITCHES! I WILL BE REWARDED FOR MY VALIANT EFFORTS.” Sir Betrand tossed his bow aside and drew his sword. This witch might dodge an arrow but his sword would end her witchcraft quickly enough.
She held up a wood staff. “And if I beat you what would that prove besides in your own mind you were right before you bled out on the ground. No woman could ever beat you, but a witch could because she is not really a woman but an evil demon in disguise.
He swung at her, fully intending to cut her head off her body. Sometimes it was the only way to kill a witch and make sure they stayed dead.
She blocked with her staff as she ducked and spun out of the way. Her staff was cut in half. Dejectedly she looked at the half she held in her hands. “Darn, that was my favorite staff too.”
“Okay, you miscreant bastard of a poor excuse for a man. I’ve tried explaining to you how wrong you are. Your stupidity seems to be ruling whatever you have for a brain.” She pulled a long slender sword out of a scabbard on her left side.
Sir Bertand had to laugh. Did she honestly believe that wisp of a blade was going to stand up to his broadsword? He came down with an overhead strike intending to bend or cut through her sword and her all at the same time.
Steel upon steel clanged through the forest in which only peace and bliss had reigned before. She didn’t try and match his strength, but deflected his blow off to her left as she moved right. Her sword tip was whipped back across his left thigh. His sword was too heavy to match her speed and useless in blocking against her quick slash.
She was fast as she kept moving to his left. His sword, in his right hand, was having to make the arc and the distance as he was turning, trying to block her next slash which cut across his left wrist. Blocking his flat swing she rolled her blade over on top of his and pushed down as she reversed direction and moved left. He had stopped his sword from digging into the grass. She was already to his right as he was bringing his sword back up. She slashed across his right bicep, ducking as he was bringing his sword back around and up as he tried to cut across her chest or face.
She slashed the tendons in his right wrist as his sword and arm was out to his right side before he could stop the swing. His sword fell from his grasp. He reached for his dagger on his left hip with his left hand. He didn’t have a good grip on it as it was pulled from it’s sheath. She slapped it out of his hand with the flat of her blade. Then she held up her sword aimed at his throat.
“Kill me witch. What are you waiting for? I’ll not beg for mercy from a witch.”
“I’ve already killed you. You’re bleeding out and haven’t got a clue. Know this before you lose your life. I am not a witch. I am blessed with powers you will never understand. All those bastard children you left behind in your hunt for witches? The seed will not be a boy for many centuries. Only girls will be of your linage until the evil that is in your heart which you left behind is finally washed out by the caring, love, and motherhood of each succeeding generation. Then and only then will a boy be born. He will inherit all the gifts of mine as a reprieve for the punishment I have placed upon you and your linage. Maybe the gods will forgive me for what I have done, for it is not our way to do this thing you have laid upon me. It’s not a punishment to be a girl. It isn’t right to take away the choice they could have had to be a boy or a girl.
Wiping his blood off her sword on his shirt, she slid it home in the scabbard, turned her back to him, went over and picked up her pouch where she had been placing the items she had been digging up and was walking away. “Goddess of life, I beg your forgiveness for what I have done. If I am to be punished, let it begin for I can not exist with a wrong in my heart and soul.
Bertand knelt down to pick up his sword with his left hand. He would chase down the witch and kill her. He was watching as a woman in flowing white gossamer robes appeared beside the witch and was walking with her. Now there were two witches needed killing.
She reached over and caressed Illana’s cheek. “Daughter, I do not hold you guilty of a crime for the taking of this one’s life. The many innocent lives he has taken or caused, has grieved me sorely. He has received his reward for his evil. I will return his soul to the birth of the girls you have cast upon his linage. In time he may become of a kindred spirit and nurture as those he has killed. As a female, each time he returns to mortal he will become a healer. If in time he learns to love and forgive then and only then will he be allowed a choice if he wants to be a boy or a girl.”
Illana reached up and pressed the other woman’s hand to her cheek. “Thank you, Vetra. Your kindness is a blessing. Your love I cherish always.”
The other woman disappeared. Bertand tried to get up off his knees. He couldn’t. He drove the sword into the ground and tried to use it to help push himself up. It was no use. He held on refusing to give up to the witches until his world grayed out. He fell over begging death to come quickly.
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My sixteenth birthday was coming up and dad had offered to help me find a set of wheels I could call my own. He also laid down the rules I was responsible for all the associated costs of owning and driving said freedom mobile. My school grades in Lakewood Junior High? No problem as I was straight A's and a possible shoo in for Valedictorian or Salutatorian. I didn’t play football as it was a demanding sport taking time away from scholastics and serious study.
At five foot eleven inches I tried out for basketball. The end result was a lot of bruises and pain. The jocks liked to run over the tall skinny kid. I didn’t have a high enough shooting average for the coach to care about me so he ignored the intentional fouls as I was used for a tackling dummy in basketball. Maybe I should have gone for football? At least I would have padding. Their passing the basketball was line drives to my side or my back. Coach said I needed to stay focused on where the ball was at all times.
The last straw was when the jocks stuffed my school clothes into the wastepaper basket and took turns defecating and urinating in it. Of course I still had my gym shorts and tee shirt. Or not as I was in the shower when all this took place and those items were also in the wastepaper basket. All the towels in the bathroom had magically disappeared at the same time. There was only one item of clothing left in the shower, locker room. A blue and white cheerleader uniform from one of Lakewood’s most hated opponents, the Eagles.
Sighing I had few alternatives. I could stay in the locker room until school closed for the day. Maybe later I might find some of the custodians and get them to call my parents and bring me more clothes. Or I could put on the dress and go register a complaint with our coach and the principal. They were thoughtful enough to leave the panties that went with the uniform so my privates would be hidden. I doubted very seriously if that was the intention. It was always a good idea to take advantage of anothers mistakes. I learned about using opponents mistakes while playing baseball, chess, tennis, and a few other games.
After stepping into the dress I found it hard to get the zipper up as my body was still very wet and that dress wasn’t allowing that much movement for me to get my fingers on the back zipper. The panties smoothed out all my manhood after I tucked and pushed things back into places they don’t normally reside. I had watched programs on the net on how to do this. I tried it a couple times to see if it really worked or was another liars game.
After slipping on the sneakers they left me, I headed to the coach’s office. I knocked on the door once and walked in without waiting for an invite.
Coach Walker looked up at me and smiled. “You look really cute Audrey.”
Yes my parents went pretty far out giving me a name. They told me my name was shortened from Aethelthryth which meant noble, strength, all knowing and understanding. I figured that was far as it went until I saw my birth certificate which stated I was named Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider. I was told Rachelle meant loyal, caring, prefers to fight her own battles, but will always aid others in need. So I stuck with Audrey when anyone asked me my name, promising myself I would change it when I reached twenty one and was my own man. My name would change to John or Sam or Jake or…, any name with a lot of testosterone attached to it. I knew my parents loved me and meant well but they really were kinda weird at times. When I was born it had to be a blue moon or the dark of the moon or something for them to drop that moniker on me. If they had to get inventive with names why didn’t they drop one on my sister who was a year older than me? Sandy Louise Rider must have not been born under the dark of the moon or a full moon?
Smiling sweetly I gave Coach Walker my best female voice with a deep southern accent as I reached up and patted the side of my long hair, giving it a flip with my fingers. “Why that’s awful sweet of you Coach. I hope you still think of me like that when I file a complaint with Principal Brown. If this doesn’t stop I’ll move it up to Superintendent Hays and possibly the school board.” I didn’t tell him I also intended on contacting a law firm I had found on the net who specializes in these types of situations and does it pro bono.
Coach Walker stood up clinching his fists. “Why you fucking faggot! Your kind is destroying all our schools! The whole damn country is turning into a bunch of fairies!”
“And exactly what right do you have to tell anyone how to live or dress or what they desire to be or not be?" I shot back at him. "You think you’re the fashion, morality, ethics, police? Who appointed you? Or did you appoint yourself? You are claiming the right to judge how people should dress and act while you deny others that same right. Coach, you’re a bigot of the darkest kind. You hide behind your education degree passing judgment on all those who you don’t personally approve of as testosterone jocks or meek little submissive females.”
GET OUT! GET OUT OF MY OFFICE! DON’T YOU EVER COME BACK TO THIS CLASS! YOUR GRADE FOR THIS COURSE JUST BECAME AN F MINUS! NOW GET OUT YOU FUCKING FREAK!” His face had gone beet red as he was waving his hand and pointing at the door. His feet were slowly moving him around the desk toward me.
I figured if I didn’t flee I was going to get a beating I probably wouldn’t recover from. Sometimes the best part of fighting is to know when to run. I put that knowledge into action. I was happy the guys had left sneakers. When I hit the gym door, Coach Walker wasn’t that far behind. Nor did I slow down in the hallway which was full of kids in between classes. Coach Walker had murder in his eyes when I fled. From the sounds of shouting and feet pounding the floor behind me, I figured he was still trying to finish what he was thinking in his office.
Making it to the principal’s office, I didn’t stop and ask the secretary if he was in as I charged on into an empty office. My fate was sealed as Coach Walker ran in five steps behind me. Backing into a corner I brought my hands and arms up to protect my face and front of my body before he started hammering me with his fists. The left side of my head took a blow I couldn’t cover. Backed into the corner facing someone with massive strength, I was not going to escape.
Jennie had watched as the Eagle cheerleader ran by her into Principal Brown’s office. She was too surprised and not quick enough to stop her. Then Coach Walker ran past her into the office. Immediately she heard sounds of someone beating another person. She had heard it often enough. As she passed through the school grades when she was growing up, she knew exactly what it was. Jumping out of her chair she ran into the office and stopped in shock as Coach Walker was beating the poor girl with his fists.
“COACH, STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING! STOP! GET AWAY FROM THAT GIRL!” She grabbed his arm to pull him back.
He threw Jennie across the room as he kept pounding the girl in the corner. Jennie struggled to her feet, grabbed the largest book she could find on the bookshelf and baptized Coach Walker. He went down to his knees and then toppled over backwards on the floor out cold.
Jennie looked at the girl still trying to cover up her face with her hands. Blood was all over her hands, her dress. She grabbed her wrist. “Come with me. I’ll get you to safety while I call security.”
She led the poor girl out of the offices and down the hall to the nurse station. Ann looked up when she heard them walk in. She sucked in her breath. “My god, what happened?”
“Coach Walker has gone nuts. He was trying to beat her to death. See what you can do to help while I call security and Emergency Medical at Mercy.”
Ann wet a cloth and was trying to wipe some of the blood off to find where it was coming from. “Honey, what’s your name? Where do you hurt? Do you have someone we can contact? Sweetie, what’s your name?”
“Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider.” It was so heavily French accented both women had trouble with the name.
“Honey, I didn’t catch that. Tell me again, what is your name?” Ann leaned in real close.
“Illana, Je suis retourne a tort ce mauvais. Le batard n’a pas appris après six siecles” (Lllana, I have returned to right this wrong. He has not learned after six centuries)
Ann looked over at Jennie. “Did she say her name was Rider? Is this Audrey Rider? What is she doing in an Eagle cheerleader uniform? Why was Coach Walker beating on her?”
Jennie shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m sure it will all come out when we get to the bottom of this. I have security headed to the office to pick up Coach Walker. An ambulance is on its way to pick up Audrey.” Jennie wanted to hold the girl but she was bloody. She hoped Coach Walker didn’t figure out where Audrey went if he regained his senses before security found him.
“Ce corps mortel doit se reposer jusqu’a ce qu Aethelthryth soit complete” (This mortal body shall rest until Aethelthryth is complete.)
Jennie was shaking her head. “Honey, we don’t understand what language you are using. Can you repeat it in English?”
Audrey closed her eyes and leaned back on the table. She couldn’t be woken as Ann tried her best to get a response out of her. Both women feared the worst, a brain concussion. She was leaking blood in the brain cranium putting pressure on her mind. When waiting on an ambulance minutes seem like hours. It was only eighteen minutes before Emergency Medical was there in the nurse’s station with their gurney and their life monitoring equipment. Six minutes later they had Audrey hooked up monitoring all her vitals. If anything, everything was a tad low. Her heartbeat was so slow she could be in a zen trance. Her blood pressure on the bottom side. Her oxygen level good. Of course she was breathing through her mouth as her nose was smashed. By now the EM personnel were starting to worry. Everything was too normal. A brain concussion was suspected and was shutting everything down.
She was transported.
In the Emergency Room Dr. Linda Clark was busy checking vitals and ordered X rays of the young woman’s head as her clothes were cut off so they could check her whole body. She was no longer bleeding from her nose and ears. The bruising on her face, shoulders, chest, and sides seemed to have run their course as they weren’t darkening. Quite the contrary, they seemed to be diminishing.
“Pictures, the police will need proof she was attacked.” Dr. Clark checked the girls hands. No broken skin, bruising, or broken fingers. Looking under the nails they were all clean, no blood, no tissue. She hadn’t fought back to defend herself.
X Ray personnel came into the room with the machine. “I want to know what is going on inside her skull. Give me frontal and sides. Give me pictures of her body. I want to know where this girl is broken.” Dr. Clark and all the others stepped out of the room for the five minutes it took the X Ray team to do their job.
Dr. Clark was studying the pictures along with Doctor Allison Sharp. “I don’t see anything.”
“Neither do I.” Dr. Sharp leaned in for a closer look. Were they missing something? The girl was in a coma and couldn’t be awakened. What was causing it? “What’s her vitals, Linda?”
“Good, all good. If I gave a diagnosis on her condition, I’d say she had a bloody nose, bruising and that was it. Damn Allison, I just came from Intensive Care. I swear she has less bruising on her body than when they brought her in.”
“Her parents show up yet?”
Linda shook her head. “No one seems sure what her name is. They are walking on egg shells out there trying to get a name, afraid of calling up someone and telling the wrong parents we have their daughter. The report the school nurse sent in with her, she could possibly be Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider and everyone called her Audrey.”
Allison chuckled. “I wonder why they call her Audrey? Okay, it’s up to admin to figure out the legals, let’s focus on the girl’s medical. Why the coma? I haven’t a clue. I know you well enough to not ask if you checked for spinal.”
“I did, only so much can be done until we have a responsive patient. If she was awake I’d go through the whole test of feeling in the feet, toes, fingers. Hell Allison, I’m grasping at straws trying to figure out what is going on inside that girl’s head and why she doesn’t want to reconnect with us.”
“I wish I had an answer for you, Linda. Like you, I don’t have a clue.” Allison tapped the screen showing the X Rays. “There isn’t a damn thing there. I suggest running her through an MRI. Maybe getting your answer there.”
“I ordered an MRI when I left her room before asking you to meet me here. I have a beat up, normal healthy girl, who refuses to wake up. This is one we never studied in pre-med. Thanks for giving me your opinion on this one, Allison. I was praying I wasn’t missing anything.”
Allison smiled at her friend. “Linda, if they ever bring me in on a gurney, it's you I want in the ER room waiting for me. There isn’t a better, more caring, conscientious doctor in this whole hospital. In the whole city. In the whole state.”
Linda was waving her friend down. “Thanks for the confidence booster but my patient isn’t getting any better.”
“She isn’t getting any worse either. Remember hon, we make them stable, then we make them healthy. You have her stable. Give healthy a chance to come at its own pace. I know you’re frustrated with this one. Maybe you just need to find that treating both the patient and her doctor with a prescription of patience is what is needed.”
Linda looked at her friend and nodded in agreement. “I hear you. Mind if I call when the MRI comes in?”
“I’ll be there, you know I will.”
I was awake but I wasn’t. Had to be one of those dreams where they are so real one is caught on both sides of living and dreaming. She was by my bed. It was a hospital bed and room from the looks of things when I scanned the room.
“Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider, your time to awaken has been pushed forward by circumstances I had not foreseen. I was going to give to you your gift of all my knowledge on your sixteenth birthday. You are of my blood. You are of both human and faerie. You have been watched long before the day you were born. I am very pleased with you. Understand this, only females may carry the arts of knowledge, healing, strength, and caring comfort of a woman. As a male you had these, but not strong enough to show up in enough measure to attract attention. As a female you are now gifted with my gifts. Accept these changes as gifts and the blessings they entail. Understand why children look at you, come to you as their lives have yet to be blinded by the ignorance of mortals.”
“There is so much more. You will understand it all for the gift of knowledge is also yours.” She reached out her hand toward me.
“Your name?” As I held out my hand to accept hers.
“You know it already.”
When she took my hand I felt an euphoria the likes of which I doubt mankind has ever known. I was born again into a world of the knowledge and magic of faeries. “Thank you, Illana. Mother.” My arm dropped to the bed as I fell back asleep.
Another woman appeared beside Illana. “You have chosen your daughter well. I sense in her all you are. She is kind, caring, and yet a force of nature to be reckoned with.”
Illana turned an looked at her friend. “Vetra, I test the jealousy of all the other Gods when I say you are the best of all of them. Thank you for sparing my daughter’s life. I pray you stop me from finishing off that wretched man who almost beat her to death. You did not let her die. I am eternally in your debt.”
“Yes I saved her life. It is your gifts she is blessed with, which will allow her to flower into a woman and healer the likes of which this world has lost over the centuries. I ask you to not kill the man who beat her. His punishment is coming and it will be long and harsh. He will wish for death a thousand times a thousand before my enemy will be allowed to claim him.”
“The Grim Reaper always has wanted to shorten the waiting period. Thank you for making him wait. My kindness was sorely tested as I truly wanted to kill him.”
As the nurse came running into the room she thought she saw two women standing beside the young girl’s bed. She was mistaken since when she took a second look no one was there. The patient stirred and opened her eyes. “How bad am I?”
The reason the nurse had run into the room was that all the monitoring equipment had been turned off. As she looked at the patient, all of it had been disconnected from the young girl.
“Who did this?” She stepped up beside the bed, picked up the girls arm and checked for her pulse.
“Did what? How ugly am I?” Reaching up with my right hand because the nurse was holding my left one, I felt my face to check for bruising and bandages.
Cassiopeia stared at the girl. It was as if a different girl had been substituted for the one she had checked a little over an hour ago. Ugly? The girl was a raving beauty and that was without any makeup. Must be the effects of that possible concussion listed on her admittance records. Cass was caught in a quandary. She needed to notify her doctor the girl was awake and yet she needed to be hooked back up to her monitors. She left to go back to the nurse station. Karen could call her doctor while she hooked her back up.
Dr. Linda Clark was there in less than ten minutes after she had been told her comatose patient was awake. When she walked into the room she stopped dead in her tracks, turned around and checked the room number. Right room, wrong patient. “Where did they move my patient?”
“Doc, I don’t know what to tell you. This is your patient.” Cass was waiting for the storm she knew was brewing in Doctor Clark’s eyes.
Linda walked closer to take a look. Where was all the bruising, the cuts, the swelling? “What’s your name?”
“Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider, everyone calls me Audrey. How long have I been here? Have mom and dad been notified? I’m not going back to school if Coach Walker is still there. He’ll kill me next time. I’m surprised he didn’t do it this time. Someone must have pulled him off of me.”
Linda shook her head. All the answers and questions fit with what she knew when her patient was brought in. A recovery this quick was impossible. “Listen to me Audrey. You’ve been in a coma since the time you were brought in. I need to ask you some questions and have you answer me as truthfully as you can.”
“Okay.” My attention strayed from the doctor to the sheet covering me. I had bumps in the sheet on my chest. I was smiling when I looked back at the doctor. My dream wasn’t a dream. I felt complete, I was truly me for the first time in my life. I promised myself I’d have no regrets trying out the boy side first but this girl side was the right fit.
The doc asked a whole lot more than a few questions. When everyone was positive I was the boy…, girl registered as Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider in Lakewood school system, they called my parents and told them I had been taken to the hospital. The police and the school were notified that I was awake and speaking intelligently without any apparent harm to my cognitive ability.
My parents were the first to arrive. Sis of course was still in school and didn’t come. Mom skidded to a halt when she stepped inside the door. She was staring. “Aethelthryth?”
“Hi mom.” I gave a small wave.
Dad was standing there with his mouth open. “Audrey?”
“Hi daddy, it’s me.” My problem was, I had no idea all the changes that had been made. I had yet to see myself in a mirror.
Mom closed in and took my hand. “This is going to take some getting used to.”
“I’m sorry, mom. How ugly am I?”
“Ugly?” Mom had to cough that one out as it caught in her throat. “You don’t know?”
“None of the doctors or nurses will tell me. Coach worked me over pretty good until they saved me. It’s okay mom. I won’t freak out. I know it has to be bad.”
Linda touched my mother’s arm. “Mrs. Rider, we took pictures for our records and for the police files when your daughter was brought in. Of course you and your husband will be allowed copies. She was in bad condition. I was examining a girl who had been subjected to one of the most savage beatings I had experienced in a long time.”
She pointed at Audrey. “I can’t explain this. No one can. It isn’t in any medical books because it isn’t possible. She’s made a full recovery and we, the hospital staff, myself, had nothing to do with it.
“Daughter?” Janet was staring at her son. He was still her son although the soft feminine features he always had were now long gone. There was absolutely not a smidgen of doubt he had changed. He had the prettiest face she had ever seen. She noticed the tent in the sheets on her son’s chest. Doubt crept into her mind along with all those family tales told down through the ages. She didn’t remember the whole story but it had something to do with fairies.
“When can he go home?” Janet wanted her son home before family stories were questioned.
Linda winced as the girl’s mother kept referring to her daughter in the masculine. “I’m going to keep her overnight to make sure what we are experiencing isn’t a fluke. I’m going to request another MRI to check for abnormalities. If nothing shows up you can take her home tomorrow afternoon.”
My dad walked over to the uncrowded side of the bed and took my right hand. He noticed the long sharp nails, long fingers, and delicate hand he was holding. How long had it been since he had paid any attention and held Audrey’s hand? “Son? How you holding up?”
Dr. Clark winced again. What was wrong with this girl’s parents?
“Pretty good, considering, dad. I’m sorry to be so much trouble. It all started in the gym. I let my mouth say things I shouldn’t have said.”
Kevin gave a soft gentle squeeze to his son’s hand. Audrey always did have a soft almost feminine voice. Now there was no doubt. His voice was lilting, musical, calling everyone to listen to the voice of an angel. “You have never been a burden. If you said something, I’m sure it needed to be said. We’ll get to the bottom of this and straighten it all out. Don’t worry about it.”
A man and woman walked into the room carrying notebooks and recorders. “Detective Anders. My partner is Detective Johansen. We were told the patient was awake. We're here to ask the young lady some questions if her primary physician gives the okay.”
“I’m her doctor and yes you may question her if she says it is okay and her parents give their approval. These are the young girl’s parents.” Linda pointed at Janet and Kevin.
Kevin looked at the detectives. “Does my son need a lawyer?”
Linda cringed. This was ridiculous. She felt like shouting at the parents to call the girl, she, but she held it back.
Detective Johansen looked at the girl lying in the hospital bed. She had dealt with fathers like this before. They kept trying to project their daughter into their son. “Not necessarily. We have all the information from the school nurse, secretary, security and other personnel at the school. Your daughter was chased down and beaten by a very disturbed individual. We think it might have been related to her wearing an Eagle cheerleader uniform which set off the individual who beat her. A lawyer is yours or your daughter’s choice of course.”
“Eagle cheerleader uniform?” Janet was trying to wrap her mind around Audrey wearing a girl’s cheerleader uniform. This was going to take some explaining when they got home. Seems as if the explanations needing to be told were starting to stack up.
“Son?” Kevin looked at his son to see if he felt he needed a lawyer or not.
Linda gritted her teeth and almost growled as she hissed, “Girl. She’s your daughter.”
Janet coughed as her and Kevin’s eyes snapped down to look at Audrey. “Daughter?” She whispered.
I nodded my head. I didn’t need a mirror to confirm what I was any more than any girl needs one to check with her eyes what her body was telling her.
“Honey, you take over. I need to go sit down someplace.” Kevin was headed out the door.
That caused me to smile. No matter what society thought, women always were the strongest of the sexes. Guys might have muscle, but that wasn’t true strength. It was what was inside where the real strength resided and women had that in abundance.
Janet brushed the golden blond hair away from Audrey’s face before she looked at the detective. “I’ll agree to the questioning if my daughter consents.”
It was over in less than an hour. Everyone, besides my mother, had left us alone. Mom was sitting on the side of my bed holding my hand and studying my face. “I can’t begin to imagine what it is like to go from boy to girl in a matter of a day or two. How do you truly feel?”
“Everything matches now. I can’t explain it in words, knowing I am complete inside and out. Did you ever question why you were a girl or have doubt you were one? I’m a girl. I have no doubt I am one and it's right for me.”
Taking both her hands in mine I held on tightly. “Mom…, and you always will be my mom. Nothing will ever change that. I will always love you and respect you as my mother. I can see and feel things I never could before. I can feel in your soul when you gave birth to me. Promise you will never doubt me when I tell you something, for I can not lie. That was part of the package she gifted me with.”
“She?” Mom was waiting for an explanation.
“My other mother was here before you and dad came. She is a Faerie (pronounced Fay-ree) of health, strength and courage among many other things. She gave me her gifts along with the gift of becoming a female. Only as a female am I able to use the full extent her gifts she has blessed me with. I accept this with a burning desire I have never felt before.”
“Mom, I am a healer. She healed me so I could live and heal others in need. I can’t heal everyone in the world of all their problems though. I can heal those who are kind and deserving. I can sense that in people now. Doctor Linda Clark who was in here is a kind and caring doctor. She’s one of the best. She has cancer in her left breast, squamous cell carcinoma. I could smell it and feel it. Tonight when she comes in to check on me, I’ll ask her to hold my hand. I can kill and remove her cancer. A block will be placed on her DNA. No cancer will ever get a start in her body for the rest of her life. She will save thousands before she is through practicing medicine. I can sense all this. With one tiny little gift to her, thousands will live.”
Janet was softly crying as she studied her daughter’s beautiful face. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”
“Thank you for giving me life. My other mom, Illana saved it and brought it back again. I love you both with all my heart and soul. I always will until the end of eternity.”
“Go home and rest, mom. You’re tired. I’m freshly minted and don’t have a whole lot of reserve to be sharing or I’d remove your tiredness. I’m saving up for Dr. Clark tonight. That will drain me but it will be okay. I’ll be recharged before daybreak. Each following day I’ll keep getting stronger until I no longer have a need to stop sharing.”
In the wee hours of the morning, Illana and Vetra were watching their young charge sleeping peacefully with a smile on her face.
“She is blessed to have you as her mother, Illana.”
“It is I who is blessed, Vetra. She is a gift to us all, mortals and Faerie alike.”
The goddess reached over and hugged her friend. “I am blessed to know you both. How many gods have friends such as you? None, absolutely, none.”
Illana returned the hug and then her attention turned to Aethelthryth. She will need us both for she treads in a mortal world where her kind and magic is feared and hated by many.”
“Then let us not be laggards and shirk our duty. I promise a goddess’s wrath upon any who ever touch her again in anger.”
“Thank you Vetra, our daughter could not ask for more. Nor do I suspect with her kind and forgiving spirit she would even think to ask.” Before they left, Illana placed a white gossamer gown on the foot of the bed.
Vetra softly chuckled. “Illana, she’s mortal. She needs more than just the gown. Proper modest under things and all.”
“Oh? Of course, I forgot.” Girl panties, half slip, and bra lay on the bed beside the gown.
Vetra was almost laughing out loud. “Illana…, oh never mind. Your daughter is going to have the attention of everyone, and I do mean everyone, who sees her as she leaves the hospital.
That morning I cleaned up with a washcloth as good as I could in that small bathroom attached to my room. The underclothes and gown were on my body shortly afterwards. I was wishing I had makeup and perfume to complete the picture but…
Mom made a trip in with jeans, shorts and shirt by ten that morning. She stopped and stared when she walked into the room. Laughing, she tossed what she was holding into the trashcan. “I forgot I had a daughter. Well not really, but it didn’t register in my mind that my son’s clothes weren’t appropriate for my daughter. My god Audrey, you are beyond beautiful. I take it your other mother dropped off the dress?”
“Yes. Please don’t be jealous. I love you both.”
“I never could be jealous of someone who loves you as much as she must. Please ask her if we can meet sometime and talk. I’d love to meet your other mother.”
“She’s a Faerie, mom. She would be feared, loved, hated all at the same time if she appeared in public. I know what you are thinking and no she doesn’t have wings. God, where did our society get all those stupid fairy ideas anyway? One Peter Pan movie and all Faeries are tiny little things like insects with wings.”
Janet studied her daughter. “You’re so beautiful yourself. Are you now a fairy?”
“That is Faerie not fairy, mom. And yes, I’m one too now. It came with Illana saving my life and changing me so I could use the gifts she blessed me with. Mom, I don’t love her more or you less because of who or what I changed to. I love you both equally, please believe me.
“Of course I believe you. You never lied to me before. I don’t think you can lie to me now. I want a hug from my gorgeous daughter.” Janet held out her arms.
By one that afternoon my mother was back with makeup and perfume. She told me I only needed a touch of each as I was already exotic and attractive enough. I didn’t need to raise the bar any higher with makeup.
Dr. Clark was there along with a lot of the hospital personnel as they wheeled me across the atrium where people check in and out as friends and relatives wait for the good news or bad. She gave me a hug. “Never in my life have I seen someone recover like you have. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t personally seen it myself. I’m sure no one else will believe it either. Hospital records will be amended after they try that son of a bitch who tried to beat you to death. The records will be needed in a trial as they were when you were admitted.
I hugged her back. “Thank you Doctor for all your kind and caring attention. I certainly appreciate what you have done for me.”
Linda giggled. “Done for you? Hon, this is all yourself and whoever and whatever other connections you have out there. I’d like to talk to you about this sometime, but I’m almost afraid of what you will tell me. Take care Audrey and don’t get into any more fights.”
“I promise I’ll behave from now on out. No more fights.” Looking around as the doc stood up I spied a little girl lying limply in her mother’s arms.
Quickly before they could stop me I was out of the wheelchair and standing in front of the woman. “Please, may I hold her.” I held out my arms.
Security was closing in. Dr. Clark waved them off. “Wait.”
The lady handed me her little girl. Holding her to my breasts and kissing her on the forehead, I sang softly a song playing in my mind.
Every sound in that huge room was turned off. No one spoke as they all looked at the young woman holding the little girl and singing with one of the most beautiful lyrical voices anyone had ever heard. The words and sounds weren’t any anyone had heard but it was all beautiful and soul soothing.
Four minutes later I kissed the little girl on the forehead and gently laid her back in her mother’s arms. “She will grow up to be an outstanding lawyer and judge. The world is blessed to have her among us.”
Dr. Allison leaned over toward Dr. Linda Clark. “What did I just see? Tell me something didn’t happen that medical science won’t be able to explain.”
Dr. Clark looked around the room. Everyone was staring at the young woman as she walked back to the wheelchair. “Allison, I think we all just witnessed something none of us will be able to explain. I hope someone thought to record her voice and her song.”
Allison slowly shook her head. “I never thought about it. Who would? We were all mesmerized by what we were witnessing.”
“Linda, I didn’t happen to just stop by. I want another look at your left breast.”
Linda felt chills run down her spine. “What did you see?”
“Dr. Clark, you of all people know better than to speculate on what is or isn’t before it’s confirmed. I want another MRI and X Ray.”
“How bad is it and how much has it spread?” Linda had been through this too many times with her patients to know this wasn’t just a follow up. Allison had seen something.
“More tests, Doctor and don’t try and analyze the data before we have something solid.” Allison reached out and pulled Linda’s hands into hers. She felt for her friend. The dreaded unknown and possibly the Big C was a scary monster no one wanted to face, doctor or not.
Tears escaped Linda’s eyes as she knew it was going to be bad news. She looked up to see her young unexplainable patient get in the van. Did she just smile and wink at her? Last night when Audrey asked to hold her hand she was singing so softly it was hard to hear her. Strange feelings spread through out her tired body while the girl was singing. Did she…?
Linda grabbed Allison by the arm. “I have to know. If I’m right those X Rays and MRIs you have from two days ago are not going to match up with what the next ones will find.”
Allison looked at her friend. “Something you aren’t telling me, Doctor?”
“Just a hunch, Doctor, just a hunch.”
summary
I was named Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider. I was told Aethelthryth meant noble, strength, all knowing and understanding. Rachelle meant loyal, caring, prefers to fight her own battles but will always aid others in need. So I stuck with Audrey when anyone asked me my name. I knew my parents loved me and meant well but they really were kinda weird at times. When I was born it had to be a blue moon or the dark of the moon or something for them to drop that moniker on me.
Faeries and Such
Copyright 5/2/18
Barbie Lee
FAERIES AND SUCH
Many of those who know me think of me as a mature attractive woman. Some believe I am possibly a young beautiful girl. And then there are those who think of me as the perfect example of a vicious, vindictive, wicked, ugly hag. My life wasn’t always like this. It started out simple enough as my mom gave birth to a perfect, healthy, happy baby. I heard stories later on as friends, relatives, and of course my loving parents, said I was cuter and prettier than any Gerber Baby. Of course I didn’t mind at the time. I was too young to know what problems came along with being called pretty and cute. There were other disasters on the horizon in my life. None the family knew about. Of course how could they know?
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He had tracked her kind for many years. He didn’t know what they looked like. They had many disguises but one could tell. They were practitioners of the dark arts. They were spell casters, witches. It was by the god’s intervention he had chanced upon her. Even witch hunters must eat. He had left his horse behind in the area he designated good enough for a camp. Sheltered to one side by a small rock cliff, another side by lake, the thick growth of trees provided cover against any eyes unless they happen to walk upon his camp. By that time any bandits would be dispatched back to the gods. His accuracy with bow and arrow would make sure of that.
As he stealthed through the forest he kept an eye for game trails along with any movement of any game. It was only moments later when he saw some movement. Silently he notched arrow to bowstring without drawing it and crept closer. Best to bring down game with one arrow rather than wounding it and having to track it down as it fled. He wasn’t prepared for what his eyes showed him after he got past the last dense brush.
There were animals there alright, deer and rabbits in abundance. The trees were adorned with birds of all kinds. A figure was down on its knees digging roots up from the ground. She started singing in the most beautiful lilting voice he had ever heard.
“Your gifts of love fills my heart and soul.” She looked up and smiled at the animals and birds.
“Your gift of bounty for my needs carries me through the years.” She made some kind of sign across her face and breasts
“Your gift of giving me the knowledge of wisdom is more than I deserve.” She looked up to the sky and smiled.
She turned her attention back to digging up small tubers and bulbs of some sort as she kept singing.
He slowly stepped into the open area where the witch was digging. The animals and birds melted back into the forest. He readied his bow.
“Are you going to shoot me in the back?” Came from the woman kneeling on the ground.
“I take witches however I can. There is no dishonor in killing a witch.” He was disturbed she knew he was there. It didn’t stop him from drawing his bow and letting the arrow fly.
The arrow sped through her cloak and on into the ground. She stood up and turned to face him. “You are an evil misguided man Sir Bertand du Basaul. You are neither worthy of the title of Sir nor are you worthy of being a man. The eight women you have killed in the past were neither witches nor sorceress. You took them from their villages when you murdered them. Their wisdom and the arts of healing were no longer available to the villages they served. Many more have died because of that loss. Sickness spread in some villages. Others died because their wounds became infected and no healer was there to treat them.”
“You see me with all my friends around me and you immediately believe I am a witch. Thus in your mind I am automatically guilty of witchcraft and my death is justified, as were all those innocent women you have already murdered.”
“LIES, ALL LIES, IT IS NO USE WITCH. I KNOW THE TRUTH. I HAVE SAVED MANY FROM THE EVILS OF WITCHES. I WILL BE REWARDED FOR MY VALIANT EFFORTS.” Sir Betrand tossed his bow aside and drew his sword. This witch might dodge an arrow but his sword would end her witchcraft quickly enough.
She held up a wooden staff. “And if I beat you what would that prove besides in your own mind you were right before you bled out on the ground. No woman could ever beat you but a witch could because she is not really a woman but an evil demon in disguise.
He swung at her fully intending to cut her head off her body. Sometimes it was the only way to kill a witch and make sure they stayed dead.
She blocked with her staff as she ducked and spun out of the way. Her staff was cut in half. Dejectedly she looked at the half she held in her hands. “Darn, that was my favorite staff too.”
“Okay, you miscreant bastard of a poor excuse for a man. I’ve tried explaining to you how wrong you are. Your stupidity seems to be ruling whatever you have for a brain.” She pulled a long slender sword out of a scabbard on her left side.
Sir Bertand had to laugh. Did she honestly believe that wisp of a blade was going to stand up to his broadsword? He came down with an overhead strike intending to bend or cut through her sword and her all at the same time.
Steel upon steel clanged through the forest in which only peace and bliss reigned before. She didn’t try and match his strength but deflected his blow off to her left as she moved right. Her sword tip was whipped back across his left thigh. His was too heavy to match her speed and useless in blocking against her quick slash.
She was fast as she kept moving to his left. His sword in his right hand was having to make the arc and the distance as he was turning and trying to block her next slash which cut across his left wrist. Blocking his flat swing she rolled her blade over on top of his and pushed down as she reversed direction and moved to his right. He had stopped his sword from digging into the grass. She was already to his right as he was bringing his sword back up. She slashed across his right bicep, ducking as he was bringing his sword back around and up as he tried to cut across her chest or face.
She slashed the tendons in his right wrist as his sword and arm was out to his right side before he could stop the swing. His sword fell from his grasp. He reached for his dagger on his left hip with his left hand. He didn’t have a good grip on it as it was pulled from its sheath. She slapped it out of his hands with the flat of her blade. Then she held up her sword aimed at his throat.
“Kill me witch. What are you waiting for? I’ll not beg for mercy from a witch.”
“I’ve already killed you. You’re bleeding out and haven’t got a clue. Know this before you lose your life. I am not a witch. I am blessed with powers you will never understand. All those bastard children you left behind in your hunt for witches? The seed will not be a boy for many centuries. Only girls will be of your linage until the evil that is in your heart which you left behind will be washed out by the caring, love, and motherhood of each succeeding generation. Then and only then will a boy be born. He will inherit all the gifts of mine as a reprieve for the punishment I have placed upon you and your linage. And maybe the gods will forgive me for what I have done for it is not our way to do this thing you have laid upon me. It’s not a punishment to be a girl. It isn’t right to take away the choice they could have had to be a boy or a girl.
Wiping his blood off her sword on his shirt, she slid it home in the scabbard, turned her back to him, went over and picked up her pouch where she had been placing the items she had been digging up and was walking away. “Goddess of life, I beg your forgiveness for what I have done. If I am to be punished, let it begin for I can not exist with a wrong in my heart and soul.
Bertand knelt down to pick up his sword with his left hand. He would chase down the witch and kill her. He was watching as a woman in flowing white gossamer robes appeared beside the witch and was walking with her. Now there were two witches he needed to killing.
She reached over and caressed Illana’s cheek. “Daughter, I do not hold you guilty of a crime for taking of this one’s life. The many innocent lives he has taken or caused, have grieved me sorely. He has received his reward for his evil. I will return his soul to the birth of the girls you have cast upon his linage. In time he may become of a kindred spirit and nurture as those he has killed. As a female, each time he returns to mortal he will become a healer. If in time he learns to love and forgive then and only then will he be allowed a choice if he wants to be a boy or a girl.”
Illana reached up and pressed the other woman’s hand to her cheek. “Thank you, Vetra. Your kindness is a blessing. Your love I cherish always.”
The other woman disappeared. Bertand tried to get up off his knees. He couldn’t. He drove the sword into the ground and tried to use it to help push himself up. It was no use. He held on refusing to give up to the witches until his world grayed out. He fell over begging death to come quickly.
My sixteenth birthday was coming up and dad had offered to help me find a set of wheels I could call my own. He also lay down the rules I was responsible for all the associated cost of owning and driving said freedom mobile. My school grades in Lakewood Junior High? No problem as I was straight A and a possible shoo in for Valedictorian or Salutatorian. I didn’t play football as it was a demanding sport taking time away from scholastics and serious study. At five foot eleven inches I tried out for basketball. The end result was a lot of bruises and pain. The jocks liked to run over the tall skinny kid. I didn’t have high enough shooting average for the coach to care about me so he ignored the intentional fouls as I was used for a tackling dummy in basketball. Maybe I should have gone for football? At least I would have padding. Their passing the basketball was line drives to my side or my back. Coach said I needed to stay focused on where the ball was at all times. The last straw was when the jocks stuffed my school clothes into the wastepaper basket and took turns defecating and urinating in it. Of course I still had my gym shorts and tee shirt. Or not as I was in the shower when all this took place and those items were also in the wastepaper basket. All the towels in the bathroom had magically disappeared at the same time. There was only one item of clothing left in the shower, locker room. A blue and white cheerleader uniform from one of Lakewood’s most hated opponents, the Eagles. Sighing I had few alternatives. I could stay in the locker room until school closed for the day. Maybe later find some of the custodians and get them to call my parents and bring me more clothes. Or I could put on the dress and go register a complaint with our coach and the principal. They were thoughtful enough to leave the panties that went with the uniform so my privates would be hidden. I doubted very seriously if that was the intention. It was always a good idea to take advantage of another’s mistakes. I learned about using opponents mistakes while playing baseball, chess, tennis, and a few other games. After stepping into the dress I found it hard to get the zipper up as my body was still very wet and that dress wasn’t allowing that much movement for me to get my fingers on the back zipper. The panties smoothed out all my manhood after I tucked and pushed things back into places they don’t normally reside. I had watched programs on the net on how to do this. I tried it a couple times to see if it really worked or was another liars game.
After slipping on the sneakers they left me, I headed to the coach’s office. I knocked on the door once and walked in without waiting for an invite.
Coach Walker looked up at me and smiled. “You look really cute Audrey.”
Yes, my parents went pretty far out giving me a name. They told me my name was shortened from Aethelthryth which meant noble, strength, all knowing and understanding. I figured that was far as it went until I saw my birth certificate which stated I was named Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider. I was told Rachelle meant loyal, caring, prefers to fight her own battles but will always aid others in need. So I stuck with Audrey when anyone asked me my name, promising myself I would change it when I reached twenty one and was my own man. My name would change to John or Sam or Jake or…, any name with a lot of testosterone attached to it. I knew my parents loved me and meant well but they really were kinda weird at times. When I was born it had to be a blue moon or the dark of the moon or something for them to drop that moniker on me. If they had to get inventive with names why didn’t they drop one on my sister who was a year older than me? Sandy Louise Rider must have not been born under the dark of the moon or a full moon?
Smiling sweetly I gave Coach Walker my best female voice with a deep southern accent as I reached up and patted the side of my long hair, giving it a flip with my fingers. “Why that’s awful sweet of you Coach. I hope you still think of me like that when I file a complaint with Principal Brown. If this doesn’t stop I’ll move it up to Superintendent Hays and possibly the school board.” I didn’t tell him I also intended on contacting a law firm I had found on the net who specializes in these types of situations and does it pro bono.
Coach Walker stood up clinching his fists. “Why you fucking faggot. Your kind is destroying all our schools The whole damn country is turning into a bunch of fairies.”
“And exactly what right do you have to tell anyone how to live or dress or what they desire to be or not be? You think you’re the fashion, morality, ethics, police? Who appointed you? Or did you appoint yourself? You are claiming the right to judge how people should dress and act while you deny others that same right. Coach, you’re a bigot of the darkest kind. You hide behind your education degree passing judgment on all those who you don’t personally approve of as testosterone jocks or meek little submissive females.”
GET OUT! GET OUT OF MY OFFICE! DON’T YOU EVER COME BACK TO THIS CLASS! YOUR GRADE FOR THIS COURSE JUST BECAME AN F MINUS! NOW GET OUT YOU FUCKING FREAK!” His face had gone beet red as he was waving his hand and pointing at the door. His feet were slowly moving him around the desk toward me.
I figured if I didn’t flee I was going to get a beating I probably wouldn’t recover from. Sometimes the best part of fighting is to know when to run. I put that knowledge into action. I was happy the guys had left sneakers. When I hit the gym door, Coach Walker wasn’t that far behind. Nor did I slow down in the hallway which was full of kids between classes. Coach Walker had murder in his eyes when I fled. From the sounds of shouting and feet pounding the floor behind me, I figured he was still trying to finish what he was thinking in his office.
Making it to the principle’s office, I didn’t stop and ask the secretary if he was in as I charged on into an empty office. My fate was sealed as Coach Walker ran in five steps behind me. Backing into a corner I brought my hands and arms up to protect my face and front of my body before he started hammering me with his fists. The left side of my head took a blow I couldn’t cover. Backed into the corner facing someone with massive strength, I was not going to escape.
Jennie had watched as the Eagle cheerleader ran by her into Principal Brown’s office. She was too surprised and not quick enough to stop her. Then Coach Walker ran past her into the office. Immediately she heard sounds of someone beating another person. When she was growing up she had heard it often enough as she passed through the school grades. She knew exactly what it was. Jumping out of her chair she ran into the office and stopped in shock as Coach Walker was beating the poor girl with his fists.
“COACH, STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING! STOP! GET AWAY FROM THAT GIRL!” She grabbed his arm to pull him back.
He threw Jennie across the room as he kept pounding the girl in the corner. Jennie struggled to her feet, grabbed the largest book she could find on the bookshelf. She baptized Coach Walker with all the conviction of a southern revival preacher at a hallelujah meeting. He went down to his knees and then toppled over backwards on the floor out cold.
Jennie looked at the girl still trying to cover up her face with her hands. Blood was all over her hands, her dress. She grabbed her wrist. “Come with me. I’ll get you to safety while I call security.”
She led the poor girl out of the offices and down the hall to the nurse station. Ann looked up when she heard them walk in. She sucked in her breath. “My god, what happened?”
“Coach Walker has gone nuts. He was trying to beat her to death. See what you can do to help while I call security and Emergency Medical at Mercy.”
Ann wet a cloth and was trying to wipe some of the blood off to find where it was coming from. “Honey, what’s your name? Where do you hurt? Do you have someone we can contact? Sweetie, what’s your name?”
“Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider.” It was so heavily French accented both women had trouble with the name.
“Honey, I didn’t catch that. Tell me again, what is your name?” Ann leaned in real close.
“Illana, j’ai retourné a tort pour rectifier ce mal . Le batard n’a pas appris rien, même après six siecles” (Lllana, I have returned to right this wrong. He has learned nothing even after six centuries)
Ann looked over at Jennie. “Did she say her name was Rider? Is this Audrey Rider? What is she doing in an Eagle cheerleader uniform? Why was Coach Walker beating on her?”
Jennie shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m sure it will all come out when we get to the bottom of this. I have security headed to the office to pick up Coach Walker. An ambulance is on its way to pick up Audrey.” Jennie wanted to hold the girl but she was bloody. She hoped Coach Walker didn’t figure out where Audrey went if he regained his senses before security found him.
“Ce corps mortel doit se reposer jusqu’a ce qu Aethelthryth soit complete” (This mortal body shall rest until Aethelthryth is complete.)
Jennie was shaking her head. “Honey, we don’t understand what language you are using. Can you repeat it in English?”
Audrey closed her eyes and leaned back on the table. She couldn’t be woken even as Ann tried her best to get a response out of her. Both women feared the worse, a hemorrhage. She was leaking blood in the cranium putting pressure on her brain. When waiting on an ambulance minutes seem like hours. It was only eighteen minutes before Emergency Medical was there in the nurse’s station with their gurney and their life monitoring equipment. Six minutes later they had Audrey hooked up monitoring all her vitals. If anything, every thing was a tad low. Her heartbeat was so slow she could be in a zen trance. Her blood pressure on the bottom of the spectrum. Her oxygen level was good. Of course she was breathing through her mouth as her nose was smashed. By now the EM personnel were starting to worry. Everything was too normal. A brain hemmorhage was suspected to be shutting everything down.
She was transported.
In the Emergency Room Dr. Linda Clark was busy checking vitals and ordered X rays of the young woman’s head as her clothes were cut off so they could check her whole body. She was no longer bleeding from her nose and ears. The bruising on her face, shoulders, chest, and sides seemed to have run its course as they weren’t darkening. Quite contrary to expectation, they seemed to be diminishing.
“Pictures, the police will need proof she was attacked.” Dr. Clark checked the girls hands. No broken skin, bruising, or broken fingers. Looking under the nails they were all clean, no blood, no tissue. She hadn’t fought back to defend herself.
X Ray personnel came into the room with the machine. “I want to know what is going on inside her skull. Give me frontal and sides. Give me pictures of her body. I want to know where this girl is broken.” Dr. Clark and all the others stepped out of the room for the five minutes it took the X Ray team to do their job.
Dr. Clark was studying the pictures along with Doctor Allison Sharp. “I don’t see anything.”
“Neither do I.” Dr. Sharp leaned in for a closer look. Were they missing something? The girl was in a coma and couldn’t be awakened. What was causing it? “What’s her vitals, Linda?”
“Good, all good. If I gave a diagnosis on her condition, I’d say she had a bloody nose, bruising and that was it. Damn Allison, I just came from Intensive Care. I swear she has less bruising on her body than when they brought her in.”
“Her parents show up yet.”
Linda shook her head. “No one seems sure what her name is. They are walking on egg shells out there trying to get a name, afraid of calling up someone and telling the wrong parents we have their daughter. The report the school nurse sent in with her, she could possibly be Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider and everyone called her Audrey.”
Allison chuckled. “I wonder why they call her Audrey? Okay, it’s up to admin to figure out the legals, let’s focus on the girl’s medical. Why the coma? I haven’t a clue. I know you well enough to not ask if you checked for spinal injury.”
“I did, only so much can be done until we have a responsive patient. If she was awake I’d go through the whole test of feeling in the feet, toes, fingers. Hell Allison, I’m grasping at straws trying to figure out what is going on inside that girl’s mind and why she doesn’t want to reconnect with us.”
“I wish I had an answer for you, Linda. Like you, I don’t have a clue.” Allison tapped the screen showing the X Rays. “There isn’t a damn thing there. I suggest running her through an MRI. Maybe getting your answer there.”
“I ordered an MRI when I left her room before asking you to meet me here. I have a beat up, normal healthy girl, who refuses to wake up. This is one we never studied in pre med. Thanks for giving me your opinion on this one, Allison. I was praying I wasn’t missing anything.”
Allison smiled at her friend. “Linda, if they ever bring me in on a gurney, it is you I want in the ER room waiting for me. There isn’t a better, more caring, conscientious doctor in this whole hospital. In the whole city. In the whole state.”
Linda was waving her friend down. “Thanks for the confidence booster but my patient isn’t getting any better.”
“She isn’t getting any worse either. Remember hon, we make them stable, then we make them healthy. You have her stable. Give healthy a chance to come at its own pace. I know you’re frustrated with this one. Maybe you just need to find treating both the patient and her doctor with a prescription of patience is what is needed.”
Linda looked at her friend and nodded in agreement. “I hear you. Mind if I call when the MRI comes in?”
“I’ll be there, you know I will.”
I was awake but I wasn’t. Had to be one of those dreams where they are so real one is caught on both sides of living and dreaming. She was by my bed. It was a hospital bed and room from the looks of things when I scanned the room.
“Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider, your time to awaken has been pushed forward by circumstances I had not foreseen. I was going to give to you your gift of all my knowledge on your sixteenth birthday. You are of my blood. You are of both human and faerie. You have been watched long before the day you were born. I am very pleased with you. Understand this, only females may carry the arts of knowledge, healing, strength, and caring comfort of a woman. As male you had these. Not strong enough to show up in measure to attract attention. As female you are now gifted with my gifts. Accept this change as a gift and the blessing it entails. Understand why children look at you, come to you as their lives have yet to be blinded by the ignorance of mortals.”
“There is so much more. You will understand it all for the gift of knowledge is yours.” She reached out her hand toward me.
“Your name?” As I held out my hand to accept hers.
“You know it already.”
When she took my hand I felt an euphoria the likes of which I doubt mankind has ever known. I was born again into a world of the knowledge and magic of faeries. “Thank you, Illana. Mother.” My arm dropped to the bed as I fell back asleep.
Another woman appeared beside Illana. “You have chosen your daughter well. I sense in her all you are. She is kind, caring, and yet a force of nature to be reckoned with.”
Illana turned and looked at her friend. “Vetra, I test the jealousy of all the other Gods when I say you are the best of all of them. Thank you for sparing my daughter’s life. I pray you stop me from finishing off that wretched man who beat her to death. You did not let her die. I am eternally in your debt.”
“Yes I saved her life. It is your gifts she is blessed with which will allow her to flower into a woman and healer the likes this world has lost over the centuries. I ask you to not kill the man who beat her. His punishment is coming and it will be long and harsh. He will wish for death a thousand times a thousand before my enemy will be allowed to claim him.”
“The Grim Reaper always has wanted to shorten the waiting period. Thank you for making him wait. My kindness was sorely tested as I truly wanted to kill him.”
As the nurse came running into the room she thought she saw two women standing beside the young girl’s bed. She was mistaken as she took a second look no one was there. The patient stirred and opened her eyes. “How bad am I?”
The reason the nurse had run into the room was all the monitoring equipment had been turned off. As she looked at the patient, all of it had been disconnected from the young girl.
“Who did this?” She stepped up beside the bed, picked up the girl’s arm and checked for her pulse.
“Did what? How ugly am I?” Reaching up with my right hand because the nurse was holding my left one, I felt my face to check for bruising and bandages.
Cassiopeia stared at the girl. It was as if a different girl had been substituted for the one she had checked a little over an hour ago. Ugly? The girl was a raving beauty and that was without any makeup. Must be the effects of that possible concussion listed on her admittance records. Cass was caught in a quandary. She needed to notify her doctor the girl was awake and yet she needed to be hooked back up to her monitors. She left to go back to the nurse station. Karen could call her doctor while she hooked her back up.
Dr. Linda Clark was there in less than ten minutes after she had been told her comatose patient was awake. When she walked into the room she stopped dead in her tracks, turned around and checked the room number. Right room, wrong patient. “Where did they move my patient?”
“Doc, I don’t know what to tell you. This is your patient.” Cass was waiting for the storm she knew was brewing in Doctor Clark’s eyes.
Linda walked closer to take a look. Where was all the bruising, the cuts, the swelling? “What’s your name?”
“Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider, everyone calls me Audrey. How long have I been here? Have mom and dad been notified? I’m not going back to school if Coach Walker is still there. He’ll kill me next time. I’m surprised he didn’t do it this time. Someone must have pulled him off of me.”
Linda shook her head. All the answers and questions fit with what she knew when her patient was brought in. A recovery this quick was impossible. “Listen to me Audrey. You’ve been in a coma since the time you were brought in. I need to ask you some questions and have you answer me as truthfully as you can.”
“Okay.” My attention strayed from the doctor to the sheet covering me. I had bumps in the sheet on my chest. I was smiling when I looked back at the doctor. My dream wasn’t a dream. I felt complete, I was truly me for the first time in my life. I promised myself I’d have no regrets trying out the boy side first but this girl side was the right fit.
The doc asked a whole lot more than a few questions. When everyone was positive I was the boy…, girl registered as Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider in Lakewood school system, they called my parents and told them I had been taken to the hospital. The police and the school were notified I was awake and speaking intelligently without any apparent harm to my cognitive ability.
My parents were the first to arrive. Sis of course was still in school and didn’t come. Mom skidded to a halt when she stepped inside the door. She was staring. “Aethelthryth?”
“Hi mom.” I gave a small wave.
Dad was standing there with his mouth open. “Audrey?”
“Hi daddy, it’s me.” My problem was, I had no idea all the changes that had been made. I had yet to see myself in a mirror.
Mom closed in and took my hand. “This is going to take some getting use to.”
“I’m sorry, mom. How ugly am I?”
“ugly?” Mom had to cough that one out as it caught in her throat. “You don’t know?”
“None of the doctors or nurses will tell me. Coach worked me over pretty good until they saved me. It’s okay mom. I won’t freak out. I know it has to be bad.”
Linda touched my mother’s arm. “Mrs. Rider, we took pictures for our records and for the police files when your daughter was brought in. Of course you and your husband will be allowed copies. She was in bad condition. I was examining a girl who had been subjected to one of the most savage beatings I have seen in a long time.”
She pointed at Audrey. “I can’t explain this. No one can. It isn’t in any medical books because it isn’t possible. She’s made a full recovery and we, the hospital staff and myself, had nothing to do with it.
“daughter?” Janet was staring at her son. He was still her son although the soft feminine features he always had were now long gone. There was absolutely not a smidgen of doubt he had changed. He had the prettiest face she had ever seen. She noticed the tent in the sheets on her son’s chest. Doubt crept into her mind along with all those family tales told down through the ages. She didn’t remember the whole story but had something to do with fairies.
“When can he go home?” Janet wanted her son home before family stories were questioned.
Linda winced as the girl’s mother kept referring to her daughter in the masculine. “I’m going to keep her overnight to make sure what we are experiencing isn’t a fluke. I’m going to request another MRI to check for abnormalities. If nothing shows up you can take her home tomorrow afternoon.”
My dad walked over to the uncrowded side of the bed and took my right hand. He noticed the long sharp nails, long fingers, and delicate hand he was holding. How long had it been since he had paid any attention and held Audrey’s hand? “Son, how you holding up?”
Dr. Clark winced again. What was wrong with this girl’s parents?
“Pretty good, considering, dad. I’m sorry to be so much trouble. It all started in the gym. I let my mouth say things I shouldn’t have said.”
Kevin gave a soft gentle squeeze to his son’s hand. Audrey always did have a soft almost feminine voice. Now there was no doubt. His voice was lilting, musical, calling everyone to listen to the voice of an angel. “You have never been a burden. If you said something, I’m sure it needed to be said. We’ll get to the bottom of this and straighten it all out. Don’t worry about it.”
A man and woman walked into the room carrying notebooks and recorders. “Detective Anders. My partner is Detective Johansen. We were told the patient was awake. We are here to ask the young lady some questions if her primary physician gives the okay.”
“I’m her doctor and yes you may question her if she says it is okay and her parents give their approval. These are the young girl’s parents.” Linda pointed at Janet and Kevin.
Kevin looked at the detectives. “Does my son need a lawyer?”
Linda cringed. This was ridiculous. She felt like shouting at her parents to call the girl a she but she held it back.
Detective Bonnie Johansen looked at the girl lying in the hospital bed. She had dealt with fathers like this before. They kept trying to project their daughter into their son. “Not necessarily. We have all the information from the school nurse, secretary, security and other personnel at the school. Your daughter was chased down and beat by a very disturbed individual. We think it might have been related to her wearing an Eagle cheerleader uniform which set off the individual who beat her. A lawyer is yours or your daughter’s choice of course.”
“Eagle cheerleader uniform?” Janet was trying to wrap her mind around Audrey wearing a girl’s cheerleader uniform. This was going to take some explaining when they got home. Seems as if the explanations needing to be told were starting to stack up.
“Son?” Kevin looked at his son to see if he felt he needed a lawyer or not.
Linda gritted her teeth and almost growled as she hissed. “girl, she’s your daughter.”
Janet coughed as her and Kevin’s eyes snapped down to look at Audrey. “Daughter?” She whispered.
I nodded my head. I didn’t need a mirror to confirm what I was any more than any girl needs one to check with her eyes what her body was telling her.
“Honey, you take over. I need to go sit down someplace.” Kevin was headed out the door.
That caused me to smile. No matter what society thought, women always were the strongest of the sexes. Guys might have muscle. That wasn’t true strength. It was what was inside where the real strength resided. Women had that in abundance.
Janet brushed the golden blond hair away from Audrey’s face before she looked at the detective. “I’ll agree to the questioning if my daughter consents.”
It was over in less than an hour. Everyone besides my mother had left us alone. Mom was sitting on the side of my bed holding my hand and studying my face. “I can’t begin to imagine what it is like to go from boy to girl in a matter of a day or two. How do you truly feel?”
“Everything matches now. I can’t explain it in words, knowing I am complete inside and out. Did you ever question why you were a girl or have doubt you were one? I’m a girl. I have no doubt I am one and it is right for me.”
Taking both her hands in mine I held on tightly. “Mom…, and you always will be my mom. Nothing will ever change that. I will always love you and respect you as my mother. I can see and feel things I never could before. I can feel in your soul when you gave birth to me. Promise you will never doubt me when I tell you something for I can not lie. That was part of the package she gifted me with.”
“She?” Mom was waiting for an explanation.
“My other mother was here before you and dad came. She is a Faerie of health, strength, courage among many other things. She gave me her gifts along with the gift of becoming a female. Only as female am I able to use the full extent of the gifts she has blessed me with. I accept this with a burning desire I have never felt before.”
“Mom, I am a healer. She healed me so I could live and heal others in need. I can’t heal everyone in the world of all their problems. I can heal those who are kind and deserving. I can sense that in people now. Doctor Linda Clark who was in here is a kind and caring doctor. She’s one of the best. She has cancer in her left breast, squamous cell carcinoma. I could smell it and feel it. Tonight when she comes in to check on me, I’ll ask her to hold my hand. I can kill and remove her cancer. A block will be placed on her DNA. No cancer will ever get a start in her body for the rest of her life. She will save thousands before she is through practicing medicine. I can sense all this. With one tiny little gift to her, thousands will live.”
Janet was softly crying as she studied her daughter’s beautiful face. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”
“Thank you for giving me life. My other mom, Illana saved it and brought it back again. I love you both with all my heart and soul. I always will until the end of eternity.”
“Go home and rest, mom. You’re tired. I’m freshly minted and don’t have a whole lot of reserve to be sharing or I’d remove your tiredness. I’m saving up for Dr. Clark tonight. That will drain me but it will be okay. I’ll be recharged before daybreak. Each following day I’ll keep getting stronger until I no longer have a need to stop sharing.”
In the wee hours of the morning, Illana and Vetra were watching their young charge sleeping peacefully with a smile on her face.
“She is blessed to have you as her mother, Illana.”
“It is I who is blessed, Vetra. She is a gift to us all, mortals and Faerie alike.”
The goddess reached over and hugged her friend. “I am blessed to know you both. How many gods have friends such as you? None, absolutely, none.”
Illana returned the hug and then her attention turned to Aethelthryth. She will need us both for she treads in a mortal world where her kind and magic is hated by many.”
“Then let us not be laggards and shirk our duty. I promise a goddess’s wrath upon any who ever touch her again in anger.”
“Thank you Vetra, our daughter could not ask for more. Nor do I suspect with her kind and forgiving spirit she would even think to ask.” Before they left, Illana placed a white gossamer gown on the foot of the bed.
Vetra softly chuckled. “Illana, she’s mortal. She needs more than just the gown. Proper modest under things and all.”
“Oh? Of course, I forgot.” Girl panties, half slip, and bra lay on the bed beside the gown.
Vetra was almost laughing out loud. “Illana…, oh never mind. Your daughter is going to have the attention of everyone, and I do mean everyone, who sees her as she leaves the hospital.
That morning I cleaned up with a washcloth as good as I could in that small bathroom attached to my room. The underclothes and gown were on my body shortly afterwards. I was wishing I had makeup and perfume to complete the picture but…
Mom made a trip in with jeans, shorts and shirt by ten that morning. She stopped and stared when she walked into the room. Laughing, she tossed what she was holding into the trashcan. “I forgot I had a daughter. Well not really but it didn’t register in my mind my son’s clothes weren’t appropriate for my daughter. My god Audrey, you are beyond beautiful. I take it your other mother dropped off the dress?”
“Yes. Please don’t be jealous. I love you both.”
“I never could be jealous of someone who loves you as much as she must. Please ask her if we can meet sometime and talk. I’d love to meet your other mother.”
“She’s a Faerie, mom. She would be feared, loved, hated all at the same time if she appeared in public. I know what you are thinking and no she doesn’t have wings. God, where did our society get all those stupid fairy ideas anyway? One Peter Pan movie and all Faeries are tiny little things like insects with wings.”
Janet studied her daughter. “You’re so beautiful yourself. Are you now a fairy?”
“That is Faerie not fairy, mom. And yes, I’m one too now. It came with Illana saving my life and changing me so I could use the gifts she blessed me with. Mom, I don’t love her more or you less because of who or what I changed to. I love you both equally, please believe me.
“Of course I believe you. You never lied to me before. I don’t think you can lie to me now. I want a hug from my gorgeous daughter.” Janet held out her arms.
By one that afternoon my mother was back with makeup and perfume. She told me I only needed a touch of each as I was already exotic and attractive enough. I didn’t need to raise the bar any higher with makeup.
Dr. Clark was there along with a lot of the hospital personnel as they wheeled me across the atrium where people check in and out as friends and relatives wait for the good news or bad. She gave me a hug. “Never in my life have I seen someone recover like you have. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t personally sen it myself. I’m sure no one else will believe it either. Hospital records will be amended after they try that son of a bitch who tried to beat you to death. The records will be needed in a trial as they were when you were admitted.
I hugged her back. “Thank you Doctor for all your kind and caring attention. I certainly appreciate what you have done for me.”
Linda giggled. “Done for you? Hon, this is all yourself and who ever and whatever else connections you have out there. I’d like to talk to you about this sometime but I’m almost afraid of what you will tell me. Take care Audrey and don’t get into any more fights.”
“I promise I’ll behave from now on. No more fights.” Looking around as the doc stood up I spied a little girl lying limply in her mother’s arms.
Quickly before they could stop me I was out of the wheelchair and standing in front of the woman. “Please, may I hold her.” I held out my arms.
Security was closing in. Dr. Clark waved them off. “Wait.”
The lady handed me her little girl. Holding her to my breasts and kissing her on the forehead, I softly sang a song playing in my mind.
Every sound in that huge room was turned off. No one spoke as they all looked at the young woman holding the little girl and singing with one of the most beautiful lyrical voices anyone had ever heard. The words and sounds weren’t any anyone had ever heard but it was all beautiful and soul soothing.
Four minutes later I kissed the little girl on the forehead and gently lay her back in her mother’s arms. “She will grow up to be an outstanding lawyer and judge. The world is blessed to have her among us.”
Dr. Allison leaned over toward Dr. Linda Clark. “What did I just see? Tell me something didn’t happen medical science won’t be able to explain.”
Dr. Clark looked around the room. Everyone was staring at the young woman as she walked back to the wheelchair. “Allison, I think we all just witnessed something none of us will be able to explain. I hope someone thought to record her voice and her song.”
Allison slowly shook her head. “I never thought about it. Who would? We were all mesmerized by what we were witnessing.”
“Linda, I didn’t happen to just stop by. I want another look at your left breast.”
Linda felt chills run down her spine. “What did you see?”
“Dr. Clark, you of all people know better than to speculate on what is or isn’t before it’s confirmed. I want another MRI and X Ray.”
“How bad is it and how far has it spread?” Linda had been through this too many times with her patients to know this wasn’t just a follow up. Allison had seen something.
“More tests, Doctor and don’t try and analyze the data before we have something solid.” Allison reached out and pulled Linda’s hands into hers. She felt for her friend. The dreaded unknown and possibly the Big C was a scary monster no one wanted to face, doctor or not.
Tears escaped Linda’s eyes as she knew it was going to be bad news. She looked up to see her young unexplainable patient get in the van. Did she just smile and wink at her? Last night when Audrey asked to hold her hand she was singing so softly it was hard to hear her. Strange feelings spread through out her tired body while the girl was singing. Did she…?
Linda grabbed Allison by the arm. “I have to know. If I’m right those X Rays and MRIs you have from two days ago are not going to match up with what the next ones will find.”
Allison looked at her friend. “Something you aren’t telling me, Doctor?”
“Just a hunch, Doctor, just a hunch.”
Faeries and Such
Knowledge and Magic
Kevin and Janet Rider had contacted several lawyers to file a lawsuit against Lakewood school district, Coach Adam Walker, and the Lakewood boys basketball team as John Doe. There was a problem as every lawyer they had the initial meeting with, which was free, wanted anywhere from forty thousand to two hundred thousand up front to take the case. Of course the Rider’s were assured it was an open and shut case of assault against their son…, daughter, Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider. Truth be known, every single one of the lawyers they spoke with was thinking it was a slam dunk case alright. There was no way in hell the Rider’s and their uh, son, daughter, whatever it was would ever be able to make a case of bullying and mistreatment. The Riders and their girl or boy or whatever it was had misled the school and broken a whole bunch of legalities when they enrolled their daughter, son as a boy. How she or he or it could keep up the deception as long as it did was a non starter. Legalities were broken, lies told and the Riders were probably looking at a multi million dollar lawsuit from Coach Walker. Then there were all the boys and their families on the basketball team, Lakewood School District, possibly some teachers, and other school teams she played on. The lawyers wanted their money up front so when the Riders went down they were already paid. Every single lawyer the Riders talked to had the same opinion. Sell the idea the Rider’s wouldn’t have any problem winning a legal case, collect the fee up front, and then watch the Riders sink in a sea of court filings and lawsuits.
Friday night, my sis, Sandy, and I were fixing supper. It was a chef salad; Sandy was busy chopping up the lettuce while I was busy peeling the boiled eggs when she cried out.
“OWW!” She dropped the knife and grabbed her left hand. She was already starting to bleed, blood dripping into the bowl of lettuce she had been working on.
“OH HELL IT’S DEEP!” She was squeezing her left wrist with her right hand trying to slow down the blood flow.
“Sis, a blood offering is not required for a simple chef salad. If I want your blood, I’ll come and visit you at night when you are asleep. A bite on your neck and you’ll never know how much you gave me.”
Sandy looked halfway shocked I’d even say such a thing.
Mom and dad had been in the living room discussing how they were going to get enough money together to make that initial payment to any of the lawyers. When Sandy screamed they both came rushing into the kitchen.
Mom blanched when she saw how bloody Sandy’s hand was and it was still leaking pretty badly. “I’ll call nine one one.”
“Mom wait. Sandy, give me your hand.” I held out my hand toward sis.
Sis hesitated and slowly held out her hand toward me still unsure after that really bad joke I told about drinking her blood.
“Awww, come on Sis, you know I was pulling your leg.” When I took her hand a song immediately filled my mind. I started softly singing as I cupped her left hand between both of mine.
Janet and Kevin had heard Audrey sing when she held a little girl before leaving the hospital. Still, they were spell bound by their daughter’s pure voice. For Sandy, this was the first time she heard her sister sing. The words, the melody was nothing any of the family had ever heard before. Peace, contentment, love, feelings of well being enveloped all three family members. For Sandy there was also a feeling of calm healing flowing from Audrey’s hands, washing through every fiber of her soul.
A couple minutes later the song in my mind was finished. Letting go of Sandy’s hand, I backed up to give her a chance to readjust to the present. Sis was staring at me, looking straight into my eyes. “That was beautiful. Your words, your voice…, I felt it more than I heard it. The words, I didn’t understand them, I felt them. Aethelthryth…,”
Sis closed in and wrapped her arms around me, and laid her cheek against my cheek. She closed her eyes. “Aethelthryth, what did you do to my brother? Where is he? When I hold you like this and close my eyes, I can feel him. When I look at you, I see an exotic beautiful girl, not Audrey.”
With my arms around sis, I hugged her close. “If you can feel me then you understand it is still me. Nothing has changed. What you see now is what was there but you couldn’t see it. Our eyes deceive us a lot of the time. When you are with boys or girls, stop long enough to close your eyes and let your feelings tell you what kind of person they really are instead of letting your eyes make that decision. Most people are like fake gold, impressive to look at but not real friends or anyone you can trust.”
Tears were leaking out of Sandy’s eyes as she turned lose and slid out of my embrace. “You’re not fake gold. You’re the real deal. I can feel it. Mom said you have a fairy mother too and she wants to meet her. I want to join that meeting.”
That caused me to giggle. “Sis..., as I told mom, she is not a fairy. She doesn’t have wings, she isn’t two or four inches tall. She is a faerie and like mortals they come in all sizes. Illana happens to be around six feet the best I could estimate while I lay in a hospital bed and was talking to her.”
“Janet is our mother.” I pointed to our mom on the other side of the room. She had tears running down her cheeks too. “She gave birth to us, kept us diapered and fed and taught us right from wrong among a billion other things. I can’t love one mom any more or any less than the other. My heart and soul is double filled with love for two mothers “
Sis at five ten was no also ran in the beauty department. Before, I never gave it any thought our mom, and Sandy, was a little more gifted in the arts of magic than anyone knew. Now I could sense it. There was no doubt it was there, very low level, and mom didn’t even know she had it. I always thought the women in our family were above average in beauty. Mom at thirty nine was still beauty queen pretty with a wow figure, even if she was my mother. Grams at sixty was still able to turn young men’s heads. I couldn’t wait to visit Grams again. If I was a betting person, I bet she carried some magic in her also.
Before the change a couple days ago, there was no jealousy or desire on my part to be as beautiful as the women in my family. Up until I was eight, the teasing I received from other kids calling me a girl or pretty was nice and a compliment. That year things changed as the hormones started to kick in for all of the kids. Girls started noticing boys and boys noticing girls. Kids decided boys were tough, gruff, and definitely not supposed to be pretty. Girls were pretty. The teasing took a mean vindictive turn from most of the boys. Only a few girls sided with the boys. Most of the girls left me alone, pretty enough to be one of them but yet I wasn’t. I was caught in between the gender divide. My parents naming me Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider and calling me Audrey was the icing on the cake. Deep down mom must have known what was to come even if she didn’t consciously realize..
The past couple of days everything our society drives home to young impressionable minds became more than crystal clear. Men are supposed to be big, tall, tough, masculine, muscle bound hunks. The better one filled that picture, the easier they went up the corporate ladder. The easier they were accepted in all walks of society starting at the last couple grades of grade school and on through high school. From colleges, to fraternities, social clubs, politics, businesses, and even their pick of women, those who were the perfect picture of the masculine male, almost automatically were pushed to the top of the social structure.
I’d have to ask Illana if I could tell sis, mom, and Grams about the magic they carried. Sure it was low level. Even that could be useful if one knew it was there and could conscientiously tap into it.
It was a Thursday when the jocks in basketball messed with me in the locker room and Coach Walker subsequently attacked me. Since I was in Junior High and Sis was in High School the rumors about what had happened were impossible to tell from what really happened. Even in high school Sis had heard a lot of rumors. Among them was I had gone off the rails and attacked the faculty. She didn’t learn the truth until Thursday night when mom and dad clued her in. Friday was really rough for her as a lot of kids were blaming me. Sis was getting blamed by association and for Coach Walker getting arrested by the police. The school went into full blown damage control hoping to duck the lawsuits. They put Coach Walker on paid administrative leave by a special meeting of the school board. What built a fire under everyone was the Junior High basketball team was put on detention. Every single player was sent to detention hall as the basketball program was suspended until further notice. Forty one irate parents were threatening lawsuits. Exactly what the school administration and board members had hoped to squelch by their actions. The parents were supported by dozens of kids who disliked me before. Now they hated me. Whatever happened, whatever the reason, in the majority of minds, I was to blame for all of it.
Several situations were playing out all at the same time. Mom and dad were searching for a lawyer while I kept deep sixing everyone they talked to. Dr. Linda Clark as the primary Emergency Room attending physician when I was transported into Mercy was questioned several times over the days as to what condition I was in when she examined me. It wasn’t only the police but the school lawyers who were asking. The fly in the ointment for the school and their lawyers were the supposed pictures of a young girl beaten to a bloody pulp when she was admitted to ER. The other gotchu was Dr. Clark kept referring to the patient as female. She was adamant and signed a sworn notarized statement, along with two nurses, and two X Ray technicians, the girl they admitted was a female who had been severely beaten. She had a concussion, contusions, bruising, cuts, and bleeding from her nose, mouth, eyes, and ears. The lawyers demanded copies of hospital records, photos, everything the hospital had on the patient named Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider and went by the name Audrey. The hospital lawyers put up a brick wall. There would be absolutely no release of any patient information without a written, notarized, witnessed, and legal release from the patient and her legal guardians performed in a court, in front of a judge. The hospital lawyers could see a multi million dollar lawsuit headed their way if they gave out private patient information without consent of all involved. The school lawyers could file for discovery in court if and when lawsuits started being handed out to everyone who got close to the girl.
The police had their report because they had talked to me in the hospital. Although, they too were having a hard time justifying the person they saw in the room with the hospital’s records and photographs. The school lawyers were bird dogs on the hunt when they found out I had been discharged. They wanted to talk to me, telling me I had to come in for a hearing and a deposition. Mom was the one who handled that phone call. She flat out told them no. I wasn’t going to meet them without a lawyer beside me. Which we didn’t have of course.
The school board was pushing hard for a meeting. I knew why. They wanted to get statements and signatures on their description of what happened while the opposition party, me, had little time to think and supposedly would be willing to agree to almost anything. The military has a name for it, battle shock. Accident victims go through the same emotions. We had yet to get a lawyer when mom and dad had set up an appointment for us with administration in the school conference room for Wednesday. Superintendent Hays, Principal Brown. Jennie Parker the secretary who witnessed the altercation in the principle’s office, Ann Sherfield the school nurse who initially treated me, Neal Bishop my baseball coach, and all my teachers were going to be there. To make sure they had the right student show up, they also asked Dr. Linda Clark to be there to identify the boy she admitted in ER.
Dr. Clark was grinding nails between her teeth when she looked at the request. What in the hell was the matter with those people? At first she wasn’t going and then she decided she wouldn’t miss it. With fire in her eyes she gathered up the hospital admittance records she could share. GIRL! A YOUNG FEMALE! Was admitted to ER that evening at two sixteen. She managed to get the hospital to send the two ER personnel to the meeting. They were the ones who picked up the girl at the school and transported her. There was no time lapse, no changing of patients, the same person delivered to Mercy ER was the same person they picked up from Lakewood Junior High.
Jerry Berman, one of the school security guards, was waiting when dad parked the van in front of the school. After dad got out of the van Jerry greeted him and shook hands. “Mr. Rider, I’m to escort you and your son Audrey to the meeting.”
Mom got out of the van and walked up to stand beside dad. Mom was dressed in a really nice, aqua blue, polyester dress. Her makeup and her long copper tinted auburn hair were impeccable. With her matching shoulder purse and three inch heels, mom was more wow than any movie starlet or model would ever be. Her three inch heels put her at six foot one. Both mom and sis were five ten in stocking feet. Neither one tried to hide the fact they were above average height girls.
Jerry’s eyes kept getting bigger as mom closed in beside dad.
Dad wasn’t outdone by any means. In his brown suit, white shirt, brown silk tie, I thought he was the most handsome dog on the planet.
I was just getting out of the van when a white Lincoln pulled up beside my door. She grinned as she looked over in my direction. After she got out she pulled me into a bone crushing hug. “My God Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider, I didn’t think you could get any more beautiful than when I last saw you. I was wrong.”
“Thank you doctor. You look really nice yourself.”
She pushed back and held onto my shoulders to look me in the eyes. “Thank you for what you did.”
“What I did? Dr. Clark, I have no idea what you are talking about. Unless of course you are talking about all those overtime hours you put in taking care of me, and you received a big bonus in your paycheck.”
Linda’s eyes were dancing as she nodded. “That must be it.”
She took my right hand in her left and turned around. She pointed at the man and woman who had droiven up in a pickup and parked the other side of her car. “This is Belinda and Nick. They are the team who picked you up from school. I figured we might need their testimony. She pointed to the well dressed woman getting out of a red Cadillac further over. That is Morgan Custman. She’s an attorney for the hospital. I figured we might need her too. From the letter I received from this bunch they are going to hold an inquisition instead of trying to figure out what happened. Everyone around this fiasco smells blood in the water and figure lots of money to be had.”
I shook my head. “Doctor…”
“Audrey, I’m Linda. Please, I want to be your friend first and your doctor later if you ever need one again.” Her eyes were begging as she looked at me.
“Okay. Linda, I don’t want money and neither does mom or dad. What I want is for Coach Walker to never get in a position to influence kids ever again. He could have and should have put the brakes on the basketball team from harassing and bullying me. He didn’t. He encouraged it. I want a restraining order placed on him so he can’t ever get closer than a thousand yards from me.”
“That’s all?” Linda looked kind of surprised.
“No, there’s more. I want them to set up a way for students who are being bullied can tell someone and not be punished for it. For that information to be investigated and if true remedial action taken so the bullying stops. I want to go to school. I want to learn everything my teachers have to share with me. I want to graduate from high school. I want immunity from any action I take if someone tries to hurt me or bully me. I don’t intend to be expelled or punished if I defend myself from physical harm. Linda, what that man did to me did more than damage my body. He stole my innocence. I failed to believe there were people like him among us. I shook hands with the Grim Reaper before my two guardians pulled me back to life. Next time, the Reaper will collect the souls of the ones who attack me.”
Linda felt chills run up and down her spine. If this girl could pass out health and cheat death, there was little doubt she could pass out pain and probably death. She turned her attention to Morgan who had walked up beside them. “Morgan, this young lady is Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider, everyone calls her Audrey. Were you listening?”
Morgan held out her hand. When I shook hands with her my eyes flashed open for the briefest moment in time. Linda noticed and gave me a questioning look. I slightly shook my head hoping she didn’t ask.
If Morgan noticed she didn’t mention it as she continued. “I heard. Audrey if you’re serious about not wanting money I have a friend who will probably take your case. You let Linda or me know and I’ll ask her. What you should ask for is the school pays for the medical bills and all related expenses you incurred. They will also need to pay any legal fees you incur.” Morgan held out a business card. “I’m not here to represent you today. I will take notes and record this meeting for my friend if you decide you want her to take your case.”
Taking her card, I gave her a smile. “Mrs. Custman, I’d be pleased if your friend Charlotte Isenberry took my case.”
Morgan looked surprised, confused. “You know Charlotte? I didn’t mention her name. Linda did you…?”
Linda had a smile. “Morgan, you just received a taste of what this unbelievable, amazing, young lady is capable of. Don’t try and rationalize it, you will only become more confused.”
She pointed toward the school doors. “Shall we? I think it is about time for the meeting to begin.”
Jerry had been talking to mom and dad, he missed the conversation we were having. When the rest of us started toward the school he held up his hand. “Wait, where’s Audrey? He is the reason for this meeting. I was told he has to be here.”
Linda let out her breath in a hiss as she shook her head. She looked over at Morgan and the EM people. “See what I have been dealing with.”
The soft peach colored dress, four inch stiletto pumps, diamond necklace, earrings, eye liner, and peach lipstick was mom’s idea. Wearing four inch heels put me at six three. Mom knew what she was doing. She wanted to drive it home with a tank, maybe a pink tank, I was girl and all female. It didn’t hurt I had been slowly developing in the curves department from the time I was admitted to ER six days ago. I now had as much female form as my mother and sister. Linda had noticed but didn’t say anything about me filling out. I think she put it down to whatever unusual was going on with me wasn’t really unusual.
I gave a half hearted wave to Jerry. “I’m here. Shall we go talk to those who set up this meeting?”
Jerry looked at the exotic beauty wondering what she was talking about? “Yes you are but it is Audrey who needs to be here. So where is he?”
“Jerry, I’m Audrey.”
Jerry looked like he had turned to stone as his mouth dropped open and he stared. He finally managed to sputter. “I don’t believe it. I’ve met Audrey, and lady, you ain’t him.”
“A little change in clothing.” I waved my hand down in front of my body. “A few accessories.” I reached up and touched my earrings. “A little lipstick and a dab of perfume. Different shoes.” I pointed down at my heels. “A change in the way I wear my hair.” I brushed my wavy hair that cascaded over my shoulders and down my back with my fingertips. “And you judge me the same way Coach Walker did? Do you want to beat me like he did because I’m not the picture of the person you had in mind?”
“NO! I mean…, Damn Audrey, you’re beautiful. I just didn’t expect…, I mean…, Damn girl, you always were pretty but you acted and dressed like a boy.” A smile spread across his face from ear to ear. “Come on, let’s go in. I can’t wait to see the reaction of everyone when you walk into that room.”
He looked over at Linda. “You’re the doc who treated her?”
“Yes.”
“Glad you came, doc. I do believe hell is fixing to erupt in that meeting room as soon as Audrey announces herself.”
Jerry turned his attention to my dad. “Mr Rider, stay on her right, I’ll be on her left. If anyone tries to attack her they will have to go through me first. I put in my thirty years as a Seal before I retired. I took this job because I got bored fishing all the time. I’m going to be pretty tough to get past if it comes to that.”
I gave a nod in agreement. “Thanks, Jerry. You never did say any of the nasty things others were saying to me.”
Morgan looked at the others. “Linda, Nick, Belinda, don’t get involved in anything physical. You’re Mercy personnel, that makes Mercy legally liable for anything you might do. The Riders have a parental right and obligation to protect their daughter against physical and verbal abuse.”
“Oh what the hell.” She turned her attention to my dad. “Mr. Rider, you don’t plan on suing the hospital or any of the staff?”
That question got daddy’s and momma’s attention. “No Ma’am.”
“Okay, in that case there is no conflict of interest. I can’t tell you I will represent you and your daughter without you asking me.”
Daddy looked kind of confused. Momma wasn’t though. “Mrs. will you represent Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider and us as our legal counsel?”
Is this Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider also known as Audrey?” Morgan glanced at Linda out of the corner of her eye.
“Yes she is.”
“Then we have a contract of agreement between myself and Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider, also known as Audrey, and her parents. Linda, you, Belinda, and Nick are witnesses to the agreement.”
Jerry kinda halfway raised his hand. “Can I be a witness?”
“You are employed by the school. Yes, you may be a witness but are considered a hostile witness.”
Jerry gave a wicked smile. “Damn right I’m hostile. What happened to that girl never should have happened. I’ll guarantee it won’t ever happen again even if I have to follow her step for step and sit in every single one of her classes for the rest of the year. I was off last week. Best all the way around since she survived.”
Walking up to him, I took his hand. “Thanks for the support, Jerry. Promise me you won’t ever mention anything like that ever again. I’m going to ask everyone here to forget what you said. When something happens to Coach Walker you will be high on the suspect list if your remark becomes known.”
Jerry motioned toward the door. “Best let me go in first into that meeting room. Audrey, walk in with your mother, doctor, and lawyer. Mr. Rider, right behind the ladies. Nick, you and Belinda are going to be safe from any fireworks so just kind of blend in.”
Morgan was eyeing Jerry as our group headed for the school. “Something tells me this isn’t your first Rodeo.”
“No Ma’am, but it probably will be my last at Lakewood School District. If this goes as I suspect, then it will probably be my last at any school. Fishing everyday wasn’t that bad, I guess.” His eyes shifted in my direction for a split second. “Some values are worth fighting for no matter what the odds are, or what one must pay in order to keep their own self respect.”
I could hear a lot of voices attached to a lot of emotion coming from the meeting room when our group stopped at the door. Jerry opened it and stepped into the room. The talking stopped like a water spigot was cut off. Mom walked in. I was one step behind her. Everyone around that conference table had their heads turned giving us their full attention. Morgan and Linda came in followed by daddy and then Belinda and Nick.
When everyone stopped filing into the room Superintendent Hays gave dad a frown. “I take it you’re Mr. Rider, Mr. Audrey Rider’s father?”
“Yes I am and it would probably work out better if we all introduced ourselves. He looked at mom. This is my wife, Janet. To my right is Dr. Linda Clark. To her right is Morgan Custman. Behind me are the two EM personnel who transported Audrey from the nurse’s station to Mercy Hospital ER.”
Hays started at Kevin for a few seconds. “Mr. And Mrs. Rider, this meeting is about a young boy enrolled in this school who is registered as your son. Coach Walker says your son put on a cheerleader dress and attacked him in his office and then ran. Coach Walker followed your son down to Principal Brown’s office where he wanted to ask your son why he attacked him? He claims your son started attacking him again as soon as he walked into the room. Because this meeting is about that attack, it was necessary for your son to be present for us to question why he assaulted Coach Walker?”
Mom and dad were staring at Hays with pure hatred. Linda, Morgan and the others glanced in my direction. I barely shook my head no. My hands down by my side I gave a flat motion hoping they all understood they were to stay calm. Reaching out, I took mom’s right hand and dad’s left. “Deep breath, this is not the time to get angry as it will only hurt us.”
Stepping forward of our group, I gave each person at the table a focused look. Most of them looked like part of a lynch mob. They had the trial before we arrived and I was already convicted.
I recognized Jeannie Parker Brown’s secretary. I had run by her that fateful day. She looked shell shocked, and disgusted. Even though I didn’t see what she had done, It was then I realized she was the one who stopped Coach Walker from killing me.
There was Ann Sherfield. She flat out looked like she was ready to jump up and leave. I gave her a little wave. “Mrs. Sherfield, if you would, take a deep breath, a drink from the glass in front of you and relax. This isn’t your fight. You’re here to tell these fine people what you saw that day and nothing more.”
Neal Bishop had met Audrey’s parents many times at the baseball games he coached. He knew them well. The tall girl in that group who had arrived hadn’t been introduced. Something about her felt familiar although he was positive they had never met. He would certainly remember someone as beautiful as her. It wasn’t Sandy Rider, Audrey’s sister. Neal had met her too. Something keep telling him he knew her well and yet…?
My baseball Coach Neal Bishop was staring at me so hard I though his eyes were going to drop out. I gave a little wave with my right hand. “Hi Coach.”
He almost fell backwards out of his chair. “I’ll be jiggered. Audrey? You’ve changed some since I last saw you. For the better I should add. And you’re a lot taller.”
That elicited a giggle. “I’m wearing heels.”
Coach and my chatter really put the pot to boil as everyone at that table were staring at me. If looks could kill I’d be dead ten times over.
“A damn fairy.” Hays coughed out.
That certainly put the icing on the cake at this meeting! Morgan took over instantly. “My name is Morgan Custman. I’m an attorney representing Mercy Hospital and the Riders. Especially the person everyone knows as Audrey Rider. Anymore slander directed at my client and this meeting is over…, FINISHED! I don’t need my client’s permission to file a complaint with the state ethics commission, the state education department, and the Federal Government fair laws and anti discrimination branch.”
She scanned the room and then focused in on Hays. “You Sir, are a disgrace to not only this school system but the whole school system. I’ve already taken a deposition from everyone connected to the Rider incidence who are staff or employed by Mercy Hospital. That includes the ER personnel who picked her up and transported her. Everyone in this room connected to this school who has Miss Rider in her class and that includes the administrative personnel will most definitely receive a summons to appear for a deposition before Judge Wynell. He normally doesn’t sit in on depositions but I can convince him he most certainly needs to sit on all those summed from this meeting.”
A man in a suit and tie stood up. “Mrs. Custman, I don’t believe there is any need for such measures. Mr. Hays was shoc…, surprised by the appearance of the young person calming to be Mr. Audrey Rider.”
Morgan turned her attention to the man speaking. “And you are?”
Attorney Jerret Ballock. I’m representing the Lakewood school district in their lawsuit against Mr. Audrey Rider.”
Morgan got an amused look on her face. “I thought I recognized you Mr. Ballock. I hope you are joking about that lawsuit. However after the first couple minutes in this room and seeing what the attitude is, I strongly doubt it. I’m not an ambulance chaser Mr. Ballock. My clients informed me earlier they didn’t wish to advance toward a financial settlement other than medical and legal fees. I can feel it in my bones one of them has changed their mind. I’m going to melt this school down and have it for lunch if that feeling turns out to be true.”
“For the record, Miss Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider, also known as Audrey Rider was picked up from this school and transported to Mercy Emergency Room by two Emergency Response personnel. She was listed as unresponsive and critical suffering massive trauma. All this information is saved as matter of record by the medical devices which record each action taken by ER Rescue Response team. That includes voice conversations of the ER Response Team and of all those in the vicinity of that team. ” She indicated Nick and Belinda standing at the back of the group.
“The attending physician, Dr. Linda Clark, was the initial contact at Mercy.” Morgan gave an indication toward Linda. “The patient’s condition was listed as potentially terminal at that time. Physical condition of Miss Rider was preserved by individual photographs and video. All action taken in an ER room is preserved by several video cameras in that ER room.”
Morgan gave each person seated at that table a predator smile as if lunch was about to be served. “I have a copy of the police reports concerning this fiasco. Mr. Walker was arrested at this school in Principal Brown’s office. He was transported to Eljin Hospital for examination due to blood on his clothes and his person, most notably his knuckles. His knuckles also had human tissue on them. Samples of said blood and tissue were collected and preserved for DNA analysis. I am not going to speculate as to the person or persons where that blood and tissue came from. I bet every one in this room knows already.”
Jerret sat back down without saying anything. He had heard other lawyers talk about Morgan Custman. She was a tiger and a brass plated bitch when it got down to the legals. She had the respect of them all, even those she beat in court.
Hays wasn’t to be derailed. “Your client who you claim to be Mr. Audrey Rider broke several laws by claiming he was male and now masquerading as female.” He pointed at Audrey. “Is he going to claim he wants to be a female now?”
Linda gritted her teeth. “I can assure you…, Mr. Hays is it? This young lady beside me is one hundred percent female, which no less than seven X Rays will confirm along with five MRIs.”
Morgan picked the conversation up from there and continued. “Mr. Hays, as an administrator, you more than anyone else should know Federal Laws prevent schools from discriminating against those who wish to be identified as other than what may or may not be on their birth certificate. Miss Rider broke no laws, no matter how she presented herself while attending classes at this school. There is no law which states she must tell everyone which gender she is. It is a ‘request’ on admittance records. If she wishes to claim she is male that is her right. By law I might add.” Morgan was actually having a little fun with this bunch. Their initial push to claim Audrey had attacked Walker and now claiming she broke any laws enrolling and dressing in a specific gender was almost amusing.
Coach Bishop pushed back from the table and stood up. “I’VE HEARD ENOUGH! I’ve coached Audrey for two years. I pray this spring she comes back for her last year in junior high. Last year we were at regionals, Fox Creek had us down three runs to nothing in the ninth. Half the crowd had left already. Everyone knew we were beat. Brad Dawson was the Fox Creek pitcher. The kid was a fastball powerhouse. The bases were loaded, we had two outs. Audrey was up at bat. Everyone was screaming at me to send in Billy Martin, our best hitter, as a switch hitter for Audrey. Actually I intended to do exactly that when I walked over to tell her my decision.”
Coach focused in on me with the kindest look he could muster. “If I live to be a hundred I’ll never forget what she said to me before I ever spoke. Coach, I’ve got this one. It’s your decision. I’ll do whatever you want and think is the best for the team.”
Bishop looked around the room. “Audrey was, and always has been, a team player. Something everyone else on the baseball team never practiced. I thought about it and decided we were going to lose anyway so I let her go to bat. You see, I had no faith either. I was as bad as that bunch I was coaching. Audrey, by her example, opened my eyes that day to something I had lost as a coach.”
“Brad threw an inside pitch just clipping the corner of the plate. The next two pitches he threw at Audrey driving her back from the plate. In baseball it is done to make the batter fear the ball. It should be illegal but is a physiological tactic. The next pitch was another inside pitch just cutting the corner on the plate. Those left in the stands were screaming for Audrey’s head for not taking a swing.”
Again Bishop focused on Audrey. “None of you know what she told me after the game. She said she didn’t hit the ball because it was too close to her hands and there would be no power in sending it back out. Maybe one of our runners might get in from her hit but no more. We would lose the game if not nothing to three then one to three.”
“Brad’s next pitch was at Audrey again to make sure she stayed away from the plate. It was now a full count, three balls, two strikes. Audrey was too far from the plate just as Brad intended. He turned lose with a sizzling fast ball just as Audrey stepped up to the plate when Brad was coming forward with his pitch. The ball would have touched the outside of the plate. Brad figured whether Audrey did or didn’t swing at the last ball, we would lose the game three to zero and he would have a perfect game for his resume. Audrey connected with that ball on her sweet spot. The place where every batter wants to hit a ball. Right toward the end of the bat and full contact of ball and bat. She hit one of only six balls ever slammed out of that ball park.”
“We won regionals that year though we lost at state. Every game is supposed to be team effort. They aren’t, except for that one game which we won because of one person who plays as a team player. It was all Audrey’s talents winning that game for us. Everyone on the team was congratulating Joel, Ted, and Rocky for bringing in the winning runs. Not a single player congratulated Audrey for what she did for the team even though it was her home run giving us the forth and winning run. We lost state because the guys still didn’t understand team effort.”
“I told the team I was treating all of them at the Dairy Queen. Audrey pulled me aside and said she wasn’t going. Everyone would have more fun if she wasn’t there. Does anyone beside me realize that was all Audrey still being a team player? She was going home with her parents because she didn’t want to be a shadow over the others at a celebration party.”
I noticed momma wiping her eyes. Linda wasn’t doing any better. Daddy was hanging in there…, barely. Morgan had a look like she could burn the place down and be happy.
Bishop pulled three jump drives out of his pocket along with a recorder which had a forth one in it. He place them on the table. “Mrs. Custman, I believe you will be interested in what is on these. After noticing the animosity toward a certain individual, I began recording conversations in the teacher’s lounge this year and at this meeting before your party arrived.”
Jerret jumped to his feet and slammed the table with his hands. “Those are illegal. You’ll go to jail for recording any of the personnel here without their knowledge and agreeing.”
“Not true Mr. Ballock, any party to a conversation can and may record as long as it is not being done to commit a criminal act. No permission, disclosure or consent is necessary from the other party or parties to the conversation.” Morgan shifted her attention from Jerrett to Bishop. “Mr. Bishop, did you or do you intend to use those recordings in any fashion that could be construed as a criminal act?”
Coach Bishop shook his head. “No Ma’am. Not unless one believes bringing out the truth is a criminal act. There is talk about changing school records and grades for one individual. Also discussions about back dating and filing remarks and complaints against said individual for threatening teachers and bullying other students. I’ve sit in on some basketball practices. There are recordings of bullying by the team and encouragement by Coach Walker to keep it up. Sadly, there is some of the same going on in the baseball locker room when the kids know I’m not there. If I had to be present for those conversations to be a legal recording, I may have broke the law in those instances if they are used in a court of law. I could care less. I didn’t cherry pick what is or isn’t recorded. That is there also.”
“Audrey can show up in a dress and heels or uniform and cleats. If I’m still coaching baseball, she will be an active player on my team no matter what anyone thinks. I want her back for her last year in Junior High. I pray I’m still her coach, which after this will probably be doubtful. I’m not tenured. The other factor is one would have to wonder why Audrey would return to Lakewood school district considering how she’s been treated by students and staff alike.”
The meeting collapsed after that. Accusations and threats of lawsuits flew back and forth across that room like confetti. I was expelled for fighting, breaking the law for misrepresenting and lying about my gender, and bullying. I was sure I heard something about school dress code in those accusations. Lakewood didn’t have a dress code. I guess they made up one the past couple days. Hays and Brown had their plans mapped out before the meeting. In order to protect Coach Walker and the school I was painted as the aggressor and trouble maker. They weren’t going to be derailed.
When Morgan told them we were finished. Three of my teachers rose up to leave also. Jennie Parker the secretary, Ann Sherfield, the school nurse, and Coach Bishop joined them. All of them knowing they probably signed their own pink slip.
As we were leaving the school, I pulled Linda off to the side. “You must call me back in for a follow up. Morgan has to be there also. It has to be sooner rather than later.”
Linda was watching Morgan get into her car. “She is going on a two week vacation in three days. You can talk to her when she returns.”
“Doctor, if Morgan goes on that vacation she won’t be coming back. Get me some time with her.”
Linda’s eyes opened up as she stared at me. “Audrey…, what do you know you aren’t telling me?”
She’s too good of a lawyer and takes her cases personally. She is closing in on a massive heart attack.”
Linda caught her breath as her left hand came up and cupped her left breast. She had no doubt what Audrey had done for her when she asked to hold her hand that night. “How bad is it?”
“You’ve heard of the Widow Maker? Even if one is in the hospital and that happens, most of the time it is impossible to save them. Get your friend in a room alone with me. You can be there too if you choose. Linda, this can’t be public. Too many will think I can help fix all their ills. I can’t. It isn’t physically possible even if I wanted to. In the hospital, most believe I was a nice girl singing to another little girl. The little girl had Tay-Sachs. I didn’t make it up. She will grow up to be a very good lawyer and a fair and impartial judge.”
“Tay-Sachs is always fatal.”
“Not in Amanda’s case. Everyone will believe she was misdiagnosed.”
“I’ll get Morgan into my office if I have to send security after her and drag her back in chains and handcuffs. She tries to get most of the hospital paperwork for the day laid out by five. The next morning she responds to all those who are suing us or threaten to sue us for a real or perceived wrong they feel we did. How does five to five thirty this afternoon sound to you?”
“I’ll talk someone into driving me over there. I’ll be there by four thirty in case your timing doesn’t work out. Will the front desk and security let me go to your office?”
“I’ll make sure they do.” Linda pulled a personal card out of her purse. “This has my office, and my unlisted private number on it. For some odd reason I feel I can trust you with it.” She touched her left breast with her fingers again. “I wonder why that is?”
“Sounds like a personal problem you need to work out with your counselor, Sasha and your husband Corey.”
Linda giggled as she shook her head. “Audrey, are there no secrets around you? I really didn’t need to give you my personal card for you to know all my phone numbers, did I?”
“Doctor Clark, I have no idea where you get all your funny ideas. We better go. Morgan and the ER team are waiting to follow you back to the hospital. My parents have ants in their pants hoping to get home and forget this day ever happened.”
Linda pulled me into a hug. “Audrey, until you came into my life I believed I knew all there was to know. What I didn’t know wasn’t worth knowing. I feel like a little girl all over again, dreaming of growing up to be a nurse or a doctor because everything I wanted to know was ahead of me. You have restored that desire, that drive. Thank you.”
As she turned loose and backed up, I winked at her. “You won’t be able to save them all, Doctor. Don’t ever fault yourself because you thought you could have done more. Those you do save will make their contribution to the world making it a better place, the same as you.”
Grabbing her hand, I pulled her off toward the cars and the parking lot. “We gotta go. I’ll see you and Morgan this afternoon in your office. If you want proof, run her through one of those atomic dye, blood flow markers your hospital has.”
“Before or after the meeting?”
“Your decision. If this goes to plan, there won’t be any there after.”
That afternoon when I told mom and dad I had an appointment at the hospital with Dr. Clark mom offered to drive me over. When Sandy got home from school and heard about it, she offered to drive me.
We were at the kitchen table discussing it. “Mom, Sis, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. You’re going to have to make a decision between yourselves. Sis, mom gets first dibs because she offered first and she has priority as our mother.”
Mom gave me that question look. “Audrey, what is the appointment for? It isn’t a physical exam for you is it?”
Her magical sense was locking into mine now since Illana gifted me. When I glanced at Sis she had that same look. It was going to be impossible to get anything by either one of them any more. “Don’t repeat this to anyone. Sis, don’t tell anyone at school. Morgan has weakened and clogged arteries next to her heart. If the problem isn’t taken care of she will die.”
Sandy came over wrapped her arms around me and gave me a hug. “You’re going to heal her. She held up her left hand and looked at it. We know what you can do. If you don’t mind, we would like to watch as you heal someone else.”
Mom had closed in beside sis. “Audrey, I’ve watched you heal that little girl and your sister. Each time something seems to be awakening inside me. I don’t know what it is but it feels right and I want more.”
I wanted to tell them I thought their own magic was awakening when they heard me sing the magical songs of the healing gift of the faeries. I didn’t have permission. There were laws, rules, and precautions for all gifted who walked in the mortal world. The danger of just living became a hundred times more dangerous because of the hate users of magic would draw from mortals. I needed to talk to Illana and ask her if I could tell mom and sis they had magic hiding inside them. My problem was, I was bleeding magic even when I wasn’t using it. Kinda like a car that is parked. Even when the engine isn’t running and it isn’t moving, it is still a car. One doesn’t have to be told it is a car. That was my problem. Those with magic inside themselves could sense it in others even if their own was so little they had no idea what was going on. I was wrong about mom and sis having a little magic. Their magic had never been turned on in any significant way. Being around me, especially after I healed sis, both were powering up. Illana definitely had to be told. Either one of them turning lose a magical burst in public would not turn out well.
Looking at my watch, time was growing short. “I need to be at the hospital and I need a driver. One or both, I don’t care but we need to go.”
Both decided to go. Checking in with the registrar at the front desk. I was told to wait when I told her my mother and sister were accompanying me. She was on the phone while looking at me. “Dr. Clark cleared Audrey Rider not your whole family.”
“But this isn’t my whole family.” My protest fell on deft ears.
She talked for a minute on the phone…, well one of those little ear bud, phone things. “Who is accompanying you?”
“My mother, Janet Rider and my sister, Sandy Rider.”
“Did you hear that, Doctor? It’s okay? Thank you. I’ll send them up to your office.”
She pointed down the hallway. “Take the elevator to the sixth floor. There is a directory on the wall to your right as you exit the elevator. Dr. Clark’s office is to your right. Her name is on the door. Her secretary is expecting you.”
“Thank you. You’ve been most kind and helpful.” I turned toward the hall motioning for mom and sis to catch up. We found Linda’s office in short order. Cindy, her secretary, asked for names.
“This is my mother, Janet, my sister, Sandy, and I’m Audrey…, Rider.”
Cindy was giving me a serious look. “I’ve heard some stories about you. The whole hospital has been talking about a girl and her amazing recovery. If you are that girl, I can understand where the amazing comes in. I saw some of those pictures they took in ER when you were brought in. After the school lawyers became involved they locked down all the information about you. Morgan Custman sent a hospital wide memo. If anyone released any records, pictures, or files about you; they would never work in the healthcare industry again as long as they were alive. That would be AFTER they served time in prison for breech of patient privacy laws.”
Giving a shrug I played it off. “I’m probably not the one they are talking about. Besides, splatter a little blood on someone and they usually look worse than they are.”
Cindy gave me a ‘you’re lying like a dog’ look. “If you say so Miss Rider. Dr. Clark gave the okay for you and your family to wait in her office.” She pointed to a door off to her left.
“Thank you.”
We were in the office less than five minutes when Linda walked in. She gave mom and Sandy a serious look before she focused on me with a question in her eyes.
“I’m not old enough to have a license yet, They came along to drive and wanted to observe.”
“I’m not sure Morgan will be comfortable with this. I didn’t tell her why I wanted to see her, just that it was urgent.”
“Leave everything up to me after she walks in.”
“Okay. I better warn you, Morgan isn’t going to like being ambushed. I seriously doubt she will believe you when you tell her she is headed for a deadly heart attack.”
“Then I guess I will have to ambush her.”
Everyone gave me the look wondering what I was up to?
It was only moments later Morgan walked in. “Linda you wanted to see me?” She looked at mom, me and then sis wondering what we were doing there. “If this has anything to do with school business it will have to wait.”
Softly singing, I walked over to her and took her left hand in my right. Still singing, I unbuttoned her suit jacket, her blouse, and slid my left hand in on the top her left breast.
Linda was carefully watching, stunned Morgan would allow herself to be subjected to such measures. Audrey’s voice was beautiful, lyrical, and mesmerizing but…
Mom and Sandy could feel the energy flowing about the room. It was worse than an overdose on caffeine high. Slowly they both approached Morgan from behind. Mom put her left hand on Morgan’s right shoulder, Sandy put her right hand on Morgan’s left shoulder. Seconds later they were both singing in perfect pitch with Audrey, words and a melody they didn’t know but could sing.
Linda felt goose bumps race up and down her spine as she stared in fascination. As sure as she knew the sun would rise every morning, she was positive these women were healing Morgan.
Out in the front office, Cindy’s heart was racing a mile a minute as she listened to the pure voices pouring out a song from Linda’s office.
With mom and Sandy pushing in healing on Morgan it only took a couple minutes. Stopping, I backed up from Morgan as mom and Sandy did the same.
Morgan was staring at me. “What did you do? I feel…, You fixed something inside me. I feel as if I rose from the dead. What did you do?”
“Me? I didn’t do anything besides sing a little song. Mom, sis, let’s go.” I headed for the door herding mom and sis ahead of me.
We were out the door and it was closing behind us.
“Linda, what did she do? I feel different.”
“She saved your life. You were going to die, Morgan. You had…” The door closed cutting off all conversation.
Cindy watched the three women as they walked across the room and out the door. All three of them seemed to have a glow around them. She knew without a doubt Audrey Rider was the girl the whole hospital was talking about making a super natural recovery. The girl had enough beauty for ten women. Her mother and sister were almost as bad. Why couldn’t she have been born with some of the DNA those women possessed?
I needed advice from Illana. Things were going to go from bad to worse in a hurry if people believed I could heal them and started sharing that belief. I couldn’t stop after I was given the ability to draw magic for healing. Soon that would turn around and bite me as my life became swamped with people asking or demanding I heal them. I’d be forced to flee taking mom, Sandy, and daddy with me in order to protect them. We would spend the rest of our lives running because I did something I knew was right.
Morgan was better than good at what she did. That evening and next morning she only had time to listen to a little of the recordings Coach Bishop had supplied. She went to work with a vengeance. Friday afternoon Superintendent Hays, Principal Brown, Jennie Parker, Ann Sherfield, and the school board as John Doe(s) had been served with a subpoena to give a deposition as to any knowledge they had about Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider, AKA Audrey Rider. They would pass on all knowledge they had concerning any confrontation the student known as Audrey Rider had with Coach Walker. They also had to give testimony as to any knowledge they had witnessed or heard about bullying toward Audrey Rider. Any first hand experience they had of any incidents of threats or otherwise Audrey Rider may have pointed toward any of her teachers and include the dates of same.. Everything was going to be sworn to and notarized. Lying meant potential criminal charges could be filed and prison a real possibility. Even though she was primarily the attorney for Mercy, Morgan was determined to drive a stake in the heart of the beast which permeated the mental attitude of staff and students alike at Lakewood School District. With the legal charges she was going to hit them with, they would be paying for their own demise.
An additional piece of legal paperwork was handed to Superintendent Hays and Principal Brown. A temporary court order immediately reinstating Audrey back into the school until a court hearing could be scheduled between all parties at which time Lakewood School District could present any testimony or documents as to the purpose and reason for Audrey Rider’s suspension. Then there was the third piece of legal paperwork. No teacher or coach could be fired or terminated from this day forward without a court order. Lakewood School District would need to furnish to said court any and all documents pertaining to any termination of instructors, teachers, or coaches.
The last piece of legal paperwork didn’t come directly from Morgan. It did come about because of the data and complaints she filed with the state. It came from the State Educational Department putting Lakewood School District on notice a special advisory committee had been formed to oversee all administrative departments, all activity departments, and all teachers classes. Lakewood could expect to see members of that committee in the coming weeks. They would be there to monitor classes, evaluate staff and administration.
Superintendent Hays knew the committee didn’t have the power to terminate anyone. They did have the authority to report back to state. If Lakewood received a bad evaluation, state funds could be cut back.
When I heard about all that had transpired the past couple days I was glad Morgan was working for me and not against me. She had to have a ton of political muscle and know a lot of people in high places to get things moving this quick. She was a force of nature.
Morgan cancelled her vacation. She had a favor to return. There was no way she was going to turn this job over to one of her lawyer friends.
In the old days before cell phones, school rumors took time to spread. At least an hour through the whole school. After the digital age arrived rumors didn’t even need to wait for kids to gather before spreading like wildfire across the social network. Among the dozens of rumors running wild without any sign of slowing down were those with anything mentioning Audrey Rider after her run in with Coach Walker. The juiciest one was Coach had killed Audrey. It was the reason no one had seen her after that day. The hottest rumor after that one was Audrey Rider was returning to school on Monday. Much to Administration’s and several of the teacher’s chagrin, someone had posted pictures of Audrey on a web site that was the favorite watering hole for the school kids to post memos, pictures, and share gossip. They were pictures of her the day she and her parents met with the school administrators. Ninety nine point five percent of the kids didn’t believe that was the boy, Audrey Rider, they had been going to school with. The point five percent wondered who Audrey Rider was? Despite that, ninety nine percent of the kids hoped or prayed that exotic looking chick was actually going to Lakewood school and wasn’t someone’s idea of a joke. The traffic begin to build as kids texted called others telling them about the picture of the girl on the social chat site. The traffic to the web page almost took it down. It wasn’t just the kids going to Lakewood but also included a couple dozen other schools in the area and across the nation, trying to download pictures of the girl.
Rumors or fact, Monday morning at seven o’clock kids started arriving at the school. There were only five to start with that early. When time was creeping close to eight and classes would begin, soon there were over four hundred kids at the front of the school, refusing to go in until the first bell. A boy who had been beat to death by the Coach and returning to school was worth watching for. Others were there because the boy wasn’t a boy but a girl. Or more likely the boy is coming back to class as a girl so the Coach wouldn’t beat on him again. Truth was, despite everyone denying it; they were all waiting for That Girl.
Some of the more hormonal boys recognized Audrey’s hot foxy looking sister Sandy as she drove into the drop off area in front of the Junior High. They might not have ever gave Audrey a second thought but his sister was another thing entirely. To a single boy, the testosterone driven jocks never considered the concept their abuse of Audrey gave their chances of dating Sandy an absolute zero chance of happening. The passenger wasn’t two things. She wasn’t Audrey nor was she a boy dressed as a girl.
That morning I slipped on a denim skirt, white polyester blouse and a denim jacket. I was wearing white sneakers and a light touch of peach lipstick. As I did my makeup I noticed my eyes were slowly beginning to change shape, hopefully not noticeable to anyone but me. Were my ears a little more…? I shook my head and smiled. I was probably imagining things. My ears were sporting small diamond pierced earrings. An extra thing I acquired as mom and sis took me shopping the past weekend. After that trip shopping with mom and sis I decided next time, I’d go alone and wear a hoodie. We couldn’t go anyplace without people staring. I knew mom and sis were male magnets but it wasn’t only the males who were staring. I needed to ask Illana if there was a don’t look at me or I’m not here spell?
Sliding out of the seat after Sandy stopped, I pulled my backpack off the seat and slipped it onto my shoulders. “Thanks Sis. Appreciate the ride.”
“I wish you had taken mom and dad’s offer to go in with you this morning.” She checked for wayward jay walkers and other traffic. “I’ll pick you up at four thirty.”
“I can walk home.”
“Ten blocks. Heck no you aren’t walking home. No only because of the distance but you’re a girl. It isn’t safe for a single girl to walk by herself. Not that far.”
“Okay, I’ll wait on you. Go Sis, you’re blocking traffic.” I noticed cars starting to pack up behind Sandy. A few seconds later she had made the street out in front of the school. It was a mile over to her high school. Seems in their wisdom authorities who dictated school policies didn’t want grade schools close to junior high and neither one close to high school. In order to separate gangs or such it was said.
Walking toward the entrance I could hear the chatter around me. “New girl.” “Student Teacher!” “Boy she’s hot.” “Wonder where she transferred from? I might want to transfer to that school if there are more like her.” “She’s blonde, typical, exceptional beauty and dumb as dirt.” “Why did you say that?” “Look at her, denim is out of fashion now. Probably a welfare child.”
Saturday, Morgan gave Linda a note to pass along to me. I was surprised when Linda stopped at our house to visit Saturday close to nine P.M. She gave me the note with instructions. I was to hand the note to the front secretary when I arrived at school Monday. And then I was to go onto my class just like normal. If anyone tried to remove me from any class I was to call her number. I didn’t need to say anything, just dial her personal number. I put her number on one button dialing.
Nancy was behind the desk when I walked into the front office. Principal Brown’s secretary Jennie was nowhere to be seen. I was hoping she hadn’t been fired. I held out the envelope.
She took it. “What’s this?”
“Honestly I don’t know. I wasn’t told what it was about. Only to hand it in first thing and then go to class.”
Nancy was looking at the extremely tall girl. She knew without a doubt she hadn’t seen her before. If her height didn’t make her stand out already, her exquisite beauty would have. There was no way this young woman belonged in a junior high class unless she was a student teacher?
“Have you registered with the school? I haven’t seen you before. We don’t allow anyone to wander into our school due to safety regulations.”
“I’ve been a student here for two and a half years. I’m Audrey Rider.”
“You’re…? Just a minute.” She picked up the phone and pushed a button. “Security, a young lady is standing in front of my desk claiming to be Mr. Audrey Rider, one of our students.”
I should have followed Linda’s instructions. Hand over the envelope and go to class without saying anything. Looking down the hall, security was hurrying our way. It brought a smile. He stopped in front of me. “Helo Jerry, I see you still have a job.”
He was grinning ear to ear. “Thanks to your lady lawyer. They can’t fire, terminate, or put me on administrative leave any more without explaining their reason before a judge. Right now and for awhile, I’m safe.”
“oh..., I forgot.” He turned his attention toward Nancy. “You called for security?”
She didn’t know what to say now. The way Jerry and this young lady were carrying on a conversation they knew each other. Nancy pointed a finger at the girl. “She claims to be Mr. Audrey Rider.”
Looking at Jerry I gave him a wink. “No I didn’t. I never claimed I was a mister. I handed Nancy an envelope and said, I was Audrey Rider.”
I didn’t think Jerry’s grin could get any wider but it did. “Nancy, this is Miss Audrey Rider. This was all hashed out at a committee meeting Thursday evening. That meeting ended with total meltdown.”
“May I see the envelope?”
Nancy zipped it open with a letter opener and handed it to Jerry. He took a couple minutes reading the information inside. He handed it back. “You should read this.”
As Nancy started reading her eyes kept flashing to me and reading some more. When she finished she looked stunned. “I’ll give this to Mr. Brown.”
“Come on Audrey, I’ll walk you to your first class. You still in American History first hour?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I’ll be in the halls close by when you move between classes. Better to make sure problems don’t start rather than trying to understand and fix them afterwards.”
“Thanks Jerry, always nice to have a man…” I had reached over to wrap my hand around his bicep which didn’t happen. I didn’t have large enough hand. I wouldn’t be able to wrap my hands around his bicep if I was using both hands.
“When did you say you retired from the Seals and what exactly was your rating?” I was positive Jerry picked up tanks for dumbbells.
“I try and keep what I had when I retired. After this school season is over I may go to work for Wheat Importers. Don’t repeat this. Not every black ops tries to come up with the scariest name they can think of. The company does a lot of behind the scenes operations overseas as security for companies, corporations, their staff, and their clients. It gets in your blood when you have done it as long as I have. I’ll probably die over there but that’s okay. I’ll be doing what I’m good at if it happens.”
“Don’t be surprised when you find that special woman, get married and have a little girl and a boy. You’ll realize they are the most important things in your life as you settle in owning your own security firm.”
“Hah!” Jerry laughed out loud. “I’m too old to start a family and have kids.”
“Hang onto that thought. This is my classroom. Thanks for the escort.”
“My pleasure, Audrey.”
Only in Mr. Breenan’s Algebra class were students assigned designated seats. He assigned in alphabetical order, front to back, starting on the right side of the room. All my other classes students sit down in groups among their friends. As the favorite whipping boy of the school, I was basically a leper. Someone everybody else steered clear of in case they got tainted also and become harassed or worse, bully targets. Around the fifth and sixth grade hormones started gradually kicking in among the students. The four boys who weren’t part of anyone’s special group had tried to be friendly to me and pull me into their outcast group. It didn’t turn out well for them as the school jocks and bullies turned their attention on the Outcasts. Lockers were broken into. Lost text books, homework came up missing. Dog poop was left in lockers. Two of the boys were physically hurt.
I was disgusted and mad anyone who tried to befriend me was treated like they were. The one trick administration never found out about was the marijuana left in one of the lockers. Tommy found it behind all his books in the back of his locker. It was sent down the toilet forty minutes before an unannounced locker inspection by the police and drug sniffing dogs. I only knew about it because I was in the bathroom when Tommy came in and flushed it. Of course the dogs alerted on Tommy’s locker. Everything he had in that locker ended up out in the hallway with two police officers searching through every book and all his notes and papers.
I had no idea who set Tommy up. It would have tainted him for the rest of his life if drugs had been found. If I ever found out who did it, I promised payback. They were going to destroy Tommy’s future because he and his friends were willing to accept me. It was then I warned the Outsiders off when I passed by their table at lunch that day.
They started to protest but it was only halfhearted. They knew as well as I the jocks and bullies would only keep ramping up the harassment and pain. I could only hope once they distanced themselves from me they would no longer be a target for those kids. As the school year ground on, my hope turned out to be a lost cause. After finding the Outsiders fun to torment, they were never going to be left alone.
“Guys, you need to stay away from me. I saw what they tried to do to Tommy. I know Joel and Carl have ended up with bruises after being trapped in the bathroom. This will only get worse.” With my lunch tray containing something only God and the school cooks knew what, I headed for the jocks table where I parked.
“No one invited you to sit down, looser.” Jeff was the first to speak up after their astonishment I would do such a thing.
Poking with my fork at what was on my plate I knew I was pushing back, but darn did it feel right. “Didn’t know lunch tables were reserved. You guys seem interested in me or anyone I talk to so let’s talk.”
“Get lost, bitch. This table is for real men not fairy princesses.” Mark was looking around after he said it and was receiving laughs and grins from the others.
Five of these jocks were in basketball, the same as me. Three of them were football jocks. “We never can seem to find time to talk when practicing or playing a game. What about now? You guys want my attention when we are on the court. Otherwise you wouldn’t keep throwing the ball at me.
Ron reached over, took my milk carton, opened it and poured it into my tray. “We’re talking now, bitch. Like the way the conversation is going?”
“It’s…, interesting. I think I’m finished with my food. I’m sure this discussion will continue another time.” Sliding back from the table and picking up my tray, I turned and slopped half that milk onto Ron.
He jumped up and was trying to brush off what milk hadn’t already saturated into his clothes. “You skinny bastard. You’re going to pay for that.”
“OH! I’m terribly sorry Ron, accidents happen. You know all about accidents? You had one a second ago yourself.” I knew I had set myself up for retaliation from these guys. But what the hell! One way or another they had been making my life miserable for the past two years. I was tired of it. Their attack on the four boys who were willing to accept me was the last straw. I could tolerate personal attacks on myself. Ones against others because of me was taking it past the forgive and forget limit.
All this happened on a Monday. That week I was extra careful checking my locker, looking to see who was around if I had to use the bathroom. Of course I couldn’t avoid them in basketball practice. They were taking extra hard shots at me with the ball during practice. It served a purpose. I definitely was keeping an eye on the ball at all times. They managed to trip me a couple times that week. It was Thursday when they pooped on my clothes and left me the cheerleader uniform.
That was a week and half ago. Some things had changed. There were only three boys and four girls in the history class room when I walked in. Maria was the first to notice. She gave me a half hearted wave. “Hi, you substituting for Ellen Loma?
“Student.”
“Excuse me?” The others were looking now.
“I’m a student in this class.”
Norma took a hard look at the new girl, double glad she didn’t belong. With her exotic beauty there wouldn’t be any boys left for the rest of them. She was too old to be a student here. “Hon, I think you missed the schools. This is junior high. The high school is twelve blocks that way.” She pointed off to her left.
“I know. It’s not a mistake. I belong here in this class, first hour history.”
By now half a dozen more students had come in. “Kyle undressed me with his eyes. “Substitute teacher?”
I couldn’t help smiling. He was in basketball and had seen me naked before. Hope he remembered because he never would again. “And you are?”
His oily grin spread ear to ear as his evil tongue touched his lip. Oh yes, making points with the sexy substitute teacher was a great way to start the day. “I’m Kyle Moore. You need any help with anything, you can ask me. I’m here for you.”
“wellll…, I did miss last week because some boys dumped my clothes into a waste paper basket and then defecated on them. I might need a copy of all the work we were supposed to turn in last week. Other than that, I think I can keep up with the lessons. Your offer to help is appreciated though.”
Kyle’s eyes turned to squints. He stared at the new girl. She had heard stories is all. She was messing with him. “Hey babe, that’s pretty good. You had me going there for a minute. That freak deserved everything we did to him. Because of that asshole the basketball team was suspended. You come by our table at lunch and I’ll fill you in on the low life you don’t want to know.”
Rolling my right hand over, I curled my fingers and looked at my long peach colored nails before looking at him. “Kyle BABE, I already know all the low life in this school. And you, sweetie, are one of the bottom feeders along with many of the other muscle brained jocks. Oh, I’m sorry, how thoughtless and rude of me. I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider. Everyone calls me Audrey.” My comment took Kyle and all of the others in the room by surprise. It registered in Kyle’s eyes he didn’t believe me.
The rest of the students were starting to pour into the room along with Mrs. Loma who gave me a questioning look. “May I help you?”
“No Ma’am, I’m good. I’m one of your students.”
The room fell silent as all the kids were looking at the fresh girl. The ones who were there earlier were thinking the you know what was about to hit the blender. Let this girl lie to Mrs. Loma and she would find security escorting her out.
Jerry was outside across the hall. I could see him past the open door. “Mr. Berman, would you please be kind enough to step in here a moment please.”
Jerry had a good idea what the problem was. A smile spread across his face. I was beginning to think Jerry was enjoying himself way too much.
“Yes, Ma’am how may I assist you?”
Ma’am? Assist me? Come on Jerry that’s a little deep even for a Navy Seal. “Yes Mr. Berman, I believe you were about to be called anyway by Mrs. Loma to escort me out of her class. Would you please be kind enough to witness to who I am.”
Jerry had to swallow a couple times as he stifled his laughter. “Yes Ma’am, I’d be most pleased to inform Mrs. Loma and this class who you are. Mrs. Loma, this is a student you had in your class since the beginning of the school year. I understand it is a little difficult to believe but this young lady is Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider. You probably call her Audrey Rider if you think of her name at all.”
Mrs Loma was staring at me. “This is…”
“Yes Ma’am, Audrey Rider. I understand everyone thought of her as a gay, effeminate, boy. She was in an accident a week and a half back. I was told her doctor may or may not have had anything to do with her presentation as herself today.”
Ellen was staring at an exquisitely exotic, beautiful elfin face. The girl had a to die for figure. There was no way this was the boy Audrey Rider. She dialed the principle’s office. “Nancy, I have a young woman in my class room claiming to be Audrey Rider and…”
Ellen was staring at me and nodding her head. “Yes, that describes her. Security? He’s here too.”
“She is? Does Principal Brown know? Court order? I see. I still don’t believe it. Okay, she can stay until someone tells me otherwise.”
She closed her phone. “I really don’t believe you are Audrey. However, Nancy says she has a court order in her possession which states you are him…, her. You are to be allowed to return to all your classes except basketball. Miss Rider if you will find a desk, I will do my best to bring order to this classroom.
“Yes Ma’am, thank you Ma’am. Thank you Jerry.” I headed to the rear of the room. It was where I normally sit. Today it would serve a purpose. The rest of the class would have to turn around in their seats to watch me.
Mrs. Loma, was still watching me, Jerry had yet to leave when a new girl came through the door, walked up to Mrs. Loma and handed her a letter. Along with everyone else, Ellen was giving the girl a serious look before she read the note.
“Well class, it seems we have another new student in our class today. This is Shla De Costa, a transfer student from Venezuela. Miss De Costa take a seat. Any empty desk is yours.”
“Gracious Madam Loma.” Shla looked around the room, spotted an empty seat at the back and headed for it.
The girl had a magical aura around her. She had a natural brown skin tone, was attractive in the face, had enough female curves to pull in all the boy’s eyes and a couple of the girls also. The thing that was off about her, she also had bulging muscles most of the boys wished they had. In her short white skirt and tan shell her muscles were more than obvious. Her brown hair held in a ponytail was long enough it touched her butt. I heard gymnast whispered around the room. I was thinking female body builder and knew both were wrong. Pulling her ponytail around front, she sat down in a chair opposite me and gave me a serious inspection as I was giving her one. She pulled out her history book and notepad binder from her backpack.
“I hate history. They have it all wrong.”
It was said soft enough I was the only one who heard her complaining.
History class was a wash that morning. Everyone was more interested in the boy turned girl and the new sexy gymnast girl. I heard some of the boys making bets as to if she was as strong as she looked? Others were saying dating her could be a death wish if her date tried doing things she didn’t like. Before I left class I managed to get Mrs. Loma to give me all the assignments I had missed from and up to a week and half ago. Shla stayed until Mrs. Loma advised her where the class was in the text book.
Kyle must have sent a text to the other members of the basketball team. Kyle plus four others were waiting in the hall as I left the history class. Jerry was also waiting. He closed in on my right and casually looked at the boys never saying a thing. I noticed the absence of hall monitors. The teachers must have been told to let the basketball team deal with the boy as punishment for the whole team receiving suspension. There were lots of kids further along the hallway. They weren’t moving though. They were waiting, watching to see what the boys were going to do to Audrey. Most knew with security there the show was over before it started.
Shla came out of the classroom behind me, let her backpack slide off her shoulders and caught it with her hands. She slipped an emery board out and let it down to the floor. She shoved the backpack against the wall with her foot, leaned back, and started buffing her nails.
Because she was behind me, I didn’t catch what she was doing or the smirk on her face. She never looked up or took her eyes off her nails. “Security, why don’t you go find out if they need you in the teacher’s lounge. I haven’t been sent to detention in…, nine days. I didn’t do all them things they claim I did on that report they sent along with my transcript. I didn’t kill that kid they tried to blame on me. Besides, there are only five of them. Not enough to share.”
That got Jerry’s attention. He turned around to see who the voice belonged to. If she was as strong as she looked, there were a few operations he wished she had been along on when he was in the Seals. “I don’t recall seeing you around before.”
Shla never looked up. “That’s awfully observant of you because I wasn’t around before an hour ago.”
She bent over and picked up her backpack. “As interesting as this Mexican standoff is, we need to get to our next class. The boys wanted to discuss a date with a girl not security and two girls. Security if you would sit out the rest of the day, maybe the boys will call in some more manpower and find enough courage to talk to two girls.”
“Audrey, our next class is English clear down at the other end of this building. Tell these nice boys they can find us later. We have to go if you don’t want to be caught in the hall when the bell rings.”
I didn’t ask if she had the same class schedule as me. That was a given. My question was who assigned her as my bodyguard or did she volunteer on her own? I was also curious how much magic she had and what kind it was? Some of that download I received from Illana told me most Faeries carried a specific type of magic. Shla could have strength, or speed, or a host of other magical abilities but probably not more than one or two. Whatever she had it was intensely strong. Magic was flowing around her like a dynamo.
“Next time, bitch.” Kyle hissed at me.
“If anything happens to Audrey, you’re going to be top of my list.” Jerry was looking at Kyle.
“Awww, that’s so cute everyone. Threats and counter threats are always so meaningful. Now with all the hard feelings out of the way, Audrey, we are late hon. Security, please be considerate enough to find something else to do besides ogling this young maiden.”
For the second time, Jerry’s head snapped around to look at the girl. There was something about her screaming at his survival senses and sent chills down his spine. Something he hadn’t felt in years. Was she really that dangerous or was he getting too old and reading something that wasn’t there? “I’ll give it some thought.”
What he was really going to do was go down to the office and check on the records she signed in with. With a name he would call some people he knew. This girl had to be on someone’s list.
The rest of the morning was pretty well a repeat of first class. The kids in Shla’s class wanted a look at the new fresh chick. Most of the girls dismissed her as competition as soon as they saw her. No boy would want a muscle builder for a girl friend. Most of the boys were thinking of the potential and possible danger in dating a beautiful girl like her.
Audrey was an enigma to most of them who remembered him. As to those who remembered him at all they knew him as a tall, skinny, weird, effeminate boy. The kid was a loner, a whipping boy for the bullies in the school. The girl calling herself Audrey was definitely not him. Or was she? Most of the kids never paid any attention to the boy with the girl name. Ninety percent of them didn’t even remember what he looked like.
Jerry was still guarding the hallway as Audrey and the new girl transferred between classes. The basketball team watching between classes was growing in numbers. Jerry knew if he hadn’t been there they would have attacked Audrey. That new girl seemed to be in the same classes as Audrey. She was beside her or behind her every time Audrey left a classroom. He also noticed the absence of teachers monitoring the hallways. Come lunchtime he would see if he could contact Audrey’s lawyer. Despite the warning Audrey handed in that morning from Morgan, administration was going to look the other way, giving someone the opportunity to send the girl to the hospital or worse, the morgue.
Shla followed me through on the lunch line. I had gathered up from the buffet what I thought I could choke down. Ronnie, stepped up beside me and was coming up with an underhanded swing to knock my tray out of my hands. At that instant two things happened so fast no one could follow. My tray wasn’t there. The edge of Shla’s hand came down across the top of Ronnie’s wrist. I definitely heard a crack as contact was made.
My tray was back in my hands. Shla was behind me holding onto her tray with both hands. Ronnie never completed his upward swing. It took two and a half seconds for the realization his wrist was broken for the pain to reach his mind. His eyes goggled at the sight of his wrist starting to droop at an un natural angle to the rest of his arm.
Several members of the testosterone club had already started laughing as they were listening when Ronnie told them what he was going to do to the freak.
‘AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Ronnie went to his knees screaming in pain as he reached to hold his right wrist with his left hand.
Shla and I turned to look at him. We had our hands full holding onto our trays. We backed away when teachers and the jock crowd started gathering around.
Mrs. Jordan was the first to ask. “What happened?”
Ronnie nodded toward me. “The bitch broke my wrist. She attacked Coach Walker. She is a threat to everyone in this school. Who the hell allowed her back on campus? She should be expelled.”
Mrs. Jordan pointed at me. “YOU, DOWN TO THE PRINCIPLE’S OFFICE. YOU WON’T GET OFF THIS TIME!”
“I didn’t touch him.”
Jerry had followed us into the lunchroom and had been watching the whole time. He had no idea how Ronnie broke his wrist. The one thing he was sure of, Audrey didn’t do it. That new girl behind her didn’t do it either. They were both holding onto their lunch trays the whole time. He came up to the girls. “Mrs. Jordan, Audrey didn’t touch the young man. I was watching and the whole time she was holding onto her food tray. Look at her hands. Do you honestly believe that girl could break anyone’s wrist?”
“She probably did it with the food tray.” She wasn’t giving up the idea Audrey didn’t belong in this school. The girl was a freak of nature.
Jerry shook his head at the stupidity of the accusation. “With her food tray? That would be a real neat trick. She has food on it. I don’t think slapping anyone on the wrist with a food tray is going to break it. If she did manage to do the impossible and break his wrist with said food tray, there would be food scattered all over both students and the floor.”
She glared at me. “She did it. Ronnie said she did. I was watching when he grabbed his wrist. She was right there.”
Jerry sighed. “Yes she was right there in line getting food. And the young man was advancing toward her.”
He looked at me. “Audrey, do you mind going down to Mr. Brown’s office to get this straightened out? It seems we are disrupting the whole lunch room.”
Turning his attention toward Mrs. Jordan, he indicated Ronnie. “Take the young man down to the nurse’s station. I’ll escort Miss Rider. We wouldn’t want her to escape now would we?”
Mrs. Jordan glowered at Jerry. “Just do the job you were hired for Mr. Berman.”
“Yes ma’am. I’d love to do exactly that but things keep getting in the way.”
A couple jocks helped Ronnie up. “We’ll go with you man. We saw it all. The freaking bitch attacked you. She’s a psychopathic bitch attacking people.”
Carrying my tray back to the disposal belt, I wiped my hands on a napkin. Looking at Jerry I gave him a smirk. “Best meal I’ve ever eaten in this lunchroom. I’m gong to have to start watching my weight if I keep eating like that or I’ll get fat. Maybe smaller portions next time.”
Jerry nodded in agreement. “Good idea. Are you able to call that Attorney of yours? I’m thinking she should be in on this meeting.”
“Jerry, I swear, I didn’t touch Ronnie.”
“I know that. He must have broke it earlier and figured out a way to blame you. He walks up beside you, his wrist is broken. You’re the guilty party. End of inquisition, no need to gather the firewood to burn her at the stake. We did that earlier. There are two of us who know you didn’t do it. You and me. I’m not sure how much that is going to count with Mrs. Jordan and the others claiming you did.”
“Three of us. I was right behind her, remember?”
Jerry turned around and was looking at the new girl. “You saw what happened?”
“You bet. That boy walked up beside Audrey, dropped to his knees and started screaming. As you said, Audrey had her hands full holding onto her food tray. She didn’t touch the boy, I’ll swear to it.”
“Don’t how much good that will do since Administration wants her hide nailed to the wall after Coach Walker tried to beat her to death. This place could stand a good house cleaning. Come on you two let’s find out what they have already decided.”
“Taking my cell out of my backpack, I pushed the number Morgan wrote down if I needed her. It rang once and Morgan answered. “I’m in court. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Don’t know what it is but stall until I arrive. Don’t confess to anything.”
The connection was lost. Jerry and Shla were looking at me. I was looking at the phone and shaking my head. “She was busy, said she would be here as soon as she could. To not say anything and stall them.”
“Sounds like the same advice I gave our guys when we were knee deep in shit with the enemy all around us. Good advice when anyone wants your head on a silver platter.” He pointed off down the hall. “Come on, let’s go stall although we will probably have to say something to keep them from lynching us on the spot.”
I glanced at Jerry. “Us?”
He nodded in agreement. “Us. Audrey, I’m with you all the way. Remember when I told you they would have to go through me to get to you? I meant every word.”
“Thanks Jerry but I don’t want you to lose your job because of me.”
“This job as you call it, is the last thing I am worried about. I have a retirement cushion under me, and a savings that I’ll never be able to spend if I live to be a hundred. I told you I took this job because I was tired of fishing. That part was true also. You gave me a reason and a purpose for sticking around. I’m staying until they run both of us off.”
“Thanks Jerry, you’re the best. I’ll remember this when I’m shopping for your wedding gift.”
Jerry started laughing. “You just aren’t going to turn lose of the idea I’m getting married are you kid? Well if you’re so sure I’m getting married, what is her name? This wonderful woman my heart fell so deeply in love it pulled me in too.”
“Charlemaine, O’Day, her father is Irish, her mother is French. Everyone calls her Charly.”
He was laughing even harder now. “I tell you what. If I meet a girl named Charlemaine I’ll ask her on the spot to marry me.”
“Good, I’m glad we finally got that one out of the way.” We had arrived and were standing before Principle Brown’s secretary, Nancy.
She was glowering at me. “What do you want now! Haven’t you caused enough trouble?”
“I guess not. Mrs. Jordan ordered me to come down here and report to Principal Brown.”
“Well, she isn’t here so you can take a seat and wait to see what she wants.” She stared at Jerry and Shla. “What do you two want?”
Jerry pointed at me. “We’re with her.”
Shla nodded in agreement.
“Take a seat then.” Nancy focused on the papers in front of her.
The only problem with school is when one has to wait, unlike doctor’s offices there aren’t any magazines to read.
“What kind of fish do you normally fish for?” I decided I wanted a conversation rather than sitting there with my hands in my lap saying nothing like I was guilty.
We talked about fishing and fishing rigs for over twenty two minutes before Mrs. Jordan graced us with her presence. She was glaring at me.
“I hope you’re happy. Ann thinks it is a compound break. He was sent to the hospital. I gave permission for David to drive him. You can thank me for saving you the cost of an ambulance picking him up.”
Shla was on my left. I literally felt the heat radiating out from her. Reaching over I put my left hand on her shoulder. “Reste ta main et ne tire pas ton epee ce n’ est pas le lieu ni le moment.” (stay your hand and pull not your sword, this is not the place nor the time)
“What did you say to her?” Mrs Jordan demanded to know what was said.
“It was a private conversation and personally none of your business. And while we are having this talk, my attorney advised me I didn’t need to say anything until she arrives. If you would like to confirm I’m sure Nancy will be happy to look up the number for you. Her name is Morgan Custman.”
Divide and conquer. Mrs Jordan turned her attention to Jerry. “Mr. Berman, you are no longer needed here. Leave and take this…” She pointed at Shla, “Girl with you.”
Jerry grinned, “No I don’t think so. You accused Miss Rider of an attack on another student. I was there and so was this young lady. Since you persist in claiming Miss Rider did something I and this young lady…”
He turned his attention to Shla. “What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t but it is Shla De Costa.”
“ah, okay, Miss De Costa was standing right behind Miss, Rider. She was closer than anyone else and in a better position than all of us to see what happened when Mr. Thruwin claimed Miss Rider broke his wrist. Would you repeat what you told me?”
“Audrey and I were standing in the serving line when the kid walked up. I was looking at him wondering what he wanted? As soon as he got close to Audrey he fell down to his knees and started screaming she broke his wrist. Audrey didn’t touch the boy. He’s a liar and so is anyone else who says they saw Audrey strike the kid.”
Whoa, that put the fat into the fire. Shla called Mrs. Jordan a liar.
Jordan turned beet red in the face as she clinched her fists. She was sputtering. “I will not tolerate disobedience and disrespect in this school. You, Miss De Costa, are expelled as of this moment.”
Shla jumped to her feet.“Et vous madame excédez votre autorité. J’ai été envoyé ici par la déesse Vetra elle même. J’ai le droit vous couper le cœur si vous me tentez.” (And you madam exceed your authority. I was sent here by the goddess Vetra herself. I have the right to cut your heart out if you try me)
“Shla je t’en prie, c’est mon monde en ce moment. Je devrais fuir si tu commences a tuer des mortels” (Shla, please, this is my world at the moment. I would need flee if you started killing mortals)
“Comme vous demandez Aethelthryth. Les mortels testent les limites de ma patience ne rien faire, quand ils abusent de vous." (As you request Aethelthryth. The mortals are testing the limits of my patience to stand by and do nothing when they abuse you.)
Mrs. Jordan was seething as the girls spoke in a language she didn’t understand. “Talk in English. Any more of this and you Audrey, if that is really who you are, will be in detention for a week.”
I couldn’t help myself as I pushed her a little further. “And Shla, receives detention also?”
Mrs. Jordan was slowly going into meltdown as the girls were defying her. “She has been expelled!”
“J’espère que nous nous rendrons bientôt au principal Brown. Mon téléphone envoie tout cela a mon ordinateur dans la maison. Je ne me souviens pas, si j’ai chargé le téléphone la nuit dernière ou non. Il se peut, que la batterie ne vas pas tenir.” (I do hope we get in front of Principle Brown soon. My phone is sending all this out to my computer at home. Don’t remember whether I charged the phone last night or not. Battery might not last.)
“That’s it, Miss whoever you are. If you’re truly a student here you bought yourself a week of detention. You keep it up and I’ll double it.”
Jerry decided to stay out of the conversation. The girls seemed to be holding their own. For whatever reason Audrey was not intimidated. But then she had already been thru this kind of abuse at the committee meeting last week. Mrs. Jordan was one of those there at the time. Both obviously came away with a different learning experience. Audrey isn’t going to let the haters get to her. Mrs. Jordan had to be thinking she can ruin Audrey or run her off by running over her with demands and punishment. It was obvious Jordan had a hatred for the girl.
These two girls reminded him of some men he had been in battle with. Quiet, reserved, a hidden strength no one knew was there until they turned lose. They even scared him a little. They were holding something back, especially that new girl. The enemy is coming at her with a knife and she has a gun, behind her back, tucked into her belt.
For the next forty minutes Shla and I kept taking in a multitude of languages, Chinese, Mongolian, Viking, Russian, German, Italian, Portuguese…,” We were switching every little bit. It didn’t surprise me Shla knew all the languages. What did surprise me was I did too. I was thinking it would be great to take an accredited class in foreign language.
“Vous avez dit que vous avez ete envoye par la deesee de la vie, Vetra? Je vois une forte aurore magique autour de toi. Un peu trop de pouvoir pour dire la verite. Pendant que nous attendons, parlez-moi de votre maison des Faeries.” (You said you were sent by the goddess of life, Vetra? I see a strong magical aura around you. Kinda over powering to tell the truth. While we wait, tell me about your home of the Faeries.)
Jerry noticeably stiffened.
“Notre monde, ta monde maintenant aussi,qu’Illana t’a donne sa magie pendant Vetra t’a ramené a la vie, n’est rien comme ce monde mortel des humains. Nous ne l’avons pas détruit comme ils ont fait avec le leur. Je suis votre gardien qui vous protégera contre tout mal causé par les mortels et tous les autres. Je suis la pour vous apprendre tes dons. Tu as partage ta guérison avec les mortels. Ça n’ est pas mauvais. Mais tu dois jeter un sort d’oubli quand tu guéris ou tu seras obligé de fuir alors que des millions descendent sur toi pour exiger d’être guéris.” (Our world, your world now as Illana has gifted you with her magic when Vetra brought you back to life, is nothing like this mortal world of humans. We have not destroyed it as they have theirs. I am to serve as your guardian protecting you from any more harm from mortals and all others. I am to mentor you about your gifts. You have been sharing your healing with the mortals. It is not wrong. You must cast a spell of forget when you heal or you will be forced to flee as millions descend on you demanding to be healed.)
Jerry’s self survival training and experience kicked in. He kept his composure, his actions and his face neutral. He had heard and experienced a lot of unbelievable shit in his lifetime. Nothing compared to this!
“Unsere wahnsinnige Lehrerin hat ein persönliches Problem mit Schülern, die sich nicht beugen und ihr in den Arsch kriechen.” (Our demented teacher has a personal problem with students she doesn’t like not bowing and kissing her…, um tush.)
Jerry coughed and then started laughing out loud. I guess he knew German. “Audrey, du bist voller Uberranschungen. Oh, nebenbei, ich verstehe auch Franzosisch.” (Audrey, you are full of surprises. Oh, by the way, I understand French too.)
“Oh crap, busted. German and French? Any others Shla and I don’t want to use to keep this conversation personal?’
“Nope, German and French are it unless you count English.”
“Think anyone else knows German?” I wondered how many secrets had been spilled already.
“Est-ce que cela fait une difference si vous pouvez oublier tout le monde?” (Does it make any difference if you can cast forget on everyone?) Jerry questioned.
I shook my head. “I don’t know how to do that.”
“And I can’t. That is not a common gift among us. I understand the casting spell. I will teach Audrey how to manifest it and control it so she doesn’t turn everyone around her into mindless zombies. It is a very dangerous spell.” Shla added her two cents since Jerry had been listening to us and already knew.
“Healing is also not a common gift but not uncommon either among our kind. Healing of mortals is so unusual only a few were known with such power. The last one passed centuries ago and is no longer among us. The ancient ones were consulted when Audrey healed her doctor. This knowledge was spontaneous, not taught to her. She mentioned my aurora, hers consumes this room. Illana gifted her with her own magic. What Audrey has grown into and now controls is astounding, even among us. No one foresaw any of this which is even more rare. Even the goddess Vetra didn’t foresee Audrey controlling as much magic as she does.”
Mrs. Jordan and Nancy had been listening. Jordan snickered. The girls were talking make believe. How infantile! Fairies and magic were nonsense.
Morgan walked into the office breathing fire. Immediately she took in the situation. “Why is Audrey here in the principle’s office? Do you people not understand a court order!”
She didn’t wait. “Mr. Berman, clue me in with the short explanation.”
Jerry wasn’t sure as Morgan’s eyes were figuratively sending streams of fire everywhere she looked. “Uh right. Audrey and the young lady with her were in the lunchroom getting their food. When Ronnie walks up beside Audrey, falls down claiming she broke his wrist. Mrs. Custman, I was there and watching. I’ve been keeping an eye on Audrey all morning since there seems to be so much hatred toward her in this school building…”
Jordan was furious. “I saw her break his arm and ordered her to come to the principle’s office for disciplinary action while I took Ronnie down to the nurse’s station. His wrist was broken. I sent him onto the hospital with another boy.”
Morgan turned her focus on Jordan who wilted under the stare. “I’m glad you got your opinion in on this discussion. Now stay out of it!”
She looked back at Jerry. “Did Audrey break his arm?”
“No Ma’am. She didn’t touch the kid. It was him that approached her not the other way around. And like I said, when he got close he fell down and started screaming Audrey had attacked him. She didn’t! I watched the whole thing from the beginning. Mrs. Jordan was on the other side of the lunchroom. In my opinion, she couldn’t see what happened as there were a lot of bodies between where she was, the two girls, and the boy.”
He pointed at Shla. “This girl was in line right behind Audrey. She’ll tell you.”
Morgan focused on the girl. “What’s your name?”
“Shla, de Costa.”
“Miss de Costa, tell me in your own words what you saw.”
“Miss Rider and I were putting food on our trays from the serving line. The boy walked up beside her, fell down and started screaming Miss Rider had broke his wrist. I was watching when he closed in on her. I’ve only been here since this morning and already found out Miss Rider is the focus of a lot of hate in this school. So I was watching real close as to what the boy intended. She was holding her tray. She never touched him with her hands or her tray.”
“You’ll swear to exactly those words?”
“Yes Ma’am, I most certainly will.”
Morgan looked at Jerry. “Will you swear to what you said is the truth?”
“With pleasure, Mrs. Custman, with pleasure.”
Morgan turned her attention on Jordan and Nancy. “If Superintendent Hays or Principle Brown failed to inform the rest of the staff and teachers in this establishment, let me now inform you. None of the staff or teachers, and I mean absolutely no one may harass or charge Miss Rider in anyway, shape, or fashion without filing those accusations in court first. Even if she had murdered the boy, you wouldn’t be able to bring her to the office or touch her without going to court first. You could call the police and let them take her in. No one in this school has that authority any longer. Mr. Berman and others who are officially appointed as security are the only ones who are allowed to detain Miss Rider. Next time this happens, someone is gong to be spending time in jail. I will have everyone arrested and I mean everyone.”
“Miss Rider.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Your mom linked me into the phone conversation going to your computer. I also understand German, French, Italian, and a few others. We are going to have a long talk young lady.”
I gulped. “Yes Ma’am.”
“This business is finished. Take your friend and go back to your class or wherever you belong at this time.”
“Wait, you can’t dismiss her. She attacked that boy. Disciplinary action will be taken.”
Morgan shook her head. “MR. BERMAN, you are security at this school are you not?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“My patience has been broken. Hold this woman here in this office until the police arrive to take her downtown for booking.
Jordan looked shocked and then mad. “You can’t do that.”
“Yes I can and I just did. You are now under restraint for failing to follow a court order. When the police arrive that restraint will change to an arrest.”
“Miss Rider, Miss de Costa, go now wherever it is you are supposed to be at this time. If any of your teachers question why you are late to class, have them call the office. If that doesn’t satisfy them, you call me. If I must come back to this school today I will be bringing the police with me.”
Shla and I slipped out of the office. I didn’t think this was going to stop the testosterone jocks. I bet it put a big damper on any of the administration or teachers harassing me once word spread through the system. All I wanted was to get an education and grow up. Was that so hard for any of them to understand? Why had so much hate been turned against me? I never hurt anyone, I never harassed anyone, I never took anything from anyone. Yes I had got taller and some said more effeminate. I wasn’t what most of the jocks thought boys should be as I never changed into looking like a knuckle dragging Neanderthal. I didn’t ask to be what I was or wasn’t. Why couldn’t everyone accept me or leave me alone?
Shla and I missed lunch, thank you very much Mrs. Jordan. We missed Algebra. When we arrived at Computer Programming, it was half over. I headed straight for Mr. Reed when we walked into his classroom.
“Sorry Sir, Shla and I were taken down to the office because of a complaint by another student.”
He was looking at the girl standing beside me. “Shla?”
“Yes Sir, Shla de Costa, transfer student. My first day.” She handed Mr. Reed an admission slip.
He scanned it and then looked up at us. “He looked at the other girl. Do you have and admission slip too? Did you ladies bring me a tardy slip also excusing your absence from this class?”
“Mr. Reed, I’m Audrey Rider, I’m enrolled in your class.”
James Reed took a hard look at the exotic young girl. He had heard the school grapevine was on fire with rumors Audrey Rider had changed since the altercation a week and half ago in the principle’s office. Audrey was his quietest most diligent student. He assumed Audrey was a boy with a girl’s name. The girl standing in front of him was the right height but nothing else matched. He knew makeup could change a girl’s looks but this? “I’ll take your word for it, Miss Rider.”
“Thank you, Sir. We didn’t bring any absence slips with us. Things were getting more than interesting after my lawyer Mrs. Morgan Custman arrived. We were ushered out of the office at that point and told to go to our normal class.”
“Your lawyer was called in? I’d love to hear that story, Miss Rider. This is not the time nor the place. You ladies find an unoccupied console. Audrey you have missed a week and a half. Sometimes my students know more than what is in the book or what I can teach them. I’ve noticed you have been coasting through this class, I don’t think you will have any problem picking up where we are now.”
“Miss de Costa, I haven’t seen your transcript. Are you computer literate enough you feel comfortable in this class? If not, study hall or another class might be more your thing.”
Shla looked around the room at all the computers and the kids logged in. “Personally, I hate computers. They are a waste of time. They lose valuable information when one needs it most. They are prone to giving away one’s personal history to unscrupulous third parties. And the information one seeks is seldom easy to find and hardly ever correct.”
“Then why are you taking this class?” Mr. Reed was curious.
“Because it is here and I’m here. To answer your first question, yes I do understand computers and programming. The cursed things have been my nightmare for…, awhile/ I am forced to stay current with what…, calls progress due to the type of job I have. I assure you, no matter where this class is in computer programming; I am proficient and up to date.”
“That’s bold talk Miss de Costa. Let’s see if you are as good as you claim. There is a spare workbook on my desk. Get it and find yourself a computer terminal. We are on lesson fifty seven in the work book. The class is already half over. I’d like to see how far your skills takes you when the bell rings.”
“Miss Rider, the same goes for you. Don’t disappoint me. Show me you are as smart as I believe you are. Ladies, you are wasting valuable time up here talking to me. Find yourselves a computer and get to work.”
Shla and I found vacant computers side by side. I sat down and opened up the preloaded program. We were supposed to debug a financial program for an imaginary bank. I dug in knowing with only thirty minutes I’d never get it done. Ten minutes later I looked over to see how Shla was doing. The darn girl was reading computer language and two thirds of the way through the program. If she wasn’t using magic to do the job for her, she was PhD grade. I wondered what Shla’s job description really was? She was more than just a bodyguard. The girl was serious hard case in more ways than one. One thing I was certain of. She wasn’t sixteen. Try a couple thousand years, if not more.
My swelled head thinking I was some sort of computer expert was dashed by the end of the class. Mr. Reed had walked to the back of the class and was standing behind us before the end of the class. I had found six errors in the program where there were supposed to be seventeen. Shla found nineteen. The two she found not in the workbook, defaulted back to correcting its own code. Kinda like a bank robber guarding the bank.
Mr. Reed was studying Shla’s printout. He was almost positive she made an error in the two the workbook didn’t list. But then the girl had completed what should have taken two days in…? He looked at his watch, twenty six minutes.
The bell rang, most of the kids were looking at their dismal efforts for the hour. After the two girls walked into the class it was hard to concentrate on a computer program. Mr. Reed was still studying Shla’s efforts. “Miss de Costa, I’m going to ask you again, why are you taking this class? I have a very strong feeling debugging programs isn’t your only talent with computers. May I have your word you will not be hacking into any computers while you are in this school?”
She turned her computer to standby. “You have my word I will not be hacking any computers from this classroom.”
“I guess that will have to be good enough then. Miss Rider, I expected more. Tomorrow when you come to my class bring your mind and your attention.”
“My apologies Mr. Reed. Today hasn’t been a very calm day for me. I’m sure you will hear of it later. Some of the kids believe it is my fault the basketball team was suspended. I was accused of breaking a kid’s arm in the lunchroom. That was the reason we were detained in the principal’s office until my lawyer showed up.”
“I see. Hopefully tomorrow won’t have all these distractions. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
Shla and I picked up our backpacks, we were the last to leave. There were three basketball players waiting in the hall. Shla stepped up ahead of me. “This is getting old real fast. You want to beat Audrey’s ass bad enough she won’t return to school? Use a little logic. You probably won’t be able to get it done here in the hallway. You would get expelled yourselves. After school maybe? Nope, again fighting on school grounds.”
“At Ryan and Staple there is an old boxing gym which is mostly a hangout for losers. Very appropriate for what you wish to do. Audrey and I will meet you there this afternoon at six. It will be sanctioned. The school and the law authorities can’t complain. Unless you’re too chicken shit to face two girls in a cage match, free form fighting.”
If those kids didn’t want to kill me before, I was positive they were determined to do exactly that now.
Shla turned away before she turned back and looked at them again. “I forgot. Bring all your buddies who want a piece of our ass.” She walked off rolling her hips in a rhythm most girls would have been jealous of.
I couldn’t believe she taunted these guys and then left me there alone. Maybe her idea of bodyguard and mine were two different concepts? Wasn’t the idea the bodyguard was supposed to keep their client from getting killed, not encourage someone to do the job?
The guys were switching their attention from the retreating form of a perfect female figure to glaring hatred at me. Jacob decided he liked the idea of mopping the floor up with two girls. “We’ll be there bitch.”
I didn’t say anything as I headed down the hall to American Business class. I was positive Shla had signed my death warrant. I spent my life avoiding confrontations. Fighting was a skill I never learned and had no desire to learn.
When I got to class Shla was there talking to Mrs. Word who looked at me as I walked into her class. “Audrey, I was there in the lunchroom. I’m happy to see the problems were resolved in the principal’s office. Welcome back to class.”
“Yes, Ma’am, thank you Ma’am.” I headed toward the back of the room and a desk feeling like this was my last hours before the executioner.
“What were you thinking?” I stared at Shla as she sat down beside me.
“Stop hiding, Audrey. You have a life, live it like you own it. Stop letting someone else control your life because you don’t want to prove they can’t scare you into doing what they want.”
“But I am scared. I’ve learned to be a good little rabbit and run when things get rough. It worked for me so far.”
“Until Coach Walker chased you down.”
“Yeah, there is that.” I conceded.
“Survival doesn’t mean you need to be stronger or bigger than anyone who attacks you. Be smarter, quicker than your opponent. You’ve been running from those guys for years. In their own demented way they are as conditioned to attack you as you are to run from them. It is time for things to change for both parties. An intelligent conversation is not going to stop this nonsense.”
“Know this Audrey, if you don’t understand anything else, I will not let anyone hurt you. There are two people who would skin me alive if I let that happen. Personally, I’m a little attached to my skin and wish to keep it.”
By last hour, the school telegraph had spread the word Mrs. Jordan had been arrested. There were dozens of rumors why she was arrested. The one top of the list was she took Audrey Rider down to the office and spanked her or hit her. Kids and teachers alike were giving me a wide path. All except the basketball members. When the school day was over, nine of them had gathered around my locker waiting for me. Shla’s offer to meet them later hadn’t deterred them in their desire to give me pain before I left the school.
Coming down the hall to gather books from my locker for homework, I saw the boys. The hallway was eerily empty as others didn’t want to get caught up in the feud and get detention, expelled, or arrested. Stopping, I was thinking about forgetting the books, going through the gym and out the side door.
Shla walked past me and up within a couple feet of the closest ones. “Guys, this is not your smartest move. I made a tentative offer of meeting all of you in a place where a fight isn’t illegal. Audrey and her parents will sign a hold harmless contract the same as me.”
She reached behind her back and pulled a sheath of papers out of her backpack. “In order to be fair, you also need to get your parents to sign a contract along with your own signature and get two witnesses to sign who are adult age.” She held out the papers to the closest boy.
He took the papers. Even though the girl looked like a gymnast or body builder he was sure he and his friends wouldn’t have any problem giving her a beat down. “Just the two of you?”
Shla smiled. “Just Audrey and myself against all of you or how ever many show up.”
He pointed at me. “It’s a deal. Bring the fairy princess and an ambulance. He is going to find out it isn’t smart to get the team suspended. Wearing a dress isn’t going to protect him. Faggot!”
Shla walked with me out to the parking lot where I would wait on Sandy to stop by. Sandy told me she would give me a ride home. “Shla, you don’t need to wait around. My sister will be by in a few minutes. I’ll be okay.”
“Audrey, you and I, are joined at the hip until your education matures a whole lot more.”
“Matures? I’ll be in high school in five months. Are you saying we are together until I graduate high school or possibly college? If I switch to another school and there isn’t any one who knows me, the teasing and bullying will probably stop.”
Shla looked around to make sure we didn’t have any eavesdroppers. “That education is important. It wasn’t the one I was talking about. Illana blessed you with knowledge and magic. For some strange reason you took to the healing magic like a duck to water. You’re able to manipulate it in a way that was a surprise to everyone. Yet, your other magical skills you seem to be ignoring although Illana can sense them in you. Most faeries have one or two magical skills they can use. I have three. Your mother, Illana has more than any other present faerie is known to possess. She says you have all of hers as she can sense them in you. Your problem is your lack of training or education using your magic.”
“Those problems you faced today should have been a ho hum situation as you made the boys forget why they hated you. Or you could have made them forget you existed. The teacher problem could have and should have been handled the same way. The forget spell is a very useful magical spell. It is one I wished I had and one you better learn to control sooner rather than later. You keep healing mortals with them remembering they were sick and got better because you were there is a coming nightmare for you and your family.”
I was disgusted and ashamed Shla would tell me to stop healing mortals when it took no effort and those I healed would make great contributions to the rest of the world. “They were good, kind people with the potential to give so much back. I don’t regret healing Dr. Clark, or Amanda Lasky…,”
“The little girl?”
“Yes, she is going to make a difference in so many lives which would be ruined if she didn’t grow up and become a lawyer and a judge.”
“That is another one of your gifts confusing everyone. Do you see the future so clearly or are you guessing to salve you conscience as a reason you healed them?”
“I’ve only seen the future of those three. I can’t see your future, my sister’s future, my dad, or my own. It isn’t something I can call up. It happened, I was meant to heal them because I could.”
Shla sighed. “Know this, Audrey. A butterfly when it takes to wing, a flower when it blooms, a grain of sand blown across the beach changes the future because they were. The smallest most insignificant things in life make changes in our future, everyone’s future as they move or are moved. Everyone may or may not notice the small things. The big things like a volcano erupting, a tidal wave washing ashore, or earthquakes bringing down buildings they notice and may or may not realize it is changing the future. The little things do that too. I have no idea what you are doing to the future. Neither does anyone else. Most everyone is taking a wait and see attitude.”
Sandy’s van turned the corner headed our way. “Am I doing something I shouldn’t? Have I made the world worse instead of making it better? Will thousands, millions die because I healed Dr. Clark, Amanda, or Morgan? Please tell me it won’t happen.”
“You claim you see the future of those people so clearly. I don’t doubt your conviction nor your ability. Yet, only a couple of the most ancient can foresee the future with any small hope of what they foretell isn’t going to change. The future is not a stable event. A butterfly died splattered against a car windshield instead of mating and laying eggs setting in events for a total crop failure in Mongolia. Is the crop failure real? Yes. No one knows what chain of events caused it.”
“You are not responsible for changing the future but then you are. There is no right nor wrong to the actions you take or the things you do. Live your life Audrey, do what you feel is right. Don’t try and manipulate the future to your will. You can’t. No one can. Not even the gods have that ability.”
When Sandy pulled up to the curb, I got in the front, Shla slid into the back. I figured introductions were in order. “Sis, this is Shla, she checked into school today.” I pointed at Sandy. This is my sis, Sandy.”
Sandy looked in the mirror at her, nodded and pulled away from the curb. “New girl huh? Where did you transfer from? Don’t need to make up something or try and hide it. You are giving off serious vibes. You’re a faerie.”
Shla was looking back into the mirror at Sandy. “You’re a surprise. To know what I am you must be sentient. I looked up the registry of everyone in your family history. You aren’t even listed as a low level faerie. It takes a medium level to be sentient. Your sister was a surprise at how quickly and easily she could work the healing spell. The possible explanation is there is a second bloodline in your family’s past linage. Although making assumptions is truly fruitless. Word has been passed back to the record keepers so they can refresh their research. Audrey has already turned all rules of magic upside down. There is no way she can possibly be doing what she’s doing. The songs of healing haven’t been used in several thousand years. The blended power is in essence a dozen…, nay, a hundred times more powerful than the art of healing by itself. A renewed interest has begun in magic and song. So far no one has been able to repeat Audrey’s magic. For those who are trying the words add no strength. That is the reason it was discontinued and forgot. I am told Casta was the last of our song weavers. She was very beautiful and gifted with a beautiful voice beyond all others. Her ability to weave magical spells was unmatched. She was the last to use songs to enhance her magic.”
“I’ll explain further when we get to your home. Illana along with four others will meet us there. They are going to do some spell casting to see if this blending of ancient magic comes from Kevin or was a hidden seed in Janet. Not all the aura spreading out around Audrey is due to Illana’s gifts. To say your sister has shaken the Faerie Realm to its very foundation is an understatement.”
As Sandy turned the corner to our street and house, it looked like mom and dad were throwing a party as there were four cars parked in the street in front of our house. I never was very comfortable around a lot of strangers. “I’m not sure I want to go home.”
Sandy didn’t take the hint as she pulled into our driveway. “I can sense more faeries. Let’s go see who all is here.”
As the three of us entered the living groom I noticed Illana immediately as she was standing next to mom.
Mom (Janet) motioned me over. “Audrey, I have had a very nice visit with your mother Illana. We have been talking about you.”
Slowly walking over to them, I had no idea how I was supposed to handle this, finally deciding to use their given names. “Janet, may I give Illana a hug?”
I thought both of them were going to laugh at me as their smiles got so big. Janet gave a slight nod of her head toward Illana. “Of course you may and you shouldn’t ask me if it is okay. She is after all your mother.”
“Yes Ma’am, and so are you…, mom. This is so awkward.”
I leaned in and gave Illana a heart felt hug. “Thanks for everything…, mother.”
Illana gave me a warm hug back. “It will get easier with time, Audrey. Janet and I are willing to share whatever you will share with each of us. She is really a special person in her own right. She had to inherit my seed from a long line of women in order to give it to you when you were born. What we didn’t expect was being around you would awaken your mother’s, your father’s, and your sister’s abilities.”
“Dad?” It was then I turned my attention on him and could sense the faerie magic in him. As a male it was not much but it was there.
Janet took my left hand and Illana my right. Illana pointed to a woman and a young girl quietly sitting on the couch. The rail thin, anorexic, girl looked like she was seventeen or there abouts. She had a scarf covering her head. “Audrey, this is Colleen and her daughter Samantha.”
The room had suddenly gone quiet as everyone was watching me. Colleen squeezed her daughter’s hand. The clock in the hallway was ticking loud enough it could have been Big Ben. A minute passed as I stared at the girl.
Illana squeezed my hand. “Audrey?”
“I.., I’m sorry, I don’t feel anything.” Even a blind person would suspect the girl had cancer if she was hiding a baldhead with a scarf.
Tears leaked out of her mother’s eyes. And yet the only sound was the ticking of that stupid hall clock getting louder and louder. “SHUT UP!” I screamed at the clock.
A couple people sucked in their breath and all sound ceased to exist. Except the heartbeat of the girl. It wasn’t a strong beat. The chemo they were dumping into her along with the radiation was taking its toll on her young body.
Walking over in front of her I lifted her right hand and held it to my heart. “We are one, you and I. My heart beats for your heart. Come, join me in the glen with the flowers, the birds, the animals.”
Standing in a meadow I was surrounded by Mother Nature’s beauty everywhere I looked. The birds were in full song in the grasses and trees. Flowers of all kinds and colors carpeted the meadow. Bunnies, deer, bears, wolves, badgers, animals of all ages surrounded me looking on.
“Samantha, come, join me for this place is your place of healing. I was holding onto her hand, but her form was only a transparency so thin she was almost not there. She looked around. In her enthusiasm to see it all she spun in a circle turning loose of my hand. Quickly she reached out and grabbed it again. She was becoming more solid by the second now.
“You see your own healing place don’t you, Samantha?”
She vigorously nodded in agreement. She was solid now, a very beautiful girl with polished brown eyes, long sleek auburn hair down to her waist, ruby red lips, beautiful arched eyebrows and to die for long lush lashes. The girl was a heart stopping beauty.
“Come, I want you to see yourself in the pool.” I was singing as I led her by the hand over to the small pool. The water was glass smooth. She could see herself perfectly, even better than if she was looking into a mirror. Her hands went to her mouth as she turned to look at me. I nodded without stopping my singing the song in my mind. I knew it had to be sung until it was finished so she would be too. The birds were adding their own chorus to the song, blending in beautifully.
The song was finished, the birds weren’t as they kept singing their joyful melody in the meadow. I have no idea how long we stayed but it was awhile. “Samantha, we must return. This place is yours and you can come back to it anytime you feel you want. I don’t think you can bring friends with you as they wouldn’t understand. It takes a special gift inside your heart to come here and only you have that gift.”
She pointed at my heart. That caused me to giggle. “Well, let’s just say I have an insider’s track on these things and the flowers, the birds, the animals invited me.”
Samantha threw her arms around me and hugged me like there would be no tomorrow. That was how we were when the room and everyone else came back into focus. Samantha had returned as the beautiful girl she was in the meadow.
Everyone in the room was staring, some with their mouths open. Colleen looked like she was about ready to faint.
Oh SHIT! I didn’t say it out loud but I knew I had stepped into the proverbial shit up to my eyeballs. Sam was taking the full regiment of cancer treatment. Her walking back into her doctor’s office looking like she does now was going to explode on all the news around the world. I would be fleeing for my life when my name was mentioned.
Shla was the first to assess the situation. She walked up beside me. “The forget spell, Audrey. You must cast the forget spell on her. No one else can do it since you were the one who healed her. Magic is kind of persnickety about keeping things going from the same person when it’s this deeply cast. You must cast a forget spell and make it contagious so all who come in contact with her don’t remember her cancer.”
Turning, I glared at Shla. “ME! I told you I can’t cast any spells. I don’t even understand what I’m doing when I heal someone. This one sure wasn’t the same as any of the others.”
The corners of Shla’s mouth curled up as her eyes took on a mischievous gleam all their own. “Oh, you mean you don’t normally carry sick people off to only you and them know where, heal them, enhance their beauty, and then bring them back? You mean you never did that one before?”
“we were gone…”
“Totally. Not even a wet spot on the carpet to indicate either of you had been here.”
“wet spot…”
“Small joke. It has happen when someone with no experience tries to teleport and…, Nope, better left unsaid.”
“Why didn’t you stop me?”
“Stop you? Hon, no one knew you were capable. When we finally got our collective minds working again it was too late. You were gone. I don’t think it would have made a whole lot of difference. I don’t think anyone here is capable of rerouting the magic you are using. We don’t know what it is or where you’re drawing it from?”
She pointed at Samantha. “Back to the problem. And only you can fix it. A forget spell about now would be nice.”
Samantha stepped back. “You’re telling her to make me sick again?”
“No hon, but the problem is people who know you’ve been sick and see you now will not let this situation quietly disappear. They will want to go over you with a fine tooth comb and demand who did this for you. Audrey has to cast a forget spell on you so everyone will not remember you were sick.”
“Oh, I guess that would be for the best wouldn’t it?”
“Most definitely. Audrey, you’re up darling.”
“I can’t. I have never done a magic spell much less a specific one such as a forget spell.”
“Illana, a little help here. We are in a hurry up and learn lesson on this one. While Audrey is watching cast a forget spell on me.”
“Okay.” Illana came over.
Shla held up her hand. “Don’t get carried away. A little one takes the same spell as a mind eraser does.”
She nodded in agreement. “What do you and Audrey both know if you forget, she will remember?”
Shla thought for a couple seconds. “There was a problem in the lunchroom today. Audrey was accused of breaking a boy’s wrist. She didn’t do it. I know because I did it.”
Illana held up her right hand, her palm toward Shla’s face, or maybe her brain? She began chanting. “koala du bl sora uc doo, nuba isst ca astaw”
As I watched there was a micro thread of energy, magic, or what evers between Illana’s hand and Shla’s head. And then it was gone.
Shla was still waiting. “Well?”
“Well what?” Illana looked like she was going to giggle but she didn’t.
“When are you going to cast the spell?”
Illana turned toward me. “Audrey you wanted to ask Shla a question?”
“Of course. Shla, in the lunchroom today a boy claimed I broke his wrist. Did you catch his name?”
“When did that happen? No boy claimed you broke his wrist. For some odd reason you were called down to the principle’s office. We missed lunch because I went with you. That must have happen before I transferred in. You forget I’ve only been with you since this morning?”
“Illana, I’m not sure I can do what you just did. I saw all the mechanisms you used to get it to take effect. I haven’t used magic that way and not even sure I could if I wanted. Are you able to remove it?”
“Sure. Since I cast it, all I need to do is retrieve it. An incantation isn’t needed for that.” She waved her hand. “Done.”
Watching that one, I understood why it was so simple. As Illana said, she cast the spell and could recall it even easier. “Shla, remember the boy in the lunchroom who claimed I broke his wrist?”
“Dumbert, I watched him walk up beside you and knew he was up to something. Why, what has that got to do with you casting a forget spell?”
“I have the basics of how it works now. Everyone, if you don’t want to forget Samantha had cancer and what she looked like when she arrived, you need to take that memory and pull back from her. If you don’t, you will forget and wonder what a pretty girl like her is doing here at this time.”
“Samantha, you need to send your thoughts to your special place so you don’t forget what you and your mom have been through the past two years. Colleen, take my hand and don’t let go until I tell you or you will lose all memory of Samantha’s sickness. You won’t be able to understand where all the money went. That will be removed from your mind.”
“Shla, you said we couldn’t alter the future from what is as it has its own course. You’re partially right. The memory of Samantha’s sickness are little spots in the past like little mailboxes where anyone with access may retrieve the memory. I’m gong to blank out those mailboxes. When anyone tries to retrieve the memory of her sickness it will disappear. In return those memories as they would have been generated in the future are no longer there either.”
“Samantha, you need to go to your place now. Colleen, take my hand and don’t turn lose. Everyone pull back. I think I have this.” Pulling in the memory of what Samantha looked like I started pulling that in and enclosing it. Maybe a better description is, I was pushing it back into a black wall of nothing. Slowly the picture of her as the sickness ravaged her was slowly sinking into the darkness behind it. Other memories of her started flowing into that same black wall. The first ones matched the emancipated girl. As they kept coming they started changing into a more and more healthy girl. It was a reverse kaleidoscope of her as she changed from a sick girl to a healthy girl.
I stopped when the doctor said, “You have cancer.” The memories of her and the cancer had been put away. I wasn’t sure if they were erased or just pushed out of the past? What I failed to notice was the room had got dark. It was now starting to lighten up again.
Colleen was still clutching my arm. With a death grip I might add. “Colleen, it is done. You may turn lose. Do you still remember your daughter being sick and the many trips to the hospital?”
She turned loose and looked at Samantha, a beautiful healthy girl. “Yes, it wasn’t a nightmare was it? Sam and I really did fight for her life for a couple years.”
Reaching over I touched the girl. “Sam, you can come back now.”
She blinked a couple times and turned her head to look around the room. “It is so beautiful.”
“Yes, but it isn’t your home nor your life. Don’t start thinking you can stay there. This here and now is your life. In it’s own way it is even more beautiful and peaceful. Enjoy both, Sam. They are yours now.”
“That…, was interesting.” Illana was looking around the room. “I believe all of us had enough of an introduction to Audrey’s way of using her gifts. Did anyone follow what she was doing and think they can perform it themselves?”
“Sho?” Illana looked at one of the four women in the room I had yet to be introduced to.
“From what I can only guess, she is using Casta’s magic. How would we know? We only have records of what Casta could do. No one has been able to repeat her magic. Did anyone else hear Audrey, humming while she cast the forget spell? The black wall she created felt like I had a vacuum cleaner hose stuck to my head trying to pull out the memory of Samantha.”
Everyone in the room looked around in agreement. Alish answered for all of them. “She was humming a melody. She uses sound, harmonics, resonance to enhance what she is doing. It must be in perfect pitch or it wouldn’t have any effect…, would it?”
Another woman kinda waved her hand. “Since no one introduced us. Hi Audrey, I’m Murses. I agree with Sho, you seem to have inherited Casta’s magic. Toss that in with Illana’s gifts and I can’t wait to see what else you are capable of. That’s besides restoring a mortal’s health and beauty.”
She glanced at Samantha, “I know Audrey didn’t give you or your mother a forget spell. She took extra effort to protect you both. You mention any of this and you probably condemned Audrey and her family to death. There are people out there who won’t hesitate to take control of her. Holding her family hostage would be one way to accomplish that. They wouldn’t need all of them. One would work or none if Audrey was convinced they were being held even if they were all dead.”
“It is another reason none of us try to help mortals in any way. We want to remain as fairy tales told to young kids as parents tuck them into their beds. Besides…” Murses laughed. “None of us besides Audrey can heal mortals. I don’t think it has been done in a thousand years or more.”
“Samantha, you and your mother were invited here with a partial truth. We aren’t here only to start a fund raiser to help pay for Samantha’s medical bills. We needed someone to test Audrey’s ability to heal. Some of us have been around long enough and smart enough to stay away from the ups and downs of nations rising and falling. To put it another way, we have done quite well in the financial affairs of the mortal world. An amount equal to the money your parents have already spent on your medical will be put into a college trust for you. Don’t squander your chance to have a higher education, Samantha.”
The happy look on Samantha’s face got even bigger. “Ladies, you gave me a second chance at life. I’m not going to waste it. I’m going into medical and get a doctor’s degree.”
Shla looked happy. “Now you have a handle on a forget spell, we’re all ready for the fight tonight.”
“Fight? What’s this about a fight? What kind of fight? Audrey?” Dad was staring at me.
Looking back a dad and then around at the others in the room, dad seemed to be the only one out of the loop. That is besides Sam and her mother. I pointed at Shla. “She told the whole basketball team I would meet them in some kind of arena at six for a fight. I think the idea is when I get my butt kicked by all of them they will leave me alone from now on.”
“That isn’t what I said nor did I give that impression.” Shla looked indignant. “I said WE would meet them in the arena. The idea is for Audrey to lay forget spells on them.”
“And I told you I didn’t know how to do that. I’m still not that sure I can do it. I have no idea what I did nor how I did it. Don’t you think it would be a lot safer if I had time to practice? Like a hundred years or more?”
Illana was beside me. She took my hands into hers, looked me in the eyes, and then closed hers. I felt her magic, she was trying to give me knowledge on how to use it.
“Illana, you already blessed me with your gifts. I have them. I have your knowledge of magic, your knowledge how to use it, how to cast it. Illana…, mom, what I don’t have is experience. You gave the Lamborghini car keys to a b…, girl who has never driven before. Do you really believe I could use all the knowledge and talent you know and understand when this is what you acquired over a…, time?”
“I feel your gifts inside me growing stronger. I could kill or vanquish those who tease and bully me. I could destroy the schools where I’ve been bullied for the past five years. Can I be positive I have absolute control over what I unleash to know I’m not hurting the innocent who may be close by?”
“What I’m saying, I use the forget spell in an arena. Can it be controlled enough to not affect all those in there who came to watch? What about the forget spell itself? Can I make them forget they dislike me without wiping out their minds completely?”
“Ladies, you were born and grew up around magic and those who teach it, use it. I don’t have that experience. From what you are telling me, none of you understand the way I’m using magic. You THINK, maybe Casta used magic the way I am. What I think is I’m in way over my head with this magic stuff and shouldn’t be doing it.”
Janet stepped up in front of me, wrapped her arms around me and gave me a serious hug. She backed up and looked me in the eyes. “Audrey, do you have fire in your magic spells?”
“I haven’t tried one. Why?”
Mom pointed to one of her decorative candles on the cabinet by the door. “Light the candle without setting the house on fire.”
“What will that prove?”
All the faeries were smiling now.
“It will prove two things. One you have fire in your magical gifts and you have total control over your magic.
“Fine, does dad have fire insurance?” I looked at the candle and pictured a cute flame dancing on the wick.
Sandy was the first to question. “Did she do it or is she casting an illusion? That isn’t a normal flame.”
Mom walked over and passed her hand over the flame. “It’s real enough as it is giving off heat and light. But it isn’t real. The wick isn’t burning nor is the candle melting next to the flame.”
“A fire without a fire? Some can cast illusions of a fire. They certainly don’t give off heat. Janet, pick up the candle next to it to test if the flame will light the other candle.” Illana was curious what kind of fire Audrey had created.
Janet did as directed and was quickly holding a second candle with the wick burning and was starting to drip. “It is a real fire. It isn’t consuming what it is sitting on though.”
“AUDRERY!” Janet glanced back at her daughter who was now holding a ball of fire in her right hand and poking it with a finger on her left hand.
All eyes focused on Audrey and what she was doing. Shla held her hand out toward the flame in Audrey’s hand. She didn’t need to touch it. “It’s hot.”
“I don’t feel it. I wonder if I can make it hotter?” I instantly had a picture of fire changing from red to blue. The flame in my hand changed to a blue flame.
Shla took a step back. “It’s definitely hotter. I can feel the heat on my face.”
Poking it with my finger, moving it around on my palm I still didn’t feel the heat on my hand, my arm, nor my face. I pictured a flame that was white hot and I was holding it in my hand.
“AUDREY! YOU’LL SET THE HOUSE ON FIRE!” Janet was screaming as everyone else was backing up from the heat.
Slapping my left hand on top I covered it up. “I don’t feel it. Why does everyone else?”
“You created it, Audrey. Fire created by magic doesn’t burn its creator. At first. I’ve never seen anyone able to hold onto their fire for more than a few seconds. They either need to cast it or cancel it before it burns them. The majority of fire casters only create a red flame. Very few can create a blue flame. I’ve never seen or heard of anyone creating a white flame. Illana was staring at Audrey’s hands. “Is it gone?”
“It is now.” I opened up my hands.
“You were holding it all this time?” Sho looked doubtful.
I was studying the floor as I hung my head. “Yes Ma’am. I can bring it back if you like.”
Alish started laughing. “Sho is a hard sell. Don’t mind her Audrey. The rest of us believe you. I could still feel the heat escaping between your hands.”
“Illana, ladies, I’ve seen enough. I don’t believe Audrey is using magic that has been around in thousands of years, if ever. I also agree with Audrey in she is capable but needs experience and training. I don’t think anyone wants to see what can happen if she really cuts lose in this mortal world. It could turn into a major catastrophe we wouldn’t be able to cover up.”
“I won’t…,”
“Audrey, we know you wouldn’t do anything foolish on purpose but everyone gets mad at some point in their life. Hon, a little flare up from you could mean people die, buildings destroyed. There are really bad faeries and mortals out there. What if you run into one of them and they decide to kill you and those you are with. What are you prepared to do? Nothing is an option I don’t believe you would take. Not now you have had a taste of casting magic.” Janet walked over and hugged Audrey. “I love you hon but you have been given some very powerful gifts. Not all of them comes from your other mother, Illana.”
“Audrey, you need to think about dropping out of school and coming with us back to our Realm.” Illana moved up beside Shla. “There are really bad people there too. The thing is though, when you defend yourself if someone attacks you the laws are pretty cut and dried. One is allowed to use whatever force is necessary to stop an aggression. Magic is not something to be trifled with. I feel all of us are in agreement you need more time, more practice with the magic you have tapped into.”
My life and things around me were changing too fast. “I’d like to hang onto a little normalcy for a little while. There are only a couple more months for this school year. I’d like to finish it if possible. The fight Shla arraigned this afternoon might change all that. If it doesn’t I’ll return to school. I want to have at least that. I can’t see my own future. I don’t need to see it to understand this is probably the last public school I’ll ever attend. Events are moving toward me I won’t be able to stop.
By five O’clock Colleen and Samantha were sent on their way. Everyone else decided they were going to the gym. All of them, including Shla, thought I could lay forget magic on the boys and everything would be good. I knew better. Their hatred toward me was from many boys, other kids, and teachers. I was the focal point. Just as Samantha had been the focal point for her cancer history. There were many points of hate directed toward me. In my case I would need to work on each one not the collective. There was a second problem. I had no idea how the magic I used work. What I did know was the magic I had been using required singing or harmonics to give it a push. Singing and pushing magic while being pummeled didn’t seem like a viable plan.
My whole life seemed to be spiraling out of control since the locker room incident. I was starting to think being a rabbit, a coward, getting shoved around and beat on wasn’t that bad of a life. Problem is, there was no way back. Life was like a one-way street, we could only go ahead.
One would think with a house full of Faeries someone could conjure up supper. Dad ordered four large pizzas, bread sticks, and cheese sticks. He sent Sandy to get sodas and ice. I didn’t wait for an invite as I was in the van before Sis opened her door.
She didn’t hesitate as she was quickly backing out of the drive. “I guess you decided to ride along?”
“Yeah, all those people there were stifling. I felt like I was in bed and under the covers. Not bad at first but eventually it seems like I was running out of oxygen.”
She took a quick look in my direction. “Because of the auras around them? I know it is different than what mortals have. You think that is it?”
“Probably Sis, that and a whole lot more. They are pushing magic around even when they aren’t. I mean Illana, Shla, and those four women have been using magic for so long it kinda swirls around them all the time.”
Sandy pulled up in front of the quick stop. “And me? Does mom and dad have that now?”
“May I?” I held my hand out toward Sandy.
“Sure.”
I was positive anyone looking at us would think I was patting the air. “This is the boundary of your aura. It has grown five or six inchs in diameter since you picked me up at school. I can see it, I don’t even need to be near you to sense it. I can’t control what comes to me about the future. It’s spontaneous and frustrating as hell. When you asked me about you just now I got a glimpse of your future.”
“When you picked Shla and me up at school, she said you had to be a medium magic user to sense she was one also. You aren’t there yet. Sis, I love you, mom, and dad. I would have been happy if we had been the typical neighbors next door in our neighborhood. We, all of us, passed that when I was attacked by coach Walker. Illana blessed me with magic, I brought it home. This caused the magic in all you to begin surfacing. Dad is a one magic user. He has reached his full potential. Mom…, Janet, is a three magic user. She will reach her potential in a few more months. As little as mom and dad have, their combined magic given to you at birth became a hybrid. Not only the best of both but far better than the strong magic my other mom, Illan has. You’re between a one and a two in magic. You sensed Shla as you’re already drawing more powerful magic even though you can’t feel it or use it yet.”
“I can’t see the future. At times it comes in running over me like a truck. Magic users are rated on a grade one to ten. Ironically the same way mortals grade women isn’t it? You’re not going to become a ten, you’re going past that in handling magic. Don’t wait any longer than the end of this school year to go to the Faerie Realm. You need serious training in handling the different magic spells you’re gifted with.”
Sandy was studying me. “And you? Audrey, I grew up with you. We played tag and climbed trees together. You have always been my best friend…,”
She held up her hand to stop me. “I know the past couple years I shoved you away so you wouldn’t embarrass me with my girlfriends and boyfriends. I forgot one of the most important people in my life who was always there for me no matter what. I traded that person for parties and dates not understanding how much I was hurting her. And yes, looking back, you always were more of a girl than many of the genetic girls. You were my little sister until you played dress up with me on a Sunday. It was your birthday. My gift to you was letting you wear one of my nicest dresses, styling your hair, and putting makeup and jewelry on you. You were such a beautiful sister. I was so proud of you I wanted to take you to the mall with me. That day you went a hundred and eighty back to being as much of a boy as you could. Looking back, I realize you never felt what I saw. Did you believe I was trying to embarrass you when I asked you to go to the mall with me? You worked real hard at hiding any feminine actions after that. You were very good at it.”
She leaned across the seat and pulled me into a hug. “Audrey, I’m so sorry for what I did. Until now I never realized how much I hurt you.”
Hugging sis, we were both tearing up. I pushed back and wiped the tears off her face with the back of my hand. “I was too scared to go to the mall even though I wanted to more than anything I had ever wanted before. It wasn’t all your fault, Sis. You gave me one of the nicest birthday gifts I have ever received. There was no way I could do it again. The pain of not being your sister every day was not something I could handle. It was best to shut it down and never bring it back again because it would only bring more pain.”
She reached over and wiped my eyes. “I bet I look like a raccoon now. You weren’t wearing makeup so you escaped that. God Audrey, you’re beautiful. I’m so proud and jealous at the same time.”
“Sis, you’re a late bloomer. You’ve always been pretty. Don’t be shocked by how beautiful you become in the months ahead. Magic users end up with a real strong dose of it working on themselves whether they call for it or not.”
Looking around outside there were a couple boys standing by the store watching us. They were too far away to notice what I was going to do. I started softly singing. It only took about fifteen seconds. Sandy’s makeup was even better than the best professionals could accomplish. All her natural beauty was brought out in abundance.
Sis had quietly listened when Audrey started singing and then wondered what it was for. Audrey’s voice was so captivating and beautiful. It was impossible to do anything but listen when she sang even when the words were nothing she could understand. “What was that for?”
I noticed the boys had turned goggle eyed as they stared at my sister. “Your makeup has been repaired. It is magical makeup and won’t smear or wear off. The catch is when you get tired of it you need to ask me to remove it. Sorry sis, some of the magic I’m using can’t be changed or altered by others.”
Sis turned the car mirror so she could see herself. “OH GOD! I need to learn that spell. That is so amazing. None of the girls are half as good at makeup. That is just so…, unbelievable. I must learn that spell.”
“We better get the ice and drinks. We have been gone long enough they probably decided to eat pizza without us.” I slid out of the van.
In the store everyone was staring at Sandy as we gathered up the goodies. One young woman closed in. “Excuse me Miss, have you done any modeling, acting, theater or movies?”
“Uh, no, nothing more than school plays.” Sandy was trying to understand why the lady asked?
“I thought someone with your beauty would already be snatched up by some talent agent. What’s your name? Do you live around here?”
“Sandy Rider, and yes I live here. Why do you ask?”
“My name is Gale Dawill, I’m from Los Angeles. I’m here visiting some friends. I’m a talent scout for Apache Properties. I’d love for you to come out to our studio for a screen test.”
“That’s a long way to go for a job interview. I don’t suppose your company up fronts any money for these screen tests?”
“No, afraid not. They put a lot of money into studio, equipment, labor, and other things for each person they test. All the potential actresses and actors are thrilled to be standing in front of movie cameras for an hour.”
Sandy looked at the woman wondering how many hopefuls made that trip thinking it was their big break for a chance at the movies? “Ms. Darwill, I’m not interested in traveling all that way for a job interview no matter what it might be. Now if you’ll excuse us, my sister and I are supposed to be bringing the ice and drinks to our own party.”
Gale held out a business card. “If you change your mind, my number is on the card.”
Sandy took the business card as a courtesy instead of telling the woman she was not interested.
The pizza had been delivered by the time Sis and I returned with the ice and drinks, When we walked into the kitchen heads started turning as everyone noticed Sandy. Trying her best to ignore everyone staring, Sis put the ice in the kitchen sink. She turned around. “Who wants ice in their cup?”
No one responded as Illana walked over and put her hand close to Sandy’s face. “Magic. There is enough magic glamour pushed into the makeup to…,”
She turned and looked at me. “I feel this is your doing. Audrey, I’m no longer surprised at what you are capable of. You need to be very very careful. Sandy is a pretty girl. You turned her into the Helen of Troy whose beauty launched a thousand ships.”
“I’m sorry. I thought I was supposed to practice?”
“Yes hon, however none of what you have done so far is low level or beginner’s magic. This…,” She pointed at Sandy, “Is four or six level magic although I’d call it a ten on the quality you did. There are levels within levels. I’ve seen some girls get their face really messed up by those who thought they could handle makeup at this level. In some cases it took days and weeks for the health practitioners to get the girls faces resembling something other than a hideous beast.”
As the pizza was devoured by all the time was closing in on six o’clock and that dreaded scheduled fight with the basketball guys who seemed to hate me. I had an idea. I quietly headed to my bedroom. Fifteen minutes later I came back into the living room where everyone had congregated after eating pizza.
Everyone turned to stare at me. Shla the hardest. She slowly closed her eyes and opened them again. What she was looking at was still there. “That is an interesting choice of what to wear to a no holds bared fight.”
“If the boys are going to hand my unhuh to me, why not? You ready to go?”
Everyone headed for the door. I swear Illana was laughing as she walked beside Janet. “Our daughter is a very entertaining and interesting young lady. I have no idea what she has planned. I wouldn’t miss this for all the chocolate in the world.”
Janet took another look at Audrey. “I hope she doesn’t get hurt. Audrey has never said anything but Sandy has been telling me some of the things the boys have been doing to her over the years. I’ve sent letters to the schools hoping they would stop the abuse. It didn’t seem to help. I’m ashamed to say I never went to the schools and filed a complaint in person.”
Illana reached over and took Janet by the arm. “What is in the past is done. It can’t be changed. Don’t regret what we didn’t do. Look at what we might do to rectify the problem now.”
Janet laughed. “Like turning the Super and Principle along with the school board into toads.”
Illana laughed along with Janet. “That sounds like a plan except I’m not able to cast that spell. If you can then be my guest.”
Janet’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “I can’t cast it either but I think I’ll work on it.”
Illana shook her head. “Be real careful with any spells you aren’t proficient with. They can go horribly wrong if not done perfectly. Those around you while you’re trying could be caught up in the spell unintentionally. If you don’t understand what you did, you won’t be able to remove it.”
Janet got serious as they reached the van. “Since you gifted Audrey, all of us could use some lessons and practice from those who are learned in the arts.”
Illana and Janet got in the back seats where they could carry on a conversation, leaving Kevin up front to drive. The others got in their own cars while Sandy, Shla, and me got in her van.
The parking lot at the gym was overflowing along with vehicles parked up and down the street. It looked like the whole Junior High along with the High School had shown up. Probably pulled in a few kids from other schools also. Sandy pulled up in front and stopped. “Get out. I saw a church parking lot a couple blocks down. I’ll park down there if there any spaces left.”
“Nothing doing, Sis. I’m not letting you walk back alone. The makeup I placed on you is still there and you’re a magnet for attention. Some of that attention is from the worst kind of animals who are two legged.”
Sandy looked in the rear view mirror as Shla and I were both in the back seat. “And you’re going to protect me? Who is going to protect you?”
I nodded toward Shla. “Meet our bodyguard. The girl could wrestle a six hundred pound grizzly and come out on top.”
Shla grinned. “Well not quite true but I’ll take that as a compliment. Maybe a three hundred pound grizzly.”
True to her word, Sandy found an empty spot in the church parking lot although the parking spaces here were pretty well taken up also. As we got out, Shla gave me a second look. “You’re serious about going in like that?”
“Dead serious. Which is what I’ll probably be by the time this is over. Come on, let’s go. We are late already.”
There were others who had parked in the same lot still leaving their vehicles. Most of them were staring at my sister. Even if she wasn’t looking back at them she could sense them staring. She glanced in my direction. “Your help on my makeup was much appreciated. It was fun for awhile but.”
“But?” I knew what she wanted to tell me. “It’s wearing kind of thin now as the novelty has worn off. Sis get use to it because sooner rather than later, the attention you draw will be your natural beauty. Your natural beauty will be just as eye catching as you are now.”
Sandy hesitated. “Audrey, are you looking at the future again?”
“Sis, I can’t control it. It comes at me as unexpectedly as it does to those around me. To answer your question, yes I saw you a year or less from now. You are a very beautiful woman, no longer a young girl but a young woman. All the magic you start handling changed you. I’m proud of you, Sis. You, mom, dad have always been what I wished I could be.”
Sandy leaned over and pulled her sister into a hug as tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes. “Oh Audrey, I’m so sorry for the way I have treated you. You never retaliated against any of the times I told you to butt out when I had girlfriends over. Looking back it breaks my heart to know and understand now how much you wanted to be with us girls.”
Pulling Sandy in, I squeezed her tight. “I understood, Sis. A little brother at an all girl party is an embarrassment. I don’t hold these things against you, when it was impossible for you to understand. Believe this with all your heart and soul, I love you and nothing will ever change that.”
Sandy pulled back and wiped her eyes. “You aren’t my little brother. Looking back, you never were, you were always my little sister. I don’t know why mom and me couldn’t see it at the time.” She wiped her eyes again. “I guess I smeared my makeup. Do I look like a raccoon now?”
That caused me to smile. “Sis, the makeup is magic. It doesn’t smear nor run. It looks as fresh now as it did when it was created over a couple hours ago. The only thing is when you kiss a guy you won’t leave lipstick on his lips nor his shirt. That can be amended if you like.”
Sis looked amazed. “You can create transferable makeup? My god Audrey, you’re so amazing in understanding how all this works. I hope one day I’m a tenth as good as you.”
“You’re going to be one of the best in your own right. Remember, Illana dumped a full load of her magic and knowledge into me. She gave me a cheaters head start.”
Shla closed her eyes and shook her head. “Audrey, I hate to burst your bubble. What you are doing with magic did not come from Illana. All those women you met earlier are over a thousand years old and they haven’t a clue where you’re pulling all this up from. None of us do. All of us are trying to figure out where and how you’re pulling all this understanding of what you’re doing. It’s the same with those flashes of the future you keep telling us. I’ve been with and trained by some of the best and personally girl, you frighten me a little. There is magic flowing around you none of us have ever seen or experienced.”
People were getting close enough to hear our conversation as we got close to the entrance. When we got to the door a couple guys were charging admission. I didn’t bring any money with me. I knew Shla didn’t. Sandy stepped up front. “Why are you charging people to get in? This is neither an advertised nor sponsored event.”
That got their attention. “Are you talking about the kids contest? That may be so, the thing is if anyone gets hurt, which they will, this is an open contest event. Someone always gets hurt. Someone has to pay the medical which the contestants usually don’t have coverage for even though they claim they do.”
“Does that mean you charge the contestants to get in also? If they don’t show up, you’d need to refund all the money you collected.”
“Well, no, we don’t charge the contestants. If you’re going to claim you’re a contestant I ain’t buying it.”
Sandy pointed to Shla and then me. “These two girls are contestants.”
Both men laughed as the one who had been doing all the talking gave us a hard look. “Nice try lady but I ain’t buying that one either. Now pay up or get out of road, you are blocking the door.”
I stepped up beside Sis. “Would you believe my sister if Shla bounced your butt out into the street? We are contestants. I’m Audrey Rider and this is my friend Shla De Costa. We agreed to meet the Lakewood Basketball team in the ring or cage or whatever you call it. If you don’t let us in you’re going to have to refund everyone’s money.”
The two guys stopped everyone from entering as they both stared at Shla and me. The first one found his voice again. “That story is good enough to get you ladies in. Go ahead and enjoy the show.”
The place was pretty well packed as we walked in. For the first time I saw what we were supposed to be fighting. It was an area in the center with a wire cage enclosing it. Looking at Sis I nodded toward the cage. “I guess that is it. Mom and dad might be in here. You can sit by them if you find them or I guess you can stand by outside the cage. I see most of the basketball players are outside. I guess they decided the whole team whipping two girls was a little over kill.”
Sis pulled me in and hugged me. “Audrey, don’t do this.”
Her desire and fear for me gave me strength. “No, it ends here and now tonight one way or another.” Pushing back I headed for the cage where four boys were inside.
Shla took Sandy’s hand. “There are only four of them inside. If that is the number they decided was going to kick our asses, they made a terrible error in judgment. I won’t let anyone touch her and four are not even a challenge.”
“Shla…,” Sandy shook her head and wiped at tears. “Keep her safe, please.”
When I walked into the cage all of the boys stared and then started laughing. “You think wearing a dress is going to keep us from kicking you girls butts?”
Shla had walked in behind me. I held out my arm to keep her from stepping in front of me. “I don’t know how this is supposed to work. Do they ring a bell or shout go, or what?”
Jimmy, the tallest one stuck out his chest. “The announcer gives out the names of who is fighting whom and then they sound a buzzer. This isn’t wrestling or boxing, there are no breaks. It is over when one side is too beat up to get up.”
“Or dead.” Michael tossed into the conversation. “They have given us free reign in here and anything goes. And what you are wearing isn’t going to stop me from beating you into a puddle in the middle of the floor.”
“I see. Beating up a girl proves you are a big brave man? Okay, bring it on. I’m not going to fight you, any of you. I want the whole world to see what all of you have been doing for the past several years. Abusing me anyway you could because you knew you didn’t have to fear detention or getting kicked out of school.”
All of them looked kind of stunned. Even the ones outside the cage. “You got to fight. That’s what you agreed to.”
“No, I didn’t agree to anything. Shla said we would meet you in some arena. I’m here, you’re here so why wait.” I held out my arms. “Look, you can beat me up, kick me, slug me, push my face into the wire, kick me in the ribs and stomp on my stomach, arms, and legs while I’m down. It hasn’t stopped you before because I didn’t offer to fight back. What’s stopping you now?”
They were looking at each other in confusion trying to decide what to do. The boy was wearing a dress and heels and…, there was no doubt everyone in the audience would think they had attacked a girl. A girl who wasn’t going to fight back.
“You bastard! When we get back to school I’m going to kick your ass so hard you won’t be able to come back to school…, ever.” Jimmy was glaring at me.
“Jimmy, all of you are the biggest cowards there ever were. You won’t do all that now because you don’t want anyone to see how big, tough, macho all of you are. You aren’t brave enough to prove to everyone you’ve been beating up a girl. Instead you’ll wait until it is only you guys and me alone in a hallway, bathroom or locker room? Or maybe you’ll do it as you corner me leaving school? Does that mean you won’t fight me here in front of all these people?”
Jimmy closed in and gave me a real hard push in the chest shoving me back against the wire cage. “FIGHT ME YOU BASTARD!”
I didn’t answer as I waited. Shla was about to go postal. “NO! This is my fight. I want everyone to see how these big tough boys are able to beat up a defenseless girl.”
Jimmy closed in and slugged me in the face half spinning me around. “FIGHT ME!”
Those outside closest to me could see a busted lip and blood trickling down my chin. One of the girls jumped up out of her seat. “Leave her alone you asshole. You proved your point. You can beat up girls. I bet your daddy is so proud of you.”
“SHE’S NOT A GIRL!” Jimmy realized his mistake but it was too late. He called Audrey a she, a female. He tried to clear it up. “This is a boy dressing up as a girl. Why can’t all of you people see that?”
“OH! And that gives you the right to beat her up by claiming she’s a boy. You’re one sick bastard and so are all your buddies. Is this the same girl your coach saw wearing an Eagle cheerleaders uniform and decided to beat her to death? Damn, that whole fucking school is nothing but a bunch of ball less pricks.”
“THIS IS A BOY!” My back was to him but that didn’t stop him. He grabbed the back of my dress and ripped it off flinging it toward the other side of the cage.
I wasn’t wearing a bra and only thong panties. My breast had been filling out ever since Illana visited me in the hospital. I had bigger breasts than any of the other girls in my grade. If I was on a beach and the panties were part of a bikini that much would be acceptable. I put my hands on my breasts to hide them as much as possible.
The only thing those closest to me could see was a girl whose face was bleeding and had her dress ripped off by some sick pervert. A pervert who ran with a gang of perverts as the whole basketball team was now painted with the same brush.
“YOU SICK BASTARD! I KNOW THERE ARE RULES TO THIS STUPID FIGHT WHERE EVERYONE GIVES UP ALL THEIR RIGHTS! THE POLICE BETTER KEEP A RECORD OF ALL THE NAMES OF ALL YOU PERVERTS. I HOPE THEY PULL ALL OF YOU IN ANYTIME A GIRL SNEEZES. ALL OF YOU ARE SICK SEX DEVIENTS.” The girl was clutching the wire, her eyes blazing.
I was positive if she had been inside she would have attacked the boys.
Someone passed a robe in through the door. Shla took it and put it around my shoulders. “Audrey, that was brave and stupid beyond belief. Now it’s my turn. I pulled the robe around me as Shla stepped off to the side.
She looked around at the crowd and held her arms up in the air. “Is it alright if I take out a little of my frustration on these…, animals?”
“YOU GO GIRL!” Someone called from up in the top tier of seats.
She looked at the boys and smiled. “I believe the agreement was Audrey and I would meet as many of you as you wish inside this cage. Do any of your buddies want to join in or is that asking too much?”
Jimmy smiled. “You’re willing to fight? You’re not going to run like that freak?”
“Kid, I was right here. Audrey most certainly is not a freak and she didn’t run. You proved what a macho asshole you were by slugging her and ripping her dress off. I probably ought to warn you and your buddies, I’m not as forgiving as she is. There will be some broken body parts before I leave this evening.”
“Yeah, all yours.” Jimmy looked at the others. “I get her first while she’s still fresh. If there is anything left one of you can take your turn.”
This was too easy. He ran at her swinging a round house right intending to turn out her lights first thing. Shla went down horizontal on her left side, her legs coiled up as Jimmy had committed himself. Her feet connected with Jimmy’s ankles. I was positive I heard a snap as Jimmy’s feet went left and his body fell right. His round house right resulted in his right arm being in the wrong position to stop his fall. His head bounced on the floor as he hit hard his right side. I was positive I heard another snap. He had a broken leg and a broken arm, although he didn’t know it. He was out cold after hitting his head.
The other three were too shocked to instantly attack. Shla was back on her feet in less than a heartbeat. All three charged. Shla met them before they had even taken two steps. The one on her left, she grabbed his right arm and used it as a pivot swinging herself around behind the boys. She was horizontal, her legs coiled again as she let loose on the one in the middle. He went sailing across the cage where he face planted into the wire. The one she used as a pivot flung to the side and into the wire.
The third one stopped and turned intending to stomp Shla while she was on the floor after kicking Arnie into the wire. While he was bringing his foot up and down to stomp her she had back flipped onto her feet. As his right foot stomped the floor where she should have been she did a full spin pivot on the ball of her left foot and planted a solid kick with her right foot in his face. He fell over backwards.
I knew his nose would need to be aligned and his jaw wired back in place.
The fight was over in less than seven seconds after Jimmy launched his attack. The two who had met the wire at high speed, needed nose, cheekbone, possible chin stabilized. Both were sitting on the floor not yet realizing how bad of shape they were in as the pain factor hadn’t kicked in yet. They were finished.
Shla put her arm around my waist. “Come on Angel. We’re finished in here.”
Some of the others in the basketball team were moving toward the door from the outside as Shla and I walked toward it. Shla steered me over to the side of the cage. “Wait here for a few seconds.”
She looked at the six who were headed our way. “Guys, no fighting outside the cage as no one is covered in a hold harmless clause and insurance won’t pay for damages of life or material. You need to step inside the cage if you truly believe all six of you are enough to get the job done.”
They hesitated outside the door. They could only get in two at a time which didn’t seem like a good idea. The girl had taken out four of their own. Three who were now crying in pain as the pain receptors kicked in from the damage that had been done. Jimmy was lucky he was still out cold. All six realized the little girl inside the cage, with all the muscles, was more than some sissy gymnast. Not a single one wanted to be the first to step inside.
A look of disgust crossed Shla’s face. “Guys if you aren’t coming in then Audrey and I are coming out. If any of you decide to attack us it will be self defense if I accidentally kill you. I probably ought to warn you, I’m terribly accident prone.”
They probably never logically figured it out but their basic survival instinct covered it. If that girl wasn’t afraid of stepping out into the middle of six boys, she was not someone to trifle with. As one, they started backing up.
Shla nodded in agreement. “Not very brave but really smart. However, after the four are removed from the cage, if all of you want to go in and challenge me, I’d be happy to oblige you…,” Her smile held a predator’s look. “If you still want to beat up a poor defenseless little girl, that is.”
Eugene shook his head. This girl was anything but defenseless. He had watched a few martial arts fights on TV and had even gone to a few classes himself. As good as those he had seen fight were, he didn’t think any of them could match this girl. The muscles the girl had didn’t all come from gym, provided she was even in gym. If the others got into the cage with her it, was their own fault for being stupid. They couldn’t drag him into that cage if that girl was in there.
Most in the crowd didn’t know whether to be pleased or demand their money back. After that one boy slugged and then yanked the dress off one girl, the fight which really wasn’t a fight was over if one blinked. Besides, anyone could see that much flesh by going out to any beach on Sunday. Although most everyone was thinking nothing that shapely ever showed up on the beach. The girl had seriously dangerous curves.
The speakers came on. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you will hold your seats our regular contests will resume after the boys are removed from the cage. I’m positive you will be delighted to see our first match is Hammer going up against Speed. Both men have won several regional tournaments. They are serious competitors.”
By that time, Shla and I had reached the entrance as we were leaving. The two guys were still there. The one to my left looked me over. “She isn’t much of a fighter but she sure is hell in looks.” He grinned as Shla looked questionably at him. He pointed at a TV in the booth behind him. “They pump the fights out on closed circuit TV. Pays more than what we collect from people wanting to see the fights in person. We also hear everything anyone says inside the cage as parabolic microphones are in use by our teams.”
He gave a slight shake of his head as he focused in on the girl with the bleeding lip. “If you’re that girl that coach tried to kill a couple weeks back? Lady, you’ve got bigger balls and more courage than anyone I’ve ever met. You were more than brave to get into the cage with a bunch of testosterone driven animals who wanted to finish the job.”
“Ladies, when you filled out the hold harmless paperwork to get into the cage, you gave us your address. A CD of the fight will be mailed to each of you. The fighters use them as training aids to figure out what they did wrong or right.”
He pointed at me. “I don’t think you will be reviewing it for that reason. I could be wrong but I doubt I’ll ever see you back in the cage again.”
He pointed at Shla. “Funny but I get the feeling you don’t need a review. Lady, that was some of the finest take down I’ve ever seen in my life. Working here I’ve seen a lot. The payout for advertised fights is ten thousand. The finals the winner gets two hundred thousand. Would you be interested in coming back again in a sanctioned match? Provided we could find some idiot brave enough to get in the cage with you?”
Shla smiled sweetly. “Who wouldn’t want to get in the cage with cute cuddly little me?”
Both men blinked and then started laughing. I took Shla’s arm and was pulling her out the door. “We’re blocking traffic. I wonder if Sandy has made it back to the van yet?”
“She’s your sister, can’t you sense where she’s at? Some siblings can although not that common.”
“I…, I never tried. How do I do that?”
“Seriously Audrey, I haven’t a clue. Hon, you are way out in Faerie Land ahead of all the rest of us in your gifts. I figured it would come naturally to you like so many other spells have.”
Shla gave me a serious look. “Speaking of spells. Why didn’t you lay a forget spell on the boys instead of refusing to fight them? What do you think you achieved?”
“Think anyone still believes those boys haven’t been bullying me for several years? Or possibly anyone else they wish to bully? Will everyone wonder why the school staff has been letting this go on? Think anyone will let this get whitewashed and shoved back into the closet? Jimmy as well as confessed he had been attacking me because I don’t fit the boy mold. Those guys back there said the whole thing went out over the air. Our governor is going to get an earful from a lot of sources. Our education department is going to feel the heat for not getting on top of this before it became a public embarrassment.”
I winked at Shla. “I hope you had fun in there because I bet they never ever let a boy fight a girl in any of those matches again. They don’t want to see a boy beating on a girl who refuses to fight because he’s bigger, badder, and meaner. It will give all males a bad image no one wants. Instead of big strong males being the protectors of the fairer sex they are the ones brutalizing them.”
“Shla, this has been a win win for us and a beginning nightmare for every bully in every school in this state and possibly beyond. The State Board of Education is going to go through every school with a fine tooth comb making sure no one is being bullied whether they are a boy or a girl.”
Shla stepped up in front, turned around, and was walking backwards as she stared at me. “You let him strip you naked.”
“Yes, to get the results. I wasn’t totally naked though.”
“Don’t start splitting hairs. As a girl you were naked. That little piece of fabric you had covering your…, didn’t leave anything to the imagination. What if he had killed you?”
“It still would have been worth it if giving up my life saved others from being bullied and terrorized until they no longer can stand it any more. Then it usually comes to a really bad solution as the kid they bullied finds a gun or they kill themselves. Bullying and terrorism is the same thing. Only when it’s kids they call it bullying so it doesn’t sound so bad.”
We had reached the van and Sandy wasn’t there. Shla looked around. “How long do you think it will be before she shows up?”
“Why ask me? I haven’t got a clue. She might even be waiting on us back there.”
Shla took another look to make sure no one was watching. “Can you teleport us back to your house?”
“NO! I haven’t any idea how that works and I do NOT want to end up with three heads.”
“Three heads? That would be a new one no one has managed to make happen…, yet.”
“Well if it could happen, I’m sure I’d be the one with the three heads. Illana and Vetra are the only two I have seen teleport.”
“You’ve seen Vetra?” Shla looked surprised.
“Sure. She and Illana visited me a couple times in the hospital. They thought I was asleep. Well, I was but I wasn’t. Even when I’m asleep I still see and hear everything going on in the room or in the house.”
“Are you doing an OBE?”
“What’s an OBE?”
“Out of Body Experience. You’re asleep but your can astral project to anyplace you want and see everything just as if you were there in the flesh.”
“So that’s a different kind of teleporting?”
“Kinda except your body is left behind not projected to another place. Only your ability to sense and see is projected to another place.”
“No, I don’t think that is what I do when I sleep. I just sense and see everything around me not some place different than where I’m sleeping. Illana is probably still in the gym. Why don’t we call Vetra and ask for a lift?”
Shla was looking google eyed at Audrey. “Hon, one doesn’t ring up a goddess and ask for a lift. It is best if one keeps a time and distance from them. They do have tempers and have no problem changing people and faeries into toads or worse.”
I focused on a very beautiful woman in a beautiful teal colored dress, standing behind Shla. “Vetra, would you change us into toads if I asked for a lift back to the house?”
“Of course not, Sweetie.” Came from behind Shla.
Shla jumped forward, spun and took up a defensive before she froze. Threatening a goddess did not lead to a long life. She dropped to a knee. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Vetra. Please forgive me.”
Vetra giggled. “Shla, were you not charged with the duty of protecting our young Audrey?”
“Yes, your highness.” Shla bowed her head. “I am sorry I did not do more before the boy approached her.”
Vetra reached out with her right hand, put it under Shla’s chin. “Stand Mighty Warrior for you have done nothing wrong. Did not Audrey command you to not interfere?”
Command? I told her no but no way could be construed as a command…, could it?
“She did, your highness.”
“When you turned to attack me before you knew who it was, were you not protecting Audrey?”
“I would protect her with my life, your highness.”
“Then you have nothing to be sorry about. Now about that trip to ‘the house’.”
There was a mist and I was looking at big, beautiful, log wood house in a glen in tall towering trees. There were animals of all kinds around us and birds singing in the trees. Larger birds were in the grass making warbling sounds. The robe I had been wearing was replaced with a soft, sleeveless, brown dress cut daringly low across the bust, a hem four inches above the knees. “Vetra, you made a wrong turn. This isn’t my house.”
“I know. You asked for a lift to ‘the house’. You didn’t specify which house. This is my home.”
A black panther walked up and started sniffing me as she looked me over. I started scratching her behind the ears, under her neck, and along her broad chest. “Hey thee beautiful, what’s your name? Mine’s Aethelthryth Rachelle Rider. Everyone calls me Audrey.”
Cougars, bobcats, a lion, wolves, a badger, along with deer, rabbits, and other animals started closing in. A Cardinal landed on one shoulder while a Bobwhite landed on the other as more birds settled on the backs of the animals or landed in the grass.
Shla backed up beside Vetra. “I’ve never seen such a thing. What are they doing?”
Vetra smiled as she watched the gathering before them with Audrey in the center. “They are welcoming the Princess to her new roll as protector of all life.”
“Audrey!” Shla had to cough that one out.
“Yes, our Audrey. We all wondered where she was…,”
Audrey started singing in that beautiful lilting voice she possessed. She smiled and the world became brighter as she began walking and gently touching all those who had gathered around her.
The world became silent except for one beautiful voice as the young girl shared love, compassion, a desire to protect and fight for the life of all who were not able to fight for themselves.
Vetra’s smile got even wider. Audrey had now embraced her Rachel., protector of others who could not defend themselves. There was no doubt the fight in the cage had ignited that part of her soul and her magic.
It was over fifteen minutes later before Aethelthryth stopped singing. All the birds began chirping or tweeting their own songs, the large and small cats were purring. All the animals and birds were adding their own to the harmonious symphony. Audrey held out her arms and looked at all around her. “Your voices are so beautiful. I wish I could sing as beautifully as any of you.”
“Come, let’s leave her alone with those she loves and those who love her back.” Vetra took Shla’s hand and led her into the house. “Were you paying attention when Audrey was attacked today?”
Shla hesitated. “She told me to not interfere.”
“We have been over that already. You were right to not interfere. I find no fault with what you did or didn’t do. I’m asking because I wanted you to understand what she was doing.”
“She was taunting the boys so they would attack her. Yet she refused to fight them. She explained it to me afterwards. I thought it was a stupid way to fight or not fight. Encouraging someone to beat one up and then not defend one’s self doesn’t seem too bright to me. The problem is, Audrey is anything but stupid.”
“Were you paying attention when the boy ripped Audrey’s dress off?”
“uh…,” Shla didn’t know how to respond. Obviously there was more to this than she suspected.
“Think, Shla. What was unusual about that whole scene?”
Things were quiet as Shla replayed the whole thing back in her mind. She looked at Vetra, her eyes two egg whites. “It ripped off too easily. When the boy grabbed the dress and pulled, Audrey should have been yanked back onto the floor. No cloth material rips that easily.”
Vetra nodded in agreement. “I believe our young Princess has a lot more going on than any of us suspect. I don’t know if she planned it all in advance or if she adapted as it happened. Think about what she told you afterwards. A forget spell would only stop the boys picking on her. What she did will have repercussions for every school. Rachel is a protector of those who can’t protect themselves.”
“Can’t you see what skills and powers she possesses?”
Vetra laughed. “Hon, I’m a goddess. Even we have limited abilities and gifts. What Audrey has been doing has caught the attention of all the gods and many are not happy. Even for the abilities of a Faerie, she is showing too much skill in using and handling magic. Most of which Illana never gifted her with. If you’re thinking I gifted her with magic, think again. The magic of gods and Faerie magic is not the same thing. She isn’t using our kind of magic.”
“She isn’t using Faerie magic either.” Shla shook her head.
“I think she is. I feel she is using ancient Faerie magic long lost or forgotten.”
“How can that be? Our stories and records go back millions of years as yours must.”
“And before that?”
“There can’t be any before that…, can there?”
Vetra laughed again. “How would anyone know if there are no records going back that far? All of us believe there was a beginning. Again think, what was before the beginning? None of us happened to spring up out of nowhere. I don’t think. Audrey is pushing the impossible in all directions so what we believe is probably wrong in every respect.”
“What should we do?”
“Watch and learn. Illana and I asked you to be Audrey’s bodyguard. Do you want to keep doing that or would you like to go back to the Faerie Realm and the idyllic life you had.”
Shla smiled as she gave it some thought. “Aethelthryth has been an interesting challenge from the first moment I met her. I’m not sure she needs a bodyguard. I’d like to stay if possible.”
“Oh you can bet your barrel of nectar she is going to need a bodyguard. Those who would attack a young, innocent looking, beautiful looking girl like her always have second thoughts when there are two instead of one. There is evil out there which set all those against Audrey long before she became gifted. Illana and I have been searching for those who planned against her, without any luck. We believe they were hoping to destroy her before she found herself. They would have succeeded if the secretary hadn’t stopped coach Walker from beating her to death. How and why they found and focused in on Audrey before Illana gifted her is a mystery we will not let go unsolved. Yes, she most definitely needs a bodyguard. Beware, you may pay with your life by being close to her.”
“Audrey told me after the fight she would give her life if necessary to stop the bullying in schools. Someone like her who has such kindness and compassion in her soul deserves to be protected. With my dying breath if need be.”
Vetra laid her hand on Shla’s shoulder. “Then I gift you with the ability to talk to me or request my help no matter where you may be. For I also promised a goddesses wrath upon those who would harm her.”
Shla dropped to one knee and bowed her head. “Your Highness, I do not deserve your gift. If it will help protect Audrey than I accept with an open heart.”
“Rise Brave Warrior, for the path ahead will most likely be wrought with danger. I wish you well on this path you have accepted.”
As I walked into the house, Vetra and Shla were both smiling and looking at me. “What?” I looked down to see if the dress I was wearing was torn or dirty? Was my face dirty?
Barbie Lee
Copyright 1/17/2018
All rights reserved, property of the author
The town I live close to isn’t nestled back in some spooky hollow, butted up against an enchanted forest, or even some bewitched mountains. Nope, it is the flattest land in western Texas one could ever think of. The city thirty one miles to the south west is called Plainview. An appropriately named town for everything around it is also flat. The official name of high school I go to is named Buffalo Run although everyone called it Buffalo. The town was named Doxy for whatever reason known only to the early settlers of the town.
Mom and dad both worked for the same business, which had scheduled them to fly to China to learn a new metal treatment process. The company made farm and industrial equipment. Kevin Butcher, the CEO of the company had already made the trip and decided it would save the company over a hundred thousand a year to switch to the Chinese way of hardening metals. Mom and dad were to learn the process and bring the skill back to Butcher Mfg. Inc.
Mom, dad, sis and I had a lot of discussions for several days before they left. Sis being the older of us assured mom and dad we could take care of ourselves There would be nothing wrong when they returned home from their trip. I made a promise to not tease my sister while they were gone and to behave myself. I guess it helped Jenna and I never got into any real trouble in all our years growing up. One of the other things that helped was although my sister was a cheerleader, and I had heard the prettiest girl in school, ugh. She wasn’t dating at the time. With a no boys and no girls in the house and a no dating rule while they were gone, our parents left for China for three weeks.
Friday, after learning our parents were gone, several of our so called friends asked Sis about having a party at our house over the weekend. Offers of free beer, hard liquor, and party treats were met with a definite no from sis. Toward the end of the day they moved in on me thinking I was the weak link. Since I didn’t date they figured the promise of lots of girls would work.
“Nope, not only no, I’ll call Gabe if anyone comes looking to party.” I was disgusted they would try and bribe me with girls. I knew I was a boy but what was between my legs didn’t contain my brains…, yet. At least not like it affected all the other boys in high school.
“Fuck you Ronald Wayne. We didn’t want to include you in our party anyway.” Joey, the ringleader for the jocks, gave me a hard push as he and the others moved on.
I ended up on my butt with my books scattered all over in the middle of the hall at the same time Jenna and her circle of cheerleaders turned the corner and saw me. Except for my sister it sounded like a gaggle of geese as they pointed and laughed.
Jenna, spun on her heel and glared at the group. “Knock it off. That’s my brother.”
She turned to look at me as I was getting up. “Ron, what happened?”
“Joey happened. He and the others wanted to party at our house after learning our parents weren’t going to be home this weekend.” I was on my knees gathering up my books before I stood up.
Jenna picked up the last book and handed it to me. “He asked me this morning and I told him no. I’m guessing you gave the same answer for him to knock you down?”
“I promised mom and dad. I’m not going back on a promise just because they aren’t there watching.”
“You got it little brother. Are you coming to the football game tonight?”
“I don’t think so unless you need me there. I know I’m not any good as a protector for you, Sis. I’d still put my life on the line for you if it came to that.”
“aaawwww” Came from the cheerleader pack. They had been watching and listening.
“I’ll be okay. Dad asked Elvis to watch the game and escort me home afterwards.”
That brought a short laugh from everyone. Elvis was a nickname for Don Howard, one of Gabe’s deputy’s. He got that name because he was always singing in the patrol car. Sometimes he would key the mike and sing to any of the dispatchers. He wasn’t what I would call a bad singer. The truth was, he really didn’t carry a tune that well. We all liked him just the same.
Jenna moved back to the cheerleader group and they headed off down the hallway as if a silent signal had been given. I watched until they walked out of the building. It seemed they were all talking at the same time. Who could understand any of that? They also walked in unison step for step as good as any military group I had ever seen. Must be some secret brain signal they develop being cheerleaders and working together all the time?
It was four miles home and I headed that way walking. Our house was the last drop on the school bus route. That meant almost an hour riding the route as the driver dropped off the other country kids. The mornings weren’t bad because we were the last ones on and it was straight to school, ten minutes tops.
There was a huge sonic boom just as I reached home. The windows rattled, the chickens squawked, and Tug, or fearless watchdog, headed for the barn. I shook my head as I watched him disappear inside. “I hope we never need protecting.”
My curiosity was killing me over that sonic boom. It was the first time I had ever heard one for real. Watching and hearing one on the TV certainly was no match for the real thing. I was wondering if the military had got carried away? I heard the government had banned sonic booms sometime back in the fifties.
About that time I heard a double sonic boom. Looking up I saw two jets streaking across the sky. The chickens cackled, and the windows rattled again. I imagined Tug was buried back in the hay inside the barn. Shaking my head, I walked into the house and tossed my backpack on the couch, heading for the fridge, and milk, and jelly. It was time for an afternoon peanut butter sandwich before gathering eggs and feeding the horse.
The horse was mom and dad’s idea. They figured kids needed to grow up around animals. Chickens and cats were good, dogs better, and the horse a necessity to learn responsibility. All this supposedly was Jenna’s and my chores. With Jenna always tied up in socials, school games, cheerleading, and other girl things almost as long as I could remember, those chores were naturally mine since I wasn’t into socials or games.
Hearing a car drive up in the yard and a door shut, I looked at the clock. It was nineteen before ten. That would be my sister.
“Thank you, Elvis.”
“Anytime, Jenna. I’ll wait for you next Friday and the week after that. With your parents gone I’ll come by the house on a drive by time to time. If you need something, leave the porch light on whether it’s day or night. I’ll know to check. You or Ron need anything don’t hesitate to call the office. One of the guys will be out if it’s not my duty shift.”
“You don’t need to do that. We’ll be okay.”
“Jenna, no matter how grown up you and Ron seem to be…, I and half the town wish you were our kids. Gabe would adopt you both in a heartbeat. No, things happen. Someone will be by now and then checking. Don’t let any strangers into the house.”
“Elvis, when was the last time you saw any strangers around this town? We hardly have anything worth stealing in our farming community. That would be a lost soul indeed if anyone came wondering into our town.” She sounded amused.
I didn’t have to imagine Jenna putting her hands on her hips and laughing at Elvis. I knew she was doing exactly that.
“Do as I say or I’ll haul both of you down to the pokey and lock you up.”
“Oh yeah? You and who else?”
“Scat you little brat. Into the house while I watch. Flip the porch light if everything is okay.”
“ha, ha, ha, ha, thanks Elvis.” Jenna was already at the door. She closed it behind her and flipped the porch light on and off a couple times.
I could hear the car start up and drive away. Getting up from the couch I waited until Jenna walked into the living room. “Who won?”
“Cutter Bears. We didn’t stand a chance. They made the first touchdown and rolled over us from there. Twenty eight to seven was the final score. Joey got upended on our last play of the game. Coach pulled him. Doc Carter examined him and said he was only rattled and nothing serious.”
“I’m glad he wasn’t really hurt. I don’t like him; I don’t wish him ill will either. He’s the best quarterback we got. Mason doesn’t have a long pass in him. The next three games will be it for the Buffalo. We won’t be going to any playoff. I still would like for us to win the next three. Everyone out there on that field deserves a win. Joey is our best shot at bringing it home. I wish we had a chance at state so you and the other girls could show what you can do in front of those TV cameras they always have at those games.”
Jenna walked over and hugged me. “Oh Ron, you are always think about everyone else no matter how mean they are to you. I felt it when the girls laughed at you today. Yet, you still want the best for us. I still think you’re a rotten little brother.” She gave me another serious squeeze.
I pushed away from her. “Yeah, and I think you’re a rotten, ugly sister, even if you are the prettiest girl in school.”
“Why you!” She was reaching for me.
I fled to my bedroom and slammed the door behind me. Jenna was hot on my tail but I managed to get the door shut just in time. I didn’t lock it. Didn’t need to. Jeana would never invade my space without asking as I wouldn’t invade her space. I wasn’t sure the lock even worked since I had never tried it. I wonder if Jenna ever tried hers? Probably not.
==========================================================
Tug was raising cane somewhere out by the barn as I slowly opened my eyes and looked at the clock. It was three in the morning. Probably a coyote or skunk after the chickens. Slipping on my pants and shoes I headed through the living room and pulled the twelve gauge out of the hall closet. It was a pump loaded with six shells of double 0 shot for coyotes. Skunks were nothing but shredded meat when I unloaded on any of them. I grabbed a flashlight and opened the door. AND STOPPED IN MY TRACKS.
What was in front of me was not what I was thinking Tug was getting excited over. A dozen thoughts ran through my mind in less than a heartbeat. Bringing the shotgun up and pointing it was one that never entered the thought processes. All options apprised and dismissed, I did what I had never done in my life. I screamed.
“JENNA!”
Seconds later Jenna came into the living room wearing nothing but a Baby Doll nightie, which I didn’t know because my eyes were glued on what was standing on our porch.
“WOAH!” She pulled up short inside the living room as soon as she saw what I had screamed about.
Jenna is a straight A student. I never figured school was a necessity and didn’t ever study. Yet, I always figured both of us were somewhat intelligent students, top in our respective classes. The reaction and words coming from both of us was not in the intelligent spectrum.
“Help me please. I’m dying.”
As if what was in front of us wasn’t stunning enough. The woman’s voice was lyrical sing song. Despite the words and the most beautiful sounding voice I had ever heard. I backed up out of the doorway, still unable to get my senses back online.
“Thank you.” She walked into the living room and waited.
“Who are you? Are you stranded? Is someone after you? I’ll call the sheriff? Do you need medical, an ambulance?” Jenna had got her act together a little better than me.
“Sheriff? That is your controllers? No they can’t help. Your body repair? Medical? No help. I need your help if you will.”
“How can we help you?” I finally got my senses back by this time.
“I’m dying.” She looked from sis to me.
Boy oh boy did she have beautiful raven black eyes. “Uh yeah, we got that. Again how can we help?”
Jenna moved over to stand beside me and reached out to hold my hand. For the first time I noticed what she was wearing or what she wasn’t wearing. Oh boy was my sister stacked and her nipples were…, I shook my head. That’s Jenna I was ogling. My sister for god’s sake. I turned my attention back to the woman in the painted on gold jumpsuit which didn’t help. That lady might as well have been naked herself. She wasn’t running second in wow to my sister. In fact, if I was judging, she was ahead by several leagues. I shook my head again. What in the hell was the matter with me? We had a strange, albeit beyond beautiful woman, in our living room asking for help.
“Again, not to be redundant, you’re dying, what do you need?”
An ultra bright white glowing, large marble sized ball appeared in her hand. She held it out toward Jenna.
Sis was either brave beyond brave or shocked as she didn’t move back.
She held it out toward me and it got even brighter if possible. Too bright to look at before it disappeared. I still couldn’t see even though it was gone. Was that a trick to blind us?
“You’re close enough match. I need to borrow your…, energy.”
“YOU NEED TO BORROW WHAT!”
“It won’t hurt and I won’t do it if you don’t want me to. I will leave if you feel you can’t trust me.”
“Trust you? I don’t know you. Jenna say something.” I glanced over at sis.
“uh yeah, what’s this borrow energy thing?”
“My biological is not completely compatible with your environment. My time, matter, displacement drive has been damaged otherwise there would not be a problem. Do you understand?” She was carefully watching both of us.
“NNOO” Jenna and I both replied at the same time.
“I’m sorry but it is the only explanation I have. I’ll go.” She turned to the door.
“Wait. What is it you need and how do I share it with you?” I really didn’t want her to leave as she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. That included all those the artists draw up in their fantasy.
“Ron?” Jenna gripped my hand a little tighter.
“I think so. She said it wouldn’t hurt.”
“What do you need me to do?” I turned my attention back to the woman which meant nothing because my attention had never left her.
“Turn loose of your..., sister? Stand alone.”
“RON!” Jenna was squeezing even harder.
I handed her the shotgun. “Cover my back in case this isn’t on the up and up. She can’t be hiding any weapons inside what she’s wearing.”
Jenna had to turn loose of my hand to take the gun.
The woman had that little glowing ball in her hand again. Where was she hiding that thing? I was beginning to have second doubts when I was blinded and immediately looking at Jenna who couldn’t see a thing.
Looking around the woman was gone. Did she blind us and rob us or what?
Jenna was looking around. “Ron?”
“Yes. Where did she go? Did you see her leave?”
Jenna was looking at me kinda funny. “Ron?”
“What?”
Jenna screamed and pointed the shotgun at my chest. “What the hell have you done to my brother?”
Reaching out, I pushed the barrel away as Jenna pulled the trigger. Our living room couch took the blast and it didn’t look good. I yanked it out of her hands. “ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME!”
“WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY BROTHER!”
Oh great, now we are both screaming! “Calm down Sis, I’m right here. What is the matter with you?”
“HELL NO YOU’RE NOT RIGHT THERE! SHE’S RIGHT THERE! WHERE’S MY BROTHER!”
I swear it looked like Jenna was getting ready to attack me. I held out my hand. “STOP! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”
“I better explain.” The voice was the golden woman but it came from my mouth.
“oh hell…, this can’t be good.” I pumped the rest of the shells out of the shotgun so Jenna couldn’t shoot me and sat down on our shredded couch.
“The micro time, displacement translator is many things. One of those, it is a time, matter, displacement disrupter.” The glowing ball appeared in my hand…,
Now I was starting to get a clue as I heard her speak and was looking at her hand. Funny but I wasn’t freaking out just yet.
“Your atmosphere is toxic to me. I can breath it, live in it for short periods of time before I must need to return to my ship. My ship has been damaged and no longer provides me life support. I was dying when I saw your house. I needed stabilization from those who inhabit your world. Which happened to be you and your brother.”
‘WE’ looked at Jenna. “Your body was not truly compatible. Your brother’s was.”
“I’m a girl, you’re a girl, I wasn’t compatible and Ron was? That is so fucked up it doesn’t make sense.” Jenna could sound so…, cheerleader intelligent at times.
“It has nothing to do with what is or isn’t between one’s legs or the DNA coding. It does have everything to do with how your DNA coding is aligned and sequenced. I do not mean to imply you are imperfect and your brother isn't. It has nothing to do with intelligence.”
“I want you both to know I mean you no harm and none will come to either of you from me…,”
Jenna glared at her…, us. “Tell that to my brother who is no longer among the living.”
“He is among the living as you say. He is also here.” She touched her chest.
OH MY GOD! I felt that all the way down to my toes and back.
“Two molecular matters can not occupy the same space. We do not. There is a whole lot more empty space between molecules than what they occupy. There is also a time difference. I’m occupying a smallest slice of time ahead of your brother which can not be described in your world. I will return your brother, although he isn’t gone, if he decides he does not want to help. I will die. I won’t die here. My ship is behind your barn. Although not able to achieve time, matter, displacement, it can still fly. I’ll program it to travel to your sun after I am inside. When the ship burns up, I won’t feel it because I’ll already be dead.” She waited for a response from me I think.
“GIVE MY BROTHER BACK NOW!” Jenna was adamant she wanted Ron standing there where she could see him.
“Jenna wait.” I was trying to decide. So far I hadn’t been hurt that I knew of. Feelings I never knew existed were flooding my senses if I was truly sharing time and space with the golden woman. Okay, almost sharing time and space.
“uh, ma’am, what’s your name?” I realized it was her voice not mine when I was speaking.
“We don’t use words as you do. We use sound. I guess words could be described as sound. My name is ets. We have only one sound for a name. The tone and inflection can be pronounced several billion different ways.”
“I don’t think I can properly say your name. Would you please give me a name for using on this world?”
“RON! What are you doing. Tell her to leave and leave us alone.” Jenna was glaring at me…, us.
“Jenna, sis, trust me. This is so amazing I find it almost impossible to believe. I feel her thoughts, her emotions. I’m betting she can feel mine at the same time. She’s telling the truth. She means us no harm. She will die if I’m…?”
“Released is the word I think you are seeking.”
“Yeah, well that one doesn’t feel right either. I don’t honestly believe I’m trapped am I? I could…? Not the right word either, but I could will myself away from your space?”
“Either one of us could. It is not a locked bonding we share.”
“God, this is so confusing. In a way it is a bonding. You need this close contact with my body to stay alive. Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll call you a liar. I can read…, understand your thoughts now. They seem to be getting stronger the longer we have this contact.”
“RON! HERE NOW!” Jenna pointed to the floor beside her.
“Sis, I’m okay. ets, won’t hurt you or me. She could have killed us both before she walked into the house. The time, matter disrupter she has been pulling out of thin air is a very powerful weapon if used in that way. She’s sharing knowledge with me. My mind is being flooded with knowledge we humans could never imagine. Right now, if I had the materials, I could build a nuclear spacecraft capable of flying to all the planets in our solar system in less than a year travel time.”
I stood up. “I’m not letting her die because I’m scared of who or what she is. She has a time matter disrupter on her ship which has been damaged by getting caught in a time loop. Not a common thing but it can happen. She can’t repair it with what we have on earth. She will hook the smaller time matter disrupter into her transmission device and send a signal home. Not an easy task as the signal has to be pointed…”
“You gotta be kidding? You gotta beam the signal to a star system over a million light years away? This isn’t good.”
“Ron, what is going on?” Jenna put her hands on her hips.
Her standing there in defiance in the shear Baby Doll she was wearing almost made me laugh. “She is sharing mind thought with me. We don’t need to vocalize it to communicate. This is so awesome, Sis. Maybe she will give you a ride too before she leaves us. Although you aren’t fully compatible it could still work to a limited extent. She wouldn’t be able to survive very long with you though. Not close enough link.”
What surprised me at first was ets quietly staying in the background and letting me take the lead. I mean, she was the one with all the intelligence. Jenna and I talked the rest of the night about how I was feeling. If I truly felt I could leave anytime. If ets would really die if I did, and a hundred other things only a brother and sister high schoolers could think of.
The sun was way up when the phone started ringing. “I better answer. You sound like her instead of Ron. Hello?” Jenna held the phone out so we could both hear.
“Are you and your brother doing okay. You know you can call Gabe if you have problems. Is Ron taking care of the livestock?” Naturally it was our mom calling.
“We’re good. Everything is fine. Ron is not here right now or I’m sure he would want to say hi. Where are you at? Have you landed in China already?”
“Oh no, honey, we are in a big airplane out over the ocean yet. Be another six hours before we get to our hotel. I just wanted to make sure you and your brother were okay.”
“Yes, mom, we’re okay. Give daddy a hug from us.”
“From us? Your brother isn’t the hugging type. I’ll tell daddy you said so anyway. Love you, bye.”
There was silence. Yep that was our parents. Said what they had to say and hang up. I love them to death and they were the best parents ever if hands off child raising was being a good parent. Jenna was more of a parent than mom and dad ever would be. I loved them and Jenna. No one could have a better sister.
I grabbed her and pulled her into a hug. Which shocked the devil out of her. Ops, I was still the golden woman wasn’t I? Oh well, she would get over it. “Sorry Sis, I forgot. Come on, let’s go look at that spacecraft she came in.”
Jenna backed away. It finally dawned on her she had been in a Baby Doll all night long with a stranger and her brother looking at her. She blushed a bright red. “I’m going to get dressed.”
She gave me a hard look. “That paint job ets is wearing isn’t going to work either. She needs some clothes. None of mom’s clothes is going to fit her. She’s too tall and too…,” Jenna held her hands out in front of her own breasts.
“Yeah, I get the picture, ets gets it too. The only thing I can think of off hand is dad’s coveralls.”
Jenna actually giggled and smiled for the first time since this crazy business started last night. “She’ll still be hot. That body shouts look at me I’m all woman. I don’t know whether to hate her or be jealous.”
“You jealous? Sis, everyone in school except the girls who hate you say you’re the prettiest girl there. Find some clothes. I’ll check the washroom for dad’s coveralls. I wanna see that ship.”
==============================================================================
“Oh mannn, that’s big.” I was standing out away from it with Jenna. We were both staring at it. In the house I had seen it in ets mind. Looking at it even if it was through her eyes was totally different. Of all the drawings I had ever seen of flying saucers this wasn’t one of them. It could still fly, but not at light speed or above. It was then it dawned on me. The sonic boom yesterday was ets. The two fighter craft creating their own sonic boom were in pursuit.
I felt her smile. She was sensing what I was thinking, staying in the background to let Jenna and I adjust to all this. “ets, I know this is yours and it’s a personal craft. May my sister see inside. I already know from your thoughts. She isn’t in on our private conversations.”
“Jenna, your brother suggested you might want to see the inside.” ets was waiting on a response from Sis.
“Maybe another time after you get it repaired? We need to cover this thing up before someone else sees it. I have no idea where we can hide it.” Sis was staring at the ship.
“I converted the size from the dimensions ets gave me. It is a hundred and sixty one feet plus nine and three sixteenths inches in diameter. Call the co-op and see if they have enough tarps to cover that big of an area?” I shook my head. “I can imagine what mom and dad will say when they get the bill for that. We’ll be grounded until our grandkids have kids.”
Still staring at it, Jenna shook her head. “Even the tarp they use to cover the football field wouldn’t cover it. It is wider than half a football field.”
“No need to cover it completely. Use camouflage on it. I found it in your brother’s mind. Some netting they use for…, bailing hay. Four tarps, brown sheets eight feet by ten and use them to cover in small areas in a random pattern.”
Jenna rolled her eyes. “We should have thought of that. By the way, I’m never going to get use to you and my brother speaking from the same body. That is just too weird.”
“There is a wholesaler in Amarillo for tarps and other farm supplies. Jenna will have to drive as you don’t have a driver’s license. As long as I’m you they would never believe it was me if we got stopped. Sis, you’re not the only one confused by this.” I pointed at the ship. “Think it will be okay while we drive to Amarillo and get what we need?”
It was then I thought of them. “Oh fudge, I haven’t fed and watered the chickens or the horse. I better do that now.” I was headed inside the barn to get the feed for the chickens.
Jenna headed for the house. “Mom left a credit card for emergencies. Gabe has to okay any purchase. I’ll call him and tell him…? What?”
“YOU’LL THINK OF SOMETHING!” I shouted from inside the barn. “Jenna, there is a dealer in Plainview. Look up his number and see if he has what we need before we drive to Amarillo.”
She gave the okay sign above her head as she walked into the house.
Picking up the feed scoop, I put a couple scoops of feed into a pail before heading to the hen house. “How did you end up here? The sonic boom I heard yesterday wasn’t that close. How did you evade those fighter jets?”
‘you don’t need to verbalize your thoughts. we can exchange data between us without saying it.’ ets shifted in me, on me?
‘okay, do you want to drive? i mean you’ve been laid back not saying much. i kind of get the feeling I’m moving and you are in synchronicity with me.’
‘as good explanation as any. it’s a lot more complicated than that. the concept is the same. we are bonded as one like this. this is your world not mine. i couldn’t exist without your help. you will do just fine without me as you always have. to build and focus the transmitter, I will need to do that. although you read and understand my thoughts and emotions as I do yours, the parts and alignment are critical. there are no spare parts if something goes wrong.’
I hugged myself and it felt better than good. I know it was impossible but I think I’m falling in love with the alien female I am sharing space with. Only God and her knew how much older she was than me. Probably had a husband, or a thousand boyfriends at home.
She giggled. I swear she giggled. ‘no Ron, I do not have a husband, boyfriends yes. you’re so cute. i am a research scientist is the closest definition I can think of in your language. my life has been spent away from home for the most part, examining worlds and collecting data. if the time, matter transfer drive had failed on any of those other worlds, I would be dead. if you had rejected my request for help, i would be dead. i owe you my life. provided I make it back home, i’ll never forget you. j couldn’t even if I wanted, which I don’t. your thoughts and emotions are blending into my own.’
We blushed in embarrassment. Of course she had listened to my thoughts and emotions. How embarrassing. If she knew how beautiful she was I’d be even more embarrassed to be sharing her space.
‘thank you’
‘stop, oh please stop thinking. she’s picking up everything.’
Jenna came out of the house with the pickup keys in her hand as I…, we finished feeding and watering the horse and chickens.
“I called Gabe and told him I needed to pick up a tarp. He didn’t even ask why. He gave an okay on the credit card. The dealer in Plainview has netting and tarps. Save an extra five hours driving to and back from Amarillo. I took the petty cash out of the cookie jar so we can get ets some clothes. Dad’s coveralls looks too darn sexy on that body. She’s going to have every male who sees her tripping over their eyeballs and their tongue.” Jenna slid up into the pickup.
I got into the pickup passenger seat. “Sis, thanks. I know you don’t fully understand who or what ets is. She needs our help to call for help from home. With their space drive technology, that million light years distance means they are our next door neighbors. The fact they look a lot like us is a big plus when they decide to announce themselves. Their knowledge of medicine is so far ahead of ours, left on our own, we still wouldn’t know a hundredth of what they know in a thousand years.”
Jenna took a deep breath and looked at me before starting the pickup. “She better not hurt you is all I ask..., Do you know how hard this is when I’m talking to you and looking at her? This is all so just damn freaky.”
“I won’t hurt your brother. I can feel his and your love for each other. I would die first before I let anything happen to him.”
Jenna shook her head, stared straight ahead as she started the pickup. “See, that’s exactly what I was talking about. You are both the same. Even when Ron speaks he sounds just like you.”
At Gebo’s Farm Store the tarps and netting was easy enough to get. We also bought a thousand feet of nylon rope to tie it all down and stakes to hold everything. Toss in a half dozen rolls of duct tape, several gallons of green, brown, red paint, paint brushes, and turpentine. It was ets who suggested all this stuff. As I was downloading information from ets mind, she was doing the same from mine, which was a joke. I had nothing to share. I’m a seventeen old kid. She flies a space ship and has visited star systems we don’t even know exists. School was going to be so ho hum boring after all this. Would mom and dad let me take mail order lessons in quantum physics?
Loading it all in the pickup was the last thing on those men’s mind. Sis was wearing a soft turquoise polyester blouse, jeans, and sneakers. And for the first time in my life, I realized how well sis filled out all her clothes. Sis was right about ets and how well she put abundant curves into dad’s coveralls. The men and the customers couldn’t take their eyes off either of us. Sis’s emerald blue eyes, long honey blonde hair and ets’s onyx black eyes, and long raven black hair was an added striking contrast to the two girls…, women. That was the day I also realized my sister was no longer a girl but a woman.
After sis handed them mom’s credit card, they made a call before running it and handing it back. It must have gone through all right. I choked when I saw the total. Yep, sis and I were grounded for life and then some.
Our next stop was Ellen’s Second Time Around shop. When sis picked out a dress for ets to try on, it was the second time that day I choked. “I can’t.”
“Close your eyes then and let her try it on.” Jenna shoved it into our hands.
“It doesn’t work like that. She and I see everything the other sees or hears.” I pushed the dress back in Jenna’s direction.
“Get over it then. Because if this takes more than a few hours after we get home, I have a real strong feeling you will find out everything about the female anatomy in less than a minute.”
Jenna was searching through the clothes as she was talking. She found jeans and blouses. “Try these and see if they fit. ets, do you need a brassiere? I don’t think asking my brother will get a straight answer.”
“I know that of which you speak as it is in your brother’s memory. He’s blushing so hard right now. Your brother is an adorable sweet heart. I have no need of such articles of clothing, thank you.”
“Okay, we’ll stop at Walmart on the way home and get you some panties and a bra. You still need a bra to cover those assets of yours. They are just too perky. Heavy cloth coveralls is one thing. A light blouse is another. Those intimate items are never secondhand clothes. We buy new. Take my brother into the dressing room.” Jenna pointed to a curtain. “See if those clothes fit while I try and find you some sneakers or boots. Any idea what size you might wear?”
“None what so ever. That data in your brother’s mind seems to be mixed. There are men’s and women’s sizes? He has no idea what size I might wear.”
Jenna took a good look at ets’s feet. They hadn’t thought about shoes before they came to town. Daddy’s coveralls and barefoot, she wondered what the people down at the farm store thought? A seven or a seven and a half I think. I’ll get both. You can see which is the most comfortable after you try on the clothes.”
I never was so embarrassed in my whole life. ets trying on clothes in the second hand store was bad. That was nothing. When we got to Walmart and she tried on bras, if possible I probably would have passed out as everything ets felt and thought, I felt and thought. When I volunteered to help ets, I never figured this would be part of the job description.
ets was laughing as she and Jenna left the dressing room. “Your brother is cute. He has been blushing so much, I’m surprised he has any blood in any part of his body beside his cheeks.”
Jenna nodded in agreement. “Ron has dated only two girls I know of. Those dates were for a movie, a hamburger and Coke, and then take her home. His relationship with girls isn’t the best.”
“I noticed your ears are pierced. Do you have earrings or should we get some?” Jenna reached up and moved ets hair away from her left ear. When she did, she stopped and squeaked. “OH!” She quickly brushed ets hair back down in place to cover her ear.
She didn’t say another word until we got back into the pickup. “The eyes, the beautiful face, the pointed ears, the beyond competition body…, you’re an elf!”
“elf?” Of course I had been wondering what was bothering Jenna and had been listening.
ets sighed. “I am not what you think in that respect. I am processing your brother’s thoughts since you have mentioned elves. As there are many races on your world, there are hundreds of millions on the planetary systems we inhabit. I’m not a historian of your planet’s past. Could your fables of elves come from such who lived among humans? It is possible. Did they leave or die off? I can’t answer that question. My race uses forces unimaginable to your species. In that sense it could be called magic. Among those many races of our systems there are those who are called Elvan. I am of that race.”
“Oh this is so cool.” I injected into the conversation.
“Park it little brother, ets and I are having a girl to girl talk.” Jenna started up the pickup and was pulling out of the parking lot. “The little ball of light you have…”
“Time, matter, displacement sphere?”
“Yes, that one. Where do you hide it when we aren’t seeing it?”
“It is…, think of your brother. He is here and yet you do not see him. His existence is the smallest measurements of time lapse slower than your own time. Such a small slice of time your world couldn’t begin to imagine. He is hidden in the same space I occupy but not at the same time. He could step away anytime he felt like it and you would see him again. Nothing would be changed.”
“I have a…, room where I keep many things I need from time to time. Most are tools of my…, profession as a scientist. This room is the smallest slice of time lagging behind my present existence. I am able to reach into it and retrieve whatever I need and then put it back. That is where I keep the sphere among other things.”
Jenna passed the last stoplight and pointed the pickup toward home. “That room is back on the farm?”
“No, it is here.”
“Here?” Jenna glanced over at ets. “How big is it? Are we talking about something as big as a mailbox?”
“uh oh, Sis, I received the information on the room as ets calls it. It’s a house with six rooms and it is right beside her. Now I would call that magic for sure.”
“House?”
“Yep, I am looking though it using ets memory. It’s really cool. Oh wait, I’m sorry ets. I shouldn’t be doing this. A person’s room is private stuff.”
“I’ll vocalize for your sister’s information, Ron. Because we are bonded I don’t mind. You are right as it is a private place for me. Very few have ever seen my demesne. They were only invited into the room facing the doorway. You may describe that room and what it contains to your sister if you like.”
“Jenna, this is unbelievable. ets opened the door for me and I’m looking into her home. The floor and walls…, yes, even the ceiling seems to be polished white marble. On both sides inside the door are shelves or cabinets of polished, uh, deep brown kind of wood with lighter streaks. I’m not describing it well. I can’t. It’s beautiful, the whole place is beautiful. The only way I can think of describing it is, this place belongs to a queen or a princess.”
Jenna looked over at ets and then took a second and third look. “Ron, I think it does belong to a princess. ets isn’t surprised by the description. She’s been called that before.”
“oh…, OH! She is, I can feel it in her mind.”
“Please, it isn’t what you think when you think of a princess in your world. I am a scientist.”
I didn’t say anything. This bond ets and I shared was getting too personal. Knowledge transfer was instant and in some cases intimate. When princess was mentioned her mind pulled up her life as a princess. She wasn’t exactly a runaway princess…, well, yes she is. She refused to obey the rules set up for one of her status. OH POOP! After she sends her signal we are going to be up to our eyeballs in alien craft. This can’t be good. Our military, our government is going to have a cow.
‘please don’t say anything to your sister’
‘this mind thing needs an off switch. i won’t say anything to her’
‘thank you’
“uh, sis, ets needs or more realistically we need a different name for ets. Although the longer I use it the more comfortable I am with it. I think she needs an…, earth name for lack of a better word.”
Jenna took a quick look in our direction. “I was thinking along the same line. ets, you have a preference for a name? Or better yet, how long do you think it will take for you to build that SOS device and get a response? If only a couple hours we can forget covering that ship of yours and thinking of names for you. A day or two maybe?”
“If it doesn’t take too long we can return all this to the farm store tomorrow. We’ll have to think of some explanation why we got it in the first place when daddy sees the tickets.”
Jenna sighed. “Wish we had thought this through and asked these questions before we did this. Having an alien drop into our living room and possess my brother hasn’t helped. Oh, did I mention staying up all night might have been a factor?”
“Jenna, I’m not possessed. If anything it might be ets is possessed by me. She is letting me drive for the most part.”
“Oh yes, and when she was trying on bras? I mean when you were trying on bras?” Jenna giggled.
“Duly noted, Sis.”
“Amari”
“Amari? Is that supposed to mean something?” Jenna turned into our driveway.
“I remembered it from a book I had read. It can be a boy or girl name but it means miracle. ets, would you mind if we called you Amari?”
“The sound is pleasing to the mind. I would like if my friends Jenna, and Ron call me Amari.”
==============================================================
“Oh boy!” I was looking at the ship after Jenna backed the pickup up to the side of the barn.
“We are never going to get any tarps or netting pulled over that thing.” Jenna was looking at the same thing I was.
“So much for planning ahead. Listen, I’m starving and so is Amari. What time is it? Amari isn’t wearing a watch.”
Jenna took a look at her left wrist. “It’s after two. Let’s go into the house and fix a TV dinner for now. Something more substantial for supper later. How is that going to work with you and Amari? You going to separate?”
What I felt and read from Amari’s mind left me without any doubt. “Amari, I’m not leaving you until your rescue is here and you’re headed home.”
“Jenna, a parting won’t happen. Amari won’t last more than a couple hours and we can’t rebond once I leave. She isn’t sure but she thinks this energy bridge works both ways. When she eats or refuels her energy then it feeds back to me. The reverse of what is happening now.”
“Jenna, I won’t let any harm come to your brother if possible. If this doesn’t work then I will move away from him and leave. I won’t let him starve because of me.” Amari was trying to give comfort to Jenna for the strange existing conditions.
“I guess. Come on then, that ship can wait a little longer.” She opened the door to the house and motioned Amari in.
It was after seven, we had gone out and looked over the ship several time still not coming up with a plan. We were at the table eating supper as this energy flow back and forth seemed to be working between Amari and me. Jenna and I had fixed mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, corn, and salad for supper. And made what we both called chicken fried steak hamburgers.
It came to me when Amari finished her plate of food. “County yard.”
Jenna was gathering up plates for the sink. “What?”
“The county has a bucket truck. It will be there in the county yard. Tomorrow is Sunday. Nobody will know if we borrow it. We can use it to lift the tarps and netting over the ship and do the painting at the same time.”
“Ron, that’s stealing.” She was rinsing the dishes as I was gathering up the leftovers and putting them in containers for the fridge.
“We aren’t stealing. We will be borrowing. We borrow and take it back when we are finished borrowing. That isn’t stealing.”
“That type of thinking is exactly what every crook has thought since the beginning of time. And nothing has changed since then. It is stealing.” She was stacking dishes in the dishwasher.
Scrapping the last of the table scraps into the pail for the chickens, I shook my head. “Not if it is taken back. Bonnie and Clyde never intended to return what they borrowed so that was stealing. Besides, have you come up with any ideas on how to get those tarps spread out across that ship?”
Jenna straightened up and put her hands on her hips as she turned to look at me. “I have an idea. Let’s go down to the county yard tomorrow and STEAL their bucket truck.”
“oh, oh.”
“What oh oh? It was your idea in the first place.”
“No not that oh oh. Amari needs to make a…, We never thought of this situation either did we?”
Jenna looked like she was trying to figure it out. And then she burst out laughing. “ha, ha, ha, remember when I said you were going to get exposure to the female anatomy? Take it like a man little brother. You signed on and there is no backing out now.”
Trying to close my eyes, turn off my brain, not feel what Amari felt wasn’t working as she headed for the bedroom. She discarded all her clothes in the bedroom before heading to the bathroom. Accessing my thoughts gave her guidance on how things worked in there.
AND her thoughts gave me more than I wanted to know how her female body worked. I was blushing so hard there couldn’t be any left in the world for anyone else.
She stepped into the shower and turned it on. “Ron, in my race, we do not have the inhibitions you seem to have. I am not ashamed of my body. It is mine.”
“…., if I had your body, I wouldn’t be ashamed either. I mean…, you’re so beautiful, gorgeous. You’re exotic, a creature of legends we always admired and loved. You’re a perfect life. I’m sorry, I’m babbling. I’m trying to not think.”
She stopped and touched her breast. ‘i won’t ever forget you’
When she touched intimate places on her body we seemed to have a separation in emotions. While it was normal and didn’t bother her, I almost felt like I was going to die of emotional overdrive. I shivered in uncontrolled ecstasy every time.
She didn’t laugh or make fun of me. ‘relax Ron, our bodies are a gift from the gods. it is to be appreciated.’
‘i’ll never be able to forget you’ I prayed with all my heart she made it back home.
Amari dressed in fresh clothes Jenna had purchased for her in town before returning back to the kitchen. “I am going out to work on the transmitter if you don’t require my assistance.”
“No, I’m good. I’ll take a shower myself and start the laundry before I come out to see what you are doing. That is if you don’t mind?”
“I am forever in your debt. How could I mind? Come when you are ready.” Amari was walking out the door.
Standing beside the ship she retrieved her small globe and held it out in her hand. It glowed. We were inside the ship.
I would never get ready for her time matter displacement generator. That thing was wicked.
The inside wasn’t all gleaming polished metal. It was more like one would decorate a room, soft beige walls with light brown panels installed. Two light tan seats in the middle of the room with control panels beside them. Two more seats in tandem behind those with different controls.
Amari walked over and sat down in the front right seat. The control panel swung around in front of her. She was light blinding fast as she typed in touching the screen, programming, flipping switches, and pushing buttons. I wasn’t able to keep up.
Instantly I was looking at the brightest stars and the blackest black I had ever seen right in front of us. Instinctively I wanted to reach out and touch it. I held back as I sensed from Amari’s thoughts it was part of the drive system in the ship showing the way home. Symbols and things I didn’t have time to assess from her mind blipped across in front of me. A blue dot lit up on…, in the hologram with symbols, and designs I would call crop circles around it. I knew that was the star system she called home a million light years away.
The hologram disappeared, Amari pushed the control panel away, and stood up. ‘i will need to remove the time matter displacement drive in the ship’
She walked over to a wall and pushed some buttons. A panel in the wall opened up revealing hundreds of dials, switches, buttons, and coils. Quietly I watched not wanting to distract her.
She sequenced a series of controls and a soft eeeeee started reverberating throughout the ship. ‘it is alerting a serious breach to the time matter displacement disrupted hold in case there was an operator error’
A panel in the floor was sliding back. Amari walked over and easily dropped into the hole. There was no mistaking the object she was looking for. It was suspended inside a crystalline ball which was suspended in the center of the compartment. It kind of looked like a half dead light bulb. It certainly wasn’t glowing brightly.
‘traveling through time matter requires a constant drop in out in measurements of time which doesn’t exist. which makes little sense to those who don’t understand how it works. if it wasn’t sampling time displacement one would never know where to end the trip because time doesn’t exist. there are records going back millions of years of this problem happening only twice where the unit gets caught up in a time loop it can’t escape. no one really knows if it is a fault in the module or if the craft flew through a time anomaly. it is still functioning but not in this time period. i strongly suspect it is like you and me separated by a slice of time too small to measure. without someone in the particular slice of time it is functioning in there is no way to realign it with this time.’
She was working with another control panel as she was mentally explaining to me why the unit had stopped functioning. There was another eeeeEEEEeeeeEEEEeeee as the globe settled down to the pedestal under it. She held out her small sphere and the crystal globe disappeared leaving the almost dead ball exposed.
After putting her small sphere back in the space the big one had previously occupied, she climbed back up into the cabin. Amari , found her seat, brought the control panel around and touched several buttons.
‘i hope the co ordinates are right. the main unit wasn’t really functioning although I could siphon data off of it. the small unit doesn’t have enough power to feed the ship. i sent the message. if the co ordinates are right my people will receive it.’
‘how long before you know’
‘two hours tops if it reached omh four.’
‘and if it didn’t?’
‘realign the signal and try again. your sister is outside.’ Amari pushed everything aside, dropped down the hatch, retrieved her sphere, and returned to the control room.
She held the sphere out, it glowed, and Jenna was standing in the cabin.
“Wow!” She looked around. “That was a rush. I like your ship. It doesn’t look anything like I expected. I mean it isn’t all sterile and shiny metal. Have you managed to send a signal yet?”
“The signal was sent. The main unit is faulty. It was necessary to use it to ask the ship for the coordinates pointing toward home. If no one arrives in two of your hours, I will readjust the signal one pi u ta and try again.”
“pi u ta?”
“Half the thickness of a carbon molecule. I am aiming for a system one hundred light years away. They will relay the message home. That much variance can mean the difference between them receiving or the signal missing them completely.” Amari shifted us back outside.
Jenna looked startled, then she smiled. “Something else you do that would take some time to get used to. How far can you transport?”
“With the small displacement unit, only about fifty yards. If the ship unit was working the request could be five miles to pickup or placement.” Amari walked into the house behind Jenna.
“May I call you Jenna?” Amari and Jenna were standing in the living room.
“Yes, of course. I guess we should have cleared that up sooner but things have been really weird.”
“I suggest you get some sleep. You look tired. I will wake you if they come. If they don’t I will realign the signal in two hours.”
When sleep was mentioned Jenna couldn’t help herself. She put her hand over her mouth as she yawned. “You and Ron need to rest too.”
Amari took a step back toward the front door. “I don’t need the sleep as bad as your brother does. I’m not going to punish him by keeping him up all night. Two more hours and help arrives or I realign the signal and go to sleep ourselves.”
“I’m fine, Sis. I’m probably not as tired as you because I’ve been kinda coasting. Amari is right. Two more hours and I’ll convince her to crash for the night.”
Moments later Amari was back in the ship. I had an idea. ‘Amari, why don’t you adjust the beam now and send the signal. If the first one missed you won’t be waiting two hours to send another?’
‘we aren’t the only space travelers. there are those who have been trying to get our displacement technology for hundreds of thousands of years. if one of them picks up the signal they will try to be the first to arrive and take the ship. they may even be operating in your solar system. in that situation they could arrive first even though they can’t match our drive system. there is the possibility I may never get the signal aligned right and my home system never receives it.’
Amari sighed, as she dropped down into the drive system compartment. ‘i will need to put the displacement sphere in position so it can power the alignment coordinates. i am going to do as you suggested and place several thousand signals around the first and send them out. it will be the maximum the smaller unit can handle at one time.’
A couple hours later, we, an exhausted Amari and me, were asleep on my bed. My last thoughts were, I sensed her thinking about reinstalling the main disrupter, asking for the coordinates again before trying to send more signals. I prayed she made contact.
Because we were bonded, when Amari opened her eyes before sunup or the rooster even crowed, I was also awakened. She had gone to bed fully dressed last night. I know she did it to keep from embarrassing me.
She rolled out of bed. ‘i’m going to take a shower.’
‘girls take a lot of baths or showers. ‘i’m sorry you still need me along when you must do the necessity. i also understand the reason we can’t unbond and rebond. I’m sorry if I embarrass you.’
Amari smiled as she dropped her clothes including her panties and bra. She went up on her toes and stretched reaching for the ceiling. ‘ron, as I said yesterday, my society is not as inhibited about one’s body as yours seems to be. this bond we share does not embarrass me.’
There was only one bathroom in our house, she opened the bedroom door, walked down the hall to the bathroom and stepped into the shower. All the time totally naked and me totally embarrassed with my cheeks a flaming red I’m sure. Amari washing herself and me feeling all of that did not help in the least.
She stepped out of the shower and dried off using one of the big fluffy bath towels from the towel rack. Me? Forget me. I was in sensory overload.
Amari was reading and feeling all my thoughts. “You have given me a new experience in my own upbringing which I admit I must have missed. As I said, we are not as inclined to be embarrassed or shocked if we see another naked. A community bath is a common thing among us. Thus the intrigue of one of opposite sex is nonexistent.”
Jenna hearing the shower turn off got up and waited in the hall for her turn when Amari opened the bathroom door and stepped out into the hall completely naked. Jenna stared and her mouth partly opened. She was a cheerleader, she had seen naked girl bodies before. She still did every week before and after PE. The one she was looking at now was way above any ten. She coughed as her mind caught up. “I take it my brother is looking at that when you’re in front of a mirror?”
“Your brother and I share mind thoughts. A mirror is not a necessity for him to…”
“Oh jeeze, god, I hope he doesn’t have emotional meltdown. Ron, are you okay?”
“Okay? No I’m not okay. I’m closer than anyone ever will be to the most beautiful woman who ever set foot on this planet. It is a gift and a curse. And not in how you might think. Sis, I’ve fallen in love and I don’t even know what love is. Amari is more than any man deserves. She’s…,”
Tears filled Jenna’s eyes. “Don’t hurt my brother. Please.”
Amari reached out and touched Jenna’s face wiping off some tears. “You and your brother’s kindness is not taken lightly. I would die before I let harm come to either of you.”
She turned and headed for the front door the glowing ball in her hand. The gold suit formed on her body. “Help did not come. The signals were not pointed in the right direction. I am going to realign and try again.”
An hour later Amari had realigned twice and resent the signal two thousand times pointed toward different parts of space separated in increments so small it would be a hundred thousand years before humans even begin to understand.
Jenna called us in for breakfast. As Amari and Jenna ate, I picked up on Amari’s emotions. Our bonding couldn’t last longer than two more days or I would die. The energy we shared might have been two way, however there was a real need for physical substance which our bonding wasn’t supplying to me.
Finishing her meal, Amari helped Jenna rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. “I believe we need to get the truck your brother was talking about. Hopefully help will arrive before we start covering the ship or shortly there after. We need to keep working with the idea the signals aren’t getting through. If they don’t show up in time, I will take the ship out to keep it from your government and others research.”
Jenna nodded. “That’s a plan. I’ll get the pickup keys. Think you can drive that bucket truck?”
“I can. Remember I helped out Gabe and William when they needed an extra hand to get that guy out of the overturned car in the irrigation ditch? Everyone else was out at the accident. I drove the truck out there.”
Jenna closed her eyes as she nodded again. “This is not getting any better when you and Amari are able to switch back and forth like that.”
“Let’s go.” She pointed at the door.
The county yard had a fenced in area where all the equipment was left. It also had a gate which nobody ever closed. All the vehicles had keys in the ignition in case someone needed one in an emergency. Nobody ever came to Doxy without a reason and nobody in Doxy bothered locking their homes. Our part of the word wasn’t that connected with the rest of the world.
Climbing up into the cab, I started up the bucket truck and let it idle. It would be a two minute wait while it built up air pressure before I could unlock the brakes. Oil and voltage gauges found the right numbers on their respective gauge face. Air finally came up to ninety pounds. I released the parking brakes. There was a loud hiss and whoosh as brakes released. Dropping the shift lever down into drive we started rolling forward. I got such a rush last time I was allowed to do this. I mean a kid in a really big monster truck, and I used the air horn a lot last time. This time? Nothing. Humans haven’t really progressed since the stone age and pushing wooden wheels. Knowing a lot of what Amari knew? We were still Neanderthals pushing wheels.
==============================================================================
“Your brother has an extensive knowledge of camouflage. In nature there are seldom any straight lines. The tarps need to be diagonal to one another spread out over the hull. We can spread them out on the ground eight yards apart. Tie them together with the rope and then pull them up over the ship with the bucket boom on the truck. Then we tie off the edges and rope them down to stakes in the ground so when we pull the netting up over all that it doesn’t slide the tarps off.”
“Wow, Ron has all that in his mind? I’m impressed little brother.” Jenna had been looking at the tarps and netting they had removed from the pickup. She turned her attention to Amari and shook her head. Still confusing when she looked at where the voice came from and it was her brother’s ideas.
Three hours later the tarps were spread across the hull of the ship. It was after one o’clock. Lunch was sandwiches and fifteen minutes later, Jenna and Amari were spreading out netting to pull over the tarps which were now laying on the ship. I knew Amari could run that bucket as well as I could. Every now and then she let me take over so I would feel useful. It was getting dark before the tarps and netting had been secured and paint was splashed helter skelter over it all to cover any straight lines. We took the boom truck back to the yard and returned home.
Jenna went into the house to bath and clean up, Amari went into the ship to realign and rebroadcast. Time was closing in on her and me.
When we made it back into the house, Jenna was waiting. “Listen little brother, it is obvious you can’t go to school like that.”
She shook her head after imagining what might happen if her brother showed up as Amari. “I’ll make some sort of excuse for you tomorrow if Amari’s ride doesn’t show up tonight. Are you sure you two can’t separate now?”
“Not yet, Jenna.” I didn’t feel the need to tell sis come Tuesday Amari and I had gone as far as we could supporting one another. She would shove me away to keep me from dying and afterwards she would slowly die herself. I wanted to sit down and bawl. The injustice of it all. Amari had traveled a million light years from home to die. It wasn’t right.
‘courage, young one. you have a lifetime ahead of you. we have shared everything between us. i will not die, for do you not understand through the bonding we are one? come, let us clean up this body as I feel a need to be clean’
“Amari is going to clean up, Sis. Help will come. They must.” I headed for the bathroom before Amari took over again.
“I still don’t think that’s right.” Jenna watched as Amari walked into the bathroom.
Amari purposely took her time bathing in the bathtub, soaping down and wiping every square inch of her body. And I do mean every square inch! I wasn’t over run with emotions nor was I shocked. If I could describe it, I enjoyed it as every woman would and no man could. Men don’t have the same sensory input women do. I was so in love with a woman who I would give my life for if possible. Amari was everything a woman should be.
After the bath she dried off and retrieved her sphere. Her golden jumpsuit appeared on her again. I knew why. We were going to spend the night in her ship adjusting and sending signals all night long. There wouldn’t be any sleep for us.
At seven the next morning, we fixed breakfast while Jenna got ready for school. She came into the kitchen wearing jeans, boots, cowboy belt and buckle. She was wearing a polyester mauve blouse with enough darts it was form fitting to her body. I revised my opinion of my sister again. She wasn’t only the hottest girl in school, she was the hottest one in Texas.
“You’re looking good, Sis. Something special today or you just want to stun all the boys so they flunk all their grades.”
She laughed, “Ha, no, I’m taking the pickup to school so I can come home right after. Don’t answer the door if anyone knocks. You have a slight fever so you stayed home today. It’s the only excuse I could think of that wasn’t that questionable.”
Ten minutes after taking a bite of her eggs, toast, and drinking a glass of milk she was out the door.
I dumped the dishes in the sink and let Amari go out to the ship. Time was getting short.
Amari stayed in the ship all day until we heard the pickup pull into the yard. After retrieving her sphere from the drive console she transported us out of the ship.
She had just walked into the house when we heard another vehicle pull up, and then a second one after that. Jenna walked to the door. “It’s Gabe and Elvis, Chris is in the second car. Stay in the house.”
She opened the door and stepped out. “Hi Gabe, lose something?”
“How’s Ron? Heard he didn’t go to school today. Flu or something, mind if check on him?” He wasn’t looking at Jenna but keeping his focus on the house.
“Don’t bother, he’s okay. I checked on him as soon as I got home. Little fever, still in bed. We’re good.” Jenna looked from Gabe over to Elvis and Chris who were still back by the vehicles. They were suspicious and cautious.
“I’ll go on in and check on him then.” Gabe stepped up to the door and opened it.
“Gabe, wait, don’t. Ron is alright.” Jenna was near panic.
Gabe stepped into the house and stopped. The person across the room most certainly wasn’t Ron. “Who are you and what are you doing in this house? Ron and Jenna knew they weren’t supposed to let anyone visit while their parents were gone.”
His eyes scanned the room, saw the shredded couch where the shotgun had chewed it up. His hand went to the gun on his hip.
I gave Gabe credit, he didn’t pull his gun, yet. “Gabe, wait. Listen before you go all Rambo. Please.”
His focus was now intensely on the woman. “Where’s Ron. That is the first item in this conversation.”
“Gabe, listen to me very carefully. You’re one of the smartest people I know. I’ve never heard anyone say you did anything without thinking it through first. Ron is okay. You need to believe that before you pull that gun and do something all of us regret. This will be easier to explain if you let me show you something behind the barn. Step over to the side of the room. I’ll walk out ahead of you. Elvis and Chris are outside and can keep an eye on me after I walk out the door.”
“Behind the barn? What happened to the couch and where’s Ron? Listen lady, I’m losing my patience here and you aren’t in any position to be arguing with me.” Gabe had his hand firmly gripped on his pistol.
“Gabe, you were in the military. If there were ten thousand enemy ahead of you and it was just you and your buddy in the trench would you take them on?”
Gabe snorted in response.
“That’s what you’re facing here. Amari has more disposable power in her possession then you could imagine. She isn’t going to let that knowledge be turned lose so others can exploit it. If you shoot her, me, you have removed her choice. This farm, half the county will be vaporized. Give everyone a chance to live. For god’s sake, go see what is behind the barn before you kill us all with your stubbornness.” I could sense Amari holding that sphere in her hand. She was allowing me to do the talking but not hold the sphere.
“ELVIS, CHRIS, WE’RE COMING OUT. KEEP YOUR GUNS HANDY.” Gabe backed up across the room.
“Gabe, thank you.” I walked out the door.
Elvis and Chris expected someone to come out. What did wasn’t exactly what they expected. The lady in the gold jumpsuit was..., stunning. “GABE, IS THIS ALL OF THEM?” Elvis yelled back.
Gabe quickly gave a quick search through the rest of the house. Still no Ron or anyone else. Minutes later he came out. “She’s the only one. Ron isn’t in the house.”
“Behind the barn and I’ll explain.” I pointed off across the yard.
“No tricks, you run, I shoot. Do you understand?” Gabe held back about six feet.
“Just don’t get jumpy. Tell Elvis and Chris to breathe before they do anything stupid.”
Jenna walked up beside me and took my hand. “We can’t blame Gabe. He was worried about us. He promised mom and dad he would look in on us.”
“I know. If he had only waited another day. Oh well, what is done is done.” I led them out into the field so they could look at the ship.
Gabe and the others were staring at it. Gabe was the first to question. “What the hell is that?”
“THAT! Is an interplanetary spaceship which had…, engine trouble. Remember those fighter jets that flew over last Friday pushing as hard as they could go? The sonic booms? They were chasing this. It is the reason we covered it. Any planes searching for this ship probably had a search pattern they are working.”
That was when we heard the sonic boom, a whine, and a tube ship about a two hundred feet in diameter and four hundred feet long settled down in the field a hundred feet from us.
“It is me they are after. Everyone leave now. Ron, we break our bond.” She pushed.
There was a flash, and I was standing there looking back at Amari. “NO!”
Some really ugly people were coming across the field toward us from the ship. Every story about big eyed, large head, small mouth gray aliens was drawn with these guys in mind.
So far, Gabe, Elvis, Chris, Jenna hadn’t moved. Jenna of course knew this was real but I wasn’t sure about the others. “Gabe, you and the others need to leave now if you can. Take Jenna with you.”
If finally dawned on Gabe I was standing there too. “Where did you come from? Were you inside that ship?”
“Gabe, Sis, leave. These aren’t nice people.” I had Amari’s knowledge of them in my mind. I didn’t think they were going to let any of us live.
All of them were armed except for the big one who stopped about ten feet from Amari. “Greetings Princess, we picked up your signal. Your ship is disabled, we are here to guard it until it can be retrieved.”
It was a language none of the others could understand. My bonding with Amari gave me the ability to know what he had said.
“I will never let you have my ship. Get back in yours and leave now while you still can.” Amari stared back at him.
“You are not in any position to bargain, Princess. We scanned your ship and you have no time disrupter. It’s a pity as that is what we really wanted. The rest of your ship will suffice.”
“Never.”
I could feel Amari's grip tighten on the sphere. I looked at my sister. “Jenna, I love you. You’re more of a sister than anyone deserves and more of a beautiful woman than any boy deserves.”
“Ron, what’s going on? What are they saying?” Jenna stepped up beside me and took my hand.
“They want Amari’s ship. She isn’t going to let them have it. When she calls for self destruct nothing is going to survive in a ten mile radius.”
“Jesus!” Gabe took a deep breath.
There was a sonic boom that rattled everyone’s brain along with a concussion wind that swept out from where a huge saucer appeared approximately twenty feet from the first ship. I didn’t have time to count as somewhere approximately thirty or forty men and women appeared in a formation facing the first group. Some were kneeling, others standing and all of them armed with what I knew was very serious firepower. Really serious weapons!
I don’t know when or how Gabe made it to his truck and back. He had retrieved a high end camera and was taking pictures like mad.
A man and a woman walked over to our little gathering. Both stood the same height as Amari, about six six or six seven. Both had silky white hair that hung down to their waist and pointed ears that stuck up above it. Soft white jump suits, utility belts, side arms, and I swear to god he had a sword over his shoulder. She had a bow slung over hers. Both had lithe bodies, she packed a lot of easy curves into her suit.
He stopped short keeping an eye on the alien. “Sojo, how unpleasant to met you again. You were in the neighborhood were you?”
“Argus, why all this show of force? I am offended. Is this anyway to treat someone on a diplomatic mission?” The gray turned his attention from Amari to the newcomer.
“Diplomatic mission? Is that what they are calling looting, stealing, murder now days? I’m sure you decided to stop, help the Princess, and relieve her of her ship and probably her life. How would you like to end this old friend?” A wicked smile crossed Argus face.
Saucers began to appear in the sky like snowflakes. I mean they just appeared one after another every tenth of a second or so until I figured there were about twenty or thirty of them.
The woman turned her attention to Amari and gave a slight curtsy. “Your Highness, do you know what is wrong with your ship?”
Her voice was lilting and angelic. I was positive the men would have sworn an oath to marry her on the spot if they could find their wits or their tongues. All six foot six of her, pointy ears, almond eyes, and heart shaped face. That would include the weapons she was carrying, I’m sure.
Amari glanced over at the guys and I thought she was going to giggle but she held it back. “Usha, you have entranced the men. Do you want to take one or all of them home with you? The displacement drive went out on my ship.”
Usha was holding a sphere in her hand. She spoke to it. “The Princess says the displacement drive is out. Send a ship to retrieve one. I apologize your Highness we didn’t bring a spare with us.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to. It isn’t something that has happened in over eleven thousand years.”
Usha got a frown on her face. “Your environment stabilizer is tied into your ship drive. How did…, Oh.” She took a look at me. “You bonded.”
Argus took a quick glance in my direction but didn’t say anything. He focused back on Sojo. “Your window of leaving is closing old friend. You can stay until we leave. When we go, everyone goes except for those who live here.”
“Another time perhaps.” Sojo waved to the others outside his ship. They started filing back inside.
“Perhaps.” Argus waited as Sojo walked back to his ship before he turned to Amari.
He gave a slight bow of his head. “Your Highness. I apologize for the delay. We never picked up your signal. Orand, received it and sent a ship to inform us. They having only light ten it was four days in coming.”
A saucer landed in the field, two women appeared outside it, one holding a sphere about the size of a soccer ball. It was a time displacement drive for Amari’s ship. They walked up to her ship and disappeared. I knew they were inside replacing the drive. They had left here after receiving notice her ship needed the drive replaced. Traveled a million light years home picked up a drive unit and traveled a million light years back in the time everyone had been occupied in keeping the grays entertained. Unbelievable! My mind boggled at what these people achieved.
When the drive was initiated in her ship I could sense her small sphere pick up and stabilize the environment around her. She was safe now from the toxins we put in our own air. That included what mother nature dumped into it from all the sulfuric volcano eruptions around the world, I didn’t need to wonder why Elvan’s left if they had been here.
“Princess, your ship has been repaired, we need to leave.” Behind Argus, Sojo’s ship was lifting off.
“A moment Argus, a debt must be paid.” She walked over and took my hands in both of hers.
“Their flyers are approaching your Highness. Time is of the essence.” Usha moved up beside Amari.
“Our fighter jets. They were scrambled when that first ship appeared. You must go, Amari. I’ll never forget you.” I leaned up and kissed her on the lips. To hell with what her people thought. We shared our lives for four days closer than anyone on my world ever had.
She didn’t pull back and actually returned the kiss before breaking it off. “We are bonded. You understand what it entails. Stay safe.”
She let go of my hands and turned to Usha. “Transport me to my ship.”
“By your command, Your Highness.” Usha and Amari both disappeared. Her ship rose up in the air taking the tarps, netting, ropes, stakes with it. Then it disappeared. Everything that had covered it floated back down to the ground.
Argus studied me for a few seconds before he nodded and disappeared. Almost at the same instant all the saucers disappeared.
Our meeting with aliens had become a non occurrence except in our minds. There wasn’t any physical evidence left they had ever been here. Except…, I smiled.
“No one and I mean no one is going to believe any of this.” Elvis finally found his voice.
“I’m not telling. Everyone will think I’m crazy.” Chris was looking around to make sure it was all gone. Whatever “it” was that happened.
Gabe looked at me and then Jenna. “Care to explain?”
Looking over at Jenna at back at Gabe I shrugged my shoulders. “Explain what Gabe? I think I’m over the fever. I’ll be back in school tomorrow if that is what you are asking. Must have been that twenty four hour virus.”
There were four sonic booms as four fighter jets streaked across the sky. Jenna looked up. “I wonder what they are doing? Gabe, are they out practicing today?”
Gabe looked frustrated. “Okay you two. What about that shredded couch in the living room? Huh? I didn’t imagine that.”
He held the camera up. “As far as other things we AREN’T talking about. I’ll make sure what is in here gets spread out to all the right people. Don’t you two go and admit anything happened here today.”
“That poor old couch?” I looked over at Jenna. “I thought you called the exterminators? Termites are bad this time of year. Don’t know how they got into the house. Must have left the door open.”
Gabe was laughing as he shook his head. “You two are a pair. I want to be here when your parents get back and see you try and explain the couch, much less that.” He pointed to the tarps and netting spread out across the field.
The corners of Jenna’s mouth curled up. “Art project. Sorry daddy, Ron and I were assigned an art project on camouflage and we got carried away.”
Elvis and Chris started laughing as they turned around and started walking back to their vehicles. Elvis looked over at Chris. “Best damn art project I ever saw.”
“Yep.” Chris nodded in agreement.
“Jody decided her old couch didn’t go with her paint scheme. It’s only a couple months old and she’s replacing it. The old one is by the alley in back of her house. Take yours, dump it where hers is at and replace yours. It’s not a match for the one you have. I’m betting your parents never notice. And for that you owe me the story of what happened to that couch. I expect to be paid sometime in the future.” Gabe gave us both the eye before he turned and walked back to his truck.
Walking over to Jenna I pulled her into a hug. “I love you, Sis. More than words can explain. Thanks for being there for Amari and me.”
She hugged me back. “I love you too little brother.”
She pushed back and looked into my eyes. “Now spill. What are you not telling?”
Holding out my hand the sphere appeared in it. “Amari left this.”
“She’s coming back isn’t she? When?” Jenna was still looking in my eyes.
“In one hundred and seventy two days. Jenna, I’m in love and she loves me. It happened while we were bonded. It shouldn’t have between a human and an Elvan but…”
“And then what? She can’t stay here. You plan on leaving with her?”
“Yes. I’ve been invited to return to her star systems. Sis, please, think about coming with. I know you have friends and we both have family but there is so much more out there. We can be the bridge between their world and humans once more.” I took Jenna’s hand and was leading her back to the house. More sonic booms shook the world as more fighters flew by looking for that which was a million light years away now.
“I don’t know.” Jenna shook her head. “I haven’t been invited. What will Amari and her people say? They already left once if the fairy tales have any truth to them.”
“They will say the same thing I said, they will love you. Give it some thought, Sis. Now, I’m starving, I haven’t eaten anything for four days.”
“I thought you and Amari were sharing that energy thing. Was that a lie?” Jenna and I headed to the kitchen to dig out some food.
“No it was the truth. But the other truth is, physical substance wasn’t passing between us. Tomorrow was the last day we could have bonded. The problem is when I left, she would die in a couple hours. If I didn’t leave, we both would die at the same time.”
She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“What was there to say? We were looking at a problem with no solution. Sharing our end with you wouldn’t help and only make you worry also.” I pulled her into another hug. “I love you, stinky, ugly girl, let’s find something to eat.”
She swatted me on the shoulder as I pulled back from her. “Listen brat, you’re not anything I’d wish to share with my cheerleader club. Keep your insolent remarks to yourself.”
When I opened the door and reached into the fridge to retrieve the hamburger meat, I felt Jenna hold onto a handful of hair.
“Just a minute little brother. How much of that bonding did you share with the Elf? Four days? Your hair is longer, softer, shinier.” She pulled me back from the fridge and cupped my chin in her hand. “Your skin is smoother, there is a definite change to the shape of your eyes. What is going on?”
Taking hold of her hands again I focused on her eyes. “Promise me you won’t freak out on me.”
“I’m not making any promises until I know what I’m not supposed to freak out on. Give…, OH MY GOD! YOU’RE CHANGING INTO AN ELF!”
I nodded in agreement.
“OH MY GOD!” Jenna stared back.
There was no sense in telling her the rest of it. In that one hundred and seventy two days, maybe she will be willing to accept and understand the whole change. I loved my sister even if she was the prettiest girl in the state and a cheerleader…, ugh!
================================================================================
It wasn’t even daylight when the sound of heavy vehicles pulling up into our yard woke Jenna and me. She was coming out of her bedroom and had a bathrobe wrapped around her. I was pulling up my pants. She looked at the lights shining in through the living room windows. “Now what?”
“Call Gabe, I bet it is the military or worse.” I retrieved the shotgun. It was stupid I know. They are going to have automatics and there are going to be several of them. Pointing a gun at them will only promise to bring pain and possible death to one of us and it won’t be them.
There was heavy pounding on the door. “Come out of the house with your hands in the air.”
“YOU COME IN THAT DOOR AND I’LL CUT YOU IN HALF WITH THIS SHOTGUN.” Sure I was bluffing, which only works if the other side doesn’t call you on it. I wasn’t sure Gabe could be any help when he got here. He would be like me, kinda over matched no matter who these guys were.
“You can’t escape. We have the house covered. Come out now and no one will get hurt.”
“They cut off the phone somehow.” She held the cellphone out. There was no signal strength. “I already called the dispatcher and was cut off. Hopefully Gabe will get the message.”
“YOU ARE TRESPASSING ON PRIVATE PROPERTY. LEAVE BEFORE I CALL THE SHERIFF.” If the situation hadn’t been so bad I would have laughed. “I hope they don’t know you called before they cut us off.”
The sound of our back door being shredded by something big and heavy caused Jenna to scream. Me? I didn’t scream until a tenth of a second later the front door was smashed in and pieces went skidding across the floor. Big and uglies in black armor carrying heavy automatics swarmed into the room from the backroom and the front door.
“DROP YOUR WEAPON! DO IT NOW!” Came from the guy sticking a gun barrel in my face while Jenna was screaming bloody murder.
I was positive I would go deaf either from Jenna’s screaming or these clowns yelling. Maybe both. I dropped the shotgun hoping it would go off and tear someone’s feet or ankles apart. Didn’t happen. In retrospect probably best. If the shotgun had gone off everyone of them would have pulled their own triggers. Gotta love adrenaline pumped Storm Troopers.
“FACE DOWN ON THE FLOOR! DO IT NOW!”
They didn’t wait as they pushed Jenna and me face down onto the floor, grabbed our wrists and zipped us up with those always useful zip tie handcuffs. Jenna was bawling now. Me? I was more than pissed they were treating my sister this way. These guys were operating way outside the law.
A man on either side of us grabbed us under the arm and yanked us to our feet, half carrying half dragging us outside. That was the moment more red and blue lights showed up along with a couple blasts on a siren, whup, whup. Spotlights came on along with Baja Cab lights, Then another half dozen trucks with red blue lights pulled up with their spotlights added to the blinding light we were all now bathed in. I couldn’t see a darn thing. I was positive none of those who first arrived could either. Only those behind those lights were able to see what was in front of them.
“This is Sheriff Howard. Put down your weapons and release your hostages.”
Lieutenant Casey tried covering his eyes. “This is a military matter. Back away.”
“I see, Lt. Casey, you seem to be head of this Operation Fuck Up. The military has no jurisdiction here. And before you bring up that fucked up concept the military has jurisdiction over all civilians, it is a lie fostered by your own government. The Posse Comitatus Act was passed explicitly for assholes like you who like to step outside the rule of law. If weapons start to discharge for one reason or another, you are going to be the first to die.”
“Hank, are you secured?”
“That’s affirmative, Captain. The Lieutenant is acquired as target lock.” Came from behind the lights.
“Kelly, have you registered all the men taking part in this stupidity?”
“Everyone of them is now in the database, Captain. I know where they live, eat, and shit. I also know every family member they have and where they live. The Lieutenant’s up command is Commander Brerman.” Came from way back of the lights.
Some of those macho men who had first arrived and were enjoying themselves to no end frightening a couple civilians, were now having second thoughts. Those behind the lights weren’t civilians or not any civilians they could think of. Had they run into an opposing military unit? Was this a test of their skills to get in and get out without being captured themselves?
“Casey, your call. Release the hostages or die here.” The voice and demeanor was so calm it chilled every man’s soul in front of those lights. It came from a man who had seen Death and no longer feared it himself.
Lt. Casey turned to the men holding the boy and girl. “Release them.” He spit out the words like poison.
Our bonds cut, I reached out for Jenna’s hand. “Come on, Sis.” I started walking toward the lights. There were an awful lot of weapons with adrenaline filled bodies holding their fingers on those triggers. I wanted us to be out of the way if someone twitched.
“Casey, don’t be a fool. We know where you live. We know your whole family. You come back or these kids get hurt, you die. It is that simple. There are no negotiations, no debate. There will be a scorched earth recon if necessary. There is no need to tell Commander Brerman. He has already received the same message. This whole deployment was SNAFU from the beginning.”
“There is no doubt the government in all its stupid wisdom will question the boy and the girl. Do it legally next time. Court order, lawyers, taped sessions. Now, have a good day Lieutenant.”
After Jenna and I got behind those lights and my eyes kind of adjusted, I was looking at over a dozen armed men and women. Some holding automatics, others holding high powered hunting rifles with scopes, two holding sniper rifles with some kind of laser sights on them. Where had Gabe called up all these people? How did they get here so quickly? This was all preplanned. It had to be.
“Get in the truck. You’re staying with friends the rest of the night.” Gabe opened the passenger door to his truck.
The military was pulling out as Gabe’s posse backed out of the way. After the last military truck left, the others in Gabe’s group begin leaving.
Gabe was pulling out of the driveway onto the road, I had my arm around Jenna when she started shaking. I reached under her chin and turned her head so she was facing me. “Jenna, look at me.”
The eyes of a frightened deer were looking back at me. My heart went out to my sister as my disgust for what happened rose. “Jenna, we were never in any real danger. Look into my eyes, I’ve never lied to you.”
I gave her a one arms squeeze as hard as I could. “Remember Amari’s private rooms? She left me the doorway to those rooms. I didn’t tell you because it didn’t seem important. I’m such an idiot. Yours and my life is bonded also. Not in the way I bonded with Amari but it is a bond of love, and trust, and sharing. If I felt we were in any real danger I would have pulled you into that room with me. Once we did that we would have to leave for certain. They would never leave us alone, ever again. I strongly suspect we would disappear in one of our government’s rooms to never be seen or heard from again.”
“Am I right, Captain?” I leaned forward to look past Jenna at Gabe.
Gabe chuckled. “A little too smart for your own good, Ron. You’re right. Now, what is this private room you were telling your sister? I have a real strong hunch it has something to do with all those ships and people we saw yesterday.”
Taking a deep breath I sighed. “Gabe, probably best you didn’t know. That said, the lady you met when you walked into the house yesterday was both Amari and me.”
Gabe’s head snapped around in my direction before turning his attention back to the road and his driving. “okie dokie”
“No, it is true. While we shared the same space we didn’t actually share the same time. I was slightly out of sync with the present. They utilize a Time, Displacement, Disrupter for their drive systems, weapon systems, and for life support along with thousands of other things. It is kind of like a Swiss all in one knife. Before Augus and the others arrived we were about to receive a first hand look at how powerful that weapon could be as it flattened everything in a ten mile radius. Amari would not let that technology fall into the hands of Sojo and the others.”
“You still haven’t got to the room.”
“No, guess I haven’t have I. It is tied in with the disrupter technology. Elvan can create folds in time and in those folds they can create homes away from home. When the fold is created it also is tainted with the essence of the Elvan who created it. Thus it is tethered to the one who created it. It is always near them no matter where they are.”
“So, this Amari has a room no one else can see. And this explains why you weren’t worried?”
Holding my right hand out in front of me, I opened it up. In the palm of my hand was a glowing sphere. Jenna gasped. Gabe glanced over. “I supposed that means something?”
“Amari put this in my hand before she left when she kissed me. It was why she couldn’t teleport herself back into her own ship and asked Usha to do it.”
Jenna sucked in her breath as her eyes focused in on mine. “You have her rooms! But the bond…, You’re tainted with her essence. That is why you are changing.”
“Woe, tainted, changing? Do I dare ask?” Gabe was slowing down afraid his attention was no longer on his driving.
“Gabe, Jenna already knows. Please don’t freak out on me. Over time, I am slowly changing into an Elvan. The lady you saw in our living room imprinted on me. It isn’t something I fear. In fact, I’m thrilled it happened. In time, less than a year, I will leave and join them in their star systems. I’ve been invited and I’m going to accept. I’ve asked Jenna to come with me. The reason I didn’t go with them now, I wanted to give Jenna time to think about it.” I closed my hand and the sphere disappeared.
Gabe shook his head as he pulled into the driveway of Art and Connie Newberry. “I always knew you and Jenna were special. Had no idea how special until now.”
He looked at his watch. “A little after four. This night has been shot to pieces.”
The porch light came on and Connie stuck her head out the door. “Come on in.”
“A couple of us will be by around seven thirty, take you back out to the farm to get your school clothes and make sure none of those idiots are waiting around. You still have school despite leaving this world behind in a few months.”
Jenna leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thanks Gabe, you’re the best.”
“Scoot, brats.”
Jenna and I were both giggling as we slid out of the truck and headed for the house.
School? We had some of our own clothes handed to us the next morning. Someone had been out to the farm and collected what they thought Jenna and I would wear. Jenna was wearing her cheerleader costume. I was wearing jeans and a denim shirt. The conversation around school was the lights or silver things or sparkles yesterday out east of town in our direction. Add the sonic booms and everyone was guessing what was going on. Jenna and I stuck to the story we didn’t really notice anything. It had to be the military doing something.
We had a test in second hour algebra and Mrs. Travers, my teacher, held up my test paper after looking at it. “Ron, I want you to wait after class.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Some of the jocks were humming the death march as they filed out. Joey snickered as he walked by my desk. “You’re screwed bitch.”
Slowly I gathered my books and walked up to stand in front of Mrs. Traver’s desk, and silently waited as she stared at me.
A small smile touched her eyes and her lips as she looked at my test paper. “Have an interesting night?”
I choked. That wasn’t what I was prepared for. “uh, yes, ma’am, I did, we did, Jenna and I both did.”
“And yesterday? When you didn’t come to school, was that interesting also?” Her eyes were dancing in amusement now.
“ummm, I guess.” Where was she going with this?
“There are some very interesting pictures being shared among some very few select people. I would like to hear the story behind those pictures sometime.”
“Yes, ma’am, I would like to hear that story myself. Possibly see the pictures also? The story might be worth sharing as long as people don’t start dying or disappearing. I pray the pictures don’t cause any of those problems if any of it is true.”
“What interested me is your test paper. You normally make a C in this class. Did you study for this test while you were home sick yesterday?”
“No ma’am. Did I fail the test?”
She closed her eyes for a second as the smile spread to her cheeks. “You know you didn’t. Is there any test I can give, you won’t ace?”
Now it was my turn to smile. “I don’t take Calculus until next year. Think I might take it now?”
“Do you need the book to study for the tests?”
“Probably not, but I ought to carry one anyway.”
“Should I order in any college courses?”
“That would be interesting and a waste of money.”
“Okay, try and not get to bored with the rest of us while we work through the school year. I’m looking forward to hearing that story about the photographs.”
“Me too.” As I walked out of her class, I knew without one iota of doubt she was one of those who were there last night.
I stopped at the door and turned. “Mrs. Travers?”
She looked up where her attention had been on the test papers on her desk. “Yes?”
“Thanks. Don’t worry about me. I’m beyond being hurt unless they hurt those around me. Watch your back. Please. That was a very brave and foolish thing everyone did last night. Jenna and I are grateful. They will do their best to find the names of everyone who was there. Take care, please.” I headed for English class.
“The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he is on.” Catch 22
There are only four hundred twenty six students in high school. I explained over one thousand times I had no idea what was going on where everyone thought they saw something yesterday. Elvis picked me up after school; Jenna was staying for pep rally practice.
“Elvis, I don’t like leaving my sister alone like that.” I was looking back at the school as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“Bryan is watching. He’ll send out an alert if any strangers show up.”
“Mark’s dad? How many are in the know? Wait don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.” Gabe had four deputies and two dispatchers. The deputies filled in time slots as dispatchers also. I knew Gabe was going to make his two dispatchers, Carla and Betty deputies as soon as they received their cleet certifications. There were over twenty people out at the house last night after the military showed up. I prayed what they did didn’t get any of them hurt.
When Elvis pulled up in the yard I noticed someone had nailed a sheet of plywood over where the front door used to be. “Did they nail up the back door too?”
“Yep, figured to keep the skunks and other critters out.”
“Thank them for me. I’ll call Eldon Hays and see if he can come out tomorrow and repair the doors.” I slid out of the pickup.
“Good idea. Tell your folks some wild creatures got to fighting in the yard and busted the door.”
“Wild creatures? Shouldn’t I be a little more specific? And the back door? How do I explain that one?” I was chuckling as I head to the barn to feed and water the horse and chickens. Bet they figured I forgot them since I didn’t do it this morning. Tug wasn’t anywhere around to be seen. Probably hadn’t left the haystack since the other night.
“More wild creatures. Ron, you and your sister are good as gold. Half the town thinks you two were adopted. The whole town would think the same thing if Shirley and Helen hadn’t been there when your momma gave birth to you kids. Tell your parents the doors were starting to sag and getting drafty. You thought you would surprise them with decent doors when they came home. I’ll make you a dollar bet. No matter which story you tell, your parents won’t even say much more than good after you tell them.”
I laughed as I walked into the barn. “No bet.”
It was then I noticed Elvis had got quiet. I turned around to see him standing by the front of the barn with his hand resting on his gun. “Elvis?”
“Nothing Ron, just cautious. Get your chores done and we’ll go to the house so you can pack up some clothes for a couple days.
Chores were quickly taken care of. I gathered the eggs and set the basket in Elvis truck before heading to the house where Elvis was using a crowbar to pull the nails back. It wasn’t going to be a job like I thought it would when I first saw the plywood. Whoever did it used duplex nails. That’s a nail with a second head about an eight of an inch below the top head. Designed that way so the top head is above the wood the bottom head is holding the wood down. Easy to pull when it became necessary.
The quick door removed, I walked in and saw the phone Jenna had been using that night lying on the floor. Picking it up, it still held a charge and I had a signal. Picking up one of the old newspapers I opened it up to the classifieds hoping Eldon’s ad was in it. The paper was the Plainview Daily Herald. Doxy didn’t have a newspaper. We had a kind of information page printed up and posted at the Get and Go Drive-in. Mostly a gossip page with some advertising on it along with schedules of the school programs and plays.
Eldon’s single line ad was there. He was a carpenter, one of the best around for over a hundred miles and that included Plainview. He built cabinets, furniture, and even a couple houses. It was rumored he lived in Doxy because he liked the people and the laid back atmosphere. I gave the number a try.
“Eldon” he answered on the first ring.
“This is Ronald Howard. Our house seemed to have an accident the other night. The front door and the back door need to be replaced. Really soon. Are you able to work it into your schedule?” I knew Eldon never had a slack day. Everyone wanted him as their cabinet builder. Was I insulting him by asking him to replace a couple doors?
He laughed. “I heard about your termite problem. Gabe told me they managed to get in and chew up your couch too before you shot them with the twelve gauge. I’ll take care of it tomorrow morning. I was kinda curious what your place looked like after those termites got hold of it.”
“I don’t have enough cash from what mom and dad left to pay you. Jenna has an okay on their credit card. I’ll ask her to stop by tomorrow evening if you can accept credit cards.”
“Ron, don’t worry about it. I know your folks real well. I’ll send them an invoice when they return home. They can invoice the government to pay for it. Expect a real long delay getting a payment from them, if at all. Better ask Gabe or one of the deputies for your new keys before you head home tomorrow. That be okay?”
“Perfect. Gabe and the others have been a godsend for Jenna and me. Elvis is here with me now. I don’t know how much of the rest of the county is getting looted while they baby sit us.”
Eldon laughed again. “Right, we are knee deep in thieves while Gabe and his deputies are baby sitting Jenna…, Trust me Ron, it ain’t you they are looking after.”
That one caused me to laugh too. “Don’t I know it. Thanks Eldon, you’re the best.”
I closed up the phone and gathered up a couple days worth of school clothes. I gave a very brief thought to gathering up some for Jenna. It was really brief. I had no idea what her next two days school activities were. I shook my head. How sad was it I took Jenna for granted expecting her to do her thing everyday while I did mine. My total knowledge of her school activities was, she was a cheerleader. I loved my sis with all my heart and didn’t know what she did. Pathetic! That would change starting today.
I couldn’t call her asking what she needed for school. I was holding her cell phone in my hand. I didn’t have a cell phone of my own. I never needed one nor wanted one.
Elvis and I were soon headed back to town. I was going to stay with Chris and his family tonight while Jenna stayed with one of her cheerleader teammates, Evon Burrows. I understood Gabe would run taxi service for Jenna when it was time for her to retrieve clothes from the farm. I rolled the little sphere around in my hand. I could have stayed at the farm and been perfectly safe even if the government military came back with a thousand men next time. And if there were a next time, I would pull Jenna into hiding with me. If I had been thinking I would have done it that first time they showed up. The house would have seemed empty to them. I wasn’t really thinking then. Maybe it was for the best? How much of the house would they have torn up looking for us?
Wednesday school started normal enough. It was a shame it didn’t end the same way. Four men showed up at the principle’s office claiming they had a warrant for the arrest of one Ronald Wayne Howard and one Jenna Ann Howard. Two men stayed at the office making sure no one made any phone calls and the other two separated to go pick up the individuals from their classes.
When it happened I was in Mrs. Travers class. A big guy walked into the classroom, eyed me and headed for me. “Ronald Howard, you’re under arrest. Let’s go.”
“WHAT! I WANT A LAWYER AND A PHONE CALL!” I was trying to gather up my books as he manhandled me out of my chair. My books and papers scattered everywhere as I was literally hauled out of my seat by my right arm.
Mrs. Travers was really brave to step over in front of the door blocking it. “This is an illegal arrest. You can’t do this.”
He shoved her aside as he dragged me out the door. “I’m a Federal Agent. You’re interfering with the operations of a Federal Agent and you will be arrested too.”
Mrs. Travers hastened back to her desk and picked up her phone. She touched a couple buttons. “GABE, THEY’RE HERE! THEY ARRESTED RON!”
Fifteen miles to the south of Doxy, Gabe tossed his phone on the pickup seat and pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor. “shit, shit, shit”
He keyed his radio as the speedometer was climbing up past seventy. “CARLA, GET ELVIS AND CHRIS OVER TO THE HIGHSCOOL NOW! THEY ARE TRYING TO ARREST THE KIDS! STOP THEM! I DON’T CARE IF THEY RUN OVER THE SONS OF BITCHES! STOP THEM!”
“They are headed that way, Gabe.” Came back over the radio.
Emergency lights flashing, siren wailing, Gabe’s truck topped out at a hundred and thirty eight miles per hour.
Jenna and Ronald Howard were handcuffed sitting in the back of an SUV between two men as it headed west out of Doxy on FM 214 running close to eighty five miles per hour. “In four minutes we’ll be out of the county and that asshole sheriff’s jurisdiction.”
“This is illegal. You guys are so hosed.” I knew they wouldn’t care what I said. Hopefully it reassured Jenna who hadn’t said anything after they had dragged her screaming out of the school and tossed her in the car.
“Shut up you little freak. All we wanted was to ask you about those ships. You couldn’t do this the easy way could you? You and that fucking sheriff. Where does that prick think he gets off telling the military they can’t arrest civilians?” Came from the guy in the front passenger seat.
“The military must be more intelligent than you idiots. They took the hint and left. Kidnapping us from school? That’s real intelligent. Hundreds of witnesses left behind, el Stupid O.”
Jenna started crying.
“Sis, don’t worry. Everything will be okay. I promised I’d take care of you. I mean it now more than ever.” I cupped the sphere in my right hand. If I started teleporting these guys out of the car…? Sis and I would probably die before either one of us could make the driver’s seat and the steering wheel. Still, could I be charged with murder since we had been kidnapped and I was defending my sister and myself?
I smiled as a thought came to me. Why didn’t I do this back at the school? If the time, matter, displacement sphere could teleport, it was a very powerful weapon among so many other things. There was a pop under the hood.
“What was that?” The driver was looking at his dashboard. Everything looked good so he ignored it. He also ignored focusing on his gauges for the next several minutes until the engine started knocking. A quick look at his gauges showed him the problem. The water temperature was way over redline.
“Oh hell, the engine overheated.” He didn’t slow down. The engine knock got louder until there was a bang under the hood. It sounded like a rock crusher just before the engine died.
“Hells, bells, Paul call for an air evac.” He steered the coasting car over to the side of the road. Behind was an oil streak down the highway.
“Gabe, they lost an engine. Looked like they lost water first. They didn’t stop. There is an oil streak for a half mile down the highway. Probably threw a rod.” June in the AirPatrol Cessna had gone up to check on some smoke to the west when she heard what was going on via the radio. She saw the smoke was nothing more than Doran burning off some shrub brush. She changed course and picked up the SUV speeding down the highway. Flying at four thousand feet and half a mile to the back left quadrant of the black SUV she was keeping Gabe informed where they were.
“Thanks June, we are four miles away yet. I’ll be there in less than two minutes.” Gabe had been pushing his truck for all it was worth. Linda Travers had run out of the school behind the agents and got into her own truck. She followed them out to FM 214 keeping Gabe and the others informed which way they were headed.
There was a ranch road cutting across Tropp’s ranch between where Gabe was when he received the first call and the second. It would be ten miles shorter than taking the road he was on to Doxy and heading west on FM 214. Several times on that old ranch road, Gabe wondered if he had pushed it too hard each time his pickup was launched airborne to land fifty or eighty feet further down the road. And each time he mentally said no as he thought of Ron and Jenna being kidnapped. And that was exactly what it was, a kidnapping no matter what kind of credentials those guys had.
When he spun upon FM 214 he was less than a mile behind Chris and Elvis who were pushing their respective trucks for everything they had.
Six minutes later Gabe passed them. Chris grinned from ear to ear. “You’re in deep shit now boys.”
That was about the time June told them their target, trailing oil, had pulled over to the side of the road. Gabe rocketed by the black SUV, slammed on his brakes, tires squawling in protest. When his speed looked right, he did a defensive, pulled his emergency brake, let off the brakes and whipped the steering wheel to the left. The truck hop scotched as the rear end swung around. Gabe released the emergency brake and hit the accelerator. Smoke poured away from the rear tires as they clawed for traction. He was racing back toward the black SUV. Fifty feet in front of it he shut it down in a diagonal block across the highway, passenger side facing the SUV.
Gabe was instantly out of his truck and had a big serious rifle with a scope and laser.
“It’s that fucking sheriff.” Came from the front passenger.
“He’s out of his jurisdiction.” Came from the driver.
“For someone good at spouting laws, you sure don’t mind breaking them.” I kept a good tight hold on the sphere. If things went badly, Jenna and I weren’t going to be in the middle of it.
“Shut up you little asshole.” The guy on my right smacked me across the face.
Two trucks pulled up twenty feet behind the SUV turning so they also put their passenger side toward the car. Chris and Elvis might not have been as fast as Gabe but it was only seconds they were aiming at the SUV with scoped rifles. Cars were coming up the highway from the direction of Doxy, stopping and people with rifles were running up to the trucks where Chris and Elvis were.
The driver, Daren saw several women in that gathering crowd. “Damn vigilantes. He unbuckled his seatbelt, opened his door and stood up outside the car. “I’m a Federal Agent. You are interfering with our operations. Back off before I place all of you under arrest.”
“Your name Mr. Agent?” Gabe called across the short space.
“Special Agent Tucker, sheriff. I need to remind you, you have no authority here. We are out of your jurisdiction.”
“Damn hillbilly law.” Tucker muttered under his breath.
“So I can call it in and check. The other agents with you are?” Gabe put the crosshairs on agent Tucker’s heart.
“Special Agent Sheffield, Special Agent Carlson, and Special Agent Riggs.”
“As if it is any of your fucking business.” Tucker was muttering to himself again.
“Okay, this is how it is going to be Special Agent Tucker. My jurisdiction as you seem so intent to point out the law to me does not end at the county line if I am in pursuit of a felon. That is one who has committed a crime in case you need a refresher course in law terminology. You and your special agent associates became felons when you kidnapped Jenna Ann Howard and Ronald Wayne Howard from school.”
“I have a warrant!” Tucker sputtered.
“Did you show your warrant before you kidnapped the kids? Careful now, there are dozens of witnesses. Your claim you have a warrant does not provide proof you have same.”
“YOU GOD DAMN HILLBILLY! YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR JURISDICTION! YOU HAVE NO AUTHORITY HERE!” Tucker was furious this cow dump cowboy was questioning his legal rights.
“We have hit an impasse, Mister Tucker. I’m not letting you leave here with Jenna or Ron. In one minute I’m going to put a bullet in your heart or your head. Then we are going to close in on that vehicle and see if the other three are as stupid as you. Look at your watch. One minute you turn the kids lose or you die.”
Behind him where the other vehicles were, Tucker heard several clicks as bullets were chambered up into the barrels. They wouldn’t dare! He was a Federal Officer.
Tucker turned his head so those in back could hear him. “Carlson, can you reach the rifles?”
“They are packed in cases behind us. I would have to crawl over the seat to reach them. Tucker, I don’t think that sheriff is bluffing. Have you really looked at all those people behind us? We aren’t going to live through this if we start shooting.”
“Damn it Carlson, get the rifles and stop sniveling.”
“You’ll be dead before I get the first one out. Then I’m going to be dead before I get the clip in. And then Paul and Mark will be smart and not pull their weapons so they can write up the report about how stupid you and I were. I don’t think so Tucker. I’m going in to write that report too. I’m sure it won’t be the same as yours but I’ll be alive to write it. Damn it Tucker, he wanted our names. It wasn’t because he was going to check. If anything happens to these kids they will hunt us down. Twelve fully armed and ready military men decided they didn’t want to mix it up with these people. We are far from ready and you still want to test them?”
“Turn em loose.”
Carlson and Riggs opened the back doors, stood up and pulled Jenna out on the driver’s side and Ron on the right side.
Jenna, still handcuffed, was crying her eyes out as she ran to Gabe’s truck.
“Get in Jenna.” Gabe was still covering the SUV in case anyone decided to be stupid.
She managed to get the passenger door open and climb up into the seat. She doubled over in the seat crying.
Pulled out of the van on the ditch side of the SUV, I ran the opposite direction toward Chris and the others. It was when I reached them I realized Jenna had headed the other way. “JENNA!”
Elvis pulled him behind his truck. “She’s okay. She’s with Gabe. Hold out your hands.”
I held out my arms. Elvis pulled a knife out of his belt and it flicked open with a snick. He cut the nylon zip tie handcuffs. “Get the rest later. Get in the truck.”
After I opened the door and climbed up into the seat, I called the sphere and clutched it in my hand. What was left of the cuffs still strapped to my wrists fell to the floor. Was Jenna too far away? Reaching out, I found her. ‘Jenna, I’m so sorry, I love you Sis’. Her bonds dropped away.
Jenna looked up expecting to see Ron beside her after he had spoken and removed her handcuffs. She wiped her eyes. “Ron?”
‘Don’t be afraid, Sis. I wasn’t going to let them hurt you. I love you more than you will ever understand.’
Gabe got in the truck. “Hold out your hands and I’ll…” He was looking at the handcuffs laying in Jenna’s lap. They weren’t cut off, they were still complete zip tie handcuffs. The problem was, they weren’t on Jenna’s wrists.
“We’ll talk about that later.” Starting up the truck and driving past the SUV he received a glare of hatred from Tucker. The others looked kind of ashamed.
Gabe stopped and rolled down his window. “Don’t come back for seconds, Tucker. You won’t like the final outcome. Leave the kids alone. Be thankful it was only your pride that took a hit. You can take your UFO theories and weather balloon explanations and threats of a lifetime padded cell or disappearing acts and stuff them where the sun doesn’t shine. The kids weren’t the only ones who saw something unusual that day. Pictures have been spread all over the world. You’ll never chase them all down. The claims they were photo shopped or staged and conspiracy theories are rampant.”
Gabe leaned out the window and talked in a very soft voice. “I suggest you take a good look at those pictures yourself. If you want a copy of the originals, email the sheriff’s office. Taken with a high end, twelve thousand dollar, investigative camera, everything is time stamped with a GPS location ID. Of course the location ID was removed before they were sent out for public consumption. Others received them as they were taken.”
“You touch those kids and some ones will be very pissed. You won’t have to worry about me or any of the others in town. The term scorched earth will become very clear to a whole lot of people before they are finished. And everyone will know whom to blame. You’ll be lucky if you die at the beginning.”
He sat back up in the seat. “You can thank me later for saving your sorry ass.”
The roadblock ahead of him had cleared up and everyone was headed back to town except for Chris in his truck and Linda Travers in her pickup. They waited until Gabe passed and then dropped in behind.
“That asshole threatened a Federal Officer. He’s going to be sorry for the day he was born before I’m through.” Tucker was fuming.
Sheffield shook his head. There couldn’t be any stupid left in the world, Tucker owned it all. “Give it a rest Tucker.”
Tucker was already planning on how to get the kids. He would take agents he could count on next time. These three were totally useless in a pinch. That stupid sheriff had no idea who he was messing with. Accidents happen out in the country when no witnesses are around. Call him out for some theft and the county will need a new sheriff.
Back at the school things hadn’t settled down after Jenna and Ron were arrested. Mrs. Travers running out of class after them didn’t help. Nobody was interested in classes or studying. Which was just as well as none of the teachers were interested in teaching. Rumors were running rampant among students and teachers. When some of the kids downloaded the latest UFO pictures spreading across the net, those who had seen the lights and objects to the east of town knew exactly where the pictures were taken. Of course there were the believers and the non believers. Debates and arguments broke out as to who was telling the truth or was it all lies? In a way, kids were learning but it wasn’t anything from the textbooks.
Everyone ended up at the sheriff’s office. They all wanted to give Jenna and Ron a hug or handshake before they returned to their respective vehicles and left. I said my last thank you before Gabe, Elvis, Chris, and Mrs. Travers walked into the office along with my sister and me.
I was frustrated, tired, angry, and yes miserable. Without exposing myself even more there was nothing I could do to protect my sister. “Why don’t they leave us alone! We haven’t done anything. What business is it of theirs if someone stops by and visits for a little while. We didn’t break any laws unless it’s illegal to get out of bed and help someone knocking on your door.”
Looking at Jenna I shook my head. “Jenna, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I wanted to kill them but that would only make it worse.”
Looking at Gabe tears started leaking from my eyes. “Gabe, I’m sorry anyone else got mixed up in this. They’ll be back. Maybe not them but certainly others. I’ve put everyone in danger and I don’t know how to stop it now. It is going to keep getting worse and worse until people start disappearing or dying, isn’t it? Tell me how to stop it and I’ll do it. Please to god make them stop!”
Mrs Travers came up and pulled me into a hug. “I have some friends. We don’t email one another so no one will know outside of us here. They are in Australia. You and Jenna need to leave the country now.”
I hugged her back and then reached out and took Jenna’s hand. “Is that how this ends? Jenna and I are forced to run because we saw something?” I pulled Jenna into a hug. “Sis, this isn’t up for debate. You’re coming with me.”
She was in shock. “Australia!”
“A little bit further out than that. I called for help when they dragged us out of school. They have been waiting to see how this played out.”
Gabe’s eyes got a tad bigger. “O BOY!”
Nodding, I looked back at him. “Yeah. I figure if we make this as public as can be and there is no doubt we left, the rest of you will be safe. Let’s go back to school.”
“Mrs. Travers, will you please call it in and ask everyone to gather out in the bleachers at the football field. No one to be on the field itself as most of that will be needed for the ship to land.”
She opened up her phone and stopped. “You know you can’t ever come back. You think they are bad now? Leave and come back and you’ll be hunted by psychos, news hounds, government, which is just the start of the list.”
“Oh, Jenna and I will be back from time to time with friends of course. Only a select few will know when. I mean it really isn’t that far. Only a million light years. This was going to happen anyway. I wanted to give Jenna time to adjust to the idea rather than dragging her away before she was ready.”
Linda pushed a couple buttons. “Sherell, gather all the kids, staff, any parents and every one else you can. Take them out to the football field. Make sure they stay in the bleachers and the field is empty. Bring cameras, cell phones if they have them. We are going to see first hand what Ron and Jenna have already seen. Okay, No, Ron didn’t give a time but I imagine it will be soon. Okay.”
She closed up the phone. “You can change your mind.”
“No, it has to be this way.” I walked over and shook Elvis hand and Chris hand. “Thanks for looking out for sis and me. I’ll remember you guys forever. You’ll always be top notch in my book.”
Chris patted me on the back. “You and Jenna are tops in ours.”
Jenna gave Elvis a hug. “I’m going to miss your singing.”
He gave a lopsided grin. “Sure you are. I’d make you a recording but there isn’t time.”
“Make it and she’ll be back to pick it up.” I gave Elvis a smile of my own.
“A million light years?”
“Time wise, it’s closer than Australia.”
“Am I interrupting?” Argus, walked in the door.
Mrs. Travers let out a slight squeak as she jumped.
Gabe, Elvis, Chris did little better only in they didn’t squeak.
Jenna caught her breath. Argus looked the same as that first day we saw him. Tall, yes he had to duck the door frame to get into the room. A very lithe body, dressed in white, long white hair hanging down to his waist, and pointed ears peeking up above. He had a serious side arm on his hip and a sword strapped over his shoulder.
He nodded to me and walked over to stand in front of Jenna. “My Lady, I am at your command.” He took her right hand, bent down, and kissed the back of it.
Linda put her hand up to her mouth as she stared at Argus.
No doubt he could walk into any room and every woman there would be instantly in love. On the upside, any doubt Jenna had about leaving vanished with Argus appearance.
“My Lady, may I escort you to the place your brother planned for departure?”
“He is not going to fit in anything we’re driving. I hope he brought his own.” Gabe muttered under his breath.
“Oh he did.” I couldn’t stop the grin spreading across my face. “Argus, if you will escort my sister, we will meet you at the football field when you bring your ship down.”
He turned his attention in my direction. “She returned also. No one could convince her otherwise.”
“I know. I felt her presence when you parked in orbit. Will she leave the ship at the field to let the people see her?”
“That is up to her Highness. Your sister and I will meet you there.” The sphere in his hand glowed brightly as he reached out and took Jenna’s hand. There was no pop, no flash, no nothing except they were no longer there.
“That was…, Chris started to say when.
Amari was standing in front of me. She put her arms around me as I put mine around her. I gave her a long passionate kiss. She was smiling when we finally broke the kiss. “I couldn’t wait any longer.”
“It was trying my heart to wait but I wasn’t sure.” I gave her another kiss.
Gabe, Elvis, Chris were staring open mouthed. Linda, her mouth wasn’t open was the only difference.
Usha, appeared beside Amari, just as tall as Argus. She was armed to the teeth with a sidearm, rifle slung over her shoulder, a short blade on her left hip. “Your Highness, I must protest you slipping out like that.”
Elvis shook his head as he stared at the two women. “I found heaven, angels are arriving.”
Laughing, I stopped long enough to kiss Amari again. “Your Highness, you must return to the ship. I’ll ride out to the field with my friends one last time. The sooner we do this the sooner we will be together forever. Or maybe you will realize a mistake has been made and get tired of me.”
She kissed me back. “Never.”
Usha and Amari were gone.
Gabe was still looking kind of stunned. “If Tucker had seen any of that he would have tried to capture them.”
“And died. Even Amari who didn’t look like she was carrying any weapon had more disposable energy under her control than any of us could imagine.” I held out my hand and the sphere appeared in it. “This was hers. She gave it to me before she left last time. She has acquired another a hundred times more powerful than this one. It is always there with her whether she is holding it or not. A time, matter, displacement disrupter can put two objects together in the same space and time. Think of the hydrogen bomb and that is what she could make happen as she shifted out of time sync so it didn’t hurt her. We are the most fortunate life form in any star system because they think of us as friendly. So far. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that equation never changes. Tucker and those like him are a fly in the ointment. Everyone in this room and so many others are on the plus side. This will take a thousand years or more but maybe Elvan and humans can share a star system or two once more.”
“Elvis do me a favor. Stop by and feed the chickens, dog, and horse every morning or at least every day. See if you can find someone who will take them. Maybe give them to someone who will leave them where they are and go by to take care of them. Mom and dad, bless their heart won’t take care of them. They will forget until they are all dead. Tell mom and dad, Jenna and I love them with all our heart and soul but things came up and we had to leave. I’ll be back when things quiet down again. I’ll bring sis with me to explain.
Gabe nodded toward the door. “There is never a good time to say goodbye to those you care about. I guess we might as well get this over with. I really am gong to miss you and Jenna. You certainly made my life interesting the past couple days.”
Mrs. Travers caught up with me as I was walking out the door. “Find the parameters a and b included in the linear function f x equals a x plus b so that f minus one equals a x equals a x plus b so that f minus one two equals three and f minus one minus three equals six where f minus one x is the inverse of function f.”
“That’s an easy one. From the properties of inverse functions if f minus 1 of 2 equals 3 and f minus1 of minus 2 equals six then f three equals two and f six equals minus three”
“From the properties of the inverse functions if f minus 2 equals three and f minus three equals six then f three equals two and f six equals minus three”
Which leads to the solution two by two system of equations three a plus b equals two and six a plus b equals minus three to obtain a equals minus five thirds and b equals seven”
Linda nodded. “I’ll give you an A on your Algebra class and your transcript. If you were already taking Calculus I’d give you an A there also.”
Gabe and the others had stopped outside the door to listen. He looked kind of funny. “Out at the farm, that lady the other one called Highness…”
“We were sharing knowledge, Gabe. My mind is crammed full of things humans won’t figure out for a hundred thousand years. I guess this leaving is a good thing? Probably save my sanity. And probably those like Tucker would hall me off to the romper room to keep it all to themselves.”
“Right! Let’s go.” Gabe pointed to his truck.
I wasn’t surprised when Gabe drove up to the end of the football field. Doxy was a small community and word had spread. I bet most people didn’t believe it and came just to say, I told you so. Yet most of the town was in the bleachers filling both sides of the stadium.
I got out, walked around to where Gabe had got out of the truck and pulled him into a hug instead of shaking his hand. “Gabe, thanks for everything. Be real cautious as those like Tucker never take no for an answer. He will be looking for me and when he realizes I’m gone, you will be his primary target for his hate.”
Gabe pushed back so there was some room between us. “I’m good. Don’t forget us Ron.”
“I won’t. Gabe there is one other thing you might keep in mind.”
“What?”
Amari imprinted on me. I’m changing and I might look a lot like her before I return.”
He swallowed and then laughed. “Well, one thing is for sure, if you do, you’ll sure be easy on the eyes.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Nothing shock you?”
“Kid, I’ve seen it all and I’m too damn old to be shocked by anything I see or hear any longer.”
“You’re the best Gabe. Give my thanks to everyone for their support. I love all of you country bumpkins.”
Jenna and Argus appeared beside us. She needed to be seen entering the ship. Although none of us was going to be entering the ship in that respect. “I guess. Show time.”
A huge saucer slowly settled down where it was over the football field. It was then I remembered Amari’s ship was wider than a football field. The one I was looking at was three times that size. Big and impressive as hell just hanging up there in the air like that not making a sound. Now how many people in the crowd didn’t believe it?
Amari appeared beside me. She reached out and took my hand. We walked out to the middle of the field. Jenna and Argus a couple steps behind us. Turning loose of Amari I turned completely around to look at the crowds on both sides of the field.
“Jenna turn around so everyone can get a good look at you. There has to be no doubt we left this place so they will leave everyone alone.”
“Won’t they arrest the whole town now?”
“Not the same thing as trying to kidnap a couple kids. This will be swept under the radar as a hoax. They will try and forget it ever happened. Our disappearance will be an abduction for ransom money or something I’m sure. They will make up enough lies most everyone will believe it, even some of those out there now. Mass hysteria is catching you know.”
Amari, Jenna, Argus, and me were inside the ship. Amari wrapped her arms around me. “Ready to see your new home? Our home?”
“Anywhere as long as I am by your side, Your Highness.”
She smacked me on the arm. “Title only for formal occasions. You do that again and I’ll ship you out to Tetha the frozen ice world until you learn to behave.”
Argus and Usha were standing off to the side with a smirk on their faces.
Amari turned her attention to them. “And that goes for you two also. Don’t think for a pars it is only my bonded wife who has to behave.”
“Understood, Your Highness.” Usha gave a curtsy
“Absolutely, Your Highness.” Argus gave a slight bow.
Amari frowned as she turned her attention on me. “See what you have done. The staff is already corrupted and you have only just arrived.”
“Then I must be punished, Princess.” Honest to god I giggled. I knew every thought she knew and her mine. We were bonded mates for life.
Argus took Jenna’s hand in his as she had been standing back trying to take it all in and not understanding. “Allow me, young miss. As your brother has bonded to our Princess your status must be as a Princess. I will be your servant and guide as will Nefta until as such time you may choose your own. May I show you to your quarters and introduce you to Nefta?”
“I’m…, not sure.” She looked over at me. “Ron?”
“Jenna, I received the full download from Amari so I have an understanding what is going on. You will need to learn it the old fashion way until you bond with a mate. It will be of your own choice if you do. And if you don’t there is no shame or stigma attached to it. Take your time, Sis. Let them show you the wonders of the Elvan society and their worlds. I’m here for you anytime you need me.”
Usha held out a sphere in her hand. “It will not work for you as it does for us or your brother for you are not bonded. It will put you in touch with your brother or anyone who serves you if you grasp it and will it to do so. All of us are here to help you adapt to a strange environment, Princess. Please accept our help and that of your brother.
Jenna shook her head as tears trickled down her cheeks. “All my friends…, I’m lost. I have no direction, no future.”
Usha pulled her into a hug. “It is possible you saved your friends by leaving, is it not? Would they have been harmed in order to get to you? We want to be your friends, Jenna. Will you give us a chance? You, me, are we that much different? I think you’re cute. Argus thinks you’re beautiful. Does your heart not flutter when he holds your hand? His does.”
I looked at Argus. He was blushing. I needed to pay more attention when he was around my sister.
Jenna was blushing also. She coyly looked up at him out of the corner of her eyes. “He’s handsome.”
I think my sister found something to think about instead of leaving all her friends behind. I was beyond happy as I reached out and pulled Amari in for a hug and a kiss. “I love you beyond any words expressing how much. I’ve seen your world through your mind. Please show me so I may see it with my own eyes.”
She pulled me back into a kiss. “No hurry, we have a lifetime to explore it and the people. You will love it.”
“I already do.” As I pulled her in and nibbled along her neck.
As I was embracing Amari I had an idea. “Love, is it possible for Jenna to be an ambassador to earth?”
“Ambassador? Jenna? I believe so…, Yes of course. Why didn’t I think of that?” She had pushed away from me to think about it.
“Nice to know I’m such a distraction.” Pulling her back I nosed her hair aside, sucked her ear lobe in my mouth and started tonguing it.”
Giggling, she pushed back to look in my eyes. “Are you sure you’re only seventeen and a virgin? I’m beginning to have doubts.”
“Good! The best kind of love is where one knows everything about their lover and yet they haven’t a clue.” I didn’t pull her back because I was laughing myself.
Off to the side, Argus and Usla were grinning like crazy, while Jenna was wondering if a rabid skunk had bit her brother last week.
Those in command of national defense and other departments in the United States were going crazy along with a whole lot of the United States Air Force in and around Texas. The civilian population had no idea of the highly classified things going on at the isolated industrial complex north east of Amarillo, Texas. If the public knew they assembled atomic warheads there, the protest demonstrations would be never ending. But then the public never gave any thought to where all those things of mass destruction were assembled.
What was causing all the headache and heartache among so many were the reoccurring UFO sightings near Doxy, Texas. Which was just too damn close to Amarillo and other things to be taken lightly. Jets were scrambled almost weekly it seemed to try and get a target lock on those things which were there and then they weren’t. The stories of weather balloons spotted around Doxy were published in the Plainview Herald every couple of weeks so the public would know why all the government interest in such a small sleepy backwater town. Supposedly the area around Doxy was ideal for launching weather balloons due to the wind conditions and thermal lifts created in that area.
A fourth of Texas citizens thought it was a hoot the government was trying to cover it all up with weather balloons. Three fourths of the citizens thought the first group were insane or conspiracy theorists. Humans were the pinnacle of intelligent life. Those who believed there was intelligent life out there among the stars were entertaining a few bats in the belfry. That guy on X Files, Mulder, was Hollywood crap, not even good entertainment.
============================================================================
“Spread this where it will do the most good.” Jenna handed Gabe an elaborate gold embossed packet with gold cord wrapped around it.
“You could contact our government yourself.” Gabe was holding the packet but staring at Jenna. She had changed. He thought she was beautiful before. Yeah, she was but she had grown even more so in the short time she and Ron had left. She was dressed in a soft white gown of gossamer material. It fluttered out below her waist, the hem an inch or less above the floor. The waist and bodice hugged her like paint. Sleeveless with a scoop neck which was just barely decent exposing her abundant breasts, anyone could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her delicate, multi strand, gold necklace nestled between her breasts. Her spiral golden earrings were a perfect accent to her uncommon beauty. If words could describe her, Jenna was, breathtaking.
The tall Elvan Warrior standing behind her was dully noted. Gabe gave some thought to what Ron had told him about the firepower these people possessed. ‘God help us all if anyone tries to capture or shoot one of them.’
“Are you going to stop by and tell your parents you and your brother are okay?” Gabe was feasting his eyes on Jenna. Things of uncommon beauty were rare and she was among the rarest yet.
“No, they are at work. I’m not dropping in there. Tell them for us, we love them and haven’t forgotten them.” She held out her arms. “Gabe, give me a hug. Ron and I can’t ever thank you enough for what you have done for us.”
It was an invite Gabe didn’t hesitate to accept. He closed in and gently hugged the young woman who he thought he would never see again. “God, you are such a beautiful woman, Jenna. No man deserves you.”
He broke the embrace and backed up to look and admire. “My camera is out in the truck. Send me a picture of you and your brother when you can. I know he was changing. He told me I might not recognize him when he returned.”
Jenna laughed. “She’s changed and more content than anytime she’s ever been. Her and Amari bonded when Amari was stuck here. They bonded officially a couple months back. If there is such a thing as a marriage made in heaven, I think that was it. The gods must have deemed it so. Amari has become positively radiant, even more so since her bond, I am told.”
“And you?” Gabe gave her a wink.
Jenna giggled. “I’ve found my mate. You met him. He is the male you saw when they came back to pick Ron and me up. Argus was called away to the Josh Star System due to some wars and planetary encroachment. Somebody is always wanting to take what doesn’t belong to them. He went to explain the laws of first right, common settlement to all parties involved.”
The Elvan behind her stepped up beside her. “Princess, we must go. Their fighter jets are closing.”
Gabe’s eyebrows shot up. “Princess?”
Jenna giggled as she smiled. “A story for another time, Gabe.”
They were gone. Gabe knew that big ship they arrived in was gone also. The speed they came and went was almost impossible to wrap his mind around. Seconds later, two sonic booms announced the fighter jets had arrived. “Guys, you’ll always be a shade late and a dollar short. They could even be home now. A million light years, give or take a few. Give it up.”
Over at his desk, he opened up the packet Jenna had left. Across the room Carla had watched the whole episode without saying a thing. She smiled as a thought crossed her mind. “Gabe, is this going to be a common occurrence.?”
Gabe stopped what he was doing and looked over at Carla. “Not sure but I’m guessing…, yep, probably.”
“Do you think you could get me a date with one of them? You know, go down to the Get and Go for a hamburger and coke, maybe a drive out around the milky way before calling it a night.”
Gabe was laughing. “I’ll ask next time they are in town.”
Carla cupped her chin in her hands and put her elbows on the desk as she looked dreamily off into the distance. “They sure are handsome aren’t they?”
Gabe was still laughing. “I’m glad they aren’t here. The rest of us men wouldn’t stand a chance with you women.”
“Don’t give me any shit, Gabe. I saw how you were looking at Jenna. Thought you were going to trip over your own tongue before she left.”
“So maybe it would balance out? We get their women and you girls get their men?”
“Didn’t know Jenna was really one of them. But sure, works for me. I’m all in.” Carla sighed dreamily.
Gabe put everything back into the folder. “Need to get this out. They want to set up an Ambassador post on earth. Jenna is going to be their representative if this flies. Excellent idea sending a human back to set up relations. I used the public library in Amarillo to send out the pictures of first contact last time. Think I’ll drive to Dallas to post this.”
“Gabe, be careful. I know you’re good, Take one of the deputies to guard your back. This isn’t a game you can ask for reset if something goes wrong.”
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His Last Christmas
She held her hand out to me indicating it was time to go. This was the woman I fell in love with when we were kids playing in the back yard. Her unmatchable beauty never waning in all the years we were together. Did I think she was beautiful when we were kids? Yes I did. Over the years she became even more of a beautiful woman who had no competition. Hers was all natural. She didn’t need anything out of a bottle to enhance what God had blessed her with. Over the years some of my friends told me their wives were jealous of her natural golden blonde hair. She always wore it long. It reached to her shoulder blades when it was wet. The natural curl to it pulled it back up to her shoulders. If Venus had been, mortal she would have been outclassed by my wife.
The old man laying in the bed looked…, well he looked used up. The body aged and wrinkled, sagging skin on his arms and legs where strong sinuous muscles once bulged. He was a shell of what he had once been.
Every year, for the past twenty seven years, our kids asked me what I wanted for Christmas. My answer was the same as the first one twenty seven years ago. “Please don’t get me anything besides a Christmas card and your love. There is nothing I need. What I really want isn’t in a store.”
Twenty seven years earlier when they invited me to their homes for Christmas it was a bloody disaster for all of us. I ruined everyone’s Christmas. When I walked into our son’s house they had the full blown Christmas spirit. Decorations hung on the mantel, over the doors, Christmas cushions on the chairs, and a Christmas tree reaching to the ceiling with enough lights and decorations to make Macy’s jealous. The table was crowded with an overabundance of holiday food we don’t normally eat any other time.
After walking in I started unloading the Christmas presents I had brought, making several trips to the car. As we shared hugs it became progressively harder for me to hold it together. This was the first Christmas my wife, their mother wasn’t with us. Brenda was Christmas, and Easter, and Thanksgiving, and Forth of July, and everyone’s birthday. She made everyday special with her overflowing enthusiasm and boundless joy. How I could have ever been so lucky to have her in my life and our kids mother, I’ll never know. She had so much love for every one, no one was slighted or left out.
The summer she was diagnosed with cancer I knew she would beat it. Brenda was a fighter among all her other gifts. When she died on her birthday that year, I fell apart. She was my rock, my life. When Christmas came that year, I tried, I really truly tried for her to share the happiness with the kids. Twenty minutes after arriving, I was in the car crying my heart out. The kids would come out to check on me every once in awhile. I knew I was ruining their Christmas. Walking back into the house, through the tears I told everyone I had spoiled it for everyone and was leaving. They tried to get me to say but I couldn’t. Not without Brenda there to make it Christmas.
Looking at my wife, I was so in love it hurt. “You are so beautiful, I love you with all my heart and soul. I’m sorry for what you put up with after you married me.”
“Jim, I never stopped loving you. When I told you I wouldn’t stay with you if you went though with it didn’t mean I stopped loving you. I didn’t understand. It was a shock to me to hear what you wanted to do to your body.”
“I understood why. If things had been reversed I might have felt the same way. The emotions, the feelings, the drive just never would go away no matter how hard I tried to push it out.”
“Seeing you dressed like that certainly didn’t help. I didn’t tell you I was kind of jealous. It made me mad.”
“You’re the most beautiful woman ever born. You couldn’t be jealous.”
“Well, I was. You looked pretty hot. It made things even worse. I hated to think I could be one of those kind of people who loved….”
“You can’t love me now can you?”
“Darling, I’ve lost all that prejudice the past twenty seven years. Personally, I think you’re quite attractive. If possible I love you even more not because of what I see but because of the angel she has become. Now it is my turn to say I’m sorry for not understanding what you were going through. I didn’t understand which is not an excuse.”
“I’m wondering how this happened to me? Did you have a hand in this?”
She giggled. I swear she giggled. “Sweety, remember when you made that trip once before? People would ask you what Heaven looked like and you would say…?”
“It is whatever you want. I don’t think anyone understood.”
She really did giggle. “And?”
“If you still love me then Heaven really is perfect.”
Brenda wrapped her arms around me and smothered me with kisses. She was holding my hands as she backed up to look me in the eyes. “If there is any doubt we will work on it. Although I hugged you many times. It broke my heart to see you on the floor on your knees crying your heart out. Now come on, I’ve waited twenty seven years to hold you in my arms again. We’re wasting time.”
“I thought time was eternal in this state?”
She tugged on my hand even harder. “It is and we are wasting it. MERRY CHRISTMAS”
Born and raised on a farm, I was the closest thing to a son my dad was ever going to get. Mom almost died bringing me into this world. The doc had to remove from my mother a large part of what made babies after I was out of the way. Mom named me Katrina. Dad wanted that son he was never going to receive. He called me Jake.
Barbie Lee
Horse Talk
&
The Woman Who Loved Them
Copyright Ó 1999
Barbie Lee
"Jake, you know I would use someone else if I could. I hate this more than you do."
I gripped the steering wheel harder as I pushed the little Spyder to its' limits. "No you don't hate it nearly as much as I do. Am I supposed to sleep with him too?"
"How you get it back is beside the point." He put both hands on the dash as the Spyder slid dangerously close to the edge of the pavement.
"For God's sake, Jake, slow the fuck down." He was beginning to perspire as I turned the steering wheel back in the other direction for the next curve.
"Jeeze, David, I thought you liked living on the edge? You sure don't mind asking me to put my neck on the chopping block." I was feeling vengeful as I pushed the Spyder for a few more miles an hour. I really didn't care if we went over one of those cliffs as we raced down the mountain.
"Katrina, I'm sorry for getting you into this! Please slow down. Please? David closed his eyes. He knew we weren't going to make that next curve.
There was a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I realized I had pushed the little Spyder too hard. I felt the pavement slip under the tires. Some car or truck had thrown oil out of the engine or transmission as it pushed up the grade and the little Spyder lost most of its traction on the pavement. The edge of the pavement and a three hundred foot drop was rushing at us. I no longer cared about dying.
Born and raised on a farm, I was the closest thing to a son my dad was ever going to get. Mom almost died bringing me into this world. The doc had to remove from my mother a large part of what made babies after I was out of the way. Mom named me Katrina. Dad wanted that son he was never going to receive. He called me Jake. My mother didn't have much choice as the farm demanded everyone had to work. Dolls and soft pink things became a thing of the past by the time I reached six. I was cutting calves by the time I was six. For you city born people that means I was making steers out of baby bulls. I was right beside dad when fence needed mending, driving posts in the ground, or stretching barbwire. When it was time to feed the livestock, he would call for 'Jake' and I'd be there. I wore jeans, denim shirts, and cowboy boots on the farm, to school, and to church. Everyone besides momma called me Jake. She never shortened my name to Cat but always called me Katrina. I guess it was her way of holding onto the little girl she brought into this world.
I was twelve when dad brought him home. Dad said the auctioneers tricked him into buying him. They had the horse in the auction arena, someone in the crowd popped a sack. The horse climbed up on the rail to escape. Dad raised his arm to get the attention of one of the handlers and the auctioneer yelled, "sold". So whether he had bid on him or not, dad had to bring him home. He was a mottled gray stallion with a white blaze off center on his forehead. Everyone called him god awful ugly. I thought he was the prettiest thing I had ever seen. Dad said he was going back to the sale next month. They nicknamed him Gunshy because of the incident in the sale barn.
Dad and a couple of his friends unloaded him from the stock trailer and put him in one of the stalls in the barn. They warned me to stay away from the stallion They said he was a man killer. He wanted to stomp on anyone who got close to him.
Later on that night after the chores were done I sneaked a couple apples out of momma's refrigerator. I managed to walk outside without anyone asking me where I was going.
As the screen door slammed shut behind me dad yelled. "Stay away from that wild stallion Jake."
Of course that was the first place I headed. A new face on the farm needed a looking over. I opened up the barn and walked up to his stall. He was eyeing me suspiciously. I held out an apple. "Hi, big fellow. How you doing?"
Nervously he inched up to sniff the apple and then snatched it out of my hand. He backed up across the stall as he proceeded to eat it. I opened the door to his stall and stepped inside. I held up the other apple. "I have another. You want it too?"
I could tell he was thinking that one over. Finally he inched back up to where I was and took the apple. This time he didn't back away from me. He must have thought there were more to follow. I reached up and petted him. Slowly I scratched around behind his ears.
"They say you like to jump on people. Why would someone as pretty as you want to do that? I scratched under his neck as he sniffed around for another apple.
I held up my open hands. "Nope, all gone. But I bet I can find you some dairy feed. You'll like that. It has molasses, oats, crushed corn, and flaked wheat. The cows love it. Stay there and I'll be right back."
It didn't take me long to gather up a bucket and drop a couple scoops of dairy feed into it. I walked back into Gunshy's stall holding the bucket out in front of me. He backed up as far as he could go. I reached my hand inside and pulled out a handful of feed. I held it out for him to inspect. Again he inched forward until he could smell what I had in my hand. He wrapped his lips around the feed in my hand and started munching it down. I reached into the bucket and pulled out another handful. As he reached for it I let the feed drop back into the bucket.
"Nope, you have to come and get it. I'm not going to hand feed you all of it." I held the bucket up.
He stuck his nose in and tried to drag the bucket back in his direction. I held firm and didn't let him have it. Finally he gave up and stepped forward where he could get his head into the bucket. The sweet dairy feed was pulling him in.
I set the bucket down on the floor and started scratching him all around the ears and neck. "I'll bet no one took the time to get to know you. What did they do? Throw a lariat in your direction and drag you into the trailer? When you protested they called you a man killer didn't they. I'd protest too if someone threw a rope on me."
I checked my watch. It was past bedtime. "I better get back or dad will be out here looking for me. I'll be back in the morning. You be good now and I'll find the best hay in the barn for you come morning."
I made it back into the house without my parents asking me where I had been. I'm sure they knew but they didn't ask. The next morning I was up at four thirty and headed for the barn with dad. A dairy farm doesn't wait for sunup to start. I was feeding and running the milking cows in and out of the barn as dad slipped the milker on them. I managed enough time to find the perfect alfalfa hay bale for Gunshy. I split the twine holding it together and gathered up a couple blocks for him. I walked into his stall and dropped it into the feed bin on the wall. He nudged me out of the way as he stuck his nose in and started eating.
"Hey! Wait your turn you greedy pig. I didn't say it was time to eat." I laughed as I scratched behind his ears again. He was loving it.
I didn't have much time so I stepped out of the stall and was locking the door when I heard something behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and the door to the milk room was closing. Dad must have caught me. I was wondering how I was going to explain being in Gunshy's stall when they had told me to stay away from him.
I finished up my chores expecting dad to say something every time I passed him but he didn't. Finally it was time for school and dad had finished milking. I dropped the milker in the wash vat and headed for the house. I managed to get ready quickly and scarfed down some breakfast as I headed out the door with my school books.
Momma was shouting at me as the screen door slammed shut behind me. "Katrina, you get back in here and finish breakfast. I know you didn't have time to swallow anything."
Running out to the barn, I slipped in and scooped up several scoops of dairy feed. I took it into Gunshy's stall and put it in his feeder. I heard the bus horn as Mr. Grinby, our bus driver, pulled into the yard. I made it out of the barn and onto the bus in less than thirty seconds flat. Mr. Grinby was pulling out of the yard when I found a seat and looked out the window toward the barn. Dad was standing there watching. He usually didn't do that.
The livestock auction was held on the third Thursday of every month. I could feel the end of the month crowding Gunshy and me as it came rushing toward us. I was trying to figure out how I could talk dad into keeping Gunshy rather than running him back through the auction?
It was Wednesday night, the day before the sale when dad brought the subject up at the supper table. He looked across the table at mom. "Katherine, I was thinking bout that horse I came home with last month?"
Momma looked up waiting for dad to finish his question. I was holding my breath as my mind was running a hundred miles an hour working on excuses why we couldn't take Gunshy back to the auction.
"I have too many things to do tomorrow so I won't be able to take him back. He will have to keep for nother month until I get a little time." Dad never looked in my direction so he couldn't possibly have seen the shock and then the relief on my face.
Momma, sighed. "John," Momma only called him John when she was serious, otherwise she called him dad. "John, that horse needs to go back tomorrow. He has to be eating a ton of feed the dairy herd could use instead. I think you should find the time to get him loaded up."
Dad shook his head. "I just can't do it, honey. I really have other things more important. I need to replace a tire on the stock trailer before I go anywhere with it. One of those tires is getting a little threadbare."
Momma looked over at me and then took a second look. She must have noticed that odd look I had on my face. "You have a spare for the trailer. Put it on and then you can fix the other tire later after you've taken the horse in."
Dad looked like he was about to give in for a second. "Nope, can't do that. I need to repack the wheel bearings. I thought I heard one dragging the last time I used the trailer. Nope, just take too long. Can't get it all done tomorrow and get that horse there too. Got too much to do."
I was sure momma had figured out by now that she wasn't being told the whole truth. She was staring at me. Why is it God made parents so they could read their kid's minds? Momma nodded. "No, I wouldn't want you to lose a wheel bearing down the road some place while your were loaded with that wild horse. I guess another month won't really make much difference. You'll get him back over to the auction next month then?"
Dad curled up the corner of his mouth as if he was thinking seriously about it. "Of course. That'll give me plenty of time to get the trailer fixed."
Quietly I let out my breath. Gunshy was mine for another month.
A week before the breakfast discussion, I had been letting Gunshy out his stall and into the corral for a little while. I'd entice him back by whistling and then giving him an apple as a reward for walking back into the barn. It was a week after mom and dad had their talk about taking him back to the auction when I let him out into the yard to graze on the grass. He went crazy trying to gather up as big of mouth fulls of grass as he could manage. We had been there for about thirty minutes when dad walked out of the machine shed. Gunshy looked up and bolted down the road.
"KATHERINE, GET THE TRUCK!" Dad was running for the barn and the lariat.
I waved him off as momma came flying out of the house. "Dad, wait, give me a chance."
As I pulled an apple from my pocket I whistled and held it up. Gunshy's head went up as he dropped out of a dead run into a trot, down to a walk, and then he stopped and looked over his shoulder.
I whistled again as I waved the apple in the air. I'd swear he was trying to decide if that apple was worth coming back for as he looked around. Finally he turned around and trotted back to where I was standing. He gave up his freedom for an apple and a scratch behind the ears.
I motioned for dad and mom to stay put as I put my hand under Gunshy's jaw. "Let's go get some of that special hay."
I led him back to the corral and into his stall by touching him under his jaw.
Dad walked into the barn with some feed in a bucket. "I don't believe it. They said he was a man killer down at that auction."
He opened the door to the stall and Gunshy reared up and pawed the air while he snorted. Dad fell backwards out of the door. He was lying on the floor looking up as Gunshy pawed the air. "JAKE, GET OUT OF THERE!"
I raised my hand and dropped it. "NO! Gunshy, no! Down."
Gunshy dropped back down to all four hooves as he snorted. I shook my finger at him. "Bad boy. He was only bringing you feed. He wasn't going to hurt you. You owe him an apology."
Gunshy shook his head up and down a couple times. Dad finally managed to find his feet. I looked over and there was momma standing in the doorway leading back into the dairy barn.
Dad turned around when he saw me staring behind him. "Katherine, did you see that? That horse would have killed me if he could have."
Momma finally found her voice. "I think he said he was sorry. Katrina, did he say he was sorry or was I imagining things?"
I looked back over at Gunshy. "Gun, say you're sorry."
Gunshy shook his head up and down a couple more times.
"He's sorry, daddy. You startled him. He doesn't like men. You came at him too quickly." I gathered up what feed I could where dad had spilled it and was pushing it back into the bucket.
I offered it to Gunshy. "Here, you big galoot. You would have got more if you hadn't made dad spill most of it."
I don't think dad and Gunshy ever became friends, they only tolerated each other. Dad made sure from then on that he never made any sudden moves around Gunshy. I think Gunshy was the smartest animal I had ever been around. I could teach him something and he seemed to know it before I was finished. That summer we spent a lot of time together. I herded cows with him and he got really good at separating the ones that needed to be vaccinated, branded, or cut. I wasn't very good with the lariat but I was trying really hard. Sometimes I could catch a calf or cow. Most of the time it was left up to Gunshy to give me nine or ten tries before I got the loop over the head of the one I was trying to rope. Sometimes I swear Gunshy would let out his breath in disgust when I missed a throw.
The summers and winters came and went, Gunshy and I were almost inseparable. He followed me around like a puppy dog as I did my chores. I no longer locked the doors behind him and he had free run of the place. He seemed to know exactly where our property ended and he never wondered past the edge of our land.
I was fifteen going on sixteen that summer and getting pretty good with a lariat. Even if I do say so myself. I never missed the ones in the open and I could pretty well get the ones packed into the herd. I could open up a loop and lay it down across the back of several cows that were between me and the one I had picked out, catching the cow I wanted.
Dad and I were working calves one day. Gunshy and I had dragged one up for inoculation when dad stopped for a minute. "Jake, I've entered you in the county rodeo."
I had no idea what I could do in a rodeo. I sure didn't want to ride bulls or broncs. "I'm not going to barrel race. That's a girl's sport."
He wiped the sweat off his face and smiled. "That wouldn't kill you Jake. No, I entered you in the calf roping contest. I think you stand a pretty good chance of winning some prize money. That would help toward that pickup you been wanting when you turn sixteen next month."
Dad stuck the calf in the hip with the needle and pushed the serum home. I loosened up the lariat and let daddy slip it off the calf's neck. The calf ran bawling back to the herd.
"I can rope them dad but I don't know about tying their legs. I haven't done that." I was thinking of how much the prize money could possibly be.
He reached up toward me with something in his hand. Gunshy took a couple steps sideways away from him. I scolded Gun. "He's not going to hurt you or me. Behave yourself."
Gun stood his ground as dad stepped forward. Dad was holding a short small rope. "It's what they use to tie the calves feet together. Try it on the next one."
I held that rope in my left hand as I curled up my lariat in my right. I picked out a small calf and made Gunshy separate him from the herd. We chased him across the corral as I whipped my lariat out and dropped it over his neck. I pulled back on the reins, Gunshy planted his feet, the lariat went out to its' full length with that calf at a dead run. I was off the saddle and on the ground when that calf hit the end of his rope. His head stopped while his feet kept running. He landed upside down with his feet straight up in the air. I was there before he could regain his senses. I looped that tie rope around all four feet in nothing flat. The calf rolled over on his side trussed up like a Christmas turkey.
Dad walked over with the hypodermic and shot him in the hip. "I knew it. Jake, you're a natural. You and Gunshy can't lose."
I was proud of myself. It was too easy. "How much are the winnings?"
"Pays pretty good for the county rodeo. Two thousand dollars to first place. Second…,"
I cut him off. "We don't care what second place pays. Gunshy and I are only going to settle for first."
What I didn't know was how much of a fluke that first time was. The next twenty four times I never was able to get the calf down to tie his feet. Something always went wrong. I would throw a good loop and get my foot caught in the rope as it snapped taut. I took a nose dive into the dirt. I could get a good throw and my feet would get tangled up in one another as I hit the ground running. I'd take a nose dive in the dirt. I made a thousand and one mistakes. Somewhere around the thirty fifth time I finally got the calf down. I didn't get his feet tied right and he jumped back up. I believe I was up to the sixty something time before I managed to start getting things right. Dad finally took me over to watch another calf roper. Bill Randall was a national champion two times running. He had the chutes on his ranch. He was set up with trip ropes and timers for legal qualifications and calf roping.
Gunshy and I watched and took notes as Bill ran one calf after another out of that chute of his, chased him down, dropped on his lariat, flipped him and tied him. Bill wasn't only good, he was really good. I could understand why he was national champion. He also had one major advantage over me. He was six foot three inches tall and weighed in about two ten. All of it was lean, mean, muscle. I believe Bill could spit on the sidewalk and raise steam.
There were cowboys hanging all over the railings as Bill ran through one perfect calf roping after another. About a dozen calves later Bill rode his big brown mare up beside Gunshy and me. We had been watching from inside the corral. When Bill rode up Gunshy took a couple steps sideways. I knew it wasn't the mare Gunshy was waltzing away from. It was the big man in the saddle.
Bill looked us over. "That horse of yours is kind of skittish isn't he? Jake, your daddy said you can rope?"
I nodded.
"You ready to try? Back your horse into the chute and let's see what you got." He pointed over toward the chute where we would follow the calf out.
I nodded as I urged Gunshy over to the chute. He stopped in front of it. "Back in Gun."
He backed in without me guiding him. I heard one of the cowboys hanging on the fence next to us. "Did you hear that?"
They ran a calf into the chute next to us. I put a knot in my reins and dropped them over the saddle horn. Shaking loose my rope, I coiled up my lariat. I made my loop. I put my tie rope in my teeth like I had seen Bill do. I checked the calf in the chute beside me. He looked like he was ready to run for his life. He had been through this ordeal before. Probably many times. One of the cowboys hooked the trip rope attached to the timer across the front of our chute. When the calf was turned loose he tripped a trip rope in his chute as he bolted for the open. That in turn trips the barrier rope in our chute. If we broke the barrier rope, we were automatically disqualified no matter how fast we caught the calf.
I settled down in the saddle as I got ready. I felt my lariat hanging down beside my right leg. It felt good. I leaned forward in the saddle. Beneath me I could feel Gunshy hunker as he bunched his legs. I nodded.
That calf hit the trip rope at a full run. He was running as if his life depended on it. Gunshy sprang forward before our barrier rope dropped. I had my lariat up and over my head as we hit the open corral. One full swing and I threw. My rope sailed out over the calf's head. Gunshy planted his feet. I was off and running before the rope settled. That rope stretched out before me like piano wire as the calf came to the end. His feet went on while his head came back our way. He was upside down on his back. As I gathered in legs with my left hand, I had the tie rope in my right hand working for the loop. I tied three feet with three turns of the rope and a half hitch.
As I looked up everyone was staring. It was so quiet you could have heard a cock crowing a mile away. Finally Bill rode over shaking his head. I could hear all the cowboys talking among themselves.
Bill looked back at the chute. "Dan, did he break the barrier?"
The cowboy he called Dan was examining the barrier rope. "Nope. Must of passed through it."
Bill looked like he was in deep thought. "That was my second guess."
A smile spread clear across Bill's face. "What's his time?"
"Under three seconds."
Laughing, Bill looked around the corral at all the cowboys hanging on the rail. "Boys, if you blinked you missed seeing a world record."
He reached his hand down toward me. "Jake, lessons are over son. I don't profess to be smart enough to give lessons to someone who can throw like you do and beat every cowboy in the country."
As I shook Bill's hand I wanted to tell him it was a mistake. My foolish pride kept my mouth shut. I turned around and untied the calf. Removed my lariat from around his neck, and gathered up my hat where I had lost it when I came off Gunshy. I wanted to tell them it was Gunshy who had done it all himself but I didn't. He was at a full run before that barrier rope ever dropped. It was his timing that got us there, not mine. He knew when that loop went out when to plant his feet, I didn't tell him. He had the whole thing planned out as soon as he backed into that chute. Some one should tell those cowboys it was Gunshy who did all that work himself. I didn't.
The county rodeo was three weeks away and I kept practicing everyday. I was back to all the mistakes I made when I first started. Nothing was going right. Dad would watch and then walk away. I knew he was disappointed in me but it wasn't my fault. I was trying.
It hurt when he set up three barrels out in the field and told me to practice barrel racing. "I want you to work at something that you can handle, Jake."
That really hurt. "It's a girl's game dad. I'm not going to barrel race."
"Run the barrels Jake or you don't get to calf rope."
I gave in. I'd run his stupid barrels so I could rope. I knew I could handle the calf roping if I had enough time.
Gunshy had no idea what barrel racing was all about so I had to lead him through it. We went out and raced right handed. That means there are three barrels set out in the field in a triangle pattern. Starting out of the chute the barrel racer goes to the inside and all the way around the barrel on her right. It's a sprint toward the second barrel which is placed further out than the other two. The racer again runs around that barrel keeping it to the right. The third and final barrel is back toward the chute. Once again, a run around the barrel keeping it to the right. Thus each barrel has to be passed one full turn. Right handers normally run right. Left handers normally run left. It doesn't make any difference as long as they circle each of the barrels one full turn.
I raced daddy's barrels but I wasn't happy about it. He made me take half a dozen runs at those barrels everyday before he would let me go back and try calf roping.
Finally the county rodeo day arrived. Dad hooked up the trailer. I walked Gunshy up into the trailer. "We're gonna win that top money Gun. You can ride around in that pickup with me and it ain't gonna be in the back end either. You can sit up front just like the rest of us people."
He shook his head yes as I closed the tailgate.
I slid up in the pickup between momma and daddy. Daddy looked in my direction. "You ready Jake?"
"You get us there dad and I'll bring home the money." I was so sure of myself, I knew we were going to win.
They had the bronc riding contest, the bull riding contest, some junior sheep riding contest, and the girl's barrel racing before the calf roping contest. Several of the cowboys were ahead of me and they were doing good. None of them were setting the world on fire. I knew Gunshy and I were home free. It was time to count our prize money.
Gunshy walked out in front of that chute. "Back in Gun."
He backed in to the back rail. He was more than ready. I dropped my loop and shook my rope. It felt good. I put the tie rope between my teeth. Glancing down to my left, they ran the calf into the chute beside us. He looked like a runner. I was glad. I loved those kind. I dropped my reins over the saddle horn. Out of the corner of my right eye I saw something. It was Bill Randall, national calf roping champion. My heart sank. I hoped I wasn't competing against him.
He winked and nodded. "Do it like you did out at the ranch Jake. All the boys are here rooting for you."
I looked past Bill. Hanging on the rail was every cowboy I had seen out at his ranch. I swallowed the lump in my throat. I took a second look down at that calf. I no longer felt so sure of myself. I leaned down and grabbed the saddle with my left hand. Gunshy bunched his legs under us. I nodded.
That calf was out of there like a shot. Gunshy was right behind. It took me a second to catch up before I had my lariat up and over my head. It was taking too long to get the rope out. Finally I had it. I took three precious turns with that lariat before I threw. The rope snaked out over the calf's head. Gunshy planted his feet. I wasn't ready. I fell rather than stepped off. I was stumbling forward as the rope snapped taut. It caught me upside the head as it whipped up. That threw me off to the side as the calf whipped around still standing. Gunshy backed up trying to keep the rope tight on the calf. The calf came at me at a full run and hit me square in the chest. That knocked me backwards on my back. I was lying on the ground trying to breathe as Gunshy ran forward to keep the calf from running over on top of me. When the rope on the calf slacked off, the calf was ready to turn and run. Gunshy was already there. He lowered his head and butted the calf knocking him down. Gunshy planted his legs around me and dared anyone to touch me. The rodeo clowns and cowboys gathered around. They weren't brave enough to want to tackle that mottled gray stallion with wild in his eyes and breathing fire.
"What'll we do?"
"I don't know?"
"I heard that horse was a man killer."
"Someone get a rope and a couple horses out here."
"Where's his dad? Can his dad control that horse?"
I heard dad's voice through that haze I was in. "No I can't control that horse. Jake is the only one who can do that. Jake, you okay? Tell Gunshy we need to take a look at you."
"Jake, can you hear me. Call your horse off."
I finally managed to catch my breath. It felt like I had run into a truck rather than a calf. I lifted my hand in the air. "Gun, it's okay boy. Back off."
Gunshy made a move to his right. Cowboys parted like an ocean wave before him. They had already tackled the calf and removed my lariat. Gunshy stepped off about four feet away. He stopped and waited for me to get up.
"I never seen anything like it. That was worth the price of admission. Is Jake alright?"
I was getting to my feet. My chest hurt like the devil. "I'm alright. A little sore but I'll live."
Bill walked up where he could look me in the eyes. "I think he's okay. He's focusing okay. That was really something Jake. The boys and me are sorry it happened to you. That was some show you put on. Can you do it again tomorrow night?"
I wanted to laugh but it hurt too much. "I don't think so. One time is enough for me."
"We'll pass the hat and take up a collection if you will do it again. That's one smart horse Jake. I'd buy him off you if you could tell me how to control him."
Looking over at Gunshy I shook my head. "He's not for sale at any price."
Bill nodded. "You're a good kid Jake. You have your head screwed on right. Most kids would have sold your horse if they owned him."
"He doesn’t belong to me. I can't sell what isn't mine. He belongs to himself. No one will ever own him." I knew Gunshy could never be owned the way one owns cows or livestock.
We didn't stay around for the rest of the night. Dad got us loaded up and took us home. I didn't have to tell dad I'd take care of Gunshy when we got home. It was a no brainer. Even though he wanted to, dad wouldn't be able to rub him down.
I gave him an extra helping of dairy feed and was scratching behind his ears. "Thanks for looking out after me. Those cowboys thought you were something. Of course I knew that all along. We didn't get that purse tonight but it doesn't matter. We will get it tomorrow night."
I rubbed him down and made my way into the house. Mom and dad were waiting on me. Dad was the first to speak up. "How you feeling, Jake?"
"Like I been run over by a truck. I'll do it right tomorrow, dad." I felt my chest and it still hurt.
"You want me to rub some liniment on it, Katrina?" Mom was wanting to help.
I shook my head. "I want a long hot bath and soak it for awhile. I'll be alright."
I could hear them talking as I walked into the bathroom and begin running my bath water.
"John, in spite of what you and those cowboys think, she's still a girl. She can't do this. You're pushing her into something she isn't strong enough to handle. Calf roping is a man's sport. It takes tall lanky men to get those calves thrown to the ground."
"Now Katherine, Jake is perfectly capable of handling calf roping. She set a world record over there at Bill's ranch. It might not be in the record books but she did it in front of a couple dozen witnesses. She can do this."
"When are you going to realize she's a girl John. She isn't your son, she's your daughter. I only wish…,"
I settled down in the bathtub and stopped listening. I was so sore the hot water hurt.
A SECOND CHANCE
It was past eight when I looked at the clock the next morning. I started to roll out of bed and stopped. I was really stiff. It took me five minutes to finally get my feet on the floor. It took another ten before I had my pants and shirt on. Those feet of mine might as well have been a thousand miles away when I tried to put my socks on. I finally managed by reaching down with one hand, holding the top of the sock open and wiggling my toes and then my foot in. The boots were last and I finally got them on. I had to duck under my hat to get it on. I had a hard time raising my hand high enough to get my hat up to the top of my head.
What would daddy be thinking about me sleeping in like this? I bet he was pissed he had to do all the milking by himself. I was coming down the hall when he walked in the front door.
"Morning Jake, how you feel? You going to try again tonight?" He was headed toward the kitchen before I could answer him.
That kitchen was a mile away as I worked one stiff leg up past the other. In the kitchen I hobbled up to the table and held onto it as I settled my body down into the chair.
Mom and dad were taking glances at each other and then at me. I shook my head. "I'm a little stiff this morning but it will be gone by tonight. I'll catch the number one spot tonight for sure."
I looked up and mom was staring at me and shaking her head. She turned around to scoop some eggs up out of the skillet. "You're as dumb as your father. You don't belong out there."
She set the plate of eggs down in front of me and poured a cup of coffee for daddy. She poured a second cup for herself as she sat down at the table. "We've already eaten. Those are your eggs, Katrina. You want any more?"
I shook my head. "No these are fine momma. I could have fixed them myself. You didn't need to bother."
"I'm sorry I slept in so late daddy. You should have woke me. I'll get the hay out for the cows as soon as I eat momma's eggs."
Dad took a sip of his coffee and then blew on it. "I hayed the cows already. You take care of Gunshy and see if you are able to loosen up enough to throw a rope. There's no need of going back tonight if you aren't able to throw."
"I'll be ready. You make sure the trailer is hooked up. Gunshy and I are going to collect that prize money." What I didn’t know at the time, there was an entrance fee for each night one wanted to compete. Daddy was paying for my failures so I could have another chance.
It took me all day to finally get where it didn't hurt to move. By six that evening I had helped dad with the evening chores and we loaded up Gunshy. I was going to get that number one prize money.
Most of the evening I received a lot of good natured ribbing from the cowboys about which end of the calf I was supposed to throw. Then they'd make some remark about my horse was better at throwing caves than I was. All I had to do was teach him to tie their feet. I'd smile and answer. "Yeah, you guys watch and learn because when I get my technique down I'm gonna be faster and better then any of you. All of you will want me to teach you how and I'm gonna remind you how mean you were."
It usually got a good laugh. They were good fun loving cowboys for the most part. They played hard and worked harder. The rodeo organizers rotated the events and calf roping came up before bull ridding tonight. I was fourteenth on the list. Those cowboys were hot and some of them were turning in real good times. It didn't make any difference. Gunshy and me were going to do it right tonight.
Finally it was our turn. We got ready. I looked over to my right. There was Bill Randall again along with all his crew. He gave me an okay sign. I nodded back. I was out for blood tonight. I got my lariat ready with my tie rope in my teeth, I dropped the reins on the saddle horn, leaned down and grabbed a handful of saddle. I checked the calf. Gunshy hunkered down. I nodded. That calf ran out of the chute at full throttle. Gunshy was already at a full run. I brought my rope up over my head to spread the loop. The calf plowed to a stop. Gunshy stopped. I didn't stop. I went up and out over Gunshy's head. With a thud, I landed on my back, eight feet out in front of Gunshy. I had the wind knocked out of me. I would have sworn I saw a disappointed look in Gunshy's eyes as he walked up and stood looking down at me.
I reached up and grabbed the stirrup to pull myself up before the rodeo clowns or cowboys could get out there. "Why didn't you tell me you were going to stop? What we have is a lack of communication. Next time yell out."
He had his head turned watching as I dragged myself back up into the saddle. I didn't feel like it nor did I want to. It's what cowboys do to show how tough they are. Right now I didn't feel so tough. I would have rather walked or limped out of the arena, thank you.
The rodeo announcer was talking to the audience. "Ladies and gentlemen, this has to be a big disappointment to Jake. This is the second night he has failed to qualify for this event. Please give him a big round of applause to show him we care. These cowboys put in a lot of hard work and sometimes it just doesn't come out right no matter what they do."
I didn't care what the audience thought. I knew I was a big disappointment to my dad. As I rode back through the chutes leading from the arena, Bill was waiting. "Tough luck, Jake. We all know you can do it. Stop trying so hard. Relax and enjoy it. It's only a game. No matter if you win or lose, you and a lot of others know you are the best in the world."
I reached over and offered my hand. "Thanks Bill. You don’t know how much that means to me."
He took my hand and gave me a firm handshake. "I'll see you tomorrow night."
Dad and I were up at four thirty milking cows the next morning. After chores I worked with Gunshy for a few hours. I didn't feel like roping so I raced those barrels dad set up. Gunshy was pushing them over most of the time as he raced around them. I tried pulling him a little further out but he would have none of it. He wanted in as tight a corner as he could manage. I knew he was frustrated with me and was wishing I'd get my act together.
We did our evening chores and loaded up for the last night of the county rodeo. There was very little discussion on the drive over. That was all right by me. I didn't feel like talking either. They did the bronc riding and the calf roping came up after that. I was placed last in the calf roping event. I don't think it had anything to do with the luck of the draw. I felt the judges had placed me there because I had embarrassed everyone. There were fast times turned in that night as the cowboys seemed to be extra hot.
Finally it was our turn. Gunshy and I backed into the chute. They hooked up the trip rope and the barrier rope. I heard someone call "Jake" over to my right.
Bill was leaning across the rail. "Relax Jake. It's no big thing. Tomorrow all these cowboys will be a hundred miles down the road riding in another rodeo. No one will care how you rode last night or the first night. The only thing they will be thinking of is how they are going to ride in the next rodeo. So enjoy tonight. They can't eat you, they can't throw you out, and they are all rooting for you. It's just between you, that smart aleck horse of yours, and an ornery calf who thinks he can outsmart you. Can he outsmart you, Jake?"
I looked down at the calf in the other chute. NO WAY! I was smarter than that calf. "I'm…," I looked up to my right, Bill was gone.
I dropped my loop down by my right leg. Reins on the saddle horn, tie rope in my teeth, I checked the calf. He was a runner. I checked my rope and grabbed a handful of saddle horn as I leaned forward. Gunshy hunkered, I nodded. They tripped the gate and that calf was out of there like a bullet. Gunshy was right behind. I had my right arm up and over my head swinging a loop. Every thing slowed down to slow motion. I could see the calf making a move to his left away from us. I adjusted my throw and my position in the saddle. I snaked that loop out where the calf was headed. Gunshy planted his feet when the loop passed out over his head. I was already swinging my left leg up and over the back of the saddle. The fastest way off is to swing the left leg backwards and roll off the saddle as the right foot is pulled from the stirrup. When Gunshy hit the brakes I was out of the saddle and had my back to him as I rolled out. I used his momentum and kept it going as I hit the ground running. The loop settled in over the calf's head. Gunshy already had it in reverse as he was taking up slack on the rope. The calf hit the end of the rope at a full run. That rope stretched two inches as the calf did a complete summersault backwards. I had three legs gathered up in my arms. I dropped the loop over the first and did three turns and a half hitch. I threw my hands up to indicate I was finished.
It was then I noticed the whole world had become deathly quite when it went in to slow motion. A flood of noise rushed in to great me as the audience rose to their feet and screamed. I heard the announcer as the flagman moved into to time the event to its' conclusion. "Not a world record but close if the calf can't work lose in ten seconds."
The flagman dropped his flag. The time was up and the calf was still tied. The crowd screamed again. I motioned for Gunshy to loosen up on the rope so I could turn the calf lose. Gunshy walked forward to where I was standing. I took the lariat off the calf and then my tie rope. The calf jumped up and ran. That was okay. He was supposed to.
I heard the announcer again. "Cowboys, and cowgirls, we saw some of the finest roping I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. Jake made it into number one with his time tonight. Congratulations to a top rodeo hand."
I looked at Gunshy who was really the reason for me being as good as I was. "Take a bow Gun."
He bowed his neck. I picked up my hat were I had lost it and waved it toward Gunshy. He deserved all the credit. The audience shouted their approval.
Coiling up my lariat, I tied it with my tie rope and then fastened it to the saddle horn as I settled into the saddle. "Up Gun."
Gunshy reared up and stood on his back legs as he pawed the air. I didn't spoil the party by falling off the saddle. That was my contribution to the act.
Bill Randall was there at the chute leading out of the arena. As Gunshy walked out he held up his hand. "To the number one calf roper in America."
I reached out and shook his hand. "I don't think so Bill. I'm shaking hands with number one. It doesn't make a cowboy number one to do it right one time. It takes a lot of times doing it right. Check over your shoulder on your way to the national finals this year. I may be getting it right more than once every month."
He gave my hand a firm squeeze. "You would have gone into the record books tonight if the calf hadn't run sideways on you Jake. You're number one in my books. I'll take you on the road with me anytime."
Gunshy and I walked on out to the trailer. I was ready to go home. We had done what we intended to do. I was busy rubbing down Gunshy and talking to the cowboys who happened by. The rodeo ran through the bull ridding and still mom and dad didn't show up. The barrel racing event came up and I heard my name mentioned by the announcer.
"No, it's not true." I got up on Gunshy and rode back over to the chutes. All the cowboys were eyeing me suspiciously wondering what was going on. The cowgirls were protesting about a "cowboy" riding in the barrel racing event.
The judges had backed away from the microphone but we could hear them discussing it among themselves. Finally the announcer stepped back up to the mic. "Jake, you're up first in barrel racing. Would you please take your place in the chute?"
I hated my dad for doing this to me! I guided Gunshy into the chute. Cowgirls are allowed to be at a full run by the time they clear the end of the chute. A timer picks them up as they pass the gate and clocks them when they come back through after running the barrels. It was a girl's game. I hated it!
As bad as I hated being in the event, dad and mom had always taught me if it was worth doing then it was worth trying with all your skill possible. I leaned down on the saddle like I was getting ready to calf rope. I reached up and patted Gunshy on the neck. "This is bad enough, don't embarrass me."
He snorted as if to tell me not to embarrass him. I touched him with my heels. Gunshy was a sprinter if nothing else. He was flying when he passed that timer. He closed in on that first barrel. I knew he was going to cut it his way which was too close. I leaned over in the saddle and held the barrel with my right hand as Gunshy raced around it rocking it over. I pushed it back up as he raced on to the second barrel. Again he cut it too close and again I managed to push it back up as we raced toward the third barrel. The third barrel was a repeat of the first two. I looked over my shoulder as Gunshy raced toward the chute and the timer. The last barrel was still wobbling around like it was going to fall over. I didn't care. I didn't want to be in this event anyway. Tail flying straight out behind, his neck stretched out in front, Gunshy was flying as he passed back through the timer. He also never did anything halfway. It was either all or none for both of us."
I heard the announcer as Gunshy braked to a stop once he was past the timer. "Would Jake please report to the judge's stand."
All the cowgirl barrel racers were grouped up in a cluster glaring daggers at me. I had horned in on their sport and didn't belong. I thought it was funny because I agreed with them. I didn't think I belonged either. As I walked past them to the judge's stand one of them spit in my direction. "You think because you're too small to be a cowboy you can get in our event? Why don't you put on a dress and play the part, dear?"
All of them laughed. I started to say something and then decided not. I didn't want to be a girl. My name was Jake. Daddy told me so. I climbed the steps up to the judge's stand.
They were all looking at me. One of them cleared his throat. "What's your name?"
"Jake." That was a dumb question since I was registered as Jake.
"No, what's your real name?" He wasn't going to give me an out.
"I like Jake." I knew what he was wanting.
"What does your mother call you?" He was going to nail me down so I couldn't squirm out of the question.
I looked at all the strangers in front of me and then down at my old scuffed cowboy boots. "Katrina."
"Is that the name on your birth certificate?"
I hated this. "Yes."
"What's your full name?"
Why did dad enter me into the barrel racing? I hated him too. "Katrina…, Katrina Ann McDonald."
I looked up at a bunch of shocked faces. "May I go?"
One of the women judges walked up and put her hand on my shoulder. "What sex are you?"
I felt them coming and I couldn't stop them. Tears were rolling down my cheeks. I hated the whole world for doing this to me. "I'm a damn girl! Is that what you wanted to know? You want me to drop my pants and prove it? I HATE YOU! I HATE ALL OF YOU!"
Cowboys don't cry! I spun around as I wiped the tears away. "I don't care about your damn ol barrel racing or your damn calf roping. You can keep your money and give it to someone else."
I ran back to Gunshy and mounted up. I was crying too hard to care what anyone thought. We raced out of there like the devil was behind us. It was several miles later I pulled Gunshy down to a walk and we cut out across the fields. I was going home and pack my clothes. I was going to run away. Gunshy and I would ride the rodeo circuit and make a living calf roping but I'd never barrel race again.
Chapter III
YOU'LL NEVER BE A COMPETITIVE CALF ROPER
It was over twenty-six miles back home. Gunshy and I weren’t in any hurry, it took us most of the night to get there. Dad's pickup and the stock trailer were in the driveway. The lights were on in the house and the barn. I could see shadows on the curtains as mom and dad walked the floor in the living room.
I guess they could hear Gunshy's hooves on the driveway as we walked up to the barn. They both came out of the house. They waited until I put Gunshy up and fed him. As I was walking out of the stall, dad put his arm over my shoulder.
"Jake, I'm sorry. I wanted you to win something. I didn't think you would win the calf roping so I entered you in the barrel racing. Please forgive me. I didn't mean to hurt you. I won't do it again."
Mom walked up. She put her arms around me and dragged me into her breasts as she squeezed the life out of me. "Katrina, it's no big thing to be good if you don't like what you're doing. You showed them you could be both a cowboy and a cowgirl. Cowboys and cowgirls come and go but they will always remember you."
"Bill Randall said he wanted you riding with him. He had never seen anything like it in all his years in rodeo. He suggested you come over and talk to him sometime. He thinks you might be better off trying head and heel roping rather than calf roping. You're never going to get big enough to toss those calves like the cowboys do. In head and heel roping the horses do all the heavy work while the rider does all the trick roping."
I was feeling better. Maybe I wouldn't run away from home. "Did Bill really say he would ride with me?"
Dad reached out and put his arm around my shoulders as we walked back toward the house. "He not only said he would ride with you, he couldn't wait for you to come by and talk to him."
My head was starting to swell as I forgot about earlier this evening. 'Me' riding with the National Calf Roping Champion, Bill Randall. And he had asked for me.
Momma put a check for twenty five hundred dollars in my hand. "It's from the Rodeo Association. You made first in calf roping and first in barrel racing. They said it was the only time anyone could recollect someone had won both events. The cowboys and cowgirls won't forget you Katrina. They might not remember all the rodeos they rode in. They will always remember this one."
I turned around and held the check up so Gunshy could see it. "Look Gun, we have the down payment on that pickup."
He shook his head yes as mom and dad laughed at the both of us.
The next day after we finished the chores, dad drove Gunshy and me over to Bill's ranch. I was wondering what kind of treatment I was going to get from the cowboys now they knew I was a girl? It didn't take long to find out after I got out of the pickup. They all looked like statues as I was getting Gunshy out of the trailer.
Bill walked up and looked me over as if he had never really seen me before. Finally he spoke. "It doesn't seem right to call you Jake. It's either going to be Katrina or Cat. What will it be?"
I shook my head. "I would rather be called Jake."
A smile slowly spread across his face. "Okay, Cat it is."
He turned and looked at the other ranch hands. "Boys, you are looking at the world's top calf roper. HER name is Katrina or Cat. I catch any of you yard birds calling her anything else and you'll answer to me."
Bill pointed out toward the corral. "Cat, let's see if you can be one of the team members on a head and heel roping team."
I never did get the heels of those calves that day nor the next. The head was easy. Laying that rope down on the ground in front of the back feet of a running calf, letting him step into it, and pulling it up at the right time was a new experience. It took me two weeks before I caught my first one. It wasn't long before it was working like clockwork and I was catching every one of them. Bill said it was time to show off in the arena.
Bill taught me a lot about judging people as I rode the rodeo circuit with him that summer. He already knew most of the cowboys by name and by their nature. Most of them were good ol boys and would give you their last dime and the shirt off their back if they thought you needed it. A few were so down right mean they would go out of their way to try and pick a fight.
We had traveled all day and night to compete in the rodeo in Tucson. The prize money was over four thousand dollars for head and heel roping. There was a like amount for calf roping. I wanted to enter the calf roping along with Bill but the entry fee was too steep for me to stomach. It cost two hundred dollars to enter each event. I pooled my money with Bill for the head and heel. When it was our turn we scorched the ground with our mounts and our time. Bill's big bay mare and Gunshy were flying that night.
When Bill went to the arena for the calf roping event, I took Gunshy back to the trailer. I was going to rub him down and take my saddle off him to give him a breather. I had plenty of time to do what I wanted and make it back to the arena to watch Bill. I had dropped the saddle and bridle off Gunshy while he was still outside the trailer. My hand was resting on his flank. I felt Gunshy shiver before I heard the voices.
A couple of cowboys had walked up behind me. "Someone said you were a girl. I don't believe it. Prove to me you aren't a midget posing as a girl."
As I turned around, three of them were standing there. "You're drunk, why don't you go sleep it off."
They crowded in a little closer. The middle one was smiling. He was missing some teeth up front. "Why don't you come sleep with us if you're a girl?"
The one to my left reached out and grabbed my arm. "I want to see if he's a she."
I wasn't prepared for that. It took me a second to start my mind thinking again. "Let go of my arm, you asshole."
"Asshole huh? I'll make you think asshole." He was reaching for me with his other hand as the others closed in.
I swung as hard as I could with my right hand. I felt my fist plow into soft flesh on his cheek as his head snapped over to the side.
The one on my right lunged for me. Gunshy caught him with those powerful hind legs of his and the guy went flying six feet through the air.
The middle one had no idea what just happened. He was finally getting his alcohol soaked brain engaged and he was coming at me. Gunshy nailed him in the chest and I heard a hollow drum whump sound when he connected. The drunken cowboy went backwards about eight to ten feet before he hit the ground. The one I had socked turned and ran. I figured we were through with them.
I turned and begin scratching Gunshy behind the ears. "Thanks Gun, I don't think I could have handled three of them by myself."
I heard a shout behind us. I turned to look. The third man had returned with a policeman. "There, right there they are. That's a killer horse. He stomped my two buddies and tried to kill me but I was too fast for him. You have to put him down. He's a killer."
"What…,?" I couldn't believe what the guy was saying.
"Arrest him officer. She was the one who turned the horse lose on us. He's guilty too."
The policeman took out a pair of handcuffs. "Hold out your hands mister."
My left hand was on Gunshy's shoulder. I could feel Gunshy gathering his legs under him. "No, Gun. NO!"
The officer panicked at the mention of "gun". He pulled his from his holster. "YOU HAVE A GUN! PUT IT DOWN NOW!"
The shouting was too much for Gunshy. He only knew I was being threatened. He let loose. I heard a shot as the policeman threw his left hand up to ward off the two hooves coming at his face. Gunshy's aim was a little lower than that and he hit the policeman in the chest. There was a second shot as the man's arms went up as he went flying backwards. He hit the ground and there was a third shot as he bounced on the dirt.
The cowboy who had brought the policeman to arrest us scooped up the pistol from the stunned policeman. "I'm gonna kill that horse."
He was bringing the gun up to take aim when a lariat settled down over his shoulders. There was a shot as his arms were gathered in to his sides under the loop as it tightened. There was another shot as he was pulled over backwards. He was lying on the ground and trying to bring the gun up to take a bead on Gunshy or me. It didn't make him any difference as long as he shot one of us. The rope jerked tight and he was dragged along the ground as he shot again. I heard the bullet whiz by my left ear and rattle around in the trailer. The cowboy lost his hold on the gun as he bounced along the ground behind Bill's big bay mare.
Bill dropped out of the saddle and trussed him up like a calf in less than world record time.
The policeman was holding his chest as he tried to sit up. "oooooh!"
By now a crowd had gathered around us.
Bill walked up beside the policeman and stopped as he looked at the other two men lying on the ground. "What the hell is going on here?"
The policeman opened his shirt to examine his bullet proof vest before he pointed in my direction. "oooh, he tried to get that horse to kill me."
Bill shook his head. "Mister, if that horse wanted to kill you then you wouldn't be talking right now."
Bill glanced down at the handcuffs lying on the ground at my feet. "You tried to arrest her! Count your lucky stars you're still alive. Gunshy doesn’t let any one touch her except him."
The policeman rolled over to his hands and knees as he tried to get his breath. "Who?"
"That horse of hers, Gunshy. She belongs to him. He will make a believer out of you if you doubt it. You're fortunate he didn't come over here and stomp your head in. What were you thinking? Why in the world would you want to put handcuffs on her? What do you think she has done?"
The policeman was up to his knees and halfway up by now. He pointed over to the two men on the ground. "That horse killed them and then she turned him loose on me."
Bill was shaking his head as he walked over and grabbed one of the men by the shirt. He heaved and stood him up. The guy was wobbling around. Bill looked over at the policeman. "And you're an ass not to get all your facts straight before you go off half cocked. These cowboys are drunk."
Bill turned to look at me. "What happened here Cat?"
I pointed toward the one Bill was holding up. "They were going to undress me to see if I was a girl or not. I decked the one you trussed up and Gunshy took care of the other two. That one you caught brought the policeman back over here and was shouting Gunshy was a man killer. The policeman started to handcuff me, Gunshy started getting skitish, and I tried to calm him down. That policeman pulled his gun and Gunshy nailed him. The cowboy you stopped was going to see if he could finish us off when the policeman didn't."
Bill turned loose of the man he had been holding up. The guy wilted back down to the ground in a heap. Bill sighed as he looked at the policeman who was finally on his feet. "Don't you feel a little stupid? Why didn't you get your facts straight before you pulled that gun of yours and started trying to shoot every body?"
The policeman pointed at me. "You're under arrest allowing a dangerous animal to run lose and for resisting arrest."
Bill was silently laughing. He closed his eyes and shook his head. He looked down at the ground before he looked back up. "Mister, I've seen some dumb critters in my time but you are head of the class. I tell you what. You go get in that little buggy of yours and scat before I lose my temper."
"You can't tell me what to do. I'll arrest you too." He was reaching for the gun in his holster which wasn't there.
A group of cowboys closed in on him. They had him by the arms dragging him off. He was screaming. "All of you are under arrest. I'll haul all of you down to the jail. I'll kill that damn horse. Get your hands off me. What do you think you're doing?"
I was looking at Bill. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you in trouble. Are we going to jail? I can't let him hurt Gunshy. He didn't do anything wrong. He was only protecting me."
Bill walked over and put his arm around my shoulder. "I know Cat. No, by the time those cowboys let that idiot loose we will be long gone. I know most of the law in this neck of the woods. I'll tell them what happened and get enough of the cowboys to testify to how it was, there won't be anything come of it."
He looked back over at the guy he had wrapped up with his rope. "You loan me your lariat? I think mine is busy right now and I have a calf to rope."
I pulled it off the saddle and handed it to him. "You think you can rope with a strange lariat? All of them throw a little different."
Bill uncoiled it and coiled it back again. "Cat, you know, most cowboys never realize that fact. But yes, it feels fine. I think it feels easier than my own rope. If I set a record tonight you going to let me use it from now on?"
I nodded. "As long as I'm not using it. Anytime for you."
We left Tucson behind us right after Bill roped his calf. We found out later Bill didn't set a record that night but he did turn in the highest score. Never did hear what happened to that policeman who wanted to shoot everyone. But then, it was a year before we went back to Tucson. I looked Gunshy over for bullet holes but he didn't have any. Bill told me later that he had three bullet holes in his horse trailer. He thought they were kinda neat. He never had a shot up horse trailer before. Said he might just shoot up any new trailers he bought just for the heck of it. He told the other cowboys who asked about the holes, his trailer was shot up in a running gun battle with some horse thieves. Made a good horse story. Bill might have never lied but he sure could stretch the truth until it squealed.
Fall came along with school and I had to quit ridding with Bill. It was back to chores every morning and night. I also quit roping calves until the next spring. When spring came Bill asked me if I would ride team with him again. I asked dad if it was okay. Dad agreed to a limited extent. I had to help with the planting. So again, Bill and I ran the rodeo circuit as a head and heel roping team. I won't say we always came in with top honors but we did a whole lot better than our fair share. I tried some calf roping at a few of the little county fairs where they only charge fifty dollars for entry fee. I should have saved my money. Gunshy would get me out there in record time. I always caught my calf but I never could get them laid down to tie their feet. I didn't have enough weight to throw them like Bill did.
It was our third year and I was going to be a senior come fall. Bill brought the subject up while we were waiting our turn in the Cheyenne rodeo arena. "Cat, what's your plans after you graduate?"
"I guess I'll help dad on the farm. I have six thousand saved up in the bank thanks to you but that isn't going to get me through college." I was checking my lariat and scratching Gunshy on the neck.
Bill nodded as he looked across the bleachers where all the rodeo fans were seated. "You want to make enough money to go to college? What do you think you want to be?"
"A veterinarian. I want to work with animals. I guess after I get out of school, if you let me ride with you, we could team all year. I might make enough to go to college for a year."
"That would work but it's not good enough. I know a guy who ships horses all over the world. He's looking for a horse wrangler. I happened to mention your name and he was interested. He's heard of you Cat. Of course that's not saying a whole lot. Everyone around the rodeo circuit has heard about you." Bill was watching me to see how I would react.
"I don't know. I've never been anywhere except with you. It takes a lot of money to be on the road away from home. Would it eat up my paycheck trying to survive all that traveling?" I had no idea what it cost to live in some of the foreign countries but I had heard it was expensive.
"Kevin said he would pay for room along with your meals when you were escorting his horses. He offered forty thousand and I told him you wouldn't even consider it for less than eighty." Bill looked to see if he had my attention.
He did. "Eighty? You mean eighty thousand? You're pulling my leg? Aren't you?"
"Well, I didn't get your eighty thousand but Kevin said he would think about it. I told him not to think too long because you had an offer where you could make twice that working with Phoenix Corporation."
"What's Phoenix Corporation?" I wasn't holding onto all the pieces in this conversation.
The team we were behind stepped up into the chute for their turn. Bill shook his lariat out. "They do the same thing as Kevin. They ship horses all over the world. I only told Kevin that so he wouldn't wait to long to make a decent offer."
The other team was out of the arena and it was our turn into the chutes. Gunshy and Bill's mare walked in and waited. "So what did he offer?"
The gate flew open as Bill answered. I didn't hear what he said as Gunshy and I flew out of that chute. I was running on pure instinct because I sure didn't have my mind on the head and heel roping. Bill let his lariat fly as I dropped my rope under the belly of the steer. We had him as Gunshy and Bill's mare tightened up the ropes. It was over and I was coiling up my lariat never thinking about what we had done. I was dying to hear what I missed as we rode out of the chute.
I rode up beside Bill as he walked his mare out of the arena. "What did he say?"
Bill looked around. "What did who say?"
"The guy that ships horses all over the world. What did he say?" I wasn't getting the proper response from Bill.
We were out of the chute and past the arena, Bill turned his mare away. His back was to me when he mumbled something.
"Wait, I didn't hear that again. Did you just answer me? Repeat that. What did he say about the salary?" I turned Gunshy and sprinted up beside Bill.
Bill shrugged his huge shoulders. "I told you twice now. I usually don't repeat myself more than once and never three times. I guess you will have to wait and ask him personally."
"BILL! That's not fair. What did he offer? Tell me." I was dying of curiosity.
Chapter IV
From a Tomboy to a Princess
Momma asked me to wear a dress for her on my high school graduation night. We went to town and she picked out the most DRESS she could find. I'm sure I had other dresses before I could remember and before daddy claimed me as his son. This was the first dress I could remember putting on. I HATED IT! All the ladies in the store oohed and aahed over how beautiful it was. I wasn't thrilled by any means. The final straw was when momma had me take off my boots and try on some heels. I almost broke my neck when they asked me to walk across the floor in those things designed to torture girl's feet.
The heels matched the dress and momma was thrilled. We stopped at the beauty parlor before we left town. I felt like a goat in a barnyard full of horses. I didn't belong. The only thing that made it tolerable was the other women called me Jake. It was the only name anyone knew me by. They put a rinse on my hair and teased it to make it look like some picture in a magazine. Donna, filed my nails which wasn't much. I never kept any fingernails to speak of. My nails were always getting broke loading hay, driving fence posts, or fixing a broken tractor. She glued those artificial nails on me. Immediately I hated them. If momma hadn’t been there they would have come right back off. Until the graduation ceremony was over about ten or so that night, I was going to have to watch what I was doing. When they were done I tried to untie the bib they had around my shoulders to keep the makeup off my shirt. I couldn't do it. Already those damn long nails were causing me more trouble than necessary.
I knew my dress and make over had cost momma a small fortune in milk money. Something we could ill afford. We were in the old Ford pickup headed out of town when I finally got my temper under control. I was driving and staring at the road to keep from having to look at anything else. "Thank you, momma. I love you."
She had been riding with her back to the door so she could look at me without turning around each time. "Katrina, I love you with all my heart. I know you don't like what I've done to you. Please be my little girl for one night. In two weeks you are leaving home for the rodeo circuit again. I don't know how much I will get to see you again before you start college. You're a young lady now, Katrina. Please let me enjoy that much of my baby girl."
I glanced in her direction. She had tears in her eyes. I don't guess I turned out quite like what momma expected when the doctors said her baby was a girl. "I won't make a fuss, momma. I'll practice walking in those heels when we get home. I'll walk across that stage like you always dreamed about. I'll keep the dress on after graduation, until I go to bed. I'll be your girl tonight, momma."
"You're a beautiful lady, Katrina. I'll always be proud of you no matter if you're wearing jeans or a dress." Momma turned to look out the window as she wiped the tears from her eyes.
Those long nails were more trouble than they were worth. I had a terrible time holding onto that steering wheel. I'd keep them on for as long as they lasted just for momma. I pulled off the highway and headed down the country road toward home. It was another ten miles down a dirt road before we would be at the house. "Momma, if we leave by six, you can get a seat close to the stage. The air conditioners in the gym only halfway work. It's a lot cooler up by the stage."
"You sure you don't mind, Katrina? I know you don't want to be seen any more than what you have to in a dress." She glanced over at me and smiled.
"I could stand on my head in the cow lot for as long as it took if I knew it made you happy, momma." A skunk ran across the road and I dodged it, missing him by inches.
Momma glanced up in time to see what it was we almost hit. "If that had been me driving, I would have hit him and them we would have had to walk or drive the tractor to your graduation. We would all smell like skunk if I had run over him with the pickup."
"Tractor would work. I could hook up the wagon, put a couple chairs in it, and daddy could pull us to town while I waved at all the people. They would think we were part of the parade they missed." I could see the farm down the road.
Momma laughed so hard she cried. "You little nut. I bet you would too. It would embarrass the devil out of your dad and me. You would put on an entertainment show and make everyone think it was them who were out of step."
She wiped the tears with the back of her hand. "I love you Katrina. You are going to go far in this old world. You've never seen an obstacle you couldn't go over or go around. You've never run into a situation you couldn't figure out and never met a person you couldn't out think. In spite of your dad trying to make you his son, there's a young woman in there who will greet the world head on and come out a winner."
I didn't feel that confident but momma always was good at building up my ego. I turned into the drive. Dad was finishing chores and coming out of the barn. He looked up as I stopped the pickup. I knew he was trying to figure out who was in the pickup with momma. With a rinse on my hair, along with the lipstick and makeup, he didn't recognize me.
I had changed back into jeans and denim shirt before we left the beauty shop. The dress was on the front seat of the pickup along with those heels I was going to have to learn to walk in before tonight.
I killed the pickup, opened the door, and dropped out on the ground. "Hi pops. Did you have any trouble getting Doris in the milk stall? Has Roan dropped her calf yet? She looked darn close to me before we went to town."
Dad's mouth opened. He never said anything nor did he move, he only stared.
I was afraid of this. Dad hated what he was looking at almost as much as I hated being the object of what he was looking at. To him and the rest of the world I was Jake and I would always be Jake. Katrina was a name my mother used every now and then to talk to her invisible daughter.
Momma had already gathered up the boxes with my heels and dress. She shook her head as she looked at dad. She turned and walked into the house without saying a word.
I felt sorry for both of them. I wanted to tell daddy that I would be his boy tomorrow but tonight I had to be Katrina for momma. "I have to get ready. You lay out your black suit already or you want me to ask momma to lay it out?"
He was still staring as I walked into the house. I wondered what was going thorough his mind? I thought I knew him but obviously not. I had never seen him act like that. I beat everyone to the bathtub. Fifteen minutes later, I was standing in my room looking at the dress and heels momma had laid out on my bed earlier when she walked in.
"May I help, Katrina?"
"I don't know what to do momma."
"It's a natural thing honey. Sit down on your bed and pull your nylons on."
I sit down and gathered up two nylon stockings.
"The garter belt goes on first dear." Moma pointed to the thing with straps hanging down from it.
I knew what a girdle looked like. What momma was pointing at looked like a small girdle with clips. I slipped my feet into it and slid it up over my hips.
"Now the stockings, Katrina. Roll them down from the top. Slip your toe in and slid them on. The seam goes in the back."
I did as she told me.
Momma helped me fasten them up with the straps.
She backed up. "Slid your hands down the stockings, Katrina. It will smooth out the stretch and they won't wrinkle or bag when you sit down or stand up."
"I think all the girls are wearing pantyhose momma." I was sure most of the girls were wearing pantyhose. I NEVER heard any of them talk about wearing a garter belt and nylons. I was sure I had never seen any of them wearing nylons when they flashed a leg for the boys. I was positive, I had never seen any seams on any pantyhose the girls wore.
"I'm sure they are Katrina. Nylons are for real ladies. They are from a time when ladies knew what turned a man's head. Trust me Katrina, you will turn heads tonight. Now the heels."
I sit back down on the bed and slipped on the black velvet heels. I stood up. I did real good as long as I didn't try and walk. "Maybe we should have started with a shorter heel?"
"No dear, the dress demanded four inch heels." Momma handed me a black bra.
I really didn't need a bra. I was a thirty two B but I was going to be momma's girl tonight. The bra had a lot of padding to push me up and out. It made me look like I really had something. I managed to get everything adjusted and dropped the black satin slip over my head.
I was beginning to feel something I had never felt before. I wanted to show off not in a funny way like I always did before but in a sexy way. I dropped the velvet dress over my head and turned my back to momma.
"Hold in your stomach, Katrina." She ran the zipper up the back.
"Turn around and let me look at you."
I took one step away from her and slowly turned around. Momma was crying. "Oh my god. My little girl is all grown up. You're so beautiful. My god, look at you. You're a woman now."
She put her hands up beside her eyes to wipe the tears. "Where has my little girl gone? Oh Katrina, you're so beautiful."
She turned and fled the room crying. I felt strange, different, and something I had never felt in my whole life. Sexy. I walked, if one can call what I was doing in those heels, over to the door and pushed it shut so I could look in the mirror attached to the back side.
There was a stranger in the mirror looking back at me. I didn't know her. She was the woman my mother was crying over. The black velvet dress fit me like a second skin. The low scalloped neckline was showing plenty of breasts those padded cups were pushing up. The side walking slit was more than I could believe. It was showing the top of my nylon stocking where it hooked to the garter straps when I twisted my body. The hem was four inches above my knee. I hadn't shown that much leg since I went swimming in the creek.
I was still studying the woman in the mirror when momma came back in holding jewelry in her hand. She held it up for me to see. It was the only diamond jewelry momma owned. A simple little gold necklace with a tiny little diamond drop on the end. A couple clip on earrings with a little tiny diamond in the middle of a small gold flower.
"These were given to me on my wedding day by my mother. You get to wear them tonight and when you get married I will give them to you." She held them up for me.
I picked up the earrings and clipped them on. I tried putting on the necklace and couldn't get the clasp with those long fake fingernails I was having to contend with.
"Turn around Katrina. Please, let me do it."
I turned around and momma snapped the clasp shut on the necklace.
"You have an hour to learn how to walk in those heels Katrina. Watch me." Momma walked across the bedroom and back again swinging her hips and placing one foot exactly in line with the other. I had never seen her walk like that before.
"Okay." I gave it a try and wobbled across the floor and back again.
"It's okay Katrina. You will get the hang of it before we leave." She turned and left.
I was dressed for graduation. Now all I had to do was learn to walk in those four inch heels momma had bought me. Simple enough. Or so I thought. I stumbled across that bedroom floor a hundred times before I found the trick to wearing heels and walking like a lady.
I heard a snort at my bedroom window. I knew who it was before I opened the window and looked out. "Look Gun, what do you think?"
Gunshy was eyeing me suspiciously. I walked across the room and back again just for him. "Well?"
He shook his head up and down. I felt a whole lot better knowing I had his approval. "I'm going to pick up my diploma tonight. I'll be back to show you."
Again he gave me his approval. I turned and walked into the living room where momma was putting daddy's tie on for him. I saw him swallow as his eyes got as big as egg whites when I walked into the room.
Holding out my hands I turned around for him. Momma was looking too by the time I finished my audition. Daddy got a lopsided grin, started to say something, bit his lip and tried again. He still couldn't get it out. He smiled as his lip quivered. I saw a tear trickling out of his right eye before he turned and walked out the front door.
That scared me. "Momma, is he mad at me?"
She walked up and put her arm over my shoulder. "No Katrina, he has seen his little girl for the first time and she's a young lady. He's so proud of you he can't tell you how beautiful you are."
She checked her watch. "It's time to get going. You ridding with us or you taking your pickup?"
"I'm ridding with you. I don't have any reason to stay around after graduation ceremonies. It will save some gas."
"Good enough." She picked up her purse and shepherded me toward the door.
We made the school parking lot in good time. Dad found a decent place to park. As we got out of the pickup daddy turned and took a good look at me. "You're the prettiest girl here Katrina. I guess I lost Jake tonight. I'm not sorry. I picked up a beautiful daughter instead."
"Don't worry daddy. Jake will be back in a couple hours. Besides, I'll always be your Jake."
Momma gave me a hug as she checked her camera. "We're going to find some seats up front. We'll wait on you after the ceremonies."
A couple of boys, Ricky and Eddie, from my class walked by looking me over. I could hear them talking as they walked on by. "Jeeze, did you check out that blond? I wonder whose older sister she is? Find out who she came to see graduate. Why couldn't I have been in her school?"
Ricky looked back over his shoulder. "I think I know those people she's with. Isn't that Jake's parents?"
Eddie took a second look. "Yeah, I think so. You think that's Jake's older sister? Nah, can't be. She couldn't be kin to Jake. She's too good looking."
That scared me, I wanted to be back in my jeans and boots. I turned to momma.
"Hold your head up Katrina. You will be all right. It's like building fence, milking cows, calf roping, or all those other things you do. Take it one step at a time. Don't take so much of it you can't handle it. What do you do when you build fence? You set your corner posts first. This is the same thing. When you walk into that auditorium you hold your ground. You aren't the kid they sit in class with everyday. The others will come over and look you over. People are no different than those cows you work with. Some are bullies, some are friendly, and some will be indifferent. When they get where they scare you then name them with the names of the cows that have their personality."
Momma laughed as she was already doing in her mind what she told me to do. "Those two boys who walked by? Who do they remind you of?"
I gave it some thought before it came to me. "Lucy is always curious and getting into things she shouldn't. Ginger is usually tagging along with her and doing the same."
"Exactly. And I'll bet there isn't a single one of those classmates of yours who doesn’t have a counterpart in the dairy herd."
"Thanks momma." I wasn't scared any more. I gave her a hug and then gave daddy a kiss on the cheek.
He was getting all choked up again. I turned and walked toward the auditorium. That black dress momma had picked out for me wasn't a short miniskirt but it wasn't far from it. Four inches above the knee was showing a lot of leg, especially for a girl who had grown up in blue jeans. Other kids were arriving and most of them were talking about the lady in black as I walked into the auditorium.
My English teacher, Mrs. Inman stopped me at the door. "Students and faculty only in this door. Parents and guests are supposed to go in the front entrance around on the other side."
"Yes, I know. Thank you for reminding me." I waited to see if she was going to recognize me.
Her eyes closed slightly as she was trying to match up something in her mind. "I know you aren't a regular teacher here. Are you one of the student teachers?"
That got me tickled thinking she thought I was three to four years older than I really was. "No, I didn't student teach here Mrs. Inman."
Not all the students had arrived but those that had were sure staring. The whole room was whispering and pointing in my direction. Mr. Cuff, our principle had walked up by this time. From the look on his face, he was ready to tell me I had to leave.
Mrs. Knight, my Algebra teacher had a smile from ear to ear as she walked over to our little gathering. "My, my, and how we have grown up since I saw you yesterday. I wouldn't have known you if I had been looking before I heard your voice."
She took my hand as she studied me. "I see a beautiful woman before me where a child stood only yesterday. You look absolutely stunning." Mrs. Knight was enjoying herself to no end as she had figured me out and no one else knew.
Mr. Cuff was getting a little peeved over the whole situation. "Mrs. Knight, you know this lady?"
Mrs. Knight was laughing as she looked at all the faces gathered around us. "I sure do. Mr. Cuff, I would like for you to meet Miss, Katrina McDonald."
That still didn't ring anyone's bell. It was a name on an enrollment slip and nothing else. How many people ask to look at your enrollment slip after the first day? None! I was surprised Mrs. Knight would remember it.
Laughing out loud, she couldn't keep it to herself any longer. "This young lady is Jake. You know? Jake McDonald? Imagine cowboy boots, jeans, denim shirts."
Mr. Cuff looked shocked. "Jake McDonald? Jake McDonald? Jake is a…, This is a Jake? No? It can't be!"
He glanced at my breasts where those padded cups were giving him something to look at. "But I thought Jake was a…?"
He was checking my height. "No way…, Jake is shorter."
Mrs. Knight was crying she was laughing so hard. "Miss McDonald is wearing heels."
By now I was getting tickled and beginning to see the humor in all this. "I still get to graduate, right?"
"Sure, if you're Ja…, If you're the McDonald who has been coming to my school for the past three years, then you get a diploma same as all the others." Mr. Cuff wasn't too sure how he should handle this situation. He had been handed something he had never had to face in his whole career. He turned around and left with a quick purpose in his stride. I knew what he was going to do. He was going to check that enrollment slip to see whether he had enrolled a boy or a girl.
Mrs. Knight put her arm around me and gave me a hug. "Katrina, you're the prettiest girl in our school. I wouldn't have missed this for a million dollars. Have fun tonight and let me know if you need any girl support."
"Thanks, Mrs. Knight. I appreciate it."
She backed up and looked me over. "You look better than nice. I haven't seen stockings like that since my mom wore them. I must have the name of the place where you found them. You look soooo…, wow."
The seniors who had arrived earlier and those who had come in after me had been grouped up discussing the "hot chick" who was talking with the teachers. They had heard Mr. Cuff and Mrs. Knight mention Jake McDonald and Katrina McDonald. Most of them didn't make the connection any better than Mr. Cuff. I never socialized in school as I always had chores to do. I didn't have any real friends as none of the girls liked Jake and most of the boys didn't want anything to do with Jake either. The only kid in that whole school who would accept Jake, was a boy named Ernie Stover. Ernie was a computer and electronics geek. Those were the two things I never understood but received a whole lot of information about because I hung around Ernie during school hours. The only mutual friendship we had was, there weren't any other kids in school who would give either one of us the time of day. So, we kind of looked to each other to have someone to talk to. Ernie didn't understand horses, farming, or any of the things I did. I didn't understand ohms, resistors, capacitors, or any of the things he did. I'm sure I gave him as much education about the rodeo and farming as he gave me about circuits.
Ernie had arrived before I did. He was one of those kids hanging back watching when I walked into the room. Slowly he edged over one shy step at a time as he intently stared at me. Finally he got up within four inches of my face. He studied me as he adjusted his glasses. "Jake? It's you isn't it? What did you do to yourself?"
I backed up a step so I didn't have him right in front of my nose. "Hi Ernie, this is me. What do you think? Be pretty hard to rope a calf in this outfit don't you think?"
Ernie's eyes were blinking as he tried to digest the fact his best buddy had turned into a girl. "Golly, Jake, you look real nice. I don't guess you want to hang around me any longer. You're the prettiest girl in this school. You'll want to hang around all the football studs and talk girl talk with all the other girls now."
Ernie was a real good looking boy in his suit and tie. I knew the boy inside all those dress up clothes. I certainly didn't think I could stomach any of the football studs, as Ernie called them. I stepped up and put my arm over his shoulder like we usually did the past four years. "I don't have anything I want to say to the other boys Ernie. You and I have always been and always will be best friends."
Ernie's Adams apple was bobbing up and down as he was swallowing. That tickled me to think I had shocked someone who had been a close pal since junior high. "Ernie relax, it's only me, Jake. I'm not going to eat you. If girls scare you that bad, imagine me in boots, jeans, and my old cowboy hat. I'm still the same guy you always knew. Nothing's changed except a little outside cover."
He still wasn't buying me as his old friend. I figured I needed to get him thinking about something else besides me. "You said you were going to get a five watt ham radio set up in the basement this week. How did it go?"
That was the icebreaker. For ten minutes I listened to Ernie explain something I knew nothing about. But he was in familiar territory and talking about something he knew better than anyone else in school. Katrina had been put out of mind as Ernie talked to his best friend, Jake, about his latest electronics experiment. The boy-girl thing was forgotten for a little while.
The other girls didn't want anything to do with me. I was a social stigma they weren't prepared to handle. Some of the boys who thought they were hot jocks tried to edge in and push Ernie off to the side and strike up a conversation. Ernie was too meek to protest but when he was edged over, I would edge over with him. I really didn't care to be discussing what evers with the boys who thought they were god's gift to the girls. Let the girls who had played that game the past four years giggle and laugh when the jock said something totally not funny to anyone but him.
Finally it was time for the graduation ceremony. From the time I first arrived that was the longest fifty-eight minutes I had ever lived through. Ours was a rural school and the only part of the cap and gown we wore was the cap. There weren't any gowns. I tried to put mine on my head as we were lining up to take our places in the auditorium. Ernie was trying to help. Placing that cap on top of a full hairstyle that had been teased and sprayed until it was like steel wool wasn't working.
Mrs. Knight walked up and took the cap from me. "Here Katrina, let me do it."
She pulled some bobby pins out of her left hand, put the cap in place, and pinned it. "There, it will stay where it belongs now."
I felt with my hands if it was where it should be. It was cocked back. "Is that right?"
She put her right hand on my left shoulder and looked me in the eye. "It is perfect for a young lady. You look lovely Katrina."
The band was playing and the first students were walking into the auditorium. I straightened up. I was going to do my best to make momma and daddy proud. "Thanks Mrs. Knight."
After we took our seats on stage, there was plenty of time to look over the audience as the special awards were passed out to the kids who did something extra special. I finally found momma and daddy in that sea of faces looking at us. What shocked me was, sitting beside them was Bill Randall and his wife LeAnn. I didn't think Bill had any kin in this school.
They finally came to the end of the awards ceremony and it was time for the seniors to cross the stage and pick up their diploma. I was waiting for the first name to be called when I heard my name. "Miss Katrina Ann McDonald to the stage."
Looking around at all the other faces who had turned toward me, I expected someone to say it was a joke. I slowly rose out of my chair and walked down to the stage where they handed out awards. Mrs Knight was at the microphone. "Tonight, we have an unusual award to present to an outstanding student. This award is normally presented at the national rodeo finals. However we were contacted by the National Rodeo Association and asked if we would honor this fine student who has made such an impression on the cowboys and cowgirls of America."
She pointed down toward Bill Randall. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are honored to have the National Calf Roping Champion from our audience to present the award. Would you please welcome, Mr. Bill Randall. Three time winner as National Calf Roping Champion."
There was a rousing applause as Bill walked up on stage. He was dressed better than anytime I had ever seen him. A dark, shiny, brown, western dress suit and tan cowboy boots. He was the most handsome man I had ever seen. He adjusted the microphone to his six foot seven inch height. "Thank you Mr. Cuff. Every year one cowboy is honored as being the most congenial, the best all around, the one person who exemplifies what a cowboy is. The cowboys vote for their favorite cowboy for this honor. They decide who defines by example, the best all around cowboy. The cowboy of choice normally scores consistently in the top honors of his field. He is usually on the rodeo circuit all year. By a vote of their peers, the cowboys pick whom they want to honor. After the final tally was in, the NRA had a small problem. The cowboy wasn't a cowboy. This year has been quite a challenge to the judges of the National Rodeo Association. "
There was a murmur from the audience. It had soaked into my brain where this was leading and my hands were shaking. Bill smiled as he continued. "The cowboy nominated rode the rodeo circuit only part of the year as school demanded the rest of his time. However, he performed consistently at the top in the events in which he entered. The cowboys knew him by the name of Jake McDonald. From my understanding after talking to the faculty here at Webster High, all his classmates knew him as Jake McDonald."
"Like I said, the National Rodeo Association had a small problem. The All Around Cowboy was a cowgirl. After learning about the situation, the NRA judges sent the nomination back to the cowboys for consideration. Jake picked up even more votes as the All Around Cowboy when the tally was counted again. It was my privilege to be half of the head and heel roping team with the young lady whom I am going to present this award tonight."
It was like the night I had roped that calf in the county fair, a rush of quiet dropped on me. Everything went into slow motion as I looked out across the sea of faces in the audience. What were they thinking of me now? Surely they hated me!
Mrs. Nickles walked out on the stage and handed Bill a trophy of a horse with a man standing beside the horse holding the reins. Now I understood how Mrs. Knight knew who I was when I walked in earlier. Obviously the secret wasn't shared with Mr. Cuff.
Bill turned around and held the trophy out to me. "To an All Around Cowboy, Cowgirl, Katrina Ann McDonald. You will always be a top hand in our stable."
As I took the trophy, my hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped it. I was so hot I was about to faint. Bill adjusted the microphone back down to my level and indicated I should say something. I couldn't think of a thing to say. Even if I had I wouldn't be able to say it. My mouth was cotton dry.
I leaned toward the microphone as if it was a rattler and cleared my throat. "Uhhhh, thank you. Thanks to all of you. Thanks to Gunshy, the best horse a cowboy ever had. Thanks to my mom and dad who told…, who taught me to always do my best."
I looked over at Bill. "Thanks to the best person a…, a…, a girl could ever team up with. Bill Randall."
I was through. I said more than I thought I could. Mrs. Knight indicated I should follow her and I did. We walked off behind the curtains on the side of the stage. She held out her hands. "Let me take care of your award Katrina. I'll give it to Mr. Randall or your parents. They will make sure it gets home for you."
I walked around behind the stage and back up to my seat. I could feel everyone staring at me. Thank goodness it was only a minute before Mr. Cuff indicated the diplomas were to be handed out and they forgot me again. We walked across the stage as our names were called. It was quickly over.
Before I could make it from the stage down to where my parents were waiting Donna Snyder stepped in front of me. She had always been the most popular girl in school and had been voted into everything that was going on. She was homecoming queen, student body president, head cheerleader, you name it, she was in it.
She was giving me the once over as she put out her hand to stop me when I started to walk around her. "Jake…, I mean Katrina, some of the kids are getting together for a party in a little while. Won't you come?"
I shook my head. "No thanks. I have things to do at home. I rode in with my parents. I don't have a way back unless I ride home with them. Thanks anyway."
She wasn't letting me get away as she held her position in front of me. "I have my Corvette. I'll drive you home after the party. It's not going to last too long. There's refreshments and pop. We thought we would get together one last time before all of us scatter from home."
I was thinking how Donna reminded me of the way Gunshy and I separate the cows. She was blocking my path. "I don't know."
"Just for old times sake? It's probably the last time you will see most of the other kids you went to school with." Donna wasn't taking no for an answer.
"Who all is going to be there?" I was considering her offer.
"All the seniors and a few of the juniors. Come on, I'll take you home when you want. It will be a lot of fun." She was willing to do everything to get me to the party.
"Okay. Ernie Stover is going to be there too, isn't he?" I was willing to see the other kids for one last time if my old school chum was going.
Donna hesitated. "Sure, all the kids will be there. Tell your parents you're going to a party and will be home later. You can ride over with me. Meet me out in the parking lot. You know my car. It's a red Corvette."
She stepped out of the way. I walked down to explain to my parents I was going to a class party for a few hours. Ten minutes later, I found Donna waiting in the parking lot. We were out of there in a flash. With all the people leaving the ceremony Donna was driving carelessly. I was wishing I hadn't agreed to ride with her. She was an accident looking for a place to happen.
Donna drove quite a ways out of town. The driveway she pulled into I recognized as being Lana Mortner's place. Lana was one of those women whose husband died when she was fifty-one. He left her a ranch, money, and tons of insurance money. She was always off some place like Florida, Colorado, or Europe, seeing if she could spend it all before she died. Her ranch was also only a couple miles down the road from Bill Randall's place.
There was one other car in the driveway when Donna pulled in. I was wondering where the rest of the kids were. "Are we early, or what? It doesn't seem like much of a party yet."
Donna killed the car and got out. "I guess we beat the others here. They'll show up."
I walked into the house with Donna. Kyle Adams, Donna's steady for the past three years was there, along with David Mercer and his girlfriend Ronda Alder. I didn't like the way they were looking at me when we walked in. I heard a car drive up out front. I was hoping it was Ernie and some of the other kids I knew. As I turned to look out the door I saw Ronnie Talsman and his date, Sherrie Henson getting out of a car. I was disappointed. So far I wasn't seeing any of the kids I cared to say goodbye to.
"Where's the refreshments?" I turned to look around the room. It didn't look like much of a party. There was only beer and liquor sitting on the table.
Donna pointed toward the table. "There's enough to go around. You want a beer, brandy, whiskey, or tequila?"
"Neither. I don't drink." I was wishing the other kids would get here and where was Ernie? Donna said he was coming.
Kyle turned on the CD and some acid band was playing some really wild, screeching music. I hated it. He picked up a couple glasses and poured some hard liquor into them.
He handed one to Donna and offered me the other. I shook my head. "I really don't drink."
"Sure you do. Here, it will get you in the mood." He forced it into my hand.
I took it rather than dropping it. "Thanks."
The others begin filling up glasses and drinking while dancing, if one could call it that, around the room. I felt totally out of place. I sure didn't like the drinking. I had a different kind of party in mind than this. I caught Donna as she swirled past me. "I think I'd rather go on home."
Kyle wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me in close. "Dance with me Ja…, Katrina."
He laughed as I tried to follow his steps. It wasn't possible as he didn't have any rhythm nor style. He was moving and that was it. "Kyle, I think…,"
“That's the problem, Jake. You're thinking too much. You need to loosen up. If you'd drink up then you'd feel better." He took the glass out of my hand and held it up to my lips trying to force me to take a drink.
I pushed him away. "I don't want any."
I turned toward Donna. "Take me home now."
Kyle grabbed me from behind wrapping up my arms and lifted me off the floor.
"Kyle, I said I don't want any. Put me down." I tried in vain to struggle free.
He threw me down on the couch and fell on top of me. Squeezing under my jaw he forced my mouth open and poured the liquor in. Clamping his hand over my mouth stopped me from spitting it back out. I held it in my mouth until he clamped my nose shut and I couldn't breath. I was forced to swallow it. It burned all the way down my throat.
Kyle was laughing as he took his hand off my mouth. "There, now you have joined the party."
Chapter V
Lies, Lies and More Damn Lies
Gathering my arms and knees under him, I pushed with all my strength. All those years of growing up on the farm gave me strength a girl wouldn't normally have. I heaved that two hundred pound brute off onto the floor. He landed on his back with a thud. The floor wasn't carpet it was tile. He had the wind knocked out of him as he hit pretty hard.
Before I could sit up, Ronnie Mercer jumped on me. He grabbed the top of my dress and ripped it open. "You put out for those cowboys, you can put out for us. I know that's why they gave you that All Around Cowboy award. I bet you're really an all around fuck."
There was a lamp on the end table above my head. I managed to get hold of it with my right hand while fighting Ronnie with my left. I came down, not with all my strength because I would have split his skull wide open. I tried for a little more of a sideways blow than on top his head. That big old porcelain lamp clunked when it made contact. Ronnie collapsed like a rag doll. Then the pain set in, he was crying as he held the side of his head. He was through. I pushed and he rolled off me onto the floor onto Kyle who was starting to rise up..
I jumped up as David lunged toward me screaming. "YOU LITTLE BITCH!"
Bringing the lamp up in an underhanded swing, I stepped into him and met him head on. I heard a crack as the lamp caught him under the chin. His charge was stopped dead in its' tracks. He wilted to the floor stunned. He didn't know whether to cry or whimper as he held his face. Eventually crying won out. Kyle had pushed Ronnie off and was struggling to his feet when I swung the weapon I had and connected up beside his temple. He went back down screaming and writhing in pain.
I dropped the lamp on the floor as I turned toward the door. I was sure the boys weren't going to be an immediate threat. I also knew I had better put some distance between us before they found their senses again.
I felt her coming as much as I saw her out of the corner of my eye. I spun around. Donna was at a full run with her arms spread and her claws out. I had never been in a cat fight in my life. I wasn't about to get into one now. I was turning at the same time I leaned into her. I was swinging with all my strength. My fist plowed into soft flesh around the cheek and nose. Her head snapped over to one side and she went down on her right side. She skidded across the floor, not yet understanding what happened. She laid there moaning in a stupor.
Ronda jumped at me from four feet away. I grabbed a handful of dress and rolled down backwards as I gathered my knees under her. I pulled her down on top of me and heaved with my knees as I held onto her dress. She did a complete summersault over the top of my head and crashed through the front door feet first. I still had a large portion of her dress in my hands. Ronda curled up in a little ball, crying.
Sherrie was scared to death as I got back to my feet. "I didn't have anything to do with it Jake. I didn't know what they were planning. This wasn't my idea. Don't hurt me."
It was on my mind to leave but I had second thoughts. I walked back over in front of Sherrie. Her eyes were as big as egg whites and she was crying. "Please Jake, I didn't do nothing."
I slapped her as hard as I could. It probably shook some of the marbles loose she had lying around inside that tiny little skull of hers. She dropped to her knees on the floor. She was holding her face and crying.
It was over fifteen miles back home. I started to walk it before I decided the heels I had worn weren't for walking that distance. Donna's purse was on the lamp table. I pulled her keys out of it. I was beginning to feel sick. I walked past the destruction I had caused. The kids were lying on the floor crying or moaning. Picking my way around a shattered front door and a crying Rhonda, I walked out the door Rhonda had busted open as she went through it.
Donna's Corvette started right up. I started to turn toward home and then thought better of it as I looked down at the new dress momma had bought me. It was torn clear down to my waist. There were extra jeans and shirt in the locker in the front of the horse trailer at Bill Randall's place. I'd change before I went home. The three miles to Bill's place was the longest drive I ever made in my life. The road became fuzzy the first half mile. Then things started getting darker. I turned the headlights on bright and that didn't help. I was losing the road as it disappeared and then reappeared in front of me. It seemed like hours and then days before I saw the cattle guard and Bill's driveway. That cattle guard was trying to dodge me as I aimed the Corvette toward it. It kept moving back and forth. I was lucky as I hit it before it could get completely away. Staying on Bill's driveway was impossible as it fell off to one side and then the other. The stock trailer was out in front of his house. I planned on parking beside it. It jumped in front of me before I got by it. I rammed Donna's Corvette into the back of it.
It was impossible to remember why that stock trailer had been so important to me? I sit there in the car for a little while. When I looked down at my dress I remembered I needed a blouse. I opened the door and the ground jumped up and hit me in the face. I reached up and got hold of the doorframe on the Corvette. Pulling myself back up I started toward the trailer. There was nothing else in my mind besides getting a blouse.
The whole world was in a whirl. The horse trailer was trying to run away from me. I reached out to grab the trailer but it eluded me. The ground was in motion and rolling like ocean waves. I lost my balance again. A pair of hands caught me before I hit the ground a second time. I tried to throw a punch and knock Kyle off. "Get your damn hands off me!"
"Katrina, what's the matter with you? You drunk?"
I shook my head. "I don't drink and I don't fuck. Get your damn hands off me."
"What's the matter with you? What have you taken?"
"I beat you already. It's not fair. I beat you alr…," I was caught in a whirlpool of darkness. It pulled me into its' vortex.
Slowly a light formed at the end of the vortex. I could see a silhouette where someone was standing at the end. They were calling my name. "Katrina, it's going to be alright. Hold on Katrina and you will be okay."
"Grandma, is that you? I thought you were dead? Momma said you died two years after I was born. Wait till I tell momma you're okay."
"You will be fine Katrina."
It was getting harder and harder to make her out as the light around her dimmed. "Grandma, don't go. I want you to stay and visit. Wait a minute. I'll find momma and tell her you're here."
The light faded completely. "Grandma? Someone turned out the light. Grandma?"
"She's breathing again. We got her back. LeAnn get the truck. We'll take her to the hospital. It will be quicker than calling an ambulance."
"What's the problem with her?" The voice was shrill and it hurt my head.
"I don't know. She stopped breathing about twenty minutes ago. We did CPR on her and got her back."
"I want a blood sample now. Put her on oxygen. What's her vitals?" It was a strange voice.
"They drugged her. She'll be alright but she's gonna be out for a few more hours." The voice was distant. I was swimming through a haze.
I cried as I shook my head. "i'm okay. i'm okay. i'm okay."
My throat was so parched I couldn't swallow. I licked my lips. My tongue was so thick it didn't fit in my mouth. "water."
Someone touched my mouth with ice. "Suck on this Katrina. It will help."
It felt cool and refreshing. I fought to open my eyes and lost the battle. Things went black again.
"How you feeling?" It was LeAnn Randall's voice.
"Tell Bill I'll get that calf tomorrow night." I knew I had been run down by a calf again.
I heard laughter. "Sure you will Katrina. Give it a little time and it'll be okay."
I didn't think the twilight zone would ever end. I couldn't get awake as I fought the demons who were keeping me there. "Daddy, is Gunshy okay? I don't think I gave him any feed before I left. BILL! WE HAVE TO GO BACK! I FORGOT TO LOAD GUNSHY UP IN THE TRAILER! NO, PLEASE DON'T!"
Finally things begin to get real again as the demons receded into the dark. That night I had been run over by the calf was a lark compared to what I was feeling now. As the room came into focus I noticed I was in bed. Then I noticed I was in a hospital room. Bill, LeAnn, and Bill's foreman, Frank, and several others were there.
Two faces were noticeably absent. "Where's mom and dad?"
LeAnn picked up my hand and rubbed it. "We called them a little while ago. Things were kind of hectic for a little bit. We were trying to sort out the situation before we called them. How you feel?"
"Stupid for being here. What happened? Was there an accident?" I couldn't remember anything from the point of telling my parents I was going to a party.
Bill stepped up and took my other hand. "I'd say there was an accident. Do you remember Kyle Adams, David Mercer, Ronnie Talsman?"
"Yeah, they're kids in my graduating class. Were they in an accident?" I was looking inside my mind for a filler for that big blank. Nothing was there.
"Well, I guess you could say they were in an accident. They and their girlfriends are in jail right now. Do you remember them giving you a drink?" Bill was watching me for a reaction.
"No." I had no recollection of what Bill was talking about. The last thing I remembered was the graduation ceremony at the high school.
He studied my eyes and took my hand. "You barely made it over to my place. At first we thought you had been drinking. When you passed out it scared all of us. We brought you into the hospital. Dr. Brown checked you over and said you had a smell of whiskey on you but nothing in you. It didn’t even show up on the blood test. What did show up was a drug. I knew you would never do it on your own unless someone forced you. Your torn dress and Donna's Corvette was pointing toward a problem. I called Larry Gunther, the country sheriff."
Bill was waiting to see if any of this registered on me. It didn't. He shook his head. "It seems Larry had an all points bulletin out on you Cat. The other kids had called in to complain about you beating them up and stealing Donna Snyder's car. Well, in the couple hours you have been out, Larry was busy. He went out to the house where they drugged you and accessed the situation. Larry said it wasn't right. They were all downstairs in emergency so they weren't hard to find. He separated the kids and took a statement from all of them, one at a time. Their stories didn't hold together."
"Word spreads pretty quick in this little community and several of the other kids started dropping by to see what was going on. Larry found some of them saying they overheard Donna inviting you to a class party. After that, Larry charged them with destruction of property and took them down to the pokey. He got a warrant and searched their cars. They had drugs and alcohol in them. Donna’s Corvette had a drug known to be a date rape drug under the seat. There aren’t any real labs for testing those kind of things here but Doc Anders said all your symptoms were constant with you being drugged with what Larry found in Donna’s car."
Bill smiled. "They are waiting on their parents to come down and bail them out. I don't think anyone came out of this a winner Cat, but you sure come close. Those six kids look like a herd of buffalo ran over them."
It was only a story to me because I had no recollection of anything Bill was talking about. I only knew that if that was what Bill was telling me then that was the way it happened. I glanced around the room. "Thanks everyone. I don't know what I would do without you."
Mom and dad arrived about ten minutes later. Everyone was talking at once and I lost out on most of it because as soon as I stopped struggling to stay awake I would fall asleep. I'd wake up and it would be the same thing all over again. The next morning, Dr. Brown discharged me from the hospital.
I was getting dressed in the jeans and shirt mom brought me. Mom was picking up my things when she held up the new dress she had bought me the day before. She looked at it for the longest time before she would look in my direction. "I don't think I can mend it, Katrina. It looks to me like it's ruined."
"I'm sorry, momma, I didn't do it on purpose. I should have stayed with you guys. I'll pay you back out of my savings." I noticed tears were forming in her eyes as she looked at the dress.
She shook her head. "No, it's not your fault. You shouldn't have to pay for something when it couldn't be helped. I'm glad nothing else was lost."
I knew what she was talking about. "It would have been over my dead body."
She dropped the dress as she pulled me into her breast. "Oh, Katrina, I love you so much. I'm so thankful you got away when you did. I should have checked on that party they said they were having. It was my fault, honey."
Putting my arms around her neck I hugged her back. "No momma. I'm big enough to check on those things myself. I should have asked a few more questions and talked to a few more kids about the party. I would have figured it out when none of the other kids didn't know anything about a party. I should have asked a few more questions is all."
My problem with the whole conversation was, I really had no idea what I was talking about. I didn't remember being invited to any party. I certainly didn't remember a party. I had a torn dress and everyone's explanation about what happened that night.
The day after I left the hospital, Gunshy and I were in the front yard working on the stock trailer. Dad was in the tool shed working on a planter when the county sheriff, Larry Gunther, and Bill Randall came driving up. Bill and Larry sat talking in the car for a few minutes before they got out.
Larry walked over to where I was putting the bearing back in the wheel. "Hello Katrina. How you feeling?"
Picking up a rag off the ground, I wiped the grease off my hands as dad walked out of the shed and up to where we were. I stood up. "I'm okay."
Larry glanced at dad, over at Bill, and then back at me. "What do you remember about the night the other kids drugged you?"
"Nothing except what Bill and the others have told me. I don't remember anything between the graduation and the hospital." I was wondering what this was leading into.
He glanced over at Bill again. "Well, I've got some bad news. The other kids and their parents have banded together and hired a lawyer. They are going to sue you for attacking them, beating them up, and destroying the house and the car. They say it was all your idea. Their story is, you invited them out there to a party and then started taking drugs and drinking. You tried to get them to do the same and when they wouldn't, you became violent. You started breaking things and throwing things at them. Said you stole Donna's Corvette and wrecked it."
I was stunned and didn't know what to say. How could they be blaming me for something I had no recollection about?
"Is any of it true?" Larry was looking at me for an answer.
"I don't know. I can't remember that night. I don't think it's true. I never drank alcohol in my whole life. I'm sure I haven't ever taken any drugs. I can't remember." As hard as I tried there was no memory of that time.
He sighed. "I can tell you it's going to get damn ugly with that lawyer they hired. There are six of them telling the same story now and only you with no memory of it. I have their original stories and tapes of the place but a good lawyer will twist the whole thing around until you seem to be the guilty one. Especially since you have no memory of what happened. It is six of them against you. Because you don’t remember any of it, the tapes may not be admissible."
"Are you going to arrest me?" My heart was beating so loud I knew everyone could hear. My knees were knocking so bad I couldn't stand it. All I wanted in the whole world was to be held by my daddy and have him tell me he would protect me.
Larry shook his head. "No, I know who the guilty party is. It isn't you Katrina. I arrested the other kids that first night but it isn't going to make any difference. They filed a lawsuit in civil court. I don't care if you are Snow White. In civil court anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason."
My nerves were beginning to calm down just a fraction. "What do I need to do? I don't have any memory of that night."
He pulled an envelope out of his back pocket. "I have a summons for you to appear in court."
As I reached for it Larry pulled it back. "Just a minute. Bill and I talked it over. I'm going to go for a walk."
Sticking the envelope back into his pocket, Larry walked out toward the pasture as Bill glanced over at dad and then me. "Cat, right now you are your own worst problem. They get you in court they will eat you alive because you don't remember that night."
He pointed toward Larry who was disappearing behind the barn. "Larry is ready to swear he couldn't deliver the summons to you today. Technically he hasn't as he had to put it in your hand for it to be delivered. He is going to give you an opportunity to leave the country until your lawyer can get this situation under control."
"I don't have a lawyer." I was furiously thinking of who I knew as a lawyer. I couldn't think of anyone. I didn't think my parents knew anyone either.
Bill nodded. "Yes you do. Brenda and Elliot Kendell out of Wisconsin are going to take your case. They are the best lawyers for this situation. Brenda was a judge herself at one time. She isn't intimidated by them and she knows all the angles. She eats judges and lawyers for breakfast every morning. Elliot is the best research lawyer in the business. He can find that obscure law or judgment no one else ever thought of. Between the two of them they will win your case. It has to be on their terms."
"I can't afford any high priced lawyers, Bill. I don't have that kind of money and mom and dad sure don't. I'll…,"
"It's taken care of Cat. A lot of the boys in the rodeo think you're number one. They passed the hat and said you can repay them when you are able. I talked to Kevin, the man who I mentioned a few months back. He ships horses all over the world. You pack your bags and go pick up one of his horses in Atlanta tonight. You'll get your instructions when you get there."
Bill pulled an envelope out of his pocket and took out a sheet of paper. "This is your application for a passport. Fill it out on the flight down to Atlanta. Hand it to the driver who picks you up at the airport. Wear your western jacket and cowboy hat. That is how your driver will know you."
To say I was stunned was an understatement. "I'm leaving home tonight?"
He shook his head and held out some tickets. "No, you're leaving home in an hour. You have to drive over to Elmwood to catch the commuter flight to Carson City and then to Atlanta."
"I can't!" I turned to look at daddy who was as stunned as me.
"Cat, if you stay and they get you in court, your parents will probably end up losing everything. I know what happened the other night and it isn't right. Their lawyer will eat you alive and it will go against you. When they get a judgment against you it will include your mom and dad. Is that what you want? You want them to lose the farm?"
"It's not fair. I don't remember." A tear trickled down my cheek as I looked from dad to Bill.
"No, it's not fair but it's the way the system works. Brenda and Elliot will handle this. You have to give them a chance to get on top of it. If you stay, Larry will be back later this evening to hand you the summons he has in his pocket. That is out of his hands. He's giving you the chance to let your lawyers take care of this. They can't do it if you end up in court in a couple days. Judge Garrison isn't going to give you an extension. He likes to settle things on the spot. If they can't serve the summons on you it will have to be delayed whether Judge Garrison likes it or not. Give us a chance to help you Cat." Bill thrust the papers in my direction.
"An hour? I have to pack in an hour? Where am I going to deliver the horse?" I was having a hard time concentrating on what I needed to do. This was so sudden.
Bill shook his head. "I don't know Cat, and I don't want to know. Kevin said you needed a passport so I figured it was out of the country. That was more than I needed to know. Pack your suitcase for an extended trip. He said he was going to keep you busy if you were half as good with horses as what he had heard."
Tears were running down both cheeks as I realize I was going to have to leave everything I loved behind. I turned toward daddy. "Daddy…?"
He took me in his arms and held me close and tight like he used to when I was little. "It's okay, to cry Jake. We can handle things on this end. Gunshy and I will take care of the chores. Katherine will take care of all of us like she used to do before you came along."
Bill glanced at his watch. "You don't have much time, Cat. Get your bags and go."
He whistled and Larry came back around the barn. Larry never looked at me as he and Bill got into the car and left. I figured he didn't want to know what was said. I was sure of one thing. He would be back to serve that summons he had in his pocket.
Daddy walked with me back into the house. He told me to go pack as he was going to explain it to momma. I dragged out the old blue suitcase that had been with me for the past three years as Bill and I hit the rodeo circuit every summer. It was sure beat up but it was sturdy and had a lot of miles left in it. I had jeans, shirts, and panties packed when momma came into the room holding a bag.
"Here Katrina, you will start needing these."
I looked in the bag and there were some bras. "I don't need them momma."
She put them in the corner of my suitcase. "Yes you do. You're starting to fill out, Katrina. It took you a lot longer than most girls but it's beginning to happen. I can see it when you walk out to the barn or when you climb up on the tractor. Most girls have already changed into young ladies by the time they get into high school. I believe you put it off because of all the farm work and rodeoing you were doing."
Momma was wrong. I knew she was wrong. I didn't need any bras. I dropped the last of my clothes in the suitcase and closed it. "Thanks momma. I have to go tell Gunshy I'll be gone for a few days."
Picking up one of momma's apples off the kitchen table, I stepped out the front door and whistled. I could hear him coming at a full gallop from around the backside of the house. I held out the apple in my right hand, Gunshy slid up to me, stopped, reached out and picked the apple out of my hand.
Rubbing his ears and scratching under his neck, I gave him a hug. "Let's go down to the barn and get some feed. I have something I want to tell you."
I gave him a couple extra scoops of dairy feed in his feeder as I explained I was going away for a few days. Every time I started out of the barn he would follow me instead of eating his feed. It was the only time Gunshy didn't have his nose pushed down into the bottom of the feeder after I dropped some dairy feed in it. He knew this wasn't one of my usual trips. I hugged his neck and cried. I didn't want to leave him either.
Daddy was honking the pickup horn. It was time to go. I walked Gunshy back to the stall and dropped the latch. It wouldn't hold him long as he had figured out a long time ago how to work all the latches. I ran out to the pickup and climbed in front with mom and dad. Dad had thrown my suitcase in back. Two miles down the road I turned to look back at the farm. A mile back was Gunshy running for all he was worth. It was the first time he hadn't stopped at the edge of our property.
"Daddy, Gunshy isn't staying on the farm. We have to go back."
Dad glanced into the rearview mirror. "He'll be alright, Jake. He knows where home is. He'll go back when he gets tired."
"No daddy. He won't go back. He knows it's not right. Stop and let him ride in the back of the pickup. Please, daddy. Stop. He won't go back home. Let him ride to the airport with us. Please, daddy. I'll drop a halter on him so he will have to ride back in the truck but please let him go with us."
Dad let up on the gas as he looked at momma. " Katherine?"
She was looking at dad for an answer. "I guess?"
Dad braked to a stop. I hopped out and dropped the tailgate on the pickup. Gunshy was there in less than the time it took for me to move my suitcase over to the side. I hopped up in back and motioned for Gunshy to climb in. "Come on Gun. You can't run all the way."
It didn't take a second for him to hop up in the back with me. I could hear dad talking to momma as we started off down the road again. "I never saw anything like it. She treats that horse like a dog and he does everything she asks."
"No, she treats him like a brother. They understand each other better than we'll ever know." Mom turned around in the seat to take a look at Gunshy and me ridding along in the back of the pickup with the wind blowing in our faces.
Dad pulled up in the parking lot there at Elmwood like he was somebody. Everyone was staring at us. A horse in the back end of a pickup without any sideboards was a novelty even in cowboy country.
I hopped out of the pickup and Gunshy dropped out beside me after I let the tailgate down. It didn't make any difference, he was going to get out one way or another. I didn't want him to hurt himself going over the side. "You wait here. I'm going to go get a ticket and I'll be right back."
There was only one desk inside that terminal. As I walked up to it the man behind the counter looked up. "Can I help you?"
"I need a ticket to Atlanta." I handed over the instruction sheet Bill hand handed to me in the yard.
The man looked at it for a second and turned around. "Carol, this…,"
He turned to study me for a second as he looked down at the instructions. "…, lady needs a ticket to Atlanta."
I looked over the desk at the instructions Bill had written. There at the top of the page was Katrina McDonald. I guess with my old cowboy hat and jeans I still looked like I normally did. The man behind the desk was checking to see if he had read the name right.
The lady handed me a ticket and took over twelve hundred dollars out of my hand. "Here you go."
I almost choked. I had never bought a twelve hundred dollar anything in my whole life. Much less a ticket for a few hours flight. I tried to assure myself it wasn't a total loss. "I can win it back in calf roping if nothing else."
Carol and the man looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders. "I'm a calf roper. Bill Randall and I took state championship in head and heel for the past three years."
The man squinted as he gave me a harder look. "Bill Randall? Bill ropes with Jake McDon…, No, no, unuh, ain't no way. You aren't Jake McDonald?"
My smile gave me away. He shook his head as he looked out the window at Gunshy standing outside the door. "Well, I'll be damned. You're a girl! Carol, look at that. Jake McDonald is a girl. She's the best roper this country has ever seen."
Turning in his chair he pointed out the door. "And that's the smartest horse I've ever seen. I was there three years ago when that horse ran over and knocked that calf down after you were on the ground. He is the one they call Gunshy isn't he?"
"Yep, that's him. He makes me look pretty good too. All I have to do is stay on top and he gets me in position to throw the rope." It was funny I had run into someone who was a big rodeo fan and knew us.
He walked around the desk and held out his hand. "I'm your pilot into Carson City. I'd like to go out and say hi to Gunshy if that's alright."
"Don't get too close to him. He doesn't like people."
The man looked at me like he thought I was lying. "You're kidding?"
I crossed my heart. "Nope, honest truth. He doesn't like people. There are only three people that can touch him and not get stomped. Bill Randall is one, my mom and dad are the other two."
The man was headed out the door. "This I gotta see."
As he walked out the door, Gunshy backed up. The man slowly walked toward him with his hand out. "Hi there old man. How you doing? How about if you let me pet you?"
Gunshy kept backing as the man approached him. Finally Gun had enough. He stood up on his back legs, pawed the air and whinnied. It was a warning to the man he wasn't backing up any further. Luckily the man had enough sense to realize he had gone far enough.
He turned and looked at me. "What a magnificent horse. I'm glad he can't fit into the cockpit of my plane. He would probably take my job away from me."
Everyone around us laughed. The man glanced in my direction. "We leave in ten minutes. I'll carry your suitcase on. When you see that second engine turn over you better be on board because that plane is leaving."
"I'll be there." I walked out to Gunshy. Scratching behind his ears and under his neck I cried as I told him goodbye. I gave mom and dad a hug and cried some more. I hated this. Why should I be the one who had to leave when I didn't do anything wrong?
Too soon it was time to go as I saw the pilot get on the plane and one of those engines turn over. I motioned Gunshy up into the pickup bed. He jumped in knowing I was leaving him. It broke my heart. I was crying as I pointed toward the floor of the pickup bed. "Stay Gun. Daddy is going to drive you back home. You go back and take care of mom and dad and the rest of the place okay? I'm depending on you to watch over things while I'm gone. I'll be back as soon as I can. I love you with all my heart. Please be good while I'm gone."
Dad pulled me in as I turned to walk back into the terminal. "Jake, you didn't put the halter on Gunshy."
Mom pulled on his arm as she wrapped another arm around me. "He'll stay John. Katrina told him to."
I couldn't bear to look at any of them as I walked back through the office and out to the field where the airplane was waiting. As I climbed the steps up into the plane I heard him whinny. Tears trickled down my cheeks as I buckled in. I wiped my nose and eyes on my jacket sleeve. Looking out the window as we picked up off the ground I couldn't see the pickup or Gunshy as they were behind the building.
Crying, I pressed my nose to the glass as the plane banked to the left. We circled the airport once as mom, dad, and Gun watched from down below. The plane leveled out as we headed up toward the clouds.
The lady called Carol walked back and handed me a handful of tissue. "I don't know if it's the first time or what but you'll be back Katrina. Everything will be okay."
Screwing up my mouth I tried to thank her but it didn't work. I couldn't say anything between tears. She walked back up to the copilot's seat and sit down again. That little commuter plane only had room for twenty passengers. It didn't make a lot of difference. There were only nine others on that flight besides me and the two pilots.
The flight into Carson City took a little over thirty minutes. Carol asked me to wait until the others had left. She walked with me into the terminal and guided me up to the ticket counter. She handed the lady behind the counter a ticket. "Jan, this young lady is Katrina McDonald. She is Montana's number one roper. I want you to see to it personally that she gets to Atlanta safely. All the cowboys would take offense if anything happened to Montana's number one roper."
Jan looked at the ticket. "I'll take care of her Carol."
She motioned for me to follow. "This way Katrina."
I turned toward Carol before I followed the lady named Jan. I held out my hand. "Thanks, Carol. If you see mom and dad and that old horse, tell them I'm okay."
"I will. Jan will show you which plane you are going to get on." Carol reached out and shook my hand.
I followed Jan for what seemed like miles before she pointed me toward a tunnel. "Get on that plane and don't get off until the pilot tells you you're in Atlanta."
That suitcase of mine was about to stretch my arm off. "I will, thanks for showing me the way."
She was gone.
Chapter VI
Big City, Small Country Girl
We made several stops before we reached Atlanta. After the plane pulled up to the terminal, I put my hat on and dragged my suitcase down from the overhead. I was walking out of the off boarding tunnel when I saw a tall skinny guy holding up a sign with Cat McDonald on it. I waved in his direction. "I'm Katrina McDonald."
He took my suitcase for which I was very thankful. "So you're the famous horse person. Funny, but you don't look anything like I thought you would."
I was hurrying to stay up with those long legs of his. "What am I supposed to look like and who said I was a famous horse person?
He took a quick look in my direction. "Oh, I don't know. Tall, squinty eyed from looking into the sun too much. Older for sure. More cowboyish or something. Where's your spurs?"
Laughing, it took me a second to respond. "I don't wear spurs except for show. I never use them on a horse. Horses don't care how big you are or how small you are. They only care whether you are smarter than them or dumber then them."
We were in the parking lot and he dropped my suitcase in the backseat of an Explorer. "You have some papers for me?"
"What kind of papers?" I didn't know what I was supposed to hand him.
"Papers you were supposed to fill out on the flight. Papers to get your passport." He held out his hand expectantly.
"Oh, yes." Lifting my jacket I pulled an envelope out of my belt. I handed him the papers I had filled out on the plane. There was also my birth certificate mom handed me before I left home.
He checked them over. "Okay, they look good. We will drive by the office. They will take your picture and send everything down to the passport people. You should be ready to take that devil down to Brazil the day after tomorrow."
"What devil?"
Backing the car up he pulled out into traffic. "They handed you a shitty job Miss McDonald. You have to get Heater ready for the flight down to Brazil. He's crazy. He has already put four people in the hospital. He will kill you if you give him a chance."
He looked in my direction. "They didn't tell you did they? Nobody would get on the plane with that wild horse. He's mean, evil, and wicked. He likes to hurt people and tear up things. Every one of Kevin's handlers told him they wouldn't ship him. I thought you knew. I don't know what you know about horses but it better be a hell of a lot more than any of them other guys."
The ride down to the office he mentioned was pretty short. I found out my driver's name was Leonard LeBo. He had been working for Valley Downs Farms for eleven years. He was kind of an all purpose person. He took up the slack whenever someone didn't do their job or needed off.
We pulled into an underground garage and took the elevator up to the eighteenth floor. As we stepped off the elevator Leonard took my arm and led me over in front of a desk. The lady behind it was dressed really attractive. She was a pretty woman and she was well put together. Leonard dropped my papers on her desk. "Sharon, this is our horse wrangler."
She looked up and smiled. "Pleased to meet you son. My name is Sharon Thurmond. What's your name?"
Leonard got tickled and burst out laughing. "HER name is Katrina McDonald. SHE, is Montana's state champion roper for the past three years. SHE needs a passport by tomorrow. She's supposed to be able to get Heater loaded on a plane and fly him down to Brazil two days from now."
Leonard pointed at the papers he dropped on Sharon's desk. "All the paper work is there. Can you pull the rabbit out of the hat for us?"
Sharon was studying me trying to figure out if Leonard was pulling a fast one on her about the gender thing. She picked up the forms I had filled out for the passport application before she answered. "I'll need a reasonable photo. Take her down to Anna's on first floor and get her some decent clothes. She can look like a boy three hundred and sixty four days out of the year but today for that passport photo she's going to look like a lady."
Pulling on my arm, Leonard led me out the door and back to the elevator. "Let's go change you into a girl."
I was getting annoyed with the way he was leading me around. I wasn't a little child to be led by the hand. We were on the elevator headed down. I collected my thoughts. "Leonard, as much help as you've been. As much as I need your advice. As much as I need you to tell me what my job is. You grab me by the arm one more time and lead me around like one of your horses and I'm going to deck you."
I turned to look at him. His eyes registered shock, amusement, and then they spread into silent laughter. "I guess I have been taking the lead just a little here. I'm sorry. I have never met a real cowboy before Katrina. I kind of figured you were about as bright as one of them horses. Too many old cowboy films on the mind I guess."
The elevator stopped at the first floor. Leonard automatically reached out his hand to grab my arm again. He was standing on my left and I doubled up my right fist. He noticed. His right hand brushed my sleeve as he pointed toward the open door. "This way, please, Miss McDonald."
In the lobby he started to do it again. Grab my arm. I side stepped him before he got a hold. He shook his head laughing. "Please forgive me. It's not intentional. I'm so used to grabbing someone or something and leading them to where I want them to go, I can't help myself."
I nodded. "I do understand. You understand this. It's going to hurt you a lot worse then it hurts me if you don't get a handle on that habit of yours."
He stopped and looked at me kind of funny. "You're all barbwire aren't you Katrina? I think I'm finally beginning to understand what a real cowboy is."
Pointing toward a ladies shop he motioned I should go in. "This is Anna's. She is the resident wizard of Atlanta. All of the women swear by her."
We walked into Anna's. Leonard held out his arm to an attractive lady standing off to one side talking to a customer. "Hi beautiful."
I thought she was pretty but a little over done in makeup and dress. I mean she looked like she should have stepped out of a movie magazine or a makeup ad rather than real life.
She was eyeing me suspiciously as she gave Leonard a peck on the check. "Hello, Leo. Sharon called. Is this her?"
He turned around and pointed. "Yes, how much time do you need?"
I thought she was going to cry as she shook her head. "A couple years but you aren't going to let me have her that long are you?"
Laughing, Leonard shook his head. "Anna, my love, she's a cowgirl, not one of your debutantes. Change her into a woman for a passport picture. She takes Heater out the day after tomorrow. I'm sure she isn't going to be wearing a dress for that."
Anna sighed. "So much potential, so little time."
She waved me toward the back room. "Come my dear. We must get started immediately if I am to accomplish the impossible by six o' clock. They will want you up in personnel for pictures no later."
Leonard shouted as I was walking into the back with Anna. "HEY COWGIRL, I have things I have to do. I'll meet you out at the farm. Call me when you're done with the photos and I'll have someone pick you up."
Turning to look back I nodded. "Thanks Leonard."
Anna took my arm to lead me into the back. What was it about these city people and grabbing someone by the arm?
Two and a half hours later they had finished with me. I felt like one of those rodeo clowns. You know, all made up and not really what you were looking at. Anna was directing me as she handed me a sack with my old clothes in it. "Our photo department closed up thirty minutes ago. Ken said he had another engagement this evening and couldn't wait on you. I called a taxi. You are to go over to Eversteins and get your photo taken."
She handed me a note as she urged me toward the front door. "Give this to the driver and he will take you there."
It was really nieve of me to not ask more questions. Everyone thought I was city wise I guess. There is a lot of difference between the parts of the big city I saw on the rodeo circuit and the parts of the city I was looking at now. Besides, all those other times I had Bill Randall to chaperone me and keep me from doing something stupid.
There was a taxi waiting out front. I walked out and slid into the back seat. "Are you my taxi?"
The driver turned around in the seat to take a look. "I'm anyone's taxi. Where we going?"
I handed him the instructions Anna handed to me.
He settled back into the seat, glanced over his left shoulder, and the car jumped out into a hole in the traffic with car horns blaring from everyone around us. He kept looking in his rearview mirror at me. I was wondering what he thought he was looking at?
Thirty minutes later he pulled up in front of a large building. I waited, he waited. Finally he turned around in the seat again. "We're here. This is the address you gave me. You going to get out or what? I don't care because I still charge the same whether you sit in the car or whether you don't sit in the car."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know." I started to get out.
"Lady, I like looking at you but it's gonna cost you just the same. It's fifty six dollars and forty five cents for the fare." He held out his hand.
It embarrassed me to realize I should have paid him. I knew better. Pulling my jeans out of the sack I took my billfold out of the back pocket and took out a fifty and a ten. I handed the money to him and waited.
He waited.
I held out my hand. "I think you owe me three dollars and fifty five cents in change. As much as I appreciate the ride over here, you charge a heck of a lot of money for that. I don't think I should be giving you any more than what you deemed was a fair price. My change if you please."
Smiling he handed me my change. "Where you from? You don't talk southern. You from Kansas, Iowa, or Wisconsin?"
"Montana." I put the change in my billfold.
“What do you do besides model?"
"What? Oh no, I'm not a model. I'm a roper. I rope calves and steers in the rodeo." I opened the door to get out.
He blinked a couple times. "Yeah, and I'm the president of the United States. Get out of my cab lady. I have other fares to go pickup."
He almost didn't let me get out of the cab before he was gone. I never had a chance to tell him I really was a roper.
Walking into the building I was met by a lady with several small chains and straps around her neck. There was a watch on the end of one, a small calculator on one, and other instruments of one kind or another hanging on the others.
She picked up her watch and looked at it. "You're late. Down the hall third door on your left."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to keep anyone waiting." I was trying to apologize.
"It makes no difference. Get down there now." She pointed down the hall.
At least she didn't grab my arm and lead me. "Yes ma’am."
If I had been wearing my boots I would have ran. Those three inch heels Anna put on me weren't for running. I tried my best and counted doors as I did an almost run down the hall. It was a good thing I wasn't bulldogging calves. I wouldn't have ever caught one in those heels. The third door on my left I turned the knob and hit it with my shoulder at the same time.
It swung open, all the way back to the wall with a loud thud. It rattled the whole room. I was standing there looking at a sea of faces. The man straight in front of me looked down at one of those watches on a string around his neck before he threw up his hands and shouted. "Places, people. Places. Let's get this over with."
He pointed at me. "YOU ARE LATE!"
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be." I was sure these people hated me for making them wait to take a photo of me. That passport photo was turning out to be a real pain emotionally.
He pointed across the room. There were a bunch of lights and cameras. "Over there."
I hurried across the room and stopped. Turning around I saw a startled expression on his face. He blinked as he stared at me. "Linda, LINDA! She needs position. Position! I need position!"
A lady stepped out from the crowd behind the cameras. "Get in front of the cameras. Smile, wave, give us a little movement."
I did as I was directed. I smiled, waved and stepped over to the side wondering what kind of photo had to be in that passport?
"The bag. What's she doing holding onto the bag. Get rid of that bag. LINDA! WHAT IS SHE DOING WITH A BAG?" The man was yelling again.
The lady stepped up and held out her hand. "Here let me take care of that for you."
I held back. It had all my money in it. "My personal things are in there."
"I'll make sure it's okay. Let me have the bag."
Handing the sack to her I wondered if I had done the right thing. Who would I call if I lost all my money and had no way of getting home?
"Position. I need position. Linda, we need something happening here. I don't feel anything from her. TALK TO HER!" The man was yelling again.
Linda stepped up in front of me again. "Okay, take your skirt and swing for us. Smile, toss your hair over to the side, give us some action."
The purple dress Anna had put on me had a full skirt. I swung my hand down and collected some material in my hand as it went past the skirt. I swept it up as I tossed my head over to the side and smiled.
"Great! I love it. Now spin and do it again. Linda, we need some action." He had finally stopped yelling. Cameras were flashing and I was wondering what they did with those passport photos?
Linda gave a little twirling motion with her right hand. I spun as the skirt swept out. Again I caught it with a sweep of my hand as I smiled and laughed. I had no idea what a passport photo looked like. If it was this hard to get one, I was surprised anyone would have one.
Ten spins later I was so dizzy I fell down on my butt. The cameras were still clicking. I felt pretty stupid.
"That's a take. Let's get the car."
I was sitting on the floor when a couple dozen people marched by me. All the props and everything around me disappeared off to the side with the people. They pushed a car up behind me.
"Okay, can she stand beside the car? Linda?"
Linda stepped in and helped me up off the floor. "Stand beside the car. Smile. Sit on the hood. Open the door and stand beside it. Sit in the car with the door open. Last, close the door and buckle in like you were driving it."
Damn funny passport pictures? I walked up beside the car. The illuminescent purple dress I was wearing was in distinct contrast to the shinny silver car they wanted me to pose with. I looked that car over. It had to be brand new. Someone had spent a lot of time making it shine like that. Feeling mischievous, I spun around, ducked my head, and glared at the cameras out of the side of my eye.
After the initial rash of clicks it became so quite you could have heard a cow eating grass on the other side of the barn. I looked out past the lights wondering how much trouble I had got into by not following orders?
"linda?" It was his voice, soft and quite behind the lights.
There was a cough and Linda walked over to me. "I imagine that was the one but let's finish up just in case."
I tried to sit on the hood but I kept sliding off. Between that soft polyester dress I was wearing and that slick car hood there wasn't any way I was going to stay on that car.
Linda took my arm and led me back around to the car door. "Okay, let's do the side shot. I'll have them drop a cloth on the hood later."
She backed up. I smiled, tossed my head, put my hand up on the car, did everything they asked. Finally it was inside the car and they took several dozen more pictures. Then it was back to that hood. A man dropped a small rubber mat on the hood. I jumped up and stayed for a few seconds. Between my pantyhose and that slippery dress, I slid off again. It was a good thing I was wearing a full skirt or I would have exposed a lot more than intended.
"Linda?"
"I think I got it." She walked out from behind the lights. Before I knew what she was doing she reached down and lifted my skirt up to my shoulders.
"Up on the car."
It was an automatic response to do what I was told. I hopped up and plopped my butt down on the rubber pad on the hood. Linda took my full skirt and arranged it across the hood of the car letting it drape off the side.
She backed up and cameras clicked. "Motion, we need motion."
I smiled, tossed my head, leaned down across the hood and stretched out. Again it got quite. I sit up knowing I had messed up again. Those damn passport photos were a pain for sure.
Linda walked out again. "Maybe we didn't have it that first time. It's going to be tough with two good ones."
"LET'S GO PEOPLE! TIME IS MONEY! We have one more to do before we finish here tonight. Let's get it done."
Why did he have to yell all the time? I was really beginning to dislike the man I didn't know.
A sea of people crossed past me. The car was gone. A fence and backdrop of a stable was behind me. Half a dozen hay bales were scattered around. I heard a sound I recognized. The clop of horse hooves.
Linda walked up with a pinto in tow. "He's gentle so don't let him scare you. You'll be all right. We have handlers who will get him if he gets too excited."
Laughing, I looked the pinto in the eye. "She's a mare not a he."
I reached up and scratched her behind the ears. "Hello old girl. Where you been? I don't think we have met before. My name is Katrina, what's yours. You ever get out and play in the rodeo? You might know me as Jake."
The pinto snorted and her eyes glazed over. She was in horse heaven as I scratched behind her ears. Linda got a funny look on her face.
She looked around. "Where's the rope? We need rope in this shot. Where's the feed? We need the feed bag for our sponsor shot."
A guy walked up and dropped several nylon ropes on one of the hay bales. Several others set sacks of Dan's Race Horse Feed around.
"Okay, pick up one of the ropes and act like you are going to catch him…, her with it." Linda backed out of the picture.
I kicked one of the ropes with the toe of my shoe. "You couldn't catch a post with this. Much less a horse or something moving."
"What? Linda, we need a little co-operation here. GET HER TO PICK UP THAT DAMN ROPE! The voice was yelling again.
Linda stepped back up to where I was looking down at the rope. "What's the problem? All you have to do is pick up the rope and act like you were roping the horse with it."
"It's not lariat rope. It's too limber and soft. That's nylon rope. You can't toss a loop with that. It won't open and it won't throw worth a darn."
Linda nodded. "Okay, I seem to be lost here. You're telling me that isn't a throwing rope? Pick up the rope and ACT like you're tossing it. What the hell do you know about rope anyway?"
I squatted down, picked up the rope and tossed it over to the side. "I know this isn't a lariat. You get me a lariat and I'll do what you want."
Her eyes were showing fire. She had stopped being friendly and was getting hostile. "Jean, that bag of old ropes Sam dropped off? They still here?"
"Yes ma’am"
"GET THEM!"
Linda was ready to shoot me I was sure. A young girl came dragging up a canvas bag. She dropped it at my feet. I opened it up and pulled out a real lariat. I looked at the initials branded into the eye of the loop. Sc. "Big S, little C, I know this rope. Sam Chapman. Good man with a rope. He's one of the best steer ropers in the country."
I spread it out and coiled it back up in my hands. A light toss and I had the Pinto roped. Again there was that deathly quiet. Looking over at Linda should have warned me. She had a funny look on her face again.
"You're not from the modeling agency are you?"
"What modeling agency?"
"OH SHIT! BECKMAN! WE HAVE A PROBLEM!" She was looking at me like I had stolen the payroll from the bank.
Chapter VII
Passport! You’re Not a Model?
The man who had done all the yelling before, stepped up. "What's the matter? Get her to toss that rope again like she just did and we'll shoot it."
Linda was watching me like I was some sort of wild animal. "She's not your model. We don't have any pictures."
"WHAT! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN SHE'S NOT OUR MODEL? WHO THE HELL IS SHE?"
They all turned toward me expectantly. I was wondering what I had done. "This isn't the place for the passport pictures?"
"OH SHIT!!! We are going to loose it all. Who the hell are you and what are you doing in our studio?" Linda was glaring at me.
"I'm a calf roper." I was wondering how much to say.
"A CALF ROPER! A CALF ROPER! YOU’RE A CALF ROPER?" The man was screaming at me.
What was the matter with his hearing? I thought that was plain enough. "Yes."
"OH DAMN! Please tell me you are a model! Please to god, tell me you are a model and the agency sent you over." He was leaning toward me as if he could will me to say what he wanted to hear.
"I don't know about any modeling agency. I'm here to get some passport photos taken so I can transport a horse."
"OH SHIT! OH DAMN! OH SHIT AND DAMN!" He walked away wringing his hands.
Linda was edging in closer as she studied me. "What's your name and how old are you?"
"Katrina McDonald. Everyone calls me Jake. I'm eighteen."
She threw up her hands and everything she was holding onto went into the air as she spun around the other direction. "Holy shit, we're fucked. She's a minor. Jeeze what else can happen?"
"Listen, I didn't mean to hurt anyone. Anna said I was to come over here for some passport pictures. The lady at the front directed me back here. I'm sorry if I messed up anything." I gathered the rope off the Pinto as I had no idea what it was I had done.
Beckman had returned. "Okay, how much is it going to cost us? I need those pictures and I need you to sign a release."
"What? You want to pay me?" I was thinking I was going to have to pay them for ruining their pictures.
He was watching me closely. "You've never been in pictures before have you?"
"No sir."
"Linda, I have an idea. We can use a free agent. She's a free agent. Get a contract. What did you say your name was and where are you from?"
"I'm Katrina McDonald. Everyone calls me Jake. I'm from Montana. You may have possibly heard of me. Bill Randall and I are head and heel steer ropers. We took state team roping championship for the past three years."
He shook his head as he offered me his hand. "I'm Ronald Beckman. Sorry, I don't pay a whole lot of attention to those things. Can you get your parents to sign a release for you? I need those pictures we took."
"Yes. Can you do me a favor?"
He eyed me suspiciously. "What?"
"I need a passport photo."
Shaking his head, he walked away. "A passport photo. All she wants is a passport photo."
I signed some papers. They took a lot more pictures of the Pinto and me. I found out they were an advertising agency. I roped just about everything in that studio for them as I tried to explain the techniques behind throwing a rope. Sam had one of his trick ropes in that canvas bag so I did a few rope tricks too. That's a shorter version of the lariat. Spinning the rope over my head or jumping back and forth through it was something I hadn't practiced a lot. It was twice as tough wearing heels and a dress but I managed it. I did it without falling down or getting tangled up in the rope.
I learned later they sent some pictures and a release form to mom and dad by next day mail. After talking to Leonard by phone, they told him they would give me a ride out to Valley Downs Farms. They promised to get the right pictures back to the right people for that passport.
I had changed back into my jeans and shirt. My cowboy hat didn't fit over all that hair spray and other things Anna had them do to me. I wasn't able to pull those long nails off either. They were glued on better than my own nails. A lot of the people had already left the studio when I walked back in and was waiting on my ride.
Linda watched me walk back into the room carrying the purple dress on my arm. "Katrina, I'd like to take some more shots. Would you mind?"
"I don't want to have to dress up again. I'd rather not." I walked up to where she was standing.
"No, I mean like you are now. The real you." She was waiting for an answer.
"This isn't the real me. I didn't take off any of my makeup. My hair is so stiff I can't get my hat on and I can't get these nails off. This isn't the real me. I probably couldn't rope a calf like this. I'm sure I don’t want to try any heel and head roping."
"Close enough. I'd like to take some pictures. Do you mind?" Linda picked up a camera as she turned on the lights.
"Why not? What do you want?" I laid my dress down on the back of a chair. I'd have to make sure Anna got it back along with the heels.
Some of the others were starting to gather back around. Linda motioned toward the canvas bag full of Sam's ropes. "Do some of your rope things and tell me why that first rope we had wasn't the right rope for a cowboy."
I picked up the nylon rope they first laid out. "It's too soft and limber. You can't control it. The loop won't open up and when you throw it, there isn't a hole for the calf to run through."
I coiled the rope up and gave it a turn over my head before I threw. The loop barely opened and the chair I aimed for was knocked over rather than being lassoed. Picking up one of Sam's lariats, I did the same thing and roped the chair beside the first. I removed the loop off the chair. One of the men was walking across between us. I tossed the end of the rope out and dropped a loop where he stepped into it. I pulled it up and then released it just as quickly. If I had held onto it I would have had his legs tied together and he would have tripped.
"Roping has to do with timing. You have to aim for where the animal is going to be at the same time your loop gets there. Don't aim for where he is at the time you throw or you won't ever catch him. Put it out in front of him and let him step into it or run into it. Make sure you have the loop closed by the time he's there or he will run completely through the loop and you've missed." I dropped a loop over Linda as she was shooting pictures.
"Do it again. I need you to do that again." Linda stepped out of the loop and was busy with her camera again.
We played for almost an hour before I helped Linda load up some cameras and other gear into her car in the parking garage. I also helped load up Sam Chapman's ropes. He would want them back for sure. A roper's lariat is a personal thing. I had no idea how they managed to get Sam to part with his ropes long enough for a photo shoot.
We were headed north out of Atlanta when I asked Linda about Sam's canvas bag. "How did you manage to get Sam to loan you his ropes? That would be almost as bad as asking for the loan of his horse."
She passed a couple cars before she glanced in my direction. "I don't know. I asked Harold Strick if he had any ropes he could loan us for a photo op we were shooting and he said he would see. I don't know Sam Chapman but I guess Harold does."
This whole situation was so odd. "If it's the Harold Strick I know, he is a top hand in bronc riding. He was number thirty four in nationals last year. That may not sound like much. You have a couple thousand cowboys competing for the same thing and that's a long ways up toward the top. Harold and Sam bunk together a lot of times. They share truck and trailer to defray some of the cost of getting on the road. Where are Harold and Sam? They should be in Dallas this week."
Again she glanced in my direction. "You didn't hear? Harold was hurt pretty bad last week. The horse he was riding fell down trapping him under it. He was caught between the fence and the horse. Broke some ribs and gave him a concussion. He's recuperating out close to the place you're going, Pine Farms."
Such a small world. I knew people from the rodeo everywhere I went. Maybe it was the kind of people who rode in the rodeo that made it such a special group of people. "How's he doing?"
"He's okay. Beat up and bruised. I understand a lot of cowboys are usually that way most of the year."
It was a long ways out to the Farms. I was really appreciating the effort Linda had gone to when we finally got there. As she pulled into the lane leading down to the house and stables I was impressed. Everywhere I looked suggested money and lots of it. White pipe rail fencing, manicured lawns and paved driveway. The house looked like a mansion. It went on and on.
After Linda stopped the car I got out and walked out to the barns. I could have lived in the stables and been happy. Those stalls were so darn clean I could have eaten off the floor. The barns were expansive. They had air conditioning and blowers everywhere. They treated those horses better than most humans were treated. There were a couple dozen men and three women that I counted there. Grooming horses, walking horses, changing bedding, whatever. Most of them ignored me, a few acted like I was trespassing on their turf, and no one said hi to me even after I greeted them. I was the foreigner in their world. I guess I deserved what I got. My jeans and shirt didn’t match the makeup and my hair style. Everything Anna had done to me said one thing and my working clothes said something else. One way or another, part of me was pretend and the other was real. They figured the hairstyle and makeup was real and the jeans were pretend. To them I was the socialite who had come out to play in their business and they resented it.
Chapter VIII
A Leather Skin Full of Hate
Walking past the stalls I didn't see a real working horse among any of the horses. They were the socialite horses of the world. The racehorses everyone put up a million dollars to own and then never paid any attention to until they stepped on the racetrack. The owners let the trainers, handlers, and other flunkies handle the horse and get him or her ready for the race. No wonder there were so many psychotic racehorses in the world.
One of the men was walking toward me. I smiled when he looked up. "Where's Heater?"
Without stopping or saying a word, he pointed back down the breezeway behind him.
I walked down the aisle looking into the stalls. The horse that caught my attention was the third stall from the end. I stepped up to the gate. "You're Heater aren't you? You look like the crazy horse Leonard was telling me about."
He charged the gate. I held firm. I knew he couldn't get through the gate with the speed he had built up from the back of the stall. When his nose got past the gate I hit his nose with my fist. The bite he wanted to put on me was forgotten as his head slammed up against the frame. He backed up shaking his head. No one had ever mistreated him like that before. It was a new experience to him. Again he charged. Again I smacked him on the nose. He backed up shaking his head and assessing the situation. He wanted a piece of me in the worst possible way.
I needed a lariat. Turning around, I was going to go get one of Sam's ropes out of his canvas bag. Leonard and Linda were there. She had been taking pictures with the camera that always seemed to be in her hand.
"Leonard, where's my suitcase?"
"In the bunkhouse. Go out and turn to your left. It's the room all the way to the back as you go in the front door." He pointed toward the opening where we were standing closest to.
I glanced over my shoulder into the stall at that insane stallion. "Don't go away. I'll be back."
I had packed my own lariat in the bottom of my suitcase. Some things a cowboy just doesn’t leave home without. In front of Heater's stall I uncoiled it and looped out a small loop. I was fixing to open his stall door when Leonard shook his head. "I wouldn't if I were you. He'll bust loose."
"We'll see." I shook out a loop as Linda and Leonard backed down the aisle and started shutting gates between us.
I put my hand over the gate. Heater charged and we went through the same thing we did the first time. I belted him on the nose and he backed up. As he backed up I opened the gate and shook out a loop. Seeing the open gate he charged. I dropped the loop under him. I pulled as he stepped into the loop. I had two front feet bundled together. He went down. His face was on the floor as he skidded out of that stall. Before he could get his senses and his feet under him I dropped a loop over his head, did a half loop around his nose, caught his right front leg with the rope, and snugged it up.
Heater pawed the air as he tried to get all his legs under him. One of them wasn't working like he wanted. He finally fought his way to his feet. With the object of his hatred in front of him, he tried to rear up and stomp me. The loop around his nose and right front leg wouldn't let him get his head up. Lift up his head and it pulled on his leg. There wasn't anyway he was going to get head and leg up enough to rear up on his back legs. He wanted to run over me if he couldn't stomp me. He started to charge and he stumbled. Again he couldn't get things organized like he needed to charge. If his right leg wouldn't work he would use his left front leg to stomp me. He tried to get it up but the problem with that idea is every time he lifted his left leg to get it up, he was pulled down by his right leg.
That horse hated me with a passion I had never seen or felt in my whole life. He stumbled forward and I grabbed that makeshift rope halter I had dropped on him. Staying out of the way of his left front leg was easy enough. I stayed to his right. He spun in a circle trying to get me in position to stomp me with the parts that still worked. I held on and stayed one step ahead of him. He was breathing heavier and heavier as he snorted and pawed at me. Finally he was exhausted and gave up. Too soon I thought. He was lathered all over from the fight but he wasn't past hurting me if I let him have the chance. I walked into his stall and picked up his water pail. I came back out and threw the water on him giving him a dousing. He hated that too. Once again we went through the motions of him trying to get me under his hooves.
He finally gave up knowing he wasn't going to get me the way he was trussed up. Up until that moment I had been busy trying to stay alive. Now I had a chance to look around. There were twenty or thirty people in that barn standing behind the gate with Linda and Leonard. They had been watching the show.
"Leonard, may I have a brush and a pail of water?"
A brush and pail appeared under the gate. I walked over and picked it up. This time when I walked back over to Heater he didn't try and get me under him. He stood there quietly hating me while I brushed him down with the water to cool him off. After I had him cleaned up I reached up and scratched behind his ears. It didn't please him at all. He hated me and the only thing that was going to please him was to kill me.
"You really ought to get a life. This isn't it. Hating humans when they are the ones who are feeding you isn't wining you any brownie points. You are going to end up in the glue pot and no one is going feel sorry for you."
I scratched him under his belly and under his chin. One thing for sure, I wasn't wining any brownie points with Heater either. I had never seen so much hate packed into one animal. I led him back into his stall still trussed up. If I had turned him lose he would have had me for dessert. I headed him back out toward the gate before I stepped out and shut it between us. I reached back through and untied him. He didn't charge and he didn't try and bite me but it was on his mind.
Most of the people had left. Linda and Leonard walked over where they could look in the stall at that wild racehorse. Leonard shook his head. "If I hadn't seen it I wouldn't have believed it. I think I'm getting a better idea what a cowboy is."
"How do you control him? You have to put a bridle and saddle on him to race him." I was wondering how the others did it.
"We put another horse in the stall and crowd him over until he doesn't have any room. It takes eight men at least to get a bridle and saddle on him. We keep him between two horses as we lead him out. Once we get him in the starting gate the jockey is on his own. He likes to run so he usually isn't any trouble once we have him aimed down the track."
Leonard and Linda were walking with me back down to the other end of the barn. The others in the barn didn't turn and ignore me like they did earlier. Most of them would smile and nod an acknowledgment as they stared at me. I was wondering if they thought I was a show off or what?
Leonard answered that for me with a question. Probably the same question that was on everyone else's mind. "By the way, what is it you accomplished back there besides the fact you are better than eight men and a couple horses?"
"I found out that horse is crazy. He's not untamed or undisciplined. He's crazy. I've never thought any animal should be put down but that horse should. Any normal horse would know I just bested him and he would respect me the next time. They might not like it but they would respect me. There is a difference. Heater doesn't know respect. I could go back down there in an hour or more and we would have to go through the whole process all over again to make him behave for a few minutes. Heater could be the fastest horse in the whole world and I would still suggest putting him down. He's going to kill someone if he ever gets the chance. Maybe a lot of people are going to get hurt. How do you justify keeping an animal alive knowing he's going to kill you if you give him the opportunity?"
Leonard stopped before we walked out the end of the barn. "You get him down to Brazil two days from now and he can do whatever he wants. I'll let his new owners worry about whether they can control him or not."
I had the hands make me a cage for Heater. I wasn't walking that horse onto a plane. I'd get him in the cage and have the cage put on the plane. It was like you would treat any wild animal. I asked the resident vet to give him a tranquilizer before we loaded him.
He looked at me kind of funny. "You get him tied up like I heard you did the other day and I'll give him a shot. Otherwise, forget it. I'm not getting into the stall with that horse."
You never know how a tranquilizer is going to affect an insane person or animal. It can make them mellow or it might make them even more insane. I could only hope because no one had tried it on Heater before. The day we were to fly out, Heater and I went through our routine again. He wanted me so bad that he couldn't stand himself. After the fight he let me lead him into that cage we had waiting for him. For a few minutes at least, he knew who was in charge of the situation. I dropped a cersingle on him, along with a halter and a martingale. Every time I got close to him he tried to kick me. I finally managed to slip two hobbles on him. One set on his front feet and a set on his back feet so he couldn't kick the side of the plane out. I strapped the back hobbles to the front set so he couldn't get either set of hooves up without falling down. The martingale would keep him from getting his head up and rearing up. It was a shame to truss up a horse as much as I did Heater but I wanted to get to Brazil alive. Having him kick the side of the plane out wasn't an option with me.
The vet gave him a shot after I had him trussed up. Heater tried to stomp him but he couldn't do any more than shuffle his hooves. If there ever was a straight jacket for horses, Heater was in one. They picked the cage up with a forklift and put it in the trailer. My suitcase and me went in front of the truck with the driver. I had washed the spray out of my hair the night before and I had my cowboy hat pulled down on my head. At the airport they forked Heater's cage up on the plane and strapped it down. We were on our way in a matter of hours.
On the flight down to Brazil, I swear that horse went even more insane if that were possible. His eyes got the look of a demon in them as he watched me riding in the seat beside him. I thought he hated me before. I was wrong. Now he hated me. I don't know if it was the tranquilizer that pushed him over the edge or being trussed up got to him? It didn't make any difference, one way or another, once we landed he became the other person's responsibility.
The jet landed in Brazil. I had a handful of transfer papers for someone to sign so I could get rid of that insane horse. A big old limousine drove up beside the plane as the forklift lowered Heater and his crate down to the tarmac. A couple of men got out of the back as the driver got out. They were staring at the way I had Heater tied down.
One of them motioned toward me. "Is that my horse?"
"Not yet. You sign these papers and he's all yours." I held out the papers for him to sign.
The man took them and signed them where needed. I handed him a copy. He motioned for the other man to open the cage. I shook my head. "I wouldn't do that. He's pretty wild from the trip. Why don't you take him out to the stables first before you unload him?"
He said something to the other man in a language I didn't understand. They opened the gate on the cage and begin taking the hobbles, cersingle and martingale, off of Heater. I was watching his eyes. He was biding his time until they freed him and then all hell was going to break lose.
My suitcase and lariat were still on the plane. I tried to stop them. "Wait until you're out at the stables. He's gonna get us if you turn him lose."
The man dropped the martingale off and it was all Heater needed. He body slammed the man in the cage with him. The guy went down and Heater decided to stomp him. I was racing for the gate to close it. Heater might have been insane but he was damn smart insane. He knew if I closed that gate he was locked up again. He backed up and threw his weight against the gate before I dropped the latch. The gate flew open and slammed me up against the side of the cage behind it. The first man never understood he couldn't reason with this horse. He was trying to get up beside him to get his halter. Heater screamed, rose up on his hind legs and laid a front hoof down along side the guy's head. The man dropped to the ground with his skull split.
I waved my hands in the air to get Heater's attention. Heater hated me more than anything in the whole world. He came around the cage at a run. The window was down on that limousine and I dove through it. He hit the car with his chest as his hooves skidded on the pavement. He tried to stick his head inside to bite me. I pushed the electric button and rolled up the window. I had his neck trapped for a few seconds. I knew it wasn't going to take him long to break that glass. I jumped out the other door and headed for the plane. I heard the window break and knew Heater was loose again. I looked for the driver. He had locked himself inside Heater's cage. It was probably the safest place to be right now. Men were coming our direction either running or driving those little tow vehicles. Either way it didn't make much difference. Heater was too insane to be scared of anything. Lucky for the men, Heater wanted me more than he wanted them.
Running for my life, I jumped on a crate that had been set off the plane and bounded into the open cargo door as Heater tried to follow me. He misjudged. Those steel horseshoes he was wearing weren't giving him any traction on the tarmac. He slid into the crate pushing it up against the plane and fell down. He was down for a few seconds. I snapped open my suitcase and grabbed up my lariat. Finally I had something in my hands equal to the wild horse that wanted to kill me. All I had to do was get in position and let him come to me. And of course not miss my throw.
Heater was back on his feet and headed toward the men who were coming our direction. I jumped down off the plane and whistled as he ran over the first man. Heater knocked the man flying like a rag doll. He made a circle and men were scattering. Something finally told them that they weren't going to win the war with this horse by shouting and waving their arms.
I waved my hands in the air and screamed at him. Once again he focused in on me. I checked my rope as he came at me at a dead run. I gave a swing over my head and laid the loop out in front of him. He stepped into it and I pulled gathering up two legs in the loop. Heater went down head over heels as his body kept going when his legs were no longer under him. I dropped a loop over his head and a half hitch over his nose and snugged him down to both front legs this time. I didn't want him up for any reason. He tried the rope a couple of times and then quit struggling. He knew he had lost the fight again. He glared at me. Next time. He would get me next time. I could see him thinking how he was going to do it.
While they were busy loading the ambulance with the three men Heater had almost killed, I was busy putting the hobbles, cersingle, and martingale back on him. I didn't care what they did with that horse as long as he wasn't free to kill me before I left the country.
My schedule for the flight was to drop off Heater and go to Venezuela to pick up another horse for a flight to France. I had a two hour wait for the hop to Venezuela. I walked into the terminal to get a sandwich. After the flight down I was starved. I hadn't packed anything to eat and it had been a long flight.
I walked up to a lunch counter. I didn't recognize anything on the menu. Whatever it was they were serving I didn't know if I wanted it.
One of the ladies walked over. "May I help you?"
"I'd like something to eat but I don't know what any of that stuff is."
"Are you the cowboy who roped that wild horse out there on the field?" She was studying me.
"Yes." I wondered if I was in trouble again.
"That was pretty fancy roping." She was writing on a ticket.
"Thanks. What about food? I haven't had anything since I left the states this morning. My backbone is pushing against my ribs." I didn't mind talking about roping but I had rather talk about food.
"I'll bring you something you'll like. Have a seat." She motioned toward the chair by the bar and left.
A man walked up from my left and reached out his hand in the offer of a handshake. He started saying something I didn't understand. I shook his hand and nodded even though I had no idea what he was saying.
More people gathered around me and pretty soon it was a din of confusion in a language I didn't understand. People were wanting to shake my hand for some reason. The lady returned and set a big bowl of brown beans and a big chunk of bread in front of me. She was right, it was something I liked. Those were darn good beans.
I finished that big bowl of beans and got up to leave. I was digging money out of my pocket wondering if they took American money? She set a sack down on the counter in front of me. "This will get you back home with out staving to death. There's no charge. One of those men you saved today was my cousin. I can't thank you enough."
I put some dollars on the counter. "I was doing my job. I don't expect payment for saving someone's life. Is this enough?"
She stared at me for the longest time before she leaned up in my face. "Are you a girl?"
"Yes." Now would she take my money since I wasn't the cowboy she thought I was?
The reaction wasn't what I expected. She screamed as she jumped up in the air, waved her arms, and shouted something I didn't understand. Everyone in there was shouting and pointing at me. I had enough of the circus. Escape wasn't to be. People were shouting and pushing at me. They weren't mean about it but they weren't easy either.
A couple uniformed men walked in and everyone started shouting all over again and pointing at me. I had no idea what it was all about. The two men pushed everyone back and stood staring at me.
The one on my right pointed at me. "Senior?"
I nodded. "Yes?"
He pointed again. "Senorita?"
"Yes?"
They started shouting. Senorita, Diablo, and a few other words I understood. The rest was lost. One of the soldiers took my hand and led me into the main terminal while shouting. Pretty soon, the circus I had hoped to escape had changed into a grand event and I had no idea why.
The lady who had waited on me passed in front and I grabbed her. "What are they saying? Why is everyone pointing at me?"
"Because you roped Diablo, the devil. They can't believe you're a woman. Everyone is arguing if you are an American cowboy or a cowgirl."
I pulled out my passport. "Well why didn't they ask me."
I held my passport up and one of the soldiers clutched it. He stared at the picture and then screamed. "Senorita."
A couple of the men lifted me up on their shoulders and started out to the front of the terminal. I tried to stop them "Wait, my plane. I have to catch a plane to Venezuela. I can't go any place. I have to catch a plane. Wait."
A dozen people loaded up in the back of a utility truck and we sped off down the streets. I knew I was going to miss my plane and no one would know what happened to me. I was in a strange country, couldn't speak the language, and had no idea what any of us were doing.
"American embassy. I need to go to the American embassy." I had an idea if I could get them to understand.
Shouting and laughing they all screamed. "American, si."
The truck pulled up to a large house and everyone got out. Finally the shouting and screaming had stopped. A man walked out of the house. The soldiers walked up to him and gave him my passport. They pointed back at me saying, senorita.
The man walked inside and shortly returned with another taller well dressed man. I had dropped down from the back of the truck onto the ground. They walked up to where I was standing. I had no idea what it was I had done wrong.
"You are this woman?" He held the passport open and there was the picture of me taken by the photographers three days ago. The tall man was eyeing me suspiciously.
"Yes."
I cleared my throat. "Listen, they made me up for that picture. I want to apologize for anything I did wrong. I'm sorry for what ever it was I did. Can I go now? I'll miss my plane. I have to be in Venezuela to pick up another horse tomorrow." I held out my hand for my passport. It didn't hurt to try and bluff my way out of this situation.
Putting the passport back in my hand he nodded. "Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Simon Pladure. One of the men you saved today is my brother. The other man is my foreman. That is my horse you caught. I am in your debt."
"Are they going to be all right. The one who had his skull split looked in pretty bad shape."
"Yes, they will be all right. I'm sure they will be a lot smarter when they get better. I heard you tried to tell them not to let the horse loose?"
"I tried. Heater had a long ride down here and he was itching to take it out on anyone who got close to him at the moment. He should have been put up and let settle in for a few days." It wasn't a lie but I wasn't going to tell Simon the horse he had bought was crazy and never would be all right.
Simon took my arm, an all too familiar situation with people outside Montana. He led me back into his house. "Please, you must be my guest for tonight. There will be a party in your honor."
"But I can't. I have a plane to catch. I must be in Venezuela by tomorrow." I was led into the house under protest.
Chapter IX
The Reluctant Guest
"The plane is on hold until the matter with the horse is settled. I'm sure it will be there tomorrow when you are ready to leave. At that time it will be released and you may go pick up your other horse. I insist on having you for dinner tonight, Miss McDonald. We never get an American cowboy down here and never have we ever had the honor of hosting an All American Cowboy."
My head snapped around and he smiled a disarming smile. "Someone called in your abduction at the airport. Your embassy called our embassy to inquire about your situation. They said we had the All American Cowboy and it would be in the best interest of both countries if we returned you. I had our ambassador check in your country and it really did seem as we had the All American Cowboy. Only she was a cowgirl. Your country is so strange. Why would they call a cowgirl a cowboy?"
I sighed it wasn't a subject I wanted to explain. "There has been a mistake. I'm not the All American Cowboy, I was nominated as the All Around Cowboy. There is a difference. I ride the rodeo circuit with Bill Randall. I sign in as Jake as that is what I've been called all my life. There were a couple errors in the situation. The cowboys voted me in as the All Around Cowboy because most of them thought I was one. When they found out different they voted me back in anyway. There isn't an All Around Cowgirl so they couldn't vote for me in that category. It just kind of got out of hand."
He smiled. "And I'm so pleased it did. Please dress up for the party tonight. Did you bring any clothes with you?"
Tugging on my shirt I shook my head. "No, what you see is what you get."
"Ah, then we must find something appropriate for you to wear when you meet our Presidenti." He motioned for a woman coming in from another room.
Hours later I was no longer Jake or Katrina. I had no idea who I was. I was wearing long nails again. I was coffered and made up. My clothes were more of a Mexican or goucho flavor. I had a white silk blouse, red leather bolero jacket with fringe, red leather short skirt with fringe, and red boots. Thank goodness the boots didn't have fringe. I didn't think I could stand any more.
The woman who had helped me get ready led me back into a large room where a party was all ready in progress. People turned to stare. I was introduced to a lot of names I couldn't repeat.
I was introduced to Carlos Peron, El Presidenti. He took my hand and held it as he studied me. "So you're the American I have heard so much about today. All my staff is talking about you, I'm getting calls from the American embassy about you. I'm getting calls from Washington DC about you. I was expecting you to be a lot bigger to match the stories I have been hearing."
It embarrassed me. I had no idea what he was hearing about me. "I'm sorry if I caused any problems. It was all a mistake."
Someone off to the side said something in Spanish. I caught the word senorita, cowboy but that was all. The whole room laughed. I knew I was in trouble.
Carlos laughed and smiled. "No, I assure you Miss McDonald you have done nothing wrong. I have heard a hundred stories today about what you did out at the airport when Simon's stallion managed to get lose. Now I would like to hear the story from you."
"Well Sir, I wanted them to…," I spent an hour explaining the story to Carlos and I guess someone was translating it because a man was talking when I did and he would stop when I did. It certainly happened a lot quicker than what it took to tell the story.
After that I was led around and introduced to more people. Mostly I smiled and nodded my head as I didn't understand hardly anything that was going on. An hour later we were seated at a long table. Simon sat at one end. The Presidenti sit at the other. I was seated on Simon's right. The lady who had helped me get dressed was on Simon's left and she had transformed into a goddess. It was then I realized she was his wife. Earlier that day she introduced herself as Lucinda. I tried my best to not make a fool of myself. I had no idea how to act at a social party. It was about five minutes into the dinner when I noticed I was getting subtle hints from Lucinda. She was watching me. If I would do something wrong, she would only slightly shake her head. I finally realized I needed to watch for her guidance. If she gave a slight nod yes when I started to pick up a utensil then it was okay to proceed. If not then I looked for something else.
Those people were party animals. It was two a.m. or there abouts before the party died. I tried to find a phone to call a taxi so I could go back to the airport.
Carlos and Lucinda wouldn't hear of it. He pointed off down the hallway. "No, we have plenty of room for you. You are our guest. I insist you spend the night with us. I'll make sure you get to the airport with time to spare in the morning."
"But…," I was sure I needed to find that airport tonight.
Lucinda took my hand. "No, when Carlos invites you to stay then it's settled. Here, I'll show you to your room."
Ten minutes later I was sound asleep in a huge bed with a canopy over it. I didn't really care what happen the rest of the night. Four thirty in the morning came and I crawled out of bed hunting for my jeans and shirt so I could go help dad milk the cows. It took me almost a minute of searching in the dark before I remembered I wasn't home. I tried to remember what Lucinda had done with my clothes? I couldn't go looking around a strange house in my all together. I slipped on the skirt and blouse along with the boots. I cracked the door to see if anyone else was up yet. Hearing murmurings from down the hall I headed in that direction.
I opened a door at the end of the hall and walked into a kitchen. There were nine people in there eating breakfast. One of the ladies by the stove turned around and looked when she heard the door open. "Ah, senorita McDonald. You ready for breakfast? Si?"
Most of the others turned to look when the lady spoke to me. "Yes, that would be nice. What can I do to help? I can cook my own if you will allow me to use the stove."
"Oh no. It would not be permitted. Our special guest cooking her own breakfast would not be allowed. Do you want to eat in the dinning room?"
"Where? You mean that big room where we were last night? I don't think so. Can I eat in here with you?" That big table we ate at last night didn't impress me. I was thinking a scrambled egg between two slices of bread would be my kind of breakfast.
"Sure if you want." She said something in Spanish to the others at that kitchen table and they made room for me at one end.
Someone dropped a plate in front of me after I sit down. A fork appeared just as quick. The lady slid a couple eggs on my plate. "Would you like bread or toast with your breakfast?"
"Bread would be okay, thank you. I can get it. Where is it?" I was getting up to find the bread when it appeared on the table in front of me.
Everyone around the table was watching me as I ate breakfast. The lady who had spoken English to me was busy gathering up pans, dishes, and a dozen other things. I also figured she was getting things ready for my host, Carlos, Lucinda, and anyone else who happened to spend the night.
I picked up my plate after I was through and carried it over to the sink to wash it. The lady took it out of my hands. "Here let me take that for you."
"That's okay. I can wash it. You have enough to do." I was trying to get it back without any success.
I finally gave up on trying to help as she kept maneuvering me out of the way. "Do you know where my clothes are? I need to change."
She pointed at one of the doors leading from the kitchen. "They are in there. But they are still wet."
"Still wet? What happened to them?" I wondered how they could have gotten wet. I didn't leave them outside and I was sure it hadn't rained anyway.
"They were washed a couple minutes earlier. Is there a problem?" She was looking at me waiting for an answer.
"Yes, there's a problem. I need them now. I have a plane to catch and these clothes were loaned to me. I can't leave with Lucinda's clothes." I was wondering how wet clothes were going to feel this early in the morning. I hated that. I didn't mind getting rained on and getting wet but I sure hated pulling on wet clothes when it wasn't raining.
"I'm so sorry but I was told to clean your clothes before you left." She looked at me apologetically.
"I guess nothing can be done about it now. I need a phone to call a cab. I have to get back to the airport and find out what happened to my ride. We were supposed to leave yesterday evening." I had no idea what I was doing, who I should call to get help, or what I was going to find once I was back at the airport.
"Mr. Simon Pladure, would not be pleased to find his guest gone before he gets up." She was pointing back toward the living room indicating I should stay put.
"Give Mr. Pladure my apologies and assure him I appreciated the supper last night along with the bed and breakfast but I have a plane to find. You people don't seem to understand I have a schedule to keep and it's been trashed. I have to call my employer to find out what I need to do." I opened the door to the laundry room as I spoke. I needed those jeans of mine.
My jeans and shirt were hanging on a line still dripping wet. "Don't let anyone come in here until I'm back out. I have to change clothes."
Pulling the jeans and shirt down off the line I wrung them out as best I could. I slipped off the outfit Lucinda had loaned me and wiggled into my own wet clothes. They sure felt yucky. I wished I had my suitcase. Problem was, it was on the plane which was only God knew where.
After dressing I gathered up Lucinda's clothes and walked out of the laundry room barefooted. My hat and boots were in the room I slept in last night. No one tried to stop me as I walked back through the kitchen. I laid the dress on the bed and slipped on my own boots. I had seen a phone in the hallway. It was back to the kitchen as I had no idea how to dial a taxi from that phone. I collected the woman who knew English. After a lot of protesting on her part, I managed to get her to phone a taxi for me. I left while my hosts were still asleep. That may not have been the right way to do it but I felt more like I had been kidnapped for last night's party rather than formally invited. Thirty minutes later I was back at the airport. I was looking for a plane that last night, Simon Pladure had assured me would wait. It hadn't. My lariat, my clothes, my plane, was gone. I counted money in my pocket. Sixty eight dollars and twenty six cents. My money wasn't going to buy me a plane ticket home, I was sure.
My parents weren't able to do anything for me at this point. They had hardly ever been out of town all their lives. I figured I better call someone who knew a little more about the world. Stopping by the lunch counter I traded American for a hand full of Brazilian currency. It was back to the pay phone and put in a collect call to Leonard LeBo in Atlanta.
It took several tries through several operators before I heard his voice on the other end.
"Hello?"
"Leonard, this is Jake McDonald. I'm…,"
"CAT! Everyone is worried to death about you. The papers up here are running a story about how you were kidnapped. Are you okay? How did you escape?"
I eased the phone back up to my ear. Leo had been screaming into it. "I was kind of kidnapped but not really. Leo, I'm at the airport and my plane is gone. I don't have enough money for a ticket. What do I do?"
The phone was quiet for a few seconds before it spoke to me again. "Stay on the line. I'll do some checking."
While I was waiting, those who walked by me would stare. I don't guess they got a whole lot of cowboys down in this neck of the woods. I remembered what happened last night and took my hat off and put it behind me. Now I hoped I looked like any other dirty tourist.
"Cat, I found you a ride. He'll be there in twenty minutes. Albert was on the other side of town taking some pictures. He is driving a yellow Fiat. Go with him and he will make sure you stay safe. I'll make arrangements for you to catch another plane."
"Thanks, Leonard." I started to hang up and go wait for a yellow Fiat.
"Cat, wait." The phone was still talking.
"Yes?"
"You will be given another job. The horse you were going to transport is already on his way. I'll have information and more instructions waiting when you and Albert get to the ranch."
I thought of something else. "Leonard, my lariat is on the plane. I need it."
I heard him laugh. "So is your suitcase and clothes."
"I can live with what I'm wearing. I need my lariat." I felt lost without a rope in my hands.
"Cat, I thought I understood what a cowboy was after our first day. I was wrong. You aren't all barbwire. I'll see what I can do. Go catch your ride and stay safe." The phone went dead.
Chapter X
Don’t Ride With Anyone Running From the Police
Walking out to the front of the terminal I looked for yellow cars and held my hat down by my leg hoping no one saw me as a cowboy. It was over twenty minutes later a little yellow car pulled up to the curb and stopped in front of me. He motioned me in. "Senora, we are not safe here. Hurry."
I opened the door and slid in. "You Albert?"
He jammed the car into first and pressed the pedal to the floor. "Yes, and you are the famous Katrina McDonald who delivered Heater to Mr. Simon Pladure. You made the television news last night and all the newspapers this morning."
He almost rolled the car over as he took the corner from the airport to the main highway. "If I don't put some distance behind us you will be a guest at the President's Palace tonight and I will be in jail."
"No, I was a guest last night. I'm not going back tonight. I have work to do." I was positive I was going to turn down any offers for a second night.
He glanced in my direction as he whipped the Fiat around a slow moving truck in our lane. Horns honked, people shouted at each other as we left them behind. "You don't understand do you Miss McDonald? When you are invited to be a guest you don't have an option of accepting or refusing. Did you refuse to be a guest last night?"
"Well, I don't know. I was picked up by the soldiers and taken up to Simon's place and he invited me to spend the night." I was trying to decide if I had really stated I wanted to be with my plane?
He nodded as he passed another car. "You didn't have the opportunity to not go Miss McDonald. The soldiers had orders to pick you up and deliver you."
I shook my head. "No, they were surprised to know who they were talking to."
Now he shook his head. "What surprised them was how easy it was to find you. They figured they would have to drag you off the plane. You were in the terminal and all they had to do was lead you out to the truck."
That shocked me. "You're kidding aren't you?"
"How do you think I know so much about what went on last night? I'm a reporter. I found all this out last night while you were at that big party where you say you weren't kidnapped." He smiled as he took a furtive glance in my direction.
We made it out of the city and he was pushing the little Fiat for all it was worth. Albert's foot was making a depression in the floor where the gas pedal was. The speedometer was varying between seventy two and seventy nine Kilometers.
"Albert, I thought Leo said we were going to a ranch until I caught a flight?" The way we were headed didn't look like I would be back to catch any flights.
He shook his head as he dodged another car. "Miss McDonald, you still don't seem to understand. We won't be catching any planes. The police would have us before you finished signing in."
I was finally getting use to his speeding when he hit the brake and turned off the highway onto a dirt road. It was a two lane path and not really a road. I was in the air half the time as that little car bounced from rut to rut.
"Albert, do you mind? Slow down. You're going to kill us both."
"If I slow down we are both dead already. Look behind us."
Bracing myself between the dash and the seat I turned to look. All I could see was the dust we were raising. "What? I don't see anything."
"Wait, I think I saw a flash of light." I was sure of it as there was a second flash in that cloud of dust.
"Get down. That flash of light is them firing at us."
It took me a second to realize what he meant by them firing at us. I saw another flash in the dust cloud. I dropped down in the seat. "What do they want? Surely they can't be that serious about another party?"
"No, I'm afraid I got you in deeper than another party. They want to kill me and you are a throw away. Someone who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm sorry Miss McDonald."
There was a new sound as something solid hit the back of the car. "Was that a bullet?"
"Yes, keep your head down. It's only a little further."
"What?" I bobbed my head up to look out the window. A bullet put a hole in the back glass and the front one.
I sucked my head back down on my shoulders like a turtle. "Why are they shooting at us? Give them what they want. Nothing is worth this."
"Ah, you are mistaken. Some things are worth a life or two." He spun the wheel and the car slid sideways before it found traction and shot forward.
The other vehicle went by us in the cloud of dust. It sounded like hail as the little Fiat was riddled with bullets. Then it quit immediately.
Albert pulled up and stopped the car. "It's okay. They have been taken care of for the moment."
I eased my head up to take a look around. Dust was settling all around us since we had come to a stop. The other car was no where to be seen. "Where did they go?"
He leaned back in the seat and took a deep breath. "Over the edge. They never saw where the road ended and the canyon begin because of all the dust."
In shock I glanced at Albert. I couldn't believe he had killed them intentionally. I started to tell him how much of a beast I thought he was. The damp red on his right chest stopped me. "You're bleeding."
"Yes, I'm afraid I have been shot." He was breathing heavy now.
I pulled his shirt back and was looking at a dark red hole in the middle of a blood puddle. "You're bleeding profusely. I have to stop it or you are going to die right here. You have a first aid kit?"
He smiled as he shook his head. "Afraid not. I didn't pack a field hospital in the car."
"You have extra clothes? I need bandages." I looked in the back seat for any kind of clothes.
"Small suitcase in the boot. Never can tell when I might be gone for a couple days on a story."
I took his left hand and straightened his index finger. I pushed it up against the hole in his right shoulder. "Hold this for a second while I find that suitcase of yours."
His suitcase was where he said it should be. It also had some extra holes in it. I guess we were lucky he had it in the trunk of the car. Those clothes stopped some bullets that could have found their way up to us. I ripped up a couple shirts.
Opening the driver's door I eased Albert around in the seat. so I could put a padded dressing on the wound he had in the front and the back. The bullet had gone all the way through. "Easy Albert, I have to put a pressure pack on those wounds so they will stop bleeding."
He grimaced as I wrapped the binding around his chest to hold the pads in place. I could see tears in his eyes. "I know it hurts. You can scream if you want."
He gritted his teeth. "You act like you have done this before. Where did you learn to apply a field dressing?"
"I was raised on a farm. Animals get hurt and a vet isn't always handy. You learn to do the best you can. Can you walk around to the other side of the car? I don't know if I can carry you or not?" He was a tall man and I figured he weighed close to one ninety or there bouts.
Leaning on me Albert managed to walk around to the passenger side of the car. I took a good look at the back of the car as I walked back around to the driver's side. "We have holes all over, besides the windows being shot up. We need to go back to town and tell the police what happened."
Albert rolled his head from side to side. "No, we can't. Those guys at the bottom of the canyon were part of the police. The side you don't want to get mixed up with. You'll live longer if you figure out how it works down here. There are two sides to the police. Those who take your story, nod sympathetically, and forget you were there once you walk out the door. Those who listen to your story and then dispose of you if you are a threat to their business."
He looked at me to see if what he had told me registered. "We're a threat so we will die if they get their hands on us. Of course I got you in this mess when I picked you up and you have no idea why someone would want to kill you now."
"Let's go while I tell you a story. Back up the road about a kilometer you will find another road leading off to the north. Take it. Our friends might have called in while they were chasing us. In that case, more of their friends won't be far behind."
That was a prompting I didn't need to hear twice. In seconds I had the little car started and was backtracking up the path. I wouldn't call it a road. Every bump put Albert in pain but it couldn't be helped. As we bumped along in the little Fiat, Albert told me a story about taking some pictures.
He held onto the seat and talked as I bounced him down the road in the little Fiat. "It seems the police were trading drug dealers back to their friends for drugs. There was another situation at the same time the police and the military were swapping men and drugs. The police had picked up a man who had found some wreckage in the jungle. He had a box with him. Someone in the police showed it to someone in the army. The box was part of an encrypted decoder. It was what allowed our military to show up as friendly planes on the AWACs screen."
Albert looked out the window. "I was at the right place at the wrong time. I was working on a story about the military, police, and drug dealers. It seemed the Brazilian government was telling the US they were working on the drug problem. The only problem with their story is the police and military were murdering drunks and derelicts and passing them off as drug dealers. The real drug dealers were safe as money and drugs passed hands."
He reached down in his pocket and pulled out a thirty five milimeter film container. "I took some pictures at the military base where the deal on the decoder went down. I thought I was safe as no one saw me. I was outside the fence with a telephoto lens. Obviously I'm not as smart as I thought I was. Someone found out or maybe they didn't. This could be part of another plan where they wanted to kill me because I was chasing the drug trades."
He held the film container out to me. "Miss McDonald, I never intended to get you in a situation like this. I knew the death squad had a contract out on me. I didn’t imagine them closing in on me this fast. I thought I could pick you up and be gone before things turned ugly. However the one fact remains. They know or will soon know I picked you up, so your life is in danger too. Even if the men in the car didn't know who my passenger was, someone will find out I stopped at the airport and they will put two and two together. When they do, the name that will jump out is Miss McDonald."
I looked at the film container. "I don't want it. What would I do with it?"
"Deliver it to our government. They have to know their codes have been compromised." He dropped the film cartridge in my lap.
"I can't do that. I have no idea what I'm doing. I wouldn't know who to contact or what to say once I talked to someone." I was looking at the road in front of us which was changing into a goat path.
Slowing the car down I looked for a way forward but there wasn't any. "We have run out of road."
"I know. This is an old mining road. It has grown back up into a jungle. From here we walk." He opened the door and slid out groaning.
"Walk? Walk where? You aren't in any condition to be walking. Where are we supposed to walk to?" I slid out of the seat and studied the path ahead of us.
He pointed up the path. "It's about five miles that way. There is a mining shack. We get there and then we will wait for our ride."
"What ride? Who are we going to wait on?" This whole situation seemed absurd.
He looked at me for a second. "Back the car up and turn it toward the canyon. Put it in gear and let it roll over the edge. It will be hard to spot down in the canyon if they come up this way looking for it. I had just as soon they didn't know we went up this trail. If they are actively looking for us then we could still end up dead before our ride comes."
The questions could wait. The mention of dying wasn't something I wanted to see if it was going to come true. I backed the Fiat up. After pulling his suitcase out of the car I dropped it in gear, grabbed that film canister and rolled out the door. I watched as the little car bounced off down the hill picking up speed on its way to its doom. It sailed off the edge out into thin air, the nose dropping until it was upside down and disappeared from view. I waited for the crash but there wasn't any noise.
I started down the hill to see where it went when he shouted at me. "Let's go. We don't have that much time."
Hesitating, I stopped, turned and picked up his suitcase and caught up with him before he disappeared into the trees up the path. "You really think someone would shoot us if they caught us?"
"In a heartbeat. Again, I'm sorry Miss McDonald. You are too young to be learning about these kind of things. You value life. As Americans we think life is precious and shouldn't be wasted. Other societies don't set the same standards as us. They wouldn't give any more thought to killing either one of us then killing a rat or a snake. Life doesn't mean much to them. They kill someone every week. Maybe a lot of some ones so one more life doesn't matter to them."
We had gone over a mile before he stopped to rest. I checked the bandage. "You aren't going to get any better unless you stop and lie down. That wound isn't going to stop leaking blood as long as you're walking."
"Miss McDonald, I'm going to keep getting worse. Right now while the wound is fresh I'm okay. In four or five more hours my body is going to start manufacturing antibodies and I'm going to get a fever. I have one hope and that is to make that miner's shack before then. We are walking two to three miles an hour so in another hour and half we should be there."
He pointed at the suitcase I had been carrying. "What are you dragging that along for?"
"It has your clothes in it. I can use them for bandages."
"We don't need it. This is a do or die situation for me. We either get to the miner's shack and the ride or I die. Those clothes aren't going to help one way or another. Throw the suitcase away but make sure it's off the path. I don't want them finding it if they happen to track us this far." He stood up and started up off the path again.
Looking at the suitcase I thought about it before I set it down and opened it. I pulled a couple shirts out of it before I tossed it as far back into the woods as I could. I didn't care what he thought. I may need to change those bandages before his ride came.
He was already disappearing up that goat path through the trees when I looked up. "Hey, wait. I don't know the way."
He never looked back as I trotted up behind him. "Don't fall behind. I don't have the strength to nursemaid you. You get lost and I won't come back looking for you."
"Well, thanks a lot. I probably saved your life, you have jeopardized mine, and you won't come back for me if I get lost." I was watching his feet when he suddenly stopped and I ran into his back.
"Miss McDonald, for the ten thousandth time, I'm sorry for getting you into this. Understand your life and mine isn't worth what is on the film cassette you are carrying. There may be thousands or hundreds of thousands of lives in danger because of the secrets on that film. I'm hoping both of us make it out to tell our story. If we don't then I hope one of us makes it. Since you don't know the story, you get the film which will tell the story by itself. If I get out I will have to convince them I know what I'm saying without the film."
He wiggled his shoulder. "It's beginning to hurt really bad and also starting to tighten up. I can make the cabin if we don't have to stop for any more group discussions."
Once again he was off up the path and I was left standing there. I ran to catch up. "Albert, wait, Leonard said we would be safe once we reached the ranch. Is that where we are headed? To the ranch?"
"No, the ranch won't be safe now. They know your shipper Kevin and the ranch are connected. They will be waiting there for anyone to show up. You, me, it doesn't make any difference now. Miss McDonald, we are both dead if the police or the military get their hands on us."
I didn't like the sound of that dying Albert kept talking about. "Listen, as long as we have to be together, call me Jake. I don't think I can stomach one more Miss McDonald."
He shook his head. "Jake? What kind of a name is that? Is that a code name or what?"
"It's the name I've gone by all my life."
That stopped him. He turned to look me over. "You're pulling my leg?"
"No, daddy always wanted a son. I was the only child they were ever going to get so he called me Jake. I found out two things as I got older. I found out I wasn't a boy and Jake wasn't a girls name. By the time I learned about all these things it didn't make any difference. I liked the name. Until the past couple years no one besides my parents knew I wasn't a boy. Miss McDonald and Katrina aren't two names I'm very fond of. So if you don't mind, as long as we have to be together, call me Jake."
Albert nodded his head. "You got it Jake."
We made that cabin in a little over one more hour. From the looks of Albert he wasn't going much further. We were standing in the brush in front of the cabin. I was disappointed to no end. This wasn't what I had been thinking of when Albert mentioned cabin. This thing in front of me was caving in on itself it was so old and rotten. The room was mostly gone. Wild animals had been running in and out. For all I knew, one could still be in there.
I pointed toward the shack. "Is this it?"
"Un huh." He dropped down on the ground obviously spent.
My idea of a mining shack didn’t exactly match up with the rotting, sagging, run down decrepit mess I was looking at. I didn’t see any wires going to it indicating it had electricity or a telephone. As bad as our future looked before, what I was looking at in front of me shoved any hope I had about being rescued into a non event.
“Tell me you’re joking!”
Chapter XI
Don’t Get Close to the Spiders
"I was kind of hoping for room service and a hot bath. Tell me it has a telephone so I can call for our ride you mentioned earlier?" I looked up into the trees for a telephone line and there wasn't any. My hope died and I was sure Albert was going to die too. He was never going to walk back down off this mountain in his condition.
He laid down groaning. "Ka…, Jake, listen very closely. Go inside the cabin. Count floor boards and lift up the fifth one from the door. Watch for spiders and snakes. Some of them are very poisonous. After you lift the board, buried in the dirt is a plastic bucket. Inside it is a canvas oil bag. Inside the bag is an emergency radio. The batteries will be dead but that's okay. There is a crank on the side of the radio to generate electricity to operate it."
I found me a stick about four feet long and the size of my wrist. With the stick I whacked brush and things back from the door. The talk about spiders and things wasn't a whole lot of help in making me want to go inside that shack. Counting boards I worked on the fifth one from the door. I couldn't get it up and my stick was too big to fit in the cracks. Looking around the shack I saw a rusty bar over by the old fireplace. I retrieved it and worked on that fifth board. I chewed up the board with the bar before it finally gave up and it lifted out of it's slot in the floor. Something darted off to the side in the dark of the crawlspace. Whatever it was it wasn't a spider. I probed the ground with the rod until I found something hollow. With the rod, I whacked all the way around under that floor as much as possible without getting down there myself.
Stabbing at that pail with the rod didn't work. I was going to have to drop down there and dig it up. "God, if something gets me down there, tell my parents I loved them."
I dropped down into the crawlspace and slowly turned around with my rod at the ready. I was scared to death and running on adrenaline. Spider webs were everywhere. I hadn't knocked down hardly any of them when I was beating from above with my rod. Now I could see what had run when I first lifted that board. There were several spiders under there as big as my fist and they didn't seem the least bit scared of me. They were probably sizing me up for lunch. I started digging the pail up with the rod while I tried to keep an eye on those spiders. I had it. I threw that pail up on the cabin floor.
That must have jiggled the spiders web. Several of them moved in toward me while others backed further off. I put my hand up on the floor and pulled with all that was ever inside me. I shot out of that crawlspace like a jumping jack. I never slowed down as I latched onto that pail and bolted from that shack.
Throwing the pail down beside Albert, I collapsed on my knees. "There are spiders in there as big as me."
He rolled his head over to look at me. "I bet they looked at least that. When you get down eyeball to eyeball with them, they do look big. Did you count their eyes?"
"WHAT!" I stared in shock at him.
"Did you count their eyes? Spiders have eight legs and eight eyes. Their eyes are green. Next time you feel them watching you, count their eyes. Besides giving you something to do, it take your mind off their size."
"YOU'RE CRAZY! WHY WOULD I WANT TO COUNT EYES!"
"Jake, I'll make you a bet. I bet every spider you ever met has eight eyes." Albert was smiling from ear to ear.
I finally figured it out. He was making me talk about it so I would get over my fear of having just looked at the biggest spiders I had ever seen in my whole life. "You're on. I bet they don't."
"Sure they do. Count them from now on."
"I'm going to find one that has been in a fight and lost and eye or two. Then that spider won't have eight eyes."
He laughed. "Okay, I can believe that. I guess I lost the bet already. Call me up when you find that spider and I'll come and take a look."
I was pulling the lid off the bucket. The canvas bag and then the radio slid out. The radio looked brand new. Not a speck of rust or dirt on it anywhere. Someone had packed it well. "What do I do next?"
"Set the dial to twenty two point three and crank." He rolled back over so he was flat on the ground.
"That's it? Don't I have to call for help or something?" I set the dial and started cranking.
"No, it's already calling for help. The person who hears it will know where it's coming from and what he has to do. Crank it until he answers, Jake."
"How will I know when he answers? What do I do, get a signal back?" I was busy spinning that crank.
"No, he will send a different signal. Don't crank so hard and fast, Jake. Easy does it. It doesn't put out a stronger signal because you crank it hard." Albert closed his eyes and he was resting or asleep.
If he was sleeping I had no idea how he could sleep with all the pain he had to be tolerating.
As I sit there cranking on that handle on the radio, watching Albert sleep, I wondered what I had got into? First the mess at home where I was supposed to be at a party I didn't remember. Now I was involved in some government thing where supposedly lives, make that thousands of lives, were at stake. Momma said I would move up in the world. I don't think this was what she meant.
I was still cranking on the radio hours later when I heard it. It was faint at first and then it kept getting steadily louder. A clacking sound coming our direction. "Albert, wake up. Something or someone is coming."
Albert groaned as he sat up. "Our ride has arrived. You can quit cranking on the radio, Jake."
The brush on the side of the mountain parted and a cart came rolling out on the steel tracks that led back into the brush. "What is that?"
"It's our ride. Come on Jake. Bring the radio. We don't want to leave anything behind.
I gathered up the pail, canvas bag, and the radio as I followed Albert over to the miner's cart that had appeared out of the mountain. It was white from spider webs and cobwebs all over the front and top of it. It had a canvas over the top. Albert picked up a stick and wiped spiders and web away from the canvas. He tried to pull the canvas back and cried.
"I can't do it Jake. Pull the canvas back far enough for us to get in." He was holding his shoulder and panting.
The canvas was snapped down. Making sure I wasn't grabbing any spiders, I pulled it loose at the front and pushed it back. "Get in Albert."
He was in serious pain as I helped him up in the cart. I threw the things I had picked up inside with him and then climbed in beside him. The darn thing had a switch and batteries inside it.
"Close the tarp. There are things inside the mine we don't want in here with us."
I pushed the tarp back in place and snapped it from the inside. It became terribly dark and I couldn't see a thing. "Albert, I think I heard voices coming up the path before I crawled in."
"It's okay, we aren't there any longer and I don’t think they will be stupid enough to go into the mine. A small red light came on and everything was cast in an erie red glow.
Albert turned a switch and I could fell the wheels turn as a soft whine came from under our feet. It's battery powered. It will take us where we want to go. Sit back and enjoy the ride."
Sitting there in the ether world of the glow from the red light, I felt movement as the cart rolled along a track only it knew. The wheels clanked as the cart gently rocked from side to side. Every once in a while something heavy would drop on the tarp above us. I started to put my hand up and push where one of the things had fallen on the tarp.
Albert grabbed my wrist. "No! It's fangs can go through that tarp as if it wasn't there. Remember those spiders you saw under the cabin. Those were babies compared to what is ridding on the tarp. Keep your hands away from the tarp and it will be okay. They will get off when we start getting close to the other end."
I shrank back as far as I could from the tarp. It was when Albert wrapped his arm around me I realized I had settled in on him. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get on top of you."
He held me firmly but gently. "It's okay. They scare me too. I've been through here several times and it wasn't always in a cart with a cover."
It felt good to be held by someone who had been through here before. "How did you get by them?"
"Bring a darn big torch. Flame thrower would be more like it. Flashlight would really work. They don't like the light so they try and avoid it. Give them time to get out of the way and they try to avoid contact. The cart is knocking their webbing down so they fall onto the tarp. They probably aren't any more crazy about this ride then we are." He wiggled to ease the pain in his shoulder.
"I'm sorry. I should be holding you." I tried to move off him but he held me.
"No, it's okay. I like holding you. You don't feel soft like all the other girls or women I ever held but you smell like a girl. What do you do when you aren't transporting horses all over the world?"
"You mean if I'm not running from some government who is trying to kill me?"
He laughed. "Yeah, when you aren't doing that too."
"I rodeo and help on the dairy farm."
"You barrel race?"
"No, I did that once. I thought I was a calf roper. Bill Randall told me I unofficially broke the world record. I had a...,"
"You're a calf roper?"
"No, I only thought I was. I'm not big enough to toss them down once I have them roped. The only times I qualify is when they fall down and I'm there to tie their feet before they can get back up. I ride with Bill Randall as part of a head and heel roping team."
I moved off of him over to the other side of the cart. "We made top in Montana for the past three years. Since I was in school we didn't get enough points to be top nationally. That takes working most of the year to gather up enough points to be tops there."
The cart slowed down. "What's the matter? Did our batteries die?"
"No, we are probably there. Don't raise up yet." He prodded the tarp with the radio bouncing it up and down.
I knew he was trying to make sure we weren't carrying any extra guests. "Are they gone?"
"Yep, all gone. Didn't like the light. Don't take this ride in the dark because they don't know when to get off."
There was a thumping on the side of the cart. "You going to stay in there all day? Come out of there with your hands in the air where I can see them mister. I'm gonna give you to the count of three and then I'm gonna start shooting."
Albert had a smile in his voice as he responded. "Mike, you old snake doctor, watch your language. We have guests."
The snaps on the tarp clicked and it slid back. The light shining in blinded me and I couldn't see a thing as my eyes had adjusted to the dark.
A shadow backed against the light spoke. "So I see. Who's your pal Albert and what do you mean bringing him along on our track?"
Albert stood up and was climbing out of the cart. "You dumb ass, if you had half a brain you would know my pal is a gal. I made the mistake of picking her up when I had problems Our lives are in danger Mike. I hope you are flying something a little bigger than the ultralight you are so fond of flying everywhere."
The dark shadow slowly turned into a man. He was intently watching me. "Who is she?"
Albert almost fell out of the cart before he caught himself. Slowly he eased himself over the edge. "I'll introduce you two later. Do you think you can get us out of here?"
The other man reached over the edge. "Hand me the battery and toss your radio and other junk out too."
Looking at the battery, it had wing nuts on the cables. I took them lose and handed the battery up. Tossing the radio, pail, and tarp out, I climbed out after them. Mike started pushing the cart back toward the mine. "Give me a hand."
I put my weight against it and it started rolling faster. It was when I looked up I noticed I was pushing it by myself and was almost back inside the mine again. I stopped and the cart kept rolling on into the darkness of the mine. Turning around I saw Mike walking away with the battery in his hands. He and Albert disappeared into the trees.
I followed the voices through the trees as there wasn't a path.
"Are they going to follow you?"
"Probably, they want it real bad and they want us dead even worse."
"Good grief, Albert, how do you get into these situations?"
"I'm a reporter. I report things even when they aren't popular and I see things that aren't supposed to be seen."
"They will lose men in those tunnels. Think they will keep coming."
I walked into a clearing and there was a helicopter. Mike was bolting his battery back into the helicopter. He glanced up. "Chunk the radio and other stuff in the jungle. It's extra weight and we are going to be maxed out already. I need full tanks to get back and you are going to overload us. If you are carrying anything besides the pants you have on then chunk it. Say your prayers, ask God to forgive us for all our sins, and climb on."
"Where?" I was looking at a two seat helicopter and I didn't see any extra places to hang on. I threw the radio and other things off in the trees.
Mike was climbing in already. "You get to sit on Albert's lap. If you don't like that arrangement then he can sit on yours. The third option is to stand there and watch us disappear."
I didn't need to think over that third option. Running around to the other side I climbed in as the engine turned over and started. Albert tried to close the door but it was his right shoulder where he needed to reach up and get the latch handle. I did it for him. Mike closed his door as the blades above us begin to spin and the engine reved up.
Nothing was happening as we were stuck to the ground. Mike was wiggling the sticks as the helicopter refused to budge. He pushed down on the stick by his left and the engine sped up more. He lifted up with his left hand and we hopped up and settled back down as the engine lugged.
"Come on baby, give me all you got and then some." Again we hopped up and then down.
"I'll stay. You can come back and get me later." I started to open the door.
He shook his head. "No, we all go or nobody goes. There isn't going to be any coming back. If I could only get moving forward it would carry us."
"What if I dropped out, you start flying and I jump on as you came back by me?"
Mike looked at me and I could feel Albert shaking his head behind me. I knew if I didn't do something we were never going to get up in the air. Opening the door before it could be discussed, I dropped out. Immediately the helicopter lifted off. For a minute it looked like they had second thoughts and were going to leave me as the helicopter flew up and out of sight past the trees. Then the chop grew louder and I knew they were coming back. I got ready.
Mike was having a hard time judging the speed with which he thought I could catch it and it would stay in the air with the extra weight when I was on. He floated down out of the trees into the clearing. The world stopped as I watched the right skid coming straight at my face. All those years of roping and catching calves had taught me to go with the momentum instead of fighting it or taking it head on. Running backwards as the helicopter flew past me, I jumped at the skid. I crooked my right arm and caught the brace that held the skid to the helicopter. I was jerked off my feet and my arm felt like it had been yanked off. I grabbed my right hand with my left as my arm went numb and I lost all feeling. Swinging my legs up on the skid I rolled up on top wondering if we were still flying and if we would clear the trees? Finally I was standing on the skid and opened the door.
"Want to try it again?" I leaned in so they could hear me.
"What? Hell no I don't want to try again. Get in. You're costing us fuel hanging out like that."
I was sure we were only a couple feet off the ground. I started to step off the skid so we could try again. Looking down at my feet I watched trees go by twenty or thirty feet below. WE WERE FLYING! I jumped in and closed the door. Albert groaned as I landed on him when I jumped in.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you. You want me to hold you?" I tried to look over my shoulder but it was impossible in that little cockpit. When they said it was for two people they didn't mean three or even two and a half.
"No, just be still will you? I can stand you sitting on my lap if you will stop moving." Albert was talking to my back.
Five minutes later I was looking up and watching mountain tops go by us. "Shouldn't we be flying a little higher?"
Mike glanced at the mountain to our left and the one over on our right before he answered. "No. They can't track us in the canyons and I seriously doubt they will have any planes up looking for us. It wouldn't make any difference. They wouldn't be able to spot us unless they were extremely lucky."
An hour later we were still flying through mountains and I had no idea where we were. The only thing I was sure of, Albert was in a lot of pain. He kept trying to ease me from one side to the other. I was rubbing my right arm where I had caught the skid. It was throbbing something terrible. I knew it had to be bruised. I wondered if it had been yanked out of the socket? I looked over at Mike. "Have you used enough fuel to set this helicopter down and take off again? Albert is hurting and I should be holding him."
Mike looked ahead of us. "I only have one answer to your question. No. Another few minutes and we will be home. He can get some serious medical attention there. Albert knows the rules. You tough it out until everyone in the party is safe."
"That's mean. Albert is in pain. I can hold him. There isn't any need of him suffering like this."
Mike glanced in my direction. "I don't hear Albert complaining. Be still and don't wiggle around on him. He's passed out if he isn't dead. Either way doesn't make much difference. We can't land in the jungle and the first clearing is another thirty minutes away."
The helicopter lifted up and over some trees before Mike looked in my direction. "What's your name kid and how did you meet Albert?"
"I'm Jake. I was left behind when the plane I was supposed to be on took off without me. My host, Mr. Pladure said the plane would wait for me but it didn't. I called Leo and asked how I was supposed to get back. I didn't have enough money to buy a ticket and I didn't know anyone down here so I was kind of caught between a rock and a hard place. Leo told me to wait and he would have Albert pick me up."
Mike nodded. He was waiting for the rest of the story. "What happened then?"
"Well, I don't really know. It seems a bunch of people in a car following us started shooting at us. Albert said it was the police. He led them down a dirt path and turned off just before it went over a cliff. They didn't see the turn and didn't make it. Anyway, his car was shot up. He said we couldn't get back out on the highway and there was no way we could contact the police as it was them who were trying to kill us. That's when we walked up the path and radioed you."
The helicopter was circling around a hill. "What did Albert tell you about why the police were chasing you?"
"He said he had taken some pictures of their military and some secret black box that belonged to our government or something like that. It involved the police and drug dealers and it was a mixed up story."
I pulled the roll of film out of my pocket. "Albert gave me this and told me to give it to our government. He said he had the story in his head and hoped one of us could make it out."
"Here, I don't know anything about any of this. You take it." I held the film out for Mike to take.
He shook his head. "No, you keep it. By the way, what kind of name is Jake for a girl?"
"Oh, it's not really my name but it's what daddy always called me. I'm the boy he never got."
"Fair enough. What's your real name?" He reached up and tapped on a gauge.
"Katrina McDonald. Is that your fuel gauge?" I was looking at the gauge he had pecked on and it looked like we were running on empty.
"Un huh."
"Is it showing empty or does it read differently than a car? Do you have another tank on this machine?" That dial was sitting on the bottom side of the gauge.
"Look, there's the ranch."
I looked up. Half a mile in front of us was a clearing with houses, barns, and livestock everywhere.
At that moment the engine coughed. Mike wobbled the helicopter. "Come on baby, just a few more feet and we're home. You can do it."
We flew on in and set down in front of the barn. As soon as the skid touched the ground the engine died. Mike smiled from ear to ear as he looked in my direction. "See, not so bad. She knew she had to get home."
I opened the door and fell out. I got up off the ground dusting myself off. "Tell me you killed it and it didn't die because it was out of gas?"
"Nope, bone dry. She didn't have another few feet in her." He was turning all the switches off.
"Why didn't you carry some fuel up there with you? Surely you knew it would be close even without my weight." I couldn't believe he hadn't prepared for the round trip.
"Honey, I did carry some fuel up there. All I could lift in a bladder tank. Put the fuel in the chopper after I sent the cart through the mine for you. Ditched the tank in the forest. If those people who are after you make it all the way through the mine? If they figure out you had help? If they find the radio and the bladder tank? If they calculate how much fuel it held? If they start searching for the maximum distance one could possibly fly? I will probably be wishing it were me in Albert's place."
Chapter XII
Cowgirl Meet Tom
Mike climbed out and shouted. Several men came running up. Mike and the men were saying something I couldn't understand. The men pulled Albert out of the helicopter and carried him into the house.
"He's going to be alright isn't he?" I should have offered to help.
"Yeah, he's tough as an old boot. He'll be good as new in a couple weeks. We carry a pretty good stock of veterinarian supplies. I'll pump him full of something to kill the infection." Mike started off toward the house.
"Veterinarian supplies? You're going to pump him full of something? You'll kill him if he isn't already dead." I was running to catch up with Mike's long strides.
"I don't think so. All of us use it when we need. It's good stuff. They don't sell you that junk so you can kill your cows or sheep. The idea is to make the critter healthy not kill it." He opened the front door and walked into the house.
I followed him in. It felt ten degrees cooler in the house then out in the yard. Mike walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of medicine along with a needle and hypo. He tossed the bottle over in my direction. "Here, what do you think?"
Rolling the bottle around in my hands I turned it so I could read the label. "Combiotic? Is Albert allergic to any of this stuff?"
He shook his head. "Not that I remember. He needs ten cc' s in him now and another ten in twelve hours."
I handed the bottle back to Mike. "I guess. I've used it before but only on animals."
Mike nodded. "That's us. Just animals."
He pointed down the hall. "Bathroom is down that way Jake. Don't use a whole lot of water as it's solar heated and it isn't that big of a tank. You use it all up and tomorrow night I take the first bath and you will get a cold one."
I started down the hall before I stopped and turned. Mike was filling the syringe. "Mike what do we do now? I mean, what if they catch us? Will they kill all of us?"
He held the hypo up and squirted the air out of the needle. "First things first. They won't catch you Jake. I don’t care if they send the whole army through that tunnel. It will take them a few days to make it and figure out you and Albert had a ride waiting on the other end. Those tunnels spread out all through that mountain. Chances are pretty good they won't ever find the right one even if they do believe you and Albert went through. Anyway, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference. You'll be gone by then."
"Gone? Gone where?" What did Mike mean by gone?
"Go take a bath and relax. Towels are on the shelf above the toilet. You let me do the worrying now. Albert passed that responsibility to me when he brought you along." He turned and walked out of the room.
The bath made me fell like a new person. I did have a fresh perspective on life when I walked back into the front room. I searched the house until I found Albert. He was lying in bed and a woman was wiping his head with a washcloth now and then.
"How's he doing?"
She smiled and nodded.
I felt of his forehead. He had a temperature but it wasn't bad. I picked up his wrist and felt for a pulse. He had a good strong regular pulse. That was the limit of what I was capable of doing for him. "He seems to be resting alright."
Again she smiled and nodded.
"You speak English?" I was beginning to suspect she didn't understand me.
She smiled and nodded.
"No, I don't guess you do." I left to find Mike.
I found him out in the yard. He and several men had the helicopter up on a dolly and pushing it into the barn. I lent my shoulder to the task. "Need a horse."
Mike nodded as he steered the dolly and helicopter into the big barn. "That would work if you knew what you were doing."
They worked the helicopter back into a corner and the men covered it with a tarp. Mike stopped long enough to wipe sweat off his forehead. "How's your arm? You seem to be alright."
"It's better after the bath. I thought it was broken when we were in the air. I probably bruised it pretty bad. I bet I will be paying for it in the morning." I wind milled it around to show how good it was.
He looked at one of the men and said something I didn't understand. The guy walked over to a box on the barn wall and pulled down a bottle. He walked back over to me and started rolling up my sleeve.
"What's he doing?" I didn't know if I wanted my shirt sleeve rolled up or not.
"He's going to put some liniment on it so it won't hurt in the morning."
"Uh, that's okay. I'm sure it won't be that bad." I was trying to back away but the guy already had the top off the bottle and shaking something with a real strong odor on my arm and rubbing it in.
Mike walked out of the barn while I was getting liniment rubbed all over my arm. I chased him down after I got away from the guy who wanted to rub whatever it was all over my arm. "I stink. Now I need another bath."
"Won't do any good. The liniment has soaked into the skin. It won't hurt you Jake. What it will do is keep your arm from swelling up and hurting by morning."
"What is it?" I leaned over to take a smell. It wasn't anything I had ever run across before.
"Bark extract, seed pits, and a lot of other things mixed in alcohol. It will heal a sprained ankle in a day."
He walked up to the corral, put his right foot up on the bottom rail, and leaned over the top rail. "I built this place. Came here after Vietnam, Lebanon, and a few other places I don't care to remember. Albert and I were buddies in special ops. I took care of him, he took care of me. After we retired from killing everyone Uncle Sam pointed us at, he became a reporter for a lot of magazines and some of those big television networks back in the States. I wanted away from it all. I had enough of people and what they did to one another in the name of some bullshit cause or another. Everyone's cause is a good cause so we kill each other to make the other guy believe it. I killed in the name of democracy to make the rest of the world safe. Bullshit! I killed because someone in my government pointed another man out to me and said he didn't think the way we did."
I was very quiet as I listened to Mike tell his story. I was almost positive I was the first person to hear this. He turned to look at me. "I was better than good Jake. Albert was better than good. That's the only reason we survived. I won't let anyone hurt you. No matter what, they won't get to you. I might be older now but I'm also a lot smarter. I have lost some of my edge but I make up for it in brains. I'm better than any man you have ever met. I'm even better than Albert which makes him the second best."
He turned and looked me in the eyes, winked, and walked away. I didn't believe for a second he had been telling me a whopper. I believed every single word. I tossed and turned in my bed that night. It wasn't my shoulder or arm causing me torment. I was lost in a world I didn't understand. Men killing men because they could and for no apparent reason.
Before sunup I was sitting on the corral rail watching the horses in the pasture and the jet black one in the corral. That horse was as interested in me as I was in him. I felt someone walk up behind me. "Hello, Mike. Sure is a beautiful horse. I checked on Albert a few minutes ago and he seems to be better. His fever has broke and he's breathing regularly."
He climbed up on the rail and sit down beside me. "How did you know it was me?"
"I could smell you."
"You smelled me? There are other men around here." He was studying me.
"Yes, but they smell different than you. Most everyone has their own peculiar body smell. Bill Randall smells like old leather, sun, and horse sweat."
"Who's Bill Randall?"
"He's a man back home. He is the National Calf Roping Champion. Lives down the road from us." I wished with all my heart I was back there now.
"Jake, I arraigned for a ride out for you. They will be checking all the commercial airports so it isn't going to be quick but it will get you out of the country. Six nights from now, at midnight, a plane will come in and pick you up. He will fly you out to the ocean and kick you out. A trawler will be waiting to pick you up. You ever do any parachuting before?"
I blinked as I tried to imagine what he was telling me. "No."
"That's okay. The parachute will open as soon as you clear the plane. When you feel your feet hit the water trip the release hooks. A rescue team will be there as soon as you splash in. Just in case something goes wrong, you will have a life raft tied to your belt. It will automatically inflate when you hit the water. If the rescue team isn't there when you surface then climb into the raft and they will be there shortly." He threw a stick out into the corral and waited.
I finally found my voice. "I need to call home and tell them I'm okay."
He nodded. "You can't call directly. They may be monitoring everyone's phone in that part of the world. I would if I were them. You can call a relay station in Belgium and it will delay and then relay your message to where ever you want it to go."
Mike dropped down inside the corral, turned around, and was studying me. "You're quite an unusual person. What is America's All Around Cowboy doing down in this neck of the woods? You know this whole country is going ape over your disappearance. The US Embassy is demanding to know what happened to you. The Brazilian government wants you. I'm curious as hell as to what is going on? In the helicopter, that Mr. Pladure fellow you mentioned being a guest of? That wouldn't happen to be Simone Pladure would it?"
"Yes."
"Boy, you don't mess around do you? You walked out on the most powerful man in Brazil? You don't just up and walk out on Simone Pladure. If he wants you to stay and be his guest then you stay and be his guest. How did you manage that little trick?" Mike was smiling as he asked the question.
"I had the cook call me a cab and a ride back to the airport. It wasn't complicated." I had no idea why I couldn't leave Mr. Pladure's house when I wanted. After all, I never asked to be his guest.
His eyes closed to squints. "My god! So simple it worked. Simone's house is guarded twenty four hours a day by the military. It would take a commando team of twelve men to penetrate that place. No one walks in or out without an authorization from Simon himself."
Mike was laughing. "You call a cab and ride out. I can't believe it. I bet heads are rolling right now."
He reached up, pulled me off the rail, and helped steady me as I dropped to the ground. He opened the corral gate. "Let's go see if Consuelo has breakfast fixed yet. We don't find our place at the table when it's ready those hands of mine won't leave us anything."
Back in the house, I washed my hands and then went to check on Albert. He was awake. "How you doing? You ought to be up and running the races as much stuff as Mike pumped in you."
A smile crossed his face. "Yeah, I bet he did too. I'm sorry for getting you into this mess Miss McDonald."
"Think nothing of it Albert. I don't seem to be the any worse for the wear and tear. Certainly not like you are. I think I came out of this in pretty good shape. Speaking of which. How do you feel?" I reached down and laid my hand on his forehead to see if he was still running a temperature.
"I'll live. Remember this Miss McDonald, even though the bullet went clear through it carried a lot of stuff with it. Parts of the car seat, my shirt, anything that was on my skin was pushed in. It all might have been microscopic but it carried a lot of bugs and they can build up a family in a hurry. So you remember to pump in plenty of bug killer if you ever get a hole." He was eyeing me to see if I had absorbed any of his wisdom or not.
I nodded. "I was born and raised on a farm. You don't have to tell me about wounds, germs, and things. I know all about them. I hadn't ever thought about a bullet carrying so much trash along with it but I guess it's probably true. Thanks for the advice. I'll leave the guns and bullets up to you and Mike."
He waved his hand and dismissed me. "I smell breakfast. I know this crew. You better go find your share before they eat it all up."
I helped Quinswala wash the dishes and clean up after breakfast. The men had disappeared right after eating. I never asked where they were headed. I figured they had to work livestock. I also figured they considered me a guest and I wasn't invited along. An hour later I finished sweeping floors and helping with the housework. I was glad when we were though. There was a black horse in the corral I needed to go inspect.
He was at the far side of the corral when I walked outside. His head came up when I stepped out on the porch. It showed me he was alert. Walking down to the corral, I climbed up on the fence and watched him for a few minutes as he watched me. He certainly was a beauty. Jet black, his hair glistened in the sun like it had been oiled.
"Here boy. I want to pet you. Come here." Didn't get any reaction.
"Okay, we'll do it the hard way." I stepped down off the rail and headed for the barn. In a few minutes I found what I wanted and was back at the corral. That corral had a snubbing post in the middle and it showed lots of use. I was betting black beauty was the one who was putting the wear on it.
He held real still until I swung the lariat over my head and then he took off. Around and around the edge of the corral he ran. I let him run for fifteen or twenty minutes before I dropped a loop over his head. Instead of wrapping the rope around the snubbing post I let him run some more. I was walking around the post as the black stallion ran the edges of the fence.
He must have run for more than a half hour before he decided I wasn't going to yank him up to the snubbing post. Slowly he dropped down into a trot, then a walk, and finally he stopped as he eyed me suspiciously.
Ever so slowly I eased toward him as I talked. "Easy old boy. I only want to pet you. How you been? You and I should get to know one another. You might make it up to the states some day and you can look me up. You know where the states are don't you? That's way up north of here."
I droned on and on in a monotone voice as I eased up closer and closer. Finally I was close enough to ease a hand out for him to smell me. He gave me a good inspection as I stood there quietly admiring his form. He was a magnificent horse. He had strong withers, excellent muscle mass in the front chest, and obviously good stamina. He wasn't breathing heavy after running for a half hour. He didn't quit because he was tired. He quit because I wasn't pulling him into the post in the middle. This horse was like Gunshy, he could never be broke, never be owned, and would never quit. Someone might ride him but it would never be a mutual agreement until they made friends with him.
I pulled the brush out of my back pocket I had found in the barn when I picked up the lariat. I let him inspect it before I began brushing his neck and shoulders. "You're such a pretty thing. You born and raised around here or did Mike buy you from someone else? You should have told him you weren't for sale."
We talked for an hour or more. I was finally able to move around him as I brushed him. I stayed away from those back legs. One little quick movement and I would have been dead. He might have been allowing me to brush him, we were a long ways from being friends. I brushed around his forehead and around his ears. It didn't send him to horse heaven but that was okay. Sometimes it's a learned trait. Over time he would learn to love it.
I felt his skin shiver. I could smell them too. "Hello Mike, where you been?"
The answer came from across the corral behind me. "How do you do that?"
I dropped the lariat off, letting it fall down to the ground as I turned my back to the horse. Mike was leaning on the rail along with another man. "I asked if he wanted to be friends and he said it would be okay."
A smile crossed Mike's face and I thought he was going to laugh. "That too, but I wanted to know how you knew it was me? You were busy when we rode up and you never looked."
"I could smell you. I also smelled the other man who is with you. He sit across the table from me at breakfast this morning." I could feel the black horse breathing on my hair and down the neck of my shirt.
"Is that what Tom is doing to you?" Both men were looking behind me.
"Tom? Is that his name? Kind of a plain name for such a beautiful horse. Yeah, you might say that. He's cataloging my scent. We aren't friends but we aren't enemies either. I'll make a wager with you. I'll bet every time you come out here to work with him you throw a rope on him and snub him up to the post. When you get where you have him pulled in so close he can't move you put a saddle on him."
Mike's eyes were closing to narrow slits as I talked. "When you get him saddled and a bridle on him, you try and ride him. That probably lasts until someone is thrown or he gets so tired he can hardly stand. Either way it doesn't make much difference. The next day is going to be the same thing. You start all over from scratch. He's not going to give in and you aren't going to give up. You might eventually ride him out of here but when you least expect it he will throw you. You'll never break his spirit."
Mike shook his head. "I might as well sell him for dog food then because I can't keep a horse that won't be rode."
"I didn't say he couldn't be rode. I said you will never break his spirit."
Taking a step back I was scratching under his chin. "Be friends with him. He will accept a friend. He won't accept a master."
Mike shook his head. "Jake, if that was me standing there in your place right now that horse would stomp me to death. I swear you have him under a spell."
"No, I let him know I wasn't going to fight with him. When we sit down to have a talk it isn't going to be with him pulled into the snubbing post. He's free to walk away if he wants. He knows that." I ran my hands down his chest.
"Jake, I need you to stay…," Mike hesitated and was looking off in the distance. “GET THE MEN!”
Chapter XIII
“RAMON, GET THE TRUCK AND THE MEN.” Mike was pointing off toward the pasture.
I stepped up in front of Tom to see what they were looking at. Three or four hundred yards out, a man was running across the field. Behind him about two hundred yards was a bull and he was closing in fast.
I grabbed the lariat at my feet. Running across that corral, I hit the fence and rolled over the top railing. The horses Mike and the other man had rode up on were by the house. I made a wide sweep around to the side of the one on the left. I wanted her to see me coming. Yanking the reins where they were tied to the rail got them lose. That horse was backing up from me as I threw one rein up past her neck on the left and pulled back on the other so she would stop back peddling. When she stopped I was in the saddle. My heels dug into her flanks as I yelled “HEY YAH” and leaned forward to grab the other rein where it was laying across the top of her neck. She sprinted forward as I turned her one hundred eighty degrees back toward the pasture. We were flying when we passed Mike. I urged her for everything she had.
Mike shouted something like "wait" but I ignored him. I was lying down on that little mare's neck demanding she run faster, harder, as I coiled my lariat. "Come on girl."
We were quickly closing the distance between us and the man. Of course so was that bull. I dropped a loop down by my right leg. This was going to be something I had never done before. Always before I was chasing them down from behind. This one we were going straight at. I brought my hand up and took a turn over my head. I threw my loop before we ever passed the man. The bull was almost on top of the man as we raced by him. I took several turns of rope around the saddle horn with my left hand and snapped the rope with my right. If my timing was right the loop would shrink as it closed around the bull's neck.
I knew it was going to be rough. I wrapped my legs as tight as I could around the mare as I tried to pull the little mare to a stop. Whether she had begun to slow down or not didn't make much difference. That bull out weighed us two to one. With his horns only inches from Ramone, bull and horse came to opposite ends of the rope, it stretched out like piano wire. I was thrown forward when we hit the end of the rope. My chest slammed hard into the saddle horn. Underneath me I felt her coming up and over on her back as I looked over my shoulder. The bull was pulled down and sideways as his right horn dug into the ground and his face plowed dirt. His tail end was going up in the air. The mare was down on her haunches as the weight of the bull keep dragging her back. I threw my right leg out as I pushed off the saddle with both hands toward my left.
Mike had run for the other horse when I rode past him. He was still trying to get his horse under him when he looked over his shoulder toward the pasture. That was when I threw my loop. From where he was standing, he watched as Ramone went down, the bull went down and flipped head over heels, and horse and rider went over backwards.
Everything was hidden in a cloud of dust.
He was shouting. " Consuelo, get the first aid kit. Ramon, get the truck and the men. Bring a rifle. I'll kill that damn bull."
Mike was there almost immediately. He was looking through the dust cloud. "Jake, you okay? Jake, answer me. You hurt, girl? Jake, talk to me."
Lying on her back, my mare was struggling to get her feet back under her. I was still hidden from Mike by the little mare. She was on top of my leg. My left leg was caught between the ground and the mare. If she rolled the wrong way I was going to be under that horse. I had seen enough cowboys trapped under a horse. Something usually ended up broken when the horse rolled over them.
I was looking up at horse and rider. They were on the wrong side of the mare if she tried to roll away from them. "Mike, back off. You're almost on top of us."
I was pushing with my right foot trying to get the mare to roll to her left. Finally she found her equilibrium and she started struggling to her feet. I grabbed the saddle horn and stayed with her as she stood up. The dust was settling as we came up off the ground. The bull was lurching to his feet too. "Mike, rope his feet!"
"WHAT!" Mike was looking at me as if I had dropped in out of the sky.
Unwrapping my rope from the saddle horn, I passed it to Mike as I urged my mare forward. Instinctively his mare had begun to run beside us. That Brahma bull was right behind. Mike barely had my rope in his hands as I leaned over and yanked his lariat off his saddle. "Stay out of his way for a few seconds."
It wasn't necessary to tell Mike to keep his mount running. That big old Brahma bull wanted to horn something and we were the targets. I pulled my mare off to the right as I shook out a loop. That gray Brahma started to follow me but Mike had my rope fastened around his saddle horn by now. The bull stumbled as he was tugged behind Mike's mount. It didn't take the Brahma any time to forget me and focus his attention on Mike's mare. He put new effort into catching his foe as I threw a loop down under his back hooves. He stepped into the loop as I pulled the reins on my mount bringing her to a halt.
That big old Brahma dropped to his knees when his back legs were yanked out from under him. Of course Mike had no idea what was going to happen so he and his mount never tried to slow down when I tossed my loop. What surprised me was the distance they dragged that bull before his weight stopped them. My mare had decided she didn't want any closer than necessary. She was really tugging on that lariat which was still wrapped around the bull's hind legs. With Mike's mount pulling from the front and mine pulling from the rear, that bull looked like he was on the spit over the barbecue grill.
"Where do you keep this beast?" I could see Mike's ranch hands coming with the truck from the barn and a couple of riders coming across the field from the south. Behind us Ramon was finally getting up off the ground. He didn't know whether to run some more or wait for the truck.
Mike was eyeing me. He looked around for a few seconds before he answered. "I normally keep him in the east pasture. It has a good five wire fence and he's never gone through it before."
"Is that where we are taking him?" I was waiting for directions before I let that bull find his feet. I was positive that Brahma didn't want anything else to do with us or our horses. We had roughed him up twice now. Usually they get a little smarter after the first time. Obviously this bull was a little slower than the rest.
Mike nodded. "I'll tell the men to bring a trailer down here and we'll haul him over there."
"Loosen up your rope and take it off his neck. He's had enough. We can drive him over."
Urging his mount backward, Mike loosened up his rope. As he slid out of the saddle the Brahma tried to regain his feet so he could run. With his hind legs strung out behind him it wasn't possible. Gingerly, Mike removed the lariat off the bull's neck. After he remounted I loosened up my rope and the bull finally got to his feet. My loop lay on the ground as he stepped out of it. He had more than enough of horse and man. He ran across the field toward his home pasture. He knew where he belonged. The only thing he wanted was to be was far away from us.
After picking up Ramon, the truck pulled up and stopped thirty feet away. Mike said something as he pointed at the disappearing bull. They took off after the bull.
"Think they will get there in time?" I was coiling my lariat up around the saddle horn.
"Where?" Mike was looking at me again.
"I imagine you told them to open the gate so he doesn't tear down the fence running through it. Think they can beat him to the pasture?"
He turned his mount and we headed back toward the barn. "Jake, you're better than any Gaucho I have ever seen. Where did you learn to throw like that?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "Practice. I had a few good teachers too. I rode the rodeo circuit part time. The cowboys were always doing rope tricks as they waited for their turn in some event. Sam Chapman is one of the best steer ropers I ever had the pleasure of meeting. He can rope right or left handed. If that steer has horns, you can ask him to rope only the horns. He will lay that rope out there so pretty, you'll swear that animal slipped the rope on just to please Sam. I've seen Sam rope almost every part of the animal. One time a man made a bet with Sam he couldn't rope the tail. Sam collected that bet."
I glanced at Mike. "You told me you were the best at what you did. Sam is the best at what he does. One day I want to beat Sam. I don't care about roping a calf or a bull or whatever. I want to be the best. I may never make it but I'm sure going to keep trying. Sam and I may be in the nursing home sitting in our rocking chairs but one day I'm gonna beat him."
Mike nodded. "I understand the feeling. Have you roped the tail yet?"
"A couple times but not consistently and not any witnesses. When Sam did it, he never hesitated and never blinked. He knew in his heart he wasn't going to miss. I want to be that good. I want to be that sure."
We rode back to the barn as we were talking. Mike was watching me. "Go in the house, Jake. I'm going out to catch the mare that ran off and left Ramon afoot."
"No, I need to look over my horse first. She took a beating out there. I need to see if anything is bruised or sprained. Then I need to rub her down. If you don't mind, and if you have another horse, I'll ride with you and help you catch the mare." I was already out of the saddle and pulling it off the mare as I talked.
Mike dismounted and walked over to help me look the mare over. "I don't have another horse handy. They are out in the pasture. We have the only two that are up right now."
"What about Tom? He's in the corral." As I ran my hands over the little mare, I didn't find anything wrong. She was beat up some but only a little worse for the wear and tear I put on her catching that bull.
Mike backed up and was studying me. "Miss McDonald, you manage to get a bridle and saddle on that black horse in the next thirty minutes and he's yours."
I laughed as I lead the little mare into a stall. "I'm not going to take you up on your offer Mike. It was a dumb offer since you don't know me and obviously don't know your horse. He's not THAT bad."
Picking up the saddle, bridle, and blanket, I headed for the corral where Tom was. Tom ran over to the far side of the corral when he saw me coming with my arms full. Mike might have been safe in making his offer. I was going to see.
Mike let me in the gate and I dropped everything on the ground. I pulled the lariat off the saddle. Tom stood there until I swung it over my head and then he ran. I dropped the loop over his head. As he ran around the inside of the corral I walked around that snubbing post. Tom quit running after a few trips around the corral. He was an intelligent horse. He knew I was going to let him run as long as he wanted.
Slowly I walked up to him while talking to him in a monotone. "Hey, I have a horse to go catch. Since you have been doing nothing but resting up and getting fat for the past few weeks, I thought you might like the chance to go run some of it off. So how about it? You game? I'm going to need a little co-operation though. I'm not ridding bareback. You're going to have to let me drop on a bridle and saddle."
He let me ease up to him as I quietly droned on and on. Finally I was scratching around his ears and his chest. It didn't take him more than a few minutes to decide he liked that part of it. I rolled the rope into a half hitch and slipped it over his nose making a temporary bridle. Leading him back over to where I had dropped the gear I slowly slipped the bridle on him as I talked in a steady quiet voice. The blanket and saddle were next. Mike started to climb into the corral to help and I motioned for him to stay away. Tom was willing to accept me. He certainly wasn't going to accept the man who had been pulling him into the snubbing post the past few weeks.
With the saddle cinched up I put some weight on the stirrup. Tom sidled away. I was constantly talking as I scratched him some more. Again I put some weight on the stirrup. Tom had his head turned watching me.
Putting my left foot in the stirrup I grabbed the saddle horn. "It's okay Tom. I'm not that heavy. You won't mind. Let's go for that walk okay? You're going to love getting out of the corral for a little while. It's going to be some nice exercise."
I was trying to keep him interested in my voice as I droned on. I was up in the saddle. Tom took a couple of small hops as he jumped stiff legged. He wasn't really trying to buck me off. It was a reflex reaction on his part. I leaned forward and scratched around his neck. It's okay Tom, I'm not hurting you. Let's go for that walk."
Mike opened the gate. He was shaking his head as he walked back toward the barn to get his horse. "I don't believe it. I just don't believe it."
Tom reminded me a lot of Gunshy except Tom was a taller horse. I bet he was over sixteen hands high. Tom was built more for running than sprinting. Gunshy would beat him out of the chute every single time. In a mile race, I was sure Tom would outrun Gunshy. On the farm or ranch, Gunshy would be the more useful of the two. Very seldom do cowboys need a horse who can run any long distance. The days of the pony express, and out running the Indians were over.
Mike and I rode out to the west pasture. The reins were broke where Ramon had his horse tied to the post. The leather had got old and the horse was determined to leave without her rider.
Mike reined in his mount and looked around. There wasn't a horse in sight. "I'll go to the right, you follow on down the fence line. If we don't find her in a couple hours head back to the house. She could be halfway to Mexico by now."
Scratching Tom around the shoulders and neck so he wouldn't mind the load he was carrying, I nodded. "I'll meet you back at the house."
It was a little over an hour later when I heard something coming toward us crashing through the trees and brush. Tom was bouncing as he stepped nervously about. I tried to hold him still while I listened. What kind of large animals did they have in this part of the world? I wished I had paid more attention during my geography and history lessons.
"RUN YOU DEVIL!" Drifted through the woods.
I recognized Mike's voice as the threshing closed in on us. A brown animal crashed through the brush headed straight for us. As Tom bolted, he almost threw me off. I let him have his head as he ran. The brown ghost veered away from us. I recognized a horse with a saddle but no bridle. I steered Tom over to my right after the disappearing mare. Looking over my shoulder Mike came into view. He was stretched out, lying flat along his mare's neck so as not to be swept off by the brush and trees. He had his mare at a dead run, hot on the heels of the brown mare.
I turned Tom so we were now chasing Mike. I was hoping there weren't any canyons or gorges out here. We were all dead if there were. That brown horse would go over and we would follow suit before we knew what happened. We broke out of the trees. Mike was about fifty yards behind the brown horse. Tom and I were about thirty yards behind Mike. Underneath me I could feel Tom stretch out. He decided this was fun. It looked like Mike had reigned into a trot we were gaining on him so fast.
Mike looked up in astonishment as we swept past him. He could have been stopped the way we went by. Tom's muscles were rippling as he settled into a distance eating gallop. There was no doubt left in my mind Tom could outrun most everything on this earth. I was lying flat on Tom's back and not urging him to run. He was doing it because he wanted to. It was in his heart and soul. This was what Tom had been born for. His breath was coming in rhythm with his strides. He had a free heart and soul. Tom ran because he loved it.
In my mind I renamed him Pegasus. We were quickly closing the distance on the brown horse. I loosened my lariat, spread a loop, and dropped it down by my leg. Ten feet back behind the brown horse I brought the loop up over my head to throw. Tom bolted to his left away from the lariat when I swung it up over his head. It caught me off guard. I grabbed the pommel with my left hand as I fell to the right side of the saddle. I was barely hanging on as Tom keep circling to his left away from me. Only by the slimmest of margins did I manage to hang onto the saddle. Finally I managed to pull myself back up into the saddle. My lariat was dragging along behind us. I coiled it back up as I searched for the other horse. She had veered off to our right when we went left. Mike had kept her from circling back to the woods.
I turned Tom after the other two horses and again he settled down into his distance eating gallop. Mike was watching over his shoulder. This time we didn't surprise him as we passed by. His little mare was breathing hard and she was lathered. She wasn't going to last much longer. Again I gathered up my lariat as we closed in on the brown horse. I was ready for Tom as I swung the lariat up over my head. When he tried to veer to the left I pulled him right. He broke his stride and bounced along stiff legged. I urged him after the other horse. He picked up his stride and closed the gap. I brought my rope up. He worked his way left but didn't break stride.
I'm right handed so it's easier to throw in front or toward the left. Throwing out to my right is awkward. I was still swinging my loop when I urged Tom toward his right. He wouldn't have anything to do with it as long as I was swinging that loop over his head. I coiled my lariat back up and worked him over to the right of the brown horse. Looking over my shoulder, Mike wasn't even keeping up any more. His horse was winded. She had done all she was going to do. I brought my lariat up and Tom shied over to the left of the brown horse. I threw and missed. Again I got Tom over to the right so I could throw straight or over to my left.
We had run another quarter mile when I worked Tom into the position I wanted. I brought my loop up and threw before Tom had a chance to get too far to the left of the brown horse. I had her. I pulled back trying to rein Tom in. He wanted to run. Reluctantly he slowed down.
We were waiting as Mike walked his horse up where we had stopped. He was shaking his head as a smile spread from ear to ear. "Miss McDonald, I can see why they gave you the title of All Around Cowboy. You don't give up do you?"
I was rubbing Tom's neck. He was hot but he wasn't tired. "It wasn't me. Tom is the one who never gave up. He has as much spirit as I've ever seen in a horse. We could run back to where we started and come back again and he wouldn't be ready to quit."
We were headed back toward the ranch house with the brown horse meekly in tow behind Tom. "Why don't you give Tom a real name."
Mike was waiting as he looked us over.
"He has wings on his feet. He loves to run more than anything in the whole world."
"You want me to name him Mercury?" Mike looked kind of funny at us.
"Well, not exactly. I think his name is Pegasus like the winged horse." I was watching to see how Mike would take a relative stranger asking him to rename his horse.
Mike nodded his head. "I'll give it some thought Jake. We'll see."
Back at the barn we put the horses up after taking the gear off them. Mike was glad to have his saddle off that brown horse rather than losing both horse and saddle. It would have been expensive loss losing one or the other, much less both at the same time.
I led Tom into a stall and dropped his saddle and blanket. I was brushing him down when Mike walked by the stall. "Mike, where do you keep your grain?"
His head popped into the stall as he leaned around the gate. "Why?"
"Tom needs a reward for what he did. He needs to know when he does good, he gets rewarded for it."
"I'll bring some hay." Mike's head disappeared.
I stepped into the breezeway. "Mike, I'm not telling you how to run your ranch but I sure would like some grain to go along with that hay."
Mike was ten feet away when he stopped and turned around. He looked at me for a long time before he nodded his head. "How much?"
"A double handful would be about right. I need some for the mares too. I'm not going to reward that dumb horse we had to chase down." I was waiting to see if I had asked for too much.
Slowly a smile spread across from ear to ear. "Your reward is sure costing me. Grain isn't that easy to come by out here."
He held up his hand before I could say anything. "You're right. They are worth it. I wouldn't have wanted to run Ramon's horse down on foot. I'll get your grain. You can give it to them so they will know whom to thank for it. All Around Cowboy."
Mike gave up and went into the house before I had finished brushing Tom and talking to him. I wasn't good friends with Tom but I was a friend. He had decided he liked the attention I was giving him. I made sure I didn't make any sudden moves or get close to his back feet. There is a difference between friendship and trust. Tom would accept me as a friend. He would learn to trust me if I had a couple months to work with him.
As I waited on my ride out of Brazil I worked with Tom. I was in his stall before sunup every day. The first day I washed him down and brushed his coat before breakfast. Tom was warming up to the attention I was giving him. What I was doing to Tom was a big change from being corralled, pulled into a snubbing post, and having a bridle and saddle thrown on him.
Mike called me into breakfast as the sun was breaking the horizon. I checked on Albert after I walked into the house and washed up. He was looking pretty good for someone who had a bullet pass through his shoulder. "How you feeling Albert?"
He smiled and laugh lines appeared around his eyes. "Mike told me you rode Tom yesterday."
"He's a beautiful horse. He sure does like to run." I leaned over to inspect Albert's bandage. I lifted the corner to check for infection. It looked nice and red without any yellow puss forming or red streaks leading from it.
"Am I going to live, doctor?" He was looking down at the bandage.
"I don't know. Lean forward and let me look at the one on your back." As he leaned forward I lifted the corner and looked at the one on the back of his shoulder.
"A little infection there Albert. You need another shot of Mike's elixir and the scab pulled off. It has an infection under it." I laid the bandage back down so Albert could settle back in bed.
"Is it going to hurt?" He looked at me waiting for an answer.
"Of course it's going to hurt. What would make you think it wouldn't?" I needed to find Mike. The sooner we did this the better it would be for Albert. Bacteria multiply at a prodigious rate.
I yelled down the hall. "Mike, bring your antibiotic and some fresh sterile bandages."
Mike showed up with a handful of medicine and bandages in seconds. "What's the problem?"
"Albert is picking up an infection on his shoulder where he's laying on it and not letting air get to it. Give him a shot of combiotic. We will irrigate the wound after we open it up again." I took the bandages out of Mike's hand.
"Roll over Albert. The shot needs to go in the hip so it will stay in the muscle tissue and dissipate over time."
"Mike, ten cc's in Albert's hip with that stuff. If we don't kill him giving him this animal antibiotic then he will live to be as strong as an ox." I was easing Albert over on his side for the shot.
Mike stepped up after putting the combiotic in the syringe. He leaned down to shoot Albert in the hip. I stopped him before the needle went in. "Swab it with alcohol first. We don't want to drop more germs in him then he has already."
Mike handed the syringe to me. "You do it then."
I swabbed Albert's hip, slapped it with my fingertips, and stuck him. I put a piece of tape on the prick. "Over on your stomach Albert."
Obediently he rolled over on his stomach. I poured some water on the gauze he had on the shoulder wound to loosen it up from the scab. That way it didn't pull nearly as bad as I teased it off.
I was pointing out the yellow spots to Mike. "This is the infection. If it's red it's his body fighting the infection. Yellow means it has bad bacteria in it. Think in terms of yellow puss. Usually it wouldn't mean a whole lot but with this wound all the way through his shoulder it has a door straight into his body."
Mike was looking as I pulled off pieces of scab. "You learn all this on the farm did you, Jake?"
"Mostly. I learned a lot on the rodeo circuit too. Cowboys are usually broken up or chewed up. They normally don't come in one piece or whole. I wouldn't do ninety percent of the things they do. Most of them are in debt up to their eyeballs hoping the next ride will get them into the money. It's like gambling or anything else. It's a disease of the mind. Only a few make enough money to pay expenses. The others keep looking at the big winners and believing they are going to be the next one to hit the jackpot."
I had the wound opened up again. "Give me some of that combiotic, Mike. I'll wash this down with the antibiotic and cover it with a clean dressing."
I knew I had to be hurting Albert as I worked on his wound. Since he wasn't saying anything I didn't realize how much until I was finished and told him he could roll back over. His whole face was covered in beads of sweat. I wasn't surprised. "Why didn't you say something?"
Pain was in his eyes as he licked his lips. "Wasn't bad."
I remembered Mike telling me how he and Albert were trained to kill. Could you also train someone to accept pain or was that what made a killer so special? They accepted pain and kept going? I didn't ask. "It should go ahead and heal alright. That antibiotic will keep it from picking up a second infection. It will scab over before the bacteria can build up again. We won't have to do this a second time."
"Thanks McDonald. I ever need a doctor or nurse again, you'll be at the top of the list." He managed a smile.
"Stay out of the way of bullets and you won't be needing one." I sponged off his forehead with a cool wet washcloth.
Chapter XIV
Branding is Still Done on Most Ranches
After we finished breakfast, all the other hands left. I was helping Consuelo pick up the dishes. Mike was still at the table sipping his coffee. "Jake, we're going to brand some cows this morning. Do you want to help? They are in the north range. I was thinking we would drive them down to the corral so we could run them through the chute. However, after seeing that fancy roping you did the other day on that old bull, I got to thinking you might show us how it's done? We could brand those cows right where they are at."
"Cold or hot?" I put the dishes in the sink and turned around to look at Mike.
"What? Cold or hot what?" Mike blinked a couple times.
"Cold or hot brand? The answer is, I'd love to help. I want to know if you brand them with a cold iron or hot iron?"
"Oh! Well, Jake, think of where you're at." He was grinning at me.
"Hot iron I imagine. Be kind of hard to get liquid nitrogen to chill your branding iron in this part of the world, wouldn't it? I guess it was a dumb question." I picked up a dishtowel to help dry the dishes as Quenswalla washed them.
Mike rose out of his chair. "No, not a dumb question. But a hot iron is more practical in my part of the world. You still game? If you are, come on. Let's get it done."
He said something to Consuelo I didn't understand. She took my dishtowel and shooed me away. I was guessing he told her I was going to help brand cows. I followed Mike out to the barn. Picking up the saddle I had yesterday, I opened up the stall to the little mare I had used when I roped the bull.
Mike stopped me. "Try Tom. You and him seem to get along pretty good together."
Shutting the door to the mare's stall I backed up to look at Mike. "Tom is skittish around a rope. It is going to take him a little while to understand it's not him I'm roping. He also lacks training as a cutting horse. He's not going to know what to do once I get that cow or whatever roped. It will take longer if I use Tom rather than the mare."
"He's not going to learn unless someone teaches him. Do you mind?" Mike was watching my eyes, waiting for an answer.
"No, I don't mind if you don't. Just don't expect instant results out there today. Tom needs a lot of hands on training and a lot of love." I moved back over to Tom's stall and opened the door. He was eying me expecting some petting and feed. That would have to come later after we did our work, not now.
It took us almost two hours of ridding to get out to where Mike's hands were rounding up cows. They had obviously left horses and gear out here the day before and drove out in the truck after breakfast this morning. I shook out my lariat. Tom danced sideways away from the rope. I swung the loop up over my head as I held Tom from bolting. He bounced stiff legged as he ducked the rope. He was wanting to run. Today wasn't a run day unless one of those calves fled before we could get a brand on him. After about ten minutes Tom finally settled down. I dropped my lariat and brought it back up over my head again. Tom bounced but he didn't try and run. We went through the motions several times before Tom would tolerate me swinging that lariat over his head. We were as ready as we would ever be on this particular day. I was wishing I had more time to get Tom ready before we started with live calves.
Looking around for Mike I found him over on the other side of the herd. "Let's give it a try."
Mike whipped out his lariat and missed his calf. Ramone had his lariat up and caught a different one. The calf was bawling his head off as he was pulled from the herd. As the calf was pulled up by the fire one of the other hands picked up a hot iron. I had my rope out and caught the calf's hind legs before Tom had a chance to think about it. I pulled back on the reins trying to get Tom to back up. He didn't understand. The only reason the calf went down was because Ramone pulled him away from us and our rope tightened up. The calf was branded and inoculated at the same time. They slipped Ramone's rope off his head. I loosened up my rope and the calf jumped up and ran, kicking his hind legs free of the rope.
We worked hard all morning and most of the afternoon. It was getting close to sundown and Tom was getting the idea of how it was supposed to happen on a working ranch. He didn't jump every time I threw the rope and he would back up when I pulled back on the reins. Ramone and the four other gauchos took a try at roping the back legs but they didn't catch any. I was expecting it most of the day and finally it happened. A couple dozen cows and calves bolted from the herd. Mike's hands quickly closed in on where cows were starting to stream out following the leader.
"Mike!" I touched Tom with my heels as I shouted for help from Mike.
Mike had just bent over to place an iron back in the fire. He looked up and waved me on. As he ran for his horse. "I'll be there. Cut them off before they get to the canyons."
Tom didn't need any urging to run. He had been waiting to do this most of the day. In less than fifty feet he had stretched out and settled into the distance eating gait he had. I felt goose bumps run down my spine as the raw energy he possessed could be physically felt. Those cows could have been running backwards, we gained on them so quickly. As we caught up with the leader it was almost impossible to get Tom slowed down enough to match speed with her. He was wanting to run and that cow wasn't running fast enough to suit him. As I edged Tom over toward the cow she shied away to her left. The rest of the break away stock followed the leader. We kept circling until we were headed back toward the rest of the herd. If they kept going they would run right back into the herd and stop or else the whole bunch would bolt. I didn't like the option so I kept them turning. We would keep circling until they ran out of steam or they decided being with the rest of the herd wasn't that bad of an idea.
Mike caught up with us, and I shouted at him. "Keep them turning. I have an idea."
Mike moved in where Tom and I had been as I pulled Tom out away from the herd. Then I pointed him back toward the middle of the pack. Tom ran through them, scattering the ones who were following behind. They stopped when they no longer had a leader to blindly follow. We cut those that were still running in half again. They too decided they weren't wanting to run any more. Finally it was down to the leader and three others behind her. I dropped my lariat down beside my leg.
"Tom, you run sideways on me and I promise to have you skinned before the night is up." Of course I really wouldn't, and I don't believe Tom could understand what I said. The funny part is, when I got into position over to the right of the cow where I could throw? When I brought my loop up over my head? Tom didn't dance away nor did he do any of his stiff legged running like he tried before. We had the leader and I pulled back on the reins expecting Tom to resist. He didn't. He plowed to a stop and I nearly went out over his head as he planted his feet in the ground. Either he understood a lot more than I gave him credit for or it was a fluke. I don't think it was a fluke. That cow came to the end of her rope and Tom was already stopped. I expected Tom to be dragged forward as both animals gave a little. Tom wasn't in the giving mood. He squatted on his haunches and dug in. It darn near yanked the saddle off Tom as that cow was stopped short. She did a flip and landed on her side. The other cows behind her stopped as they no longer had a leader to follow. I was wondering if we had killed Mike’s cow? She laid there not moving. I eased Tom forward, the rope slacked off on the cow and still she didn't move. I was positive we had broke her neck.
Mike rode up beside us. "Mike, I think I killed your cow."
He looked down at the cow and then back over at me. "Well, I guess we will have to butcher her tonight before we go to bed then."
I slid out of the saddle to remove my rope off her. When I pulled my rope off her neck she staggered to her feet.
"Jake, it looks like you're not going to get that fresh steak after all." Mike was laughing as the cow staggered off toward the herd. She had enough of freedom. She didn't want any more of that.
"Boy am I glad. I was sure I had killed her. I didn't expect Tom to be so stubborn about giving a little as I pulled him in." I reached up and scratched Tom around the ears. He wasn't even hot after that little exercise. Eighty percent of the horses would have been breathing hard. Tom wasn't. To him it was a little stroll. He was such a magnificent animal. I had never met another horse like him. Even those thoroughbred racehorses at Valley Downs Farms couldn't compare to Tom. I didn't think any of them could out run him and I knew none of them could out last him.
"Jake, let's drive the stragglers back and finish up the branding if you're not getting tired of doing all the work around here?" Mike was ready to get this over with and go back to the house.
Tom let me get back into the saddle without stepping away from me. We had become friends. "I'm not doing anything. Roping their back legs isn't work. You and your hands are doing all the hard stuff."
Mike was grinning from ear to ear. "Okay, so why is it none of us can catch those back feet? It sure isn't from trying. I've never seen anyone control a rope like you do Miss McDonald. It's as if that rope was a part of you. Jesus, Ramone, and Andie are better than most with a rope. Yet, I notice when you throw it's a ballet in motion. I think throw is the wrong word here because that is what the rest of us do. We throw a rope. You pass a rope."
"Thanks for the compliment Mike. I'm not that good. I'm just lucky most of the time." Tom turned out where the rest of the stragglers were still trying to make up their mind if they wanted back in the herd or not.
Mike rode up beside us. "Don't shortchange yourself Jake. You aren't lucky and you know it. You're gifted. When you get a rope in your hands, you become a whole different person. I see it and so have the others. They have been talking about you all day. Every time you bring your rope up they want to watch. Your wrist action, the position you take in the saddle, the ease with which you lay that loop out is fascinating to all of us. I believe every one of us has missed a dozen or more times today. All except one, she hasn't missed a single throw."
I was ready to change the subject. Mike was embarrassing me. "How many we have left to brand and vaccinate?"
"Nine hard ones. They won't move away from their mothers so it's making it twice as hard and twice as slow."
"I need two ropes."
Mike looked at me kind of funny before he handed me his.
It wasn't hard to pick put the calves who didn't have a brand on their hip yet. Mike was right about them hugging the sides of their mothers. I swung out a loop and let Tom charge the first pair. When the mother turned to run the calf was a split second late doing the same. I had him before he could close in on his mother's side again. We dragged him crying and bawling from the herd. "Ramone, drop a loop on his head."
As soon as Ramone had his rope over the calf's head, I dropped my lariat and uncoiled the second rope. A light toss and I had the back legs. The calf was branded and inoculated before he knew what was happening.
Jesus slipped the ropes off the calf and handed me the spare rope again. Everyone had the idea of how we were going to finish up this branding.
It was late when we got back to the barn that night. I took my time with Tom even though I was dog tired. I could imagine how Tom must have felt, his first time out as a working ranch horse. He deserved and received a double handful of grain along with a block of hay. Talking to him all the time I was brushing him down, I was careful about those back feet of his. Tom was tired, I was tired and it was a good way to get hurt.
Back in the house, I was too exhausted to care about eating. A quick bath to get rid of the dirt and grim and I was asleep as my body fell in bed.
I thought I was an early riser. Forget that nonsense. I heard men talking and the clatter of dishes before I managed to get my eyes open the next morning. Looking at my watch told me it was twenty eight minutes after four. Didn't those ranch hands ever sleep? Rolling out of bed, I managed to find my clothes and get dressed before I stumbled into the kitchen half asleep. Most of the hands were finishing breakfast, Ramon and Miguel were headed out the door as I walked into the kitchen. They stopped, Ramon said something and smiled before letting the door shut behind him.
Consuelo dropped a plate down on the table loaded with scrambled eggs and toast before I found my chair. The chair was warm. The other Ramone must have just left it. Mike was watching as the other hands left.
"Jake, what's your plans for today?" Mike leaned back in his chair as he took a sip of coffee.
"I guess I'll help Consuelo with the housework first, check on Albert, and then see what I can do to help the men." Those eggs Consuelo had set in front of me were delicious. Missing supper last night brought my appetite into sharp focus.
Mike set his coffee down on the table. "I could use that arm of yours out on the south end this morning. I have some stock I need to get up out of the hills. The hands are busy fixing fence over by the arrow where some of the stock ran through it a couple days ago.”
“Sure, I’d like that. Let me check on Albert before we leave.”
Chapter XV
She Talks to Her Horse
Tom was easy to get out of his stall. He wanted outside. I kept a steady conversation going with him as I put a bridle and saddle on him. I also made sure to keep my hands rubbing or scratching his ‘gotta love it’ areas. If they accept you, horses love to have the areas around their ears scratched. They like scratching under their chest and along their neck in front of their shoulders. Of course an all over brushing would have to wait until we returned. If we became good friends I would put my hands under his jaws, lay my head up against his forehead and talk to him. All of these things Tom would respond to, in his own way, letting me know how our friendship was growing.
Mike had his mare bridled and saddled before I even begin. Then he watched and waited as I worked with Tom getting him ready. When we rode out Mike was looking me over and shaking his head. “Jake, I’ve worked with that horse for over a month and he still fights me. In three days you have accomplished a working relationship with him.”
Leaning forward up along his neck I scratched him. “I told him if he will work with me then I will reward him.”
“You what!!”
“Not in so many words but in language we both understand. Like most animals, Tom’s language is touch. He responds to what he likes or doesn’t like. I’m not trying to be his master. I want to be his friend. I don’t want Tom to work for me but to work with me. Like people who speak a different language, Tom and I have a problem communicating until he and I understand the body language signals. With people it would be sign language. With animals it is the same thing but only in body language. It is give and take on both sides. I’m not going to demand anything from him. He is beginning to realize that.”
Nodding toward the mare Mike was riding I shook my head. “Your horse is submissive. She has accepted humans are going to want something from her and she is willing to go along. If you happen to get knocked off out in the great open she will head for the barn and her food, happy you are no longer on her back. She owes no one her friendship or her allegiance.”
“I’m not sure at this point what Tom would do if I fell off. He isn’t sure himself. He likes me but it is a budding friendship. Like humans who work together over time, Tom would be there for me if something happened.”
Looking at Mike I winked at him. “Treat them like your friend instead of like slaves and they will return the affection the same way. Not all of them but many will. Like people you just have to understand which ones are willing to work with us.”
I had never been on a ranch big enough to not head home for food or water when one wanted. Mike’s ranch was huge. It turned into a long day without lunch since we didn’t bring any with us. We rode up mountains and down canyons counting bulls, calves, cows, and even dead carcasses where only a few bones were left. It was after dark when we got back and Mike told me we hadn’t even covered half of it.
He took his gear off his mare, led her into a stall, and gave her hay and water. He was headed for the house. “I’ll tell Consuelo to set out a couple plates. Wash up as soon as you get Tom settled.”
“I’ll be awhile. I’m going to brush Tom down as I tell him how much I appreciated his help today.” I headed for the granary to get him some grain along with his hay and water.
Mike stopped, turned to look at Katrina, shook his head, and then headed to the house muttering to himself. “She’s going to talk to him?”
It was late by the time I had fed and brushed Tom, checked on Albert, ate, bathed, and found a bed.
================================================
“You willing to do it again?” Mike was looking at me across from the breakfast table.
“Sure, but this time we take food and water.” I was moping up the last of my eggs with my toast.
He nodded. “Consuelo, pack us lunch while we get the horses ready. I told Carlos to leave a couple fresh mounts in the coral. My mare was ready to drop by she got back to the barn.”
“So I noticed. I’ll stick with Tom. He thought it was great exercise.” I gathered up my dishes to put in the sink.
Mike was almost out the door when he stopped. “Tom thought it was great exercise? You’re pulling my leg.”
I was behind Mike pushing him out the door. “No, really. Ask him if you don’t believe me.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “If Tom slips on his saddle an offers you a leg up, then I’ll believe you.”
Laughing, I shook my head. “That’s asking a little too much. However if I turn Tom lose and hold up the bridle ‘and’ if he comes to me then will you believe me?”
Mike nodded in agreement. “Then I’ll believe you.”
I led Tom from the barn out to the coral and turned him lose before I headed back to the barn to get his bridle. With the bridle in hand I was standing inside the gate and was holding it up. “Tom, you want to go out and check on the cows again? Come if you do.” I was wondering if I had asked Tom too quickly about being friends?
Mike along with Consuelo, and all the ranch hands who hadn’t already left were standing on the porch of the house watching. Mike told them what I was going to do. So far nothing was happening besides Tom and me standing there looking at one another while I tried to coax him in. It looked like I had pushed a little too hard for Tom’s acceptance.
Minutes later some of the ranch hands were starting to leave, Consuelo opened the door to walk back into the house, Tom walked up to me. Everyone froze as they watched. Tom sniffed my hair, my shirt, and my hands before he bumped me with his nose.
“damn” carried softly across the yard as Mike and all the others watched in disbelief. “She and that horse really do talk to each other. Most unbelievable thing I’ve ever seen. Albert, you seeing this?”
“Yeah, I don’t believe it either.” Came from the window on the east side of the house.
Of course I was smiling from ear to ear as I scratched Tom around the ears and under his jaw before I slipped the bridle on him. “I love you, you great big handsome devil you. Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are? Well you are. Ask me. I‘m a great judge of beautiful horses and you’re a beauty.”
I was leading him out of the coral to get the saddle still in the barn. “Another day, chasing cows. I guess that’s why we are called cowboys…, Well, me anyway. And I wouldn’t shame you by calling you a cow pony. No Sir Mister, you’re a thoroughbred, a leader and a champion in every respect.”
The horses, Mike, and me worked harder that day than we did the day before. It was rough for both rider and horses, as we climbed hills and gullies. We counted calves, cows, heifers, and bulls marking all down on a pad with a pencil. Mike told me electronic gizmos such as calculators required batteries which didn’t come easily in his part of the world.
It was way after dark when we finally returned to the house. Mike stayed with me in the barn as he rubbed down his mount, giving her grain, and extra feed while I did the same for Tom.
“You’re a good influence Jake.” He was walking beside me toward the house. “I only put them up with feed and water after ridding all day. I’d swear she appreciated the grain I gave her.”
“She did, and so did Tom. When we ask a lot from them and give back extra they do appreciate it. Treat them like you would a human friend. Reward them when you asked for them to go the extra mile with you.”
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Mike was looking at me from across the breakfast table. “Jake, next week the ship will be in place to pick you up. Tom and me are going to be back to square one. Tell me how to make him behave so I can ride him.”
Shaking my head I looked at my plate before turning my attention back to Mike. “You haven’t been listening. You don’t make Tom do anything. You ask him. He isn’t a submissive horse like most horses are.”
“Okay, then how do I ask him?”
“It’s going to be difficult for both of you because you mistreated him from the beginning. You tossed a rope on him and then pulled him into that snubbing post before putting a bridle and saddle on him. He doesn’t like you.”
Mike stared at me with his mouth open. “He doesn’t like me? He’s a horse. I don’t need him to like me.”
“Yes you do if you and him are going to get along together.”
“Jake, I won’t have a horse that can’t be rode.”
“I’m not telling you how to run your ranch but you need to take the time to become his friend if you want him to work with you. You and that damn horse are a couple of stubborn knot heads too full of self righteous pride. It makes you better than most but also is your biggest weakness when neither of you will bend. Give up some of that foolish pride of yours and accept Tom for what he is. When you do, he will give some too.”
“And how old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“I’m being lectured to by a teenager. I can’t believe my life has come to this.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. I’m thankful for everything…,”
“Don’t apologize Miss McDonald. When you’re right and you know it, you don’t apologize because the other person didn’t like the message.” A smile spread across his face. “So…, how do I become friends with Tom?”
Tom and I were in the yard as I scratched his gotta love it spots. I had a halter on him instead of a bridle. He needed to be as free as possible and standing on neutral ground. The coral carried memories with Mike involved. Mike had been waiting by the house as I brought Tom out of the barn.
As I talked to Tom, I motioned to Mike. “Slowly come up and stand in front of him. Don’t touch him. Let him smell you and understand you aren’t tossing a rope on him this time. When he understands you are there and aren’t going to mistreat him, then you can pet him.
The morning was spent with both of us talking to and working with Tom. I counted it a success when Tom let Mike lead him by the halter without trying to break away. I think Mike stayed with it past lunch just so when the men retuned for dinner they would see him and Tom together.
As Mike led Tom back to the stall in the barn I walked along with them staying close to Tom’s head so he would know I was there. As we headed back to the house, Mike nodded and smiled. “Now we’re friends.”
“No, he acknowledged you today. When you walk up to someone and shake hands it doesn’t make them your friend. Mike, think of them as people instead of animals bending to your will. Friendship develops over time. You have a lot of bad times to overcome before he accepts you as a friend.”
He stopped and stared at me. “You and him that first day…”
I shook my head. “We were learning to accept one another, we weren’t friends. I’m still not his friend. That takes time. I’m one he accepts.”
“The other day out in the coral when he came to you?”
“I’m the one who has let him out of that coral. Probably the first time in weeks. People, Mike, think of in terms of people. Some are stupid, some are intelligent. If he wanted out of the coral then I was the ticket to his desires.”
He looked off into the distance before looking at me again. “And how did you become so astute in horse logic?”
“I grew up on a farm with lots of animals. Cows, horses, dogs, cats, all have a mind and each one is an individual just like us. I’m not that smart myself. I let them tell me what they like or don’t like. I try and understand what they want from me when I ask something from them.”
He nodded as he motioned toward the house. “How long will it take for Tom and me to become friends?”
“Months, maybe years. You mistreated him. That is going to take a lot of tinder care from you and lot of time from him to forgive.”
“Miss, McDonald…,”
“Don’t tell me you can’t spare the time. Friendship be it two legged or four legged is worth working for.”
We stepped up on the porch and he opened the door. “Are we friends?”
I stopped and looked into his eyes. “My life is in your hands. Are we?”
Mike laughed. “When the bombs start dropping and two people dive into the same foxhole, even if you never met, I promise you’re instant buds and best friends. Jake, we’re friends. I wish you were thirty years older or I was thirty years younger. You’re a woman I could give my heart to. But then you already stole it, along with Albert’s, and every man on this ranch. It isn’t only the animals you have seduced, Miss McDonald.
Blushing from the top of my head to the bottoms of my feet, I shook my head as I waked into the house.
Chapter XVI
RUN JAKE RUN!
The next morning I was in the yard working with Tom when Mike came running out of the house shouting something to the men. Two of them headed for the house. The others headed for the barn. “Jake put up Tom. Trouble is headed our way.”
Leading Tom toward the barn, we met the men rolling the helicopter out. “What’s going on?”
Mike was headed my way carrying a pint bottle of some dark liquid. "Change of plans Jake. It seems the government got wind of the drop off to the ship. They are headed this direction now. We need to get you out of here."
He handed me the bottle. "Go run a tub full of water, pour that in it, and climb in. Make sure you get every square inch of you wet but don't get it in your eyes. It won't blind you but it will burn like hell."
Holding the bottle out in front of me I tried to imagine why I wanted this dark stuff in my bath water. "What is it?"
"Tannic Acid. Same thing green walnuts has in the husk. It's going to change you into a chicharro” ." A smile crossed Mike's face.
"What is a chicharro?" I was trying to fathom what it was going to do to me. I knew all about getting hold of green walnuts. I had never bathed in the stuff before but I had handled it.
"Go, we don't have that much time. The military will be here in about an hour and I want to be long gone before then. Quinswala will tell them all the hands are out chasing cows." He turned and was gone back out the door.
I headed for the bathtub. I already knew what I was going to look like when I stepped out of that tub after splashing around in his stuff. Quinswala caught me right after I got out of the tub. She led me into the kitchen and rinsed my hair. When she was through I put on the clothes she handed me. I was looking at a stranger in the mirror in the hall. I didn't know the black headed, brown skinned, boy in the mirror. Now I knew what a chicharro was.
Mike was back and he was holding the front door open. "Let's go. They are less then ten minutes out."
Quinswala handed me a bag with my clothes in it. I bolted for the front door behind Mike. "What about Albert?"
Mike was climbing up in the chopper. "He's gone already. The men took Albert up in the mountains. He'll be okay. Get your butt up in here Jake or I'm gonna leave you behind."
The engine on the helicopter was already turning over as I climbed aboard. "Where we headed?"
"You're headed to Chili and I'm going to go have a talk with a man." Mike was yelling over the roar of the engine as the blades begin turning.
"What about fuel? I thought we were empty when we came in and I didn't see any gas pumps around here." I was searching for the fuel gage on the dash as I shouted back at him.
"Filled it up after we parked it in the barn. I don't let everyone know I have fuel or a chopper on this place. Buckle in Jake." He glanced around and the helicopter jumped off the ground. He stayed low, only a couple feet off the ground as we sped off to the north.
I turned around and looked over my shoulder at the ranch we just left behind. One of the men was driving a herd of cows across the front yard and through one end of the barn and out the other. I wondered what he was doing? It finally dawned on me. He was erasing all tracks. No footprints, no skid marks from the helicopter, no nothing was left to be inspected. Mike was thorough if nothing else. Several miles out from the ranch Mike started gaining altitude as we started closing in on forest and mountains.
We had been flying for about two hours when I spotted another ranch ahead of us. Mike was dropping down so I figured that was our destination. He was talking as he started to circle the buildings. "Jake, from now on you are mute. I don't want to hear a single word escape from your mouth. Jesus is a friend but I trust him just so far. He is going to fly you on the next leg. Don't talk to him. If he asks you a question nod and smile and shake your head. Do you understand?"
I nodded, smiled, and shook my head.
He laughed. "You're really quick Jake. Remember to do exactly like that from now on. Jesus knows you are a boy on an errand for me and nothing else. He is going to get you to Lana's Place in Chili. That is all he needs to know."
Just before he set the helicopter down, Mike picked up the sack with my clothes. He slid them under his legs. He dropped a small satchel in my lap. "This is what you are delivering. Keep it with you and don't lose it. Jake, about your clothes? They are a dead give away. We don't get many cowboys down this part of the world. I'll make sure they get where you're going. You can't be caught carrying them or you will be recognized. From here on, you let me take care of the satchel of clothes.
I couldn't believe it. "My passport, my billfold, everything I own is in there. How am I going to get out of the country and back home?"
"All your identification is exactly why you can't carry it with you. Getting out of the country isn't any problem. All your belongings will be there when you need them again."
"Mike, how do I ever repay you?" I had no idea how to repay this debt I owed.
Shaking his head, Mike shushed me. "Mute, remember. You can't talk. Watch your back Jake. One other thing. Your name is Pepe Sanchez from now on."
He shut the engine down after the helicopter was on the ground. A tall thin man came out of one of the buildings and waited. Mike motioned me out of the helicopter as he slid out. He shoved a canvas bag in my direction. Mike walked over to the man and began talking to him. I didn't understand what they were saying and couldn't follow the conversation. I waited beside the helicopter wondering how an errand boy was supposed to act? Not too bold, a little bashful maybe, even a little timid? I didn't know but I was going to give it my best shot. I hid Jake way down deep inside me along with Katrina. It was ironic I was doing to Jake what I had always done to Katrina.
Mike motioned me over. I walked over and waited. Mike pointed toward me and then toward the canvas bag and satchel I was holding in my hands. They talked some more before Mike patted me on the back. Mike said something in Spanish. He handed the man the other bag with my clothes he carried from the helicopter. It had my clothes in it.
He said something else to the man and then broke into English. “The boy and the bags are to be untouched and un opened. If either one happens I will know it. The boy is going to return to my ranch. If he doesn’t I will figure something happened to him. Everyone, and I mean everyone will pay a price if he is mistreated or worse.”
Mike turned around and headed back to that chopper of his.
The tall man motioned for me to follow him so I tagged along. We walked into the building he had come out of. There was a bright red, single engine airplane inside. He climbed up in the pilot's seat as I climbed into the other front seat. There were four more seats behind us. The airplane came to life and we were rolling out of the building. Mike was fueling up his helicopter as we turned our tail to him and sped down a grassy strip. Seconds later we were airborne.
The man tried talking to me several times on that long trip. I would smile, nod, and shake my head like Mike told me. Several times the guy called me el stupido, el torro, or a few other nasty names but I didn't acknowledge I understood. If I ever came back this way I would have a talk with him but not now. It was almost six hours later when we started circling a grass strip next to some mountains. I wanted to ask where we were but I didn't. I was supposed to be a mute. Thirty minutes later my pilot was knocking on the back door of some sort of old building.
The door opened and a man was standing there. They talked for a few minutes and the pilot pointed toward me. " Pepe Sanchez."
I smiled and nodded. The man inside the door shook his head. The smile froze on my face. Something was wrong. I wasn't expected or what?
Again the pilot pointed at me and the satchel and canvas bag I was carrying. " Pepe Sanchez, Mike Harmond…," and then he was back into Spanish again.
The man closed the door in our faces. I heard a dead bolt dropping in place. I didn't know if we were out of luck or what? I wasn't given any options on this ride. It looked like it was pretty well cut and dried when I left Mike. Now it seemed it had fallen apart on this leg of the trip. Did I ride back home with Mike's friend or did I stay put and try and contact Leonard from here? Where ever here was? I really had no idea where I was at besides south of the equator.
There was a click as the dead bolt slid back and a woman opened the door. Tall, raven haired, she had classic Latin beauty in her facial features. She studied me for a minute before saying something. I nodded and smiled at whatever it was I really didn't understand. She handed the pilot a small wad of money. He handed her the canvas bag Mike had gave him at the other end of this trip. Reaching out she grabbed my shirt and pulled me into the building. When she shut the door I was standing in total darkness. I couldn't see a thing.
She tugged on my arm. "This way. Follow me."
I understood that plain enough. Clumsily, I followed along as best I could as she held my arm and led me through total darkness. I heard a click and a door opened. I was blinded by the light as she led me into a hallway.
She pointed up a stairway.. "Up that way. I'll be up in a minute. Don't speak to anyone."
That was prompting I didn't need to hear twice. Throwing my satchel over my right shoulder, I walked up the stairs. There were two doors but she didn't tell me to go into any of them so I waited. A couple minutes later I heard laughter coming from on of the rooms. The door opened. Still laughing, a man wearing a uniform walked out. When he saw me his laughter died a sudden death as he stopped and stared.
He pointed and said something.
I smiled and nodded.
Again he said something and again I smiled and nodded.
He grabbed the front of my shirt and began shouting as he shook me. I dropped the two bags I was carrying. Pants and a shirt fell out of one of the canvas bags. The man kicked them down the stairs as he shouted at me.
I didn't smile and nod this time. I was scared of what I didn't understand.
The woman came up the stairs screaming. I looked over my shoulder and she was obviously mad as she screamed something at the man. He turned me lose, backed up a step and stared at me. He said something. I shrugged my shoulders. I really wanted to kick him on the shins for screaming at me and kicking my things around. I didn't.
Glaring, he gave me a hard push as he walked past me. He trudged down the stairs past the woman. His push had caught me off balance. It sent me stumbling up against the railing at the top of the stairs. If I only had a rope with me, I would have dropped a loop in front of him and pulled his legs out from under him. He wouldn't have quit tumbling until he rolled out of the building. It was a good thing I didn't have that rope!
I started down the stairs after the pants and shirt the ugly brute had kicked out into space. The woman stopped me as she whispered. "No, I'll get your things in a minute. Let's get out of the hall."
She led me into the room the man had come out of. A woman was standing naked by the dresser. She turned to look when we walked into the room. She was talking in Spanish as she smiled at me.
The woman who had led me into the room shook her head. "No, Junita English, he doesn't understand Spanish."
The woman named Junita nodded. "Where you from?"
Seductively she slid her hands up her curves and held her breasts. "You want to hold these for me?"
I couldn't believe it. Was I being propositioned? I glanced at the woman who had led me up here. She looked like she was about to die trying to keep a straight face. Finally she couldn't hold it back any longer. She was laughing out loud. "Junita, I don't think he will be interested. He has never made love to a woman before."
"Oh? Well, come over here honey and I'll teach you." Junita smiled as she ran her hands over her own body.
With a big smile on her face the other lady was watching me to see what I was going to do. As bad as I wanted to explain, I couldn't. I was supposed to be mute. I shook my head.
Junita walked over in front of me and started to unbutton my shirt. I tried pushing her away. She was laughing along with the other lady. "Come on honey. It won't hurt."
The first lady finally reached over and stopped her. "Junita, wait a minute. I better explain something about our young friend here. Mike Harmond sent him over."
Junita's whole face lit up. "Big Mike? Where is that devil at? Invite him in and we will give him a real welcome."
"He didn't come. He only sent the runt."
Junita's face sagged as she showed her disappointment. "Darn Lucia, you raised my hopes over nothing."
Lucia nodded. "Not all is lost. This is still going to be a good game. We have to get the runt past the guards and on a flight out of here."
"Oooh? This is interesting. What's so important about this little man the military might have an interest?"
Smiling, Lucinda walked across the room before she stopped. "Junita, I'd like you to meet, Katrina Ann McDonald."
She waited as Junita looked around for the person she was supposed to be meeting. Finally it dawned on Junita who Lucia was introducing…, She was really speaking fast in Spanish.
Lucia held up her hand. "English, Junita, English. Our friend doesn't understand Spanish. It's rude to talk in front of company when they can't understand what you're saying."
Junita was still sputtering. "He's a she? Is this the woman the Brazilian government wants? What has she done to become such a famous fugitive?"
"I haven't done anything." I figured since they knew my name, Mike must have told Lucia about me. It didn't make much difference but I was glad I didn't have to be mute any longer. Not talking when someone was talking to me or about me was one of the hardest things I had ever done in my life.
Lucia was studying me. "Well whatever it is you haven't done has the Brazilian government in a tizzy. There is a forty thousand dollar reward out for your return. If it was anyone but Mike, I'd turn you in myself. It doesn't matter because Mike doesn't forgive nor forget. He has a real nasty habit of taking care of anyone who crosses him."
When Lucia was talking about Mike did she mean what I thought? I didn't think I wanted to know. "I haven't done anything. I was shanghaied off a flight after delivering a horse. I happened to end up at Mike's place. Besides that, I can't begin to imagine why they want me back."
Lucia left the room and came back in a few minutes carrying the canvas bag Mike had sent with my pilot. In the meantime Junita had managed to find a dress. Lucia opened up the bag and pulled out some clothes. I recognized those clothes. They were mine.
She threw them up on the bed. "Junita, put these on. We need to get our friend on a flight headed north."
Junita stood there looking dumb like I was. Finally she found her voice. "What is the plan?"
Chapter XVII
The Flight to Safety
Hours later all three of us were headed out the door. Lucia was dressed provocative enough to turn any man's head, and most women too. She was wearing a really tight red polyester dress. The neckline was cut past naughty. It was shameless. The side slit was up to her hip and she had on four inch red heels. Long gold earrings, half a dozen gold bracelets, and that many gold necklaces. Even as pretty as she naturally was, she didn't look sexy, she look gaudy.
I was wearing a yellow cotton sundress, big sunglasses, short red wig, and wearing white sneakers. Of course my skin was still brown from the tannic acid bath at Mike's but it couldn't be helped. I had a carry on flight bag, camera, shoulder purse, backpack, and an obvious travel guide in my left hand. I don't believe anyone ever looked more like a tourist than me at that moment. Oh yes, I was chewing bubble gum and obnoxiously popping bubbles to everyone's annoyance.
It wasn't much of an airport. They only had one commuter flight in and out every Tuesday and Friday of the week. Supposedly at four o'clock in the afternoon. Lucia told me they were never on schedule.
Junita and Lucia had warned me to keep my distance from them. I strolled into the terminal a few minutes after they entered. Junita was already attracting attention from the Federalies. She was dressed in my clothes and carrying a rope. We couldn't find a lariat on short notice. She was a magnet for the policia. They were converging on her from all sides. She was at the ticket counter trying to purchase a ticket to the United States. I was hoping she didn't get in too much trouble for what she was doing.
The twin engine plane landed and five or six people were getting off. Lucia waved at one of the men. "Carlos, you came back for me."
The guy stopped and stared.
She ran up and wrapped her arms around him. "Oh Carlos, I didn't think you meant it when you said you were leaving me for that other woman."
His face turned red. He was trying to push Lucia away as he screamed something in Spanish at her. She dug in and held on as he franticly tried to back away from her.
"Oh Carlos, you love me. I know you do. Don't try and deny it. We'll live together and be lovers once more."
There was a woman screaming something over on the other side of the terminal as she pointed at Lucia and the man. The policia and Federalies were starting to mill in confusion. It seemed everyone in the terminal was screaming something at someone.
I walked up to the ticket counter. "One to Lima, Peru please."
The man looked at my face for a minute and then to the confusion in the airport. He looked back at me. "You American?"
"No, Irish. I'm on a student visa. I thought I'd see part of the continent before I had to go back to college next month." I was hoping he couldn't see my insides shaking. I felt like jello inside. I nonchalantly blew a bubble and popped it.
He nodded. "It's three seventy two in American."
I handed him the money Lucia had gave to me. "Next time I'll bike it."
His eyes squinted as he studied me. "You obviously don't know how far it is? You can't bike it."
"Oh? We can go anywhere in Ireland on a bike." I wondered if I had overdone it?
"Tourists!" He said in a condescending way as he handed me a ticket. “The plane leaves in thirty minutes."
I looked around as everyone was still screaming at everyone. "Can I get on now. It's a little noisy in here."
He waved his hand in the air in resignation. "Do as you please."
I strolled out to the plane like I didn't have a care in the world. My mouth was dry and my knees were knocking together.
I found a seat on the side away from the terminal. I looked out and the policia were loading up a dozen people in their cars. Lucia and Junita were two of them. I was ashamed for leaving them like that. I had no idea how much trouble they could be in because of me.
People were finally getting on the plane. They no longer had entertainment in the terminal to watch. A short time later a couple men opened up the side door and began throwing packages and luggage on. It was piled loosely in the back part of the plane behind the passenger seats. Two more men with uniforms walked out, spoke to the men who had loaded the packages, and then they climbed on the plane. They went up front and in a couple minutes the left engine started and then the right engine. I don't think I have ever seen such a poor excuse for an airplane in my whole life. Both engines were smoking, the wings were covered in oil, the plane was filthy inside and out.
A couple of uniforms came out from the terminal and headed for the plane. My heart leapt up in my throat as they stepped on. One of them guarded the door while the other walked up to the front of the plane and talked to the pilots. I knew I was going to be dragged off that plane. The one up front turned around and looked straight at me. I think I died at that moment. He smiled and then walked to the back. I was too terrified to look. I knew they were coming back to handcuff me. I was frozen unable to move.
The door slammed, the engines revved up, and we moved forward. One of the engines coughed. That airplane lumbered and bounced across the field as it picked up speed. We came off the ground. The same engine coughed and we settled back down on the ground. We bounced along the ground forever before we finally struggled back into the air. The trees and mountains were rushing toward us as we wallowed sluggishly along. I knew we were all going to die. The plane banked to the left as it struggled to stay airborne. Finally it leveled out and slowly clawed its way up toward the clouds and the top of the mountains. I figured all of us on that plane had used up any lucky charms we might have been saving.
Only then was I able to summon up enough courage to look around where I figured the two uniforms would be in the back. They weren’t there. I started shaking all over from nervous relief. I had no idea why they didn’t arrest me. I was sure I looked like a deer caught in the headlights when that soldier or policeman looked at me. There was no doubt I had ‘guilty as sin’ written all over my face. Was that a common expression for people in this part of the world? I had to get more self control or the next soldier I met might not be so forgiving.
The right engine coughed most of the way to Atacama, Chile. About twenty miles from the airport oil really started pouring from it. Finally it gasped its last gasp and died. I was ready to grab a parachute and jump. Looking toward the cockpit the pilots seemed non perplexed by the situation. The other six passengers on that plane didn't seem to notice anything amiss either. I was wondering if this was a normal flight for them?
We hit hard on landing. When they taxied up to the terminal and killed the left engine, oil ran out of it in a small steady stream. I was sure all of us had been given a reprieve by the grim reaper. I can tell you I was never so glad to get off a plane in my whole life.
In the terminal I handed the man my ticket and the passport Lucia had gave me. He looked at it and then back at me. "Renee OToole?"
"Yes?" I was furiously chewing my bubble gum trying to blow a bubble. It wasn't working.
He handed the passport back. "I went to Dublin once. Down on Wicket Street there is a little bakery. It has the best croissants you ever tasted. Sharties was the name. You been there?"
I shook my head. "No, I was raised down near Cork. That's in the southern part of Ireland. Didn't get to Dublin much."
"You were raised in Cork?" He punched my ticket and handed me another one.
"No, I was raised near Cork. Briar is the little village where I was born." My insides were quivering. Lucia didn't have a whole lot of time to prep me about being Irish.
He was studying me. "You don't talk Irish."
I forced a laugh. "Probably not. My parents moved back to Ireland before I was born. They were both raised in America. I didn't get a chance to pick up the Irish brogue."
"Your flight to Lima, Peru leaves in an hour. The numbers on the tail of the plane are one six one. They will be arriving in ten minutes. When the other passengers get off you can get on anytime after that." He was working on some paperwork on his desk as he spoke.
"Uh, it's not like the kind of plane I got off of is it?" I was sure I didn't want to get on another one of those planes. I would rather go back to Brazil in handcuffs.
He laughed. "No, I wouldn't get on THAT plane for a million pesos. That's Central Flights out of Paraguay. They are always flying hoping the angels will carry them home. Your plane is Peru International Airways. They keep their planes maintained and their pilots are the best."
"That's a relief to hear. Thanks." I walked over to one of the chairs in the lounge and sit down. While I was waiting, there were a couple of uniforms walk by. They didn't give me a second glance.
The flight to Peru was a breeze. The man at the ticket counter had been right. The plane was a large jet and it was in seriously well cared for condition. Customs in Lima, Peru never gave me much more than a cursory glance when I showed them my passport. The man was looking at my passport. "How long you intend on staying in Peru, Miss OToole?"
"Three or four days. I wanted to do a little sightseeing before I went back to college. What do you recommend for interesting sights?" I was so full of lies I was sure they would see right through me.
He glanced up without ever really looking as he handed back my fake passport. "Stop at the information desk in the front. They can give you directions. Thank you for stopping at our city and please enjoy yourself while you're here."
If I was shaking half as bad as I felt, I was sure he would notice and pull me into a back room for interrogation. Thank God for bored customs agents. The man was on auto pilot as he did his routine. I did stop at the information desk. I asked for directions to a decent hotel. I didn't want the man in customs to see me walk by the information booth without stopping after I told him I was a tourist.
I caught a taxi out front. "US Embassy."
"Si senorita." We sped off down the street.
The driver stopped in front of the embassy. I remembered to pay him. I walked up to the Marine at the gate. "I'm Katrina McDonald and I need to see our ambassador."
"What is the problem, Miss McDonald?" The Marine didn't seem too moved by my request.
"I was kidnapped in Brazil and escaped with help from some people I met. I have some serious information about our radar planes. Whatever you call them? You know? The ones that fly in the sky and pick up enemy planes and friendly planes and direct traffic?"
He got serious. "Are you talking about the AWACS? Who kidnapped you in Brazil?"
"Yes, that's the name of the plane. I have some information about some of the electrical gadgets that go in them. It seems one of them crashed in Brazil and their military picked up something in the wreckage. It gives up all the secrets to how they work." I was wishing we were doing this inside the embassy rather then out on the sidewalk in front of the building. I felt a little paranoid about how vulnerable I was to anyone who wanted to drive by and shoot me.
"Wait here." He picked up a telephone and began talking.
In less than three minutes he hung up. "Follow me."
He turned and walked inside the fence before he stopped. "Open all your luggage."
I dropped my luggage on the ground and opened my purse, backpack, and flight bag. I didn't have much. Lucinda had thrown in a few pants, underclothes, a couple dresses, and an extra pair of sneakers. I was probably under packed to be a real tourist. At least the customs agents didn't seem to notice.
The Marine went through every thing thoroughly. Finally he was finished. "You have anything hidden on you?"
I shook my head. "No."
He held out his hand. "Let me see your passport."
I opened up the camera and pulled out my real passport. I handed it over to him.
He searched inside my purse and pulled out the fake passport Lucia had given to me. "What's this?"
"That's what got me out of Paraguay. I told you I was kidnapped in Brazil. Their military was part of the kidnappers. If I had shown my real passport to get out of the country I wouldn't have made it." I wasn't scared. I had no idea what they did to anyone they found traveling on a fake passport. It didn't matter. I was through being Renee OToole.
"Who gave you this other passport?" He was looking at me real hard.
Chapter XVIII
Back on U.S. Soil, Kinda
He could glare all he wanted, I didn't care, I wasn't a Marine. I had enough adrenaline rush the past few days to last me a lifetime. I took a look at his name tag. "I demand to see the ambassador, Marine Collier."
For a few seconds he looked like he was ready to throw me back into the street. He kept my passports as he picked up my backpack, purse and flight bag. "Follow me."
He led me inside, down a long corridor, and to a big room with a steel door. "Wait here. The ambassador is busy. It will be awhile."
He walked out with my things. I heard the steel door clang shut with a finality. Checking the door confirmed my suspicions. I was right, it was locked. Exploring the room was a good way to use up time while I waited. The room had no windows, lots of shelves and books, and plush carpet. It was complimented with big, soft, overstuffed, soft blue chairs, and matching divan, A small bar and refrigerator sat back in a small alcove. When I looked back in the alcove I saw a second door. I gave it a try. It opened up into a three quarter bathroom. I figured I was in a cell. One without bars and windows but a cell never the less. Did they figure I was dangerous or were they protecting me?
An hour passed and then another as I paced the room and examined everything for a forth and fifth time. I finally gave up and laid down on the couch. Someone was shaking me.
"Miss McDonald, the ambassador will see you now. If you will follow me please."
I opened my eyes and was looking at another Marine. "I'm sorry, I must have fallen asleep."
He nodded. "That's quite alright. Please follow me if you don't mind."
Holding the door, he was pointing the way out. "Down the hall to your right and up the stairs, please."
I did as he told me and could hear his footsteps right behind. At the top of the stairs was a door. Opening it led me into a large, spacious, hallway. The Marine stepped up beside me. He pointed toward a huge open door off to my left. "In there please Miss McDonald. The ambassador is waiting."
I walked across the hall into a room larger than the house I grew up in. Across the room was floor to ceiling windows and glass doors. Forty feet across the room to my right was a man behind a desk.
He rose out of his chair. "Please come in Miss McDonald. I'm Ambassador Harold Ford. I've heard all about you. It's good to see you are still alive and in one piece. Now, what can I do for you? I understand you have some information for us?"
It was a long way over to where Harold was standing. I was talking before I got there. "Yes, sir, I do. I was handed something I was supposed to give to you but your Marine at the front gate kept all my things so I don't have it any more."
Leaning down, he picked up a handful of things off the floor and set them on the corner of his desk. "I have all your belongings right here, Miss McDonald. You may have all of them back. Marine Collier was only making sure you weren't bringing in any guns, explosives, or any other contraband that seems to be the norm nowadays."
I was beside his desk looking at my things to see if it was still there. The camera was missing. "I'm sorry, but this isn't all of my gear. I seem to be short one camera."
Harold held up his hand. The Marine who had escorted me stepped up and set my camera down on the desk. Harold was watching me closely. "Is this what you were missing?"
I glanced down at it. "You already found it, didn't you?"
I thought I saw a hint of a smile. "Very good Miss McDonald. But, I wanted to see if you would tell us about it so we put it back exactly like we found it."
Picking up the camera, I opened up the back and pulled the thirty five millimeter film out of it. I handed it to Harold. "The man who gave me this said it was pictures of drug dealers, military, and a few others swapping information about some military secrets. He told me to deliver it to one of our ambassadors and no one else unless I happened to make it back to the states. If I made it back then I was to give it to our government. He wasn't specific so I guess anyone in government would have worked."
Harold was searching for something the way he was looking at me. He glanced down at the film I had placed in his hand. "No, not everyone in government would have been okay. What you handed me is highly classified information. It could very well be the political problem of the century."
He smiled. "I'm sure you're not interested in these matters. Let's talk about things closer to home, shall we?"
Walking over to a large overstuffed chair, he motioned for me to have a seat in one just like it. "Please, have a chair, Miss McDonald."
It only took a second before I decided it didn't make any difference. "Thank you, Harold. May I call you Harold or is there a more formal title I need to use?"
He waved his hand in the air. "Harold is fine."
"Please call me, Jake." I parked in the chair beside him.
"Jake?" His eyes widened to two egg whites before his surprise settled down.
"Yes, now what down home things were you going to discuss?"
"Miss…, Jake, there is a bench warrant out for your arrest back in Montana."
"Big deal. I'm not in the United States so it doesn't mean anything." I wondered why he was telling me this?
"Miss McDonald, when you walked through those front gates you walked back onto American soil. I would be legally correct if I had one of the Marines place you under arrest until such time as you were shipped back to the States." He was watching me to see how I was going to take his speech.
It didn't matter. I would rather go home to a trial then be kidnapped in a foreign country. I shrugged my shoulders. I didn't care.
I guess he could see I didn't care. "It is only a bench warrant. We don't pay any attention to such things. May I ask what your plans are?"
"Well, I'm supposed to be shipping horses. Mr. Pladure messed up my schedule when he insisted I be his guest. I would like to contact Leonard LeBo back in Atlanta and see if I still have a job. Leonard is the only contact I have right at the moment unless I get to talk to Bill Randall. I'm supposed to be working for a man by the name of Kevin Dalder but that's the only names I have. I don't know a whole lot about the man."
"Kevin Dalder is his name. His company is Golden Horse Transports. You flew one of his horses from Valley Downs Farms to Simon Pladure in Brazil. I can't tell you where you went from there Miss McDonald. You had everyone on this end of the world looking for you. Our state department gets real excited when America's All Around Cowboy is kidnapped." Harold leaned back in his chair and relaxed.
Holding the film packet in his right hand he was studying it. "I can put you in touch with anyone you wish to talk to Miss McDonald. Would you like to call your parents and tell them you are okay? You have been in most of the papers back in the states."
Even though Leo had told me about the papers I thought it was local. That shocked me. "WHAT! Why? What did I do? Why would they put me in the papers?"
He slowly rose out of his chair before he answered. "It's not everyday we loose our All Around Cowboy, Miss McDonald."
He pointed toward the phone on the desk as he started out of the room with the Marine in tow. "The names and numbers are on the pad by the phone. If you have any trouble dial three and our secretary will dial out for you. Talk as long as you like. Be sure and let your parents know you are safe. I imagine they are worried sick about you. I would be if I were them. I'll have someone stop by their house later and talk to them."
He stopped before he stepped out of the room, turned around and stared at me for a few seconds. "Katherine and John McDonald have a very interesting daughter…, Jake."
He turned to leave, hesitated and then looked back over his shoulder. "Uh, Jake, stay away from the windows. We live in the wrong part of the world to be standing in front of any open doors or windows."
Harold and the Marine walked out of the room.
The pad by the phone had the phone numbers of mom and dad, Bill Randall, Leonard, and Kevin. Did these people know all the people I had associated with? I picked up the phone and dialed home.
The phone rang and rang and rang before I decided mom and dad were either out doing chores or had to run some errands. I was wishing I was with them as I hung up and dialed Leonard.
"Valley Downs Farms, here." Was a voice I didn't recognize coming from the other half of the world.
"May I speak to Leonard LeBo, please?"
"Hold on, he's coming." The strange voice answered me.
"Yeah!" Was the abrupt voice I recognized on the other end.
"Leonard, this is Jake. I missed my flight out of Brazil and need some new instructions."
"CAT! MY GOD! WHERE ARE YOU!"
I moved the phone away from my ear. I was sure I was going to be deaf in that ear after this. "I'm at the American Embassy in Peru. I'm fine. Things got a little exciting for a few days. Everything is back to normal now. I need airfare out of here or a ride back to the states. I don't have any money and I don't have a ride."
"No, you can't come back here. There's a warrant out for your arrest. You made the papers several times these past few days. Seems as if you were awarded the title of All Around Cowboy. That picked up back page news being as you are a cowgirl rather than a cowboy. Then the next day you made front page news along with a rerun of the All Around Cowboy story as Judge Garrison issued a bench warrant for your arrest. If you hadn't already been nominated as the All Around Cowboy neither story would have ever made it past the back page, if at all. However, bad news feeds off good news so you became an instant celebrity of sorts. All the television stations picked it up."
"I believe your fame would have died a quiet death on the six o'clock news if you hadn't been kidnapped in Brazil. You have been splashed all over the papers and TV for the past three days."
I swallowed as I tried to visualize what Leo was telling me. "Maybe now I'm safe it will all go away again?"
"Don't count on it. Do you remember posing for some advertising agency?"
What was Leo leading me into? "It was a mistake Leonard. I didn’t really pose for them. I thought it was for passport pictures."
"They have really been running the heck out of all your ads. Trying to get all the mileage they can out of them. I can't turn on a TV, listen to a radio, or pick up a paper you don't jump out at me in one form or another."
"I wonder what the Rodeo Association thinks of me now? They probably want the award back." I was thinking aloud over the phone.
"I wouldn't count on it Cat. They are picking up a lot of free publicity over this too. I bet the whole bunch is giving themselves a high five for nominating you. Oh, they will shake their heads and say the appropriate no no's publicly. Silently they are counting the dollars this will bring their way. You can bet attendance at all the rodeos is going to be up this year."
Silently I was wondering how I ever got into this mess as my phone spoke to me again. "Cat?"
"Yes?"
"The advertising spread you did with the Ford car? You look fabulous. Your friend with the advertising agency, Linda? She called and told me they want to sign an exclusive contract with you. Those pictures you made were for the local dealers. Now it seems Ford Motor Company is interested in running some pictures too for a national spread. Not sure how much is gossip. I heard they offered a million dollars to the National Rodeo Association for an exclusive on you.”
“The pictures Linda was taking after you changed out of a dress into jeans? There are several companies vying for sponsorship including Dan’s Race Horse Feed. Linda said she couldn’t release them until you signed off on them. She said they weren’t part of the original release contract. Those she took while you were busy with Heater came out in a little local weekly. Linda said some national magazine wants the originals. They are going to run an article about the all around cowboy. Linda showed me something called a board. She said it is the story before it becomes a story. It was the picture of you taking Heater down. The title was something like, 'Why Jake is number one'. Also, I heard rumors of you being the next nationals rodeo queen. You are the person everyone is talking about out here at the stables. Everyone is bragging about meeting you Cat."
Silently I groaned as Leo kept going.
“I also heard there is all hell breaking loose in your hometown. Those two lawyers representing you are suing everyone. This is all hearsay but Linda has been in touch with Bill Randall. She’s up there to get his side of the story. She has been feeding stories to the national press. I understand those lawyers hired by the Cowboy Association have been busy. They filed against the school. Called for disbarment against a district attorney because he has failed to file against the six kids who assaulted you. They filled against the sheriff to disclose everything he has. They filed against the kids and their parents, and god knows who else. They are pulling everyone in and taking depositions from all the kids in your class and all the teachers. One of our legal beagles told me it was a warning salvo fired across the bow of everyone who thought they were going to be spectators in your legal problems. He said most of those suits would be dropped but it sure got everyone’s attention. That includes national attention. The tabloids are picking it up.”
"Oh swell!" I was about to cry. All I was supposed to do was transport a few horses this year. How could things get so out of kilter in such a short time?
I was tired of hearing all the home gossip. "Leonard, I didn't get mom and dad. Call them later and tell them I'm okay. Would you? Be sure and tell them to let Gunshy know I'm okay. I'll call later if I get a chance but I don't know what I am going to be doing or where I'll be. What about money and plane ticket?"
"Cat, I said, you can't come this direction. I'll call Larry Mavis and have him get in touch with your transporter Kevin Dalder. This is going to take some time so stay put. You have a number I can call you back at?"
"Yes, call the international operator in Peru and have her connect you with the American Embassy." I heard a click and was listening to a dead phone.
I called the number Harold had on the pad for Kevin Dalder and received an answering service. I told them who I was, where I was at, and I needed some new instructions. They promised to give him the message.
I hung up and the tears started. I wasn't really crying, I was feeling sorry for myself. I couldn't go home, I didn't have any money, I had no place to stay, I had no idea how I was going to get back home again or if I ever was. I had no idea how long a bench warrant could be in effect. I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand and absentmindedly ambled over toward the windows to look outside.
Someone caught me before I walked half way across the room. "Please stay away from the windows Miss McDonald."
Turning around I was looking at the Marine. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I guess I better be going."
"Where you going?" He had stepped back when I turned around to face him.
"I don't know. I have no place to go." The tears started again.
I wiped them off but others were following along behind. "I'm sorry. I'm not crying. My eyes are watering."
"But of course." He put his arm around me and escorted me from the room.
Pointing down the hall to the right, he walked along with me, his arm around my waist. "The ambassador asked if you would please stay and be his guest for a few days. He said he wouldn't take no for an answer."
I started to protest. "But…,"
"No buts, Miss McDonald. This is the best motel in town. You need a place to stay, Ambassador Ford feels a need to handle this diplomatically. He wants to show the world you are safe in the embassy. He has already called for a party for tomorrow night. Important guests will be here along with what will seem like all the reporters in the world."
He laughed as he stopped and opened a huge door. "Of course they won't all be here but it will seem that way."
Pointing toward the room he stepped to the side. "Your suite, Miss McDonald."
After thanking the Marine, I walked into a room as big as our living room back home. I heard running water and started toward the door over on the left side of the room. An attractive lady with black eyes and long, jet black hair walked out. "Your bath is run Miss McDonald."
She nodded toward a telephone beside a big easy chair. "Please call when you are finished. I will find some clothes for you. Say you are ready and they will notify me."
She handed me what looked like a wine bottle. "Pour this into your bath water and take a long time soaking. It will change you back into a white girl again."
"Thanks. What is it?" I had forgot about dying myself brown with Mike's tonic. After a couple days, I was getting used to it. I didn't know what else to say. Besides, I had experience with green walnuts. I honestly didn't think anything could take the stain out of the skin. I figured it would have to wear off.
"It's a little of this and a little of that, basically same thing we put in our swimming pool. Pour it in your bath water and don't get it in your eyes." She smiled before she turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
A couple hours soaking in that big tub made me feel almost human again. I had also shed most of the 'poor me' feelings. I still had no idea how I was going to get home but all that was shoved to the side.
The lady reappeared while I was still in the tub. "If you want, I can change your hair back to blond, or red, or brunette, or we can leave it black the way it is now? What do you want to do?"
I hadn't really thought about it. "I don't care one way or another. But it isn't true, you know."
She was studying me trying to figure out what wasn't true. "What?"
"Blondes really don't have more fun, nor are we stupid. I don't care what we do with my hair. The only thing I'm definitely against is turning it green or orange because we mixed something that wasn't supposed to happen. Some of the girls in my school did that. Neither one of those colors does a whole lot for me."
She laughed. "Let's change it back to blond then. It is what the press will be expecting tomorrow evening when you step out. Black really isn't your color now."
“Works for me. I guess I’m no longer a chicharro.”
She blinked as she focused in on me. “Chicharro?”
“Un huh, it is what Mike called me. That’s a brown boy.”
A smile spread across her face as she giggled. “No hon, chicharro is a cricket or grasshopper.”
“He was calling me a cricket? Wait till I see him again. He’s in so much trouble. By the way, what's your name? I should know the name of the lady who is so kind?"
Chapter XIX
A Trick to Get Katrina Back to Brazil
"Well, I guess in this part of the world Maria would catch most women." She was holding a bathrobe for me to slip into.
"Your name is Maria?" I wondered if she wanted me to guess as I dried myself before slipping into the bathrobe.
Laughing she shook her head. "No, I said Maria would be the name of most women. My name is Ecetra VanDuval. I'm a mixture of Inca, Dutch, and French. I think the Indian in my blood won out. Both my parents are white and blue eyed."
Long, jet black, silky satin hair, the deepest black eyes I had ever seen, golden bronze skin, I was looking at a very beautiful Indian princess. It was impossible to imagine her parents as anything but Indian. "You're kidding!"
Laughing, she crossed her heart with her right hand. "No. You know, that is exactly what I said when I was old enough to realize I had the wrong parents. I always claimed I was swapped at the hospital. Problem is, I wasn't born in a hospital. A midwife delivered me at my parent’s house. Believe me, they wondered too. My mother was embarrassed and my dad was ashamed at first. It was bad enough they sent blood to France to have a DNA test run. It was positive. I'm their daughter."
"You're a beautiful woman, Ecetra. May I call you Ecetra or would you prefer I didn't?" I had no idea what was proper etiquette in this part of the world.
"Yes, Ecetra is fine. We have a salon in this building. Let's go downstairs and use it. It would be a lot easier than using the sink." She motioned for me to go along with her downstairs.
That night was a long, long night with me chasing horses on foot all night long. Toward morning, the horses started chasing me and I was caught up in a stampede. I awoke as one of the horses raised up to stomp me. My heart was racing a hundred miles an hour as I blinked my eyes and reality settled back in replacing my nightmares. Yes, I guess you could call that a pun but it wasn't funny to me. I rolled out of the big old bed and found the jeans and shirt Ecetra had been kind enough to loan me. I was tired of the dress I had been wearing since leaving Lucia and Junita behind. Not that I wasn't grateful. I would probably never have made it this far if I had been wearing my normal clothes. There were no boots so I slipped back into the sneakers. I felt half dressed with no boots and no cowboy hat.
Anyone on my trail could follow me by all the clothes I was leaving behind. My suitcase was left on the plane. My watch and hat was left with Mike when I left all my other clothes. Then the last of my clothes were left with Lucia and Juinta. Now all I had to wear was loaned to me. Grateful as I was for the loans, I preferred my own clothes. I had no idea what time it was but I was sure I was through with the night as I didn't want any more of those nightmares. After dressing I found my way down stairs. There was a Marine watching me as I walked across the large room toward the front door.
"You have the time? I don't have a watch." I stopped in front of him as he glanced at his wrist.
"It's four thirty nine Miss McDonald. Are you ready for breakfast?" He looked back up into my eyes.
"Not yet. May I go for a walk outside? I'd like some fresh air."
"Please don't leave the compound unless you have an escort. You want me to call Corporal Randall and tell him you want to go out of the compound? He is assigned to your duty today." The Marine was waiting for an answer.
It was an involuntary sigh that escaped. I was mentally tired of these situations. I would have traded ten years of my life to be back home right now. "No, I'll stay inside your fence. Is there any place I should stay away from? I mean is there any secret stuff I don't want to see or…?"
Laughing he shook his head. "No, you have free run of the whole compound Miss McDonald."
"Thanks Marine." I turned to walk out the front door when I heard him talking behind me.
"Miss McDonald is leaving the embassy building proper. No escort."
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw him smile. He touched his shoulder. "Voice mike. There are others outside who need to know who is walking out of the embassy. It's best they hear it from me rather than wrestling you to the ground before they find out who you are. We don't get many guests who want to take a four o'clock stroll."
Down at the front gate there were two Marines on guard. I visited with them for ten or twenty minutes before I decided to walk the inside wall. That took all of ten minutes before I had circled the embassy and was back at the front. The cool morning air was beginning to seep in. I decided I had enough.
The Marine at the front door acknowledged me as I walked back inside. "Would you like to see some of the city or the country? It's going to be a long day with nothing to do before the dinner party tonight. We can find you some fatigues if you would like. I'll wake up Jim and he can be your guide today? Of course, you may also stay inside the embassy if you desire."
I looked closely at his name tag. "You think Jim would mind, Mr. Cable? I mean I don't want to bother him if he has already been up half the night or has other things he needs to take care of."
A smile spread across Cable's face. "Miss McDonald please call me David. My drill instructor called me Mr. Cable. I'm sure Jim would be honored to escort you wherever you want to go today. All of us here would but it so happened on Jim's watch."
He turned his head and spoke to his right shoulder. "Roust Jim and tell him his party is ready."
As he pointed across the room off to his right, David was closely watching me. "Go down the hall to the end, turn right, and go to the door at the end. Jim will meet you in the mess…, uh, kitchen in six minutes."
I can't tell you if it was six minutes or not but Jim did show up immediately after I had walked into the kitchen. He was carrying a bundle of clothes in his arms. He held them out toward me. "I brought you some clothes. I see you are wearing jeans already. If you like, you can use the jacket in there. You'll need it this morning and it will be too much in a couple hours. We'll take the Hummer. So…? Is it city sightseeing or country you want?"
"A little of both would be nice. I'd like to see some of the country for sure. I'm not too fond of cities. What do you recommend I wear? It seems I'm in your hands today. Hope you don't mind?"
"Miss McDonald…,"
I held up my hand. "Wait a sec. If we are going to be together all day, I can't take any more of that Miss McDonald stuff. Please call me Jake. Please?"
His eyes widened to two white explanation marks. He coughed out. "Jake?????"
"Yes, it's a name I grew up with. I kinda like it. I certainly prefer it over Miss McDonald." I was waiting to see if Jim was going to accept 'Jake'.
Slowly a smile spread across his face as a gleam crept into his eyes. "My pleasure…, Jake. Okay, let's eat a bite and then go see part of the country. Drop the clothes and keep the jacket.
Forty minutes later we were out in the country. Jim was a very nice and polite Marine. He was wearing fatigues. I don't imagine any of the locals had any problems realizing we were Americans. We spent most of the morning sightseeing the country. A lot of mountains were everywhere. What wasn't mountains wasn't flat. I had a hard time imagining how they raised crops in this part of the world. It finally dawned on me I was thinking too big. I mean not in space but in equipment. The big heavy equipment we used in our part of the world wouldn't work in this part of the world. One had to think smaller because all the plots of ground were cut up so they wouldn't erode with each rain.
A couple hours of touring the country with Jim pointing out all the sights was certainly interesting. He then suggested we go back to town for browsing while the markets were still fresh. A few minutes later his phone rang.
He stopped the Hummer beside the road before he answered the phone. "This is Randall."
He glanced over at me as he was talking on the phone. "Okay, I'll check."
"Ms. McDonald, it seems someone found you a job. It's transporting four Lamas. You want to go look at the shipment? They are about forty minutes north of here?"
"If you don't mind. Did they say when I'm supposed to pick them up and where I'm shipping them to?" I was trying to think what a Lama was? Wasn't that similar to a goat or something?
Dropping the Hummer in gear, he was moving down the road before he answered. "No, they only told me where the ranch was. It's a pretty good spread for these parts. Senior Val Rohous is the gentleman you will be working for. He's been to several of the parties at the embassy."
"What's a Lama?" I turned to look at Jim.
"Wha…, oh, okay. I don't guess you have too many of them up in your part of the world. It's one of those critters." Jim pointed out to our right.
There were several animals in the field off to our right. I had been seeing them all morning and it never dawned on me what they were. They looked like a cross of several animals. Long necks and heads like a camel, barrel like bodies like sheep, and long legs.
Many curves, hills, and small farms later Jim turned up to a road leading to a really huge house. I guess all my ideas of a southern hacienda came to mind when I looked at the house at the end of the road. Big sweeping arches covered balconies, three story stucco was a picture home straight out of a fancy magazine. Now I knew where all those photo journalist came when they took pictures of a southern hacienda. This had to be the one home they photographed.
A man walked out of the house as Jim drove up to the front. "Welcome Senior Randall, Seniorita McDonald. Senior Val Rohous is expecting you. Please follow me."
As Jim and I followed the man back into the house I could understand the reason for the big verandas and open arches. It felt ten degrees cooler in the shade. The big open space provided plenty of shade while letting the breeze flow through. It was efficient cooling without using those noisy and expensive air conditioners we Americans are so fond of. There was something else I noticed that was different from our American homes and offices as opposed to those in the Latin countries. They used tile, stucco, and ceramics for their walls and floors which I suppose would last for years if not centuries. We used carpet, paper, and other things of a more temporary measure for building our homes and offices. It dawned on me that as Americans we are a nation of consumers of temporary life styles. The Latin people were a distinct contrast in they built things that would last them a lifetime if not their ancestors too.
"Seniorita McDonald?" He was holding out his hand.
"What? Oh, I'm sorry. I was admiring your home and thinking how beautiful it is. So grand and enduring. I can't begin to tell you how gorgeous it is." I held out my hand and returned his handshake.
He held onto my hand as he smiled. "Thank you. Would you and your escort like a glass of tea?"
"Uh, no, none for me thanks. But you can tell me what you have to ship and where, and what my duties would be." I retrieved my hand as I spoke.
"I ship Lamas, Miss McDonald. I can offer you a ride with one of my deliveries if you want." He smiled as his eyes glanced back and forth from Jim to me.
"From where to where, Mr. Rohous and what does it pay?" I hated blind end situations where I was supposed to go along without any idea of what I was getting into. I had enough of those this past week. It was time to start asking questions before the business started, not after it was all over with.
"Pay? I'm sorry if you misunderstood, Miss McDonald. There is no pay. However if you escort my lamas there will be a minimum of problems traveling out of the country. I have four lamas going to Ecuador in two days." He looked insulted I had suggested payment.
"I certainly appreciate it Mr. Rohous but I'm going to decline the offer. I have enough problems without being a nurse maid to some animals for the fun of it. I like animals but not enough to be responsible for another man's property unless I'm paid for my skills or talent. Besides, I don't have any more connections in Ecuador than I do here. I can't see where I would be gaining anything." I was doubly glad I had asked before saying okay.
"My apologies, Miss McDonald. I had the mistaken notion you were looking for a way out of the country with a minimum of questions." Val glanced over at Jim before turning his attention back to me.
Jim reached over and wrapped his hand around my arm. “We better report in and head back Miss McDonald. They will be sending a squad out here if I don’t call in the next ten minutes.”
“Thank you for your offer Senior Rohous. I appreciate you thinking of me. Maybe next time. I guess we better go report in as Jim said.” I was being hustled back to the Humvee as I was trying to say goodbye.
We were turned around and headed out the driveway as Jim took a furtive glance in my direction. “We don’t have to report in Jake and they wouldn’t send out a squad of Marines in the next few minutes if they don’t hear from us.”
Turning in the seat so I could hear Jim better I had to ask. “Why?”
“Val Rohous has real close relations with a lot of people in Brazil. A couple of things bothered me about the conversation you were having with him. He usually sends his animals by train and I have never heard of him sending a handler along. Then the other thing is, if you ship animals to the US they have to go through customs and be quarantined for a few days.
Jim shook his head. “You were going to Brazil or you were being sent to jail.”
“Is this what Marines do? Rescue Americans in distress?” I had figured out going to the US was a bad idea. Leo had already told me I couldn’t return there. The idea of being sent back to Brazil and my death had never entered my mind. I guess it was still possible.
He turned and winked at me. “Part of our job Jake.”
I had to ask. “Would I have been safe without a Marine guide?”
Jim glanced in my direction. "I apologize for bringing you up here, Jake. The scuttlebutt around the embassy is you are someone who talks to animals when no one else can. When they told me he called asking about you I thought that was something you might do for him. I’m not real positive about his intentions but the conversation didn’t feel right. We always try to pull back and assess the situation if possible when things feel spooky.”
"No biggie. I am not sure what my options are. Going from Peru to Ecuador didn't seem like a step in the right direction." I was looking at the scenery as it passed by us.
The drive back to the embassy was long. I hadn't realized we had traveled so far out. Jim seemed to know every road and trail in the country. Maybe that was part of the duties of a Marine when assigned to guard ambassadors?
Ecetra met us as we walked back into the building after parking the Hummer. "It's time to start getting ready for tonight Miss McDonald."
I glanced at my wrist. It’s a natural instinct even when the watch is no longer there. "What time is it? When does the party begin?"
"The dinner party begins at seven. Guests will start arriving anytime after six thirty." Taking my hand she was leading me out of the room and up the stairs.
We passed a clock in the hall. I took a good look. "It's only a little after three. We have plenty of time. I can get ready in a couple minutes."
Ecetra laughed as she opened the door to a suite. "We girls take a little more time than a couple minutes to get ready, Katrina. I've had my bath. It's your turn. Dalia will help you with your makeup and dress when you are finished."
An hour later I was looking in the mirror at a woman I had met only a few weeks before. The same one I saw on graduation night and then again for passport photos. Dalia made sure my hair was perfect before she was satisfied. The soft red dress had an intricate floral brocade designed in beads and sequins. The beads, and sequins added a sparkle as light reflected with the slightest movement. It was floor length with long sleeves. I was standing on four inch red patent heels. There was a small difference from before. My bra wasn't padded and I didn't have a whole lot up front. It was funny in an odd way. Jake wouldn't have minded. Katrina was wishing for a little more. Would it always be like this every time I wore a dress?
Ecetra returned and nodded her approval. "You look nice Miss McDonald. We need to practice protocol before the guests arrive. Come, let's go down to the banquet hall and practice."
Minutes later I was staring at two very distinguished Marines in all their glory. They were in their dress whites and if there was a speck of dirt on them or a seam which wasn't perfect you could have fooled me. Jim Randall winked at me with his right eye. "May I say you look absolutely stunning Miss McDonald."
I felt myself blushing. "As do you Mr. Randall."
The other Marine held out his arm. "Miss VanDuval, you look ravishing."
Ecetra's sequined blue dress was floor length. It followed the shapely curves of her body like a second skin. It was strapless and it caressed her breasts daringly. Ecetra had a body that shouted 'woman' and she carried herself with a soft sway to her hips as she walked. I was jealous.
Ecetra smiled and winked at the Marine as she reached for the arm of her escort. "Don."
"Miss McDonald, this is how we will enter after the guests have arrived. The Ambassador and the President immediately followed by their wives will walk down the stairs and enter the dinning room. You and Jim will follow next at approximately six steps behind. Don't worry about keeping it perfect, no one notices these things anyway. The Ambassador will walk to the head of the table and stop. Just to his left will be Mrs. Ford and you will be seated next to her. President Manuel Chavez will be seated on Ambassador Ford's right. Next to him will be Mrs. Chavez and I will be seated on her right. The rest of the guests will be introduced as the evening wears on in case you can't read the name plaque in front of them."
She brushed some imaginary lint off her dress. "Any questions?"
"No, I guess not. Jim sits on my left then?" It was an idle question on my part as I didn't have any real questions.
"No, Jim and Don are escorts only. This isn't a military dinner and they don't participate except to escort." Without turning her head Ecetra looked at me out of the corner of her eye.
"You mean they get all dressed up and we don't allow them to eat with us? That's mean!" I wondered why they did it?
"It may be mean but it is protocol. They are here to make sure no one does any mischief while the Ambassador has his dinner party. It has been this way for over a hundred years, Miss McDonald. Any more questions?" She turned her head and was closely watching me.
"I guess not." I was sorry I asked that first question.
We practiced and practiced some more as Ecetra tutored me on how to walk and how to hold my body. My arms and hands were supposed to be tucked in at all times and not swinging about like a farm hand. Don and Jim would laugh as Ecetra coached me, she would give them a stern look and they would straighten up for a few minutes until I did some clumsy thing like the farm girl I was and then they would laugh again.
Then it was time for table manners. Jim escorted me to the table, I pulled out my chair and received a no, no from Ecetra. "Your escort does that Miss McDonald."
We did it again and I waited for Jim to position my chair. I stepped in front of it and Jim slipped it under me as I plopped down. "No, Miss McDonald. We gracefully sit in our chairs. Try it again."
And again and again, and…, I knew I wasn't polished but Ecetra finally accepted the way I entered the room, took my place at the table and sit up straight. Reminded me of Mrs. Waller, my English teacher who was always admonishing the class to sit up straight and not slouch. She tried to teach manners as much as she taught English.
Ecetra was about to tell me about table etiquette when she looked at her watch. "We will have to wing it, Miss McDonald. As the meal is served, watch me and I'll try to give you instructions by nodding yes or no. I have to get ready as the guests will be arriving any minute. You're free to do what you wish until five minutes before seven. At that time please be upstairs so you may enter behind the Ambassador."
As if on cue, a man and woman dressed to the nines walked into the ballroom. Ecetra smiled, held out her hands and indicated toward a five member band that had taken positions as I was being coaxed in manners in the dinning room. "Mr. and Mrs. Raul Pablo, how nice to see you again. Please."
The band dropped into a soft easy string melody. Standing between Jim and Don I watched Ecetra as I whispered. "What is Ecetra's position here? She's not a…, uh…, she's not a hired hand is she."
Jim got tickled and was trying to hold it in. He was shaking all over as he hung his head and giggled. Don wasn't doing much better but he was the one who answered. "Miss VanDuval is the liaison officer for the Ambassador.
"And that is?" I had heard the phrase but I had no idea what a liaison officer did.
"She makes sure a lot of things work smoothly between our government and the Peruvian government. Announcements of affairs might come from the Ambassador but it's Miss VanDuval who orchestrates the behind the scenes politics to make sure there are no gaffs." Jim finished up for Don.
"She is the one who set up this party Miss McDonald. It's a way of announcing to the world America's All Around Cowboy is safe and enjoying life in the southern hemisphere. The story of you being kidnapped, chased by gunmen, and spirited out of Brazil in the nick of time will die a political death. Swept under the news radar by this party where you will be seen by all the political heads of state. More than the usual amount of news people have been invited to make sure there is ample coverage by the press. The press knows it's a cover up, the political leaders know it's a smoke screen, but the public will believe the tales about you being abducted were tabloid news and nothing more." Don had turned and was talking in a very quiet voice in my right ear. Anyone two feet away wouldn't have heard him.
I turned to look at Don. "YOU'RE KIDDING!"
He gave me a smile and shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about Miss McDonald."
Jim leaned over my left shoulder. "Welcome to the world of politics and double speak Miss McDonald. Please don't repeat this to anyone or Jim could be court marshaled and sent to military prison."
That was impossible to believe until I turned to look at Jim. He was dead serious. What could be the charge against them? More guests were arriving. Jim and Don left me to mull that over as they stood by the door and watched the guests. They were constantly on the move. I finally figured it out. They were scanning the guests for trouble. This was my introduction to life where everyone was suspect of being a threat to everyone else. So much for growing up on the farm where the biggest threat was Mother Nature.
Ecetra was talking to a man and woman when she motioned me over. "Miss McDonald, I would like for you to meet Peru's leading Doctor of Medicine, Dr. Anton Under and his wife Estel."
Do I shake hands or not? I had no idea until the doctor held out his. "Pleased to meet you Miss McDonald. May I say you are a very beautiful woman. As a model you have no equal. They say you are the All Around Cowboy. I find it hard to believe a young lady like yourself could best those rugged cowboys."
I laughed as I shook his hand. "Please call me J…," I saw a look of 'oh no' in Ecetra's eyes.
"…, call me Katrina, Mr. Under. I'm not a model and I'm afraid you have the mistaken idea of what All Around Cowboy is. I didn't have to wrestle the cowboys for the title. It's an honorary title given for congeniality, not for rough and tumble sports. The other cowboys liked me is all."
A group of people had gathered around us as Dr. Under held onto my hand. He looked me in the eyes. "Ahhh, and modest too. You don't tell the whole truth Miss McDonald. I've seen the pictures of you posing with the new Ford Thunderbird. Ford Motor Company has dropped two million dollars into pushing the All Around Cowboy and their car in an advertising blitz. Time magazine and Road and Track are coming out with a center fold picture of you lying on the hood of that car. Those advertising people at Ford are pretty smart. I've heard rumors about a calendar with you and a different car for every month."
"What I find hard to believe is they tell me you are the best roper to ever pick up a lariat. It is hard to imagine so much talent in such a beautiful package. My sources tell me you had to be in the top ten percent of your events to be considered for the title. They also tell me you and Bill Randall were number one in your class."
I felt the blood rush to my face in embarrassment. "I'm afraid your sources were wrong Mr. Under. I only posed with one car not several. I don't think a calendar would be possible. As far as my roping skills? There are others better. As to being number one? I'm afraid that is wrong too. I didn't have enough points to qualify for that honor. Bill Randall did as he uses Ben Coller as a partner when I'm in school. Uh, was in school. We won the national finals in Reno last year but that didn't make me number one. Again, not enough points. I happened to get lucky to team with the best and get picked for the title is all. I have a smart horse and the number one calf roper for a pardner. They make me look good. The Rodeo Association should have gave that title to Bill Randall or Gunshy instead of me."
Dr. Under laughed as he turned lose of my hand. "Beautiful and modest, you are not a woman to be taken at face value Miss McDonald. It would be a mistake for anyone to underestimate you."
Ecetra took hold of my left arm and steered me around the other direction. "Miss McDonald, may I present the President of Peru. President Manuel Chavez."
I was looking at a medium built man, moustache, kind of pudgy but not fat, with a couple dozen ribbons and medals on his left chest. What was protocol? I had no idea. Being raised on a farm and ridding the rodeo circuit hadn't prepared me for this. I grabbed my skirt, bowed my head, and dipped in respect. "It is an honor to meet you Mr. President."
When I rose up he slightly bowed his head. "The pleasure is all mine Miss McDonald. I can not say when I have been more pleasantly surprised. You are a vision of beauty. You must show me some of your rope tricks I have heard so much about."
He turned to the lady on his right and smiled. "This is my wife Dioah."
Dressed in a soft red, loose fitting, polyester dress, the black haired woman was like her husband, a few pounds overweight but not what I would call fat. Past middle age, she still had enough remaining beauty to claim she had been a gorgeous woman in her youth.
I bowed my head before I looked into her black eyes. "I am so very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Chavez."
She held out her hand. "Please call me Dioah."
I took her hand in mine. "Thank you, that is most kind. Please call me Jake."
It had slipped out and the room became deathly quiet as I realized I had made a gaff. Ecetra looked like she was about to lay an egg.
Dioah laughed as she winked at me with her right eye. "It will be my pleasure Jake. I heard that was the name you went by but I didn't believe it. Tell me, how did you come by that name?"
I went through the story of how daddy wanted a son and I was all he was ever going to get. Since I was the son then I couldn't very well be Katrina so he named me Jake. I never knew the difference until I was in school and by then it didn't matter as I liked the name.
It seemed photographers magically appeared out of nowhere as I was asked to pose with one group of people and then another. I was asked a thousand questions which were all the same. Not one single person asked me about my trip to Brazil or Simon Pladure. This party was my first introduction to orchestrated questions and answers for the benefit of politics and the press.
At five to seven Ecetra lead President Chavez, his wife, and me up stairs. Ambassador Ford and his wife, Ann were waiting. Immediately President Chavez and Ambassador Ford turned and walked down the stairs. Dioah and Ann were six steps behind. That handsome Marine, Jim, and I were six steps behind them. Ecetra and Don were supposedly six steps behind us. I didn't mind the pomp and circumstance and it was quite an education in itself. We walked into the dinning room and the rest of the guests followed.
As Jim seated me I leaned over in his direction. "You want me to save you any food?"
He got tickled and laughed, Ecetra gave him a stern look as the rest of the guests looked over in amusement. Jim straightened up and left without saying anything. I guess we were supposed to have controlled conversation at this dinner party? Small talk with the gentleman on my right bored me out of my skull. Dioah was on my left and she was quite the conversationalist. Cameras weren't allowed in the dinning room. I guess that was so pictures of someone with their mouth full of food wouldn't hit the six o'clock news.
I never knew people could take so long to eat a meal. And it was such a tiny little meal too. At eight the party rose as if on cue and moved to the ballroom.
President Chavez moved in front of me. "May I have this dance Miss McDonald?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. President. I don't know how to dance. I've never danced in my whole life. However if you are willing to teach me I would like to try." I was wishing all this protocol stuff wasn't hanging over my head right now. I had no idea what to do.
He held out his hand. "It would be my pleasure. Please."
I put my hand in his and he led me out to the middle of the room. Oh GREAT! I was going to show the whole party what a klutz I was. The band was playing a soft melody and the President took my right hand in his left. He moved my right hand to the top of his shoulder and put his right hand in the small of my back as he pulled me up close.
"Move with the music and follow me Miss McDonald." One two, one two, one two, he whispered in my ear as he lead me around the dance floor.
After we circled the dance floor one time, other guests and the Ambassador slipped out onto the dance floor. After the number was over President Chavez led me back over to where his wife had been waiting.
"You have either danced before or you are a quick study Miss McDonald. You did well."
I smiled. "You were easy to follow, Mr. President. You're a great leader."
His eyes danced with delight as he nodded. "And you, young lady, are one to be watched."
He looked over at Dioah. "What do you think of our young friend here, my love?"
Diaoh put her arm around her husband's waist and leaned into him. "She will be a powerful ally to her friends and a terrible foe to her enemies. Let's make sure she doesn't think of us as an enemy."
Without answering, Chavez led his wife out to the dance floor as the music started again. I watched as Dioah danced with her husband. She was fluid, smooth, and yes, even sexy. I didn't want to, but I knew I could never compete with Dioah. She was out of my league, big time!
If one could call what I was doing dancing, then I guess I danced with most of the men there that evening. Including Ambassador Ford. President Chavez asked me to show them some rope tricks. I explained I couldn't without a lariat which was a special kind of rope. Lucky for me, no lariats were to be had so I didn't have to make a spectacle of myself.
The evening wore on until twelve and then as if on queue, within ten minutes, everyone was gone. Welcome to the world of protocol, politics, and orchestrated events, Katrina.
As I watched the last of the guests disappear, Ecetra took my hand and led me upstairs. "You have a flight first thing in the morning Miss McDonald."
Chapter XX
Mexico Closer to Home
"Where? What am I supposed to do? I don't have any money. I need to talk to Leo, and…, oh my god, I forgot to call mom and dad and tell them I'm okay." The ride in the country and the party had caused too much distraction. It was inexcusable to not call my parents earlier that day and let them know I was fine.
Ecetra walked me into my bedroom. "Use the phone by the desk and call if you wish. If you don't remember how to phone out then push one and security will connect you. John and Katherine McDonald have a daughter they can be proud of. You will be flying up to Mexico City to pick up two horses and ship them to Rio. Your handler Kevin passed you off to Phoenix Corporation. They purchased your contract. You will be working for them now."
"SAY WHAT! I can't go back to Brazil! Those people want to kill me! And I don't have a contract with Kevin. Nothing I signed anyway. I was told to baby sit an insane horse named Heater on a ride to Brazil. After that I was to fly to Venezuela pick up another horse and chaperone her to France. I don't know what was in store after that. That's all Leo had explained to me." I stopped and was studying Ecetra to see how much she understood or if she believed the story. Heck, I wouldn't believe it if someone tried to tell me that kind of tale.
A smile slowly spread across her face as she watched me. "Miss McDonald, no one in Brazil would try and kill you. The information they were trying to keep from escaping is a moot point as we have it. You dropped off the film and that's the end of it. Heads would roll if they tried to kill you now. I can honestly say you have made most every major newspaper in the United States and other parts of the world. You are America's goodwill, sweetheart ambassador."
"In five days you will go to party for Mexico's Ambassador, Manuel Rodreuz and our Ambassador, Don Burch. When you get to Brazil, you will do the same with Simon Pladure and Ambassador William Ware."
"You're kidding! That was one of the men I escaped from although I didn't know it at the time. You certainly don't expect me to go back?" It shocked me she suggested I step right back into the lion's den where I had fled from only days before. People had died and Ecetra was suggesting I was to go back?
She turned and reached for the door. "A suitcase is on your bed. Put your dress in it. You may have to wear it at the next party but I doubt it. Brenda is going to help you in Mexico City. You have a suit dress in your closet. Wear it for the flight tomorrow."
"Wait! I don't have any money. I can't pay for any of this." I was sure someone was going to be terribly disappointed when they tried to collect for what I was wearing, much less the plane ticket I was supposed to buy.
Ecetra shook her head as she looked at me. "I know this is a little fast for you Miss McDonald so I'll try and explain it. This morning Kevin Dalder called and said he would take care of all expenses. At eleven Phoenix Corporation called saying they had taken over your contract and they would take care of all your expenses. At two this afternoon, Valley Downs Farms called and said they were wiring money for your needs. What really put the icing on the cake was when Georgia Modeling Agency called. They said they had talked to your mom and would up front a hundred thousand for all rights contract to handle your modeling career."
She looked down at the floor as she laughed. "Money? Miss McDonald, you have three…, four companies who basically said, give her anything she wants and we will pay for it. I don't think money is a problem here. Getting organized in your time schedule is the problem and that should straighten out in Mexico City. You will have two days for your entourage to find you and start grooming you to their expectations."
“The dress and your accessories were paid for out of discretionary funds we have for emergencies such as this. It was listed in along with the cost of the dinner party tonight.”
Her eyes saddened as she walked back over and wrapped up my right hand in both of hers. "Katrina, they will try to change you into their idea of the perfect model, the All Around Cowboy, the goodwill ambassador. Don't let them. You're a breath of fresh air. So young, naive, innocent, and yes, even beautiful. You haven't learned to play politics and I hope you never do. We stab each other with lies and deceit as we go about our business. We step over the bodies of our predecessors as we climb the ladder to the top, knowing we will be one of those cast offs when we are no longer useful to the present person in power."
She pulled me into a hug as she kissed my cheek. "Don't let them change you Jake."
Moving back, I looked into the eyes of a very strong woman. I knew she was a woman who turned heads and capture hearts wherever she went. I also didn't believe there would ever be anyone walking over her to get to the 'top' as she so aptly put it. "Thank you Miss VanDuval. You're a very beautiful woman. I wish I had half your grace, poise, and beauty."
“You already have all those things Katrina. In your own way. You are above all the rest of us because from you, it comes honestly without any deceit behind it.” Ecetra turned and walked out of the room pulling the door closed behind her.
I was still trying to catch up to what she told me. I guess the problem of money was solved but I had no idea how. I hadn't seen any. It would make me feel a little better if I had some in my hand rather than people telling me I had it when I couldn't see it. I guess that was the country girl in me.
I called mom and dad and knew I was getting them out of bed. When she first heard my voice, mom became so excited she was screaming into the phone. After she calmed down and passed the phone off to dad, he was just the opposite. You would have thought I was phoning him from my room. It was the way they both were. Mom always made too much of a little thing and dad always acted like that was the way it was always supposed to be.
I told them I was okay and everything seemed to be fine. Dad asked me to wait a minute while he dragged the phone over to the door. I heard a snort and knew who it was. "Oh, Gun, I miss you so much. I wish it was you and me out chasing calves across the pasture again. I miss you…, Take care of mom and dad for me and I'll be home when Bill say's it's okay. I love you."
Mom came back on the line. "I think he knew it was you calling, Katrina. He walked up to the door when the phone rang. We love you hon. You'll be home real soon."
"Bye momma. Tell dad and Gun I said bye." I hung up and cried as I felt the heartache of being away from those I had loved all my life.
Minutes later I had washed my face in the bathroom and dried most of my tears. Unless a Blue Northerner was cutting across the fields, I never slept in more than panties. The satin night gown I was looking at when I walked over to my bed was appealing but not my style. I slipped out of my borrowed dress and slip and hung them up. After removing my makeup and everything else, I headed for bed.
Gunshy and I were ridding across the open fields when he stumbled and fell. I was tossed over his head as he went down. "Miss McDonald, you must get up and catch your flight."
It had been a dream and someone was shaking my bed. "Miss McDonald, are you awake?"
I pried my eyes open and looked up at Dalia. "I'm awake."
She backed up. "I laid out a dress for you and packed your suitcase. You have to hurry, your flight leaves in less than an hour. I'll help you get dressed."
With Dalia's help, twenty minutes later I was headed down the stairs carrying a suitcase and a brown leather shoulder purse. Dalia had performed some magic and I didn't look like the girl my parents had said goodbye to a few days before. I was wearing a brown suede, long sleeved, dress and black flats. I balked at the silver earrings and necklace she wanted me to wear but in the end, Dalia won out.
Don and Ecetra were waiting. He reached out and took the suitcase. "I have the Hummer ready. Meet me out front."
Ecetra walked up and wrapped me up in her arms as she gave me a hug. Backing up she pressed a piece of paper in my hand. "If you ever need anything, call this number. I'll be there."
"Ecetra, thanks for everything. I hope I can return the favor sometime." I put the note into my purse.
Smiling she pointed toward the door. "Don't let them change you Jake. Now go so you don't miss your flight."
After driving me to the airport, Don walked me through the terminal and handled the tickets and passport information. He waited at the gate until I was on the jet. He was still there when we taxied out and took off. It felt nice to have someone watching to make sure I was safe. Don, Jim, and all the others would always have a place in my heart for all they did for me.
Mexico City, what a smoggy place and loaded with people. I didn't have a chance to get lost as two uniformed officers gathered me up as I deboarded the plane. "Miss McDonald, come with us."
One of them took my suitcase from me and led the way while the other followed along behind. The pass through customs was just that. I mean we walked right through without stopping. We went right out the front of the terminal to a limousine. The one with the suitcase opened the door. "Your chauffeur, Miss McDonald."
I don't guess it would have done any good to ask questions as I didn't seem to have much choice in the matter. I slid in as the first officer put my suitcase in the trunk and the other officer closed my door. It was the first limousine I had ever been in and it looked big enough to be a house inside that car. It was also kind of lonesome being the only one in the car beside the driver. Was I impressed? Not really. Someone wasted a lot of money on me as I wasn't the kind of farm girl who enjoyed all the pomp of being chauffeured. My style was sitting up front and looking where I was going. I looked at the buildings and people as the driver wove his way through traffic that was bumper to bumper. It was hard to believe people really lived like this in or out of that big old car.
The driver pulled up to the front of a Hilton Hotel and stopped. A man walked up and opened my door. "Buenos dios, senorita McDonald. It's an honor to have you stay at our hotel."
As I slid out there was a tall, handsome, Latin man taking my suitcase out of the trunk. The first man said something in Spanish and turned toward me. "Please this way, Miss McDonald. Your suite is waiting for you."
“Sweet? I didn’t want a sweet.”
“Um…, your suit, Miss McDonald?”
"Suit? No thanks, I have enough clothes. More than enough. I can't handle more than one suitcase and a horse or two at the same time." I was sure I didn't want any more clothes unless they were my jeans and denim shirts I had in my lost suitcase. My hat and lariat would be better than clothes.
"Pardon?" He looked puzzled.
"I don't want a suit. It means more weight and I already have all the clothes I want. Those that someone else thinks I should be wearing anyway." I thought I was pretty clear on the matter.
Slowly his puzzled look turned to a broad smile. "No, you misunderstood, Miss McDonald. I said suite and it's a room in the hotel. If you would be so kind as to follow me, please."
Embarrassed I turned to follow the gentleman. I was thinking when he mentioned suite or suit or whatever, it was more clothes instead of a hotel room. You can bring the farm girl to the city but you'll never take the farm out of her. Bill and I never stayed at any of them places fancy enough to have suites when we were on the road. It was a room if we pulled off for the night.
The man walked across the wide veranda to the entry of the hotel which was huge itself. It was stretch across there to the front desk. He stopped at the desk and held out his hand. "Senorita McDonald's suite."
"Certainly, welcome to the Hotel Hilton, Miss McDonald. Please let us know if there is anything you desire." The dark haired beauty behind the desk dropped a card in the man's hand as she looked at me.
"Uh, yes, thanks." I could see this was going to cost a lot of money. Money I didn't have.
I stepped up to the desk and leaned over to whisper to the man and woman. "I don't have any money to pay for this."
The woman looked puzzled. The man smiled and nodded his head. "Miss McDonald, please accept my sincere apologies. I should have explained. Mr. Duwayne Hulst of the Phoenix Corporation arranged for the room. I believe you have guests arriving at six this evening. You may want to rest or freshen up before they arrive?"
"Whatever, as long as you know I don’t have any money. I couldn't even afford a hamburger right now." I was tired of the whole situation. I would have paid a million dollars I didn't have, to be home right at that moment.
"Please let me take care of all your needs, Miss McDonald. Now, if you would like, your room?" He motioned toward the elevators.
I'm sure we went to the top floor but I couldn't prove it. My sweet as that guy called it? Bigger than my home back in Montana. It was huge.
The gentleman motioned for the man following us with the suitcase to sit it on a table. "May we hang up your clothes, Miss McDonald?"
"Uh, no thanks. Not much there. I have a dress, pair of jeans, a shirt, and that's pretty well it." I was wondering what I could do in a room this big? Okay, it was several rooms as far as I could tell.
"As you wish." He said something to the other man in Spanish and the smaller guy left.
"I am your concierge, Miss McDonald. If there is anything you want all you have to do is ask. The key fits the slot in the elevator console and it's the only way you can get back to the penthouse. If you lose it or have problems, call me. Your party arranged for dining at six. I understand there will be a party of five. If you are hungry and would like something before then, please ask or call down to the desk. My purpose is to serve you and make your visit in our hotel as pleasant as possible. May I get you anything before I leave?" He held out the card in his hand.
Hesitantly I took the card. "No, you're very kind. I appreciate it. I hope you get paid."
Laughing he shook his head. "Miss McDonald, you are so young. You are the only person I have ever met who worried about me getting paid. Believe me, Mr. Hulst has taken care of everything. It is an honor to have America's All Around Cowboy at our hotel. They say you are the number one roper in the world. You are both beautiful and talented. Please enjoy your stay."
He was gone before I could tell him I wasn't the number one roper. I don't know if I would even qualify to be number nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety nine or not? Probably not. It was onto exploring the rooms as I wondered who in the devil was Mr. Duwayne Hulst? Out of curiosity I picked up the telephone by the bed.
"Yes, Miss McDonald." Came from the phone.
Startled I almost dropped it. "Uh, ah, nothing. I'm sorry. I didn't know it was…, I'm sorry."
I hung it up embarrassed I had caused someone any trouble. I was wishing for a watch but that was probably lost along with all my other clothes. Which reminded me. I opened the suitcase and took out the dress Ecetra let me wear at the embassy party. She said I might need it again. I hung it up. The jeans and shirt I left in the suitcase from habit as much as anything else. Those places Bill and I stayed at didn't have much in the way of clothes hangers and it didn't make much difference. We only stayed at any one place long enough to close our eyes. No need of unpacking. Took precious time we didn't have to spare.
The phone rang and I jumped out of my skin. I picked it up. "Hello?"
"Miss McDonald, you have a guest. Mr. Leonard LeBo is here. Shall I have him wait in the lobby or send him up?" Was a soft Latin voice on the other end.
Chapter XXI
The Rush to Judgment
"Leonard? Leonard? YES! SEND HIM UP, PLEASE!" I couldn't believe Leonard had flown down to see me. How did he know where I was? I opened the door and ran out to wait in front of the elevator. When I heard the click behind me I realized I had left that card thing in the room.
I was trying the door when the elevator dinged and the elevator door opened. Leonard was stepping out. "Leonard, don't let it go. I left my key in the room and we can't get back in."
Leonard had stepped out and he was staring. "Jake? Is that you?"
I pointed to the elevator. "Leonard, the elevator."
He caught it before the doors closed and I stepped on with him behind me. "Yep, it's you cowgirl. Left your key in the room, huh?"
He looked me up and down. "Didn't recognize you without your boots and spurs."
I laughed as I thought about it. "Why don't you grab my arm and see if it's me?"
Leonard shook his head. "I'll pass. Someone told me they would knock my head off if I grabbed their arm one more time. You know, I don't think I've grabbed anyone's arm since. I'm still quivering in my shoes afraid I'll get hold of the wrong person."
The elevator stopped and we stepped out in the front lobby. I walked over to the desk as the lady I talked to a few minutes before watched. "I'm sorry but I locked myself out of my room. Could you get someone to open it up for me?"
She smiled as she placed another card on the counter. "I can if you wish or do you want another key?"
"Oh, no if you don't mind another key would work. I didn't mean I needed someone to open…, I mean I can do it but the key…, room…, I'm sorry." I took the card and walked back over to the elevator where Leonard was waiting. I needed some lessons in etiquette.
"I have your suitcase at my hotel, Jake. The pilots who left you in Brazil figured you were off sight seeing some place. They didn't know you were in trouble until they were contacted the next day."
He pushed the button for the elevator. "We have a lot to talk about before David Homes from Phoenix Corporation meets you for lunch. You want to do it in your room or go to the restaurant, get a table, and talk about it over coffee?"
The elevator doors opened and I motioned Leonard on. "My room will work. I looked it over and it seems I have coke and liquor in a cabinet there. Never been in a place where the hotel furnished cokes along with the room."
Leonard shook his head as he stepped on the elevator. "The hotel does and Phoenix Corporation does. They are working on you Jake. Let me explain the aspects of the business world."
Leonard waited until we were back in the room before he motioned to a chair as he sat down in another one. "Take a seat Jake, this is going to take a little bit."
He waited until I sat down before he became all serious. "Your parents got all excited when news about your disappearance hit the papers. They called Bill Randall in a panic. Bill called Kevin Dalder and Kevin gave Bill my number. I don't know Bill. Never met the man and after that phone call I would hate to meet him if I thought he was mad. Bill told me in no uncertain terms I would find out what happened to you in Brazil and I WOULD make sure you were safe. He said if I didn't understand, there were thirty thousand cowboys who would be glad to explain it to me."
I couldn't help it, I broke up and laughed at the idea of the way Bill was talking to Leonard. Knowing Bill, I bet he did say exactly that.
Leonard laughed and shook his head. "The idea I could have thirty thousand cowboys angry at me for losing you didn't exactly appeal to me. What topped it off was Jerry Lacky from the State Department called me up within an hour of Bill's phone call. I can tell you that wasn't a pleasant call either. He was picking up heat from the news media about us losing their all around cowboy."
"As luck would have it, you called a little after those two calls. After putting you in touch with Albert I called everyone and told them you were okay. I didn't count on you and Albert disappearing for a week."
He stopped and studied me. "Jake, you dropped me into the fire with that little trick. I'm telling everyone you are okay and you disappear with no trace. Every day I expected to see thirty thousand cowboys show up at my door with a rope."
"I'm sorry, Leonard. I couldn't contact you. I sent a message to my parents I was all right but phoning anyone was out of the question. Albert was shot, I saw four men drive over a cliff, and someone wanted us very dead." I was sorry for what Leonard went through. I looked at his eyes and then at my hands in shame.
"I'm still alive Jake. Besides making me a nervous wreck, no harm done. It was the message to your parents saved my bacon. Again, they contacted Bill and he got in touch with me. He wasn't letting me off the hook. He said as long as you were alive I might manage to do the same."
Leonard leaned forward in his chair. "How big is that guy anyway? He sounds big on the phone."
"Honestly? Bill is six foot four and there isn't an ounce of fat on him. I've seen him pick up a two hundred pound cowboy with one hand." I winked at Leonard to take some of the edge off.
Leonard coughed. "Yeah, I bet he could too. Okay, here's the rest of it. Phoenix Corporation bought you from Kevin or a good share of you…"
"SAY WHAT! Kevin doesn't own me. You don't either. I shipped a horse for you and that’s as far as it goes. No body owns…"
"Calm down Jake. Let me finish." Leonard smiled as he shook his head.
"Okay, I'm calm but you don't own me." I was still hot over that one.
"Your primary contact was with Kevin even if you don't agree." He held up his hand as I started to say something.
"I know, Kevin doesn't own you. Even if you don't like it, you had a contract. It may have been verbal but it was a contract between Bill Randall, you, and Kevin. You were to ship one horse named Heater to Brazil. Your pay was four thousand dollars…, That reminds me."
He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a credit card and held it out to me. "American Express in your name Katrina. Four thousand dollars worth. Ecetra VanDuval said you needed some money."
Hesitantly I took it. "Four thousand dollars?"
"That's your base pay. If you kept any receipts for expenses then Kevin will reimburse you for that. Within reason of course. Meals, lodging, and necessary items are normal expenses."
"I don't have any receipts. Everyone was paying for my way, Leonard. I didn't have any money to pay them back and I owe a lot of people who made sure I stayed alive." I looked over at Leonard wondering if he would ever understand how much I owed and not all of it was money.
He nodded. "We'll make sure they get repaid one way or another. Let's forge ahead as we don't have a lot of time. Phoenix Corporation bought your contract from Kevin."
He held up his hand before I could grip about it again. "Okay, non existent contract. They aren't dumb. They know it's a non existent contract but they bought it. Word got out you were in the Embassy in Peru. Phoenix Corporation sends word they will pick up the tab on anything you need. They know you have an invite to visit the President of Mexico so they turn up the charm. I imagine a limo picked you up at the airport?"
Dumb founded I nodded.
"The penthouse is part of the package. They are going to wine and dine you today and push a contract at you. If you're feeling you owe them something in return, you will sign their contract without looking it over too close. For the rest of your natural life they will own you. You won't be able to work for anyone else."
I was in shock. "You're kidding!"
"Jake, these people play hardball. I'll make you a four thousand dollar bet right now, they have a full life history report on you and they are going over it to see how they can take advantage of you, 'farm girl'."
"But I'm not stupid!" Surely Leonard didn't think I would be grateful enough to sign my life away? Then again maybe I was. I was thankful someone had paid for my flight and my room.
"I didn't say you were stupid Katrina. I honestly believe you are the smartest person I have ever had the pleasure to meet. You are a country girl. Smart in the ways of horses, farms, weather, rodeos, and the things you have been exposed to."
He took in his breath as he shook his head. "This is a different breed of people than what you have dealt with all your life. They get up in the morning thinking how to hustle someone before they are hustled themselves. Kevin called Bill after he sold Phoenix your contract. Bill called me and told me to do something and if I didn't he would. Bill explained to me the reason he didn't put you in touch with Phoenix was because they weren't nice people. Heck that's not news. Every time we ship a horse with Phoenix we have to make sure we have all the i's dotted and all the t's crossed or they will do something wrong."
"Jake, when I talked to Ecetra she told me where I could find you. I caught a flight out of Atlanta last night and waited on you to show. Now listen to me. You don't owe Phoenix Corporation a thing. Don't sign a contract with those people. Stay with Kevin for now. You can trust him for the most part. To tell the truth, he didn't understand why he shouldn't have sold you to Phoenix Corporation. I think your friend Bill Randall explained it to him so there wasn't any doubt left Kevin understood he had made a serious mistake." Leo chuckled over that one after he said it.
"Okay, no contract with Phoenix Corporation. I understand that." Suddenly I was tired. It was hard to imagine signing a contract where I virtually gave up my life to a company. But then I didn't know law so I guess it would be possible.
Leonard nodded. "Now the good part. Georgia Atlanta Models wanted a five year contract with you. They are the company who took your pictures with the Ford and the horse feed among other things. They sent your parents a contract and asked for permission to sign you for ten thousand dollars a year for the next five years. Your mother called Bill and again, Bill called me. I guess it had to do with me being in Atlanta as much as I was partly to blame for you getting mixed up with Atlanta Models. I made a visit to their office and explained to them what I thought you were worth. Ronald Beckman is a nice guy. I like him but he's sure stingy with your share of what those pictures are worth."
A smile spread across Leonard's face. "Linda and I managed to get you a contract for two million for the first year. You will have to work one hundred twenty days. For single days you are obligated to put in up to eighteen hours. If two working days are together then you put in fourteen hours per day. For three days or more then you work twelve hours per day. Of course you don’t have to put in the maximum hours for any of the days. You are only obligated to if the pictures run that long. Any extra over one hundred twenty days are to be paid for on a contract basis."
"two million? this year?" I couldn’t believe it. That was more money than I could imagine.
"Jake, we didn't lock you in. It's your choice. I don't know your parents but they sound like nice people. I talked to them over the phone and they are a lot like you. I can see you came from good stock. The problem is, you believe and trust people. There are those you can trust but there are those who will take advantage of you when they can. Life is a game. If you don't think an opponent will try and kick in a scoring goal at every opportunity then you haven't played much sports other than rodeo. Some call it good business sense, others call it dirty tricks." He sighed as he shook his head.
This was more than I wanted to know. I guess, my parents and Bill Randall had been sheltering me from the hard knocks of life and I never learned. "Thanks, Leo. I appreciate the talk. I can't believe you flew all the way down here to give me a pep talk about business?"
"No, like I said, I brought your suitcase and other things. But this discussion was the reason I came. Jake, I didn't want you signing on with Phoenix without knowing what they were wanting out of you. Kevin thought it was kind of funny in the beginning and then I think he decided he may have not done such a funny thing. I don't know Bill Randall but I bet he let Kevin know what would happen to him if you signed a contract with those people. And another thirty thousand cowboys would probably help drive the point home." A smile spread clear across Leonard's face as he thought about it.
"Okay, I get the message, Leo. You don't have to tell me a dozen times for me to understand. How you been, how long you staying, and where are you rooming at?" I was ready to talk about something else.
"I'm over at the Marriot. Seemed like a good idea to keep a low profile until you checked in and I had a chance to talk to you. Like I said, I have your suitcase and your lariat."
He winked at me. "Although what you're wearing looks darn good on you."
I was wearing the brown suede dress Dalia had laid out for me that morning. Long sleeve and just above the knee hem, it wasn't bad as dresses go. Not really me though. "Thanks, I guess."
Looking at his watch he rose out of his chair. "I guess I better run. You have a luncheon with the Phoenix crowd this evening. I'll catch you later."
"Leo, wait. Would you mind going with me? I mean, you don’t have to if you don't want but…," I wanted someone there for support who was on my side.
"Are you sure?" Leonard was looking in my eyes for an answer.
"Sure, I'm sure. It's my life isn't it? I never promised those people anything. I may owe them for something but it sure isn't because they tried to blindside me. You game?" I rose out of my chair as I waited for an answer.
"Why not? Let's lay all the cards on the table. I'll run over to the hotel and change into a suit and be back in less than an hour. I can call you from the front desk when I get back." He was headed for the door as he was speaking.
"Do you mind if I come with you? I'll be bored silly waiting in the room and I would kind of like to see a little more of the city than what I saw coming in from the airport." I moved over to the door behind him.
He opened the door and motioned with his hand. "Grab your key and let's go."
I grabbed my purse and stuck both room keys in it as I followed him out the door.
Leonard caught us a taxi. It was amusing as most the taxi's in Mexico City were Volkswagens. I guess they are economical or something. Leonard and I fit in okay and it was fun but I didn't think Bill would have managed to get in one of those things.
We made his motel, he showed me his room, and before he started to change I walked down to the lobby.
Leonard was carrying the suitcase I had lost in Brazil when he walked into the lobby. We were back at my hotel before noon. Leonard offered to buy me lunch. I had no idea what Mexico offered in the way of meals. After dropping my suitcase in my room we headed for the lobby and Julio.
He was talking to a very well dressed Latino man and an immaculately dressed lady. We waited until he finished and the couple headed for the elevator. “Miss McDonald, what may I do for you and your friend?’
“We have a little time before the meeting this afternoon and wondered about looking around. Leonard mentioned a little earlier big cities always have areas tourists shouldn’t go. Can you tell us about some places to see? I also want to buy boots and a cowboy hat. I seem to have a habit of leaving clothes where ever I travel. My hat is still in Brazil.”
“Miss McDonald, we really aren’t as western oriented as many think. It is only when one gets further north close to Texas does the western cowboy trait become more the norm. However you might try Botas Pakoy and Mecado de Granaditas as they carry a selection of western wear. Those areas are not to be traveled lightly. Let me see if the embassy will furnish you and your friend a guide.”
He picked up the phone on his desk, tapped some keys and started speaking Spanish. ”Miss McDonald, necesita una quia…, Unos veinte minutos? Gracious.”
“Miss McDonald, the Mexican embassy is sending over a guide. Veronica Mendoza will be here in about twenty minutes. If you and your friend would like refreshments while you wait, the bar in the restaurant is open. Hand them your room key when you order and it will put on your tab while you are staying with us.” He pointed off toward an entrance to his right.
Looking at Leonard, I nodded toward the restaurant. “A coke while we wait?”
“Sure.” Leonard started to reach for my arm and then pulled back as he looked at me out of the side of his eyes. “Old habit.”
Laughing, I reached over and took his hand. “A lot has happened since we first met. I’ll let you lead if you want.”
His grip tightened a tad as he laughed with me. We walked into the restaurant to wait on our guide.
A couple hours later we were back at the hotel and I was feeling a whole lot better. I had a hat and boots. They might not have been Montana cowboy style but they were close enough. Leonard went with me back to my room where I changed into jeans and denim shirt from my suitcase before the meeting. This was the first time I felt more natural since I had left Mike and Albert on the ranch. We walked into the restaurant before anyone from Phoenix showed up. I could tell they weren't happy about Leonard joining the group when they finally did show. There were four of them who walked in together. I guess they were going to try and impress me with numbers?
They introduced themselves. Duwayne Hulst was thin faced, receding hairline, and had a gravelly voice. Clyde Borger wasn't that tall of a man. I guessed him about five seven or eight. He had a weak handshake and laughed with a snort. Roger Harris was Mr. Diamond. He had big diamonds on three of his fingers on his right hand and two on his left. A diamond tie tack so big it looked like glass and diamond cuff links that looked fake. The last man, Melvin Orand was wearing a shinny suit that looked like it belonged in the gangster movies. His hair was slicked down to match the image.
I guess I was probably being overly tacky in how I looked at them because of what Leonard had told me up in my room. Instead of thinking of them as gentlemen, I was thinking of them as weasels or rats.
All during dinner they kept asking me how I liked the 'Penthouse', with emphasis on the penthouse. I was told in an off way it was the most expensive room in the hotel and only VIP stayed there. Was the limousine satisfactory and did I enjoy the first class cabin in the airplane?
Halfway through the dinner I wanted to throw up. I like to think I would have figured it out on my own without Leonard's help. Maybe they thought the country girl had come to the big city in wide eyed wonder? It might have happened like that if I hadn't been riding the rodeo circuit with Bill the past three years. But even some cowboys are bad seed. You get where you can pick them out before you are taken in by them. These men from Phoenix Corporation were bad seed. They were snake oil salesmen trying to soften me up before they lured me into the trap.
Without asking me what I wanted, Duwayne, ordered me a Kansas City Steak big enough for Bill Randall to eat. He also ordered enough side dishes to be a meal by themselves. The champagne was the final item but I was terribly unimpressed. Duwayne was sitting on my left as Leonard had taken first option on my right. I would have hated to think I would have been sandwiched between two of Phoenix Corporation's henchmen.
After the food had started arriving and the champagne had been poured, Duwayne leaned over in my direction. "Bet you don't get food like this up in that Montana state. Pretty nice huh? When you work for Phoenix, you don't have to watch your budget.'
Nodding, I was wondering if he really thought Montana was a third world country?
Across the table, Melvin Orand was smiling from ear to ear. "You can expect this kind of life everyday when you work for Phoenix Corporation."
I turned to look at Leonard. He was keeping a straight poker face and not showing one way or another what he was thinking. This was getting a little too deep in the horse manure department for me to handle. I knew when I was being handed a line of bull. Dragging up my most innocent smile, I looked over at Melvin. "You mean, when I'm transporting horses, they will serve this kind of meal on the plane? I mean, I don't see how they could serve this if we were moving those horses by truck."
Clyde Borger was over to Duwayn's left. "I think you misunderstood, Miss McDonald. Melvin meant you could order anything you wanted at any café or restaurant you stopped at without having to worry about checking the prices. I bet you haven't been able to do that too often. That is up until now. Working for Phoenix Corporation means you get to stay in the Penthouse, travel in style, and not worry about money. You see, we take care of all your expenses when you're shipping horses for us."
"Oh, well, yes, I guess I did misunderstand. You'll have to excuse me. I really haven't had much experience in dealing with these business matters. Being from Montana and all, you know we aren't used to them big city places like New York or Dallas."
It was time to smoke these varmints out as to what they were trying to weasel me into. "You know I'm working for Kevin Dalder. I guess I owe him for giving me my first job shipping horses. He's such a nice man to work for. That horse, Heater was such an easy job…,"
Leonard had taken a bite of food and he coughed as he choked on whatever it was he had in his mouth. He covered his mouth with a napkin as he leaned over the side of his chair and hacked and coughed.
Reaching out with my right hand, I whacked him on the back hoping he hadn't got it hung up in his windpipe and died on me right then. "Leonard, you all right?"
Finally he straightened back up and turned his head to look me in the eye. He had tears in his eyes. I didn't know if it was from what I said about Heater being such a nice animal or if it was from the pain of swallowing his food wrong?
Clyde was looking at Leonard and then at me. "We can offer you a substantial amount over what Kevin was paying you, Miss McDonald. Of course for that kind of courtesy on our part we would need a commitment on your behalf. We would need you to sign a contract."
Roger Harris put some papers on the table. "Really it's only a formality. You can see how we treat our help. First class tickets, the best suite in the finest hotel, the finest cuisine that can be offered and it's all on us. All you have to do is turn in your expense receipts and we will reimburse you on your next paycheck."
Duwayne picked up the papers and handed them over to me. He flipped open the last page and pointed to a blank line. "Sign here, Miss McDonald and you'll be flying all over the world at our expense. The only thing you have to do is baby sit a horse or two on the trip. Think of visiting Ireland, France, or Belgium and we are paying for it. Believe me, this is a golden opportunity. This kind of offer doesn't come along once in a lifetime. It's a once in a million offer."
I took his contract and glanced down to the bottom of the page. "Okay, you have a pen?"
Leonard was coughing again.
Duwayne handed me a pen. "You are about to become one of the team members, Miss McDonald."
I made a mark on the line and stopped. Leonard was about to scream as he was rising out of his chair. "Sit down, Leo. Uh, gentlemen, I think I'll look over this contact before I sign it. All that legal stuff kind of goes past me."
Now it was time for the four men from Phoenix Corporation to look like they were in panic mode. Clyde was shaking his head. "Oh, there's no need Miss McDonald. You can trust us. It's not much of a contract and really only a formality for insurance and all in case something happened while you were handling a horse. You have to be an employee for our company insurance to cover you in case of accident and that's basically what it's all about."
Roger was nodding his head yes. "Sign the contract, Miss McDonald. There's no need of worrying about any of the legal stuff. We'll make sure you get what's coming to you. I mean we can change it later if you don't like the way it's worded."
I folded the contract up and slipped it into my purse as I handed Duwayne his pen. "Well, silly me, I guess I don't understand all them legal things. I'm sure it's okay. I'll sign it and give it back to you after I look it over. We don't want to have to go back and make any changes later do we?"
Duwayne looked stunned for a sec and then he smiled ear to ear as he held out his hand. "No problem making changes, Miss McDonald. Sign the contract and let me take care of it. I will make all the changes you want."
Thinking of the graduation where I blindly followed someone without asking questions, I shook my head as I smiled at Duwayne. "Actually gentlemen, it would be foolish of this poor ol country gal to make you go to the trouble of rewriting the contract on the parts I might want to change. So I’ll just keep it and make sure to get it all corrected the first time we do this. I have a friend, Bill Randal, you might know him. He and I do head and heel roping together. I’m positive you will agree it would be good business to have someone else look it over.”
Roger Harris looked at the others before turning his attention back to me. “Miss McDonald, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. We can’t keep paying for your lodging if you aren’t an employee. If you will sign the contract we will take care of your room fees tonight and from now on when you are moving a horse for us.”
“Well, since you put it that way. Um…, let me think about it. Um, no. Gentlemen, I must say I’ve seen some good cowboys and some sly cowboys in the years I’ve been on the rodeo circuit. That includes the cowgirls too. You men aren’t really gentlemen and I didn’t fall off the turnip wagon this morning. I may be green but I ain’t that green. I’ll leave your sweet tonight and you are welcome to stay there since you paid for it.”
“Miss McDonald, I think there has been a misunderstanding.” Roger was trying to salvage the meeting.
“You bet your boots there was a misunderstanding. You men tried to fast talk me into a one sided contract. I haven’t read all the contract. What I scanned on that last page where you wanted my signature was enough to choke a bullfrog.”
I rose up from the table. “This wasn’t a pleasant evening. We are finished. I don’t need your money, your hotel, nor your offer for employment. I’ll pick up my suitcase out of your room and the room is yours. Enjoy.”
Leonard was hurrying to catch up as I left the dinning room. “Whew, and I thought Bill Randall was tough.”
Shaking my head I looked sideways at Leonard. “Not nearly as bad as I wanted to lay on them. They are pit vipers, everyone of them. Know any good places to stay? I think I’m a street urchin again. I’m going to get my suitcase out of the room.”
Chapter XXII
Katrina Heads Home
“Just a second. He headed for the main desk and the man who had met me when I first checked in. “Excuse me.” Leo looked at the man’s name tag. “Julio, our friend has a problem. The suite she was in has been canceled by the men who were paying for it. It seems as if America’s All Around Cowboy is in need of a room for the night.”
He pointed back at me. “Tomorrow the American Embassy along with Mexico’s Ambassador are going to be looking for her at this motel. You know how the tabloids like to play with the truth. If she isn’t here, I’m only guessing mind you. The headlines will be America’s All Around Cowboy evicted by the Hilton Hotel. Mexico has lost America’s sweetheart goodwill ambassador.”
Julio didn’t even hesitate. “Miss McDonald isn’t being evicted. The room she is in has been paid for and registered in her name. She has the keys. She is the only one who will have keys for the rest of her stay. I would be personally insulted if Miss McDonald found us unaccommodating for her needs.”
His eyes closed slightly as he looked at Leonard. “I read the papers. The lady was kidnapped in Brazil and then everyone denied it was a kidnapping. She is famous model…, no? Our security is the best. When the ambassadors send over the liaison officers to collect Miss McDonald it would be best if she was where they expected her to be…, no? America’s All Around Cowboy, Miss McDonald, may stay in her suite.”
Nodding in agreement, Leonard looked back at me. “Miss McDonald, it seems your room accommodations are still in order.” He turned his attention back to Julio. “Please escort Miss, McDonald to her suite and make sure she isn’t molested while she is staying in your fine hotel.”
“A request I take great pleasure in filling. Miss McDonald, when you are ready I will personally escort you to your suite, again.”
Feeling overwhelmed by the whole affair I didn’t quite know how to thank everyone. “Leonard, tomorrow…,”
“I’ll check on you from time to time Cat. The embassy will be handling your schedule for the next two days. Julio will make sure you are safe here in the hotel. I’ll contact Linda for your modeling career and see what they have in mind. I’ll let Bill know you are looking for a job shipping horses. I’ll contact Kevin and give him an earful of what a low down weasel I think he is for trying to trade you off to Phoenix. I’m going to give my bosses a hint and see if they want to front you as an independent shipper. They move a lot of horses. They know most of the other stables and buyers all over the world. Cat, give it some thought if you want to be an independent shipper and if you could fit it into your schedule between your roping and modeling careers.” Leonard turned and left.
My mind was racing trying to grasp all the ideas Leonard had planted in my mind. Me, an independent shipper? I knew nothing about the business side of it. I was the flunky who got the horse ready and delivered him. Modeling? I posed for some passport pictures, I knew nothing about modeling. I knew and loved roping, and horses, and cowboys, and rodeos, and the farm.
“When you’re ready, Miss McDonald.” Julio moved over to the elevators.
Julio left me in the room as he closed the door behind him. I was looking at that big bed while I slipped out of my clothes. Ecetra said I would be shipping two horses to Brazil for Phoenix Corporation when she sent me packing from Peru. I deep sixed that by refusing to sign their contract. Would the embassy still want me to visit now? No matter, I was a lot better off than I was a few days ago. I had Leonard to guide me and possibly some money if the credit card he gave me was on the up and up. I would have traded everything to be back home milking cows and planning the next rodeo with Bill. Why did life have to get so complicated? Heading for the tub I was hoping to wash the troubles of the world away. I wasn’t sure how the meeting with the Mexican Ambassador was going to go after I told them I wasn’t babysitting any horses to Brazil. No matter how much my own government cried about good will and relationships, I was not in the mood to go back to a country where they tried to kill me. As luck would have it, the civil trial back home helped me out of that one. How do they say it? Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
It was six days after I had traveled to Mexico and two days after the dinner at the American Embassy, the lawyers told me I needed to return to Montana to prepare for court. Judge Garrison had me arrested and sentenced me to jail until the trial. Momma was crying as Larry Holmes put handcuffs on me and led me out of the courtroom. Brenda Kendell told me to not worry, she would take care of it. Actually I wasn’t worried. After being chased by men shooting at us trying to kill us, jail wasn’t a problem for me.
Larry took off the cuffs once we were outside the courtroom and I rode up front in his pickup instead of in a cage in one of the patrol cars to the jail house. He took me in to the cells and pointed to one and told me that was mine. Then he took me back up the front and told me to not leave the building, otherwise I could do what I wanted.
Before noon the next day Brenda handed Larry a dismissal order from Superior Judge Numan. I was free until the court trial. Judge Garrison was pissed. He ordered me back to court and I was confined to home and wear a monitor until trial. Again Larry put the cuffs on me, took me down to the jail sans cuffs, and put an ankle monitor on me. Drove me out to the farm and told me to behave. The next day he showed up, removed the monitor and told me I was free until the trial.
He asked me to sit in his pickup before he left. He was grinning from ear to ear as he gathered his thoughts. “Jake, those lawyers of yours are tearing up the case against you before Judge Garrison gets it to trial. It is a civil trial not criminal. Garrison is trying his best to make you look guilty before it starts. A lot of money paid for his campaign to be judge. A big chunk of it came from those kids parents.”
“Brenda came back with another dismissal order this morning. Rumor has it from the court clerk she had a second one for Judge Garrison. State Supreme Justice Hardgrove sent Garrison a notice. One more and he would be brought up before the State Judiciary Review Committee. Your trial was receiving national attention. Everything Garrison did was a reflection on the whole state.”
The corners of his mouth turned up as his eyes danced in amusement. “What I said isn’t to be repeated. Don’t worry about me coming back with any more arrest warrants. Judge Garrison has been properly chastised by some with a lot more authority than he will ever carry.”
=================================================
Standing on the porch and looking out across the field at Gunshy, I was wondering if it really had been two months since I shipped a horse named Heater to Brazil? So many things had changed. Everything I planned before I graduated from high school had failed to go the way I expected.
Dad and mom walked out of the house and stood on the porch. Dad put his arm around me. “Glad to have it behind you?”
I put my arm around his waist as I pulled mom in from the other side. “Not exactly what I thought a court trial would be like. If you had hired one of the local lawyers you would have lost the farm. I felt like I was in a liar’s club in that courthouse. I thought God would strike them down when they swore to tell the truth and then they started lying.”
Momma gave me a squeeze. “It wasn’t because we taught you to tell the truth. You had that in you all along. The animals sense it in you Katrina. It is why they trust you. There will always be those who think telling lies is a way to get what they want. The court won’t change them, especially when their parents encourage them to lie.”
“I wish I had never accepted Donna’s invitation to meet with all the kids from class one last time. I wish I had asked more questions before accepting. I wish I hadn’t been so stupid.”
Mom gave me an extra squeeze. “You were raised to trust people. I think you have learned trust is to be earned not given on first sight.”
“You got that right momma. It’s hard to separate the good people from the bad ones. Some of the worse liars are some of the nicest people until they stab you in the back.”
“Someone’s coming. Looks like a pickup and stock trailer.” Dad was looking off down the road.
All of us watched as the driver pulled up and stopped in the driveway.
“tom?” I was positive I recognized the jet black horse in the horse trailer. I ran up to the side of the trailer and looked inside. “Tom?”
The black horse snorted.
“OH MY GOD IT IS YOU! TOM YOU CRAZY HORSE WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP IN MY PART OF THE WORLD! WHEN I TOLD YOU TO COME AND VISIT ME I NEVER DREAMED YOU WOULD TAKE ME UP ON THE OFFER!”
The driver was grinning from ear to ear. “You must be Jake. He said you were the prettiest girl with a funny name. He also said you have a strange habit of talking to horses.” He held out an envelop toward me.
As mom and dad walked up to look at the horse in the trailer I opened the envelope and took out a hand written letter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
‘Jake, that damn horse went crazy after you left. I tried for days to get a saddle on him. Without taking him back to the snubbing post it wasn’t going to be possible. I swear he held me responsible for you leaving him. When I tried to pet him he kept moving away from me. When I brought him grain he would turn the bucket upside down. I gave up and thought maybe he was a woman’s horse? I invited Lucia and Junita, to visit thinking they might work with Tom.
Well, I was partially right. Tom let them brush him. A saddle and a ride was not going to happen. I think Albert is smitten with Junita. It is bad enough he is thinking about getting married and settling down. Lucia hinted she would accept me as a husband. I put that to bed when I told her I was in love with a girl who talks to my horses. I was going to send her a gift and see if she would accept him as a wedding present. Ha, fat chance of that.
Albert told me I only had three choices with that knot head of a horse. I could sell him to the next poor fool who thinks all horses can be rode. We could skin him and have a barbeque. I could give him to the only person he accepts. Tom is yours Jake. The ranch is always open to you and your parents. I expect you to bring your parents and visit every now and then.
Damn, if you were only thirty years older or I was thirty years younger.’
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“What’s this all about Jake?” Dad was looking at the horse.
“Katrina, what does the letter say?” Mom moved up beside me as I was looking at the papers behind the letter.
Handing the letter to momma, I was looking at a bill of sale for Tom. “The man, Mike, saved my life momma. I owe him more than I can ever repay and he gives me a horse. I don’t understand. I should be there on his ranch working for him.”
Momma finished the letter and put her arm around my shoulder. “And how old is this man who wishes you were thirty years older?”
“I don’t know. Around fifty five or so. He’s ex military, momma. He is an American. He and Albert served together in a lot of wars as best I could understand.”
The driver handed me a packet. “The horse was cleared in quarantine. You need to keep the papers safe. Wouldn’t hurt to have a vet look him over in another thirty days.”
He headed toward the rear of the trailer. “I’ll drop the ramp but I’m not getting in there with that horse. I was warned, not get too close to him.”
Dad shook his head as he listened. “Oh no, not another one.”
“Daddy! He’s not like that. He was mistreated. He accepts me.” I was waiting for the driver to lower the ramp.
After the ramp was lowered I motioned for everyone to stay back. “Give me time to talk to him. I imagine this trip has put him on edge.”
“Katrina, you be careful.” Mom took hold of daddy’s hand and was moving back.
“tom, remember me? How you doing? You are going to have to tell me all about your trip.” I was slowly easing up into the trailer.
Facing forward in the trailer, Tom had his head turned as much as he could and was watching me.
“I wish I had an apple for you. I bet you’re hungry and thirsty after that trip. Where did you have to come into the states? They call it a port of entry in case you wanted to know.” I was carefully watching his body for any signs of nervousness as I droned on. There was no way I was going to dodge those hind legs if he decided to lash out. I avoided putting my hands on his flank as I eased up past him. He needed to smell me first before I touched him.
When he smelled me and bumped me with his nose I wanted to scream, yes! He remembered me. I put my hands under his jaws and laid my head up against his. “Tom, you big beautiful horse you. I love you.”
There was a snort outside the trailer. Laughing, I looked out at Gunshy who was obviously jealous. “Gun, I love you too. I have enough to go around for everyone.”
Gun snorted and shook his head. He wasn’t convinced.
I unhooked Tom’s lead and backed him out of the trailer. Gun stood off to the side taking it all in.
The driver closed up his trailer. “They told me to stay clear of that horse.” Turning around he held out his hand to Tom to pet him. Tom snorted and shook his halter.
“Uh, okay.” He headed for Gun to pet him.
“I wouldn’t do that.” Daddy was waving the driver off.
Instead of listening to daddy, he kept going. When he was four or five feet from Gunshy, Gun reared up and pawed the air. The driver froze.
“No, Gun, down.” I motioned to Gun.
Gun dropped down to all four hooves and stomped the ground. A new horse and a new man on his home turf was asking a little too much.
The driver backtracked to his truck and retrieved a waybill. “Someone sign this and I’m gone.”
After watching the taillights disappear down the road, daddy looked at me and shook his head. “Is this another horse no one but you can handle?”
“DADDY! This is Tom. You and mom can ride him in time. You have to earn his friendship and trust. A lesson I failed to understand about people. Give him time to get used to you and mom. Right now he and I need time alone. He’s had a long trip and isn’t sure what is going on. I need to reassure him nothing bad is going to happen. This is going to take awhile. I might be out in the barn for the next four or twelve hours.”
As I led Tom out to the barn I could tell I was going to have to earn his trust again. He accepted me this time but would I leave him again? “I’m sorry Tom. It wasn’t my idea to run off. There were men who wanted Albert and me and they weren’t nice men.”
It didn’t take me long to get a bucket of daddy’s dairy feed. With all the different rolled grains, minerals, and molasses in it, Tom was pulled in like a fly to sugar. He stuck his nose in the pail and went after it while I got a bucket of water. With Tom busy on the refreshments, I got out the curry comb and brush and started rubbing him down while I told him all about the farm.
“Of course it’s not nearly as big as Mike’s place. There is still plenty of running room. I’ll introduce you to Bill Randall. His place is a lot bigger and he has a lot of horses. You and Gunshy will be great buddies. I just know it….”
It was late before I felt like Tom and I had renewed our budding friendship. Of course I had to brush down Gun and talk to him afterwards so he wouldn’t get jealous. I was so glad I no longer had to go to any school the next day because it was really late when I finally got back into the house.
Two days after his arrival I felt like Tom was ready for a saddle. The blanket was first. After a lot of scratching around his chest and ears I picked up the saddle while I kept up a constant chatter. He was watching as I lifted the saddle up on his back and cinched it up. Tom shivered and did a half sidestep as I stepped up into the saddle.
Mom and dad were watching from the porch, ready to call for an ambulance I was sure. Gunshy was eyeing all this in between the mouthfuls of dairy feed I had left in a bucket for him. Turning Tom toward the road I urged him forward by pressing my knees into the saddle. The only explanation I could think of about what happened next was Tom had enough of being penned up from his trip. He bolted. Tom held nothing back as he stretched out in that distance eating gallop he possessed. Trying to rein him in before he hurt himself wasn’t working. Within minutes we passed the first mile and then the second mile. His breathing wasn’t even hard yet as it came in smooth rhythm with his stride. If ever there was a horse designed to run, Tom had to be the one. I regretted he had left Mike’s ranch and come to our small farm. He deserved better.
Close to a three mile run, Tom let me rein him in. “Jeeze Tom, did we really need to experience that? From now on you let me think I’m the fifty one percent partner in this relationship.”
Headed back toward the house, I leaned down in the saddle and gave him free rein. “Do what you want. We can walk back or run back, your choice.”
It was all Tom needed. When the reins slacked off he took off like a rocket. I wanted to lean over and look to see if his hooves were touching the ground.
As I rode up into the yard dad was shaking his head. Mom didn’t look too pleased. “What was that all about?”
“Wasn’t me. Tom wanted to test his freedom and I was along for the ride.”
“You mean you couldn’t control him?” Dad looked serious.
“If you are asking did I yank the bit back in his mouth to stop him? No. I let him know I wanted to slow down but I wasn’t going to force him. I was concerned about him hurting himself. I should have understood he needed that run. Tom and I are still learning about our communications. You don’t tell a runner they can’t run. It is in their soul. Tom was born to run. I only wish we had more land for him to exercise on. He was born too late. He should have been born before this nation was fenced in and he had the whole world to run across. Even with all the rodeos Bill and I attended, I’ve never seen or met another like him.”
I worked steadily for another two days with Tom to make sure he was accepting me each time. Of course Gunshy was jealous and kept trying to nose me away from Tom when I had both of them in the yard. Luckily there were no mares around in heat so a knock down drag out fight between the two of them wasn’t necessary.
After calling Bill to make sure he didn’t have any mares in heat at his ranch, dad and I loaded up Gun and Tom. I needed to get back to practice roping and I wanted to show off Tom to Bill.
Gun was first out of the stock trailer. I turned him lose knowing he wouldn’t run off. Bill and the hands were watching as I backed Tom out. Bill let out a long whistle. “Cat, I think that’s the prettiest piece of horseflesh I have ever seen and I’ve seen a lot. Eighteen hands high? Is he walking on stilts or are those legs all his?”
I couldn’t stop grinning. “Everyone, this is Tom. Don’t try to pet him and I strongly suggest everyone keep away from his hooves.”
Bill and the others were crowding in for a closer look until I said that. Bill grinned from ear to ear as he shook his head. “Only you could pick up another one like Gun. You’re going to have to teach the rest of us how to talk to our horses Cat. I mean we’re just a bunch of dumb ol cowboys who thought a horse was something you dropped a saddle on and climbed on.”
“What kind of horse is he Cat?”
“He’s a runner. I worked with him on Mike’s ranch as a cutting horse. He picked it up real quick. It took a little for him to let me swing a lariat because he was mistreated with a rope.”
“Give us a looksee.” Bill pointed off toward his left.
I nodded as I took my time talking to Tom before I put the blanket and saddle on him. Bill had a kind of racetrack on his ranch. The starting chutes didn’t have gates. Usually someone hollered go. If the cowboys were racing they urged their horses to a run. The track was bare packed ground. I had no idea if it was regulation. I had no idea if there was a regulation length. But cowboys being cowboys they were always bragging about who had the fastest horse. Bill made a track for them to test those bragging rights.
Four of Bill’s hands mounted up as Tom and I headed for the make believe track. Nealy was on his horse, Beauty. She was the usual winner in these spontaneous races. Hank was on Patches, He won the races every now and then. Loyd and Charley were on two horses I didn’t know.
I leaned down over Tom’s neck. “Easy money. Don’t embarrass them too much Tom. They don’t mind losing by a nose. A couple lengths is more than their pride can stand.”
Tom snorted and shook his head. I got the feeling he wasn’t going to cut anyone any slack if he was offered the chance to run.
“oh this can’t be good” I pointed Tom into one of the chutes.
The other four riders got into the chutes and indicated they were ready as they leaned down in their saddles.
“No hard feelings guys.” I leaned down in the saddle.
The cowboys, dad, and Bill were off to the side in front of the chutes. Bill yelled, “GO!”
Giving him free rein and pressing my knees into the saddle was all the urging Tom needed. He flew out of that chute. Within seconds the others were left behind. All I had to do was urge Tom to stay on the track instead of running straight ahead off into the field. Was it the track or because other horses were running behind us? The run when we chased the cows and the mare at Mike’s place, and the run down the road a couple days earlier wasn’t Tom’s top gear. He had competition now and dropped it into overdrive. My world slowed to snapshots as the landscape went by. With every long stride I could hear his breath coming in rhythm. When we circled the track and flew by the starting chutes, I was looking for the other riders. They were in a bunch a little over four fifths of the way around the track.
Tom was halfway around the track again before I finally got through to him the race was over. He would have run it a second time if I had let him. We walked back over to where the cowboys were staring at us. Tom wasn’t breathing hard. The other four horses in the race were still panting.
Bill shook his head. “Cat, when the calf knocked you down and Gunshy stood over you guarding you? I thought I had seen it all. I’m not going to claim I have seen it all after today. None of us brought a stopwatch. Are you sure that is a horse or is he a cheetah in a horse suit? You said he could run. I’m not sure that was what we were watching. There is a horse race over at Quail River next week. You might think about entering him to see what he can do against real race horses.”
“How much they charge for an entry fee? I don’t have any papers on Tom besides a bill of sale. Don’t they only let pedigree horses in those races?”
“The fee is five thousand…”
“Bill, I don’t have that kind of money. Even if I did I’m not sure I’d take a chance on Tom being able to handle a crowd. The ranch he came from was not on the main highway.” I wasn’t sure what Tom would do in a crowd of screaming, yelling people.
“The payback is pretty good. First place pays fifty thousand. The boys and I will up front your entry fee. If they don’t I will. After what I witnessed I’d pay that much to see him run against the thoroughbreds even if he didn’t win. If he wins we double our money and you keep the rest.”
“Jake, it would go a ways toward paying your legal expenses. The rodeo cowboys aren’t going to ask for their money back. What they donated didn’t cover it all. I heard you were offered several business arraignments. Until you decide what you want to do, I think Tom may be your reprieve if you are willing to take a chance on him.” Bill was eyeing Tom as he spoke to me.
“Daddy?” I was hoping for an answer.
Dad shook his head. “Jake, this is between you and your horses. In all the years I’ve seen you and Gun work together I have yet to understand how you do it. No one thought Gun could be controlled. Yet, you never had any doubt…”
“I don’t control him…”
Daddy shrugged as he looked out across the field at Gun. “Whatever it is you and Gun do. I have no doubt you and Tom are doing the same thing. Talk it over with Tom if that is what you are doing.”
That kind of took me back hearing it from my own father.
He looked at me and grinned. “Don’t look like you haven’t ever heard it said about you before. If they aren’t asking me to my face they are whispering behind my back, saying that’s the man whose daughter talks to horses. Now, take Tom out there where you and Gun and him can discuss this among yourselves and see if he’s ready to race other horses.”
I shook my head as I hung my head. “Daddy, it isn’t like that…”
“Oh no? What were you doing spending half the night in the barn with him when he first arrived?”
“Come on Tom, we need a little piece and quiet to think.” I was headed off out to the field away from the crowd.
Bill watched as she walked away before looking over at John. “Think she will race him?”
John laughed as he looked at Bill. “You think Jake can say no to a challenge?”
Nodding in agreement, Bill laughed. “That’s what I was thinking. I better call them and get a slot for her.”
He looked at the cowboys around him. “Who wants to double their money?”
“Put me down for five hundred. I thought Beauty had stopped the way she ran off and left us. If that horse runs half as good as he did out there today, he is still going to be ahead of the others. Do they take a doping test before or after the race?” Nealy was looking at Tom and Katrina out in the pasture. “She’s asking him if he wants to run in a horse race. I’d bet on that too.”
There was no doubt in my mind Tom could run. The question was would he run if there were thousands of people screaming and yelling? For the next nine days, dad, mom, would be loading up the horses as we took them over to Bill’s place. I wanted Tom to get acclimated to running on a horse track. As luck would have it, word spread about ‘the horse and the girl who talks to horses’ was training for a race at Bill’s Ranch.
The second day a couple of cowboys showed up with their horses. I knew them. Dale Cargil had a ranch forty miles south. Melvin Brooks was a horse trader always buying and selling horses. I never shipped any horses for him because he never sold any outside the states.
Looking over their horses and their tack was my introduction to race gear and their jockeys. Dale introduced me to his rider, Jimmy Shiply.
“Howdy.” I shook his hand as we looked each other over. The guy was shorter and lighter than me.
Smiling, he nodded in agreement. “Heard an awful lot of stories about you Miss McDonald. What do you think of Dale’s horse? Do we stand a chance?”
“You ridding in the race next week?” I turned my attention to the horse Dale had brought.
“We are number one in the betting circles. Blue Diamond has won the last of her four races.” He walked with me over to the horse. Almost everyone there gathered around us.
Blue was watching me as I walked around her examining her. “She’s alert.” Sliding my hands under her jaws I raised her head to look in her eyes and up her nose. “Good focus. You have been pushing her too hard. Over training. She’s tired. You planned on running her against Tom today. Don’t do it. She needs a couple weeks of rest before you race her again. You keep pushing her and she’s through winning anything.”
Dale and Jimmy both looked shocked. Dale was staring at me. “Miss McDonald…”
“Jake, I kinda like Jake.” I turned around to look at Dale.
He cleared his throat. “I assure you there is nothing wrong with Blue Diamond. She is in the best condition she has ever been. You don’t want to race your horse against her just come out and say it instead of telling us my horse is over trained.”
“Mr. Cargil, I’m sorry you took my opinion in the wrong way. I have no qualms about racing Tom against your horse. Except, it would be a healthy horse racing against a cripple. I can’t tell you what to do with your own livestock. That’s your business. When the ranch equipment has problems you don’t keep driving it hoping it will get better. You stop and fix it because you know it will only get worse until there is no fixing.”
I ran my hands over Blue’s left shoulder. “Horses are like that only most people don’t understand nor think along those lines. I’m going to tell you one last time and then this conversation is over. I don’t debate people who mistreat their animals and don’t listen. She is over stressed, her body, her muscles are over stressed. You race her without giving her a chance to recoup and you will destroy an excellent race horse.”
Frustration was not the word for how I felt as I worked my way through the others and headed for Gun and Tom. I was wiping away tears. Dale was going to destroy a beautiful horse because he couldn’t turn lose of the idea of winning at all costs. And I couldn’t save her! Unless….
“H OW MUCH DO YOU WANT FOR HER!” I spun on my heel hoping against hope.
Dale looked startled and slowly a smile spread across his face. “So that’s your game. You tell me she’s through and then offer to buy her. Ten million and she’s yours.”
Bill Randall clinched his fists. “dale…” Came out as a whisper. Everyone in the crowd heard the threat in it.
There was no way I could raise that kind of money and Dale knew it. “Always about money isn’t it? God, what is wrong with you people! Damn you! You’re going to destroy a horse because all you can think about is money.”
Walking over to Gun and Tom, I hugged each of them as I cried. Bill put his hand on my shoulder. “Cat you can’t save them from the fools.”
Wiping tears I looked at Bill as other tears followed. “if we don’t race…”
“Won’t help, Cat. He will race her anyway. Melvin is here and they are going to race their horses irregardless of what you and Tom do. It isn’t your fault Katrina. Don’t quit because you can’t make them understand. Prove to them what you know so others will listen. While they are using racing gear, you and Tom are using a western saddle. Lot of weight difference right there.”
He pulled me into a bear hug as mom and dad headed our way. “Our unofficial race starts in eight or nine minutes. Your choice Cat. If it was me...”
Thirty minutes later I watched as Dale’s pickup and horse trailer disappeared down the road. Dale never stopped complaining from the time we finished the race and he was leaving. Unofficial race, no starting gates, wasn’t a real race, didn’t count, Blue would have won if.
Melvin loaded up his horse, Tracer, before he came over to look at Tom. I warned Melviin to not get too close or try and touch Tom.
Melvin laughed as his eyes twinkled. “Jake, I heard you picked those kind of horses or they picked you. What do you think about Tracer? We stand a chance against you next week at the ‘OFFICIAL’ races?”
I was sure he emphasized official because Dale had complained so much about this unofficial race at Bill’s ranch. “Everyone stands a chance. There are no given’s in life.”
“Yeah, but the question stands. What’s our odds?” He was eyeing Tom.
Shrugging my shoulders I hesitated as I looked at Tom. “Does slim to none sound familiar?”
Melvin laughed again. “Kinda what I thought too. I’d bet on your horse but since I’m in the same race they would claim I had thrown the race on purpose. It would turn into a legal nightmare for me.”
He held out his hand. “Beautiful horse, Jake. I wish I wasn’t racing against him.”
Shaking his hand, I tried to soften the hurt Dale had caused. “It is a race, Melvin. There are no sure winners. Quiters never win and winners are always replaced with others who are better.”
He held onto my hand. “A word of advice, Jake. If it looks like he is going to smoke the lot, hold him back so it isn’t a total route. A horse length would be an acceptable win. Too much and none of the locals will race you again. The purse is good money. You and Tom play your cards right you might manage to win a dozen races before you scare everyone off.”
“And you?”
Melvin shook his head. “Five thousand to enter a race I know I’m going to get my unhuh handed to me is a little rich for my blood. We race you this week Jake because I’m already in. Don’t expect me to keep contributing to your retirement funds. From now on when you and Tom are in a race, Tracer and I are out.”
“Now, you looked over Tracer, what do you think about him?”
“Honestly? He’s in great shape. You haven’t over trained him like Dale has. He is going to be a constant winner for you for the next couple years. Like Tom, he enjoys running. You haven’t made it a punishment to him. He tries his best. Your rider, Pat didn’t have to push Tracer to get his best from him. Janet Weldon has a mare, Penny. A colt from Tracer and Penny could possibly turn out to be the best of both if you treat him right.”
“And how much is this professional advice from the lady who talks to horses going to cost me?” Melvin’s eyes were dancing in amusement.
That got me tickled. “I don’t talk to horses.”
Melvin smirked as he looked at Bill who had joined us. “Yeah, that’s what I haven’t heard. Jake, I was told you were working on your veterinarian degree. I don’t care if you have that certificate or not. From now on all my horses are coming to see you if they aren’t acting right. You won’t be able to write any prescriptions before you get that diploma. Doesn’t make any difference. You need to start charging for your horse advice. I’ve used Dr. Renner for years. I just met you and for some reason I would take your advice over his. There is something about you and horses I can’t explain. The feeling is there you bridge the divide between them and us.”
“I don’t talk to horses.” I hadn’t put a halter on Gun because I knew he wouldn’t run off. He picked that time to come up and nudge me in the back for attention. Everyone around us laughed as Gun nudged me again.
Bill put his hand on my shoulder. “She’s been in denial as long as I’ve known her. Yet, in all the years I’ve been around her and Gunshy, the only time he lets me touch him is when she is standing right there beside us. Ask some of the cowboys who threatened her whether Cat and Gunshy talk to one another.”
Bill turned to look at Gun. “Gun, do you and Cat…”
Gun nudged me again.
Bill looked at Melvin. “You can take that as a yes.”
The next seven days went by in a blink and I found myself along with Bill and Melvin walking down the rows of paddocks where the horses were kept before the race. The horse we were looking at was named Seven Over. The handlers were working inside the stall getting him ready for the race.
“He’s picked to place. What do you think?” Melvin was looking from the horse to me and back to the horse.
“Good form. I haven’t seen him run so I’m guessing. Let’s look at the rest of them we are up against.” I walked over to the next stall.
As luck would have it was Blue Diamond. My heart went out to her as I shook my head. “She’s through as a race horse. I’m so sorry girl, I wish I could have done something.”
Bill looked at his cheat sheet for the bookies. “She’s listed as first place.”
“She will do good to finish the race at the back.”
Bill had managed to get Tom in the high stakes nine horse race even though Tom was an unknown. I don’t know how Bill did it as there were a lot of horses who had been racing for years weren’t able to get into that race. We finished looking at all eight before heading back to Tom’s stall.
“Well? What’s Tracer’s chances?” Melvin had stayed with us.
“He’ll place second provided they all run without any penalties or someone getting in the way. Give him his lead out the gate so he can find a clean field and not get caught up in the traffic. He has no problem running all the track at his best. You don’t need to save him for a sprint at the end like I’ve seen a lot of jockeys do. Tracer loves to run. Let him run.” Opening the door to Tom’s stall I started scratching him under the chin.
“And Tom?” Melvin’s eyes danced in amusement.
“Just follow him to the finish line.” I pulled Tom’s head down and kissed him on the forehead.
“I wish we had an experienced jockey riding Tom.” Bill was eyeing both of us.
“You want to see a jockey get bucked off before the race starts?”
“Cat, you’re good. That isn’t a western saddle you will be on. You’ve only had a couple days to find your balance in it.”
“Tom will take care of me.” I gathered up my ridding gear and headed for the weigh in station as I remembered my first rodeo. Never again would I be embarrassed to be called a girl. The card I had to fill out to be a jockey, I put down “Jake” Katrina Ann McDonald. I think both daddy and I were slowly beginning to understand Jake was his daughter and damn proud of it!
I think I was as happy about Tracer coming in second as I was about Tom coming in first. Tom wasn’t that happy about any of it. I took Melvin’s advice and kept Tom reined in and didn’t let him shift into his overdrive when he wanted to stretch out and run. Scratching around his shoulders and neck as we walked to the winner’s circle I whispered to him. “You can run on the farm or at Bill’s place and go as fast or as slow as you like.”
The vets led us to the clinic where they took saliva and blood samples while I held onto Tom and talked to him. I didn’t think Tom killing a couple veterinarians would make us popular in the racing circuit.
When the vet pulled down Tom’s lower lip to do a swab test he hesitated. “I see a tattoo. It’s latin. Someone give me a pen and pad. Miss, your winnings will be held up until we can determine the bloodline and ownership of this horse.”
“Ownership? He’s mine. I gave them a photocopy of the bill of sale at the time we registered him.”
“Yes ma’am, I understand. This horse has an ID and will be registered. You ran him as an unknown. If he has been racing you will forfeit the race. Carl, contact the office and tell them to hold all payouts on the race. Tom and Miss McDonald may receive a disqualification.”
“Ladies and gentlemen please hold onto your tickets. A problem has come up and we are attempting to resolve it. Thank you for your patience.” Came in over the loudspeakers minutes later.
Ten minutes after that a man came in carrying a clipboard. “Tom is To’mas. His dame is Higel and his sire is Short Sword. He has never raced. His owner was Bartholomew Costello. It seems To’mas was traded as a debt or some such and records of his where abouts were lost. Because he was never sold there was never a value place on him. Having never raced he qualifies as Miss McDonald entered him.”
The announcer came over the loudspeakers telling everyone the race stands. They could cash out their tickets.
The man looked at me. “Miss McDonald, you claim a man gave him to you. He must think an awful lot of you. Up in the office we figured To’mas was worth three to four million as an untested race horse before he ran. After winning his first race by a horse length, another million can be added to that.”
My legs turned to rubber as I leaned back against Tom’s shoulder for support. “You’re serious?”
The guy nodded. “You could borrow half his value, a couple million, using him as collateral without any problem.”
“Mike, did you know?” I whispered to myself. What could Mike have done for the guy to get Tom in payment? How does one treat a million dollar horse? Mike treated him like a…, well like a horse as he pulled him into the snubbing post and tossed a saddle on him. I shivered as I remembered ridding Tom in all the gullies and along the ledges counting cows. And then I used him as a working cow pony and a cutting horse.
The more I thought about it the more I realized Tom and I weren’t really that special. No matter what anyone thought, I was still a farm girl and nothing was ever going to change that. And Tom? I stood back and admired him before reaching up and hugging his face. I wasn’t going to put him in a stall and coddle him like I saw them do to the racehorses at Valley Downs Farms. Tom had a free soul. I wasn’t going to cramp his style. He could run across the farm and Bill’s ranch all he wanted. I guess Gun, Tom, and me deserved each other. We were mavericks, all three of us.
======================================================
Because I was working with traders shipping horses all over the world, a lot of times various businesses would ask me to hand carry packages or notes to field offices or traders to the countries where the horses were going. Trans Time was one of those companies I had carried a package for. I picked up the horse and the package in France and delivered both to Italy. The package had already been handed off when they asked me to get it back. One of the company men, David, met me and requested we go for a ride in the car I had rented.
“Katrina, the man Niccolo Assante, is passing on our trade secrets to another company. We found out too late after you had delivered the folder. I need you to get it back.”
I started the car up and was headed back down the mountain. “And how do you propose I do that, David. Walk in and demand it back? Hey Niccolo, I heard you were selling company plans. Give back the folder. Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
David shook his head. “Not that simple. If I ask him, he sure won’t give it up knowing what he has is the last trade secrets he will ever get from us. We can’t have him arrested as there isn’t enough evidence. We did give the folder to him. His arrest will come later when we have a case, not now. We need you to pick it up for us.”
“David, this isn’t my problem. Your company asked me to deliver a package. I did. Now you want it back and I’m supposed to get it without Niccolo knowing you suspect him of trading company secrets. Look at me, do I look like a secret agent who has a clue how to do what you are asking?” I was getting frustrated with the way this situation was going. “I deliver things. What I don’t do is steal them back.”
“Jake, you are our only option. If we had another way I’d try it but we don’t have any one else. The folder contains company expansion plans, patents, and trade secrets. Given to our competitors it will cost us millions. You said he asked you to dinner when you dropped off the folder. Use that.”
"Jake, you know I would use someone else if I could. I hate this more than you do."
I gripped the steering wheel harder as I pushed the little Spider to its' limits. "No you don't hate it nearly as much as I do. Am I supposed to sleep with him too?"
"How you get it back is beside the point." He put both hands on the dash as the Spider slid dangerously close to the edge of the pavement.
"For God's sake, Jake, slow the fuck down." He was beginning to perspire as I turned the steering wheel back in the other direction for the next curve.
"Jeeze, David, I thought you liked living on the edge? You sure don't mind asking me to put my neck on the chopping block." I was feeling vengeful as I pushed the Spider for a few more miles an hour. I really didn't care if we went over one of those cliffs as we raced down the mountain.
"Katrina, I'm sorry for getting you into this! Please slow down. Please? David closed his eyes. He knew we weren't going to make that next curve.
There was a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I realized I had pushed the little Spider too hard. I felt the pavement slip under the tires. Some car or truck had thrown oil out of the engine or transmission as it pushed up the grade and the little Spider lost most of its traction on the pavement. The edge of the pavement and a three hundred foot drop was rushing at us. I no longer cared about dying.
Inches from the edge the Spider got a grip. When I looked over at David he was ash white. “What is it worth if I manage to get the folder back?”
David swallowed trying to find his voice. “A couple thousand.”
Slowing down and shaking my head I kept my eyes on the road. “You said the company would lose millions. What is it worth if I get it back? You better nail down a decent figure or you can put on a dress and go to dinner with him.”
David reached for his phone. “Let me make a call.”
Thinking back, I knew the desk drawer Niccolo had put the folder in. Not that I cared at the time. It had taken time to tell him no when he kept trying to corner me and talk me into a dinner date. It he hadn’t moved it, if the drawer wasn’t locked, and if David came up with the right incentive? I might give it a go. Lana Mortner put her place up for sale. A couple thousand acres would be nice for Tom and Gunshy to run on. David didn’t know it. His company was going to help me buy a ranch.
Immortal Girl By Choice
by: Barbie Lee
NASA needed a way to keep astronauts in suspended animation for Deep Space exploration. The hush hush program turned up a lot more problems than expected. Most of the test subjects didn't adapt to being frozen in time. When the NASA budget was cut the projects showing the least return were the first to go. Deep Space Research suffered the most cuts.
One of the scientists knew NASA had terminated his project because everyone was jealous of how brilliant he was. Bitter because his research ended on the chopping block, he left NASA. He didn't abandon his research. He built his own lab as far away from NASA as practical. His test subjects didn't get a choice whether they wanted to be a part of his experiments or not. Edward became rich full filling his clients fantasies of what their perfect girlfriend should look like.
Immortal Girl by Choice
"I'm a genius and they didn't appreciate me. You know what it's like to give your life to a company and they toss you out with the trash? Huh? Do you?"
He giggled as he looked around at the women spread throughout the huge lavishly decorated room. "They know. I showed them I'm not trash. All of them. Every single one. They know."
"I had nothing to do with whatever you think they did. I don't even know you. I'm not even from around here. I told you I was from Houston. Let me go and I'll be on the first flight back and I won't say anything to anyone." Why I even stopped into the club where I ran into this kook was beyond me. I was looking to watch the club act, return to my room, and pack my bags for the flight back home in the morning.
It un nerved me even more when he giggled again. "Sorry, you are my next test case. Think of your contribution to mankind and stop being so
selfish thinking about yourself."
The glass cylinder I was strapped into started moving into what looked an awful lot like one of those brain, body scan things. "Wait, I have money. You want money? I'll pay you whatever you want. Stop."
Damn if he didn't giggle again. "Money? I have no need of money. I have more money than I can ever spend in my life. Stop squirming and be still. You won't feel a thing.... I don't think. None of the others have ever complained about it hurting."
"OTHERS?" And then darkness closed in as I was lost in a nightmare that wasn't part of my sleep.
Edward rubbed his hands together as he keyed in the program for his test case now lying still inside the magnometer. A mist swirled around inside the cylinder as the machine spun around it. He watched as the shape shifting started changing. Like all his women standing so still in the room, she wouldn't have the typical mom next door figure. She would be more like an over endowed stripper when the changes were finished.
Six hours later the machine stopped spinning. The glass cylinder slowly slid out. Edward unlatched the lid on the bottom of the cylinder and pulled the woman out onto the stainless steel table. She was breathing but comatose. "You look lovely my child. No need to thank me. It was simple enough to do. In a few hours your mind will engage with your body again. I can't have you running off so the next thing I must do is put you in stasis. "
"I'll explain it to you so you will have an understanding and appreciation for how smart I am."
He held up in front of my eyes what looked like a couple of unbelievably huge didoes.
The one in his right hand he waved in front of my face. "This is like a catheter, goes into your brand new pussy. It takes care of all the fluids."
The other one he held up and smiled. "One of my most magnificent ideas. It goes up your ass and takes care of all the solids. Aren't I smart!"
My mind was finally getting a grasp on reality again and thinking this asshole was smart wasn't one of the words that came to me. The problem was my body wasn't responding yet no matter how hard I tried to scream at him.
Edward had a vest opened up on the table when he pulled me out of the cylinder. Now all he had to do was bring the straps up and tighten the vest up around my upper torso. "I see you eyes are following me. You seem to be coming out of the change sooner than I expected. I'll have to get you set up before you start doing something stupid."
Edward moved a crane over the table and hooked cables into eyes on top of each shoulder strap. There was a whirring sound. I was lifted up off the table. He moved the crane over to a pedestal with a big circular base and slowly lowered me down to where my feet were six inches above the base.
"Here's your new stand. It is already hooked in and ready for you. I do
hope you like it as much as I have enjoyed making it for you."
As I watched, Edward retrieved the inserts off the table. He coated both of them with a heavy gel. It still hadn't registered in my mind I was no longer a guy. But then so far I was just observing what was in front of my vision.
Edward walked back over in front of me and squatted down. I felt something slid up inside me where it shouldn't have been possible. I heard a couple clicks.
He walked out of my vision and I felt something slid up inside me from behind. Now that could have been possible. Again those clicks.
He returned to stand in front of me. "There, now you are set."
Again he squatted down in front of me and I could feel him pulling my right and then left leg into the pedestal and a now familiar click. I was guessing he had locked my ankles to the pedestal.
Edward stood up and the crane slowly let out the cable that was holding me up. I settled in on whatever it was Edward had shoved up inside me. It didn't hurt but it certainly wasn't comfortable. My body wasn't sending a whole lot of signals to my brain so I had no idea exactly what Edward had done to me. If he had done the same thing to me he had done to the women I saw across room from me then he had mounted me on a pedestal like a trophy or a mannequin. I promised myself I would kill him when I got free.
"Let's get you out of that vest so I can admire how well I did with you." Edward unstrapped the vest and removed it. He walked eight or ten feet away and studied me. "I impress myself each time. I am good. You are a beauty without doubt. You have to see so you can appreciate what I have done."
He left and returned in minutes with a wide tall mirror on rollers. He placed it in front of me. "Damn am I good or what!"
I was looking not at myself but a woman. So it wasn't a mirror but a monitor of some kind. I wasn't buying what Edward was selling. Nice try. I wanted to shout at him.
Edward pulled my hands behind my back and locked them together somehow. "I'm going to let you get an understanding of how beautiful you are so you can appreciate what I have done for you before I put you in stasis. I don't want you to hurt yourself by clawing or any of that stuff while you get use to who you are."
Except for the monitor I was looking at, he started rolling all of the equipment out of the room.
Feelings were slowly returning. What seemed like forever I finally could move my head. I looked around the room. It was lavishly decorated with art and over endowed women on pedestals. Looking down I found that kook had put artificial breasts on my chest. Slowly I realized the image in the monitor was mimicking every move I did. I move my head and so did she. I bend over to the side, forward or backward and so did she. That had to be some kind of high end equipment to mimic me instantly like that.
Hours later Edward walked back into the room. "So, do we agree I'm a genius? You like what I've done for you?"
"You bastard. Let me down and I'll show you how much I appreciate what you have done." The voice wasn't mine but delicate and lilting like a woman's voice. I hadn't figured out how he was mimicking that yet?
"You call me a bastard after all I have done for you? Do you not understand what I have made of you? You are no different from all the rest and I thought you would understand." Edward grabbed my left breast and squeezed.
"EEEEEEEEEEE!" Pain unlike I had ever experienced before sent shock waves through my body.
Edward grabbed my right breast. He twisted and squeezed at the same time. "You will appreciate what I have done for you. This is only a sample of the punishment you will be experience unless you love what I have done for you and all these other thankless whores."
"EEEEEEEEEEE!" I almost fainted it hurt so bad. Tears were rolling down my cheeks as I cried in pain. I no longer had any doubt those breasts weren't fake. They were mine and they both hurt.
"Do you love me now?" Edward waited for an answer.
I finally managed to get my breath. "Fuck you asshole. Turn me lose."
His face got all scrunched up and he stared at me with furry before he turned and left.
If I had any inkling of what he had in mind I would have told him I loved him with all my heart while giving him a big sloppy kiss on the lips.
He returned with a machine. Two metal cups with black cables coming out of the end of the cups were on top of the machine in brackets. He picked up one cup. The nearest I could describe it was kind of like a football cut in half. He flipped a switch.
I could hear a hissing sound. I didn't like the idea of where this was going. "Get away from me you freaking bastard."
He turned and looked at me with hate in his eyes. "You are going to learn to love me and appreciate all I have done for you. You are going to appreciate how intelligent I am. How much smarter I am than any other person."
He slipped the cup upon my left breast and it pulled in. The other cup went on my right breast as it also pulled in. I relaxed as my worse fears weren't materializing. Obviously the damn thing had suction cups but they weren't hurting me. If he thought this was bad maybe I should help him along. "EEEEEEEEE" I screamed in mock pain.
Edward looked startled for a second and then he laughed. "Right. Now for the real treat." He flipped a switch.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Wasn't faked as the cups pulled so hard I thought they were pulling my breasts off my chest. That was the good part. Then came the shock like someone was rolling a thousand needles in a roller around and around my breasts. I had more than enough pain and thankfully I passed out.
When I came to the cups were still on my breasts. They weren't shocking me. Looking around the room each of the manikins had a tube in their mouth. I have no idea how long it was before Edward came into the room and one by one removed the tubes from each manikin. He put them on a cart and stopped in front of me.
"You won't need to be fed until tomorrow night. Do you love me?" He waited for an answer.
Looking back I can only say the answer I gave was because I still didn't have my brain engaged. "I'm going to kill you."
Again his eyes glowed with hate. "You stupid bitch. I made you. You ungrateful whore. I can unmake you just as easily." He flipped a switch on the machine.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" I screamed in pain. It felt like the cups pulled my breasts off again. The needles rolling around on my breasts weren't as bad as before. He didn't want me to pass out and miss my training exercise.
I have no idea how long Edward left that damn machine torturing me but it was a lifetime. I screamed, I cried, I whined, I begged for him to kill me, I pleaded, I told him I loved him with all my heart. I told him he was the smartest man on earth. Edward wasn't there to hear it but I was screaming and shouting anything and everything that I thought would work so he would turn off the machine.
The pain stopped and Edward was in front of me. "Do you love me?"
"Yes, oh yes I love you more than I have ever loved anyone." I cried as tears were rolling down my cheeks.
"I'm a genius." He waited.
"Genius isn't the word for how intelligent and smart you are. You are the smartest person ever to walk this earth. I bet God is jealous you are so smart." I smiled and cried hoping I wasn't going to be in for another training session.
Edwards face lit up. "I love you too. You are one of my best experiments. You are very beautiful. You know I don't like to hurt you. When you are naughty you must be punished. If I unlock your wrists will you behave?"
"Oh yes I promise to behave." Being new at this slave bit I had no idea how to respond. The main thing was not to give Edward a reason to turn on his machine again.
He hesitated as giving it some thought before moving behind me. My hands and arms were free. The first thing I did was try and pull those damn torture devices off my breasts. Mistake. They didn't come lose.
"I didn't tell you to do that." Edward switched on the machine.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" I was crying and trying to get the thing off me to no avail as Edward left the room.
Another lifetime later he returned. He clicked the machine off. "Do you love me?"
Through the tears and sniffles I managed to answer. "Yes I love you more than any other person on earth."
"Are you going to try and remove the training cups without my permission?" He put his finger on the switch.
"No, I have learned my lesson and I am ashamed I didn't ask permission." Pain is a real quick teacher. I was learning what to say to mollify this monster.
"That's my girl. You know love you. I don't want to punish you but you try my patience. Naughty girls must be punished. Were you naughty?"
"Yes I was naughty. I'm glad you punished me so I would know it was wrong. I won't do it again." I had no idea where this monster drew the line at right or wrong. I was determined to not cross his boundaries and receive more pain.
"You agree you were naughty and had to be punished?" He frowned.
"Yes I was naughty and had to be punished." I was thinking if I agreed with him enough he might let me down off the pedestal he had me posted on.
"Because you know you were naughty I don't need to punish you as severely as before." He flipped the switch.
"EEEEEEEEEE!" It hurt. Not as bad as before. Didn't make any difference it still hurt like hell. I was finding out a woman's breasts is one of
her most sensitive parts of her body. A lesson I could have done without.
Edward didn't leave it on as long as he had the other times. He returned, turned it off and waited.
"I love you more than any other person I have known." I managed through the tears and the pain. I hoped that was the proper response he was wanting.
He nodded and left.
Whatever he had me perched on was digging into me in places I didn't know I had. I squirmed and wiggled but to no avail. There was no comfort. I couldn't get down because I couldn't lift myself off whatever it was inside me. Not with my ankles locked to the pedestal. I didn't think that made much difference. I wasn't rising up off that thing no matter what. It was probably hours later when it came to me one doesn't feed mannequins. The other girls weren't wiggling but as I studied them they didn't exactly look like mannequins. They were mounted on pedestals the same as me. There were eight of them in the room. I was beginning to believe I wasn't the first to run into this insane madman.
Slowly my attention turned to each individual. The first one on my left had long red hair, big breasts, small waist, and wide hips. Her lips were sweetheart shaped but too big. The next one had big breasts, average waist, average hips but damn big tush. It was way way too much. Like the first she had sweetheart lips that were too big.
I reached up to touch my lip as I looked in the mirror still in front of me. I had long decided that was a mirror and not a monitor. I had sexy sweetheart lips that shouted kiss me but they weren't big.
The girl to the left of the second one had basketballs for breasts. They literally looked like round basketballs and were as big or maybe bigger. Her nipples were a good replica of half a hotdog. They were that big and long. Where her breasts attached to her chest they necked down like the neck of a balloon. If I had to guess it was about as big in diameter as a pop bottle? I stared for the longest trying to figure out how they could hang out like that on so little support? I finally got to the rest of her body. She had the tinniest little waist and wide wide hips and a big big tush.
I felt my wide hips and tush. I was endowed but not that bad. I wanted to feel my breasts. I didn't dare touch the cups which were still hanging on them.
Each of the girls were unique unto themselves. If Edward was the designer then he made my list as the mad sex crazed scientist of the century. How he had changed us was a mystery. That he had changed us wasn't. Nature didn't make those girls the way they were. The one common trait among them all was really big breasts with really big nipples. That is if the girl with the basketballs could be called breasts. I was curious what he had done to me but I didn't dare remove a cup and look.
It felt like days but probably wasn't when Edward returned. He had changed clothes and was dressed like a well to do businessman. He walked up in front of me and waited.
"You look very fetching. I love you with all my heart." I hope I said the right things to please him.. And as soon as he let me down off this thing I would kill him.
"That is sweet of you to say my dear." He reached for the machine and I braced myself for more pain wondering what I had said to offend him? He flipped a switch , and reached up to remove the cups off my breasts.
I let out my breath I had been holding as I looked down. I didn't know if they were big or not? They looked damn big from my perspective but I never had breasts before so how would I know? I had little miniature sausages for nipples about a half inch long. Thanks a lot mister mad scientist.
Susan is coming to redo the makeup on all the girls today. I can't have you talking to her. You are going to be placed in stasis like the others.
I didn't have a chance to ask what the hell he was talking about before he pulled a remote from his pocket and clicked. There was a tingling sensation all through my body. I could no longer move my eyes, my arms, or anything else. I was basically frozen in place. There was no doubt in my mind now the others were alive but unable to move just as I was. I also understood the purpose of the things Dr. Wacko had pushed up inside me. He said one was to drain the fluids and the other the solids since we were not allowed bathroom breaks.
"Hello Mr. Blair." A very well dressed woman wearing a smock entered the room. She was carrying a case in her right hand and a stool in her left.
"Susan." He pointed toward me. "I acquired a new one yesterday. I want her to look her best for the party tonight."
"Certainly." You still aren't going to tell me where you are getting these mannequins are you? They are so damn real and they even feel real when I touch them."
"Susan if I let you know then you would go into business against me. That would raise the price I would have to pay for each one as the manufacturer said it takes time to make each one. The process is a slow one and can't be hurried." He beamed with pride.
"Okay, I brought Judy to do their hair. She will be along in a couple minutes. I'll get started." She walked up in front of me, set down her stool, and opened up her cosmetic case.
"This one is a beauty. I don't see why you want their designer to make their breasts so big. What is she? A thirty eight, twenty eight, thirty eight?
"That's probably right. I haven't measured her but she looks like around those measurements." Standing behind Susan he gave me a wink.
If I could have moved I would have gave him something a lot more than a wink.
Even if I couldn't move my eyes I could see in the mirror all the makeup tricks Susan was doing to my face. She didn't quit with the face. She brushed and blended makeup down my neck and out to the nipples on my breasts before she finished.
"Damn I'm good or she is really good herself." Susan had stepped back to admire her handiwork.
"You are an artist second to none Susan. That is why I hired you even though you are expensive." Edward glowed with pride as he walked up close for a better look.
Another woman walked in carrying several canvas bags bulging with bottles and brushes. "Where do I start?"
Susan pointed at me. "Judy, she's first. Isn't that honey blonde hair the brightest, prettiest hair you have ever seen?"
Judy put her bags on the floor and stepped up to touch my hair. "Nice and it feels real too. If some of these girls didn't look like freaks I'd say they were alive."
Hate flashed in Edwards eyes. I feared for Judy's life. I hoped she made it out of this insanity alive.
Susan put her finger to her lips. "They are all Mr. Blair's beauties. All of them gorgeous in their own way."
"Well, I didn't mean it the way it sounded. Of course they are all beautiful." Judy had received the signal from Susan.
Hours later Susan and Judy had done their magic on all the women and were gone. Edward paced the floor. "She called my models freaks. She doesn't appreciate my work as a genius." He pushed the button on the remote.
I felt the tingle leave my body. I could move again. "She was overwhelmed by your creativity Mr. Blair. Even the best art takes some getting use to by those who had no social experience." I didn't have to imagine what this monster would do to Judy if he thought she had insulted his work.
"She was naughty and needs a lesson." He was still pacing the floor.
"I love you master." I had no idea how to derail this monster before he turned his wrath lose on an unsuspecting Judy.
He stopped pacing and turned to look at me with a puzzled look. "And I love you too...,"
"Am I worthy enough of your love master to have a name?" Anything to make him think of something besides revenge on Judy.
"A name...? But of course you need a name. You need a name to match your beauty and our love. I shall name you Venus my goddess of love." He looked pleased with himself.
"A very beautiful name master. I love you. You are a genius beyond all mortals. It is fitting you should have a goddess of love." I wanted to stick my finger down my throat an puke.
"...yes.. My own goddess of love. I am sorry I had to punish you for being naughty. You understand don't you why I must punish you?" He looked at me lovingly.
"Yes, it is why I love you so much. You are the perfect lover. You are my lover, my teacher, my master." I swear if he tried to kiss me I was going to.... Massaging his overblown ego was destroying my own self worth. As if at this point I had any left while mounted on a pole as a trophy.
"We must get ready. A special guest will be in shortly. He wants me to change his wife into his own fantasy."
I guess Edward noticed a shocked look on my face. "Of course you don't know. You are my designs. I have discreet clients who pay me very well for my skills for making their girlfriends, wives, or even their enemies into what they want them to be. This gentleman sells yachts. He wants me to make his girlfriend into the girl of his dreams. He will get some ideas from looking at my designs. When he gets an idea of what he wants her to be then he brings her to dinner. I put her in the magnometer and send her home with him as his very own."
I choked that one down. Edward said he didn't need for money. He had to been doing this to unsuspecting men and women for some time now. How many had he changed? How many lives had he destroyed? Monster was too kind of a name for this psycho case. "You are so talented my master. I love you so much."
"Thank you Venus my goddess of love. I will have to turn you off when company comes so you don't move. I know you wouldn't on purpose but even blinking will give you away. Bring your hand up and fondle your breasts."
I didn't dare tell him to go fuck himself as I cradled my breasts as he asked. "Yes master."
"No not like that. Reach out and hold them." He held his right hand out
palm up like he was holding his own big breast.
I slid my hands out and felt my body tingle as I froze fondling my own breasts. The remote was in his other hand.
It was probably hours later when several men and Edward walked into the room. They circled the room stopping in front of each mannequin, discussing what features some liked or didn't like. I had no shame when they stopped and studied me. This wasn't me so they could look all they wanted.
One of them stepped closer and ran his hands around my breasts before feeling around my vagina. "She has the looks but she is so damn plain otherwise. I'd want the breasts bigger, the waist smaller, the hips wider, and the butt with more butt. I want my girl to have a damn big ass so when she puts on that string bikini there isn't any bikini showing."
Edward nodded. "That's a possibility. It costs extra."
The man nodded as he stepped up and put his hands around me to squeeze my butt. "How much extra?"
Edward took out a pocket calculator. "The really big breasts up to a fifty two triple F run an extra twenty. The extra small waist down to a sixteen inch runs an extra twelve. The hips and butt up to a forty six costs an extra fifteen. Anything beyond that goes into a different cost category."
The man nodded as he looked around the room at the models. "I can stand that. I want to know what she will look like before I bring her in. You have one that looks like that?"
Edward shook his head. "Not now. If you come back tomorrow I'll have one for you to look at."
The man held out his hand for a handshake agreement. "I'll be back."
Edward took the man's hand and shook it before they all turned and walked out of the room.
I prayed Edward didn't find another victim to practice his skills on before the man returned tomorrow night. I should have worried about where Edward was going to find his victim. He gave me a shot from a hypo and brought the crane in.
Minutes later I found I was pliable as Edward put the vest on me and buckled it up again. I was thinking his next victim was going to take my spot. Stupid me.
The shot had to have been a knockout potion because I was down for the count. When I came to Edward was removing the vest. Something had changed. Edward hadn't put me into freeze mode as I looked around. And then down.
"Oh shit!"
"You like them Venus my goddess of love?" Edward moved the crane back before he walked around in front of me to study his new handiwork.
I couldn't stop the tears. I certainly couldn't tell him I liked what he had done to me. There was no doubt I was designed as the model the man had been asking about. My breasts weren't big, they were huge. "Why?"
"I gave you even more than what you had and you dare ask why?" His eyes were showing signs of hate. "Do you not appreciate all I have done for you? Do you not love me even more?"
As hard as I tried I could not bring it up in me to tell him I loved him for turning me into a freak. I cried even harder.
He scowled before he walked away. Moments later he was back with that damn infernal machine and huge monstrous cups.
"No master. I love you. Please don't. You know I love you. Please don't."
He clicked a switch and slid the cups upon my breasts. I tried with all my might to push them off but it was a futile effort and only made him madder. He flipped another switch.
A million needles jabbed into my breasts. I screamed in pain. "EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
"You were naughty. Naughty girls must be punished. You tried to trick me. You don't love me. You don't appreciate my skills as a genius." He turned and left me crying and screaming.
A lifetime later he returned and switched the machine off. He waited without saying anything.
I finally managed through the tears and pain. "Thank you for punishing me when I am naughty. You are a great intelligent man with much wisdom. I love you with all my heart."
He studied me for a long time. "I don't like to punish you Venus my love goddess but you make me do it. Naughty girls must be punished. You did not appreciate what I have done for you."
"Thank you master. I love what you have done for me. I am most grateful. I do love you." I managed without telling him I wouldn't hesitate to kill him the first chance I got.
He removed the cups. "Susan will have to redo you before Jack returns to see if this is what he wants his girlfriend to look like. I'll go call her and set up an appointment in the morning."
He didn't click the remote. I wasn't immobilized. My ankles weren't locked to the pedestal yet. Getting off that pedestal would be impossible the way he planted me on it. I looked around for anything I could use. The vest and crane was still in place inches above my head. I reached up and grabbed the vest. Lifting myself off that pedestal took everything I had in me and then some. My strength was gone and I dropped to the floor rather than lowering myself. I was still on my bare feet.
I didn't think I would win in a knock down fight with Edward. My instinct was to run. The door the men had come and left by earlier that day had to lead outside or into a hallway leading outside. I made the door and closed it behind me. I didn't want to leave an escape path for Edward to follow. There weren't any security cameras in the hall. I passed several doors as I ran to the end of the hall. I was looking at what should be outside double doors. There were sensor alarms at the top of the doors. It couldn't be helped if the alarm had been set. I pushed open one of the doors and was looking at steps and a driveway. An iron gate a hundred yards away was at the other end of that driveway. I ran to the first door back inside the hallway. It was unlocked and I fled inside. It was a formal dining room with a big patio door leading to the outside. I ran to the other door on the other side of the room. It led to a library. There was a stairway to my left. I took it.
I had no idea how long it would take Edward to call and talk to Susan but if he wasn't already looking for me it wouldn't be long now before he was. I hoped he would figure on me escaping out the front door and keep on running instead of staying in the house.
At the top of the stairs was another hallway with several doors off on the side. I was guessing they were bedrooms. If Edward had guests and I ran into one this was going to be a very short escape. I made up my mind I wasn't going back to his little room of horrors. Not alive anyway. I tried the first door. It easily and quietly swung open. I was right it was a bedroom. I checked the closet. There were men's suits. Shuffling through the suits I found a jogging suit at the back. I pulled it out and put it on. The sneakers I found were three or four sizes too big but it didn't make any difference. I needed shoes.
Pulling the drapes back at the far side of the room I was looking at patio doors leading out to a balcony. I checked the upper part of the doors. Sure enough there was a burglar alarm system there too. I had seen men's jewelry on the dresser. I soon found what I wanted. I traced the wires to the alarm down the side of the door molding and pulled them away so I could do what I wanted. I scraped the tie clasp back and forth on the wires until I had a bare spot on both wires. I let the tie clasp clamp onto the bare wires.
If I was wrong Edward would know in a matter of seconds where I was when the alarm went off. I heard a soft click as I opened the door. Hopefully the tie clasp was making the continuity so the alarm system wouldn't know a link had been broken.
I stepped out on the balcony. Edward was in front of the house looking around but mostly concentrating on the gates at the end of the driveway. He disappeared back into the house. If the alarm gave me away he would be up here in seconds. I had no more thought about fleeing when he reappeared in front of the house. He was holding what looked like an assault rifle. I wondered if he would kill me if he caught me?
He started off around the house away from where I was. I went back into the bedroom and pulled the drapes closed before I slipped back outside and closed the door. If he walked into that room it would look undisturbed. Unless he opened the door without shutting off the alarm he would never know it was now disabled.
I didn't want down in the yard with Edward. I looked for a way to go up on the roof. The way the roof was angled beside the balcony it was easy enough to go over the railing and up the valley of the roof. I made it to the top and slowly eased my head up to take an appraisal of the layout. The yard was lost in the woods behind the house. Edward was standing at the gardeners shack looking toward the woods. If he thought I had made it that far he would probably call in some dogs. I had no doubt some of the people he dealt with would be happy enough to supply the dogs while being discreet about the whole sordid mess even if I was shot and killed.
How quick and how soon was the question? I could see a roof top past the tree line to my right. Neighbors of some kind. How far though and could I get them to believe me? Edward was headed back to the house. He was going to call for dogs I was sure. How long did I have before they arrived? To my left was nothing but woods on the other side of a stone wall I would never be able to scale. Out front past the gate was water. It had to be a lake. Unless there was a dock and a boat that would be a short escape run. Getting over that gate would be a big problem. I was betting that stone wall went all the way around this place. Getting out was going to be a problem.
Edward walked out of the front of the house carrying that assault rifle. He stared down the driveway before circling the house and going back in. I couldn't stay on the roof forever. Hearing a car coming down the pavement in front of the gate I eased over to the backside of the roof and watched. A black sedan pulled up and stopped at the gate waiting while the gate slowly opened. The car came up the driveway and stopped out front. Four men in hunting gear got out. They were carrying enough weapons to start their own war and probably win it. Edward met them. I only caught snitches of their conversation. She, kill, were the two words that stood out.
Two men went to the right and two went to the left as they circled the house. They met at the front and again circled the house stopping at the back by the gardeners shack. I was totally exposed if they happened to look up. Edward walked out to meet with them again. All five men spread out and started off into the woods. I had no doubt when they didn't find me in the woods they would take the house apart looking in every nook and cranny. I eased back over to the front side of the house. I didn't want them to look up and see me when they returned. If they found where I jumpered the wiring they would be up here on the roof in a heartbeat. Hopefully they would be looking for a big me rather than a little thing like a jumper on a wire.
It was getting dark by the time the men returned to the house. By now I was positive they would take that house apart knowing I was still in there hiding. Earlier I had spotted what I needed hung on the wall of the gardeners shed. Slipping over the backside of the roof I checked the drop to the ground. It was close to twenty foot to a patio or a sidewalk. Dropping to grass wasn't in the cards. Dropping that far to concrete meant something was going to be broken provided this body I was wearing was still a normal human body. The rain spout at the corner of the house would have to suffice. I prayed it was strong enough to hold me and I was strong enough to hold onto it as I slid down it.
First checking to make sure I wouldn't be sliding down in front of any windows I eased over and grasped the rain gutter with a death grip before I let myself back off the roof. The gutter creaked as it wiggled away from the roof. I couldn't go back up. My situation was either proceed or die if the gutter turned completely lose. I managed to finally wrap my hands onto the downspout and started sliding down holding on for dear life. The gutter creaked some more before I touched concrete. Looking up the downspout and gutter had pulled away from the house a foot or more. I checked to make sure no one was looking out the back patio doors before I sprinted to the backside of the gardeners shed.
It was fortunate the ladder I had seen from the roof was hung on the side of the gardeners shed instead of inside of the shed. I checked the house again and prayed they were all looking through closets or basement or something. Lifting the ladder off the wall hooks I carried it back into the woods before heading to the stone wall. I had no idea if that stone wall circled the whole place or not but I wasn't about to waste time finding out. The ladder gave me an easy up to the top of that eight foot wall. Pulling the ladder up I lowered it down on the outside and climbed down. I carried the ladder with me for several hundred feet into the woods away from the wall before I put it down.
Now if I could find that house I was looking at earlier without getting lost in the woods or worse having Edward find me first.
It was easier making my way in the dark without the ladder but I wasn't sure I was headed the right direction. The woods were dense and looking up to see stars wasn't a big plus. The tree canopy blocked out the stars for the most part. I had picked a star pattern in the direction of the house when I was on the roof. From down inside the trees I wasn't able to find that batch of stars again. I prayed I wasn't making a circle in the woods.
A stone wall rose up in front of me. Damn, I had circled back. I started to turn around when I realized this wall wasn't that tall. At best it was only six feet not eight. Walking up to it I checked. The rock wasn't the same either. Six feet was still a tall wall for a girl to scale without a ladder. I wasn't going to make it unless I found something to stand on. The earlier adrenaline rush was used up. My muscles hurt and my arms and my legs felt like spaghetti. I headed down to my right hoping I would find a gate or a way over the wall. My luck held as minutes later I came upon a dead tree lying up against the wall.
Standing on top of the wall I could see a light through the woods. If I hadn't wandered in circles then that should be a light coming from the house I had seen earlier. It was time to find out.
The house was a mansion. It was huge. When I got close enough to realize how big it was it scared me. Places like this keep dogs. The kind of dogs they keep aren't lap dogs. I found a stick big enough to be called a club and headed toward the house as I left the woods behind. The lawn was expansive. It was a couple hundred yards across the lawn to the house. The light I had seen was at the top of the gable shining on the greenhouse in back. The greenhouse was lit up and someone was moving about inside.
It was time to make a command decision. Either go to the greenhouse or go to the house. What would I do at the house? Find a phone and call the police? If Edward had enough money to own the local law I would be back in his house of horrors in a matter of hours. I was positive Edward would kill me if he got his hands on me again. He would use that machine of his to prove how naughty I was and how much he loved me.
I would take my chances with whoever was in the greenhouse.
He didn't hear me enter. I watched for thirty or forty seconds wondering if I could do enough damage to escape again if he was in league with Edward. "I need your help." It surprised me and scared the absolute shit out of me when he didn't jump and turn around.
He finished with whatever he was doing with a plant before he straightened up and turned to look. He didn't say a thing as he looked.
The guy was six two or there abouts. Probably two twenty or two thirty. He was muscular enough to lift trains for exercise. He was in his late twenties or early thirties. He sighed. "How did you get in here?"
"Please, I need your help. I was drugged and kidnapped. I escaped a little while ago. I'm positive they are looking for me. I'm not going back." I didn't bring my improvised club up. I didn't think it would do a bit of good against this hulk I was looking at.
"I see or more precisely I don't see. Would you care to clarify this tale of yours so I might understand exactly who abducted you and what kind of help you expect me to provide?" He turned his attention back to the plants.
This was either the calmest man in the world, he was on meds, or he didn't have all his oars in the water. I had no idea what to do? Should I run or stick it out and see how this plays? The past day, or days, or whatever hadn't left me with all my ducks in a row. I was positive I would be considered insane if I blurted out what had happened to me. "Please, I need a place to hide."
He nodded even though his back was to me. "Go on."
"I was kidnapped. I don't know how long ago. It could have been days or months. I have no idea what this day is." Was I gaining points with this guy or losing them?
"Today is June nine." He put the plant off to his side and picked up another one and set it down in front of him.
"That was..., I was kidnapped three days ago. I had gone to the hotel club to kill some time. A guy sat down next to me. I don't' know how he did it but the next thing I knew I woke up inside a glass cylinder. He drugged me somehow. I saw several women in the room and he had them all mounted like statues. He did the same thing to me but I managed to escape. Please you got to help me." I was desperate.
He stopped working with the plant, straightened up, and turned around to study me for a minute or more before he spoke. "Where is this place you escaped from?"
I pointed off in the direction I thought was Edwards home. "A house over in that direction."
"Mr. Blair abducted you?" He wiped his hands on a towel laying on the cart beside him.
"Edward Blair was the name that was mentioned. Yes." Do I run or...?
"Hummm, been hearing some interesting stories about Mr. Blair's models. Are you telling me those models are humans he has immobilized somehow? And he tried to do the same thing to you?" He never blinked as he focused on my face.
I nodded. "He was going to do the same to me but forgot before he went to make a phone call or something."
"Okay. Let's go call the police and have them check out your story and Mr. Blair." He started toward me.
"uh...,"
He stopped. "Police are a problem for you? You wanted?"
I wouldn't believe this story if someone was telling it to me. Why should this guy be any different? "uh, no. It's just that..., What if he owns the police? If some of the stuff he told me is true then he's rich. Money buys a lot of things including the law."
"That shouldn't be a problem. Give them your name, let them check out your references, and that should do what money can't buy. Truth." He was still waiting.
"uh..., yeah, that normally shouldn't be a problem."
A smile spread across the guy's face. "Normally?"
"Edward erased my past." I didn't dare explain how. I would be tied up and the loony patrol would be called in.
He nodded. "People's past can be erased but never completely. There are always loose ends provided one knows where and what to look for. What is your name and where are you from or what was your last address before you were abducted?"
Oh shit! I could see any possible hope for any help going out the window. "I..., uh...., I..."
"Listen to me very closely. I'm not going to turn you back over to Mr. Blair no matter what. I don't care if you did or didn't escape from his house. Mr. Blair is not a doctor nor does he have any experience as such that I know of. I'm not going to call the police until I am able to check out who you are, where you came from, and if you are wanted or not."
"Do not lie to me and I will help you all I possibly can. I don't care who you are, what you have or haven't done. As long as you don't try and con me or lie to me I will help you with whatever problems you think you might have." He took a deep breath as he focused in on my eyes. "What is your real name?"
I mulled that over for a few seconds. Here goes nothing. "Audrey James Little and I live at two thousand six Waterford Avenue in Freeport, Texas."
"That's a start. Give me a second." He pulled a cell phone off his hip and punched a button
"Of course it's late. Do I ever call you during normal hours? He listened for a few seconds. "I have a lookup. Check on Audrey James Little Waterford Avenue, Freeport, Texas for me."
He listened for several more seconds. "male, Caucasian, forty six, five eleven, brown hair, blue eyes, product rep for Heygood automotive parts. Got it. Can you get a location on him?"
"Flew into Salem, Oregon four days ago. Was supposed to return home three days ago and is listed as missing...., No, it's nothing. Do me a favor and tell Jerry and the crew I want them up here at Bill Yeary's place ASAP. No..., it is nothing solid. I'm looking at Mr. Little and I don't believe it myself."
"Thanks you're a doll. Of course I expect to make it up to you. Oh..., Linda, tell the chief I think we have located NASA's Deep Space Project. It will need serious house cleaning from what Mr. Little has told me. Lot of casualties involved. I want you to run Mr. Edward Blair through the washer and see what comes out of the wash. Four six seven one Applewood Drive Salem Tell Chris to put a spotter in Bill's yacht down at the dock to keep an eye on what comes and goes from Edward's place. Check on the number of people disappearing in Salem the past six years."
"Thanks hon. Scramble all calls from here on out and keep me posted..., You too. Bye." He clicked the phone off as he studied me.
:"...you believe me? Who the hell are you? Who do you work for?" I was wondering if I had stepped out of the frying pan into the fire although he wasn't making any aggressive moves toward me.
"Some people call me Bob. I can't tell you who I work for. You put a hell of a wrinkle in my life just by showing up. I wasn't supposed to be here this week except my leave got pushed back due to a job that took longer than planned. Only three people knew I was here. This place belongs to a friend. He and his family are in Brazil right now. Edgar is the groundskeeper. He knew of course. Linda at the Office knew."
"I listened to your story because they let you walk up here. Their instinct is a whole lot better than mine. If they hadn't thought you needed help they would have put you back over the wall as soon as you put foot on this property."
"They?" I hadn't seen anyone besides the person I was looking at who called himself Bob.
He pointed behind me. "Sissy and Buddy."
I turned to look and my heart jumped up into my throat. Sitting there watching me were two of the biggest dogs I had ever seen in my life. "...oh shit!:"
"Sadah, Madawe. I told them you were friend and to guard you. I really don't think the command was necessary. I'm betting they would without me telling them. Every time I get around those two I think they are humoring me so I won't figure out they are smarter than I'll ever be."
Looking at the club I was carrying he shook his head. "You can hold onto that twig if it makes you feel any safer but otherwise it is useless against the dogs or me. There are stories of their bred killing lions. Their jaws are strong enough to crush large bone in one bite."
He reached over and picked up a Glock off the table and then walked past me. "Let's go into the house and talk. I want to hear everything you can tell me about how you ended up here looking like you do."
The two dogs moved out of the door as he walked past them, leaving me standing there in the greenhouse. I was looking at two dogs who were watching me. They could have me for lunch anytime they felt like it. Looking down at the club I was holding I dropped it on the floor. Bob was right, it was a twig against these two brutes. The last thing one wants to do is show aggression against trained guard dogs. They would eat you alive just to prove their worth.
"Nice doggy. Good Buddy. Good Sissy." I couldn't out run them, there was no escape if they wanted me. Bob said they had been watching me as soon as I climbed their wall. I swallowed what courage I didn't have and slowly hesitantly started after Bob. I had to pass within a couple feet of the dogs to get by them. I honestly was scared to death even if I had decided dying was better than letting Edward get his hands on me again. Mauled to death by two dogs wasn't in my death wish.
The dogs let me get to the house. When I closed the door behind me and finally caught my breath, I turned to look. They were standing there a few feet from the door. I hadn't heard them following me. I was beginning to believe Bob when he said they let me walk up to the greenhouse.
"Bob?" I called into the house.
"In the kitchen. Come on in. Coffee or something stronger to drink? That body you are wearing still able to eat and drink or did Edward give you a limited life span?" Came from the open door to my left.
I turned to look at the dogs before follow the voice to the kitchen. They weren't there. Sheesh! Bob can call them guard dogs. I'd call them spooks. "I don't know. If I'm lucky I'll die in a few days or so."
"I figured we might as well find out and you probably need some energy intake. You look like you are winding down." Bob handed me a cup of hot chocolate before leading me into a lounge room with cushioned chairs.
He settled into one of the chairs and sipped on his coffee. "I want to hear it all. Tell me everything you can remember. You don't need to tell it in order of a time frame. You can tell it in importance of events as they happened if that's the way your mind kicks them out."
I settled into one of the big cushioned chairs. For the first time since I had been abducted I relaxed and sipped my hot chocolate. "He is insane. Edward. I don't know how it works. He has a machine that can change a person's body into whatever he wants...."
The tears started without warning. "... shit!" I wiped them off with the back of my hand. "Changing me wasn't enough for his sick mind. He wanted me to tell him how smart he was..., He demanded I call him a genius...., He demanded I love him for...,"
I motioned toward myself. Filled with hate, I spit the words out with venom. "For turning me into a woman. The sick bastard."
"When I didn't tell him I loved him, he tortured me until I couldn't take no more. I would have said anything, done anything he wanted after that." I was ashamed I had weakened to Edwards device.
I looked over at Bob for the first time since I had started telling my tale. He was watching, showing no emotion and saying nothing.
My attention turned to the floor. I couldn't face anyone and tell my story. It was too hard, too personal. "The ones he..., Edward had changed. He had them mounted on pedestals like trophies. Somehow he is able to freeze their bodies in any position without killing them. He did the same to me. Some of them are grotesque..., Not as monsters but their features and bodies are not normal. The girl next to me..., her lips were..., too big to be pretty."
Unconsciously I felt my own lips. They were full. I wondered if I looked like her? I looked down at my monstrous breasts. What was it he said he could make them without going into another cost? I was crying again. Edward had turned me into one of his freaks.
I have no idea how long I talked spilling my hatred for what Edward had done to me. At some point my energy and hate had run its course. I fell asleep in the chair. I remembered very little of it when I woke. It took me a few seconds to get my bearings and focus. I was in a bed. A very soft bed. The drapes were closed but I could see the sun was up as light was beaming in around the sides of the curtains. I wiggled and felt all slippery. Pushing the covers down I found out why. I was dressed in a wisp of a nightgown. The satin sheets made it all that much more slippery. The nightmare was still mine. I was still a damn woman with too damn much in all the right places. Those mountains I had on my chest only needed ski lifts to be used as ski slopes. Damn Edward. Damn his sick mind.
I slid out of bed. Standing up I felt the slightest breeze brush across my breasts. I involuntarily shivered and it wasn't from the cold. My nipples pushed pointedly at the soft negligee. They didn't need any help in that department. Edward had made them where they would permanently be a stand out and super sensitive. On my huge breasts it was overkill. Yesterday I was in an adrenaline overdrive trying to survive. Now I realized just how sensitive this body was. I was getting horny and wishing I was back on the pedestal.
"SHIT! I'm losing my mind." I yanked off the negligee as I looked for my stolen sweats.
There was a light knock on the door before it opened and a woman walked in. She didn't look shocked when her eyes focused on me. "Good, you're up. I'll help you get dressed. We have a full day going over everything you remember."
"I already told Bob everything..., I think.” I didn't know if I told him everything or not.
"Let's do it again in case you left something out. Okay. Now get dressed." She pointed to clothes draped on a chair at the end of the bed.
I looked and shook my head. I wasn't into female things. "Where's my sweats."
"Gone. The people who live here and those they associate with are above the upper class. They nor their friends dress down. You need to look like you are part of that class of people if anyone happens to see you come or go. I'll help you." She picked up the pantyhose and held it out to me. "Like pulling on long socks. Roll each leg down one at a time before you put your foot in."
The tears started again. "I'm not a woman."
She walked up and hugged me. "You are now dear. Let it out and cry if you feel like it. We girls do it all the time. It is one of the things that makes us better than guys. We can show our feelings without shame."
It took almost an hour for me to get dressed and Julia do her makeup magic on me to her satisfaction. She called what I had to put on a corset. She said it had a lot of boning in it to hold up the twin peaks. And then there was a full slip and a polyester soft blue sleeveless dress over that. The dress had a more than full skirt and a really low cut neckline. Julia said my measurements were fifty two, sixteen, forty four. Where she came up with a dress to hug my body like this one did was beyond me. Four inch blue matching heels and a matching shoulder purse was Julia's final touch.
She walked across the room with a purpose swinging her hips gracefully with each step on her four inch heels. She stopped and turned. "Walk to me and do it like that."
I walked toward her and bounced stiff legged with each step. I wobbled several times and had to stop to catch my balance.
"Watch." She walked back across the room doing it gracefully and eloquently. She was poetry in motion. I was jealous and in love. Julia was the perfect woman in every respect.
When she turned even that was gracefully done. "Stop fighting with your body. You are trying to think, act, and walk like a man. Let your body show you how to do it. Stop thinking of what you are doing and think of everything you ever liked in a woman. Your favorite dress, your favorite scent, your favorite bikini, your favorite hairstyle. Think of all the things you liked in every woman you dated. Now walk toward me."
Margaret was a lot of fun and always kidding around with me. Doris had the prettiest blonde hair. Junita had the cutest little bod in a string bikini. Eve had a deep sexy voice...,
"That's better. It will come to you naturally if you stop trying so hard to imitate how women walk. There are a lot of other things I will teach you in acting as a woman of the social set before we are finished." She glanced at her watch. "Now let's go find out what they are serving for lunch. Ladies of breeding take small bites, chew their food, and smile at all the men talk."
She opened the door and walked out ahead of me. I followed along bouncing before I stopped thinking and let my hips roll with each step. I was in female hell. Maybe I should have stayed with Edward!
Julia led me into a dinning room. There were two men there. Another man followed us into the room. I was in panic mode and wanted to flee. Julia reached over and took my arm. Gentlemen, I want to introduce you to Audrey. You already know her story. I expect you to be on your best and not upset her by asking her personal questions while we are eating."
Julia turned her attention to me. "Audrey, there are no secrets in this house between you and everyone here."
She got a funny look on her face and then laughed. "Well not true. There are a lot of secrets we can't tell you about us. Anyway, everyone here will protect you from any further harm or embarrassment to the best of their ability. You will learn their names before this is over so I'm not going to introduce you at this time."
She motioned to the table. "Gentlemen, shall we? Audrey, wait for one of the men to pull a chair out for you and seat you."
One of the men stepped up and pulled a chair back. "Ma’am, if I may."
I sit down in the chair and scooted up to the table. "Thank you."
He sat down beside me while Julia walked around the table opposite of me.
One of the men seated her. "Please allow me."
She held her skirt before gracefully sitting down in the offered chair. "Thank you Juan."
Bob and another man, both in cooks white uniforms came in rolling trays loaded with dishes.
I guess my eyes showed the shock I felt. He grinned as he rolled his eyes. "I'm your chief today. If you're lucky my cooking won't kill you just yet. Tomorrow is Larry's turn. His cooking will."
The man second to my right looked up. "HEY!"
He looked over at me and winked. "Bob is jealous. I'm the better cook."
Everyone around the table started bragging about who was the best cook. Each one of them wanted my attention as they bragged on themselves. Julia looked pleased as she watched. I relaxed as I listened to the men bragging about who was best at a lot of things. And I smiled which wasn't an effort nor faked.
The meal took a long time. Little portions on my fork and a long time to chew as I imitated Julia. The salesman in me wanted to shovel it in so I could get on with other things. I didn't.
It was an hour or more later I was relaxing in a big easy chair, Julia and Bob were sitting in chairs facing me. I was telling my story again. "I hate him. I've never killed anyone in my life. I wouldn't have a bit of trouble killing him."
Bob glanced over at Julia before turning his attention toward me. "First things first Audrey. We need to make sure what you are telling us is real or if it is a mind implant by someone. There is an Edward Blair living in the house to the north of us. He is not married and has no children. We can't go busting in and find out we made a mistake if there are no others there. You believe what you are saying is true and you experienced everything as you explain it. We don't doubt you believe it. We sent samples of your fingerprints, DNA, skin, and hair back for analysis. I don't want to hurt you or make you think we aren't here to help. Right now you are a big fat zero to us. You don't exist in anyone's book. The only thing we have is a man named Audrey James Smith is missing. A woman who claims to be Audrey James Smith shows up on our doorstep with a tale out of fantasy land."
The tears started. "...., you don't believe me?"
Bob sighed as he shook his head. "I didn't say that and don't you go thinking along those lines. We must have more than a woman telling us she was a man who was abducted and turned into a woman by a mad man. You said he does it to make models for clients who want to change their wives or girlfriends into their fantasy dreams. We need to run down some of these clients of his and find those who were changed."
"Believe it or not, it isn't as easy as it might sound. Women go under the knife of a plastic surgeon all the time. Where do we start looking for those who suddenly grow big boobs that didn't get them from a doctor?"
He held up his hand when I started to speak. "We check flights in and out of airports in Salem. We check the private jets along with the commercial flights. From what you told us his clients have no problem with finances. That means they are probably flying in and out in their own company plane. We will go over hundreds of airport logs looking for the needle in the haystack. Then we will have to chase down each promising lead and be very discreet so as to not alarm anyone. Word gets back to Edward he will destroy the equipment and dispose of the women."
I wiped my tears. Julia shook her head as she pointed to a Kleenex box on the table next to my chair. "Dab don't wipe. You smear your makeup. Dab hon."
"Thanks." I pulled Kleenex, dabbed and then blew my nose.
Julia closed her eyes as she shook her head and giggled. "Hon, we girls do not honk when we blow our noses. We blow softly, gently, and wipe"
"I'm sorry. I'm not only sorry but I'm damn sorry. I'm NOT A DAMN GIRL! I DON'T WANT TO BE A GIRL! I HATE THIS FUCKING SHIT!" I pulled my feet up into the chair as I curled up into a ball and cried"
I felt her hand on my shoulder. "It's okay to cry. Let it out."
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I want to be dead. I don't want to be a girl. I'm so sorry." I cried even harder as I turned to look at her.
She never said a word as she took my hand and held it while I cried.
Neal, one of the men we had dinned with walked in holding up a newspaper. "It's official, she's dead."
"Good. Congratulations Audrey." Julia gave me a smile.
I stopped sniffling.. "What?"
Julia pointed at the paper Neal was holding. "Front page so Edward wouldn't miss it. You died last night. Somehow you made it down to the lake, slipped, fell in, and drown."
The water works were turned off. "I DID WHAT?"
"Edward needs to believe you died last night so he won't pack up shop and wipe everything clean. If he thought you were out there spilling your guts to who knows whom he might decide to destroy everything and run. Since you died last night after you escaped from his house his secrets are still safe. Especially since you obviously fell into the lake and drown after climbing over his gate. Your escape was short and sweet. No one saw you and you didn't get a chance to blab to anyone."
Julia smiled. "Now dry those eyes and dab not wipe. We will redo your makeup and the gentlemen will pretend they never noticed."
Neal held the paper out so I could see it. On the front page was a very terrible picture of my face. It was gray and ashen in color. I looked like what most people would think a floating corpse would look like. Who the hell were these people? "Woman found by fishermen floating in the lake this morning. Her body was taken to the Orvile Morgue. Autopsy was undertaken by Dr. Martin. He said she had drowned and had been dead for twelve to fourteen hours before she was pulled from the water. She is listed as Jane Doe as there are no missing persons reports matching her description. Follow up story on tomorrow's paper.
I was officially dead. Would my benefactors kill me to make sure no information leaked out about Edwards lab after this was all over?
Days rolled into weeks as Julia constantly reminded me to act like a woman instead of a guy. She didn't allow me to wear pants or shoes. It was always dresses designed to show off my figure. The heels had gone from four inch to five inch so I was up on my toes for the most part. The bracelets and necklaces I didn't mind. She pierced each ear with five holes. She put a gold lace filigree in the top four holes in each ear. She usually put long dangle crystal chandelier earrings swinging from the bottom holes.
Sometimes I'd get so frustrated with her constant female directions I'd do the guy thing just for spite. We had walked out to the greenhouse.
Julia told me the wind had messed up my hair. "Pat your hair back in
place."
I leaned over to my left, harked up a big spitball and spit. "Patooie" Reaching down with my right hand I scratched where my nuts would have been if I still had any left. "Let's go pop a few lids, tip up a few beers, and discuss which chick we dated was the best fuck."
It shocked me when Julia did the same thing. Her eyes were dancing with mischief as she looked at me. "Hell yeah! I'll go fer that. Think we can get any of them ol fat broads to come over for a foursome? I'm as horny as hell and sure could use a good fuck."
I backed up from her not sure what to think. Was she pulling my leg or what?
She nodded. "Scared you didn't I. Hon unless you are making the rounds of the Red Dog Saloon you aren't going to find any girls who want to compete with men in the filthy mouth disease. We girls are as tough as men. We don't have to get down in the gutter and roll around in the filth with them to prove it. The girls who do are a class act all their own. You will find those girls in the homeless shelters, or back alleys pushing carts loaded with their worldly possessions after their looks are gone. They find out they played with the boys on the boys terms and when their youth and looks were gone it wasn't funny to anyone any longer. No one wants an old beat up bitch using a potty mouth. It's not funny nor cute any longer like it was when the young chick was doing it."
"I'm not...,"
"Yes you are. And a very beautiful one to boot. You might be as angry as hell for whet he did to you but he had very good taste in the looks department. Your eyes have a hint of Asian mystery to them. Your eyelashes any woman, including me, would kill for. Your eyebrows, your high cheekbones, your pert little nose and sweetheart lips are pure
feminine sweetheart, wholesome girl next door. The only reason the guys haven't been hitting on you is Bob promised they would die a long painful slow death if they did."
Shaking my head I cupped my breasts. "And this?"
Julia nodded. "For some a little overkill in the wow figure and for others a start in the right direction. Every one of the guys who has seen you would kill to bed you just to see what it was like. Let's go clubbing tomorrow night. You can get a real strong dose of what guys think when you don't have Bob guarding your body."
"Clubbing? You are going to let me go out?" I was surprised at her suggestion.
"Not in Salem. We'll steal the jet and go up to Seattle. I don't know what kind of clubs Edward's clients choose. They probably pick the upper well known ones to show off their remakes to all the elite. I know of a couple lesser known clubs we can visit. You will be fairly safe. It's a safe bet anyone who saw you at Edwards won't be there." She was motioning me back toward the house. "You need to learn how to dance like a girl."
"Dance?" Surely she didn't expect me to dance with any men. It wasn't happening in this lifetime.
The next morning Julia started early making sure I was ready. The corset laced up the back. When I was no longer able to breathe she laced it even tighter. "Julia, I can't breathe."
"Take small breaths Audrey. The dress you are going to wear isn't that big." She tightened even more.
"Julia, I'm going to pass out." Little breaths weren't helping.
She pulled it tighter which I didn't think was possible. "You're in panic mode Audrey. You are trying to swell up instead of relaxing. Relax and you will find there is a lot of room in there with you."
"julia..." I gasped.
She tightened it again. "There, this would have been a piece of cake if you hadn't been fighting me. Lay down on the bed until you settle down and stop the panic attack."
I flopped back on the bed as my vision grew gray. I didn't pass out but it was a long time before I stopped struggling to breathe. Finally it got easier and I was able to catch enough air I wasn't in panic mode.
When I tried to sit up I found I could no longer bend at the waist. I finally managed to roll to my right and push with my right hand and sit up. I was no longer able to slouch. I could only sit or stand in a proud position with my breasts pushed up and out. I was beginning to understand what a corset does to a woman’s figure as everything above the hips is constricted. My waist was made even smaller and my breasts more pronounced. It was then I realized Julia had a purpose in mind when she laced me into that corset. She was going to make me sit or stand like a lady even if I didn’t want to.
"Is this necessary?" I stood up as Julia held up bright yellow dress with a bustier top. No straps, no shoulders just me, that damn corset, and my boobs were all that was going to hold the top of the dress in place.
She pointed to a petticoat on the bed beside me. "Necessary. Slip the petticoat on. This dress needs a little help holding the skirt out."
She handed me the dress after I slipped on the petticoat that had acres
of netting.
The dress was next over my head and settled into place. I held the top as Julia zipped me up. She backed up to study her handiwork. "Nice."
I felt like I needed a Vegas stage to walk out on. Most of my breasts were exposed. The top of the dress barely covered the most basics. The short skirt flared out over the top of the petticoat so much I wasn't sure how much it covered. My tiny little waist exaggerated my hips and breasts which didn't need any help to begin with. "Are you sure women
dress like this?"
"We do if we are showing off." Julia had me sit in front of the dresser and guided me as I put on my makeup. I wasn't an expert but I was getting better by the day with her guidance. My hair was next as she fluffed it out across my shoulders.
"Let's go get a second opinion." She was headed for the door.
I slipped on the necklace and crystal chandelier earrings. The yellow heels Julia had laid on top the bed were last as I followed her out and down to the den. That was where three of the guys were working with computers, faxes, and communications.
"Gentlemen, us girls are going out tonight. What do you think of Audrey?"
Mark nodded in agreement. "Very nice. You will need a chaperone and bodyguard. I volunteer for the job."
"Not so fast. I have seniority and I should be the one who goes along." Dale gave me a wink.
"Our girl needs someone who can dance as an escort. Lord knows you two send all your dates home with sore feet after you walk all over them. That makes me the only choice." Neal wasn't going to be left out.
"Put a lid on it you losers." Came from a voice behind me I recognized.
Turning around to look, Bob had on a suit and tie. He was dressed to the nines in a soft gray colored suit. I felt the blood rush to my face. "..., uh..., mmmm..., going....too, also..., I mean..."
"We are." He glanced at his watch. "Julia, you have forty minutes to get ready.
It was thirty minutes later Julia walked back into the room. She was wearing a cobolt blue bustier style dress and matching bolero jacket. Her earrings, bracelet, and necklace were blue stones. Her four inch pumps and clutch matched perfectly to the dress. Her brown hair had the perfect amount of tease to make it her crowning glory.
She was a doll. I couldn't help myself. I let out a low wolf whistle.
Julia's eyes were dancing. "Someone approves. If everyone is ready let's go."
For the first time I was no longer felt like a prisoner of that house. Larry and Julia were in the back along with Bob and me. Dale was acting as the chauffeur. An hour later we were pulling up to a hanger with a big business jet parked in front. There were a couple men standing off to the side.
Larry and Bob got out and looked over the plane before motioning for us girls to get onboard. Bob shut the door behind us and walked up to the cockpit. We were airborne in short order.
Larry came into the back after the plane had leveled out at altitude. "Bob wanted to know if you would sit up front in the co-pilot's seat?"
"Sure." I made my way up front and finally got me and that petticoat into the right seat.
Bob glanced over in my direction. "How you holding up?"
I managed a smile. "If you mean air wise. I've done my fair share of flying..., I mean commercial not private jets." I was looking at a million gages and instruments. I didn't know these things were this complicated. I had never thought about what pilots needed to fly an airplane.
"It must take years to learn how to fly."
"Uh roger Portland Tower, we are southbound at 31 thousand. I am painting Alaska Air on my radar and have visual." Bob pointed out to my right.
I turned to look and saw a row of lights on another airplane a couple miles away. It looked like he was headed the same direction we were going. "What is it?"
"They are Alaska Airlines headed to Vegas."
"Vegas? Julia told me we were going to Seattle."
"Change of plans. Alaska Air is headed to Vegas, we will follow it down."
"Roger Portland Tower, thank you and appreciate the service."
It didn't take long before Bob to pointed at the lights in the distance he called Vegas. He told me to put on the earphones and listen to the air traffic. I slipped them on and heard him talking to the tower.
"Nellis Air Force Base, this is Golf Charlie Lima Alpha Charlie requesting advisory service."
"Golf Charlie Lima Alpha Charlie, state your position, aircraft type and souls on board."
"Golf Charlie Lima Alpha Charlie is a Gulfstream G450 out of Salem, Oregon in route to Nellis, currently five oh miles north of Hayford Peak at flight level three one. Four persons on board."
"Roger Golf Charlie, squawk 4512 for ident"
Bob reached down in front of the console, turned a couple dials and pushed a button. "Squawking 4512 Golf Charlie."
"Golf Charlie, you are identified. Be advised of two C Five Heavy in landing pattern ahead of you. You may experience extreme turbulence. We also have unidentified traffic just to the west of you, possibly a company jet. Please advise if you have him in sight."
"That's a roger Nellis tower. I am painting the UA on my radar and have visual confirmation."
It was fascinating to experience what went on in the cockpit as Bob brought the jet into Nellis Air Force Base. I'm not dumb. These people that rescued me had connections in the higher up if they flew in and out of an air force base. The airplane we were in wasn't any little boy's toy. It took big bucks to buy and operate one of these birds. And these people acted like it was their second car in their garage.
I turned and gave Bob my full attention. I wanted an answer. "Bob, who do you work for?"
He shook his head. "Audrey, I can't tell you that. I'm not worried about myself. It would endanger not only the others but you would be in danger also. All I can tell you is we are in business. It is a business dealing with some of the most dangerous, evil people in the world. Those people would slit your throat for fun before sitting down to dinner."
He turned to focus on my eyes. "Don't ask me again hon. Every time you ask you get one step closer to the hell I work with even if you don't know what it is."
Looking down at my breasts I took almost started to cry again. "Can't be any worse than the hell I'm already living."
It was interesting to see nothing but uniforms after we landed. We were directed to a parking area by an AirForce blue vehicle with flashing lights. The men waiting after Larry opened the hatch were MPs. Their response to everything was "Yes Sir" "No Sir," or "Yes Ma’am" "No Ma’am".
A fuel truck pulled up. The men were refueling the jet before we were all loaded into a non descript dark blue sedan with tinted windows. Our driver wasn't dressed in a uniform. However he was carrying enough weapons there was no doubt he wasn't your typical civilian. When I got a chance to look he had an assault rifle nestled down between his right leg and the console.
Who the hell were these people?
The driver dropped us off at a club named Pirate Cove. It wasn't one of the big name clubs but still a big club.
Julia pulled me aside after we walked into the cub. "Listen, anyone asks you to dance that is your choice. Don't look like you suspect something if Bob and me or Larry and me dance right along with you. The bosses didn't want you leaving the house just yet. It took a whole lot of persuasion to get an approval on this outing. If anything happens to you my ass is grass. Don't make me regret it."
Who were these people? "I promise to behave. Besides, I need you to get me out of this rig I'm wearing when the reveille is over. Right?"
Julia nodded and smiled. "That was the idea. Okay, come on. Let's go see what the livestock looks like in this place. If any of them catches your eye and offers a drink give them a great big smile and pass. All our drinks tonight come from one waitress. Her name is Monica. Absolutely no one gets close to a drink after it is in the glass. If it happens push it to the side and Monica will give you a fresh one."
Who were these people? Their ability to control a situation in a
nightclub meant they weren't any second class act. I was running all the government acronyms through my mind as Bob led us to a table off to the front side of the stage. It seemed the whole damn club was staring at me but that was probably my imagination and the fact I wasn't a real woman. It didn't escape me after the guys seated Julia and me they sat down with their backs to the wall. The rest of the club was now in front of them.
Drinks were placed in front of us seconds after we were seated. I looked at the waitress as she reached to place the drinks on the table. Uh huh, cute little thing wearing what some horny bastard might consider a female pirate's costume. Nylons, black cuff boots with a five inch stiletto heel, black micro mini skirt, a red sash, a dagger on her left hip, and a black bustier which covered the barest of necessities. She had the brightest polished red lipstick I had ever seen and beautiful brown eyes with unbelievably long lashes.
She dropped a card on the table. I'm Monica, your waitress.
Larry placed several bills in her tray. "Thank you."
I looked over at Julia. "What am I drinking?"
Julia held up her glass. "Same thing all of us are. Cherry coke to start with. You can have whatever you want as long as it doesn't go to your brain. You start talking to anyone about what you think happened to you and the evening is over."
I looked down at my breasts before looking over at Bob. "And who would believe me? I'm living this nightmare and I don't believe me."
He rose from the table as he held out his right hand in my direction. "Let's see if Cinderella knows how to dance before midnight and we have to return to the pumpkin patch."
I stood up and took his hand as he walked around the table. "Don't need to get out there and make a fool of myself to answer that question unless I get to lead and you follow."
Bob laughed as he shook his head and put his arm around my waist. "That so ain't happening. I lead, you follow."
"Okay, your funeral. You do remember this girl stuff is brand new to me. I'm also wearing heels. I hope you were smart enough to wear your steel toed boots."
Bob moved me around in front of himself put his left arm around my waist and waited for me to put my left hand in his right. "You're a beautiful woman Audrey. I don't have the slightest clue what is going through your mind. Do me a favor. Please. Try and enjoy the evening and put everything else out of your mind. This time is here and now. The past is behind us, the future is in front of us. The only part of time we have any control over is the moment as we live it. Julia knew you needed to mingle with people other than the crew at the house if you were ever going to start living again. She pulled a lot of favors to get you this night. She thinks the world of you."
"And you?" I waited as I studied his eyes.
Bob's eyes were gleaming with mischief. "Well..., yeah, I guess you pulled me in too. I thought I knew what human strength was. You have taught me I had no idea what real courage was. If I ever face an enemy firing on me again, I'll remember you and know my job is a cake walk."
I laughed as he stated moving me backwards to the beat of the music. "You might want to pull that thought up and hold onto it because dancing with me is going to be brutal. So how strong are you cowboy?"
Bob was laughing as he pulled me in close body contact.
I didn't tromp his feet by the time the number was over but I did scuff up his shoes, a lot.
Bob returned me to my chair. I hadn't no more than popped my butt into the chair when Larry stood up. "My turn."
Julia stood up and held out her hand. "Bob?"
"But of course. Would one of the prettiest ladies at the ball please dance with this cowboy?" He took Julia's hand.
"cowboy?" Julia looked puzzled.
"That's what Audrey called me. I think it is another name for clod hopper. I haven't spent that much time in south Texas to know the colloquialisms." He was wrapping Julia up and moving into the beat of the music.
"You understand and speak eight different languages fluently and you don't understand Texacan? I'm shocked, disappointed. This is going in on your report. You will be a filing clerk by this time next week provided you aren't demoted to window washer or janitor." She and Bob were dancing away from us to the center of the room.
"Don't you start with me woman. Remember who it was that pulled your butt up out of the sling in...," He reached up and pulled her head to his shoulder.
Larry wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me in.
I didn't resist like I initially did with Bob. This damn girl stuff takes getting use to. My learning curve was on steroids. "Bob and Julia make a cute couple. I didn't see wedding rings. Are either one of them married?"
"No one is married in this group. Marriage is a game changer. We can get married or stay married to our job but not both. There is a whispered name for our group. They call us the Priests. Not because we are celibate but because none of us are married."
Larry gave me an extra hug. "You sure are different Audrey. I think all the guys would give up the company to marry you. Even Julia is in love with you. Trust me, that girl doesn't have a lesbian bone in her whole body. She's nobody's butch. You bring out the mother instinct in her."
I laughed as I squeezed him back. "It just a fascination phase with everyone. I'm something new and different they haven't ever run into before. Once the mystery of what it is wears off they will all run away as hard and fast as they can hoping they didn't get contaminated while they were close to me."
Larry stopped, eased me back, leaned down and gave me a light kiss on the lips.
That shocked the hell out of me. I wasn't prepared and had no idea what to do?
"We are trained to never do anything on impulse. I just had to. I'm...,"
I was looking him in the eye. "You say you are sorry and I'll bring back the guy I once was and slug you. You aren't sorry and neither am I. You shocked the shit out of me but it was nice. I didn't think I would ever kiss a guy in this lifetime. Did I like it? It was said and done before I could get a rope around it and haul it in to see."
I put my hands on his shoulders as I studied his face waiting for a response one way or another. "Let's try that again if you're still game and see what happens?"
He nodded in agreement. "Bob said you had more courage than any ten m..."
I pulled Larry in and planted a big one on him. It wasn't what I thought it might be. I wasn't kissing my girlfriend. Kissing a man is different from kissing a girl. The lips are different shaped, not as soft, not as slippery because the man isn't wearing the lipstick. But the basics of it were still the same. Only this time I was the girl. And it turned out it was still just a kiss. It wasn't a prelude to take me to bed or fondle me, or have any sexual attraction added to it. It was just a kiss. I had that same experience one time when I kissed my mother. Nothing there except the idea I wasn't ever going to do it again.
Bob and Julia danced by. Both of them smiling like cats in the cream. There was no doubt they had watched the show.
"My turn." Bob had a lopsided grin on his face.
"Take a number." I laid my hand upon Larry's shoulder and was pushing him backwards in time with the beat to the music.
"Hey, just because you kissed me doesn't mean you get to lead." He reversed course and I was dancing backwards.
When the number was over the four of us returned to the table. The glasses were gone. Monica was there with fresh drinks as soon as the guys seated us girls.
I looked over at Julia. "Same thing?"
"Same. You can change if you want. Tell the guys what you want and they will get Monica's attention or go to the bar and get it themselves. Girls like for the guys to do it for them and guys like to..."
"Do it for the girls." I finished up for her. "I've been on both sides of the equation. I remember how guys think and act."
Julia reached over and held my hand. "But not girls. You are doing good hon. I never had to unlearn how to be what I'm not. I have no idea how difficult it is for you. None of us do. We are here to help as much as possible. If we get to acting too much like the nanny then tell us to back off. We are on a learning curve which is even more difficult for us than it is for you because we aren't you."
An hour later Julia and I had made a bathroom run. Twenty minutes later I felt the need again. It had to be that corset Julia cinched me into not giving a whole lot of storage room. "I'm going to powder my nose." At least that much of Julia's training had soaked in. Girls don't jump up and tell everyone at the table, 'I gotta go piss'
Julia started to get up. I put my hand on her shoulder. "Please, let me see if I can manage without a chaperone holding my hand. You people have jobs and lives. Sooner or later I'm going to be alone again."
Julia looked over at Bob who nodded in agreement. "We're close and there isn't a back door or window in that direction."
I was thinking of what Bob had said and not paying attention when I stepped into the hall leading to the bathrooms. I turned and walked to my left, found the door and walked in.
"Oh shit!" I had absentmindedly walked into the men's bathroom. There were a couple men in there. One was at the urinals, the other was washing his hands.
"Come on in doll." The guy at the urinal was shaking his peter.
"Drop dead." I was turning to leave when a third man who had been on the other side of the door grabbed me.
I started to yell when he clamped his hand around my mouth. His other arm went around my neck. He started squeezing. I bit his hand and blacked out. He had cut off the blood flow and oxygen to my brain.
"How lucky can a person be?" The man by the lavatory dried his hands on his pants.
"Easy money." The other one responded holding up the woman in his arms.
"Back door." The third man opened up the bathroom door.
"Bring the car around back. The first man had his cell phone out.
A man in the club slid his phone back into his pocket and walked out.
The man picked the woman up and carried her in his arms turning right down the hall as he left the bathroom.
"Hey, this is a restricted area." The security guard watched as a man approached.
The man pulled a Glock from under his coat. "We just unrestricted it."
The guard was backing up to stay out of their way as a second man came through carrying a woman in his arms.
A third man with a gun in his hands brought up the rear. He stopped in front of the security guard. "Your gun and radio."
The guard lifted his gun out of the holster and handed it over before lifting the radio off his belt and giving it up.
The man hit the guard in the head with the butt of his gun. The guard went to the floor. Blood was leaking from the gash.
Julia got up from the table. "Something doesn't feel right. I'm going to check on Audrey."
Bob rose up and followed. "I'm with you."
Larry started scanning the club like a bird dog on point. When he caught Monica's attention he made the okay sign and then pointed down. Monica began circling the club checking patrons.
Three seconds after Julia went into the women's bathroom she was back out. She looked concerned. "Not there."
Bob headed the other way to check out the men's when he noticed someone in a uniform holding his head shouting at another man.
"I couldn't stop them. There were three of them. They had guns. One of them was carrying the woman." The guard wiped blood on his pants and then held his hand on the wound again.
"What woman?" Bob stepped up where he was beside the men.
The guard looked to see who was asking. It was one of the men who had been sitting with the woman all evening. "That woman. The one we were told to not let out of the club unless we were told different."
Bob ran to the back door and stepped out into the alley..., “audrey...,"
He reached down and touched a button on his cell phone before he pulled it off his belt. Then he placed the call he dreaded. "Package has been lost. Another carrier is shipping."
Back in Salem the den became a madhouse. "Get a bird up. No, get the damn bird in the air. Don't you worry, I'll get authorization for it."
Moments later a drone was rolled out of a hanger in Portland and sent airborne. At Nellis AFB another drone was launched.
In Salem they were listening as Edward Blair received a phone call.
Edward's phone was ringing. He picked it up. "Hello."
"Mr. Blair, Tony Alphao here. That thing that came up missing a few weeks back. We found it and are returning it. You still offering a hundred thousand dollars for its return in any condition?"
Edward was stunned and didn't know how to respond. Venus had escaped only to drown in the lake before she talked to anyone. Unless. "Are you sure it is the same package?"
"Yes SIR! I'm positive it's the same package."
Edward didn't know what to think. If it was Venus she had escaped and had help. If she managed to talk to any authorities besides his friends in the local law then they were probably watching the place already. "The package may be damaged. I will need to inspect it before paying for delivery. Where are you at now?"
"We are in Vegas. It is where we found the package."
"Send me pictures of the package and proceed with delivery." If it was Venus he would need to destroy everything before the authorities arrived. The pictures would prove whether she was his lover or not.
His phone rang. He turned it on. The picture he was looking at was dark and fuzzy. All he could make out was someone was propped up in the seat of a vehicle. He phoned Tony back. "Send me a better picture when you have more light."
"Got it." Tony tapped the driver on the shoulder. "Need more light. Pull over into one of the quick stops."
"Tony Alpho. Hell no I don't know how to spell it. Run it with every spelling variation you can think of. And do it quick. They may decide to kill her rather than bring her back to Salem."
Neal keyed another call. "I know they are moving. I don't need an exact position. Just get close. You give me a ten mile radius and the drone will pick up their next call and key in on their vehicle. You get a number you ping their cell phone and get me a fix."
"North? Keep me updated." Bob put his cell phone back on his belt and motioned to the others. "Let's go. We have a direction. They are headed north. Are the cars here yet?"
Julia was already headed for the door. "They just arrived.
She walked around to the driver's side of the Corvette. "I'm driving."
The man slid out and waked around to the passenger side. "YES MA’AM!"
Bob did the same to the guy sitting under the wheel of the Lamborghini.
"You are shotgun."
The man protested. "But you aren't authorized."
"Don't start that shit with me or I'll shoot you and leave you here. Now get your ass over on the other side if you're going with me." Bob had his hand on the man's shoulder
Forty one seconds later three cars were pulling away from the front of the club. The men in the Lincoln leaving Vegas behind had no idea death was stalking them. At the moment they were thinking of the hundred thousand they were going to get for finding Mr. Blair's runaway. The same girl they didn't find that first night. They spent a lot of wasted hours searching the grounds and the house. Now they were going to receive their reward.
Edward turned on the phone and looked at the picture. The face was similar. But it wasn't her. His Venus had died in the lake that night. He could use this one to make a new Venus. This one would love him also, the same as the old one did.
He dialed back. "Deliver the package undamaged."
Tony looked at the other guys. "We are good to go. The Doc wants the girl."
He held the phone up. "Package coming in COD. Confirmed?"
Edward frowned at the phone. The greedy bastards wanted their money when they delivered his new Venus. No one kept a hundred thousand dollars lying around to hand out at a moments notice. They could wait on their money after they delivered his Venus. "Agreed."
Julia's phone was buzzing and so was Bob's. She turned it on. "Yes."
Bob was online as he heard her answer the incoming call. "Yes."
"Let them deliver Audrey. We will follow up. It will give us a legal right to go in without a warrant. Do not stop the delivery. If we find everything Audrey told us about Edward Blair, we will send in the cleaners. Confirm you received."
"Understood." Julia turned off the connection and slowed down to the speed limit. She hated what Audrey was probably going through right now. There was no way of telling her help was close at hand.
"I got it." Bob slowed down as the Corvette in front of him slowed. He wasn't happy. No telling what they would do to her on the trip back to Salem. It was going to be a long trip. "Hang on Audrey. You can do this."
Larry slowed down as Julia and Bob slowed down in front of him. Something was up. He was praying they hadn't already killer her. His phone was beeping. He turned it on. "What is going on?"
I was looking at a guy on my right as my eyes focused again.
He grinned at me. "Edward said you were naked. Why don't you take your clothes off and make yourself at home?"
My heart jumped up in my throat. If these men were working for that insane maniac I was in deep shit. I reached for the door handle to my left intending to throw myself from the car. A problem arose. There was another man sitting on my left between me and the door.
He grabbed my wrists. "Settle down bitch. You ain't going no where. You keep squirming around like that I'll toss you in the trunk. Doc said you had to be delivered in decent condition. That doesn't mean you have to be comfortable on the trip."
"Please let me go. Edward will kill me if he gets his hands on me again." I was to the point of tears. I had no doubt if I didn't escape I was going to be tortured to death by a sadistic man who enjoyed passing out pain.
He smiled. "Well ain't you lucky then. That first night when Doc called us in to search for you he said we was to kill you when we found you. You got a few weeks reprieve bitch."
No wonder I thought these guys looked familiar. I felt it when I saw them in the bathroom. They were the ones looking for me the night I escaped from Edward. "Please let me go."
"Bitch you keep up that whining and it is gonna get you tossed in the trunk the same as squirming."
"Please..."
He backhanded me across the mouth knocking me into the man behind me. "I liked it better when you were out.
I felt blood leaking out of the corner of my mouth. I could taste it on my tongue. Salty sweet, nothing else in the world tastes like fresh blood. If I was going to die I might as well die now as to wait for Edward to do it. I came at the guy who smacked me. My claws were out. I had my hands up on both sides of his face with those long sharp nails
Julia had glued on me. I dug into his face as deep as I could drive them before he reacted.
He punched me in the face instead of trying to shove my hands out. It drove me back as I was still dug in. I ripped down both sides of his face.
"AAAAHHHHHHHH!" He screamed in pain. His face was bloody hamburger.
I wasn't much better. My nose was busted and I was leaking blood from my lip and my nose. My head was in the lap of the guy who was on the other side of the car. I reached up and found his neck with my right hand as my left arm was blocked by his body. He was slow to react and I raked.
"SHIT BITCH1" His left arm knocked my hand away as he came down and clubbed me in the head with the butt of his gun.
My lights went out again.
He raised his gun up to bash me again as the guy in the front turned around with his gun in his right hand. "Merle, you hit her again and I'll kill you. Doc said to deliver her undamaged. You two idiots might have screwed up the whole deal."
The other man in the back seat was reaching for his gun. He fully intended to shoot the bitch for clawing up his face. He was bleeding over everything. "I'm gonna kill that bitch. No money is worth this."
The man in front pointed his gun at him. " Niccolo, you pull that gun and I'll kill you where you sit. You got a couple scratches and you want to toss a hundred thousand dollars. Give it some thought. You still in or do I toss your body out of the car?"
"The bitch deserves to die." He felt his face. He was dripping blood.
"I tell you what. After the Doc pays us for delivery you can offer your share back to him to see if he will sell her back to you. If he does then you can do whatever you want. You can cut her up just for fun if you want. Until we deliver and get paid you don't touch. You two clowns done messed her up pretty bad. She isn't what I would call undamaged
condition. If the Doc doesn't pay full price for her that is coming out of your share." He waited to make sure they weren't going to beat on her any more.
"Stop the car. She goes in the trunk. I don't want these two idiots doing any more damage to her before we deliver her to the Doc."
The driver pulled over to the side of the road. The other man was retrieving her limp body out of the seat as the driver opened the trunk. He was carrying her around to the trunk when a red Corvette went by.
Julia keyed her phone. "BACK OFF, BACK OFF! They stopped! They are putting her in the trunk of the car."
The driver watched as the tail lights dimmed in the distance. "They didn't see nothing or don't care. They are gone."
Minutes later they were back on the highway. The two men in front counting their money they would soon have. The two in back thinking about revenge for what the bitch had done to them.
Julia knew the Corvette was toast as a scout car. She had got too close to the kidnappers. When they stopped unexpectedly she had to drive past them. If she had stopped before she passed them it would have been worse. She was praying Audrey was still alive and it wasn't her dead body they were placing in the trunk of their car. What in the world were these men doing in Las Vegas in the first place? Audrey couldn't have been their target. The odds of them working for Edward Blair and being in the Pirate Cove club at the same time as Audrey was beyond astronomical. And yet it happened.
Julia shook her head as she thought about it. Expecting the unexpected in her line of work was a given. But this was way past that. She sighed, her career was put on the line when she finagled a night out for Audrey. This would be the end of it. Maybe the people in Dallas who wanted her to take over their security company might still be looking?
She was looking at a truck stop a couple miles up the highway. She keyed her phone. "Larry, I'm dropping the Corvette and sending Charles on ahead with it. Stop at the Atlas Truck Stop when you get here. I'll ride with you."
"Negatory on ditching the Corvette." Came back from Bob. "You are going to ride point until we can get another car for you. You take it on in and make the switch at Reno. There is a Hertz there. We don't have anyone there to do the paperwork. You will have to do that. Get there and get it done in case they don't stop for a break in Reno."
I hurt. Was I in Hell? Everything was dark. I tried to sit up and banged into something inches from my face which made it hurt even more than it already did. I felt in front of me. It was cold steel of some kind. My back hurt. I felt under me. I was lying on boxes..., No I was lying on suitcases. I could tell we were rolling down the highway. How long was I out? How long before they open the trunk and hand me over to Edward? I felt my face. It was covered with sticky semi dried blood. Feeling my hair it was matted with the same goop. I had seen the gun butt coming at my face, I couldn't dodge it. Must have split my scalp open.
Searching for some sort of tire tool proved futile. There were too many suitcases in there with me. I didn't have a whole lot of wiggle room. I tried the latches on one of the suitcases. They weren't locked. I could only raise the lid a couple inches in the cramped quarters. Pulling clothes out I was hoping to find a gun, pocket knife or anything to use
for a weapon. All I found were clothes. Without discarding the suitcase, I now had what was in it occupying more room while the suitcase gave up none. Even if I could reach the other suitcases it would get really bad if I didn't find a way to open the trunk and discard the extra baggage.
I spread the clothes out under me the best I could. It wasn't comfortable but it was a whole lot better than ridding on top of the sharp edges of those suitcases. My life had come to this kind of end. Can one hang themselves lying down inside the trunk of a car? I started running all the possibilities through my mind to end this before Edward got his hands on me again.
I must have dozed off. I no longer heard tires on the pavement and the car had stopped moving. "HELP. SOMEONE HELP ME. HELP." I was banging on the lid with my hands as I screamed.
The lid was raised, a fist came at my face. I was down for the count although I wasn't out.
A couple blocks away Bob pulled his Glock. The man beside him reached over and laid his hand on Bob's arm. "Wait. We were told to let them deliver her."
Bob yanked his arm away. "Wait my ass. I'm going to kill that fucker."
"NO! We were told to wait. There are others like her. Do you want to kill their chances? We follow these back to the house. That is our ticket to walk in without a warrant."
Bob settled back into the seat as he slid his gun back into his holster. "They are mine. All four of them are mine."
"The bitch made a mess of my clothes."
"Gag her and bind her hands."
"With what you asshole? The suitcase with the binders is on the bottom. We pull her out right here in the middle of the parking lot, dig up the binders, lock her up, and toss her back in and you think no one is going to notice?
"Finish filling the car. While you get us some sandwiches and drinks I will pull over to the edge of the lot where no one can hear her scream. When we get back on the road we are going to stop at the next road stop or whatever that doesn't have anybody there. I'm tired of screwing with the bitch. When I get through she will wish she was dead."
Hah! I didn't need to wait on my inquisition to want that. I already wished I was dead. I would have said as much if I had managed to get things working again before they slammed down the lid.
It wasn't long before we were rolling again. I pulled the liner back from the side of the trunk. It was hard to get a hold on the bulb sockets now my hands were sticky with blood. I worked the bulb holders out of the tail lights. I was hoping a cop would pull them over for missing a tail light. I had a light and could now see what my situation was. Wasn't good. I was wishing I could inspect the other side of my prison but turning around in there wasn't an option. I didn't want them to notice what I had done to the tail light so I tried to remove the bulb from their sockets. When I tried to remove the bulbs they burned my fingers. I smashed them with one of the belt buckles I had pulled out with the clothes. If they didn't notice the tail light was out, I didn't want those bulbs to light up the interior of the trunk next time they opened it.
It wasn't long before I felt them slowing down and heard gravel crunching under the wheels. I got ready. When the trunk opened I sprang at the man standing there with as much effort as I could from a laying flat position.
He easily moved to the side of my lunge and hit me on the back of the head as I tried to grab him. I went down plowing gravel with my face and arms.
"Enough of this shit." He put his foot in the middle of my shoulders and held me pressed down to the ground. I was beat up and had used too much of my strength. I wasn't any match for him as I tried to rise before I collapsed back down into the gravel.
"Find it? Open it up. I've had all I'm gonna take from this bitch. Give me."
Someone pulled my arms behind my back. My wrists were locked together. My ankles were next and then my legs were pulled up where my ankles were locked to my wrists.
"Raise her up."
One of them grabbed my shoulders and raised me up on my knees. I could feel the gravel digging into my knees.
"This is my favorite part. Open up." One of them stepped up in front of
me with a ball gag in his hand.
I spit blood and saliva at his face. I scored but it was my final act of defiance.
He grabbed my broken nose and held it. If he only knew I wasn't able to breathe through my nose since they broke it, he wouldn't have bothered. Or maybe he just liked adding the pain.
He shoved the ball gag into my mouth. I was no longer able to breathe. Finally death was going to be my escape. Seconds later my world went black.
"I copy that. No they can't see us. Neal says they have eyes on them with the drone. He told us to stop when they did and we were far enough back our headlights didn't give us away." Bob wished he had a connection to the drone himself.
Julia nodded even though Bob would never see it. "We pulled off and stopped ourselves. I don't like running this ten mile lead on them. If things go wrong we could never get to her in time."
Larry looked at his watch. This promised to be a long trip. At best it would take sixteen hours. They had left Vegas...? Eight hours ago. He was sure Andrea was feeling it a lot more than himself. He had heard they put her in the trunk four hours back. Alone in the dark not knowing help was pacing her captors. It had to be extra rough on her.
"They are moving again." Came over his phone from Neal. "Copy that. Julia?"
"I'm back on the move too." Was her response. "Neal keep me about this distance ahead of them. Check me out from time to time with your eyes in the sky."
"Eyes are for you and Andrea." Came back over her phone.
"Copy that." She put her phone down as she checked her rear view mirror. "Hang on Andrea."
They pulled up to the gate and made the call. "We have arrived with the package."
"Good. Make the delivery." Edward pushed the button to open the front gates.
"What do we tell him?" The driver looked over at Tony
"Tell him she was un co-operative and it got out of hand."
"He ain't gonna like it."
"Like it or not he promised a hundred grand on delivery. We deliver and he pays." Tony looked over his shoulder at the men in the back.
"Damn straight." One of them replied as he nodded in agreement.
The driver pulled up the front door and stopped.
Edward was waiting. He looked inside the car. "Where is she?"
"In the trunk. She got out of hand." Tony stood up beside the car. "You got our money?"
"I want to see her." Edward was looking toward the trunk waiting for them to open it and deliver his newest lover.
"Let's see the money first." Tony was positive they wanted their money in hand before the Doc got a look at what they had in the trunk.
“I don't keep that kind of cash on hand. I'll pay you forty thousand now and the rest tomorrow." Edward wanted to see his goddess.
Tony looked at the others. Forty thousand was better than nothing. He was sure it would be nothing when the Doc got a look. He held out his hand. "Money and then we deliver."
"Oh all right." Edward reached inside his coat and pulled out a wad of bills. He handed them to Tony. "Open the trunk."
Tony fanned the bills. They were all hundred dollar bills. He nodded toward the driver. "Open the trunk."
Alfred pushed the trunk release on his key chain and the trunk lid popped up.
Edward bent over to look. There was blood every where. Her face was a black and purple swollen bloody mess, what there was of it. "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS! YOU TOLD ME SHE WAS UNDAMAGED! WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO PULL! I'M NOT PAYING FOR THIS!"
"Doc, this is her. Things got a little out of hand. It wasn't our fault. Look at what she did to Niccolo." Tony pointed to the man on the other side of the car. Niccolo turned his head from side to side so Doc could see the scratches on both sides of his face.
The man standing by Edward pulled his collar down showing deep scratches down his neck. "And this."
Edward shook his head. "Four men and one woman. I use the term men in the most liberal sense."
"I don't need this mess." He pointed to the body in the trunk. "Take her somewhere and dump her."
"Doc she is no longer our problem. She's your problem. You bought and paid for her. Where do you want her? You want to bury her in the back yard, push her off into the lake or whatever that's your call. "
Niccolo lifted the body out of the trunk and headed for the house. "Where do you want me to leave her?"
"Imbeciles. I hire professionals and get... Take her to the lab. I'll see if anything can be salvaged." He followed the man back into the house.
"Start the car. When Niccolo returns we are leaving. I have a feeling Doc isn't happy with our services this time." Tony was looking at the money in his hand. At least they had something.
"They carried her into the house. Engage." Neal had been watching through the camera in the drone.
The lights in Edward's house went off. Niccolo stopped with the woman still on his shoulder. "What's that?"
"Wind blows the tree limbs into the power lines at times. It will come back on.. If it doesn't in thirty seconds the power generator will kick in."
The lights came back on. Edward nodded. "See."
Niccolo took a few steps and the lights went out again. "What is going
on."
Bob took aim at the security camera on the back south corner of the house. There was a muffled bark from his sniper rifle. The camera smoked as it winked out.
Julia kneeled down by the front security gate. She had already taken out the cameras at the gate. She took aim at the camera on the left front side of the house. One hundred and ten yards. Easy as pie. There was a light bark.
Tony heard glass breaking. He looked around. "Did you hear that?"
Alfred shook his head. "Hear what?"
More glass broke. "Tell me you heard that? Tony looked up to see if someone was breaking glass in the upstairs windows. All of them looked okay.
Both cameras were out at the front of the house. Bob had taken care of the ones at the back.
The lights came back on again. Niccolo headed down the hall to the lab. "This is driving me nuts."
He dropped the body on the stainless steel table. "She's all yours Doc." He left.
"Wait." Edward stared at the woman and shook his head. "Can't get decent help."
Edward took his scalpel and ran down the front of her dress. He pushed the material back off her body. "This is interesting." He cut the corset off and stared. Was she his design? She had the waist and breasts like his own creations. This looked like his Venus. If they hadn't messed up the face...? The magnatron would tell him. He had to get all the metal off her. Things went terribly wrong if any metal went into the Forming Tube along with the body. It was one of the reasons he made sure none of his subjects had any metal pins or screws in them from prior surgery.
Julia held her position. It looked like the men were getting ready to leave. She would make sure they stopped at the gate. "Come to mamma boys." She handed the sniper rifle to the man beside her. He handed her a modified AK-47.
"Four pigeons are leaving the nest." She spoke as the men got into the car and it started moving.
"Mamma bird needs to teach them they can't fly." Came back into her ear.
Bob and nine others had closed in on the back of the house. Four men broke off and split up, two going around to each side of the house. Bob tossed a grappling hook up on the balcony. Audrey explained how she had escaped. Going back in the same way she escaped was the only way without blowing doors and letting Edward know they were coming. It might only take seconds to reach the lab. In those seconds Edward could kill Audrey and maybe all the others?
Edward finished removing the earrings, bracelets, necklace, and rings. He slid the body up into the glass tube. The tube slid up into the magnatron. Edward was studying the computer screen. Impossible. It was his Venus. He was lucky she was still alive. He couldn't bring them back to life once they were dead. He flipped the switch. Her bruises and swelling faded away. Her broken nose was no longer broken. The lacerations on her scalp closed up and disappeared. She was his Venus again, his goddess of love.
The repair was completed, the tube was slowly moving out of the magnatron when it came to him. Only the people he used to work for could fake the death and send her to Vegas to hide her. The ones who didn't appreciate his genius ability. That meant she had talked. It meant all his work would need to be destroyed. Including his goddess of love.
He stopped the tube from leaving the magnatron. No one would think of her as ever being human even if they managed to stop the house from burning to the ground after he left.
"You touch anything and I'll kill you."
The voice came from behind him. Edward turned to see if it was one of the men had come back for more money. It was a tall muscular man he didn't recognize. The gun he was holding looked lethal. Edward had seen such weapons. The company he had worked for armed their security men with them.
"I'm not going to share my knowledge with them. They shut down my program. They said it wasn't needed. I'm not going to let them have it now that I have finished developing it." Edward smiled knowing he was the only one in the world smart enough to build the equipment he had designed.
"They shut you down because there wasn't a need for it yet. We aren't sending men out to deep space. When that time comes you would have been contacted. They didn't fire you. You quit. You could of had a job there as long as you wanted." Bob had the laser sight focused on Edward's forehead. Any indication Edward was going to touch any controls would be his last act.
Edward pointed at the models mounted on pedestals around the room. "Look at my creations. No one appreciated how brilliant I was. They only wanted suspended animation. I have created more than that. I can do anything a plastic surgeon can and more. I am better than God. I create works of art from the human body."
"You destroy people's lives. Did you ask Audrey if she wanted to be a woman? How many of these were men? How many of the women gave you permission to mount them like statues? You're a sick perverted bastard. That's why they didn't let you continue in the direction you were going. How many sick perverted bastards in the world like you would be destroying peoples lives for their own pleasure if they got their hands on your equipment?"
Edwards eyes glowed with hate. "Sick? Only little minds don't understand how much of a genius I am. The company is filled with little minds who are jealous of me because I'm smarter than all of them put together."
He reached for the console.
Bob's shot was true to its course. Edward was dead before his body was thrown back and down to the floor.
Julia came into the lab with her gun ready for action. She looked around the lab. "...oh my god. Are they alive?"
Bob walked up to look down at Audrey still inside the glass tube. "I don't think he started killing them yet."
"Audrey?" She was unresponsive. "I don't know what he did to her?"
Julia walked up to see. "She's breathing. Let's get her out of that thing. It might have gas in it or something keeping her unconscious."
Julia helped Bob pull Audrey out of the glass tube. "Find something to cover her. I don't want everyone seeing her like this."
Bob stooped down and picked up what was left of the dress off the floor. "Use this. I'll go get a blanket from one of the bedrooms. Tell medical to put a rush on it. Get the brain trusts in here to see what they can figure out about getting those women off those things without hurting them."
He left the room as Julia looked around the room and talked into her throat mike.
I opened my eyes expecting to see angels or devils. I knew I was dead. I did see an angel. It was Julia. She was watching me. I looked around. I was in a hospital room or a darn good imitation of one. I had white sheets covering me. I raised my hand up to feel my face knowing I was going to be feeling a lot of tender spots and scabs. There weren't any.
"How did I get here? How did you find me? How long have I been out? What happened to the guys that kidnapped me? How did you stop them from leaving me with Edward? How..."
"Slow down. All your questions..., most of your questions will be answered in time." She was laughing at me. "What do you remember?"
"I remember they were going to drop me off to Edward." I felt my face again. Nothing hurt. "I also remember they beat me to a bloody pulp. How long have I been out? Months since all the cuts and bruising is gone."
"You have been out for a little over a day. How do you feel?"
"A day? I got well in a day? Didn't happen." I felt my nose. I could breathe through it and it wasn't broken.
"We can only guess after quizzing the men who kidnapped you. They worked you over pretty good. Edward ran you through that machine of his and repaired you. As much as that sounds like a great thing for humanity, the idea something like that is out there scares most of us to death. Edward isn't the only one who has a warped mind. Machines that can change people like it did you and the others in the hands of diabolical maniacs scares us all. Think what a dictator could do to all his enemies with such a weapon. It wouldn't be a boon to mankind but a bain of mankind." She stared off into the distance in deep thought.
"Edward..."
"Is dead. He won't hurt anyone ever again."
"Who did he work for before he went off on a tangent and started kidnapping people?"
Julia took a long time before she answered. "NASA, the same company we work for. It was a very hush hush project. Deep space research. It started out as a program to put people in suspended animation or hibernation for long space voyages. Some of the experiments went terribly wrong. We can do everything with animals except ask them what they experienced when we use them as test subjects. It seems suspended
animation doesn't shut down the brain even though the body is stabilized. It would be kin to putting someone in a barrel and then burying it. In suspended animation the body can't panic but the mind can. Some of those poor volunteers ended up in the rubber romper room."
"Those poor girls." I was thinking of the ones Edward has suspended.
"That is why the brass is wishing Edward hadn't been killed. None of the girls in his lab seem to experience that problem. Somehow Edward figured out how to sedate the mind so panic couldn't set in."
"Now what?"
She looked puzzled. "What what?"
"What about me and the others? I don't reckon you will let us go. Be bad publicity if any of this got out."
Julia laughed. "Yes it would. That's why the company isn't letting you go."
"I figured as much. How big a cell do I get? Or is it going to be lights out?"
"Cell? Several billion square miles. You are going to work for the company. Pay is good, hours suck, benefits are great. You will have to sign a non disclosure agreement. Talk to anyone outside the company about who you work for and the brass gets upset."
"Really?" I couldn't believe it.
"Yes, they really do get upset."
"No, I mean they really offered me a job?"
"Yes they really have."
"Do I get to carry a gun and shoot people?"
Julia closed her eyes, shook her head, and laughed. "One step at a time. We'll see."
"When do I start?" I was ready to get out of that hospital bed since I wasn't beat up nor sore.
"When you feel like it. Bob said for you to come down to his office when you are ready. I think he has the hots for you."
I looked down at where my breasts were tenting the sheets. "He has the hots for this body. This isn't me. I hate to bust his bubble but I'm a guy."
Julia reached down and took my hand. "Audrey, you're a lot of things. Being a guy isn't one of them. You are all woman. You might not have had years of training from your mom like most of us girls but you are one of us. I saw it shine through those two weeks we worked together. You amazed us all proving how tough and resourceful you are. Bob said he would take you over ten of his best trained men any day of the week. You might not have the training but you would figure it out somehow. He said what you have was invaluable to survival and couldn't be taught. It had to be in the person as a natural instinct and common sense."
I shook my head. "I'm none of that. I was scared is all."
"You forget who Bob and I work for. We see scared almost every day. Scared usually shuts down in indecision or flight fright which always ends up ugly without a plan."
"Now! The company will get you almost anything you want in the way of lodging. You want a house with a pool and garden they will find it. I suggest you move in with me until you get your bearings. I live in a big three bedroom house with all them things. And I strongly suspect Bob will ask you to move in with him before you leave this room. You can tell him you already have a roomie."
Looking out the window I saw Palm trees everywhere. "San Diego, Palm Springs?"
Julia turned to see what I was looking at. Palm trees were scattered across the landscape. "Florida. We brought you back to the same facilities where all the astronauts end up when they come back from space. You had everyone worried when you weren't responding to anything we did. Had no idea what Edward might have done to you again. They ran you though every test they had and came up dry. The only explanation was you were in stasis. It turned into a waiting game to see if you would come out of it or if you were lost."
"Julia, I know nothing about anything that you people do. I couldn't defend myself against a couple guys. I doubt I would be a good agent or whatever it is you and Bob do. I know nothing about space stuff. What am I supposed to be doing to earn my keep? Sell auto parts to wholesalers? It's about all I know."
She squeezed my hand as she studied my face. "Well for starters you aregoing to teach the girls we rescued how to reintegrate back into society. You will hold class everyday where you listen to their doubts and their concerns. Part of your job will be to draw out of them everything they remember about their abduction. You will find out from them what it was like to be changed into their present state. What we want most are their feelings and thoughts while they were in stasis."
Shaking my head I knew she was expecting too much from me. "I'm not a psychologist nor a doctor. That's what those girls need."
"Yes but they and NASA also need you. Someone who can relate on their terms. Someone who has been there, done that and made it back again. Remember who you are working for. All our astronauts have to share their experience and knowledge with the next batch headed out. It is one of the programs that has worked miracles in eliminating redundant mistakes and problems."
"When you feel like getting out of bed and going to work you will officially become Dr. Audrey James Little. Ph.D. in psychology, with emphasis on mental health, suicide, and depression. You will also have a PhD. in Theology.
"You're kidding!" I knew she was making fun of my high school education.
She held up her hand. "Nope, serious as a heart attack. You can pull out your degrees when some of the girls get a little out of hand. Some of them will test you to see what makes you qualified to give them advice. It's second nature to some. They always have a need to question authority."
"But I'm not..."
"Yes you are. The diplomas are real. They come from two of the most prestigious universities in the nation. These girls need your guidance. Don't let them and us down. Don't make us send them off to a mental ward. They need a guiding angel to lead them back to reality. You're the only one who is qualified to do that particular job."
"That's not fair."
"I know. Life sucks big time doesn't it." She knew she had me.
"After I'm through with the others, then do I get to carry a gun and shoot people?"
"You can do that now if you want. Why wait?" Bob must have overheard as he walked into the room. He held up a ticket with the number one on it. "I have a number. Now about that kiss?"
I was shaking my head as I laughed at him. "Sorry, that's an old expired ticket. They are no longer valid. The new ones have a green stripe on them."
He pulled a hundred dollar bill out of his billfold. "Hey, I found one of the new green ones."
Before I had a chance to respond he leaned over and laid a big one on me.
It didn't shock me and to tell the truth, I kind of liked the way he stole a kiss from me. When he backed up I couldn't help grinning from ear to ear. "Got another ticket?"
Julia started laughing. "She's already hustling the easy Marks around this place. This girl is going far I can tell."
Now I knew who the hell these people were. Would I still need to hand in a resume? On second thought. Nah. They probably already knew more about me than I knew about myself.
It was two weeks later when Bob had me in "his class" teaching me everything about almost every weapon in use around the world. He told me I was to learn all this because I might need to pick up my opponent's weapon and use it. We had stopped for a breather. I didn't look at him when I asked. "The girls want to know if and when you get Edward's machine working can you change them back?"
Bob put his hand under my chin and raised my head so he could look me in the eyes. "And you?"
I shrugged. "It would be nice to be what I was. You and all the others have treated me with respect and decency. I suspect it made it a lot easier to cope with the change. Especially since I have a purpose for living and an unbelievably interesting job. I find it fascinating as I learn the difference in how women and men look and react to social
aspects and relationships. Being a man came naturally to me. It was what I always was. I had no learning curve. It was a natural thing."
The corner of Bob's mouth curled up. "If I told you the company was working on getting that machine working would you stop being who and what you are as you waited to be a man again? How many of the girls would give up and wait?"
He shook his head. "Audrey, the best minds in the business along with the best technicians are working to blueprint and dismantle Edward's machine. Every nut, bolt, wire, connector, solder joint, memory stick, magnets, acoustical vibrators, resonators..., They will even blueprint the dust on everything. Saying they will try and blueprint that damn thing down to each and every molecule isn't stretching the truth."
"O'Marrah, one of the techs, told me it would take two years at best to blueprint that machine as they dismantled it."
"What I am about to say next isn't to be repeated to anyone. I know you and Julia have become best friends and you believe she has the highest clearance in this screwed up organization. She does but you still don't repeat this. That machine is never going to be put back together. What Edward built wasn't meant to be for us mortals until we became civilized. You think we are civilized but we aren't. Not as long as there are people like Edward out there. The down side of that machine is a whole lot worse than the upside. It could cure a lot of people of a lot of things. It could fix a lot of people of a lot of defects. I can't begin to describe all the bad things that machine could do to humanity if every mad dictator or insane doctor had one."
He winked at me. "Edward did a lot of bad things. I'm looking at one of the good things he did."
I blushed from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet as I started putting the M1 back together. Bob was bringing up emotions I had been trying to ignore every time he got close. At first I thought Bob might be gay because he knew I used to be a man. Julia and I had a lot of long talks about men and one in particular. She assured me Bob wasn't gay by any stretch of the imagination. And I certainly wasn't a man. The medical team had confided in her everything they had learned about me. If I started playing around I was a ripe candidate to get pregnant. If I wanted to keep working for the agency I would make sure that didn't happen.
Can't get married and can't get pregnant while working for the agency. Julia was right. This job sucks.
Bob pointed to a spring I had forgot to put back into the gun. "How did you ever get named Audrey?"
Laughing, I disassembled the rifle again to replace the spring. "Long story. Ever hear the song "'A Boy Named Sue'?"
The bleeding edge of research is called experimental for a very good reason. No one knows exactly where it is going to lead. Ricky needed help with his research. The only one he trusted was his boyhood lifelong friend Tom. Little boys never grow up, they get older. Ricky played a Halloween joke on Tom inside that experimental machine.
Barbie Lee
Jessica Rabbit written by Barbie Lee. Edited by Catherine Linda Michel. This is a re-edit and expanded version of the FM story.
The bleeding edge of research is called experimental for a very good reason. No one knows exactly where it is going to lead. Ricky needed help with his research. The only one he trusted was his boyhood lifelong friend Tom. Little boys never grow up, they get older. Ricky played a Halloween joke on Tom inside that experimental machine.
The Mexicans thought the lab was a drug lab and destroyed the lab and machine in their efforts to acquire it. The Cartel, Mexican Gov, FBI, CIA, NSA and even the Russians want what they think that lab was and the man who built it. Ricky and Jessica are forced to flee for their lives. How long can one hate their best friend for turning one into every man's wet dream with no way back?
“SO NOT FUNNY!” Ricky was lucky he wasn’t within reach or I would have
smacked him. He had a lopsided grin as he stared. I don’t think he could
have wiped the smirk off his face even if I had a gun in my hands and
promised to shoot him.
“Says who? You remind yourself of anyone?” He pointed toward the
mirrored dressing booth on the other side of the room.
“SAYS ME YOU DUMB SHIT! YOU JUST HAD TO GO AND DO IT TO ME TO PROOVE YOU
COULD! DIDN’T YOU!” I didn’t need the mirrors to know Ricky had changed
my sex from a man into a woman. Those big melons I was sporting on my
chest were damn big.
“CHANGE ME BACK!” What Ricky had done might have been funny to him, but
personally…, I wasn’t amused.
“Chill Jessica. You know I can’t until the time limit has lapsed. Too
soon and I’ll be scooping a bloody mess up into a bucket. Now go look in
the mirrors. It was a hell of a job. I bet you will think it was funny
when you see what you look like.” He was turning off the power and
shutting down the hologram stabilizers.
“What did you call me??? Jessica? Oh shit, you turned me into someone
you know didn’t you? GREAT! And what happens if she walks in while I’m
in this condition?” I wondered what girlfriend of Ricky’s I was a carbon
copy of? Jessica? I couldn’t recall any girlfriend of his so named.
“Go look. You’ve seen her.” Ricky’s stupid grin got even bigger if
possible.
Stepping out of the crystalline booth I darn near fell. Only by grabbing
the door edge did I manage to save myself. I was up on my toes.
“What went wrong? I can’t put my feet down. You screw up my feet along
with my body?”
“Not exactly. It was the way she looked and walked. She always wore five
inch red heels.” He had finished closing down the equipment.
The crystalline booth went dark along with my mind.
“I honestly would have no trouble killing you right now. So I’m stuck
walking on my toes for the next forty eight hours? I want you to know I
have patience and a plan. Only because you are the only one who can run
that damn machine, I’m going to let you live for forty eight more hours.
When you change me back you will die.”
“Ah my Pretty Pet, you make threats now I may never allow you back into
my toy for fear of your reprisal which strangely includes my demise?”
Ricky laughed, as he shook his head.
“I’ll pretty pet you. This joke isn’t that damn funny.” I finally made
it to the dressing booth. I’m sure my eyes bugged out as I looked at the
reflection as my heart began racing a hundred miles an hour. “SHIT!”
Ricky had walked up behind me. “Good huh? You like?”
“Hell yes I like, but not me. Promise you will make a copy for my own
and I may let you live.” The woman I was looking at was nineteen to
twenty two years old. She…, or me, had a huge over abundance in the
upstairs department, hardly any waist, and whoo hoo hips. The two ultra
long shapely legs I was standing on weren’t running second to any of the
other equipment.
The fact I couldn’t stand like a normal woman didn’t escape me. My tush
hung way out. Those monsters I carried on my chest reached forward like
ballistic missiles. Changing me where I was over endowed wasn’t enough
for Ricky’s warped fantasy. Obviously this body was designed to flaunt
my over abundance in all departments, whether I wanted to or not.
The pose was an unnatural stance for a real women except when modeling.
I tried to straighten up. For me it was almost unnatural to straighten
up.
Ricky had copied Jessica too closely for me to stand like a real
respectable woman. I was going to be stuck with the pose models did for
photographers of the sleaze magazines until Ricky changed me back. The
overkill design didn’t quit there.
Ricky gave me a tall neck. He gave me enough thick wavy red hair hanging
down over my shoulders and down my back to share with two women. The
annoying part was the way some of my hair swept forward over the right
side of my face covering my right eye. I’d brush it back and it would
flop back over my face again. If I wanted it out of my face I had to
hold it back with my right hand.
I slid my hands up behind my neck and fluffed my hair out. It spread out
like a cape before softly settling back. “Kinda went overboard didn’t
we?”
Ricky rolled his eyes. “I feel under appreciated here. Do you have any
idea how much work went into programming this and bringing it all
together? And you are complaining when all you had to do was stand in a
booth?”
Looking at him out of the corner of my eye, murder came back to the top
of my mental processes. Problem, I was changed into someone’s wet dream.
Solution, change back into me. Problem, Ricky was the only one who could
operate the damn machine. Solution, murder him after he changes me back.
I managed a smile. “Oh thank you, your worshipfullness, for this
wonderful gift. How can I ever repay you?”
Ricky took a step back. “You ain’t fooling me. The only reason I’m not
dead is because you need me, your highness.
This sarcasm was getting me nowhere. I turned my attention back into the
mirror. “She reminds me of someone? Nah, there isn’t any woman alive who
looks like this. Yet…?” I couldn’t quite put my finger on who Ricky had
copied?
“Think Jessica. Who do you think you look like? I promise you aren’t
going to run into her in the real world.” Ricky was ogling his
handiwork. Which incidentally was me.
“You bet your boots I’m not going to run into her in the real wor…? Oh
poop, you didn’t!” I studied myself in the mirrors as I slowly turned to
look over the whole body.
“JESSICA RABBIT! I look like some damn over sexed cartoon babe? I’ll
slowly boil you in hot oil after you change me back.” I flashed Ricky an
evil grin.
“Ahh ahh, ah, threats will not be taken lightly. If you persist I will
never change you back hah, hah, hah.” He tried to cackle like an evil
scientist. It fell flat.
He pointed to the polished purple glitter dress and purple heels on the
bench. “Get dressed. You can’t run around naked for the next two days. I
have plans to go out for supper tonight. Besides, I paid good money for
those clothes. You know they had to be specially tailored to fit
Jessica’s body.”
“GO OUT! And I bet you think I will be going with you? Not in this body
I’m not.” I pointed to the dress. “And sure as hell not in that almost
dress.”
Ricky got a devious look as his eyes closed to slits. “You know what
today’s date is?”
“No, and frankly I could care less.” Where was he going with this?
“October thirty first. Halloween to many. Think about it. Everyone is in
costume. You’re in costume. You said yourself it really wasn’t you.
Perfect night to go out in your perfect costume. Besides, you’re my
date.” A sinister smile spread his lips thin.
Actually the idea didn’t sound that bad. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t
dressed as a girl for Halloween a couple of times when we were kids. “We
will see.”
Despite what I was telling Ricky, he was right. I couldn’t run around
naked for the next two days. I didn’t need to take a vote to see if
Ricky’s or my clothes would fit this body. Even if it wasn’t me, it
needed a covering of some kind. I took a deep breath. The two huge
monsters felt weighty as they bobbed on my chest. What was amazing was
the way they stuck way out instead of drooping.
I lifted the polished purple glitter dress off the hanger and studied
it. I wasn’t an almost engineer for nothing.
“There is no way this dress is going to stay on this body. I’m not an
expert in women’s dresses, but there isn’t enough support to keep it on
my breasts.”
“Been taken care of. The dress has tacky areas inside in strategic
places to hold it in place. There is a tube of boob glue there also. Put
the dress on and then rub some on the end of your breasts to keep the
dress where it needs to stay.” Ricky’s evil smile got bigger if
possible.
“As long as you are claiming it is Jessica’s body and not really me
stuck in here for the next forty eight hours.”
“Pantyhose first.” He reached over and picked up the panty hose, holding
it out in my direction.
“Does Dead Meat mean anything in your vocabulary?” I wasn’t innocent in
the way women put on their pantyhose. I sat down and rolled down one leg
to slip it on my right foot and then the left. I did it right as I stood
up and checked the results.
“So far so good.” The heels were next and then the purple glitter dress.
The short zipper in back was hung. I turned my back to Ricky. “Zip me.”
It took him a few tries to work it up. The top of the dress that was
supposed to cup my breasts wasn’t staying in place. He handed me a tube
of something. “Boob glue. Don’t get it on your hands. Think in terms of
super glue.”
I hesitated. “Oh no, I’m not staying in this dress for a week until the
glue turns loose. That is just so not happening.”
“Relax Doll. We start the reverse, the glue turns loose, you drop the
dress, and Tom is back.” He opened the tube and smeared the glue inside
the bustier top. He lifted the bustier up, aimed, and pushed it home
before running his hands down under my breasts, pushing the dress in
place.
“hhhhuuuuuuuuuu……” My breath escaped me as feelings and emotions rushed
through my body and my mind. My world went dark..
“You okay?” Ricky’s concerned eyes were inches from my eyes.
I was horizontal. “What happened?” My body was still tingling all over
with emotion. I had no idea what was going on.
Ricky rose up and gave me breathing room. “Unless I’m mistaken you
fainted. You ever done this before you need to clue me in. You scared
the shit out of me. I thought something had gone wrong with the
experiment.”
“Hell no I never fainted before. I have also never been a woman before.
Watch what you’re handling next time. I don’t know what is going on but
this body seems to have sensitive areas the same as a real woman.” Ricky
backed up as I pushed myself up off the floor. Curiosity was killing me
despite that fainting trick.
I stepped up to the mirrors. There was no doubt I was Jessica Rabbit. I
had the big, high gloss, ruby red lips and long red hair to go along
with everything else. Ricky hadn’t missed a single detail.
The dress did nothing to hide my assets. From its highly reflective
purple glitter, and body hugging design it screamed, look at me! It's
intended purpose was to accent the over abundance The bustier cupped the
ends of my breasts and most of my upper body was naked. It was slit
clear up to the side of my hip on the left side. Every time I took a
step the slit let the dress open up and expose my leg clear up to the
naughty zone. I stuck my left leg out.
The funny part was I was also so damn horny I wanted to jump his bones
and screw his brains out. I so wanted to try out the equipment. “Can you
program in emotions in that damn machine while you are changing the
physical characteristics?”
“No. The brain scans and all the tests are an exact pattern before and
after. Why? Why do you ask? You feeling something femaleish?” Ricky was
wondering why I was asking?
I cupped my breasts with my hands. I sucked air before I dropped my
hands. The emotional rush was almost impossible to handle. “Femaleish?
Is that a word? You mean besides fainting like a woman? Yeah, I think. I
mean I…, this body seems to be getting more sensitive as time goes by. I
can feel the lightest breath of air on my…, on its breasts.”
Ricky was studying my eyes. “Hyper sensitive? Hummm, interesting
results. The feelings coming back are to be expected. It is all the
cells realigning and slowing back down to normal. All your nerve endings
have been sending signals to your mind. It takes time for the mind to re
establish the data and process it.”
“I can feel the air currents in the room on my legs. It feels…, it
tingles and feels nice at the same time. I hope you left that program
in the machine because you get to try it out next.” I slid my hands up
under my hair and fluffed. What was it with these damn feminine actions
I seem to be doing? I wasn’t that sure Ricky hadn’t messed with my mind
at the same time he messed with my body.
He opened up a black velvet box and handed me sparkling chandelier
earrings. For pierced ears no less.
There was enough ice in those earrings to open my own jewelry store.
“Are these real?”
He was holding out a diamond choker as I studied the earrings. “On loan.
You may keep them as long as you’re Jessica.”
I had never put in earrings in my life. I held them back out to him. “A
little help would be nice.”
“Sure.” He slipped the choker around my neck as I held my hair back
away. The left earring and then the right earring was next. Long purple
satin gloves and then he snapped a diamond bracelet and a bracelet watch
onto my left wrist.
“How long have you been planning on doing this?” I found it not funny I
was enjoying the moment for some strange reason.
“Before I ever called you back in Dallas. It wasn’t exactly you I
planned on but the project was in my mind then. If we could bring it
this far then I knew I had accomplished what I was hoping for.”
His eyes were studying me. “Don’t you understand? If I could do this
then all the rest is a cakewalk. Broken bones? Please step into the
chamber and you will be as good as new in forty eight hours. Burnt all
over your body and the medical profession has no hope you will make it?
Place him or her into the chamber and you will be your old self in forty
eight hours.”
“But…”
His eyes grew distant in thought. “Yeah but. Can you imagine what some
psycho or government would do with such a machine?”
“Ha, ha, ha, you mean like you and me?” I was shaking my head. “Look at
what you did to me and say that again.”
Ricky frowned at me. “You know what I mean. This was a joke. You gotta
admit it is the best Halloween costume you will ever own. You will be
Tom again in two days and this will only be a Kodak Moment we shared at
the time.
===============================================================
Ricky Clawson was a best friend. We had grown up together in the same
little town, went to the same school, and the same college. He worked
for his Masters in electrical quantum physics. I was in mechanical
engineering. The third year I had to quit as my funds ran out and Uncle
Sam tagged me for Vietnam.
When I got back home both of us had changed. Ricky found a job as a
research engineer for Dynamic Locks. It was all top secret hush hush and
the once a year we got together was back home when we both visited our
parents for Christmas. Ricky lived in Virginia and I found a life
working construction in Dallas as a heavy equipment operator.
Life plowed on as our parents died over the years. Ricky and I had no
reason to return home so we stopped seeing each other, even for that one
time out of the year.
My phone was ringing. I checked the clock. Two AM? “Go away.” I pulled
the pillow down over my head.
It didn’t go away. Three or four minutes later I gave up and picked it
up. “This better be one damn important call or I’ll kill you next time
we meet.”
“Good to hear your voice too.” Was the response.
“Who the hell is this? Do you know what time it is?” I checked the clock
again just to make sure.
“You still working as a cat skinner?” It replied.
“Sometimes, among other things. You need an operator?” My curiosity had
been pricked and the voice sounded familiar.
“I need an assistant. You could call yourself an operator if you want.”
Something clicked in the back of my brain. “Ricky? Is that you? Where
you at? You in Dallas? Can I buy you breakfast? You passing through or…”
“No, I’m not in Dallas. I’m back home in Radon. I need an assistant.
Someone I can trust. More than that. Someone the world can trust. You
are the only one who fits that job description. I need you Tom.”
Ricky, I know nothing about the things you do. I’m afraid I can’t help.”
Ricky was so out of my league in his field of work I knew there was
nothing I could help him with.
“Tom, you are wrong. I don’t know where to begin. So let’s begin with
you coming to the lab and see what I’m offering. When can you take a
couple days off?”
“I can head your way tomorrow I guess. You back at your parents place? I
had heard via the grapevine Ricky never sold it after his parents died.
“Well that is where I am calling from. My lab is set up in Ft. Worth. I
went as far as I could by myself and needed a break. I came back home
for a breather. If you can drive over to Ft. Worth I would like to
discuss what I am doing.”
“Name the time? Tomorrow afternoon or the day after?” I was more than
curious what Ricky had got himself into by now.
“Today at six AM if you don’t mind. I had rather it was earlier but I
just looked at the clock. I’m sorry for calling you at such a late
hour.”
“That’s okay. Means I don’t need to go back to sleep. I need to bring
anything besides me? How long this going to take?” I was looking at the
clock making calculations when I would need to leave to make Ft Worth in
another three hours. It would depend on what part of the town his lab
was in. Honestly, Ricky was dreaming if he thought he could make the
drive from Radon, Oklahoma back to Ft. Worth in three hours.
“You know where Falcon Road goes toward Bridgewater from Hwy 81?”
“Not really but I can find it.” I had a good idea about where he was
talking about. It was about an hour drive at that time of the morning
with little traffic.
“I’ll be there at the Apex truck stop. I’ll be in a red Ferrari. And
Tom…,”
“Yes?” For whatever reason Ricky was being extra cautious with that
pregnant pause.
“Remember what you did for uncle? Bring something appropriate.” Click.
“Some…,” Damn he hung up on me. What did I do for what uncle? Did Ricky
mean Uncle Sam? I was a sniper. Not a good one nor a bad one but I
managed to survive so I was a lucky one. Could he possibly mean I should
be bringing a rifle? This got more curious as it went along. I was wide
awake by now. I had some toys I figured I needed to drag along just in
case it was The Uncle Ricky was talking about.
Thirty minutes later I had the old Ford Pickup loaded and was headed
toward the address Ricky gave me. There was no way I was going to be
late to that party if there was going to be something more than words
exchanged. Living long enough to make it back home from Vietnam meant
keeping one’s head down until everyone else had stuck their head up.
The truck stop wasn’t that hard to find. I was there in fifty one
minutes and twenty eight seconds. Time meant life the moment Ricky hung
up his phone. Every second was counting toward something. I had no idea
what but until I found out we count time down to the second. I clicked
the pad in the seat beside me. It would start a new count and store the
last one in memory.
There was a mechanic’s garage across the street north of the truck stop.
Wouldn’t do. An odd car or pickup there would be noticed. An auto parts
store was to the east of the truck stop. A real estate office was to
the west. I picked the auto parts parking lot. My pickup was old enough
to look like it had gone its last mile until it received resuscitation
of some part or another. Not a perfect choice to wait but it would have
to do.
I wasn’t waiting in the Apex Truck Stop parking lot. If anyone was
listening to Ricky’s conversation they would be looking for Ricky and me
there. Or not. Depended on how experienced and professional they were.
I pulled into the auto parts lot and pulled up where most of the store
was between the pickup and Apex. I clicked the pad on the seat beside
me. New count. Opening my duffel bag I lifted out a black ski mask and a
spotters scope and swept the area, pausing to check the dark areas
around the side of buildings and toward the back of buildings. Besides
the vehicles running up and down the highway and the activity at Apex I
didn’t find any movement. First check I pushed the pad in the seat. New
count.
I rolled black sticky paper across the back window to black it out.
Anyone looking my way wouldn’t see me silhouetted in the seat. I had on
a black shirt and black pants. I pulled the ski mask over my head. The
reflection of my face wouldn’t give me away if anyone was looking at my
pickup.
At five twenty one a red Ferrari pulled into Apex and parked off to the
west side of the parking lot. I watched as Ricky got out. He was looking
around before he slid a manikin up in the drivers seat. Ricky had missed
the black Chrysler that pulled in and parked over on the opposite side
of Apex parking. Ricky pulled a hoodie up over his head and walked into
the truck stop. A woman got out of the passenger side of the black
Chrysler and walked in one of the trucker’s entrances to Apex.
Ricky would have to take care of himself inside the truck stop. I
focused on the black Chrysler with my scope. There was a man in the
driver’s seat. His primary interest was the truck stop but the way he
was looking around he was also waiting for me to show up.
No need to disappoint him. The Desert Eagle went into the holster
strapped on my hip. The needle gun went into my waistband. The knife
went down my shirt behind my head. The 9 mm went into a shoulder holster
under my left arm. The 357 featherweight went up my left sleeve and
clicked into the wrist holster. I jammed the clip into the AR lying in
the seat in case I needed more help.
After pulling the paper off the back window I dropped my ski mask back
in my duffle bag and pushed the pad in the seat. New count down. And
made mental notes about the guy in the black Chrysler. He was alert but
obviously thinking the meeting was going to take place at six as he
wasn’t that careful checking coming and going traffic. He was expecting
someone, which was me, to drive up beside or behind Ricky’s red Ferrari.
When I saw him looking back at the truck stop I started the pickup and
waited as several trucks started slowing down to pull into Apex. His
view across the street toward me would be blocked for a minute or more.
I pulled out and then circled around behind Apex where all the big
trucks were parked and killed the pickup. I picked up some bags and
trash out of the back of the pickup. I was headed for the dumpsters
behind the black Chrysler.
As I walked past the driver I held the bags up so he couldn’t see my
face and tapped on his window. “Hey buddy, have you seen Sharon? She was
going to meet me here an hour ago for a ride to Nashville.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know any Sharon.”
“She said she would be in a black Ford. You sure she didn’t ride in with
you?” I was tapping really hard on his window to aggravate him. I wanted
to piss him off so he would open the door to beat the holy shit out of
me for knocking on his window.
He moved his hand under his left armpit as he shook his head. “I said I
don’t know any Sharon. This is a Chrysler not a Ford. Get the hell away
from my car before I make you regret it.”
I really started banging on his window. “I know you know Sharon. You
told her to not ride with me to Nashville didn’t you?”
It worked. He was pissed. He unsnapped his seatbelt and was opening his
door.
Dumb, dumb, dumb…, I nailed him with the needle gun in the carotid
artery in his neck as he was turning in the seat. He looked surprised
and then shocked and then mean like he was going to get even for
something that hadn’t registered on his mind yet. I hit him behind his
left ear with the butt of the 50 caliber. Now he was addled from the
blow. The drug needed time to work its magic even if I did hit a major
artery.
“uhhhhhhh…,” He slumped down in the seat.
Keeping an eye on the truck stop so the woman didn’t catch me the same
way I caught this character I went through all his pockets. He had a
nine millimeter in the shoulder holster, billfold in his left breast
pocket, an ear piece in his left ear. That got me on high alert. I was
really checking all points now. If she slipped out the side door she
could be anywhere. I put his ear piece in my ear to listen if she was
trying to contact him.
“Karl, you okay? You want me out there or should I stay here? Karl??”
She definitely knew something was wrong. If she wasn’t spoofing she was
still in the truck stop. “I’m peeing.” I halfway whispered back into
Karl’s sleeve. If she was normal she wouldn’t ask again. The voice
wouldn’t register in her mind as it was normally an embarrassing
pregnant moment between a man and woman. Not a topic for discussion.
Conversation over and out.
Lifting the transmitter out of his pocket I slid it into my pocket. His
weapon and billfold also went along. I checked her side of the car. She
was carrying a purse when she went in so what she owned wasn’t in the
seat. I didn’t find anything of value. Glove box didn’t yield anything
valuable. Car keys and I checked the trunk. Scoped rifles and thermal
imaging scanner along with flash bangs and percussion grenades. I
slipped the keys in my pocket. I wasn’t carrying all that across the
parking lot.
The truck stop was next. Ricky was setting in a booth where he could see
his car. The woman was slowly moving down the aisle where she could keep
an eye on Ricky. I walked up behind her and shot her in the neck with
the needle gun.
She slapped her neck before she realize she wasn’t stung by any insect.
“What the hell! She was turning toward me.
I grabbed her right arm before she could reach into her purse. “Welcome
to the big leagues. Who the hell you people working for?”
“Turn loose of me before I yell rape.” Her eyes were filled with fright.
“Try to yell and I’ll rip your throat out before you take that first
breath.” I put my left hand up on the side of her neck. “Not a pretty
way to die. Your mind wants more air and there isn’t any. Takes about
three minutes for your mind to die as you try and call for help.”
“Tom, please don’t kill me.” She was truly frightened now.
“We are on a first name basis now are we. Okay hon, I gave you something
to put you to sleep. In about one minute it is going to kick in. You
will wake up in a few hours and that headache is going to be a bitch.
What is your whole name and who are you working for?” I was walking her
toward the door. Her steps were becoming hesitant.
“I’m…, I’m…, I…,” She was out.
I swept her up in my arms and carried her out to the black Chrysler.
Setting her down in the passenger’s seat I took her purse and then her
communicator. Searching her for more weapons turned up nothing. She
didn’t have a backup weapon. Either not too professional or too
comfortable doing their jobs. They got sloppy.
Walking back into the truck stop I stopped by Ricky’s table. “I’m around
back. There is a black Chrysler on the other side of the parking lot.
Get your car and meet me there.”
“Tom…, “ He was rising from the table.
I didn’t wait for an answer. I was headed out the door. Pulling up
beside the Chrysler I tossed all the stuff from the trunk of the car
into my pickup before I picked up the woman’s purse and tossed it into
the seat. I put the guy’s billfold, gun, and communicator in the seat.
By this time Ricky was behind me. “Tom, what is going on?”
“You tell me. These were your shadows. They were waiting for me to show
up. So what is going on?” I turned to face him as I waited for an
answer.
He shook his head. “Not here. Can you check if they have bugged me?”
“No, that isn’t my department. Where do you want to leave your car and
clothes?” I wasn’t sure how good these two not so professionals were. If
they were connected then Ricky’s car and phone would be bugged for voice
or location. Possibly his clothes too. I wasn’t going to wait for a
hundred or more of their friends to show up on my doorstep.
“I don’t think they had a chance to bug the car but it is possible.”
Ricky turned to look at the two sleeping in the front seat of the
Chrysler.
“There’s a tracer someplace because they weren’t that close when you
pulled in. They were following a bug. I’m not taking any chances until I
know who or how many we are dealing with. What in the hell have you got
into anyway? Don’t answer that yet until we know you are clean.” I
glanced at the percussion grenades in the back of my pickup. Someone
with access to serious toys for sure.
He dialed his phone. “Hello Triple A? This is Ricky Clawson and my
Ferrari broke down at the Apex truck stop in Ft. Worth on highway 81. It
is a red Ferrari. I will leave the keys on the floorboard under the
passenger seat. Pick it up with a car hauler and take it to the Ferrari
Dealership in Dallas for repair.”
He listened for a minute. “Yes, yes, thank you.”
He walked back to his car, leaned across the seat and tossed his keys
under the passenger side. He pointed at the man in the Chrysler. Think
his clothes will fit me?”
“No, does it matter?” I could guess where this was headed.
“His pants and jacket then?” Ricky was stripping off his own clothes as
he stood beside my pickup.
“Not his, mine. They won’t fit you either but at least I’m not a louse
so you won’t get bugs.” I pulled pants and shirt out of a bag I had on
the floor of the pickup.
“I’m betting some people will disagree with that statement.” He reached
for the pants.
I held them back. “Shorts too. We aren’t taking any chances.”
Ricky slipped his briefs off before he slipped on my pants. “Feels
scratchy.”
“You been living the soft life too long. Get used to it.” I handed him a
shirt and some sneakers.
“So you say. And if you don’t mind, I don’t plan on getting used to it.
You ready?” He was buttoning up his shirt.
I pointed at his feet. “Lose the shoes and socks.”
“Feet hurt already.” He tossed his shoes and clothes into the Ferrari
before climbing into the passenger side of the pickup.
“Where we going?” I walked around to the driver’s side and slid under
the wheel before I pulled the knife out from between my shoulder blades.
Ricky shook his head as I laid the survival knife down in the seat.
“Were you sure you had enough weapons?”
I was pulling out of the parking lot after checking for traffic. “Never
sure when I don’t know who is expected for company. Which way? Where is
this lab you want me to look at?”
“Not here for sure. I have a plane. It is in my name. They probably
believe they can track it even if they haven’t bugged it. FAA will have
a flight record even if we fly visual flight rules. I can handle all of
that. He pointed south.
“How far south?” I pulled out on the highway.
“About twelve miles to a little airport without a control tower.”
“But your lab here in Ft. Worth?” I was curious where we were going?
“Nothing of importance. It was set up for exactly this kind of problem
although I really didn’t expect it to happen so soon. I was sure they
would wait until my preliminary research had been proven before they
came in to shut me down.”
“If you been working in another lab you can bet your last lucky dime
they will be hot on that trail also. You sure you want to go there?” I
checked my gas to make sure I wasn’t going to need to call for help
because I ran out of gas somewhere.
“Well, I’m hoping I didn’t lead them to this one. I’ve been working out
of the one in Ft. Worth. It is my own private lab not the government nor
some company I am working for. Everything I think I need was routed to
Panama.”
I checked my rear view mirror as I saw a Kroger parking lot ahead. “I’m
going to mute my cell phone in case you happened to steer those bird
dogs onto me after your call last night. I want your billfold and cell
phone and any other items you might have kept after tossing your
clothes.”
Ricky put his cell phone and billfold in the seat. “That’s it unless you
want my teeth and…”
“Smart ass! Not unless you have been to the dentist in the past year and
had a filling or a tooth replaced. Think you were that hot? What in the
hell is it you are working on that is so valuable to have someone want
to track you?” I pulled into the empty parking lot.
He pointed at his cell phone lying on the seat and shook his head.
“Nothing really and I’m not sure if it will turn out to be a realistic
concept for humans. If it works will we be smart enough to use it the
way I planned?”
“Someone is spending some bucks to have you under surveillance.”
Stopping the pickup I gathered up his phone, billfold, and my phone
along with the personal items from the two snoops in the black Chrysler.
I got out and reached over to a metal toolbox in the back of my pickup.
Lifting out a handful of wrenches I laid everything inside and then put
the wrenches back on top.
“That will kill any signals coming or going.” I closed the metal box
back up and locked it. We were soon headed south toward that airport. If
Ricky’s or my phone had been tracked or his had been bugged, whoever was
watching him would know we were headed to an airport. If the team I had
taken out was the only one in the area it would take them awhile to
reorganize and get on our trail again. If Ricky was right and they
hadn’t bugged his plane then we might be off their charts for awhile.
There were too damn many ifs in the equation. I didn’t survive by
believing ifs were to my advantage and not someone else’s.
Ricky guided me to a hanger at a little airstrip south of Ft. Worth.
“Plane is there. We fly from here. Let’s roll the plane out and put your
pickup in. Unless whoever was following me is into breaking locks,
provided they managed to track us this far, your pickup will be okay.”
Ricky unlocked the hanger doors before he opened up a side door, stepped
inside, and pushed a button on the wall. The door started folding up to
the roof of the hanger.
I was looking at a twin engine turbo prop. From what little I knew about
planes it wasn’t a bargain basement plane either. Two million might let
one sit in the seat and smell the air.
Ricky picked up a nose bar hooked to the front wheel. “A little help
here. This plane is a little heavy to be pulling around by hand.”
“Sure.” I grabbed the opposite handle and helped Ricky pull the plane
out of the hanger.
I popped the cargo panel on the side of the plane behind the cabin. “My
toolbox isn’t fitting in that cargo hold. You have a smaller metal box
we can put all the goodies in to keep the signals from coming and going
while we are in the air? I’m taking that stuff with us until I go
through it and figure out who was tailing you.”
Ricky unlocked the landing door and it dropped down. He stepped inside.
A minute later he was back with an index file box. “If it fits in here
it goes. If not do what you think is best.”
“Gotchu.” I pulled the cell phones out of the toolbox one at a time and
removed the battery from each before I pulled the sim cards. Unless they
had put a RIFD chip in them they were dead now with no chance of
tattling on where they were. Still, I wasn’t taking any chances. Dead
phones, communicators, and Ricky’s billfold went into the file box.
The guns, grenades, and all my equipment went into the cargo hold after
I quick checked them for RIFD chips. I couldn’t be a hundred percent
sure no trackers were on any of the stuff, but without a scanner it was
the best I could do. Fifteen minutes after we drove into the airport we
were sitting at the end of the runway with Ricky checking everything for
takeoff.
A dark van was turning into the airport. Ricky punched the throttles
forward. I studied the van as we raced down the runway. “I don’t think
it is one of your shadows.”
“I’m not going to stick around to ask.” The twin was quick and Ricky was
already lifting the landing gear. He was on the radio telling Houston
Air Traffic control we were visual flight rules and wouldn’t be filing a
flight plan.
“Houston? What about Ft. Worth?:” I was curious why he was talking to
Houston when we were in Ft. Worth.
“Houston directs most of the airspace over the southern United States. I
would talk to Ft. Worth or Dallas if I was intending to fly in or out of
one of their airports. He leveled off at five hundred feet.
“We aren’t flying any higher? An awful lot of towers sticking up into
the air and most are higher than we are.” I was busy scanning the
horizon ahead of us to make sure we didn’t find one ourselves.
Ricky shook his head as he pointed to the instruments in front of us.
“Every single thing taller than us is mapped in there. Even if they put
up a new one that isn’t, the radar in the nose will pick it up long
before we can see it. We are staying down here to stay under everyone’s
radar and away from air traffic. I could drop down to ten feet off the
ground and still be safe but the civilians start calling in and
complaining. That is as bad as flying higher. Too high and they track
us. Too low and the complaints tell them where we are. Relax, it’s a
long flight.”
He touched a couple panels and I felt cool air on my face. “Air
conditioning? That’s quite a luxury you have there.
Ricky laughed while he studied his screens. “Not really a luxury. It is
drawn from bleed air off the turbine. Might say it is almost free except
for the initial setup. It siphons off about three horsepower from a
sixteen hundred horse power turbine. Except we don’t talk about turbines
in horsepower. We talk about them in thrust.”
An hour and twenty six minutes later I was sure that was the Rio Grande
that passed under our wing. “Are we in Mexico? I don’t have a passport.
Is this legal? They going to shoot us down as drug smugglers?”
Ricky shook his head. “Drug smugglers don’t get shot down flying south
into Mexico. Yes we have been on the low level radar screens and their
satellite surveillance systems for the past thirty minutes.”
He pointed to a screen down by his right leg with some sort of garbage
scrolling across. “Planes have a squawk box in them to tell the radar
air traffic controller who the airplane is. We are Juan Quarro from
Chihuahua, Mexico. An industrialist returning from a business trip.
Ricky Clawson and his airplane went off the scopes at an airport we
passed over and Juan Quarro flew out. Air traffic knows an airplane is
in the sky which is us but they don’t know it’s us.”
“Okay, so far so good. Now how do we get back. I’m positive they aren’t
going to buy Juan flying across into the good ol USA without stopping
for customs.” I figured my only way of getting home was to become a wet
back like so many other illegals crossing the river.
“There is customs and customs. Ports of entry are scattered all over
because it wouldn’t do to have every plane flying back into the U.S.
landing at the same airport to be inspected. Juan or some other
industrialist will fly back into the U.S. after getting an okay from
customs.” Ricky banked to the left.
“And where are we headed may I ask?”
Ricky shook his head. “Let’s not clue anyone in if there is the remotest
possibility I messed up and they bugged this plane. Panama isn’t that
big of a place.”
That got my attention.
Ricky put his finger to his mouth and shook his head no. He picked up a
pad and wrote Acapulco on it.
=============================================================
Six hours and eighteen minutes later Ricky set us down on a little dusty
strip. He drove a car out before pushing the plane back into a metal
hanger. Ricky closed the hanger doors and flipped a switch. “Don’t touch
the walls. They are electrified now. Won’t kill you but it will bite.
Turned this hanger into a Faraday Cage. I can promise you there are no
signals coming or going from us or that plane no matter what they are
using for a tracking device.”
“Great. Good time to see who was tracking you.” I retrieved the contents
from the baggage compartment and checked the billfold I took off the
man. “James Hutch works for the CIA. Good grief I cocked a CIA agent.
Served him right for being sloppy.”
The woman’s purse was next. I pulled out her billfold. “Cathy
Blankenship. She is CIA and has a business card from Dynamic Locks. Your
old company wants you back?”
Ricky grimaced. “They want what I worked on the past few years after I
retired from the company.”
“And the CIA? What is the connection?”
“Dynamic Locks is all top secret military stuff. I can’t tell you
because I’m not allowed to. Although my loyalty is in question now they
have turned the dogs loose on me.” His eyes took on a distant stare as
his mind turned back the pages of life.
“Okay, what is it that you are working on they think belongs to them?”
My curiosity was killing me. Besides the fact I was headed for Federal
prison for roughing up a couple Federal agents. I deserved to know why
my life was now toast if I ever returned to the U.S.
“As far as they knew I was working on the Philadelphia Project. They…”
“You mean where time and matter are displaced and shifted in time? That
was a big joke wasn’t it?” I couldn’t believe Ricky was telling me he
had managed to time travel?
“The Philadelphia Project is what I hoped they thought I was working on.
Actually I was working on physical matter, molecular flow,
displacement.”
“Put that in English.” I had no idea if Ricky had shifted time or what
he had done?
“I can alter the physical form of living tissue. It is akin to molding
clay. It takes a high energy charge in a ultra sonic reverberation
chamber of crystal to make cellular structure release from each cell
surrounding it. Then…”
“Man that sounds sick. You stick living tissue into a blender and come
up with a…, a…, blob?”
Ricky laughed. “Kinda along that same thought train. Except each dynamic
wave of oscillation and frequency is controlled where the tissue is
molded to a desired shape.”
“You can make He Men? No wonder the government would kill to have you
back in their lab building your toys.”
Ricky shook his head. “No, I’m not interested in building an army of He
Men. I want to rebuild people’s lives that have been destroyed by an
accident such as losing a limb or a leg. Eyes are out of the picture
right now but maybe in time we can replace those also.”
He looked as sad as I had ever seen him, even after his parents died.
“With every good idea, evil men want to use that idea for evil purposes.
I do not want to turn the next atomic bomb loose on humanity for
destroying nations.”
“Okay, when are you going to start building this thing?” I wanted to
know where I fit in with Ricky’s plans?
“I’ve built it.”
“WHAT!” That shocked me. “And you tried it out already and it works?”
“I’ve gone as far as I can without someone I trust to help. And they
have to trust me.” He was studying me.
“You earned my trust a long time ago when we were kids. Where is this
gadget of yours?” I was eager to see what this future device looked
like.
“What you going to do with those?” Ricky pointed to the man and woman’s
personal things.
“Have a good mind to burn them. Serve them right. If you can Fed Ex it
back without the return address coming up here then I guess we might as
well try and make peace with the agents.” Except for the rifles and
grenades I laid everything in a pile on the floor.
“I can make that happen. Your fingerprints are all over everything. I’ll
have them scrubbed before they go back.” He opened the side door and
motioned for me to follow. “Let’s go see that lab.”
The lab wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when Ricky said he had a lab.
The building was adobe. It looked kinda old and tired. It started
getting interesting when Ricky opened the old weathered wooden door and
I was looking at a gleaming metal door five feet past that down a metal
hallway. When he unlocked and opened that door there was another metal
hallway and another metal door.
“Just what is it you are doing in this lab?”
Ricky opened the last door and stepped inside without answering.
Following him in I was in a metal room with a metal floor. My eyes were
drawn to a glass booth in the middle of the room. It was on a pedestal
surrounded by an array of wiring, tubes, and things pointed at it that
looked like ray guns. All of which was inside a huge round wire cage.
“Okay, I’m impressed. Even if it doesn’t do anything it took a lot of
time to put it all together.” When I could take my eyes off the
centerpiece I scanned the room. The whole darn room was filled with high
tech electronic, electrical equipment of some kind or another.
Ricky was busy at a console. It seemed the whole room started to hum.
“You fixing to microwave us? If you are, then count me out. I want to
live a few more years, even if I’m dodging the CIA while living in some
remote back water hole.” It wasn’t all said in jest.
“Relax. You’re safer in here with less radiation, electrical waves,
radio waves, radar waves, and that isn’t counting the solar burn on your
skin. You are standing in a dead zone so to speak. Everything around you
is balanced energy and that includes the light to a limited extent.”
He pointed toward the wire cage and glass chamber. “The light was the
problem. Even though I could neutralize all the electrical and radiation
one finds in our lives, I didn’t figure in the effect of light. It took
me a long time to understand why it wasn’t working because the physics
said it should.”
“We might as well start if you are ready. Take all your clothes off and
step into the crystaline chamber.” The chamber rose up in the air.
“Say what? You want me to strip naked and step into that thing? What in
the hell do you have in mind?” I wasn’t moving until I knew what was
going to happen to me.
“First I have to map you so I will know exactly what needs to be done to
put you back together when we adjust something.” He was waving me toward
the chamber.
“Put me back together? Now hold on a second and let’s discuss this. This
isn’t one of those damn star wars things where you are going to
transport me into another dimension or another room is it?” Honestly I
was ready to leave. Ricky’s choo choo might have jumped the tracks. I
didn’t intend to find out after I had been blasted into the ether.
“Tom, I am only going to map you. Every single cell in your body has a
purpose and a place it belongs. That is what we are going to do for now.
Nothing is moved or changed in the mapping process. Because the basic
cellular level is energized you can’t go back into the booth any sooner
than forty eight hours. It gives the living tissue time to normalize.
That is how it works. In two days if you agree then you will go back in
and I will remove that big mole or age spot on your left arm. Two days
after that we remap you to make sure everything is perfectly normal
which includes the area where the mole was.”
He turned his attention toward me. “Trust is earned over time. As kids I
trusted you with my life and I strongly believed you trusted me. Have I
done anything to lose that trust?”
I took a deep breath as I gave it some thought. “Everything?” I was
shedding my clothes.
“Everything. Anything that is not living tissue can not be in the
chamber with you.” He was back to working his console.
I felt kinda funny as I opened the door to the wire cage, walked in, and
then stood under the glass chamber as it started coming down around me.
I checked to make sure my toes weren’t going to be under the edge as it
settled. I was standing on a glass floor. The chamber touched the floor
and everything lifted back up again. Great! I was encapsulated inside a
glass tube floating in space. Glass top, glass sides, glass floor. I was
hoping this job finished up before I ran out of oxygen.
The walls, ceiling, and floor glowed a pinkish white. I felt something
but couldn’t quite explain what it was. It wasn’t just on my skin but
all through me. I ran some memories through my mind when Ricky and I
were playing on the creek chasing squirrels to make sure I still had a
mind.
The tube settled back down on the floor and the top raised up off the
bottom. I was free again and I hadn't suffocated or lost anything that I
knew of.
“Got the data. Come on out and get dressed.” Ricky was studying his
console.
“That was quick.” I had made it back out and was slipping into my shorts
and pants.
“Yeah, didn’t take long. Eight hours and some.” Came across the room.
“Eight…, Yeah, really, couple minutes?” I pulled my shirt on.
“Really, total time eight hours twenty one minutes, thirty nine seconds,
fifty six milliseconds.” He glanced at the console as he was making some
notes by hand.
“You jest! There wasn’t enough air in there for eight hours of loafing.
What, you crack the seal every now and then?” I picked up my watch to
take a look at the time and my brain stopped.
He was looking in my direction when I picked up my watch. “Now do you
believe me? You were in stasis or hibernation after the first ten
seconds. Everything you think you were seeing and doing was REM mode or
dreaming although there is no actual rapid eye movement.”
“The hell you say!” My watch was lying to me the same as Ricky was. I
had been in that damn thing for over eight hours.
I felt me to make sure I was awake and this part wasn’t a dream. “That
thing could do some serious screwing with a person’s mind.”
“More ways than one. Now do you understand why you are the only one I
could trust to know about this project?” Parts of the room were becoming
quiet again.
“It will be forty eight hours before you can go back into the chamber.
Tom, when was the last time you saw a doctor?” Ricky was heading my
direction.
“I don’t know. Four or five years maybe. The mole bother you?” I slid up
my shirtsleeve to take a look. It looked the same as it always had for
the past twenty years. It couldn’t be melanoma.
He handed me a piece of paper with a name on it. “It’s time you saw a
doctor.”
“But…”
“No buts. You see a doctor or we are finished. I’ll take you back to
Dallas, It was nice visiting with you one last time.” His expression
said he was dead serious.
“Whatever!” I grouched. I didn’t need a doctor. Not unless that damn
machine Ricky had just run me through gave me some disease.
==============================================================
In the next three days I went from complacent where I had a life to pure
hell where I had no life. The day after Ricky ran me through his machine
I went to see that doctor he was mentioning. That doc ran me through so
many tests and x-rays I was positive I was going to glow in the dark if
Ricky’s machine hadn’t already made that a possibility.
The third day I was in the doctor’s clinic for the results of the tests.
He keep looking at the charts and wouldn’t look at me. “You have
cancer.”
That didn’t rock me. “So, zap it or whatever you guys do.”
“It has spread throughout your body. Your lungs, your kidneys, your
lymph nodes, your brain. Been feeling weak lately, having headaches,
eating and want to vomit? It is the cancer. You have a month more or
less to live. I’m sorry.” He closed up his folder.
That did rock me. Everything he described I had been experiencing. I put
it off to old age and a hard life. There wasn’t anything wrong with me.
He was wrong. He had picked up the wrong charts. I didn’t have cancer. I
wasn’t going to die. I was just getting older was all.
Ricky had drove me to the clinic since I didn’t know the town or the
streets. He didn’t want me to wander into any drug cartel area and lose
my life. HAH! That would have been the easy way to die.
“Ricky, you wasted your time. I don’t think I’ll be sticking around to
help you with your project.” I was studying the nothing out the side
window as Ricky drove past all the houses.
“You can’t bail out on me now. We just started. There isn’t a single
person in this world I would trust to know what I’m doing besides you.”
He slowed down and steered around some kids playing in the street.
“Nothing personal but I won’t be there for you. Sorry, you picked the
wrong friend to trust this time.” I honestly felt sick at my stomach.
Was it the cancer?
“It is personal. I’m not buying what you are selling. You want to go off
and die someplace all by yourself because you don’t want to be a burden.
That’s a real friend for you. Don’t you understand that is true
friendship? I know what the doctor told you. I have my sources. The
machine told me when it mapped you. I knew you wouldn’t believe me even
if we are the best of friends. This is all too new for you to take in
all at once. I’ll let you pick out your own doctors and you can go to as
many as you want but the answer is the same from all except one.”
That got my attention. “Who? You know a doctor that has a cure?”
He shook his head. “Not a doctor but a cure never the less.”
“Who?” I really wasn’t ready to die.
“Me. Do you trust me? I honestly didn’t plan this. I didn’t know you had
terminal cancer until the machine told me. What I do know is we can
remove all of it. Not all at once. That would kill you quicker than the
cancer is killing you. We will map out the most strategic areas and
start there. You can only get in the machine every forty eight hours so
it will be a long process. I’m not letting you die.” He turned down a
little side street leading to the lab.
Back in the lab Ricky brought up my body map on a monitor. Personally I
wasn’t that impressed. I looked like some alien of different colored
areas. He pointed to the healthy areas and then the mole. The mole was a
darker gray blob. I thought it would be flat like the top of my skin but
it had sunk its tentacles for its blood supply down into my arm.
Ricky was patient showing me all the information he had learned the past
twelve years as he built the lab and tested it on frogs, fish, birds,
and animals. I knew it was because he wanted me to understand why he
believed in his equipment and believed in me with unshakable faith.
“Ready?” Ricky was at the console and I was stark naked with the glass
chamber lowering down around me.
I nodded. It was time to see what Ricky’s machine was capable of. The
chamber touched the glass floor I was standing on and then everything
rose back up in the air. I was sealed in. The walls, ceiling, and floor
glowed a pinkish white. I felt a slight tingle inside and outside me.
Slowly, ever so slowly the mole floated off my arm as pieces of blood
and tissue passed out of my skin. Something floated past the top of my
eyes. I was sure it was my brain leaking out of my skull. No matter,
there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t move or scream. I was positive
Ricky’s machine had gone rogue and was tearing me apart. I didn’t care.
Hell, I was going to die anyway. Now was as good as time as any, before
the cancer made me so sick I couldn’t think, eat, or drink.
“You okay?” Ricky was leaning over me.
“Never felt better. You said I would be in stasis after five seconds. I
was watching as you pulled pieces of me off.” I was tingling all over, I
felt hot, my whole body felt like it was moving under the skin. I
managed to check my surroundings. I was curled up in a ball lying on the
floor of the chamber.
“Since this is all new ground I’m not sure you were cognitive during all
that. I believe it was more in your mind than real. I want you to record
what you were really feeling rather than some smart assed answer. As
soon as you can of course. Think you can stand up?” He had backed up to
give me some room as he offered his hand to help.
“Not sure.” I felt as weak as a kitten and as limp as a wet dishrag.
“Try and I’ll help. He put his hands under my armpits and lifted.
I was standing but wasn’t sure I would walk. Nothing felt right. I
didn’t know if I had any motor skills or not. I only wanted to lie down
and pass out. “How long? Eight hours?”
“No, took longer with all the manipulation and removing of rogue cells.
It isn’t like they are all on the surface and can be picked off. Even
when they are detached it takes moving healthy cells out of the way to
remove the cancer from the body. Then the good cells have to be put back
where they belong. Took over twenty hours this time.” Ricky was
basically carrying me to a bed beside a dressing room he had set up.
“Am I still me?” I had memories but was no longer sure they were my own.
“You are still you. You are going to be a lot thinner and weigh a whole
lot less when this is over. It will still be you. Your mind will still
be your mind.” He laid me down on the bed.
Ricky…,”
“Let it go Tom. We didn’t plan it this way but it happened. Get some
rest. If you don’t feel like giving it another try in forty eight hours
we can wait. I pulled a lot of the really bad stuff out of your vital
organs this time. Even if you never step inside that machine again I
think we gave you a two year advance on life.” He pulled a blanket up
over me and left.
===============================================================
“Who are you?” I was looking at a very nice looking Mexican lady.
“She doesn’t understand English.” Came from the other side of the room.
I looked around. There was a guy that belonged to the voice on the other
side of the room. I was lying in a bed with a needle stuck up in my
vein. “What is going on?”
“Your friend brought you in. Said you were dehydrated and had been
without food for several days. How long were you two out on the ocean?”
He had walked over to look down at me.
“Ocean? Uh, yeah, I guess I’m still a little groggy. I don’t remember.
The days kinda all blurred together after the first couple. Did he say
where he was going after he dropped me off?”
“No but he said he would be back to check on you every day.”
“Everyday? How long have I been here?” I was hoping what Ricky had done
to me didn’t escape the lab. How much did he have to tell these people
besides I was lost on the ocean?
“Your friend brought you in four days ago. Funny you were so sick and he
didn’t look harmed at all.”
He held up his hand in stop fashion before I could respond. “Do not
worry. Your friend paid us very well to make sure the story of getting
lost on the ocean was the one everyone heard. Many things go on in
Mexico that are not repeated. I leave you in the capable hands of Maria.
Your friend should be back to pick you up in an hour or two. When you
feel like it you can get dressed.” He pointed to old worn out jeans, a
tired poncho, and a well used sombrero in a chair against the wall.
“Best if gringos aren’t seen coming and going from the hospital.
Questions get asked by people who don’t need to know.”
When he walked out of the room I felt like getting dressed. I indicated
to the lady I wanted the IV out of my arm. She swabbed it with alcohol
and put a Band-Aid on it after removing the needle. Even with the
woman’s help it took me awhile to get dressed. I felt like I was beat
up, tossed out of the back of a truck, and run over by Dallas freeway
traffic at rush hour. Figuratively speaking. In plain simple English I
hurt like hell all over and was weak as a baby. Too tired to go on and
nowhere to go without a plan, I laid back down on the bed.
It was a couple hours later Ricky walked into the room. He had dressed
down to look local. He took a hard look and shook his head. “You look
like shit. How you feel?”
With huge effort I pushed myself up off the bed. “I feel like shit so
your diagnoses was straight on. Now what?”
“Well if you feel up to it we will go fishing again and see if you can
catch that big one that almost pulled you in."
“I guess I can make the boat but I don’t think I’ll be fishing for
awhile. Would you mind if we didn’t?” There was no doubt Ricky was
talking in code about the lab and me going back into that machine again.
“We will go out on the boat then and take some time off.” He moved over
to one side of me as I stood up to steady me.
With his help I managed to walk out to an old beat up seventy something
Chevy. “Nice ride.”
“Fits the budget and doesn’t draw attention. We aren’t worth kidnapping
to the local drug cartels. We don’t have enough money to be worth the
effort when there are bigger richer Americans at hand.” After easing me
into the seat he walked around to the driver’s side and slid in.
“Your AR is under the seat. The CIA’s nine millimeter is in the fold of
the seat by your right hand. Your 50 is in the fold of the seat by your
left hand. I have a SIAGA under my seat. The police and Federalies are
just as corrupt as the drug lords down here. Do not let them have the
first shot or we are both dead.” He was pulling away from the little
clinic.
Despite my pain and weakness that got my adrenaline pumping. “Expecting
a problem?”
“No but I don’t want to be laid out in the street with my head hacked
off by any of them either. Somebody points a gun at me I plan on
shooting first and disappearing.” He stayed off the main street and took
all the side streets back to the lab.
==============================================================
It was forty one days before I worked up the courage and strength to
step back into that machine of his. Ricky told me I could wait as long
as I wanted, or quit if that was what I wanted. I didn’t know what a
third trip through the machine would do to me. Didn’t make any
difference. Ricky had only extended my life not gave it back. The cancer
was still in me. It had returned with a vengeance according to the
clinic tests and x-rays.
One more time I was standing inside the chamber as it slowly dropped,
attached to the glass bottom, and rose up again. “Here we go.”
There were bees humming in the pasture. Ricky had picked up a cow pie
and gave it his best toss. He must have picked the perfect one because,
like a Frisbee, it sailed forever before landing back in the pasture and
busting into a hundred pieces. I had to give it a try. The one I picked
wasn’t that dry. I ended up with a handful of cow poop. Ricky was
laughing as he ran and I chased him with the intent of sharing. Finally
we both dropped at the peanut field. I was tired. Ricky turned and
looked worried. I laid down in the dirt. I was really tired. Ricky could
go on and play without me. My best friend came back and sat down beside
me. He wasn’t leaving me no matter what.
“Three more times. Five at the most.”
“What?” I was lying in bed with Ricky hovering over me.
“We aren’t working with any known factors here. From the percentage we
started with and what I have been able to remove each time. It will take
three more times. If it gets trickier as the amount gets less then it
may take five more times.” Ricky backed up to give me a little space.
“How long this time?”
“Sixteen hours, ten minutes, six seconds, and ninety milliseconds. How
you feel?”
“Probably about the same way I look. You can’t look much better. You
have been up for sixteen hours straight?” I tried to take a deep breath
and it hurt.
“Almost twenty but who’s counting? You feel like some soup or shall I
run you back to the clinic and have them drop an IV in you?” He waited
for an answer.
“Try that soup thing. I don’t feel like it. I don’t want to go back to
the clinic either. Every time we venture out we are risking someone
knowing about this place. I would suggest guards. The problem is the
more who know then the bigger the problem becomes. Guards share with
their friends and their wives they are guarding someplace and others
become interested in what is so valuable to be hiring guards.”
Ricky nodded in agreement. “Soup it is then. No clinic and no guards.”
Sleeping seemed to be my thing every time Ricky put me through that
chamber. This time I ate my soup and was out for two days. Ricky said it
was because my body was adjusting for everything that had been taken out
and rearranged.
I didn’t feel like going back into that chamber ever again but one more
time down to the clinic made me understand how much Ricky and his
machine were doing for me. The cancer was still there and hard to find.
No big tumors, no cancer in my liver, lungs, or my head. The tests and
x-rays were clearing up.
Day twenty nine after that last trip I stepped back into that chamber of
horrors on my own free will. Ricky was riding his bicycle ahead of me.
One of the kids on the sidewalk broke from the other two. He ran into
the street as Ricky was ridding past. He gave Ricky a hard push to the
side. Ricky tried to turn with the push but it was too hard and too
quick. He spilled. I ran my bicycle straight at the kid picking up speed
before I collided. He went down, I went ass end over teacup, and we were
all three sprawled out on the street.
The other two decided to join in and help their friend finish what he no
longer was capable of. I pushed up off the street rolling my backpack
off my back as I did. I was turning and the dumb bastards thought I was
running away. I kept turning with the backpack full of schoolbooks now
at arms length plus the length of the straps. It was a lethal ball and
chain except it was a backpack and schoolbooks. Not quite as lethal,
thank God, because I was swinging with all my might. It connected with
the first kid on his left shoulder and bounced into his head knocking
him over into the other kid on his right. The kid I hit was through.
With his two buddies out of the fight and himself not in that good of
shape now, the third kid didn’t want any more,
I either forgot or it never happened. I was wondering if Ricky’s machine
was messing with my mind?
“You’re looking better.” Ricky had halfway carried me to the bed after
that last trip.
“I don’t feel as rough as I did those other times. Think I’m getting use
to it or what?”
“Tom I really don’t know if one’s body adjusts to having things
rearranged. Or if we aren’t causing such a radical change in what we are
pulling out. Think you can eat some soup? You were in there for eleven
hours and change.”
“Taking less time or what is going on?” I really wasn’t hungry and I
didn’t feel that beat up this time.
“Less to remove and it was a lot easier to move your healthy parts out
of the way to carry out the trash. I’m not sure but I think it has
something to do with the health of the person. Stands to reason a
healthy person can stand a lot more things than a sick one. And you
gotta admit you were one sick puppy when we first started whether you
want to admit it or not.”
“Yeah, I guess. I think I’ll make me some soup to keep that health thing
going.” I pushed up off the bed looking for pants.
“You feel up to it?” Ricky looked concerned.
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing it. I don’t want to go back to that
clinic either. I can manage. I’m feeling better by the minute.” I found
my pants and headed for the bar to find the soup and microwave. “Is it
safe to turn on the microwave?”
“Machine is turned off. You can plug in the microwave. Be sure and
unplug it when you are through. Messes with my machine.”
“Little machine messes with big machine? I can’t wait to tell this story
in twenty years.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to finish the job, but I wanted someone to
whip me to make me go back into that damn chamber. Ricky was
understanding and told me I could take as long as I wanted or I could
quit if I wanted.
==============================================================
Day thirty five after that third trip I was standing inside the chamber.
I met her at the Rodeo. She was with an older couple which I learned
later were her parents. She was a beautiful woman by anyone’s standards.
I think I spent as much time admiring her as I did watching the rodeo.
She was slim built and packed a whole lot of wow into those rodeo pants
she was wearing.
Tan cowgirl boots, big ol western cowboy belt buckle, red western cut
shirt, white cowboy hat was her attire. Her black eyes sparkled every
time she glanced in my direction. The smile on those ruby red lips was
tantalizing. It was impossible to ask her for a name without being so
blatantly forward it would be akin to the Titanic going down. So I
didn’t. I finally decided I was being crass staring at her so I made it
down to the refreshment stand behind the bleachers.
“Coke.” I held out a couple dollars for the drink.
“I’ll have one too.” Was the soft voice behind me.
I turned to check. It was the Rodeo Queen I had been admiring most of
the evening. “May I pay for it?”
“If you like.” She smiled.
My heart flash melted as I dug for a couple more dollars.
“I’m Tracy.” She held out her hand.
“uh…, uh…, I’m…, nice to meet you Tracy.”
She giggled, knowing she had fried my brain. She took the coke the guy
behind the counter was trying to hand her.
“You ridding the barrels tonight Tracy?” The guy asked, after she was
holding the coke.
“Sure am. You don’t expect me to miss out on being top barrel racer do
you Paul? You betting against me again?” She gave me a wink.
“Not tonight. I learned my lesson last week at El Dorado. You cost me a
hundred dollars last week when you beat Barbara Ann. I plan on making it
back tonight. You better be top dog tonight or I’m gonna lose another
hundred.” He turned toward some other customers who were waiting for
hotdogs.
“Barrel racer? That means you ride the rodeo circuit. Ft. Worth a short
cut to the next ride?” I knew I would never see the girl of my dreams
again after tonight.
Tracy turned and was walking behind the bleachers toward the trailers
and livestock area. “Found your voice did you? You want to try again on
who you are Mr. Uh?”
That caught me off guard. “It is hard to engage the mind and get the
thought processes connected with the speech processes when so much
stunning beauty is standing so close. My name is Tom now that I had time
to think what name my parents gave me when I was born.”
She laughed. “Nice save there Mr. Smooth Talker. Since you seem to be so
bashful I guess it is up to me to ask you if you would like to go get a
bite to eat after I race the barrels? I haven’t had anything since I
drove in from Bolder this morning.”
“Me? I mean sure. I mean I would…, Miss Tracy would you mind if a heavy
equipment operator asked you to have supper with him after you race the
barrels?” My mind was finally getting back in gear.
“Why, I would love to have supper with you Tom. I have to load up my
horse after I race. Do you mind if I bring Whistle? That’s my horse. We
won’t invite her in the restaurant to eat with us. She doesn’t have the
best table manners and would probably end up embarrassing us.” She
pointed at the horse standing behind one of the trailers. “Meet me at
Del Quincios at nine. I’m the one pulling the horse trailer.”
“I’ll be there.” I was in love with one of the prettiest, boldest girls
I had ever met in my whole life. She wasn’t any wilting violet for sure.
I headed back to the bleachers to watch the barrel racers before heading
to that restaurant.
I checked my watch one last time before I started up my old Ford to
leave the parking lot of Del Quincios. It was after midnight. She had
made a fool out of me. She set me up and then left me waiting. She had
my heart and soul in her hands and then broke it to pieces. The girl was
a rodeo tramp, a mean conniving bitch. She probably was sharing her
story with all her cowboy friends and laughing while thinking of me
sitting here by myself waiting for her to show.
I was pissed. My supper consisted of a six pack of Coors, a bottle of
apricot brandy, and only God knows how much Vodka before I passed out in
my apartment. Next morning at the convenience store I picked up a big
coffee and a paper, Ft. Worth Register. I tossed the paper on the seat
as I slid up into the seat. It flopped open to the front page. There was
a picture of a tangled mess of pickup and horse trailer with a big semi
on top of them. ‘Tracy Koth killed in accident’ Page two. My heart was
racing as I flipped open to page two.
‘Tracy Koth, the number one women’s barrel racer, was killed when a semi
ran a stoplight and broad sided her pickup. She was pronounced dead at
the scene. Her horse Whistle had to be put down as the vet said the
injuries were too great for her to survive. She had won top honors in
women’s barrel racing in the Ft. Worth Rodeo only an hour before she was
killed. Her parents said she was going to a restaurant to have dinner
with a man she called Tom.
Tracy will be sorely missed in the Rodeo Circuit as her thousands of
fans, and we suspect thousands of friends, all loved her. Tracy was Miss
Rodeo Queen two years earlier. More on when and where her services will
be held in tomorrows paper.’
My stomach was rolling. I was so ashamed of what I had been thinking
last night when she didn’t show. It was too late. I opened the door as
it all came up. I threw up all over the pavement beside the pickup.
Tracy had broken my heart and my life into a million pieces and it
wasn’t her fault. Would she ever forgive me? I hurled and hurled some
more until my stomach was as empty as my soul.
I opened my eyes. Ricky was hovering over me. I was on the floor of the
cage.
“You alright? Why are you crying? Did it hurt that bad?”
I stood up with Ricky’s help. “That damn booth of yours does more than
move things around. It screws with the mind also. Memories aren’t just
memories in there. They come back in full living color and are relived.
Memories stop being past tense and turn into present tense again.”
“The memory? Was it that bad? Did it hurt that much?” He helped me over
to the bed.
“Yes it hurt. She…,” I felt the tears trickle down my cheeks.
“You never talked about it. All you said was you knew a girl and that
was all you would tell me. Is it the same one you met in Ft. Worth?”
Ricky handed me a cup of water.
“Yeah, that one. Let it go. I can’t handle this any more.” I took a sip
and handed the cup back.
It was two weeks before Ricky said he wanted to map me again to see if
all the cancer had been removed. I was hesitant about walking back into
that thing. I didn’t think I could handle one more rerun of Tracy. The
heart can only be broken into a million pieces so many times. At some
point it doesn’t reassemble.
“You been having the same memories each time?” Ricky was setting the
controls as I stared at the chamber.
“No.” I still didn’t want inside that thing.
“Do you have any more that hurt as bad as the girl memory?” The glass
cylinder lifted up waiting for me to step in.
“Okay.” I walked up and stood on the glass floor. The chamber came down.
“You sorry son of a bitch! I told you to push the dirt over to the east
side of the lot not the west side.” The foreman was busy cussing me out
for his mistake.
“You said west side.” I pointed to the two laborers off to the side
holding onto their shovels. “Ask them. They will tell you.”
“Juan, Pedro, did I say push the dirt to the east side or not?” He
turned to glare at the two laborers.
“We did not hear. You must of said east side.” Juan shrugged his
shoulders, took a glance in my direction and then stared at the ground
at his feet.
“See, I did say east side.” The foreman growled at me. “You can pay for
the fuel and your time to move that dirt to the other side. And you can
pay for their time too since they will be waiting for you to move that
dirt before they can do their job.”
“I tell you what.” I climbed down off the D-9 cat. “You can run this cat
yourself and move that dirt and pay for their time because I quit.” I
couldn’t blame the laborers for not speaking up. They were desperate for
a job. Telling the foreman he screwed up isn’t a bridge builder to
future security.
“YOU CAN’T QUIT! You get your ass back up on that cat and do your job!
You walk off and you won’t get a paycheck.” He was fuming as I headed
for my pickup.
I didn’t answer. It wouldn’t do any good to get into a shouting match
with the idiot. He wasn’t going to admit he was wrong. And I wasn’t
going to pay for his mistake.
The chamber was rising and I was still standing as Tom was watching for
problems. “How was the ride?”
“Piece of cake. Second time I have left that thing without feeling I was
fighting with a cat.” I headed for my pants.
“The other time?” Ricky was curious.
“The first time everything felt all squiggly but it wasn’t really that
bad either in retrospect.” I was putting on my shirt.
“Another ride in forty eight hours then?” He had shut it all down.
“What is the plan? You going to vaporize me now that I have proven your
little project?” It was a sick joke.
Ricky knew I was pulling his leg. “But of course. Can’t leave any
witnesses and what better way than turn you into water vapor? No body,
no crime.”
“I’ve sent notes to those people who were following you. Remember them?
My letters are to be opened if they don’t hear from me every forty eight
hours. I squealed, but my silence can be bought. Keep in mind, I’m not
cheap.” I threw back my head and tried my villain laugh. It was wasted.
I sounded like a sick frog instead.
Ricky shook his head. “Tom you are one sick puppy and have an even worse
sick sense of humor. Mapping claims all the cancer is gone. No dark
spots showing up anywhere. As of this moment you are probably the
healthiest person on this screwed up planet. How you feel?”
“Actually, I feel like I’m the healthiest person on this screwed up
planet. So when do you take your turn inside that machine of yours and
map your own body?” I wanted Ricky to know what kind of ride I had been
experiencing. It seemed a shame the person who built the thing had not
experienced his own handiwork.
Ricky shook his head. “And I’m supposed to trust you to run the
controls? I think not. Not that I’m afraid to put my life in your hands,
but it isn’t that easy. Eventually I’ll have it artificial intelligently
controlled where I can step inside but that is down the road. And it
isn’t just for myself I need to make it self aware. IF…, if I ever let
this technology out then it must be self controlling. It would take ten
years or more of constant training to teach someone how to handle this
machine with a human operator.”
That last sentence got my attention. “You mean one little bobble and I
would be Tom No More? You can’t tell me you had this thing running for
the past ten years?”
“I built it. My training is more than standing here controlling
currents, eddy streams, harmonics, and gauss fields. I know exactly what
each one of those hundreds of different energy beams and fields do, what
strength and where they should be focused. Building something and
operating it after someone else built it are two different fields. A
design builder can be, and usually is, the first operator. A trained
operator is not, and never will be, a design builder.” He smiled and
patted the console as it was his pet.
I imagine it was just that. His pet.
==============================================================
“SO NOT FUNNY!” Ricky was lucky he wasn’t within reach or I would have
smacked him. He had a lopsided grin as he stared. I didn’t think he
could have wiped the smirk off his face even if I had a gun in my hands
and promised to shoot him.
“Says who? You remind yourself of anyone?” He pointed toward the
mirrored dressing booth on the other side of the room.
“SAYS ME, YOU DUMB SHIT! YOU JUST HAD TO GO AND DO IT TO ME TO PROVE YOU
COULD! DIDN’T YOU!” I didn’t need the mirrors to know Ricky had changed
my sex from a man into a woman. Those big melons I was sporting on my
chest were damn big.
“CHANGE ME BACK!” What Ricky had done might have been funny to him but
personally…, I wasn’t amused.
“Chill Jessica. You know I can’t until the time limit has lapsed. Too
soon and I’ll be scooping a bloody mess up into a bucket. Now go look in
the mirrors. It was a hell of a job. I bet you will think it was funny
when you see what you look like.” He was turning off the power and
shutting down the hologram stabilizers.
Why I let Ricky talk me into being his date for Halloween I blamed on
that damn machine of his manipulating my mind.
“The ladies at the salon will do a make over before the party tonight. I
have reservations for the two of us at the Del Rio Palacia . Usually for
the well connected, so security will be tight. The military will be all
over that place like fleas on a dog. No matter how big the drug cartel
they don’t send their men on suicide missions.
“Salon? How far is this joke going.” Even if it wasn’t my body I was
still the one inside it.
“Forty eight hours is all.” He was urging me toward the door.
“I am going to get so even you are going to regret the day you were
born.” I stepped through the doors as he held them open for me
Ricky even opened the car door for me.
“I’m not helpless you know.” I clutched my skirt as I slid into the seat
and pulled it in so it wouldn’t get caught in the car door.
“Didn’t say you were. That wasn’t the intention.” He closed the door.
He drove me to the Hotel Capri and walked me inside to a salon with the
name Rita over the door. “Play nice. They know what they are doing. They
have done this most of their lives.” I’ll be back in an hour.
“An hour?” I was ready to panic. Being left alone with strangers in the
condition I was in didn’t make me feel comfortable.
“Relax. You are a girl, they are girls. Your virginity is safe.” He
grinned before he turned and walked out the door.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be here planning your death.” I mumbled as
he disappeared out of the hotel.
One of the ladies took my hand as she studied me. “Speak English?”
“Yes.” I wondered why she asked?
“Good. Remove your gloves and your jewelry.” She pointed to a salon
chair.
It wasn’t that impossible to remove my gloves. The jewelry was a
different situation. I moved my hair off to the side. “Would you help
please.”
Ricky was back. He was wearing a nineteen twenties suit, hat, and spats
on his shoes in a twenties costume. He nodded as he stared. “You are
absolutely stunning.”
The girls had glossed my lips with the brightest red I had ever seen in
my life. They highlighted my cheekbones and painted my nails. They
placed a tiara on my head and wove some of my hair through it making it
non removable for the time being. My eyes only needed the eye shadow
treatment. Ricky gave me long, thick lashes and eyeliner in that machine
of his. He said black was a natural pigment of the body but he couldn’t
do blue.
“You better be enjoying this little joke of yours because it isn’t going
to last.” I held out my left wrist. “This your jewelry? The girls
removed it when they worked me over and put it back. I’m no expert. I
have no idea if it is the same stuff or not.”
A small crowd had gathered at the entrance of the salon. I didn’t have
to guess why they were staring. “This isn’t me, this isn’t me. I can do
this.”
Ricky snickered. “You have the best costume of anyone. They all know
it.” He checked his watch. “A little early to go to the party. Shall we
go to the dinning room and order a snack? It is going to be a long
night. Alcohol on an empty stomach isn’t what I recommend for tonight.
Your molecular structure is still settling down. I’m not sure what
effect alcohol will have on you at this stage of recovery.”
Shaking my head I could not believe he had done this to me without us
testing a body change with alcohol before now? “Anything else you want
to tell me before tonight? What happens if I pass out in this condition
and you can’t get me home?”
“Not to worry about getting you home. I’m not dressed in the roaring
twenties just for fun. Those guys always carried a heater in their
jacket.” He was behind me steering me though the crowd as they
reluctantly parted before us.
Most of what they were saying I was glad I didn’t understand. The two
guys speaking in English I did understand. “She’s real.” “Those aren’t
fake.” Can they make them like that?” “Wonder where she got hers?” “I’m
gonna buy my girlfriend ones like that.” “Any idea how much they cost?”
I couldn’t take it any longer even if it wasn’t me in this Jessica
costume. I turned around to look at the two motor mouths. “Children,
shouldn’t you be in school?”
At first, they both looked shocked. Instantly their faces got big happy
grins as they smiled from ear to ear. It took me a second to understand
why. The idea someone who looked like me would even acknowledge they
existed made their day. Sheesh, if I was going to keep this body I would
need a crash course in girl speak and act. It was something girls take a
lifetime learning from day one. Come on forty…? I looked at my watch.
Forty one hours.
The dinning room already had a crowd. A few patrons were in costume. The
maitre d’ was steering incoming traffic to the bar to wait for a table.
His eyes focused in on me. No doubt he undressed me in his mind as we
approached. I didn’t figure it took too much brain power to undress me.
I was already three quarters of the way there in this number I was
almost wearing.
“Two.” Ricky slipped his hand around my waist.
I wasn’t ready for that and almost bolted for the exit. “uhhh”
He felt me shiver and realized what he had done. It didn’t make him
change his mind or remove his hand. Just out of shear meanness he
dropped his hand a little lower to the top of my hip and pulled me in
closer.
“ssssss” Air escaped my lungs in a rush of emotions. I shivered even
more.
The maitre d’ looked like he was going to have an orgasm on the spot.
Obviously he thought I was putting on a shimmy show for him. If Ricky
hadn’t already staked out a prior claim with his hand on me, the maitre
d’ probably would have jumped me right then and there.
Ricky palmed the man a hundred dollars.
“Certainly sir, I have a table. If you will follow me.” He unsnapped the
chain separating us from the dinning room.
He led us to a table not in the back by the kitchen as I expected but
right up front by the stage. Was it to show off the catch of the night?
Everyone would be looking at us or past us if there was any action on
the stage.
Ricky received my evil eye stare after we were seated. “You do that
again and I won’t wait. I will murder you on the spot and claim it was
self defense.”
He chuckled as he gave me a wink. “Do what Jessica? I swear you are
getting weird on me. Anyway what shall we order? Hummm? Oysters on the
half shell are good for love making.”
“Ricky…, You better be teasing or you are really going to end up in the
drainage ditch someplace. Now behave yourself. You’re acting like a damn
guy.”
“And you are acting like a real woman.” Drifted quietly back across the
table.
“Say what! I…, okay, drop it. Be a gentleman and order me a chef salad…,
oh poop, did I just say that…, I am aren’t I.”
A waiter came up. Taking our order wasn’t on his mind as he stared down
my breasts. Hell, if I had been me I would have been doing the same
thing. It’s a guy thing, okay. Men can’t look a woman in the eyes if she
has big boobs. I not only had gargantuan ones, thanks to Ricky, I was
obscenely dressed to expose most of what I had. Good thing it was only a
costume and not really me!
Ricky laid his menu on the table. “The lady wishes a Chef Salad. I’ll
have the Ostriche, Insalata di barbabietoea e formaggio. The lady wishes
a la Paloma and I will have a White Spider.”
“Very good sir.” The water picked up the menus and left.
“What did you just order for me? Are you going to try and get me drunk?”
I was starting to suspect my best friend had forgot I wasn’t really
Jessica. “You do remember who is inside this costume don’t you?”
A wicked smile spread across his face. “I must say it’s a great costume
even if I did help design it.”
“In your dreams. And things better stay that way. In your dreams. Park
your testosterone drive and go take a cold shower because we are not
trying out the equipment.” The waiter set our drinks on the table. I
took a big swallow to steady my nerves. My drink was a fruit cocktail. I
partially forgave Ricky after thinking he was trying to ambush me.
My suspicions returned just as quickly as they had left when our food
arrived. Some of Ricky’s entrée was oyster on the half shell. I had two
more cocktails before we finished our meals. Fruit juice wasn’t going to
steady my nerves but I was beginning to feel mischievous myself.
After the meal Ricky asked if I would mind walking the three blocks to
the Halloween party?
Of course it was to show off his handiwork. Which was me. I knew why he
wanted to walk. Hell, after that dinner, I wanted to show off myself.
Walking in five inch heels wasn’t the problem I thought it could be. My
feet were designed especially for walking in five inch heels. Besides,
the car was already parked. Finding another parking space any closer
could be a problem.
As we rose from the table, Ricky walked around to my side and collected
me putting his arm around my waist. If he expected a response he got one
but it wasn’t the one he was expecting.
I moved in closer brushing my right hip up against him. I felt peaceful
and protected when he put his arm around me. I liked it. “Thank you for
the dinner. It was very kind of you.”
“You’re most certainly welcome. Thank you for coming with me tonight. It
was most gracious of you.” He returned the compliment as he steered me
for the exit. He let his left hand slid down to my left hip.
My hand automatically found the back of his. I pushed his hand a little
lower where it was on the slit of that silk dress I was almost in. I
held his hand on my hip as we walked knowing he could feel the fluid
motion of my hips with each step. Jessica had come out to play. And took
over!
As Ricky and I walked to the party I noticed there were more people in
costumes than normal dressed people. “I don’t recognize four fifths of
those costumes.”
“Mexico has a little different perspective on Halloween than Americans
do.” He moved me around in front of himself to thread us through a group
of soldiers and policia.
“Lots of hardware out tonight. Why?” I was trying to not stare at the
soldiers. I didn’t want them to stop us and question us for citizenship
papers or identifications. I certainly didn’t have any. I wasn’t too
sure Ricky had a legal right to be in Mexico either. We had been here
almost five months since first flying in.
“Two kinds of police and military in Mexico. Those who work for the drug
cartels and those who don’t. Tonight's a show of force to keep peace
between the two. This many from both sides and it would be a blood bath
neither side wants. Both sides want the tourists to enjoy the festivals
and come back again with more money. Tonight is one of the few nights we
don’t need to worry about the policia or the drug cartels.” We had made
it past the soldiers. Ricky pulled me back in beside him again.
It didn’t bother me. I preferred Ricky holding me close to stake out his
claim I was already spoken for. I did the same thing myself when I took
a date anywhere there was a crowd. It was a universal language. She’s
mine. You can look, but you can’t touch.
Ricky produced two tickets for the Halloween party when the guys at the
entrance looked like they might stop us. I gave Ricky the glassy eyed
stare. “You really had this all planed out didn’t you?”
He nodded in agreement. “It was a loose concept. If it happened it
happened and if it didn’t, it didn’t. Do you really mind that I tricked
you? After all it is the night for tricks. You look like you’re having
fun.”
“Well…, yeah, kinda. If you had asked I would have turned you down but
what the hell.” I held my arms out to show off. “Here I am. Cinderella
will turn back into a maid, the horses into mice, and the royal coach
back into a pumpkin. Although in this case not exactly at midnight. Next
year you can ask me to do it again and we will both laugh before I punch
you in the nose and tell you not again in this lifetime.”
Looking me over from head to toe he pulled me to the side. “Jessica, be
really careful. If I had known how much attention you were going to
attract I wouldn’t have made your assets as…,”
“Big. Go on say it. You went in for overkill. My breasts, my hips, my
butt are more than ample. Well, it was overkill and that is the word for
what you did. That’s before we even begin to discuss my next to nothing
waist. Enjoy it because all I am will soon be a memory and nothing more.
What pisses me off more than anything, isn’t you did this to me. I’m
getting used to it now. It is funny because I’m obviously your wet dream
and you can’t have me. Who has their hand on the controls now big boy?”
I licked my lips and brought my left hand up to cradle my left breast
for added emphasis. I was determined now to make Ricky regret he had
turned me into Jessica. I was going to be all over him like black on
ink. And he would never get to taste the forbidden fruit.
Ricky shook his head. “Jessica, behave. I’m not the only one who has
their eyes on you. You probably put every male in here in rut the moment
you walked in the door. Your little antics are sure to set the pot a
boiling.”
“You accuse me of being a flirt and a tease? Why dear me, how is that
possible? You know little ol me wouldn’t do anything like that.” I slid
my hands down my hips as I batted my eyelashes at Ricky.
“I’m going to go get a drink.” Ricky had enough.
“While you’re at it bring me back another one of them fruit drinks. I
gotta go pee.
Ricky stopped and turned his head to study me. “Fruit drinks? You mean
like you were drinking earlier?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. Like I was drinking earlier.” I was scanning for
the bathrooms.
“Okay. Jessica, remember you’re a woman not a guy. You use the ladies
room okay?” He waited to see if what he said about the restroom had sunk
in.
“Yeah, yeah…, girl, I got it. Think I’ll stand in front of the pot and
pee just for fun.” I still hadn’t seen any doors or signs leading to the
bathrooms.
Ricky pointed to the back of the room. “That way. Go down the hallway
and take a left. Left is ladies. Take a left.”
“Ah shucks, you been here before ain’t yuh? I’m not the first date you
brought to this place. Who was she? Anyone I know. She prettier than
me?” I was headed the direction Ricky had pointed. Those fruit drinks I
had at dinner needed a release.
Ricky waited until Jessica made the hallway and then followed. “She is
drunk. I wonder if she will remember any of this tomorrow?” He was going
to make sure she didn’t get lost or molested. He was feeling some regret
bringing her to the Halloween party. At first it seemed like a fun idea
but now…?
==============================================================
Marcella pushed Emilio away as he tried to kiss her. “Why don’t you give
me diamonds like that American does his mistress?”
“What are you talking about? What American and mistress?” Emilio made
another pass without getting a kiss.
“That Americano everyone talks about. They say he makes drugs in that
lab of his. If you had his drugs you could sell them for lots of money.
You would be rich too. You could buy me diamonds like he buys his
mistress.” Looking at the silver bracelet on her wrist, Marcella
imagined a diamond bracelet like the one she handled in Rita’s Salon an
hour earlier.
“The mistress is Jessica. She had a big diamond bracelet. And diamond
watch. And she had a big diamond necklace too. And she had long diamond
earrings. If you had the Americano’s secret drugs you would no longer be
a soldier in Ignacio’s cartel. I bet he would make you his top
lieutenant.” Marcella wrapped her hands around Emilio’s head and pulled
him in for a kiss to drive her point home.
Emilio didn’t need much help. He had been thinking of breaking into the
Americano’s lab and stealing all the drugs and secrets. He wanted those
designer drugs. He knew if he didn’t do it, one of the other drug
cartels would. It had become an open secret the Americanos were making
drugs in that lab they spent so much time in. Even some of the doctors
were saying the Americanos had made a drug to cure cancer when one of
them had become deathly sick.
He pushed Marcella back. He had a plan. He had friends who would help.
It had to be tonight before anyone else broke into the lab and made off
with all the secrets. Starting up his car he pulled out into the street
to go find the men he wanted helping him.
=============================================================
Ricky waited as Jessica came back out of the bathrooms. No earth
shattering screams had come from that direction while she was in there.
Obviously Jessica had behaved herself in the ladies room. Even if she
hadn’t the other women had taken everything in stride. And why shouldn’t
they? Jessica was a woman in virtually every single respect.
“You waited on me? You are a gentleman.” I closed in on Ricky. He put
his arm around my waist.
“Jess would you dance with me?” Ricky steered me toward the crowded
dance floor.
“I don’t…, well yes I do. I’m a girl. Girls come preloaded with dance
instructions don’t they. All girls can dance. Never met one that
couldn’t. I’m a girl. I can dance.” I pulled his hand up under my
breast.
Ricky’s eyes briefly closed to slits. I knew I was driving him to
distraction. Hell, I was a guy. I knew what feeling a woman’s body did
to a guy’s hormones. Or was I a girl. Hell no I wasn’t no damn girl! I
was a woman. I had a woman’s desire to be bedded! I rubbed my hip up
against Ricky. Take me. I’m hot.
He was having a hard time trying to figure her out. Had Jessica taken
over Tom’s mind as well as his body, or was it the alcohol causing her
to lose all inhibitions? Maybe it was Tom and payback for changing him
into a woman? Ricky decided it had to be Tom and payback. The machine
didn’t change the mind only the physical things. He wrapped her up in
his arms for the dance. Two could play this game. He would make Tom
sorry he had started it.
The only thing separating Ricky’s and my body was a little cloth. I
wasn’t going to let a little thing like that get in the way as I put my
hip up against his crouch as we danced across the floor. My mind was
demanding satisfaction for my body’s desires.
Ricky knew Tom was pushing the envelope to get even for changing him
into a beautiful, sensuous woman. Payback works both ways. He pulled
Jessica in tight and crushed her breasts against his chest.
“oooooh,” The moan was involuntary. My emotions went into overdrive and
achieved lift off.
“take me, I’m yours.” I whispered in his right ear.
The lights slowly came on in Ricky’s mind as Jessica leaned into him
pushing back even harder. She wasn’t faking it. Something had gone
wrong. Tom had lost control. Ricky was no longer looking at Tom in
Jessica’s body. He was looking at Jessica in Jessica’s body. Could have
been the alcohol? Whatever it was he needed to get Jessica back to the
lab before she lost it all and told the whole damn world who she was.
“Let’s go back to the lab. I’m tired of this party.” Ricky tried to push
Jessica away to give them both some breathing room.
She wasn’t having any of it as she pulled his hand away from her waist
and slid it down her hip. “Can’t we stay. I’m having fun. Do you love
me?”
“Jess…?” Ricky was caught off guard.
“If you don’t love me I bet I can find some real men in here who will.”
Jessica was scanning the room for a mate if Ricky didn’t love her.
“Yes, I love you Jess. Let’s go back to the lab okay?” Ricky was edging
her for the door before she lost all control.
“Oh, then you are going to make love to me and make me a real woman.”
Jessica was happy Ricky loved her.
“Yes, I love you and I will make you a real woman.” Ricky was wishing
the car wasn’t parked three blocks down the street. He wasn’t sure he
could control her for that long.
“I love you.” Jessica wrapped her arms around Ricky’s neck and pulled
him in for a long passionate kiss.
It shocked the devil out of him when she first pulled him in. And then
the kiss! His eyes grew as big as saucers as he watched her face. He
didn’t know if he should respond or not? She had her eyes closed in the
passion of the moment. He tried to return the kiss as best as he could
as he wrapped his arms around her tiny little waist. It wasn’t as hard
to kiss her as he thought it might be. She was, after all, all woman.
Jessica was all over him as he walked her the three blocks to the car.
=============================================================
Fireworks and rockets were going off around town. “Break it down.”
Emilio was waiting for Javier and Ramirez to bust the door to the lab of
the Americanos.
“What if one of them is still there? Marcella only saw one gringo with
his mistress. The other one could still be in the lab." Javier didn’t
mind killing. He didn’t want to be the one killed.
“Blow it then. He will stunned. We kill him, take the drugs and notes.
Ignacio will reward us all.” Emilio handed his two friends four sticks
of dynamite.
Ramirez stacked all four at the base of the door. He lit the two foot
fuse and ran to hide behind the van the other two had already taken
refuge behind.
The explosion rocked the neighborhood. The door was crumpled in. Emilio
was passing out more dynamite as he looked at the second door past the
first one that had folded. “Hurry. There will be an investigation as to
why so much noise.”
The second door was dispatched by another batch of dynamite. The lab was
smoldering. Electrical circuits were twisted and stripped of their
insulation. Small fires broke out throughout the lab as Emilio and his
accomplices searched for drugs or notes on how to make those drugs.
There was a problem as this lab didn’t have any of the equipment
normally used in the manufacture of designer drugs. There were no
beakers, no test tubes, no hoses, no condensers, no burners…, nothing in
the way of a drug making lab.
The fires were spreading and growing. “Let’s get out of here.” Javier
was headed for the door.
“You want to tell me what you are doing without my permission.” Ignacio
was standing in the doorway with two other men.
“We were looking for the Americanos drug making equipment. Marcella said
they were making drugs. We did it for you Padrone.” Emilio was trying to
explain to his boss why they had destroyed a building before asking
permission.
The fires and heat drove them all outside the lab. Ignacio was furious
one of his own men would go off on a tangent and do something like this
without asking him first. “Did you find the drugs you were looking for?”
Ignacio pulled a pistol from his belt. Emilio knew he was about to die.
Ignacio fired several shots into the lab. “That should have been you.”
Ricky stopped the car a few hundred feet from the lab as smoke and
flames poured from the doorway. There were six men standing at the
entrance.
“NOOOOOO!” He opened the door and ran toward the lab.
Ignacio turned toward the shouting and pulled the trigger again.
I was getting out of the car. Ricky spun around and hit the ground as
the gunshot rang out.
The adrenalin rush of watching my friend get shot cleared the fog out of
my brain in less than three seconds. Turning back to the car I was
reaching under the seat.
“SHE’S RUNNING. MAKE SURE SHE DOESN’T GET AWAY.” Ignacio pointed in the
direction of the woman trying to make an escape back into the car.
Emilio and his two friends were going to make sure the woman didn’t get
away. They would prove to Padrone they were valuable assets. They
started to sprint toward the car and the fleeing woman.
I came up holding the Desert Eagle in both hands. I reached forward over
the door hinge between the car body and the door. “YOU SON OF A BITCH!”
It was too late for the three men running at me to correct their error.
They split and dove for cover I nailed the middle one in the forehead.
His forward momentum stopped like he had hit a brick wall as his body
bent over backwards. The kick of that big ol fifty caliber was a lot
more than I remembered. It took a lot longer to re-acquire a new target
than what it should have. I took aim on the one running to the right.
The shot hit him in his right shoulder blade area. He went flying like a
truck had hit him.
The third one was firing back as he ran toward the first group for
protection. I took aim and hit him in the left shoulder blade. If he had
a heart it was no longer there. His body spun in a circle as he went
down. He skidded about eight feet as he plowed pavement face down.
The first group had got their wits together. They were peppering the car
with lead. They were squeezing off snapshots. Unless they were extremely
lucky they were never going to hit anything.
One, two, three and they were down in that order. Their vehicles now had
my attention. Tinted windows and I couldn’t see a darn thing inside
them. I slipped another clip into the fifty and shot holes in the doors
where someone could have been sitting in the seats. Nothing moved. That
didn’t mean someone couldn’t be lying down on the floor waiting.
“Ricky?” I took a glance in his direction.
“ooooooh” Was the soft reply.
Walking around to the driver’s side I started the car up and pulled up
beside Ricky. “Ricky, can you stand? I have to get you into the car. I
can’t do it by myself. I need you to help me. Ricky?”
I knelt down beside him and checked. He had blood coming out of his
side. “Ricky, please, I can’t do this without your help. Ricky, I don’t
have the strength to do this alone. You gotta help me get you in the
car. Ricky we can’t stay here. The lab is burning. I killed six men.
Ricky we can’t stay here.”
“Help me.” Ricky coughed. He was pushing himself up as I helped lift.
I got him in the car. He collapsed in the seat. I prayed that doctor
Ricky had taken me to wasn’t out celebrating with the rest of the crowd.
I found the little clinic and pulled up to the back entrance. The doc
was there.
“Patch him up doc. We were never here.” I took Ricky’s billfold and dug
out a thousand dollars.
“He needs medical attention. More than a few minutes worth.” The doc was
eying the thousand dollars.
“Not tonight doc. Pour enough antibiotics into him to make sure he
doesn’t get an infection. Make sure all of that damn bullet passed
though and didn’t leave any fragments behind. Wrap him in enough
bandages to make sure he doesn’t keep bleeding. We were never here.” I
kept checking the hallway to make sure no military or policia walked in
on us.
Thirty minutes later I had Ricky back in the car. He was a little more
lucid. “Where we going?”
“I have no idea. We are going to run. We have a full night ahead of us.
Car is full of gas. I will pick up some supplies at a grocery. Then we
head inland and north I guess. Ricky, the lab is gone.” I was pulling
out making sure I didn’t do anything to attract any more attention than
a bullet riddled car normally would. At least it was night and those
bullet holes weren’t noticeable unless one was looking.
“Go to the plane.” He nodded toward his left.
“Ricky I can’t fly. You don’t look like you are going to be in any
condition to fly either. Those pain killers are going to wear off in a
little bit. Hell is fixing to come and rest inside your body and your
mind. More pain killers and you won’t be in any condition to fly either.
There isn’t an upside to any of this.” For whatever reason I turned the
car toward the dirt field where he had parked that airplane.
“Trust me again. You trusted me with your life before. Trust me again.”
He closed his eyes as the ride was hurting him.
“Trust you! Have you taken a good look at me lately? Trust you? I’m a
damn girl. The lab is burned to the ground and I’m still a damn girl.
Trust you? Unless you have some black magic tricks I don’t know about,
you used up all that ‘trust me business’. Trust you…? Damn you all to
hell Ricky, I’m stuck as a girl. The only thing stopping me from blowing
my damn brains out right now is I’m hoping I will wake up when you turn
off the machine and this is one of those damn dreams.”
“Jessica…,”
“Okay, I put up with that Jessica shit about as long as I can stand. I’m
Tom. When you start calling me Tom this dream will end. I will step out
of that machine and I will cheerfully strangle you to death with my own
two little hands.”
Ricky snorted before I glanced in his direction. “Tom? That sure ain’t
gonna fit is it? Tell you what Jessica. Until you step out of the
machine and throttle me to death you’re right. You’re stuck as Jessica.
While you’re still dreaming all this trust me. Okay?”
For the first time I saw the humor in this situation. “Okay. Get ready
because when you turn that machine off I’m going to kill you.”
Nineteen minutes later I was parked beside the hanger. Ricky was feeling
the pain. I wasn’t sure what to do next?
He looked over at the side door. “Keypad, use JESSICA for access. Flip
the two black switches off when you are inside. That will close down the
electrical field on the walls. Big red switch by the overhead doors
raises the hanger door.”
A pained look crossed his face. He took a shallow breath. “Come get me.
You can’t roll that plane out by yourself. I can’t help pull but I can
start it up and move it out. Put the car in. Lock everything back up.
They will be here looking for us shortly. I don’t want to make it too
easy. Give a few of them a nasty shock before they figure out to kill
the power to the building.”
Six minutes latter I had the rifles and grenades I liberated from the
CIA agents loaded into the baggage compartment. Two minutes after that I
had Ricky standing by the landing steps. “Ricky, I can’t carry you up
into that plane. You have to do this yourself.”
“Let me lean on you. You push the best you can.” He put his right arm
around my shoulders and made the first step as I pushed. The second step
was harder. The third step was more painful. He made the forth step and
I figured we were finished. Ricky would never make that fifth step.
Whoever was coming was going to find Ricky sprawled out on the steps.
I was thinking about getting the rifles out of the cargo hold. I was in
the worse defensive position I had ever been in my military career.
However, the AR 15 would make anyone coming at us pay a dear price
before we were taken out ourselves.
Ricky took a lunge forward and lay on the cabin floor. “jessica?”
I rushed up the steps and took his left hand. “I’m here Ricky.”
“Give me a minute. Get me into that pilot’s seat.” He was breathing hard
with his eyes closed. His side was bleeding.
I retrieved that AR from the cargo hold while he rested. We were wasting
time.
“I’m ready. Get me into the cockpit.” Ricky held up his hand.
With him pushing and me pulling he was back on his feet. He had his arms
wrapped around my neck as I supported him and walked backwards into the
cockpit. He fell more than sat in the pilot’s seat.
“Pull the chocks from the wheels. I’ll fire this bird up and drive it
out. You pull the car in and lock up.”
“Got it.” I was headed for the exit.
The right turbine started spooling up as I pulled the second set of
wheel chocks. I tossed them over against the wall as I headed for the
car. A minute later the left turbine started spooling up and lit. The
aircraft rolled out of the hanger and stopped. Four minutes after that
the hanger was closed up, electrified, and I was in the cockpit.
Ricky had his eyes closed. He was slumped over the control wheel.
“ricky? I can’t do this without you.” I felt for a pulse in his neck to
see if he was still alive.
He straightened up and blinked a couple times. “jessica, you can do this
by yourself. Trust me. I programmed the flight into the navigation
system. Take the plane to the end of the runway. Easy on the throttles.
A lot of turbine thrust in your hands. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
My heels had to go. I pulled them off and worked the rudder pedals with
the pads of my feet. Okay that wasn’t bad. I pushed on the top of them
like I had seen Ricky and other pilots do. I wasn’t rolling so I didn’t
know if I had brakes or not. It was time to go. I inched the throttles
forward and the plane leapt forward. I pushed on the brakes with all my
might as I yanked the throttles back. The plane nosed down and squatted
like a frog on a lily pad.
“Easy jessica.” Drifted across from Ricky who still had his eyes closed.
I tried again. With the slightest touch I moved the throttles. The plane
rolled forward and was picking up speed quickly. I started riding the
brakes. The plane slowed. I was on the runway and needed to turn. I
pushed hard with my right foot. The plane whipped around pointed back to
the hanger. I yanked the throttles back. The landing lights had swept
the horizon and sky like spotlights. If anyone didn’t know where we were
at before, they sure would now.
“SHIT!”
“You’re doing good. Now point it down the runway. One throttle when you
want to turn.” Ricky managed an almost smile.
I took a deep breath and slightly moved the left throttle. The turbine
increased its whine and the plane was rolling forward. Gingerly I pushed
right pedal. The plane started turning. Instinctively I turned the
control wheel like a steering wheel. I wobbled all over the runway to
the other end. Finally I was there and had the plane turned again. It
was then I noticed a couple dozen headlights coming down the road toward
the hanger.
“Ricky, company is coming.” I had no idea what to do. I needed Ricky to
fly us off.
“Okay, turn loose of everything. The naviaid is going to take over from
here. He reached down with his right hand to the center console and
flipped four switches.
The throttles slid full forward. The turbines roared to life. I was
shoved back into the seat as the plane leapt forward. Five seconds later
we were airborne. I felt the bump as the wheels retracted home. The
throttles moved slightly back. The turbines lost some of their roar. The
landing lights switched off. The little plane leveled off at two
thousand feet and the throttles slid back to about midway. The turbines
quieted down to a whisper.
I leaned over to check on Ricky. “Damn! What did I need you for? I
should have left you there to slow them down. You are dead weight.”
Looking out the window the car lights were receding in the distance.
There were little lights twinkling around most of the vehicles. It was
the flash flare from their guns shooting at us. I wanted to laugh. We
were already out of range even if there had been someone in the group
who knew how to shoot a moving target.
“Where we going.” I was curious if we were headed to Brazil or Chile
or...?
“Ft. Worth. I need back into the lab.”
“Ricky, we can’t just fly back into the states. You're going to change
me back? I thought you said that was a dummy lab for the government guys
to keep an eye on. In case that bullet messed up your mind, there is
customs and border patrol. I sure as hell can’t explain me.” I was
positive Ricky was delirious.
“We never left that little airport we parked at in south Texas. Trust
me.” He programmed some data into a screen on the panel.
“Ricky, I need to look at that wound. You opened it up again when you
climbed into the plane. I need you in back or over in this seat so I can
dress that wound.” I stood up and moved back out of the way.
“Your seat. The naviaid is almost perfect as a pilot. It needs a little
help from time to time if something comes up it doesn’t understand.” He
was pushing himself up out of his seat.
I helped him move over to the co-pilot seat before I removed his
bandages and repacked the wound. I had the blood stopped for now. If
Ricky would stop moving it wouldn’t bleed again.
The twin made a course correction. I sit down in the pilot’s seat Ricky
had vacated. “How does it know where to go and how to get there?”
Ricky took a shallow breath. “Got any of those pain pills handy?
Multiple systems are feeding data into the computer. Satnav is the same
as the GPS in your truck. More accurate. Ground mapping is watching the
terrain below to make sure we are on course. Loran is triangulating the
homing beacons from five or more navigational signals from airports…,
He sucked in his breath. “Radar is checking for planes, mountains,
towers, ahead, to the side, above, and below us. If the target is moving
it tells the naviaid the flight path and how fast the target is moving.
The naviaid adjusts our flight path and height accordingly to keep a
clear distance from the target.”
The doc gave me a bag full of pills at the clinic. I found a couple for
Ricky along with a bottle of warm water from the cooler inside the
plane. I hadn’t stopped for ice and refreshments when we left the docs
office. If I had stopped we both would be dead or enjoying having our
fingers and toes sliced off one at a time. Those cars were way too close
when we left the airport. One minute later and we wouldn’t have left.
Ricky downed a couple pills. “I’m going to rest for a little while.
Don’t touch anything. There will be lights blinking at you or little
beeps every now and then. They are only a heads up warning. The system
will auto correct itself. If it really wants our attention you will know
it and so will I.”
What a hell of a mess I had got into! Now we were flying back into the
Lion’s Den and I was no longer me. I wasn’t even a US citizen. I was
nobody. Well not quite. I was every male’s dream even if I wasn’t really
Jessica. Try and explain that one to the CIA when they got their clammy
little hands on me. “damn”
I think Ricky was sleeping for most of the two hours we had been in the
air when an eeep, eeep started screeching from the plane. “Ricky, what
do I do?”
“Nothing.” He reached over to the console, pushed a button, and the
screeching stopped. Slipping on a set of headphones he adjusted his
voice mike and played with the keys and knobs on the radio. “Negras
tower, this is N74682, altitude two thousand, on a northbound approach.
We are ten miles out. Airspeed three seventy requesting permission to
land and check some equipment.”
I slipped on the headphones to listen as the tower replied. “N745682
permission granted. You are cleared for a straight in approach. Runway
18. Winds are two to three from the north west. You have a Cessna one
seven two fifteen miles to your west approaching the pattern. Altitude
one thousand six hundred.”
Ricky pushed some buttons on the console. “Roger Negras tower.
Understand we are cleared for a straight in approach on runway 18. We
are painting the Cessna one seven two on our radar and confirm we have a
visual.”
“Jess, don’t touch anything. The plane will land itself. I need you to
taxi us off the runway after it is down. Hand me the computer on the
left side of your seat please.”
I found the laptop and handed it to Ricky. He opened it up and started
playing with the keyboard. My curiosity was killing me. “Now what?”
“Wireless at this airport. I’m looking for a plane that's already
cleared customs and is flying into the states.”
I felt a bump as the landing doors opened up and the landing gear came
down. The throttles eased back. The whine from the turbines got even
quieter. More levers moved and the flaps started dropping as landing
lights came on. I was looking at a runway straight ahead of us. The
plane was actually going to land itself without Ricky’s help.
As the wheels greased the runway two more levers moved. It felt like we
had hit a brick wall. I was ready to panic. Ricky slightly shook his
head. “Reverse thrust. The plane is slowing down without wearing out the
brakes.”
In less than two minutes we had touched down and came to a stop in the
middle of the runway. “Jess, your turn. Taxi down to the first off ramp
you come to. Pull onto the taxi ramp and go back to the end of the
runway. We aren’t staying for breakfast. Put your right hand down beside
your seat. You will feel a tee handle. Pull up. It locks your nose wheel
to your control wheel. You can steer where you want to go without riding
the brakes and rudder so much.”
I did as he told me before I touched the throttles. I slightly wiggled
them forward. We started rolling.
“N745682 bring your plane to the tower.” Came over the radio.
Ricky tapped a key on his computer and static hissed into my headphones.
“Say again tower, you are breaking up. Jess, don’t stop. Go straight to
the other end of the runway.”
Guiding the plane was a thousand times easier with the nose wheel
steering us like a tricycle. I made sure we didn’t go too fast as I kept
it on the taxiway headed back to the end of the runway.
“N745&$% you are $@%^^# tower.” Came across the headphones
“Tow^$%#@&* brea#@$#$ up.” Ricky responded
A yellow truck with yellow, blue, red lights flashing started up at the
tower.
“Jess get us lined up on the runway now.”
I was watching lights approaching from the air. “Ricky there is a plane
coming in.”
“We will be gone by the time he gets here if you will get us on that
runway. Otherwise we will be here for a long long really long time. That
welcome wagon coming from the tower isn’t bringing welcoming gifts.”
I moved out to the runway and lined it up knowing that airplane
approaching was going to land on top of us.
“Jess, reach down and push that T handle down to unlock the nose wheel.”
I did as Ricky asked while waiting for the crunch of a plane landing on
us. I wasn’t counting that truck racing down the taxiway toward us with
all the lights flashing. Our headsets were crackling and all I heard was
garbled words mixed in with static.
“Hands and feet off everything.” Ricky reached down to the center
console.
The throttles slipped forward and the turbines roared to life. I was
pushed back into the seat. The driver of the truck realized we weren’t
going to wait on him. He turned across the grass to put his truck on the
runway ahead of us and block our takeoff.
I was looking at a driver in a truck who knew he had signed the death
warrant for himself, along with those in the plane. His eyes were big as
dinner plates. I honestly thought I could reach out and touch him. I
felt a whump as the pickup and driver disappeared under the nose of the
plane. I knew we had crashed. I waited for the smack down back into the
runway which was to be our death. The lights of the runway were fast
disappearing below and behind us. I didn’t believe it when I felt the
bump of the wheels as they retracted and the throttles eased back.
“The best I could do on short notice was a Cessna one fifty that had
cleared customs, headed to McAllen.” He was busy flipping switches and
dials.
“Did we hit that truck?” I didn’t care about a plane cleared from
customs. I wanted to know if we still had a plane ourselves?
“Wheel did. Didn’t you feel your side rock up? Naviaid took it in stride
and corrected. The cab of that truck is in the truck seat. We will pick
up the Cessna in twenty one minutes and over fly it. We will steal his
transponder signal and become a Cessna one fifty ourselves. We will have
to keep a course to McAllen or the Border Patrol will be all over us.
From there we will become whatever is flying north toward Dallas or Ft.
Worth. Hopefully it won’t be a single engine prop.” Ricky closed up his
laptop and rested.
Watching Ricky rest I felt so damn helpless. I was completely out of my
element and totally useless to him. Some people complain when their
lives get turned around. Holding up my hands and looking at them before
I cupped my breasts; my life wasn’t only turned upside down, it had been
completely turned inside out. Ricky’s machine was destroyed. Unless he
had another hidden away someplace I was stuck as Jessica, every male’s
fantasy girl. Feeling sorry for myself and wishing Ricky had let me die
of cancer wasn’t helping. Wishing Ricky hadn’t wanted Jessica for a
girlfriend for one night wasn’t helping either. Wishing wasn’t changing
the past nor building a future. Provided I didn’t slit my own throat
first, I needed decent clothes.
Running around half dressed in a glitter dress until I shot myself was
not going to happen. The bracelet and watch was the first to go. The
gloves had to go. Working by feel it took me a long time to get the
clasp and safety chain lose on the necklace. The earrings were next. The
tiara was last as I had to work my hair out of it before I could remove
it. Everything went into a pile beside the seat. Ricky could return it
to the rightful owner if he survived.
The plane started beeping. Ricky opened his eyes and took a short look
in my direction. “Sorry Jess. Okay, the Cessna is ahead and below us.
Let’s steal his transponder signal in four three two… We are now a
Cessna one fifty. Better slow down so the guys watching their radar
don’t get suspicious. That Cessna does good to push a hundred and fifty
miles per hour.” Ricky throttled back. The airspeed dropped from three
fifty to one hundred and sixty.
Approximately nineteen minutes later Ricky crossed back into the US and
turned northwest. “Gotchu. Citation close enough to steal their
transponder signal.”
“Citation? What is that?” I was looking for another plane.
“Jet. He is lifting off from McAllen now.” Ricky shoved the throttles
forward. The turbines picked up a deep roar as we started climbing.
“Can we keep up with a jet?” I didn’t believe Ricky would want to try
and ghost along with a jet.
“Long enough to be out of reach of the Border Patrol when we become a
separate plane from them.”
I could see a civilian twin engine jet ahead of us climbing for blue
sky. Ricky was in hot pursuit and closing. Ricky’s turbo prop had more
climb power than the jet. The jet would be faster once it leveled out.
Ricky kept the jet several hundred yards ahead as it kept climbing.
Ricky passed twenty two thousand, pulled the throttles back, and then
went into a dive. “Back on the deck to stay under their radar.”
“Ricky, this is insane. Why are we going back to your lab if nothing
works there? You know they will have bugs all over that place even if
they don’t have live bodies watching it.” I was getting excited as the
ground came rushing up to great us. It looked to me like we were getting
darn close. Too close.
Ricky leveled off at two hundred feet.
Looking over at him I realized he had used up everything he had to get
us this far. He was slumped over the wheel. He looked finished. “Ricky?”
“Give me a minute Jess. Take the controls would you? I don’t have our
route programmed in. Hold this heading. Don’t fly us into any towers.”
He turned lose of the wheel and leaned back.
I put my hands on the wheel and started scanning the horizon like a
birddog on point. How would I know? The sun hadn’t come up yet. It was
still dark. “Ricky???”
“fly the plane jess.” Came softly from the other side of the cockpit.
“Ricky, I can’t do this.” I was scared out of my every loving mind.
“Yes you can”
A quick look told me Ricky was either asleep or passed out. “We are
gonna die”
A beep beep was coming from the panel. I tried to figure out what it was
telling me. It keep beeping. “Bank left.” Was a female voice.
Experience told me the plane was sensitive to the controls. I slightly
turned left. The plane banked and the beeping stopped. I leveled out.
Was I supposed to keep this heading or go back on course? While I was
trying to decide, a tower a lot taller than us went by a half mile to
our right.
“Damn plane is a lot smarter than me. It is going to guide me around
those things if I don’t do it myself. Maybe we aren’t going to die? This
plane doesn’t want to. How smart can they make these things?” My nerves
were starting to calm just a little. If I didn’t have Ricky guiding me
the next best thing was this plane of his.
Thirty minutes later Ricky was stirring as he moaned. The plane had
steered me clear of two more towers. Nothing was a near miss. We had
plenty of distance when the plane told me to bank. “Ricky?”
He opened his eyes. “I got it Jess. Think you can find some more of
those pain pills while I program in our destination?”
“Sure.” I slid out of the seat and went to find the pills and water. Off
to our right the morning was starting to break on the horizon. We had
lived to see one more day. I was hoping this day wasn’t our last. I
really didn’t want to die.
===========================================================
It wasn’t that long before Ricky slopped the little twin in on the
runway we had left a lifetime ago. I managed to get my heels back on,
open the hanger, and get my pickup out. Helping Ricky out and into my
pickup was tough enough. I could tell it took everything out of Ricky.
He was looking rough again.
“Ricky, what do I do? I can’t move that plane by myself.” There was no
way I was going to push that big plane back into the hanger by myself.
“Leave it for now. Find us a payphone. I need to make a call.” He was
slumped in the seat.
The problem with that is all payphones are inside the stores now.
Telephone companies got tired of repairing phones and phone booths
because someone wanted to rob the phones. I parked in front of Super Sak
and walked around the pickup to help Ricky out. Everyone within a block
of that place went to high alert as I stepped out of the truck.
Wolf whistles came across the parking lot from some guys in a truck.
“Yeah, yeah, eat your heart out kiddies. I’m all show and no go.” Ricky
was leaning on me as I helped him into the store and the phone.
Ricky handed me five dollars. “I need lots of quarters. Long distance.”
Ricky started feeding the payphone when I returned with a handful of
quarters.
Looking around there were a dozen or more people in that store. All of
them were staring. I knew why. I was almost in that purple glitter dress
I was wearing. I couldn’t do anything about it.
“Thanks Sergie. I owe you big time.” Ricky hung up.
“Jess, get me in the truck. I’m tired.” His side was all bloody again
with blood leaking through his shirt.
“Don’t you quit on me now.” I pulled his arm around my shoulder and
halfway carried him back to the truck. It was a chore getting him up in
the seat but we managed.
“Get something to eat while we are here and then find us a motel.” Ricky
handed me his billfold.
I headed back inside the store to find some juice, milk, and some of
those ready made sandwiches. One of the employees was picking up the
phone. I stopped as she punched nine one one. “Miss, hang it up or I’ll
break your head. My friend and I don’t need any police.”
Her eyes got big as she slammed it back down before it had rang.
Keeping an eye on everyone to make sure no one pulled a cell phone or
the lady didn’t make another try for her phone I collected what I needed
from the coolers. People parted as I walked back up to the counter with
my loot. As she rang up my total some cell phones came out from those
around me. They weren’t dialing. They were taking pictures.
My groceries were bagged. As I paid for them I looked the cashier in the
eye. “Please don’t call the police. There is nothing you can tell them
that will help.” I walked out hoping she had a heart.
There was no way I was going park at a motel close to that convenience
store in case the lady didn’t have a heart. Getting tangled up with the
police was not in my play book now. I drove ten or twelve miles before I
saw what I wanted. It was a motel off the main thoroughfare.
It had a kitchenette in some of the rooms. The desk clerk wouldn’t
forget me but it couldn’t be helped. I probably looked like a hooker
helping her john to a room. Make that a very, very expensive hooker. The
kind who didn’t patronize the kind of low rent motels this guy was
running.
Ricky was quickly running out of steam. It took even more effort to get
him to bed and rebandage his wound. I managed to get some liquids,
pills, and a couple bites of food down him before he was out.
“Be back shortly.” I knew he wouldn’t hear me as I headed for the
pickup.
As bad as I hated this I needed to find clothes other than what I was
wearing. The neighborhood was upscale. The little thrift store wasn’t
one of those low end places although the prices were. It wasn’t as if I
hadn’t shopped at these kind of stores for clothes and other goodies. I
just hadn’t shopped for women’s goodies. People were staring before I
ever walked into the store. Those inside seemed to lose all interest in
what they had stopped for.
Trying clothes out in the dressing room I found a three piece brown
western pants suit in a size fourteen that could handle my abundance.
There was a soft green dress in a fourteen I dropped into the cart. I
found pants, blouses, and a couple more jackets before I headed to the
shoes. After trying on several different sizes I found a seven worked
for me. There was a problem. Ricky had designed this body for five inch
heels. I found only one pair with a five inch heel and settled for one
four and a half inch in a cowgirl boot and a five inch in a fashion
boot. There were a couple big western shoulder purses I liked. They
could hold my fifty caliber without any problem. I picked out the one
with the tooling on it. A woman’s leather billfold had western tooling I
liked. I found lipstick, blush, and a whole lot of other girl items that
had never been used. After I gathered up a suit, a couple pants, and a
couple shirts for Ricky, I checked out using Ricky’s money.
A mile up the street there was a Walmart but I needed help for my next
stop. I wasn’t ready to guess at this next job. Brenda’s was in a
shopping mall I passed. I circled around and made the stop way out in
the parking lot naturally as there was no close in parking. There was
the now expected chatter around me as I walked across the parking lot to
the boutique. Inside the store was no different. Two ladies moved up
like wingmen as I walked over to the brassieres.
“May we help you?” The perky blond on my left had already sized me up.
My embarrassment was way past tense after everything Ricky and I had
been through. I pointed at the bras. “I need one of those.”
“Yes ma’am. Which style would you like? What is your size?” The brunet
had closed in for the kill.
“I honestly don’t know the answer to your questions. That is the reason
I’m here.” Of course it was evil of me. Maybe it was a little payback
for them staring at me. It was a totally honest answer. I had no idea.
If I did I would have gone to Wally World.
The blonde I was looking at had a moment of panic on her face like she
was ready to flee. Maybe those who looked like me were supposed to know
virtually every single inch of bragging rights their body had. Maybe
Ricky knew since he designed this body. I didn’t have the slightest
clue. What are your measurements ma’am? Well let’s see, too much, too
little, too much. Next question.
The blonde coughed. “Ma’am?”
“If I knew I would be able to help myself. I’m new at this so a little
help please.” That should make the girls panic or give me some help. I
waited to see what it would be.
“Uh, yes ma’am. Joan, do you have your tape with you?” The blonde held
out her hand toward the other girl.
There were three other patrons in the store. They had stopped to watch
and listen.
“Would you like to step into the dressing room and remove your dress or
do you want us to measure you…, uh…, here?” Joan passed the end of the
measuring tape to the blonde.
I made a couple more stops and headed back to the motel. If the people
at the convenience store called the police with a description of my
pickup I was pushing my luck by driving it.
Ricky was asleep. I took the scissors and cut off the bottom of the
dress turning it into a mini dress. If Ricky was right that glue we used
to attach it to me would make sure I wore this little number for another
nine days before it finally released. I pulled on the brown pants and
jacket I had purchased. I checked the mirror. My hips were pushing the
limits in those pants and the waist needed a belt. The jacket didn’t
hide the fact I was over endowed. At least it wasn’t all hanging out for
the world to see. The western boots were next. I was wishing I could do
something with all that red hair. Taking the scissors to it myself
wasn’t something I was going to do. I plopped the cowboy hat on my head,
picked up my purse, and headed back out to the truck. I was going after
soup and broth for Ricky.
===============================================================
It was the second day and he was sitting up in bed. “I’m better.” Ricky
was sipping some of the soup I had heated up.
“You look a lot better. Yesterday I picked up a change of clothes for
you. Those you are wearing have blood all over them. You are probably
through bleeding over everything unless you strain something. Why don’t
you change.” I tossed the pants and shirt I had picked up at the thrift
store on his bed.
He handed the soup can back to me and started taking off his clothes. “I
noticed you picked up a change of clothes yourself. You did a very good
job. You look really nice.”
Yeah? Don’t get used to the view. I plan on slitting my own throat when
you get where you can get back up and running again.” I rinsed the can
and tossed it into the trash.
“Jess, I’m sorry. I wish I could take it all back. I wish I had never
done it. I can’t. The lab in Mexico was the only one.” He stopped
dressing and was looking at me with sorrow or pity in his eyes.
“I wish you hadn’t either but let’s get real. You did and I am. We will
make the best of a bad situation as long as we have to. This body isn’t
Tom. That fifty bruised my wrists with the kick. I am not going to be
playing any more He Man games. I tried holding the AR. It is too heavy
for me to be accurate with it unless I have it in a bipod position.”
Raising my foot I held it out. “A woman doesn’t lift a whole lot when
she is wearing heels. She doesn’t run worth a crap. She looks damn good
wiggling her ass as she walks. I always loved watching a woman in heels.
Now that I’m the one wearing heels I think it sucks big time.”
“Jess…,”
I held up my hand. “You say I’m sorry one more time and I’ll shoot you
myself. What is the plan for getting back into that lab of yours here in
Ft. Worth. And what is so important we are going to risk going back in
the CIA lion’s den to do such a stupid thing?”
“All my notes and data are on a drive in a computer in that lab.
Everything I did in the other lab is all there.” He had his pants on and
was finding his shoes.
“What makes you think it is still there? Have you forgot the CIA and
that company you used to work for? Those people keep computer geeks on a
leash digging through other people’s trash looking for hidden goodies.
I’m surprised they didn’t show up in Mexico if you were transmitting
data.”
For the first time in a couple days Ricky grinned. “I routed the data
through Russia and a blind server. Let’s say it got routed to several
blind servers before being sent to the lab here. They couldn’t trace it
and some of those places the long arm of the US Law isn’t able to reach
into. It is all encrypted data. The encrypted data is encrypted twice
over.
I know for a fact they have been capturing the download as it goes into
the lab. I know they have been feeding it through a super computer to
unscramble it since day one. Maybe in a thousand years at the current
rate they might get the data unlocked but I doubt it. My information is
so scrambled it would be akin to trying to reassemble a scrambled egg
back into what came out of the chicken.”
“Okay, you have all your lab notes in this lab. Even if we get the
information how long will it take you to rebuild your lab and put me
back together? A couple months? A year?” Ricky’s face gave me the answer
I didn’t want. “Years? Damn Ricky, how long?”
“Jess, I’m sorry…,”
“CUT THE CRAP! HOW LONG!”
Ricky shrugged his shoulders. “Fifteen or ten if problems don’t have to
be worked out.”
“FIFTEEN! YOU ALREADY BUILT ONE! HOW DIFFICULT CAN IT BE TO DO IT AGAIN?
WHAT PROBLEMS? YOU ALREADY WORKED ALL THE BUGS OUT! WHAT DO YOU MEAN
PROBLEMS?” To say I wasn’t hearing what I wanted to hear and I was
pissed was an understatement.
“Jess…,”
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. I’ll beat you to death right here and
now without a drop of remorse.” I was more than mad at Ricky. It was all
his fault. Everything was his fault. The fire was his fault. Getting
shot was his fault. The guys I killed were his fault.
The tears came unexpectedly. “Damn you” I tried wiping them away. “Damn
you all to hell”
Ricky started toward me. “Jess…”
I held up my hand as I cried and screamed at him. “GET THE HELL AWAY
FROM ME! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! JUST STAY THE HELL AWAY!”
I stormed out of the room crying my heart out. I climbed up into the
pickup and thought about driving away and never looking back. Where
would I go? What could I do to support myself? I thought about that
fifty caliber under the seat. I could blow my brains out and it would
all be over. And I cried and cried until there were no more tears or
self pity left inside me.
It really wasn’t Ricky’s fault. He saved my life. And this? He didn’t
plan on it going terribly wrong or he would have never done it. I knew
Ricky better than that. I trusted him with my life. I wiped my eyes and
looked at a couple dozen faces looking at me from their rooms. That got
me tickled. Probably thought it was a lover’s quarrel. Lovers? If those
people only knew. Never happen.
I wiped away the last of the tears before I walked back into the room.
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t your fault.”
A smile touched Ricky’s lips. “We had enough sorry to go around for
awhile don’t you think? Would you mind driving if an old friend asked
you out for something besides soup?”
“We are still friends?” I pushed my hair back over my shoulders before I
plopped that western hat down on my head and picked up my purse.
“We’ll always be friends Jess. I promise I’ll bring Tom back as quickly
as I can. Think he will still be my friend after this?” Ricky opened the
door and waited for me.
“I believe I can speak for Tom. He will always be your friend no matter
what. A word of caution though. He may punch you in the face for what
you did next time you see him.”
“Sounds fair.” Ricky closed the door behind us.
“Do you think he will mind if I take his girl out to eat?” Ricky was
getting into the pickup.
“As long as you behave. He won’t mind.” I found it funny we were talking
about me in the past tense as if I wasn’t here. Well…?
Ricky mentioned several places he would like to go. I deep sixed all of
them. If Ricky had gone there before, those CIA bloodhounds might have
bribed some of the staff to give a call if Ricky showed back up. It was
a sure bet the CIA canvassed everything with in a ten mile radius of
Ricky’s lab for such an opportunity.
The meal was light even if we were in a real restaurant. I didn’t let
Ricky order anything heavy. He might not have been gut shot but it made
little difference. Ricky paid for everything with cash. No credit cards.
The CIA birddogs would be on those for sure.
We received a lot of looks. It wasn’t anything compared to when I was
wearing that almost dress. The pants and jacket couldn’t hide
everything. They did cover most of me.
We were walking out when I reached behind my head and fluffed my hair
hanging down my back. “Ricky, I need a haircut.”
He brushed down my back before his arm went around my waist as we walked
to the pickup. “Jess, would you mind if you didn’t? It’s part of you.”
“There is no way to hide it. There is too much to bunch up under my hat.
You can bet your last lucky dime people talk about the bimbo with the
big tits and long red hair. If I get a haircut they would only have half
as much to talk about.” Ricky had opened my door for me. I slid up in
the driver’s seat.
“Give it some time to grow on you Jess. I would rather you didn’t cut
it.” He walked around and got into the passenger side.
I don’t know why Ricky’s opinion mattered to me but it did. “I’ll think
about it.”
On the way back to the motel I pumped Ricky for information on what his
plans were since he was feeling better. “How you plan on getting back
into your lab to pick up the information you stored there?”
“I’m hoping you will drive over there and pick up the storage vault.”
That got my attention. “Say what! You think I want to walk into the arms
of the CIA? You have toxic poison of the brain or something? I smacked
their people around pretty good and embarrassed the hell out of a couple
of their agents. Welcoming me back wouldn’t exactly be a homecoming
party.”
“Jess have you looked in the mirror today? Have you forgot you and Tom
weren’t twins? They wouldn’t stop you. Although we know they will be
monitoring the place why would they stop and question you? Torturing you
to find out who you are and what you know wouldn’t be in their handbook.
You are a new face on the scene. New faces are like pieces in a puzzle.
They wait to see where those faces fit in the picture before they boil
you in oil for all your secrets.” Ricky waited for that to sink in.
I could only shake my head in disbelief. “New face? That’s not what I
want to become. Right now I am not even a zero in anyone’s files. As far
as anyone besides you and me and the few people who have seen me in
their store, I don’t even exist. I would like to keep it that way until
I figure out how I am going to support myself for the next fifteen years
until you bring Tom back.”
“Give me a couple more days Jess. I have resources coming to help.”
The pickup was a problem. It had registration and tags in Tom’s name. If
the police ran those plates the CIA would be all over us like stink on a
skunk. We couldn’t get a rental. That took an ID even if Ricky had
enough money to pay cash for one. Again, flagged and the CIA would be
hot on our tails. I pulled into a grocery store to pick up more food
besides soup. If it was going to be a couple more days before help
arrived I didn’t want to be driving the pickup more than necessary.
With me showering with what was left of the dress still glued to my
breasts, the water helped it to come unglued. It was the fifth day after
Ricky had reshaped my body. I was toweling off when the bustier peeled
off the left breast. I worked at the right one until it too peeled off.
Ricky had seen everything before so being modest wasn’t in my mental
calculations. I walked into the room with the towel in my hands.
Ricky looked up from where he had been working on some notes he had
started. His eyes were moving back toward his tablet when they snapped
back in my direction a shocked look on his face. “cough, Jess…, uh…,
um…, you need to cover up.”
“Why? You have seen this before. Probably a couple thousand times while
you were designing it in that system of yours.” I was digging through my
stash looking for that bra I had purchased for this occasion.
“uh…, well…, ah…, it isn’t quite the same thing. And the circumstances
have changed. From now on it would probably be best if you kept your
body covered up. Please?”
I held the bra up and studied it. “Getting into that rig is gonna be a
trick.”
I slipped into it before I walked over to stand in front of Ricky. I
turned my back to him. “Hook me up.”
Ricky clutzed it before he finally managed to get it fastened. The bra
wasn’t comfortable and was pinching me. Although I didn’t have a
lifetime learning how to be a girl, I hadn’t got this old as a virgin.
Some of the girls with the bigger ones, like myself, wiggled things
around after corralling their puppies. It took some doing but I finally
got comfortable inside that get up.
“What a pain in the ass. The sales ladies told me I needed something
called a long line bra or corset to support my size. They didn’t carry
them. They told me LeParis Carrousel would have my size. If we have time
before we are hauled off to the Rubber Romper Room by the CIA I’d like
to pick up another bra.” I found panties and pulled them on before I
turned around to look at Rick.
“If you think you can spare the money that is. I imagine we will be
thinking more about food before this plays too long. When I borrowed
your billfold I noticed you carried quite a bit of money. I didn’t count
it. No matter how much you have, the well is going to run dry sooner
rather than later.
When I got sick in Mexico and figured I was done for. I stopped paying
rent on my apartment. They would have sold or trashed everything to try
and recoup their rent. That included the title on the truck. Everything
else I owned burned up in that lab. You can’t use any of your credit
cards or we will be greeted by the CIA or whoever else wants what you
designed.” I picked up my pants and was pulling them on. The western
shirt was next. And then socks and cowboy boots.
Ricky shook his head. “Would you be offended if I told you I had the
pleasure of watching the sexiest stripper act I have ever witnessed in
my whole life?”
“What are you babbling about? I wasn’t getting undressed. I was getting
dressed.” I fluffed my hair out over my shoulders and down my back.
“Un huh and you do it better than any woman I’ve ever seen.”
“You’re one sick puppy. You know that? I’m going for a walk. I need out
of this cage for some air.” I picked up my purse, pushed my hair back,
and slid the strap up on my shoulder.
“I’ll walk with you.” He was rising up from the chair.
“Ricky, I’d rather be alone for a little bit. Please, if you don’t
mind.” I waited for an answer.
“Jess…, You’re a woman. A damn beautiful woman. We have been in this
room for three days. You can bet your beautiful ass, word has spread
about the woman with the big boobs and long red hair who is staying in
room forty three. I had rather you didn’t walk alone. What I want you to
do is pack your things. Let’s move to another motel. We have overstayed
our time limit at this one. If you still feel like that walk you can do
it at the next one where no one will be waiting for you to step out of
the room even if a look is all they want.” He was putting his notes
away.
I stopped before I opened the door and gave it some thought. Ricky was
right. We had overstayed our visit for two people on the list of whoever
wanted to pull us in. I headed back across the room to gather up
everything. It doesn’t take long if one doesn’t have a lot of things to
pack. Five minutes later I had circled the room making sure nothing was
left before Ricky and I headed to the pickup.
===========================================================
Three days after leaving that first motel Ricky told me to load up
again. We weren’t coming back to the second motel.
“Jess, drive up to the Will Rogers Memorial Center.” Ricky climbed into
the pickup as I started it up.
“We are going to a show or something?” I was curious why we were headed
toward a convention center.
“Something. I want you to go into the main entrance. There is a
multicultural exhibit in building two. Find the Finnish exhibit booth.
You will purchase a magazine with the name Finland Today. Make sure the
lady with the nametag Helga is in the booth and you purchase it from
her. Pay for it with this. Wait for a receipt.” He was clutching
something as he held out his left hand
I stuck out my right hand for whatever it was. Something heavy dropped
into my palm along with a ten dollar bill. It was a silver dollar. I
took a quick look at Ricky. “Do I want to know?”
“I had rather you didn’t.” Ricky was holding out two twenties. “Cost
money to park and more to get in so they can sell you something. And
Jess.”
“Yes?”
Ricky grinned. “You’ll be lucky to find parking with in two or three
blocks of that place.”
“Oh swell. Ah what the hell. At least I’m not having to walk it in a
glitter dress slit clear up to my hip.”
After I parked Ricky wouldn’t let me drop my fifty cal in my shoulder
purse. “Jess, last time I was here they didn’t scan everyone. However
they do pull people aside for a spot check. I can almost guarantee you
will be pulled for a spot check. Not because they think you are carrying
but because they just want to look at you for a little bit.”
I was ready to panic. ”Pull me aside! I don’t have any identification.
What happens then? You want me to get arrested?”
Ricky got to laughing until his side hurt. He put his hands over his
wound as he shook his head. “It isn’t illegal to walk around in Texas
without an identification. They will ask so they can get your name and
address for their own personal interest. Jess they are guys, you’re a
beautiful woman. You might as well get used to being treated like one.
Guys will roust you just to put their hands on you if they think they
can get away with it.”
“Oh swell, just damn peachy keen! Now you tell me I can expect to be
fondled by every red blooded male within line of sight. I can’t wait to
see their faces when they ask me what my name is. Oh sir, my name is
Jessica Rabbit. Didn’t you see my movie and I’ve been in all the
magazines.” I gave Ricky my most disdainful look.
Ricky was laughing again. “Stop, stop, you’re killing me. Use Jessica
Rabbi. Now go. The sooner you go the sooner you get back and the less
time I spend sitting in this pickup with my side hurting. You have any
more of those pain pills? Ridding across town has brought the pain back
to the surface.”
Twenty dollars to park, ten dollars to get into the building, Ricky’s
funds had to be getting short. The pickup was needing gas. The gas I
bought in Dallas a lifetime ago smelled bad and was about used up
driving around Fort Worth. I wonder if anyone would hire me as a heavy
equipment operator? Miss Rabbit do you have any experience? Sure, I have
forty years running heavy equipment. Could I name the companies I worked
for? Sure, but they probably wouldn’t know me now.
“Miss would you step over here please.” One of the guards was motioning
for me as I walked into the building.
Okay, I’ll give Ricky a plus for his take on the guards pulling me
aside. I walked over where the three guards were standing watching the
people traffic. Or they were until I stopped in front of them. The other
people coming in had become invisible. I was all the guards were
concentrating on now.
“Would you open your purse please.” The guy with Cain on his name tag
was pointing at my purse.
“Sure.” Sliding my purse strap off my shoulder I placed my purse on the
table and opened it up for them.
Cain and then Harrelson looked down inside my purse. Harrelson looked up
at me. It wasn’t my face he was looking at. “Miss do you have some
identification on you?”
Ricky just won his second gold star. He knew these guys better than they
knew themselves. I dug around inside my purse for a second. “I’m sorry,
I must have left my billfold in my other purse when I changed this
morning.”
“Yes ma’am, what’s your name?” The guy with Rihter on his name tag also
couldn’t look up high enough to look me in the eyes.
“Jessica Rabbi.”
“Spell it please.” Cain was back in the loop.
“J E S S I C A…, R A B B I” I started to laugh. If they only knew.
“Yes ma’am. Where do you live Miss Rabbi?” Rihter wasn’t to be left out.
“Tucson Arizona. I was headed to…, Clackston, Arkansas to…, look over
some…, equipment. I heard there was a trade show here at the memorial
and decided to…, stop and look.” I was thinking of why I had said
equipment? What kind of equipment would someone who looked like me be
looking for? I knew why Arizona and Arkansas jumped into my mind for an
address. Too far out of state for these guys to possibly know the truth
if they had asked me to cough up some phony address.
“You staying in town long?” Harrelson was a birddog on the prowl. If
Jessica was staying for a night or two she might consider him as a date
tonight.
“No. This tradeshow was my last stop in Fort Worth. I’ll be back on the
road in a couple hours. I love driving in the evenings. The sun isn’t so
hot and the scenery is a lot prettier to look at with the longer
shadows.” I closed up my purse, pushed my hair back off my shoulder, and
slid the purse strap up on my right shoulder.
“Yes ma’am, enjoy the trade show.” Cain was looking disappointed along
with Harrelson and Rihter.
It was involuntary as I smiled and nodded at the guards before I turned
and headed to find that Finnish booth. I wasn’t smiling at them, I darn
near giggled out loud. They were too predictable. Men! Show them a pair
of big boobs and they become boobs themselves.
OH MY GOD! DID I JUST THINK THAT? I was starting to think like a woman!
I’m going to kill Ricky when I get back to the pickup.
It took a little bit of wandering the aisles before I found the Finish
Booth. Sure enough a lady with Helga on her nametag was manning the
booth. I walked up and looked at several of the brochures before I
picked up the magazine Finland Today.
“We have many beautiful places for visitors to enjoy. Our fjords are the
deepest blue water one has ever seen or swam in. We have many ski
resorts. Our cuisine reflects many cultures over the time of history.”
She stepped up to give me the tourist pitch.
“Maybe. I think I will take the magazine and read about it.” I reached
in my purse and wrapped my hand around the ten dollars and the silver
dollar Ricky gave me.
“The magazine lists many resorts and scenic areas of interest. Three
dollars for the magazine.” She held out her hand for money.
I palmed what I had into her hand and pushed her fingers around it.
One had to be looking really hard at her face to see it happen. A
flicker of surprise in her eyes was the only indicator she knew what the
money was for. She reached out and took the magazine. “Here let me put
it in a bag for you.”
She walked to the back of her booth and slid the magazine into a plastic
bag imprinted with Visit Finland on it. She returned and handed me the
bag. “It’s such a beautiful bag. I hope you don’t throw it away.”
“Thank you.” I was headed for the exit and the pickup. What I handed her
wasn’t a payoff. It was only a signal I was a messenger. Don’t trash the
bag? Maybe what I was carrying back to Ricky was the bag rather than the
magazine? I hoped he knew because I sure didn’t.
A block away from the pickup I was looking for Ricky. I didn’t see him.
It was only when I walked up to the drivers side and started to open the
door I saw him crammed down into the floorboard as much as possible.
“What’s up?”
“You are being followed. Don’t look like you are looking. There is a man
in a gray shirt, casual jacket. He is probably standing by a vehicle
about one hundred feet away. He followed you out. He will act like he is
searching for his car keys to get into the car he is standing next to.
He is waiting for you to leave so he can flag his ride. They will tail
you.”
“Open up your magazine and act like you are reading it. We can out wait
him. He can only look like he is fumbling for car keys for so long
before he looks out of place.”
Climbing up into the pickup I pulled the magazine out of the bag .
Laying the bag down on the seat I pushed it toward Ricky before I opened
up the magazine. “She said I shouldn’t throw the bag away.”
“Smart girl.” He pulled it in, turned it inside out, and was holding it
to look at it up against the light.
“He isn’t walking away. He is headed this way.” Looking over the top of
the magazine I was watching the man.
“He is going to read your license plate. Go stand in front of it. Check
your engine. Or something.” Ricky tried to look even smaller in the
floorboard of the pickup.
The fifty was under the seat. I slipped it into my purse before I opened
the door and walked around to the back of the pickup. I placed my purse
on the bumper in front of the tag.
The man stopped when he was where he could read the tag if my purse and
myself hadn’t been in front of it. “Got problems?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
From the flicker in his eyes he wasn’t quite sure how to read that one.
“Planning on problems coming along later, maybe?”
“In play.”
That was all he needed. He knew, I knew the reason he was there. “Lots
of luck then.”
“Luck always helps.” I couldn’t help myself as I had to smile over that
one. And sometimes a change of life helps a whole lot more. If he only
knew I was Thomas Baker he probably would have whipped out that Glock he
had in his shoulder holster and arrested me.
“You know, all I have to do is make a call. I could have fifty Rangers
here in a couple minutes.” He was studying me to see if that chased any
secret bugs out of the conversation.
I figured he was over stating the numbers but it didn’t make a whole lot
of difference. Two agents or fifty the situation could get ugly in a
hurry. I wasn’t going to let them have Ricky. He was my ticket back to
being me. And I wasn’t going to any interrogation room. I shrugged it
off.
“Not scaring you am I? How big is that pistol you’re carrying I’m not
seeing?” He gave me a full body scan looking for bumps that didn’t
belong.
“Bigger than that Glock you’re carrying.” There wasn’t any need of
denying I was carrying. At this point he didn’t seem interested in
hauling me in other than a male hormone thing or desire to get his hands
on my body. I had to smile over that one. I was one step ahead of men. I
had been one. And I planned on being one again when Ricky fixed me.
“Must be in your purse than. Your clothes are too tight to conceal a gun
that big. You military or ex military? That kind of knock down power
isn’t something civilians choose. I have never seen a woman carry one.”
“It’s possible.” He was digging without hauling me in. I didn’t think it
was the idea I was carrying that stopped him. He was playing nice.
He nodded. “Probably you mean. You ever kill anyone?”
That one took a bite. We never forget the ones we kill. “I did what I
was told to do.”
“You mean trained to do. How many?” He knew he had touched a nerve. He
was pursuing the thread.
“One was too many. If I had been trained as you suggest.” I didn’t need
to count them. I remembered every single one.
He hesitated as he studied my eyes. “Sniper, you were a damn sniper. A
woman sniper…, I’ll be damned. You were. I can see it in your face. You
guys…, people never go any place without that toy once you have used it.
In your pickup isn’t it? No wonder I don’t scare you or why you picked
up on me. Iraq? Afghanistan? ”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say Nam. My brain kicked in before it
left my mouth. Too long ago. Actually it wasn’t me that first homed in
on him. Ricky spotted him first. If he wanted to see my rifle it wasn’t
going to happen. It would mean he would also see Ricky. I put my hand in
the opening of my purse. “I’m not going to give you permission to search
my pickup.”
“Fair enough. As a professional courtesy I’m not going to ask. Curiosity
is killing me though. Do you believe you can pull your gun out of your
purse faster than I can get mine? Not that I want to test it for real.”
He was smiling as his eyes danced with amusement.
“Let’s not find out if you don’t mind. Sometimes things go terribly
wrong when people start playing with loaded guns…, I never pointed a gun
at anything I didn’t intend to kill.” My fingers were wrapped around the
fifty as I waited.
“Sounds like good advice. I’m going back inside to look at the trade
show. Hope those troubles you thought might be coming don’t happen. I
have a real strong feeling we will meet again Red. I’ll be the one
carrying a white flag if there are a bunch of guys who think you should
be brought in. Play nice and don’t kill the guy with the white flag.” He
turned and walked off toward the Coliseum
There was no adrenaline rush. Some of the guys would pump up full
overload as they searched for their target. The kill shot was another
rush. I never received any of that. It was a job. I didn’t hate it, I
didn’t like it. I treated it as a job I was told to do. I was positive
this agent would have treated me differently if I had been Tom. Lead
probably would have been flying. I was beginning to figure out there
were advantages to being the over endowed sex bimbo Ricky had turned me
into. I was still gonna kill him after he changed me back.
He walked into the building before I climbed back into the pickup. “He’s
gone.”
Ricky was still down on the floor. “Drive out of here. I’ll stay where
I’m at until you put some distance between him and us.”
“Your pain. Springs are heavy duty and shocks are super struts. It rides
like a truck for a reason.” I pulled out and headed for the street.
“How much gas you got?”
“Eighth of a tank. About two gallons or twenty miles town driving.” I
was wondering how far we were going?”
“You need gas. Take some side streets for awhile to make sure we aren’t
being followed. Get gas before jumping back up on the interstate. Go
south and pick up thirty five south. Drop off on twenty west. About
thirty miles west you will see some signs pointing toward Weatherford
Lake. Take it.”
“How long you plan on staying down on the floor?” I couldn’t imagine
Ricky’s gunshot wound getting any better in the position he was in.
“Eight or ten blocks if you are sure we aren’t being followed. Try and
not hit all the pot holes in the road would you?” He winced as we
bounced over a big one.
“Floor board driver. Everyone wants to be the pilot in command.” I was
going to make sure we weren’t being followed before I stopped for gas.
Ricky needed off the floorboard.
With all the zig zaging we did to make sure we weren’t followed it took
a couple hours to make it to that lake road. Ricky guided me to a little
off road back in the mesquite where it seemed we drove for another mile
or so. I was looking at a small tan car pulled back into the mesquite.
Well hidden unless someone drove upon it like we did.
“What’s the story?” I pulled the fifty out of my purse and laid it on
the seat by my right hip. I stopped about fifty feet from the car not
knowing what to expect.
“Hopefully help if things didn’t get crossed up in the timing.” Ricky
slid out of the seat after I stopped.
The car door opened. One of the finest examples of female I had seen
since I last laid eyes on Tracy that fateful night, rose out of that
car. She did it gracefully and eloquently. She had all the right curves
in all the right places in perfect proportions. I was jealous. I was
wondering if she was a product of God or if she had made a trip through
Ricky’s machine?
Ricky glanced in my direction and laughed. “Close your mouth Jess. She’s
a girl, you’re a girl.”
“Yeah, but not forever. Get her name and phone number would you?” I
wanted my first date to be with this girl when I was Tom again.
“Nice to see you again Linda.” Ricky gave her a hug after she walked
over to our pickup.
“You too Ricky.” She hugged him back before placing the briefcase she
was carrying up on the hood of the pickup. “Everything is in the case.
New identity, new passport, money.”
She pointed at me. “Your girlfriend Ricky? No one knows who you are hon.
There aren’t any records. The way you stand you are out of place. The
crew has been trying to figure out if you are some dumb bimbo Ricky
picked up on the fly? I have no idea where Ricky found you.”
I was mulling that one over. Being called a dumb bimbo was new territory
for me. I honestly was thinking about beating the holy shit out of the
woman. What didn’t register was when and where she or her crew looked me
over? Probably at the trade show booth?
Ricky looked at me, back to Linda, and back at me. “Claws in Jess. I
need what Linda brought.
Linda opened up the briefcase and was showing the papers. “You are Ricky
Ronald Chavenski, Russian, American, Peruvian. Your government can run a
check on the papers. They are legit. You exist in the system. Credit
cards, money in US, Swiss, Rubles, every thing all good business
managers would carry. Your plane is designated as a Peruvian diplomatic
courier.”
Looking at Ricky she shook her head. “I wouldn’t get too deep into
diplomatic immunity if the situation gets iffy. Those papers won’t hold
up to any scrutiny. Bluff your way out before they have a chance to run
the papers.”
“When are you going to share all your ideas with us. You know my
government would take good care of you. The finest wine, live anywhere
you want, all the help you could desire…,”
She gave me a careful examination before turning her attention back to
Ricky. “Dimitry said he would even promise me as your mistress. The cad
has no loyalty. I am seriously thinking about shooting him next time I
see him.”
Ricky laughed as he leaned up, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed
her on the cheek. “An offer I almost can’t refuse. But alas, I must
because when you got mad at me what would stop you from shooting me? I
love you my sweet temptress but I would live in fear for my life.”
Linda pushed back and looked him in the eyes. “No different than what
you are doing now is it? Ricky, the FBI, CIA, NSA, and every damn bounty
hunter your government can buy is trying to find you. Your burned out
lab in Acapulco with six dead bodies strung around it put everyone on
high alert.”
“How…” Ricky looked surprised.
“Know? Everything can be burned to a crisp, the basic idea still lies
intact. Someone with unusual skills in the paranormal had assembled
something. Did you get the Philadelphia Project working? Is that what
burned up your lab?” She waited for an answer.
Ricky shook his head. “You and I have never lied to one another. That is
the reason I’m not going to answer your questions. If you know the lab
went up in smoke then you know every thing I was working on is past
tense now. Don’t ask me again because I can’t tell you.”
“Money…”
“Linda, I don’t have need of money. Your government paid me quite well
for the White Out schematics. Hon, let it go. If you need to tell
Dimitri or Sergie something, tell them it is what they think it is.”
She stepped up, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed Ricky on
the lips before she looked him in the eyes. “My government wants you as
bad as your own government. If they think you are going to fall into the
hands of some US agency they will do every thing they can to get their
hands on you first. If that isn’t possible they will kill you to keep
your knowledge from your government.”
Ricky held onto her hand to stop her from leaving. “Another favor?”
“Name it.”
Ricky nodded in my direction. “She needs an identity.”
Linda was taking a good hard look. “How soon?”
“ASAP”
“I need pictures. Is this how you want her to look? I have a camera in
the car.” She walked back to her car. A second later she pulled out one
big high end camera with a long telephoto lens on it.
“Always prepared are we?” Ricky was being sarcastic.
Linda snapped the lens off and replaced it with a shorter lens. “In my
line of work? You are pulling my leg my sweet.”
She took several pictures before she walked up in front of me and
pointed the camera at my face. “Smile, snarl, growl, whatever it is
cowgirls do.”
A smile was the last thing I felt like doing. I brought up what I
thought was a happy face.
“Lose the hat, bring your hair up over your shoulder, turn slightly away
from the camera, and look off into the distance showgirl.” She was
steadily clicking the camera.
Doing as she suggested I was thinking about that camera. There wasn’t
any whirl as the film wound with each shot. It had to be a digital
camera.
“Remove your shirt.”
“WHAT! I will not.” I wasn’t going to start showing skin for some stupid
identification card or whatever.
Linda’s eyes were dancing as she glanced at Ricky.
Ricky shook his head. “Jess, take off your shirt. The guys will put
clothes back on you when they touch up your pictures.”
“This better not be a joke.” I unsnapped the shirt and laid it on the
hood of the pickup.
Linda hadn’t stopped taking pictures even when I was undressing. “Move
some so there will be different poses. And then take off your pants.”
I rolled my eyes at Ricky. “I’m going to kill you when this is over.”
Linda backed up as she was taking pictures.
She finally stopped and snapped the cover back on the camera. “The lab
can find something to work with in there. What is your name?”
“uh…,” I vapor locked. My name or the name Ricky had hung on me?
“Jessica Sarah Rabbit.” Ricky answered for me.
I gave Ricky my ‘you’re road kill’ stare.
Linda picked it up. She laughed. “Okay, Ricky even putting a rush on it
they will need six days. I need to send them the pictures, they will
have to work on her attire, and then they will need to route it through
government channels to make it official. Where do we meet?”
“Never the same place twice. Where do you suggest?” He was watching me
as I pulled my clothes back on.
“That little airport where you parked your plane? From the turn in at
the airport go south of that thirty point four miles. There is a ranch
road leading to the west. Follow that for about six miles and you will
find me. Be there sometime between oh five hundred and oh six hundred.”
“Until next time Miss Vegas.” She walked back over to her car.
She held the door open, shook her head, and turned toward Ricky. “You
need to ditch the bitch. She stands out like the headliner for a Vegas
show opener. Everyone who sees her will remember her unless they are
already juiced up in a mental ward.”
A smile spread across Ricky’s face from ear to ear. “Linda, play nice.
Those six dead bodies back in Mexico…? Jess tapped them. What did I do
to help? I got shot. I wouldn’t have made it if Jess hadn’t dragged my
ass out of there.”
Linda took a slow measured look in my direction. “My man said a fifty
caliber put em all down. Everyone a single bullet kill shot. You’re a
damn sleeper. Gives a whole new meaning to looks to kill by. I have
picked up on some of the best in the business. Your looks sure fooled
me. I’m not going to apologize for calling you a bimbo. I will apologize
for telling Ricky to toss you out with the trash. Next time show me why
Ricky puts so much faith in you.”
“Ricky, get rid of the pickup. I don’t know how you have managed to run
around this long without getting stopped by the law. That pickup is
registered and licensed to your friend Thomas Baker. It has been on the
hot list from that time your friend took out two CIA agents. Mailing
back their personals from Santa Cruz, Bolivia pissed them off even more.
Six agents flew down to Bolivia to find you and your friend. If you see
him tell him to keep his head down.
Ricky took a couple steps in her direction. “Linda, wait. Who sells good
rides and doesn’t ask too many questions?”
“Dallas…? Try Diamond Imports. Tell Hernandez you know Dimitri. Tell him
the pickup is on the hot list.”
She slid into the driver’s seat and was gone almost as quickly.
“Next time?” I was watching the dust settle back down on the road as the
car disappeared around a turn in the road.
“Linda meant for you to keep your gun handy. She wants to see how good
you are.”
“Ricky, I’m not going to get into any showdown with somebody who wants
to see if I can shoot or not.” I couldn’t believe Linda would suggest
such a thing.
The pickup wasn’t the last of our identification. Ricky still had his
plane and his car was in storage. We sure weren’t going to go get his
car. An old pickup in Texas is one of a couple million other old beat up
trucks. Every rancher, farmer, wannbe cowboy drove one along with all
the construction guys. It was the only reason we didn’t get stopped the
two weeks we spent driving the thing. There is safety in numbers. Old
pickups in Texas meant a big herd of vehicles to look at if one wanted
to pick out just one from that mass of motors.
=============================================================
We drove over to Dallas and found Diamond Imports although imports
wasn’t all the vehicles Hernandez sold. The guy’s name was Jimmy
Hernandez.
“Looking for an older dependable ride in a don’t look at me style and
color.” Ricky was explaining what he was looking for.
“I have a few of those on the lot. Why don’t we go see if any of them is
what you want?” Jimmy pointed out to the cars scattered across two
blocks of car lot.
Ricky never turned around to see as he watched Jimmy. “Dimitri said you
would have what I was looking for. Something you would drive yourself.”
Jimmy’s eyes flickered. “You have a trade in?”
Ricky pointed at the pickup. “No title and it’s on the hot list. Don’t
send it back out.”
“Get in your truck and follow me.” He headed for a Mercedes sports.
We followed Jimmy for a couple miles before he pulled up to a big
warehouse as the overhead door went up. He drove in and motioned us to
follow.
He was standing by an older Lincoln when we pulled into the warehouse.
The door closed behind us.
Ricky slid out and headed over where Jimmy was standing.
I could smell paint, oil, and a mix of chemicals. My hand went into my
purse. I had my fingers wrapped around the fifty. I opened the door and
stepped out. The AR was behind the seat. I unzipped the soft jacket it
was in and waited. Scanning the warehouse I didn’t see anyone else but
it was a big hole with six vehicles parked in there. Ricky could take
care of business. I wasn’t moving away from the pickup.
“Jess, come mere.” Ricky was waving me over.
I shook my head as I tried to keep an eye on all the corners of the
warehouse.
“Your friend, she careful. Jess your friend Ricky wants you to look at
the car. He says you know your vehicles and he doesn’t. He wants your
opinion.” Jimmy motioned me over.
“Okay.” I pulled the AR out and slipped the strap on my shoulder with
the rifle in the ready position. The clip was already in it. With a
scope on top and a laser cradled up against the scope it not only looked
lethal it was.
Jimmy wasn’t the only one who looked shocked.
Ricky didn’t do any better. “Jess…”
“Cork it. We are in a warehouse full of worked over vehicles. Those who
work on these vehicles to put back out on the street aren’t your usual
law abiding citizens.” I walked over where I would be facing the same
direction Jimmy had been and stood behind him.
Jimmy laughed as his eyes danced in amusement. “Senorita, I assure even
though you are right about the cars were worked on and painted, they are
all legal. This Lincoln is older yes? The engine, transmission, running
gear, and all electrical components were replaced with new. The car was
driven five hundred miles after leaving the shop to make sure nothing
was left undone and to test it. It will do a hundred and eighty for
sure. The tires are run flat. The doors have bullet proof armor plating.
The glass not so much but would still keep out most pistol slugs. There
is a police radio and scanner in the vehicle. It can also double as a
police car with flashing lights hidden behind the grill and in the
sunroof.”
He ran his hands down the side. “It looks old…, no? The man who
repainted this car is an artist. It takes talent to make new paint look
sun faded and old. My macho redid the engine. He should be building race
car engines. The engine is blueprinted and balanced. The intake and
exhaust ported and tuned. The blower is belt driven. He told me this
engine can easily put out eight hundred horsepower and not be breathing
hard. It has a Dodge truck rear end to handle all that horsepower. Heavy
duty shocks and springs for the weight.”
Jimmy swept his hand out at all the other vehicles. “Each one is my
baby, designed for a purpose and a special client. This Lincoln was
built for Mr. Dimitri. Not for him personally but one of his clients. I
don’t believe Mr.Ricky Ronald Chavenski was that client, but for Mr.
Dimitri I build another.”
“Who?” Ricky rolled his head and his eyes. “Oh.”
Jimmy laughed. “Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Listen, I don’t care who you
are or what problems you two are facing as long as you don’t bring the
wolves to my door. I sell vehicles which in a sense are like the assault
rifle she is holding. They serve a purpose to the people who buy them.
How that person uses their vehicle is not my responsibility. You drive
it out of here and it never existed in my inventory. The title and
registration is legal.”
He got serious. “You want the car? The warranty is my word. No paper
work. You have problems I’ll take care of them as long as you didn’t
drive it off a cliff or get hit by a missile. Some things the verbal
warranty doesn’t cover. There are three different sets of plates come
with the deal. Legal for the year and model. They will hold up for the
plate scanners. Far as the police eyeballing the car? Older family cars
don’t attract a second look the same way high performance wheels do.”
“Shall we talk price or is there something else you had in mind?” He
wasn’t looking at Ricky when he asked.
I never had a chance to ask Ricky before he pulled out a credit card. He
held it out to Jimmy. “How much?”
”Seventy two thousand.” Jimmy took the credit card.
Ricky nodded. “Don’t pull out more than nine thousand at a time.”
“Is it good for the total amount?” Jimmy hesitated.
“Provided you don’t try to get it all in one day.” Ricky glanced over at
me. “Get all your gear and put it in the car.”
Jimmy put his hand in his pocket and came back up with a cell phone and
four sets of keys. He held the keys out to me. “People in the line of
work we know nothing about and don’t talk about seem to have a problem
with keys. I don’t keep a set if you lose yours. Don’t call me if things
go terribly wrong and someone kept your keys. Inside the driver’s side
about three inches up under the dash with your left hand is a life
switch. It has a five second delay relay. Pull it out and hold. It will
try to reset, count to five, the car will start, the steering will
unlock, and you can drive it. And of course you can let go of the life
switch. Beside that pull switch is a toggle switch. It will kill your
taillights, brake lights and turn signals. Comes in handy if someone is
hot on your tail. You are no longer telling them when to brake or slow
down by watching your taillights.”
I was curious why Ricky thought he might need a tank tuff car? “Rick..,
why do you need this kind of car? Damn expensive for a set of wheels.
You could…,”
Ricky shook his head. “I hope we don’t need it. I hope it is a waste of
money. I hope ten years from now you are berating me for buying it. What
I don’t want is to need it and wish I had. Until then, it is wheels not
on the hot sheet and nothing more. Move your gear into the trunk. You
aren’t coming back for the pickup.”
“My tools are in the toolbox. That won’t fit in the trunk.” I opened the
toolbox in the bed of my pickup and took out the rifles we had liberated
from the CIA agents a lifetime ago.
“Leave it.” Ricky turned his attention to Jimmy. “The toolbox and
everything in it belongs to Jessica. Make sure it stays safe and nothing
disappears out of it. If she wants it back tomorrow or fifty years from
now it is hers.”
“As you wish.” Jimmy watched as I put the rifles back into the toolbox.
There was not a whole lot in that toolbox I felt would serve our
purpose. If the toolbox wasn’t going on the auction block and other
people weren’t snooping around in it; then the grenades, rifles, and
flash bangs the CIA donated were nothing more than dead weight. A person
could only carry so much weight. Rifles and ammo were heavy. My AR and
fifty was my limit. I needed a vest and backpack for my extra clips and
ammo. The timer had to come with us. I lifted the tool pouch and clips
out of the toolbox. The canned food I carried in there I tossed into the
bed of the pickup in case it was a really really long time before I came
back.
On second thought. “Ricky, can you shoot?” I was wondering if one of
those rifles would serve Ricky?
“Sure. Pull the trigger, right?” Came from behind me.
I turned to look at a dumb grin on his face. “Have you ever shot a gun
since we were kids?” This didn’t bode well.
“What is there too know? Point it at what you want to kill and pull the
trigger. Okay?” His stupid grin didn’t change.
“Geeks!” I sighed. A high powered assault rifle was the last thing
someone like Ricky needed in their hands. If he figured out how to
release the safety and put it on full auto, anything and everyone around
him would be in mortal danger The rifles stayed in the toolbox. I had a
death wish but not that way.
“I didn’t get the chance to install White Out on the vehicle. Dimitri
hadn’t shipped it yet.” Jimmy was watching as I slid into the driver’s
seat and Ricky got in the passenger seat.
“What?” I couldn’t imagine what Jimmy was talking about.
“Dimitri wanted one of his gadgets installed. I’ll put it on the next
one we build up if it ever comes in.” Jimmy pulled a remote out of his
pocket and the overhead door started lifting.
“Uh, okay. Thanks.” It was the second time I had heard white out
mentioned. Both times seemed to be by people who dealt with Russians.
===============================================================
I had the car out in the street headed east. If we parked at another
motel I didn’t want to be any closer to Fort Worth than we already were.
“What’s the plan?”
I still had Tom’s driver’s license. My pickup was the last thing I
really owned and could sell if things went south. Whether I liked it or
not my life had became dependent on Ricky. I might not be dying from
cancer now. My future was still just as dark if Ricky decided I was dead
weight. I had no idea how to support myself. With no identification I
would be competing with the illegal aliens for bottom wages. The problem
there was they knew how to work the system and I didn’t.
“Find a discount store or super store. I need a throw a way phone.”
Ricky was going through his billfold looking at the identifications
Linda gave to him.
Turning into the first shopping mall I saw, I stopped in front of a
dollar store. “Not high end. I bet they won’t ask questions if they have
disposable phones. No cameras either.”
“If they have phones it’s perfect.” Ricky was in the store less than
five minutes before he came back out carrying a bag.
“Okay, stay put a minute Jess and let me find someone to help.” He
opened up the phone and talked for a few minutes. “Linda, sorry to
bother you again. I need clothes for Jess. Nice, up scale. Uh huh,
okay…, yes…, probably…,”
He was looking at me. “Okay…, Dallas or one of the burbs…, LINDA! She’s
not a hooker. I have known her all her life and I can swear on a stack
of bibles she’s not into that. No she didn’t…, She’s all natural.
Nothing artificial. LINDA…! No I’m not swapping her for you or anyone
else…, Hon I love you too. I strongly suggest you remember those six
men who thought the same thing. No one keeps count. There are probably a
couple hundred more…, No I’m not lying. Okay, you call them and explain
what I want. I want her to look classy, maybe a tad sassy, but not
cheap. A woman who has seen the world and owns it. Okay?
The Liberty Bank credit card I left with Hernandez. Jimmy is going to
pull seventy two thousand out of it. After he gets his money, burn the
card and all traces…., You’re a doll. You know I love you…., Of course
with all my heart but I’m still not trading in Jess…, And Linda, on that
thing earlier. I want her to be a woman from the upper class. Okay.
Bye.”
He pointed to the northeast. “Jump up on 75 and go to Richardson. On
East Main a few blocks from the police station is Marcela’s. The lady
you need to see is Joyce Thurman. Linda is going to arrange for them to
clean you up.”
“Clean me up? What ever for? Ricky, I’m comfortable in pants and jacket.
Is this necessary?” I couldn’t imagine what two people on the run from
damn near every bureau in the US Government would want with a change of
clothes?
“Jess, I need those drives out of that lab in Fort Worth. I’m guessing
they have a dozen cameras looking at that place even if agents aren’t
staked out on it. They would be all over me or Tom in a heart beat if
either one of us got within a mile of it. There is not one single person
in the world I would trust besides you to retrieve those drives. Linda
or any of her cohorts?
They have all the data on the drives already and so does our government.
The energy they are burning up to break the codes would probably light
up a city. I can’t begin to imagine what they would do if they thought
they had the only copies I possessed. There wouldn’t be getting them
back. They would let me have the information piece meal at a time as
they made me build what they believe is the Philadelphia Project.”
Begging me with his eyes he looked at me. “Jess, you could walk up to
the lab the way you are dressed now and it could be a toss up if they
pulled you in or not. If you walk up to that lab looking like a million
dollars they won’t touch you. Image means everything in some situations.
Look like a rancher’s wife and they will probably think they can out
lawyer you and bleed you dry causing you to cough up everything you
know. Look like a billionaires wife and they will be burning down the
lines trying to get an ID on you but they won’t touch you. Sophisticated
society has political and legal connections. All at the touch of a phone
call. They can’t burn you with lawyers because for everyone of theirs
you have two. They can’t pull you in and give you the third degree. It
would be all over front page news before they booked you into jail.”
He smiled. “Class has its perks. Looking like class does the same thing.
It scares the sharks away before they bite.”
Funny... in an odd way I could relate to what Ricky was telling me. When
anyone started looking like they wanted a piece of me all I had to do
was accidentally raise my shirt and expose a gun handle. Fist fights
were one thing some guys wouldn’t hesitate to start. Getting in a gun
fight took it to a whole new level they didn’t want to try.
Dallas traffic was a killer. Making our way across town took forever. It
was an hour later when I finally found the little mall Linda had told
Ricky about.
Ricky pointed at the store with MARCELA'S in gold leaf scroll on the
plate glass. I’m going to find a computer store. I lost a lot of jump
drives in that fire. I’ll be in the store when they are finished with
you.”
“Okay.” I had no idea what was going on. Give me a backhoe and a
construction job I was in my own element. This was a whole new world to
me.
“Jess, play nice and do what they ask. And don’t pull that gun out of
your purse. I know everyone in Texas carries one. That one you carry
will surely get the attention of everybody.” He motioned me toward the
boutique.
I gave him my seriously dead stare. “Ricky, I’m not into shooting
everyone who pisses me off. In your case I’m giving serious
consideration to breaking the rules.”
Ricky was laughing as he turned and walked off in the other direction.
A hour later I walked out looking exactly the same as I had when I
walked in. I had no idea what was going on? I couldn’t imagine Ricky
being in a computer store for an hour. I was wrong as that was where I
found him. I walked up behind him as he was talking to a salesman. “I’m
back.”
The salesman looked up. His eyes grew two sizes as he scoped me out.
Ricky looked at the salesman and a smile spread across his face before
he turned around to look. “Okay.”
“Thanks.” He nodded to the salesman as he picked up a laptop and a bag.
Ricky steered me toward a restaurant inside the mall.
“Now what?” It wasn’t the food I was asking about.
“Time Jess. Everything takes time to unfold at its own pace. Push and
things can go wrong in a hurry. You asking about what the ladies did in
the store?”
“Un huh. I thought I was going to try on a dress. Well I did. Lots of
dresses but all they did was take measurements and notes.”
“I know you haven’t had experience at this girl thing and I’m…”
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. I’ll shoot you right here and now. We
are way past that sorry bit. It happened, I got screwed…, I guess we
both did. You lost your lab and a lifetime of work. Back isn’t an option
for either of us at the moment. You don’t have a lab and I can’t step
back into Tom. When retreat isn’t an option there are only two
possibilities. We either hold our position praying for someone to come
and save our asses before we are over run and killed. Or we push up and
out, praying we bust through before enough forces can be rallied in our
path to stop us.”
The tears came unexpectedly. “No one is coming to our rescue. There
isn’t anyone smart enough, intelligent enough to help even if they knew
what happened.”
“Jessica…,” Ricky was reaching for me.
I pushed his hand away. “I’m okay. Let me enjoy my own pity party for a
few minutes. Sometimes it helps to wallow in pity and get disgusted
enough with yourself to climb back up and start fighting again.”
=============================================================
Six days later it was long before dawn. We were sitting in a pasture
with a whole lot of mesquite around us. Ricky scanned the area again
with his binoculars. “Herd of Angus about a half mile to the southwest.
Otherwise I don’t see any thing moving.”
“And you won’t. If there is someone out there watching and wanted us
dead we would already be there. There are only two ways to wait on a
target. You either get there before they do, be still, and wait for them
to show up or you stealth up to the target. The common denominator is
time. If I was staking us out I would have been out there two days ago.
I regret not finding a computer and downloading aerial photos of this
place. Let's pray we both don't die because I got careless.”
Ricky slowly lowered his binoculars and turned to look at me. “You're
joking of course?”
“No joke. The surest way to die is to think you will be safe showing up
an hour or two before the meeting to stake out your position. The longer
the time lead before the meeting the better the odds are in the sniper's
favor.” The fifty wasn’t in my purse it was holstered on my hip. Ricky
and I had stopped by a gun auction a couple days earlier. I had talked
him into carrying a twenty two magnum with a laser sight. It was
something that was lethal, not heavy. It wouldn’t take a lot of skill to
point and shoot.
It was a couple hours later when the sun was up past the horizon. “I
hear a motor in the distance. You can wait by the car if you want. Any
vehicle is a magnet for attention out here in the open like this.”
I pulled the AR out of the backseat and slung it on my shoulder as I
headed out into the mesquite.
A small nondescript gray sedan pulled up and stopped beside the Lincoln.
Watching from a couple hundred yards out, I recognized the legs as the
door opened and they swung out. I waited to see if there were other
people in the car.
She walked over, wrapped her arms around Ricky and gave him a great big
kiss on the lips. Her eyes were dancing as Ricky backed up from her.
“She’s watching isn’t she.”
Ricky nodded. “She is.”
“Am I a painted target or she only have her pistol?” Linda looked past
Ricky to see if she could pick Jess out of the growth.
Ricky rolled his eyes as he shook his head. “We are both being painted
if that is the term for it. She’s good Linda. Damn good. I would put her
up against anyone.”
“Tell her not to shoot me. I want to see if I can pick her out.” Linda
reached back into the car and pulled out a rifle with big ass scope. She
put it on the roof of the car.
At two hundred yards I didn’t have a bit of trouble making out it was a
custom made scope and rifle. Bolt action in the three oh eight range
with a custom six by forty two scope or thereabouts. Nice piece of
hardware. I was betting it would have an accurate kill range up to eight
hundred yards.
Linda took a short telescope out of the car and switched it on. I knew
what it was. There wasn’t any escape. When she swept the landscape
everything with a heat signature was going to show up like a neon
flashing sign. The only way to not show up was to drop down in a foxhole
which I had neglected. I sighted her in and pointed the rifle straight
at her scope. It wasn’t a game of chicken. It was one marksman to
another. You lost. Game over.
She was sweeping the landscape. When she stopped she was looking
straight down the barrel of a rifle. Her eyes were dancing as the
lowered the infrared scope and switched it off. “She is good. Call her
in and let’s pass out some identification. Tell her not to shoot me if
she doesn’t like them.”
Ricky waved me in. “Linda is alone unless there is an invisible man in
the car with her.”
In the Texas drivers license I actually looked good. It was the first
time I had ever seen a picture on a license where I didn’t look like an
escaped convict. I looked for restrictions. There weren’t any. It was a
commercial license and I was qualified to drive anything with wheels. I
was curious. “This pass the highway patrol test?”
Nodding Linda handed me a passport.
“Nice.” Miss Jessica Sarah Rabbit and the picture was quite flattering.
I was wearing a beautiful teal colored dress with matching bolero
jacket. I loved the multi strand diamond necklace and long dangle
earrings. My hair stylishly pulled over my left shoulder. Her photo shop
guys had done a bang up job.
“Norwegian and American dual citizenship. I don’t need to tell you how
hard our team worked to dig up your history. You are one of the
cleanest spooks I have ever run across in this business. Everyone
always shows up someplace sometime even if it is only ghosting. The
guys are going crazy trying to find where you popped up out of the
woodwork. They went overboard in giving you an identity. You are an
heir to the royal blood. Christian Frederick was part of your lineage.
The Norwegian royalty was such a mess no one will ever be able to trace
back whether you really are or not. The important part is, the royalty
slants in your favor rather than against.”
She handed me a folder. “It’s all in there including your ancestry, your
coat of arms, your birthplace and your parents names. I don’t need to
tell you to get to know them. It could save your life. Oh yes, your
parents are alive and they will swear you are their only daughter if
anyone questions them.”
To say I was in shock was an understatement. Could they really fabricate
a life for someone out of thin air? “I hope they know what kind of
daughter I am.”
“To be sure. They have pictures of you and your many romances around the
world all over their home. They love you with all their heart. They wish
you would settle down and marry Olaf Gustaff and stop flitting around
the world like a gadfly.”
“You’re pulling my leg!” I couldn’t believe it.
Linda’s eyes were dancing with laughter. “You should meet him sometime.
He really is quite handsome and who knows. You might decide to marry him
for real.”
“Mar…, marry…” I managed to choke it up.
“You say that like it was a dirty word. Sure, you marry Olaf, I marry
Ricky and we both live happily ever after. Problem solved.” Linda had to
roll in her lips to keep from laughing.
I gave her my you are gonna die stare. “You marry Olaf, I don’t marry
anyone and we are all happy.”
She was laughing as she handed me three credit cards. “Ricky didn’t say
to limit them so they aren’t. Keep in mind before you decide to buy
Monte Carlo, even Ricky has limited funds.”
She handed Ricky a cell phone. “New numbers love. You wore out the old
number. The agency finds me they find you and visa versa. The old number
goes and so do I. I’m flying down to Mexico to look over a burned out
lab. See if I can find anything useful the Federalies haven’t already
picked over. I can feel your government breathing down my neck. It is
time to go. Your new handler is Serena. You met her in Berlin at the
Germany trade show six years ago.”
Ricky was in deep thought for a few seconds. “The kid? She’s only a
kid!”
Linda laughed as she shook her head. “Ricky, she was twenty two when you
met her. She is more than a kid. Serena has a lot of experience. She has
proven several times she can adapt on the fly. Don’t underestimate her
skills.”
Linda turned her attention to me. “Okay Mystery Woman, how about a shoot
off?”
“My AR isn’t that accurate at one hundred yards. At two hundred I’m
working on a four inch pattern. It is an off the shelf weapon.”
She nodded. “Use mine then. We take turns.”
“How far?” I was curious to where it had been scoped in at.
“Right conditions it will be in a twelve inch group at two thousand
meters. Let’s do eight hundred meters. It is a one inch pattern at that
range.”
Ricky was looking at me with a question in his eyes. I pointed at her
rifle still on top of the car.” Linda’s gun was specifically made as a
sniper rifle. Heavy barrel and bolt action so all the energy of the
powder is transferred to the bullet and not wasted kicking out the empty
cartridge. It had to go through several annealings to temper it to the
perfect hardness. The boring was done on a high end laser mill to within
one one thousandth tolerance. She said it can hit a man’s chest at one
mile or put his heart out at a tad under a half mile range. Cost between
twenty to thirty thousand for her rifle. Cheap if one’s life depends on
accuracy.”
Linda lifted the rifle off the roof and handed it to me. “Eight
thousand. It was made in Poland. Better quality than I can get in my
homeland and the price is better.”
I immediately loved the rifle. It felt perfect in my now much smaller
hands. It was designed and made for a woman not a man. Sighting some
cactus pears a quarter of a mile away the optics in the scope were
perfect. The scope alone would have cost six or eight thousand. The
rifle belonged in someone’s hands. It wasn’t a killing machine like my
AR. It was a loving piece of equipment designed to serve a master.
“Nice, very, very nice.”
Linda took a spotter scope out of the back seat.
Now it was my turn to look surprised. A smile spread across her face. “I
was hoping we might get a chance this morning so I was ready.”
I handed the rifle back to her. “You first.”
Linda pointed off out in the distance. “That cactus with the pears on
it. That’s about seven hundred meters.”
I took the scope and found the cactus focusing it in. “Six hundred and
thirty one meters.”
Linda looked the bullets over in the clip before sliding it home in the
rifle. She flipped down the bipod and stretched out on the ground. She
adjusted the distance in on the scope. “The pear on the far left side.”
It wasn’t the cactus I was watching. Linda stopped breathing. Some say
their heart stops beating just before they pull the trigger as their
whole body goes into the zone and they become one with the target. I
would almost believe it as I watched Linda. There was a bark. I looked
and the left pear was gone.
“Linda chambered another round. “One on the far right.”
Seconds later there was another bark. I looked and half the pear on the
right was gone.
In all six shots she never missed. The pear was either completely
vaporized or torn to pieces.
“Damn nice shooting.” I was glad she wasn’t on the other side when I had
been in the field.”
She stood up, brushed the sand off her clothes and handed me the rifle.
“Thanks. Your turn.” She reached into the rifle case and handed me a
clip full of bullets.”
“You didn’t leave anything.” I was only half kidding.
“Cactus two meters to the right and approximately three meters further
out.” She was looking through the spotter scope.
After chambering a round I laid down on the ground and picked out the
cactus. “Top pear in the middle.”
I don’t know if she answered or not. The world ceased to exist, no
sound, no anything besides that one pear that filled my whole vision and
my life. There was no trigger pull. It was smoother than grease on a
board. The bullet raced over an invisible hill in an arc as it sped to
its target. The pear exploded. Five more were dispatched before I stood
up.
Reluctantly I handed the rifle back to Linda. If I had been Tom it
wouldn’t have felt right. As Jess it was the ultimate sniper rifle as
far as I was concerned. I probably was drooling when I gave it up.
Linda wasn’t looking amused as she took the rifle. “Who the hell are
you? You didn’t learn to shoot like that overnight.”
I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t have an answer.
“Are you as good with a pistol?” She retrieved a nine millimeter out of
her purse.
I carried the AR over to the Lincoln and pulled the fifty out of my
holster..
“Damn!” Linda was looking at the Desert Eagle. She pointed to a cactus
about thirty feet away. “One shot and then pick another ten feet past
that and so on until one of us misses.”
She turned slightly to the side, brought the pistol up and took a two
handed hold. There was a bark and a cactus pear had a hole in the
middle. She looked at me waiting.
Two handed hold was what the military tried to teach me. I never liked
it. There was a new problem now. The fifty was ten times as heavy now
than when I was Tom. I couldn’t hold it up that long. I brought it up.
When the sights and the target matched, I squeezed the trigger. A pear
evaporated into a misty cloud.
“Uh…, that is the kind of hole they found in those six men alright.”
Linda took aim on a cactus about forty feet out. A sharp bark and a pear
had a hole off center in it.
I brought the fifty up and another pear on the same cactus evaporated.
Fifty feet out we did the same thing. I was thanking God Linda hadn’t
been with the men in Mexico. It wouldn’t have turned out so well. Ricky
and I both would have been among the dead.
Approximately sixty feet she clipped the pear. She was nearing the
maximum accurate range for her four inch barrel. I dusted another pear.
At close to eighty or ninety feet she hit the cactus but missed the
pear. I was nearing my range now for a small target. Luck was with me. I
evaporated the pear.
Linda turned her full attention on me as she studied me from head to
toe. “You are the best damn spook I have ever met in my life. I have met
some of the best. It won’t happen, but if my government ever pointed me
in your direction I would figure I had two options. Either quit or die.”
I held out my hand for a handshake. “Let’s pray it never happens. You’re
one of the best I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t play nice. There are no
gentlemen or ladies in that situation.”
She took my hand. “Everyone I have ever met in this business, I
remember. I won’t forget you Jessica. You need a job besides guarding
Ricky’s back you give me a call. If my government doesn’t want you I
know several agencies who would kill to have you on their team. But then
you probably know the same people. To say you could walk anywhere in the
world and have a job is understating the fact. The rifle and package is
yours. Ricky didn’t ask but I can tell. If I go back out into the field
I’ll order another one.”
No one ever gave me an expensive gift like that. Much less someone I
really didn’t know. “Linda, I can’t afford it. I’m more broke than a
church mouse. I thank you for the thought though. It was terribly kind.”
“Surely you jest? Ricky isn’t paying you? Hon, I don’t recall asking for
money. It really isn’t that much of a gift. I’ll make it back off Ricky.
He’ll call me wanting a favor and I’ll charge him dearly for it.” She
held the rifle and hard case out in my direction.
Looking around at Ricky he nodded yes. “Take it as a token from one of
the finest ladies you will ever meet in this business. Linda wouldn’t
have offered if she didn’t mean it.”
“I don’t know what to say.” I was holding a rife I never thought I would
ever be able to afford or own.
“Say thanks, is the usual response.” Linda’s eyes were dancing.
“But of course. Many, many thanks. I’ll treasure it forever. If you ever
want it back it’s yours.”
Linda looked me in the eyes. “Don’t send it back bullets first.”
“That is a promise I can keep.” If Linda was ever ordered to kill me I
would never use her rifle against her.
===============================================================
“Pack it up.” Ricky was carrying his suitcase out to the car.
It was eight days after we last saw Linda. The days wore on. They were
beginning to become redundant and monotonous as Ricky and I changed
motels every couple nights. How long can one do nothing? I was starting
to look forward to the challenge of getting into Ricky’s lab. At least I
would be doing something. And maybe, just maybe, Ricky could start
another lab someplace to change Jessica back into Tom.
“Someplace in particular?” It didn’t take long to pick up and follow
Ricky out the door.
“We are going shopping.” He tossed his suitcase in the trunk before he
opened the driver’s door and slid in under the wheel.
My suitcase followed his before I shut the trunk and slid into the
passenger side. “You’re driving? You feel up to it?”
“I want to give it a try. If it hurts anything I’ll quit and let you
chauffeur me again.” He started up the Lincoln and pulled away from the
motel.
It was forty minutes later he pulled up and stopped at the little
shopping mall in Richardson. “I haven’t always had my nose stuck in a
lab building circuits. They will have your dresses ready by now. You
will try them on while the ladies make sure each one is tailored
perfectly for you.”
“But first things first. The beauty parlor.” He pointed to a store
several stores away from Marcela’s.
I was looking at what was obviously women’s territory. “I’m doing this
for the storage drive, right?”
When Ricky didn’t answer I turned to look at him. He had a strange look
on his face. “This is so I can walk in and get that data out of your lab
isn’t it?”
“…yeah…”
“Okay, I can do this. You coming?” I opened the door and slid out while
waiting for an answer.
He shook his head as he started up the car. “I am going to look at some
equipment. You go ahead. I’ll be back before you are finished.”
I took a quick look at the beauty shop and then back at Ricky. “Oh
swell! I’m dumped into a female estrogen environment without any
training wheels and you’re ducking out. Just like a man!”
Ricky closed his eyes and shook his head as he snickered. He got his
giggles under control enough to look up at me. “Promise me you won’t
pull your gun and shoot them if they piss you off.”
“No deal. My fifty is the only vestige of manhood you left me with. I’m
going to use it if I feel a desperate need for a little testosterone
fix.” I didn’t wait for an answer as I turned and headed for the beauty
parlor.
“Jess, your credit cards. Use them to pay for their services.” Followed
me across the sidewalk.
“yeah, yeah. When they turn up empty and I’m hauled off to prison, we
all have a place to call home.” I muttered under my breath.
“May we help you?” The attractive brunette with Brenda on her name tag
looked up when I walked in.
“uh…” I wasn’t sure how to go about this? “I think I need some help.”
“Yes ma’am. Do you have an appointment?” She picked up a ledger off the
counter behind her.
“No. I’m sorry. I…, uh…,” Obviously I should have made an appointment.
How was I to know? I’m new at this girl stuff.
“That is okay. We accept walk ins if you don’t mind waiting. Might be an
hour before we can get to you. What is your name?” She was ready to
write a name in the appointment book.
“uh…, my name…? I…, I’m…? uh…, Jess…” Could I possibly klutz this any
more than I already had?
She was writing. “Jess? You Ms. Rabbit?”
“…uh…, yes…, I am.” Was it Ricky or Linda who called it in? Probably
Linda. Ricky was a guy. He wouldn’t have thought of it any more than I
did.
“I’m sorry Ms. Rabbit. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting. Please?” She
motioned to the chair in front of her.
Looking at the chair I nodded in agreement. “Ma’am, we will get along a
whole lot better if you call me Jess.”
“Okay, Jess. Put your purse under the counter and please take a seat.”
Should I or shouldn’t I? Too many things were screwed up in my life. I
didn’t care what they thought as I pulled the fifty out of my purse
before sliding the purse under the counter. I sit down in the chair and
laid the fifty in my lap.
“Jess, in twelve years no one has tried to rob us. The odds are pretty
good no one will try while you are here for the next hour. Do you want
to hold that gun or put it back in your purse?” She waited holding a
sheet to cover me.
“I’ll hang onto it.” No matter what I wasn’t going to be out of arms
reach of a defensive weapon. I was positive if Linda made the
appointment, her guys were watching. If the CIA or FBI followed her guys
then they would be close by too. If they carried my body to prison it
was going to be cold and dead. My life wasn’t going to be forfeited
easily or come cheap.
“You have the prettiest hair and it is so natural. Do you want it long
or short?”
“Ricky said he liked it long. Let’s leave it at that for now.”
She pulled my hair up and laid my head back over the sink. “Long it is.”
Less than an hour later I stepped out of Wanda's Beauty Parlor. I now
knew what a car felt like after an immaculate detail job. The girls gave
me the total make over. They also lightened Ricky’s credit account by
two hundred and fifty dollars. I hoped he thought it was worth it.
It was time to give Marcela's a call and see what Linda had in mind
there? If it was anything like the beauty parlor Ricky was paying a
chunk of change to get me ready to retrieve his data from the lab.
A couple big, rough looking, guys got out of a car and stepped up on the
sidewalk in front of me as I headed to Marcela's. “Hey bitch. How much
you charge?”
That stopped me cold. “What?”
They walked up in front of me. “Damn fine looking bitch. Not all worn
out like a lot of scabs. Get in the car and we will drive around back.”
“You…, think I’m a prostitute?” I was finally wrapping my mind around
where they were coming from.
“You can claim you ain’t but you can’t deny you’re advertising it bitch.
Now come on and stop playing coy.”
My mind was running a hundred miles an hour. I couldn’t out fight them.
I pretty well knew what this body was or wasn’t capable of. Getting into
a fight with two guys who outweighed me by twice or more wasn’t going to
happen. “And what gave me away?”
“The way you walk bitch. You flaunt it to the world.” He looked down at
my boots with the almost six inch heel.
“So if a girl walks like a girl she’s gotta be a hooker? Is that the
idea?” I was watching his eyes.
“Yeah, but you really swing your ass. Come on. You will want to pay me
for the service after I show you what I got.” He rubbed between his legs
with his left hand as he was reaching for my arm with his right.
I gave him a warm smile. “Sure thing.” As I brought my right foot up and
kicked him in the knee. I heard a satisfying pop. He looked shocked
before he went down falling over into his buddy knocking him off
balance.
His friend stumbled and stupidly still had one thought on his mind. ME!
He was reaching.
I brought the fifty up out of my purse and came down with all my
strength on the top of his right wrist. I had no idea if I broke it or
not. Even if it wasn't broke it would be so bruised it wouldn’t be
working for days afterwards.
“SHIT BITCH!” He was pulling away from me.
I pointed the fifty at his right eye. I knew what looking straight into
the barrel of a gun at close range did to the mind and nerves. “I may be
a bitch but I’m not a prostitute. I ever see either of you again, you
won’t live to tell about it. Gather up your friend and take him to the
hospital. His leg is broken and I imagine so is your wrist. If you have
a gun in that car of yours and you are thinking about using it…, Give it
some thought before you point it at me. Everyone who had that same idea
is past tense. I don’t hesitate and I don’t miss. The only reason you
two idiots aren’t bleeding out on the sidewalk right now is I’m feeling
kind and generous.”
“You fucking whore. You’re gonna pay.” He was glaring at me.
I shook my head. “I’ve seen stupid before. You are moving to the top of
the class. You want the other wrist broken keep running that mouth of
yours making threats. I can turn you and your friend into hamburger
right here if you want a demonstration. I can make you into a
quadriplegic where the rest of your life is sipping soup through a
straw. You want to push your luck?”
He stared at me for six seconds trying to decide whether to challenge me
or not. His friend moaning as he held his leg was the deciding factor.
He helped his friend up and supported him as the guy hopped back to the
car. He tried to open the car door with his right hand and couldn’t. He
turned loose of his friend, opened the door and helped him into the car.
He hesitated.
“Don’t even think it. You come up with a gun and you will be dead before
you get turned around. Take your buddy to the hospital while you still
can.”
He backed up and walked around to the driver’s side empty handed. “I’m
gonna get even. You’re dead bitch.”
I watched him drive off as I slipped the fifty back into my purse. Yeah,
as if I cared. You would be doing me a favor. But you ain’t man enough
to do the job. If he had called me bitch one more time I probably would
have lost it. What was it with guys and their potty mouth language?
It hadn’t escaped my attention there were dozens of people, in the
stores, parking lot, and further away on the sidewalk, stopped to look
and stare. Some had out the cell phones which I imagined were picture
taking. Everyone who was remotely close had backed off when the two guys
approached me and called me bitch and a whore. They either believed it
was true or didn’t want to get involved. If anyone called the police it
was going to get ugly. I wasn’t going to jail and I couldn’t run. I
didn’t have a car. I strolled off down to Marcela's.
Those inside Marcela's who had been looking backed away as I walked in.
Jennie was one of the sales ladies I had met that first visit. She
motioned me toward the back. “Ms. Rabbit your attire is ready for
fitting.”
“It’s Jess.” I headed toward the back of the store as a police car
pulled up into the parking lot.
I saw them out of the corner of my eye. “Jennie, I imagine it is me they
want. I’ll wait on them.”
“Ladies.” Jennie waved several of the ladies over as she walked up
beside me. “We watched the whole thing. It wasn’t your fault. Everyone
of us will swear the two men attacked you.”
Five women crowded around me. Jennie was smiling as her eyes danced. She
pointed to a well dressed woman. “Marsha is an attorney and the wife of
Harold Fortner. He is the attorney for Richardson.”
Marsha nodded in my direction. “The policemen are Rodney Golby and Mike
Patterson. I know them well. This won’t take long. I am dying to see
those dresses you ordered. Jennie has described them to us. She also
described you. I’m sure not a single one of us believed that part until
you walked out of Wanda’s Beauty Parlor. You’re even more beautiful than
Jennie described and she gave you rave reviews.”
I had no idea what to say. I was flattered and embarrassed. I know my
face turned red to match my hair. “Thank you. That was very kind.”
The officers talked to several people on the sidewalk before coming into
Marcela’s. They both homed in on me like bird dogs on point.
Marsha cut them off at the pass before they had a chance to close in.
“Patterson, Golby, good to see our cities finest. You making the
employee picnic next Friday?”
The one with Patterson on his name tag stepped up. “Mrs. Fortner, an
unexpected surprise. We received a call about a woman beating up two
men. The red headed lady beside you matches that description. She needs
to come with us to the station to answer some questions.”
“I’m sorry Mike, Ms. Rabbit is my client. If you have any questions to
ask her you may ask them now. If you believe you have any charges to
press against her you can read them to her now. I and all these ladies
saw the whole thing. Ms. Rabbit was defending herself when two men tried
to engage her. Have the two men filed charges?” Marsha waited for an
answer.
“Marsha…, Mrs Fortner you know they haven’t. We haven’t had time to talk
to them yet. We don’t know where they are.” Patterson was looking less
certain by the second.
“On a story told by a few people who were supposedly watching, you are
claiming my client did or didn’t attack someone or some ones which you
haven’t talked to? These ladies will tell you, Ms. Rabbit was approached
first by two men. Provided you wish to take depositions from those who
supposedly witnessed, but didn’t participate in the alleged attack. Mike
I’ll see you at the employee picnic Friday unless you are buried in
paperwork.”
That wasn't the most subtle hint I had ever heard. She told them to go
find two men and get a sworn statement before they pushed this issue.
Patterson stared at me for a few seconds. “Would you care to fill out a
complaint against the two men you didn’t have a fight with?”
Marsha turned to look waiting for me to respond. “I’m sorry officer. It
was nothing more than a misunderstanding. Words were said that shouldn’t
have been and they left. I’m positive they are wishing they had
apologized before they left. Let’s forget it happened.”
Patterson looked disappointed. I was certain they wanted me in that
police car and down at the station. Filing a complaint would give them
that opportunity.
“Fine then.” They left and minutes later pulled out of the parking lot.
Marsha turned and held out her hand. “As a client you owe me. Make it
legal. Pay me a dollar for representing you as my client.”
“A dollar? I mean are you sure? I appreciate your help but only a
dollar?” I was digging in my purse. I had some change left over when
Ricky gave me cash to buy groceries and things. I wasn’t completely
without money.
She laughed as she waited for her dollar. “If those two men press
charges and it ends in court it will cost you a whole lot more. I’m
expensive but I’m worth it. You can file counter charges if it comes to
that. I promise it would be a waste of money. They didn’t look like the
kind who had money.”
The dresses were exquisite. The soft blue dress draped on my body like
moss on a tree. The daring neckline made me wonder if it was going to
slip down off my breasts. The matching jacket only came to the sides of
my breasts emphasizing them rather than covering anything. The five inch
heels were matching.
“Walk to the front of the store and back so I can make sure the hem and
the dress addresses your figure correctly.” Jennie was urging me out of
the dressing room.
I didn’t think for a second it was to size up the drape of the dress. It
was to give the ladies a chance to look. They stood by me to keep me
from going to jail so they deserved it. I did the walk in the blue
dress, the peach dress, and the red dress. That black dress I was poured
into. I didn’t believe there was enough extra room in that dress for two
fleas to have a fight. The scalloped neckline was cut really low. The
hem was above the knee. I didn’t think that glitter gown I wore that
first time and this black dress were that much different. There was a
lot of sinful exposure with both of them.
Several women and a few men with their wives came into Marcela’s and no
one was leaving. I was wearing the black dress and made the stroll to
the front when I noticed a new red Lincoln pull into the parking lot.
Ricky got out and headed my way. He was dressed in a suit and tie and
looked darn handsome.
I waited as he walked into the store. He carefully looked me over. I
slowly turned around for him. “You like?”
“I do like. You forgot something.” He pulled the diamond necklace,
bracelet, chandelier earrings, and diamond watch out of his pockets.
Ricky didn’t have time to make it back to the plane. He had help. I was
wondering if it was Linda or someone else?
There were several, “ohhhhs” from the ladies as Ricky stepped up, had me
turn my back to him and slipped the necklace around my neck. The diamond
earrings were next and then the bracelet and watch. He slipped a diamond
ring on my left ring finger.
Marsha walked up for a closer look. “You can afford me. I know the real
thing when I see it. You are absolutely stunning Jessica. I have no idea
where you are going this evening. If it isn’t the governors ball they
don’t deserve you.”
Stepping up, I gave her a hug. “Thanks Marsha. I needed that. You have
no idea how much that helps my confidence.”
She backed up and held my hands. “I want you and your boyfriend to come
to the picnic Friday as my guests.”
I figured Ricky and I would be in that plane of his high tailing it
after I picked up his files. I shook my head. “I’m not going to say no
but I’m not saying yes either. Our schedule is pretty tight.”
“I understand. Come if you get a chance. If not Friday then you might
consider making one of our social parties next month?”
“We will have to wait and see.” I was positive I wasn’t making any
social parties. A month from now I wanted Ricky working to rebuild a lab
so I could become Tom.
=============================================================
Okay I blame my lack of forethought on not having girl experience. If
all we were going to do was dress up, pick up the data, and run for our
lives why would I need four exquisite dresses and accessories? One
dress, one make over, one lab data grab, and run. Right? The other thing
that got lost was, Ricky didn’t have time to drive back to the plane. I
was missing the small important things as I focused on the lab. For
those in what was my former job, missing details always ended up badly
if not deadly.
Jennie ran one of those credit cards Linda gave to me. Linda said not to
buy Monte Carlo. Looking at the total for the dresses and accessories I
think I did. I was positive Ricky and I were going to be fleeing for a
second reason. Credit card fraud came up in my mind. If Ricky and I were
lucky we would be long gone before that credit card bounced back as
worthless. I was not looking forward to spending the rest of my life in
a woman’s prison.
Ricky was headed back toward Dallas. I was thinking of what I was going
to do if anyone showed up while I was breaking into or coming out of
the lab. “Where did you get the car?”
He pulled up on the interstate. “I borrowed it. You look damn nice Jess.
Thanks for not pulling that gun of yours and shooting me for doing this
to you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. It is still on my mind. How quick do you think we
can be in and out of that lab? You shouldn’t park too close or this car
will show up on the cameras and it isn’t an easy car to hide in
traffic.”
He glanced in my direction. “The plan for getting into the lab is still
developing. I’m waiting on some equipment from Sergie. It will be a week
or two before it arrives.”
“A week or two? Then what is all this for?” I motioned down the front of
me to the black dress. “I’m not going to be able to redo the makeup
tricks by myself in a week or two. This was a waste of time and money if
I’m supposed to be wow as I walk into that lab.
Ricky shook his head and chuckled. “Jess, when the time comes you can go
back to a beauty parlor and have them spruce you up again. In the mean
time you need to learn to look and act like the princess your birth
certificate and passport claims you are.”
“Oh swell! This sounds like so damn much fun. I can’t wait to get
started.” I responded in my most snarky voice as I glared daggers at
him.
“Well then while your enthusiasm is overflowing why don’t we start now.
Drop the cuss words and the attitude. Neither one will gain you a place
in the social circle. Do you remember who your parents are and what your
claim to royal lineage is?” He pointed to a folder on the floorboard
under my feet.
“But of course. My daddy was a handsome frog prince and my mother was a
beautiful frog princess. I was their only loving daughter. I’m going to
turn back into a frog any minute now.” I stuck my nose up in the air as
I gave him my disdainful look.
“Nice, very very nice your highness. If you feel like frog coming on,
come to me and I will give you my magical kiss making sure you don’t
turn back.” He was smiling from ear to ear.
“Yuck! I’ve already experienced one of your kisses and this is what
happened.” I waved my hands down in front of my body. “Don’t expect me
to come back for seconds.”
“Oh by the way, my favorite outlaw buddy. Have you forgot yours and my
pictures and our names are probably plastered in every law office and
post office in the country? I’m positive my disguise would keep me from
being instantly recognized but you aren’t as cleverly camouflaged. Do
you honestly believe it is wise to keep running around in the lion’s
den?
There are a million of those government guys. It would surprise me if
they haven’t already located your plane. If they have they will have
Dallas swarming with agents trying to sniff us out. They will also put
men out to watch on that lab with their eyes.” I waited for that to sink
in. I was positive we should make a grab for the data files and flee if
it wasn’t already too late.
Ricky headed toward down town Dallas on the interstate. “The plane was
moved and renumbered by my Russian friends. In case you weren’t
listening to Linda it is supposedly now a diplomatic plane. It was moved
to Sycamore Strip Airport in Fort Worth. I’m not going to be running any
road races if you are right and the Feds are watching the lab. We head
straight to the airport from the lab, which is only a couple miles, and
go.”
“Jess, if I honestly thought we couldn’t pull this off without getting
caught we wouldn’t do it. The Feds are good at what they do. I’m better
than good at what I do. I wish…”
“You say you’re sorry and I’ll shoot you right here. It happened. You
didn’t mean for it to turn out this way. I didn’t either. You didn’t
toss me in the ditch and forget me. Friends don’t leave friends even if
their life is on the line. We adjust when our plan goes off the charts
and make do.”
I looked out the window and shook my head. “A couple of weeks huh? I’ll
shoot you later. Possibly when we are in the air. That plane can fly
itself. I’ll tell it where I want to go after I toss your body out the
window.”
Ricky curled up the corner of his mouth as he chuckled. “That’s a plan I
can accept. Jess I have tickets for the live performance at the Music
Hall. We are going to dine at Ricardo’s and then go to the theater.
Please don’t order more than one drink.”
“I’m not sure what happened in Mexico. You could have told me that fruit
drink was loaded. I’m not touching alcohol again until I find out what
my tolerance is. I vaguely remember making a fool of myself. What I
don’t remember is when it started. I’ll stick to water or Coke or
something.”
Ricky and I received more than our fair share of admiring looks during
the evening. I was turning into a ham. I liked it. Being admired for
more than my skills at operating a piece of heavy equipment was a new
experience for me. The rodeo queen Tracy, was the only girl who didn’t
look doubtful when I told her what I did for a living. It was late when
Ricky and I were headed back to where ever we were camping for the
night. When he pulled into the driveway of a home in an upscale
neighborhood I was doubting his ability to understand how doggedly our
government would be in trying to find him. The older Lincoln was parked
in the driveway. He drove the red Lincoln into the garage after the door
raised up.
I slid my hand down inside my purse and clutched the fifty. “Ricky, if
you knew the people who live here or had any contact with them in the
past. Or even if they are friends of friends then you can bet your last
lucky dime the government bird dogs know them too. Let’s start adding up
the numbers. If they found your plane they probably have a good idea you
are back in Dallas. They will pull in extra agents to beat the bushes
even if they have already done it the day before. I don’t have to
imagine how scared they are if they believe you completed the
Philadelphia Project and that was your project down in Mexico. If Linda
and the Russians know about the Mexican lab there isn’t a government
agency in the world who doesn’t know it also.”
“Linda gave you three official options from her government. You can go
to work for the Russians or you can stay out of the clutches of our own
government. If either of those first two options are breached then the
third option automatically kicks in. They will do everything in their
power to kill you.”
“Ricky, as much as you think of Linda and as much as she thinks of you,
her government will use that against you if it comes down to it. They
will send Linda in to kill you because she knows you so well. I will be
her primary target. To get to you she has to go through me. We will lose
the game. A sniper can pick the time and the place. There isn’t anyway
the target can prepare for something like that.”
Ricky had focused his attention on me while I was giving my spiel. “You
through?”
He held up his hand when I started to speak. “My turn. I don’t have your
experience. You don’t have mine. I’ve been dealing with some government
agency sticking their nose into my business and my life long before I
quit Dynamic Locks. Nothing life threatening, but more like a game of
cat and mouse. They wanted to know my every move, know all my friends,
and dictate my life. It was a real learning curve for me. Because of the
technology I dealt with, I no longer had a life of my own. They kept me
on a leash.”
Ricky sighed as he shook his head. “I learned our government doesn’t
belong to the people, but we belong to the government. I also learned a
lot of tricks for losing the watchers. Don’t go to friends or people
you’ve met. Don’t have a routine or become a creature of habit. Become
paranoid about everyone and everything because most of it is probably
true. Have the feeling you’re being followed? Probably are. Have the
feeling your phone, your car, your apartment has been bugged? They
probably have.”
“This house and car are leased. I didn’t go through any of my old
Russian contacts, any old friends, or any business associates. My new
handler, Serena set it up for us. Mr. Ricky Ronald Chavenski a
diplomatic aid to a very well known and respected princess leased the
house and car while she is staying in the area for a short time. All
done on the QT and of course no paper trail. The agency didn’t even
request up front money. There were inquiries made about the authenticity
of said royalty which no doubt alerted our old Russian friends as to the
purpose. Unless Sergie has a leak we will be safe for awhile. I’m
betting Linda is reading the report and laughing knowing she was part of
the charade.”
He opened his car door and stood up. “We don’t have to accept the
Russians as our friends. You’re right. They would kill us in a heartbeat
if they thought I was going to fall into US government hands. At some
point they might think killing us would be better than spending money
watching us. Our own government would do the same thing if they knew
where we were and thought I was dealing with the Russians or any other
foreign government.
The only thing keeping us alive is, both sides believe I have built the
Philadelphia Project. I’m positive the lab in Mexico was the icing on
the cake for both governments. The other thing you are right about is,
if Linda knew about Mexico then our own government also knows. I'm
betting some heads rolled after they found the lab. Supposedly I was on
a short leash when I built a lab they didn't know about. Letting
something like that happen on one's watch isn't a career builder.”
He motioned me to follow as he opened the garage door leading into the
house. “Jess, I don’t speak fluent Russian and I’m not crazy about
moving there. My Russian friends don’t have infinite patience. In time
when they realize I haven’t built the Philadelphia Project and have no
concept of how to make it happen, they will turn on me. We can go to any
country in the world but we can’t hide from the Russians and US
Government both. The equipment and parts I need to rebuild the capsule
are not off the shelf items. After the respective governments went
though that lab in Mexico they will be bird dogging the manufacturers
for anyone ordering like parts and materials.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “You mean you can’t rebuild the lab?”
Ricky shook his head. “That isn’t what I said. I said both governments
will be following the parts trail. I will have to get in bed with one or
the other to get those parts. The Russians will give me free reign. Our
government will put me on a very short leash with a guard looking over
my shoulder every second of the day. I can get the parts to rebuild my
lab but they will have to be routed through the Russians to keep our
government from knowing where I…, we are.”
Inside the house Ricky pointed down a hallway. “There are three
bedrooms. Take your pick. Your rough and tough stuff is still in the
Lincoln. I didn’t have a chance to bring our vagabond clothes in. I was
running really short on time this afternoon before I picked you up at
Marcela’s. The master bedroom has an attached bath. You can have that
one if you like. Tomorrow we will go clothes shopping. You can’t keep
sleeping in the buff. Even if you are okay with it, I’m not.”
I was looking down the hall and that got my attention. I turned to look
at Ricky. “Just what do you mean by that?”
“Jess, you might be my best friend but as of now you are a woman. We
don’t go skinny dipping in the crick like we did when we were kids. You
have got to start thinking like a woman. The number one rule besides all
those other rules about staying out of the government’s hands and
staying alive is…, You no longer run through the room naked.
Apologies and a million sorrys later isn’t going to change the fact I
screwed up and you are paying for my mistake. You’re a woman, I’m a guy.
The longer this mess goes along the less I think of you as Tom and the
more I think of you as Jessica.”
He pointed at my purse. “If you want to shoot me now I won’t blame you.
The only thing I ask is don’t make me suffer for the wrong I did. Make
it a quick kill shot.”
I shook my head as an evil grin spread across my face at what I was
thinking. “Sorry, you’re out of luck if you expect me to end your misery
this soon. You’re going to have to suffer through this the same as me.
Shooting you now would be an act of kindness. Right now I don’t have a
single drop of kindness in my…, this female body. I may not be a woman
scorned but you will figure out what a woman’s wrath is before you
change me back. You’re gonna pay and pay and pay and…”
I headed off down the hall. “I gotta figure out the girl necessities. My
mother never taught me all the things girls should know about applying
makeup and what to do before bed. Or all them other things girls learn
growing up. Are you sure running though the house stark naked is a no
no? Ricky sweetheart dearest?”
Ricky closed his eyes and shook his head as he watched Jess walk into
the master bedroom and close the door behind her. Payback had already
started. He was positive Jess was going to drive it home before she was
satisfied she had evened the score.
=============================================================
The days slowly crawled by and turned into weeks. Ricky seemed to have a
schedule of him and me making the rounds of the social set every
evening. I was betting Serena and Linda were behind the planning unless
Ricky had changed over the years. Ricky had his nose stuck into circuits
and schematics building that machine of his for too many years for him
to be a social swinger. My pictures as a Norwegian princess were popping
up in the society pages as the weeks rolled by. By design or luck Ricky
always seemed to be able to stay out of range when someone wanted to
take my picture. I kinda guessed some of it was do to the information
put out that Ricky was a diplomatic aide rather than a boyfriend or
lover. The photo hounds probably weren't that interested in taking
pictures of someone who was no more than an aide.
We were at the breakfast table. I had opened the Dallas Morning News to
the society page and was looking at me. I pointed to the picture.
“Ricky, is there a purpose to this? There have been too many of these
lately to be a coincidence.”
He looked at the picture after taking a drink of his orange juice.
“You're very photogenic. Nice picture.”
“Not what I asked. This is more than circumstance. Give.” I slid the
paper over in front of his plate.
“Well..., a meeting of the minds decided the best way to keep you off
the radar of the government acronyms was to make you so visible you
would be invisible.” He folded the paper so my picture was all that was
on top.
“Oh just great! When we pick up your data and my face is splashed all
over their cameras focused on your lab they will know exactly who they
are looking for. Nice move there Mister. And after that my picture will
be with an orange jumpsuit and leg shackles.” I couldn't believe Ricky
would out me to the world like this.
“Plans are developing Jess. If I thought there was any risk to you we
would abandon the lab and forget the whole thing. The data banks aren't
worth you going to prison. Linda and Serena know I want the data out of
that lab. You can bet your last lucky dime Dimitri knows along with the
rest of the Russian intelligence team. They are waiting to see how this
works out.
They have the same encrypted data as does the CIA. They wouldn't hand it
over without making sure they were in on the next build. Thus we have
all the alphabet soup names of our own government waiting the
information along with the Russians. It got twice as complicated as it
was when we first returned but it couldn't be helped.
You needed an identity, I needed a new identity and funds. At the time I
thought I needed to heal up before we made a run at the lab. It was an
error in judgment on my part. I wish now we had picked up the data, got
back into that plane, and left the country.”
“Where do we go from here?” I was curious as to what his plans were now?
Ricky took a deep breath. “White Out is supposed to be delivered today.
I need to test it to make sure we aren't left hanging out to dry and it
covers all signals. I trust our Russian friends up to a point but I
don't trust my life to them any more than I'd trust our own government.”
There was that white out thing again. “I take it this is something you
sold the Russians and they are loaning it back?”
Ricky shrugged his shoulders. “Not a thing Jess but an application. It
blanks out all electronics within a specific radius. Television, radio,
phone, wireless signals and even most equipment that is directly wired
if it hasn't been shielded. When you walk into court rooms, hospitals,
or government offices there are dead zones in them where cell phones no
longer work. That was the premise behind White Out. It goes several
steps further. It blanks all electronics.”
“I'm guessing you think it may work on the monitors around your lab? If
that is the idea then why am I still dressing up? If they can't see me
then jeans and a denim jacket would work.” I couldn't help but think
Ricky had wasted time and money on trying to turn me from a toad into
something halfway presentable as a debutant.
“By the way. Since it comes to my mind. How long before the bill
collectors start pounding on the door wanting to be paid? You have been
shelling out some damn serious coins from the time we returned to
Dallas. I figure I better find a job before you need to sell your plane
and car to pay the bills.”
Ricky laughed as he shook his head. “We sell the plane and we might as
well give up to the goons. It is our ticket out of here once we get the
information I need. I'm not sharing a whole lot of information with you
Jess. It isn't because I don't trust you. I trust you with my life. But
the fact is the less you know the less likely you will be harmed if
anything goes wrong.
Let me play the devils advocate. Say they did manage to get their hands
on you. What can you tell them besides there was a lab in Mexico and it
wasn't the Philadelphia Project? The White Out? They already have a good
idea there is a system out there that is screwing with their electronics
from time to time. So you tell them I designed it which is irrelevant.
They are already pissed off at me. The idea I sold years of hard work to
the Russians rather than give it to our government is not going to keep
me awake at night.”
He gave me a wink. “I have money Jess. I was paid very well for several
projects I designed. I invested it in a lot of companies around the
world. China, Russia, Israel, Canada, Brazil, and the US are a few of
the places where my money is working. You don't need to worry about the
bill collectors. It was only after we lost the lab in Mexico I realized
I should have diversified my identity. Linda pulled my chestnuts out of
the fire on that one. From now on you and I will have three different
identities in case we ever end up in that type of situation again. I
trust Linda, Dimitri not so much.”
He pushed the paper back over in my direction. “Marsha and her husband
Harold Fortner are holding a party Friday night. She is the lady you met
at the beauty parlor three weeks ago. Since your picture has been
showing up on the society page Mrs. Fortner wants you to come to her
party as a favor to her. It's a social thing Jess. People in the upper
class like to discuss or brag about the people they know on a first name
basis. The general public has their movie stars. These people have
royalty as friends.”
He smiled. “While you are socializing see what you can learn if there
are any rumors about the government watching a certain part of town.
Don't get specific about an address nor push the conversation in that
direction. Be discreet.”
I shook my head. “You know me. I'm about as discreet as a sledge hammer.
I'll try is all I can promise. What am I supposed to do at some social
party? You know I don't have any idea how to act around women in that
respect. You think they are going to be interested in how to field strip
an M Sixteen or how to lay out the string lines for a foundation?”
Ricky laughed as he looked me in the eye. “That would probably get their
attention. Linda is going as your aide. Since she is no longer my
handler it won't draw any undue attention to her from her Russian
bosses. She can help guide you through the evening as necessary.”
That shocked me. “I thought she went back home after making a stop at
the lab in Mexico?”
He rose up from the table. “She did and now she's back. She came back on
her own this time. She wasn't sent back. I think you impressed her. She
probably wants to know where you came from? Linda is very methodical in
her work. She crosses all the T's and dots all the I's and leaves no
unexplained or unexpected behind. You popped up on her radar from
nowhere. She's going to put some time in finding out where you came from
and who you worked with before you and I joined up. She will be subtle
about it but expect a full court press from her.”
“And if she finds out?” I couldn't believe Ricky would invite her to get
this close to us if that was her intentions.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I didn't answer her when she asked me about
the lab in Mexico. She knows it wasn't the Philadelphia Project. A non
answer is as good as an answer when she has to report to Dimitri. If she
figures out what we really were doing in Mexico then what she does with
that information will be up to her.”
He turned and was headed for the garage. “Don't ever lie to her. She
will never trust you again. If she asks a question you don't want to
answer then don't. She can ask, it doesn't mean you have to answer.”
===============================================================
It didn't take much prodding from Ricky to get me headed back over to
the beauty parlor. I was learning but I wasn't an expert in the makeup
department. I guess I was finally learning to walk and act like a woman
because no one hassled me on the walk from Wanda's Beauty Parlor to
Marcela's Boutique. Or maybe there were a few there who remembered the
first time I made that walk? Who knows?
Jennie the lady who had waited on me the first time met me as I walked
into Marcela's. “Miss Rabbit it is good to see you again.”
“I thought we cleared this up last time. It is Jess. Good to see you too
Jennie. I'm supposed to go to Marsha's party Friday night. Ricky said a
dress had been ordered for the occasion.” I smiled as I gave her a wink.
She laughed. “Jess it is then. Yes we have the dress. Try it on for me
if you will to make sure it accents your figure properly. Although I
can't imagine any dress not doing so.”
It was my turn to laugh as I knew exactly what this body had been
designed for in Ricky's mind. At first I hated him for putting so much
wow into his design. Over the past few weeks I started to appreciate
just how much this body could easily manipulate men. When I was a guy I
should have realized beautiful women almost automatically own men's
minds. The rodeo queen Tracy captured mine. Like all men I didn't have
a clue at the time when it happened. I was too infatuated with her
beauty and her charm. My mind didn't believe at the time that someone
like her would even talk to someone like me. For the past few weeks I
had been studying the interactions between men and women and between
women themselves.
All the things girls learned by instinct as they grow from adolescence
into adults I was experiencing in weeks. I was on a serious learning
curve. And from the price of that gown for Marsha’s party Jennie had me
try on at Marcela's, Ricky was on a serious money drain train. I hoped
Ricky's plans worked out for retrieving the data drives. It was costing
him a ton of money the way we were going at it.
Ricky and the red Lincoln were gone when I got back home. I was slowly
learning another thing about a woman's life. A woman's work is never
done. I washed the dishes, made the beds, vacuumed the carpets. The
clothes were a different matter.
Those Ricky and I had been wearing weren't the kind that goes into the
washing machine. They go to the cleaners. I sighed as I headed for the
laundry room with a handful of underclothes and socks. I yearned for the
days when it was jeans and denim shirts as the style of the day. As I
was hand washing nylons in the laundry sink I begin thinking this
Scandinavian princess stuff really sucked. It was about that time I
decided enough was enough. I headed for the bedroom and a change of
clothes.
================================================================
“Ma'am you need some help with that?” He was giving me the once over
several times over.
“I'll manage. What's your furtherest range?” I rolled the pistol belt up
on my left shoulder before I set the rifle case on the bench between us.
“Uh.., four hundred yards here. The targets can be set at any distance
you want. If this is your first time you might want to try fifty yards
for your rifle and ten yards for your pistol. Are you sure you want to
shoot that pistol? That's a damn big gun for a woman. Your husband or
boyfriend send you out here with that? That will probably hurt you.” He
gave me his pathetic 'girls can't shoot' look.
“I'll try and manage if it's okay with you. Set me up two targets. One
at fifty yards...”
“For the rifle of course.” He finished my sentence for me.
“And another at four hundred yards. Think you can manage that?” His
condescending attitude was driving my desire to put some holes
downrange.
He snickered. “uh..., but of course. I'll have one of the guys run those
targets out for you.”
“Thank you. Which booth do I get?” I looked at a dozen shooters boxes.
Eight of them were already occupied.
He handed me a tag from the pegboard beside his left hand. “Maybe number
seven will be your lucky number.”
I took the tag before I picked up my rifle case. I adjusted my purse
strap on my right shoulder and my gun belt on my left shoulder. I didn't
remember things being this complicated when I was a guy. I headed for
the booth determined to not look like a chick in distress with this much
gear.
As I laid everything on the bench and settled into the seat I was
seriously considering heading home and shooting Ricky for changing me
into this female hell. Way down range a target stood up. The gun guys
were going to make me realize I could never hit anything at four hundred
yards and I should have stuck with the fifty yard target.
Bite me! I unlocked the gun case and lifted the 308 out. The bipod
snapped onto the barrel. I took a clip out of a case and checked to make
sure all the noses were clean. Any kind of contamination can drag a
bullet off its target at that range.
“May I?”
I looked up to my right. A rugged looking character about two forty and
about sixty five years old was standing there with a monsterous spotter
scope.
Nodding to the spotter's bench beside me I shrugged. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks.” He settle in and adjusted his scope. “Their range isn't
perfect. You can't feel it sitting here but you have a ten mile an hour
wind coming from your left to your right. They didn't get the field
level when they graded this place for a range. There is a fourteen inch
rise from here to that target you are looking at.”
Now it was my turn to take a good look at the guy. “Thanks.”
He smiled back. “For most people that information wouldn't mean
anything. That rifle you unpacked tells me you ain't most people.”
Sliding on my ear protection and shooters glasses, I checked to make
sure he had on his. “Let's see if you're right.” I slid the lens covers
off the scope and focused in on the target. “We're going hot.” There was
a loud bark.
“Lower right hand corner. Just outside the bulls eye.” He raised away
from his scope and looked at me.
“K. Again.” I racked a bullet into the chamber. There was another loud
bark.
“Dead center.” His eyes were dancing as he looked at me.'
“Again.” Another bullet into the chamber and another loud bark.
“You made the center hole a little wider.”
I put twelve bullets down range before I quit. “I'm getting sloppy.”
“Yeah, that last one almost didn't make it through the same hole. You
cut the heart out of that bulls eye.” That's the damnest shooting I have
ever seen in my entire life.
Pointing to the clips still in the case I looked him over. “You want to
try?”
He shook his head. “Thanks but I'm not going to try and impress anyone
with my talents after what I just witnessed.”
Finally! I was starting to feel not so..., so damn female hopeless after
the big guy's compliments. Hearing voices behind me I turned around to
look. There were eight men crowded around staring at me or the rifle.
Most of them had a look of disbelief as they talked among themselves.
I was starting to doubt my reason for this testosterone test. I wanted
to vent my frustrations, not tell the gun set I could shoot.
Keying the intercom I looked over toward the guy in the booth. “I’m
through with the rifle. Have them set up the fifty yard target please.”
Downrange the target disappeared and the fifty yard target rose up. Do I
or don't I? Ahh what the hell. I wasn't coming back. I didn't give that
guy at the check in station the name I was using.
I stood up and pulled the fifty from the holster. Before I could bring
it up I heard someone behind me. “Oh shit.”
“Going hot.” I put seven bullets down range. The clip was empty and my
wrist hurt. It took a long time to reacquire my target after each shot.
“I'm through.” I didn't enjoy that like I use to or thought I would.
That shoot off with Linda was still fun. This wasn't. The fifty was too
big of a gun for me now. I needed something smaller with less recoil.
Using this gun if I missed that first shot it would take too long to
send another bullet after the first. Ricky and I were damn lucky at that
lab of his I hadn't missed.
The big guy shook his head as he stood up and snapped the caps closed on
his spotter scope. “I can cover all the holes with a dollar bill. How's
your wrist?”
“Bruised.” It wasn't hurting yet but it would pretty soon. I wanted to
get home and soak it in hot water and Epsom salts before it started
swelling.
He nodded in agreement. “I can understand why. I'm not going to pretend
to understand why you want to carry that thing. I saw something today
I'll be telling my grandkids until the day I die. Appreciate you letting
me watch.”
I held out my hand. “Thanks for spotting for me. It was kind of you.”
He took my hand and shook it. “I'd like to help you carry your gear back
out to your car if you will let me.”
“uh...,” It was a kind offer but was he wanting to read my car tag? “I
think I can manage.”
I thought I could but when it was time to pick up that rifle case I
couldn't do it after what the fifty had done to my right wrist. I was
klutzing it.
He watched me as I picked it up and set it down twice before he reached
over and hefted it. “Yeah. I'll help.”
Things were packed into the trunk of the car when he held out his hand.
“It was a privilege.”
I took his hand. “Thanks. I really did need some help. That fifty worked
me over.”
He grinned and nodded. “It's not the first time you shot that monster or
you wouldn't have been knocking them down like that. Take my advice for
what it's worth. I wouldn't punish my body like that if I were you. The
308 you did okay with. The fifty..., you did okay with it too. Was it
worth it? Buffalo are gone. What do you need a fifty for in this day and
age? I have a collection of sorts that might work for you. I'm thinking
FN five seven would be one of them.”
He pulled a card from his pocket and held it out to me. “Call me if you
would like to see what I have. Bring your husband, boyfriend or
girlfriend if you feel the need to have them look too.”
I took his card. “Thanks.”
I was in the kitchen soaking my wrist in a dishpan full of hot water and
Epsom salts. The fifty was in a dozen pieces scattered across the table
on a towel. I had cleaned it but not reassembled it. The rifle was
across the table still needing to be cleaned when I heard the garage
door open. I picked up the rifle, racked one into the chamber, and
waited.
Ricky walked in. His eyebrows went up as he looked from me to the table.
“You giving your toys a bath now?”
I opened the bolt and laid the rifle down before I put my hand back into
the water. “Just cleaning them.”
“What did you do Jess? Do I need to look for dead bodies in the back
yard?” He was looking out the patio doors toward the back.
I had to laugh over that one. “Not yet. I went out to a gun range to
work out a little of my frustrations. Ricky, the fifty is too big and
too heavy. I don't feel like carrying that much iron in my purse any
more. It takes too long to bring it around and get it into position for
defense. I don't have the muscles I had when I was Tom working
construction. I am deluding myself thinking things can stay the same
until you bring Tom back. I'm not giving up my defensive weapons though.
If anything I need one now more than I ever did before. I'm going to
pick up something light, powerful, but not as heavy or have as much kick
as the fifty if your finances can stand it.”
Picking up the fifty frame I started reassembling it. “I love the fifty
because it scares the fight out of anyone as soon as I pull it. It has
deadly serious stamped all over it. Even those with drug or alcohol
brain damage know not to challenge it. It is a put down weapon. One
bullet and the target is down no matter if they have a vest or not.”
Ricky nodded in agreement as he watched me put the Eagle back together.
“But…, it isn’t a ladies gun. Find something more agreeable Jess. We can
afford it. You have something in mind?”
Holding the fifty in my hands I felt like I was betraying a friend. It
had served me well as Tom and even saved my life as Jessica. I think so.
A guy mentioned a FN five seven. Doesn’t have the kick or the knock down
of the fifty. I can get armor piercing bullets that have the same or
even more penetration than the fifty even though they are illegal. I’ll
have to make sure each one hits a vital spot if it comes to that.”
Ricky pulled his cell phone. “Linda knows her guns. Why don’t I let her
find one for you? No name, no registration, and how many of them bullets
did you think you might want?”
Reaching over I closed up his phone before he had a chance to make the
call. “Don’t make any calls from this location unless it is necessary. I
may be paranoid but I’m beginning to get that same feeling Linda said
she had. I feel the feds breathing down our necks. They get their hands
on us and it is all over. I don’t know if the government guys place you
and Linda together or not. If they have, they will scrutinize anyone she
gets close to.”
Ricky nodded as he slid his phone back into his pocket. “Good advice
even though Linda is no longer Linda. I need to stop referring to her as
Linda. She is Maria Martinez, from Brazil now.”
That stopped me cold. “Say what!”
Ricky chuckled. “Linda has used three different names since I first met
her. I have no idea what her real name is. In her line of work it is a
benefit to have one’s own government behind them. Makes it easy to
change identities. Even if our government had a double agent in Russia
it would be hard to keep up with the Russian agents identities. I’m
betting Linda…, Maria’s new identity came straight out of Brazil rather
than some Russian agency.”
He turned and was headed out the door. “Don’t think about it too much
Jess. It will give you a headache trying to keep up with what the
Russian and American spy spooks do now days.”
==============================================================
Later is always too late to be wishing we had done something different.
Something didn’t feel right after I made the trip to Wanda’s Beauty
Parlor Friday evening.
When I walked out of her salon my gut feeling I was being watched went
off the charts. Not the usual kind of looks from people but the kind
that says you’re being painted. My hand went inside my purse to the
fifty. I didn’t pull it out in the open. I took a quick step to my right
away from Ricky’s red Lincoln like I was going to walk to Marcela’s for
the gown. I was wishing I had drove the bullet proof car. He had parked
his red Lincoln behind the other car so when it was time to go I drove
this one.
Then I spun on my heel and stepped up beside the car keeping my head
down below the roof line. I checked the parking lot on the side of the
car I was on, looking for someone or something out of place. I was
thinking about the two guys who had hassled me weeks earlier wondering
if they had come back to finish the job?
A car with a high performance engine started up behind me on the other
side of the parking lot. Taking a quick glance over the roof of the
Lincoln I saw a black sedan with heavy tinted windows turning my way.
The passenger windows were half way down. I had no doubt this was a car
full of friends of the six dead people we had left behind in Mexico.
Drug dealers have resources our own law can only dream about. They don’t
have any restrictions about being legal since everything they do is
illegal. I was betting I showed up in someone’s pictures that fateful
night. Maybe they even found the doctor I had taken Ricky to? It didn’t
take a genius to figure out Ricky and the bimbo he was with that night
disappeared supposedly in a US registered airplane. Was every red headed
bimbo now on their death list or…?
The beauty parlor was going to be in the line of fire. Brenda was still
by the counter watching as I crouched beside the car. I lifted the fifty
out of my purse and waved it at her motioning for her to get back and
down. Texas must have smarter people than most because she turned and
was screaming and waving for everyone to get back and down as she hit
the floor.
As the front of the black sedan slowly pulled past the rear of the
Lincoln I eased around to the front of the Lincoln. Gun barrels were
sticking out the windows. They expected to find me crouched down beside
the car. They opened up with their automatics shredding the Lincoln’s
driver’s side and all the windows. The black sedan leapt forward with
the rear tires burning rubber and the shooting stopped.
I should have let them go. It wasn’t part of my training. I stood up and
put a round through the rear passengers side window while it was still
down. The angle of the shot was perfect. The driver’s blood was
splattered all over the inside of the car. The car swerved and crashed
into a parked car. The two on my side opened their doors and bailed. The
one that had been in front was bringing his rifle up when he was slammed
back up against the door and dropped with a fifty slug in him. The one
that had been in back was trying to make it around behind the car. He
didn’t make it. The fourth man that had been sitting behind the driver
rose up over the trunk of the car with his rifle pointed up in the air
ahead of him. He was bringing the rifle down to take aim in my
direction. It was his last mistake.
Looking at the red Lincoln I hoped Ricky was telling the truth when he
said it was a lease. All the windows were gone. From the tail light to
the front bumper that whole side of the car looked like a cheese grater.
That wasn’t counting the two flat tires. I wasn’t going to be driving it
home. Now what? This whole mess was going to lead the police straight to
our doorstep. That identity Linda set up for me better be bullet proof
or it was going to be curtains for Ricky and me if the feds got
involved.
Looking back at the beauty shop, the women were slowly starting to get
up off the floor as they stared at me. There wasn’t any glass left
anyplace in the front of the store. Several of the mirrors inside were
broken along with some of the beauty chairs looking worse for the wear
and tear.
Back across the parking lot where the black sedan had come from were the
two guys who had accosted me that first day. One had his wrist in a cast
and the other had a leg cast. I wasn’t sure but I would make a bet it
was those two who sic the Mexicans onto me. I made a slicing motion
across my throat. Besides shooting them in cold blooded murder, it was
the best I could do at the moment. If I ever saw them when there weren’t
any witnesses around I would remedy the situation.
They scrambled for their car and burned rubber out of the parking lot.
Reaching into the car I held my gun over the seat and ejected the
cartridge. Under the seat was a second clip. I slid it home. If the
Mexicans had a backup team I wasn’t starting the second act with a half
empty clip. I could hear the sirens of several cars in the distance.
Walking back up to the beauty parlor I swept the glass aside with my
foot. I sat down in front of the shop with my back to the wall, put my
fifty out to the side out of arms reach so the cops could see I couldn’t
pick it up without leaning over for it. With this much damage and dead
bodies their adrenalin was going to be in overload. They would shoot
first and decide what went wrong later. Anyone holding a gun when they
arrived would end up dead.
I pulled Marsha Fortner’s card out of my purse and made the call.
“Attorney Fortner’s office.” Was the bright cherry voice on the other
end.
“This is Jessica Rabbit, may I speak to Mrs. Fortner please. It is very
urgent.”
“Jessica, tell me you aren’t backing out of coming tonight?” Was the
familiar voice on the phone.
“Marsha, I’m in the shopping mall where we first met. I shot four men.
I’m going to need an attorney. Can you help?”
The phone was silent for a few seconds before she answered. “Did you
kill them?”
“Yes.”
“Do NOT answer any questions the police may ask. The only response is
you will not answer without your attorney present. I’ll be there in
twenty minutes. Don’t say anything to the police. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” There was a click as my phone went dead. I watched as nine police
cars pulled into the shopping mall.
Of course I was put in a face down position on the sidewalk amid glass
shards before I was handcuffed. To say the police were pissed because I
wasn’t talking to them was an understatement.
“Officer you don’t understand. Jessica was defending herself.” Brenda
was trying to get them to release me. The police started taking
statements from the ladies in the salon.
He shook his head. “Two of them were shot in the back.”
I nodded as I listened. I was thinking to myself. Uh huh, the driver and
the guy trying to run around behind the car. I guess I should have
waited for a repeat performance when they were coming at me?
Marsha walked up and looked at me. “Did you say anything?”
“Only that I wasn’t speaking without an attorney.”
“Good girl. Give me a chance to find out what happened and you stay
put.” She looked at the Lincoln turned into hamburger before she turned
and was walking toward the black sedan.
I almost laughed. Stay put? I was handcuffed and a big policeman was
standing over me. Sure, you can count on me. I’ll be right here when you
come back.
Marsha walked around the black sedan stopping to talk to the officers
and look over the bodies. Ten minutes or so she was headed back in my
direction with an officer in tow. She was shaking her head. “Jesus
Christ Jess, what do they teach young girls in that country you’re
from?”
She looked at the officer she had brought back with her. “David?”
He got a lopsided grin on his face. “Release her. By all accounts she
was defending herself. Mrs Fortner said she would be responsible for her
until the information is taken to the DA.”
The policeman motioned for me to stand up so he could remove the
handcuffs.
Brenda stepped out of the salon and gave me a hug after the cuffs had
been removed. “Thanks Jess. If you hadn’t warned us we could be dead
too.”
David looked at her curiously. “Warned you?”
Brenda held my hand as she nodded in agreement. “Jess motioned for us to
get down before they started shooting.”
Someone was coming across the parking lot I really didn’t want to see.
He was grinning as he walked up and stopped beside David. He looked over
the Lincoln before turning his attention back toward me. “Hello Red.
Damn nice shooting.”
He looked at the gun the officer was still holding. “I was thinking it
had to be a fifty you were carrying since you said it was bigger than
mine. These guys were the muscle for a drug dealer. Nice of you to take
care of them for us. Be warned there are ten more waiting to take their
place for everyone you remove. I don’t know what you did to piss them
off but they will be doubly so now. Watch your back.”
He was the guy that had followed me from the trade show several weeks
back. He was part of the alphabet soup companies the US kept on hand.
CIA, FBI, NSA or maybe an un named black ops. “Thanks for the advice.
I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Give her gun back. She’s going to need it.” He looked at the policeman
who was holding my fifty. He walked over to the Lincoln, reached inside
and pushed the button to pop the trunk.
I knew what he was doing and didn’t like it. I had no idea how far he
was going with his snooping.
Lifting the rifle case out of the trunk, he walked up, laid it on the
hood of the car, and opened it up. He let out a low whistle. “Damn
serious sniper rifle. Custom made. Accurate at a thousand yards?”
“seventeen” There was no sense in lying now. He knew what he was looking
at. I was praying to God he didn’t say anything about the silencer in
the case. I didn’t have a permit for it. Hell…, Jessica didn’t have a
permit for the fifty I was carrying. That was issued for Tom not Jess.
Please God don’t let the others think of asking. If they did I was going
to prison.
He let out another low whistle as he shut the case and snapped the locks
back. His eyes were smiling when he looked over at me. “I knew you
wouldn’t let it be out of reach. It’s in your blood. I never was that
good.”
I knew without a doubt he recognized the silencer and didn’t ask.
He looked at David and Marsha. “She can put someone down a mile away.
That’s for those who don’t realize it isn’t only her looks that can
kill.”
He gave me a come on motion with his hand. “I’ll drive you home since
your car seems to be non compliant for the laws of the Texas Highway
Division.”
This was getting worse by the second. “uh…, I’ll call a cab.” I didn’t
want him to know where I lived.
He could see my hesitation. “I know where you are staying. You have been
all over the society pages. It’s part of my job to be nosey.”
Marsha shook her head. “I don’t want my client talking to any
reporters.”
He laughed as he moved his coattail to the side. He pulled a Texas
Rangers badge off his belt. “Mrs. Fortner, I’m not going to question
your client as a reporter nor am I going to question her in any capacity
as a law officer. Because I said it, I can no longer be called to
testify as to anything she may or may not say in my presence.
Officer David was protesting. “She hasn’t filled out a statement yet.”
The Ranger laughed again as he rolled his eyes. “That’s because you had
her cooling her ass on the sidewalk for the past forty minutes. I was
listening to the calls on the radio. When a red headed woman was
mentioned I had a good idea who they were talking about. I had to come
over and see for myself. You’re damn lucky a second crew didn’t come in
and try to finish what the first one couldn’t. The only reason it didn’t
happen is no one figured one woman would stand a chance against four men
with automatics.”
He pointed toward the Lincoln. “I’m betting she is the only one here who
isn’t part of the spray and pray crowd. Spray enough lead downwind and
pray you hit something. What you carrying Lieutenant? A nineteen shot
Glock? Don’t be embarrassed, I’m carrying the same thing. We would shoot
the car full of holes as we watched them drive off.”
He reached inside the Lincoln and picked up the magazine I ejected on
the seat. “This was on top of all the glass on the seat not under it.
She changed clips already.”
Thumbing bullets out on the car hood he ejected two. “One will still be
in the chamber of her gun. She carries a seven shot clip. She used four
bullets. Want to count the bodies again? Go look that car over and count
the bullet holes in the car.”
“I have a great admiration for the police department. The truth is you
guys spend most of your time writing tickets for speeders and accidents.
You look for who to blame. I look for who not to blame. Five minutes
after you arrived you should have figured out Red did all of us a
favor.”
His eyes were dancing as he studied me. “Fill out your report
Lieutenant. Have Mrs. Fortner look it over. You can ask Red to sign off
on it. In the mean time I’m going to be doing everything I can to talk
her into joining the Rangers so she can embarrass the hell out of all
the rest of us on the gun range. I have a friend who works at the Four
Aces gun club. He called me the other day and said he saw some of the
damnest shooting he had ever seen in his life. Then he went on to say it
was by a woman no less. I knew exactly whom he was talking about when he
described her. I already met her.”
He turned his attention toward Marsha. “Mrs. Fortner, you have a party
tonight. If I may impose I would like to be invited too. Call it extra
security you aren’t going to pay for. Red has proved she can take care
of herself. It’s going to be impossible to hide that fifty in an evening
gown.”
He motioned back over his shoulder with his thumb. “Those guys have
friends and those friends have friends. It’s one of the reasons I’d like
to see Red join the Rangers. Even drug dealers know not to mess with us.
If she was a Ranger they would let this be a learning lesson. They would
back off, hoping they never run into her again.”
Marsha mulled that one over for a few seconds. “Okay Mister…?”
“James Daniels, Texas Ranger, at your service ma’am.”
How was I going to explain all this to Ricky? Hey Ricky all those
government guys looking for us? Why don’t I invite one home just for
giggles? Oh yes, I almost forgot I had the red Lincoln customized. They
added a lot of lead to the body and removed the windows.
The Lieutenant shook his head. “Now just a minute Ranger. You can’t stop
by in the middle of a crime scene and take the only suspect that is
still alive. I’m going to take her back to the station and…”
James sighed as he looked over at me and then at the Lieutenant. “Don’t
make me pull rank on you. You call your captain and have him call my
captain. I promise if you search the Texas Constitution you will find
the Texas Rangers have the authority above any other agency to take over
any crime scene.
A smirk spread across James face. “So far Red has played nice as you
made her park her ass. How high do you want this to go? The lady is
Norwegian Royalty.”
He waved a hand across the horizon. “Dallas police harass and book
Norwegian Princess for defending herself in a Drug Gang shoot out. Will
be the headline spread on all the papers around the world by tomorrow.
Her government, our government, their ambassadors, our ambassadors, and
our governor will be in your station for a week or more asking what in
the hell were you thinking! You will meet some of the most powerful
people in our state and wish to god you hadn’t when they are through.”
I looked over at Marsha. Her eyes were dancing as a smile spread across
her face. I thought she was going to giggle as she looked at James and
then over to Lt. David.
She nodded in agreement. “Wish I had said that. It’s true. You arrest
Jessica and you might as well plan on answering why to every politician
looking for a photo opportunity for the next two weeks. They will
crucify you for arresting a princess because she defended herself in our
wild and lawless state. You will become famous as every supermarket
tabloid prints their own version of the story.”
Lt. David swallowed as he looked me over. “Okay Ranger, I release her in
your custody. She’s your responsibility.”
James motioned for me to follow as he picked up my rifle case, the fifty
clip, and bullets off the hood of the car. “Let’s go Red.”
I held out my hand to the policeman still holding my fifty. “If you
don’t mind.”
He didn’t look too happy. “Just because you’re some damn princess.”
Lt. David’s head snapped around. “Glen!”
The policeman was glaring at me as he handed me the gun. “Yes sir.”
The Lieutenant was looking at the gun. “We will need it for ballistics
after the coroner finishes digging your bullets out of the bodies. Your
attorney can tell you when and where to bring it for a test.”
Picking up my purse off the hood of the car I shoved all the contents
back in the police had poured out when they searched it. I pulled my
hair out of the way as I slid the strap up on my shoulder and dropped
the fifty in it. “Thank you Lieutenant.”
James was still waiting as I gathered up my things. I pointed off toward
Marcela’s. “The dress I am going to wear to the party tonight is there.
Do you mind if I pick it up now?”
James turned and looked at where I was pointing. “Sure thing.” He took a
few slow steps in that direction waiting for me to catch up with him.
“Damn…,” Lt. David watched as Jessica entered the dress shop. “The lady
has ice in her veins. She kills four men and goes shopping for a dress.”
“Which reminds me, I have to get ready for a party. Thanks for your
understanding David.” Marsha smiled at him.
Lt. David looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. “Uh huh,
riiiight”
Fifty minutes later we were in James Ford pickup headed toward the
house. He glanced over in my direction for a sec. “Who are you Red?”
“Uh…, I’m Jessica.” He knew my name. Why was he asking?
“Yes and I’m the President. You’re no more a Norwegian Princess than I’m
a Norwegian Prince. You’re Texas born and raised through and through.
You talk Texan, walk Texan, and act Texan.
To say I was scared silly was an understatement. I ran a dozen options
through my mind and none of them looked good. If I pulled my gun out I
might have to kill him. Would he follow orders if I was holding a gun on
him? He was a Texas Ranger.
He took a quick look in my direction. “Miss who ever you are. What I’m
about to say isn’t to be repeated. If you tell anyone nothing good will
come out of it. A couple days ago I saw an interesting topic on a
friends desk. He is good about scanning all the incoming data from
problems all over the world. The data was about a drug lord and several
others killed at what seemed to be a lab of some sort in Mexico. No big
deal. They are killing one another all the time. No one could figure out
what the purpose of the lab was. It wasn’t a drug making lab. What
interest could the drug dealers have in it? The six men who were killed
had the same problem as the men in the mall we just left. Single bullet
kill shot from a fifty caliber.
He glanced in my direction. I didn’t have anything to say. I was waiting
for him to tell me I was under arrest. Which meant things were going to
get terribly ugly. I wasn’t going to prison.
“The article listed a man whom they thought owned the lab. They didn’t
have a name. He was with a woman that same night. Someone took pictures
of them together at a party earlier that evening. Both of them are
wanted for questioning.”
He pulled into our driveway and killed his pickup before turning in the
seat to focus on me. “The man in the picture is Ricky Clawson. He is
wanted by the CIA, along with Thomas Baker, on an outstanding warrant. I
tried to find out what the warrant was for. It is classified. Means the
feds are fishing, hoping to build a case after they pull him in. The
woman in the picture is the Norwegian Princess.”
James sighed as he turned to look down the street. “You are living on
borrowed time. I have no idea what you are into. I’m not going to ask if
you are an undercover agent.”
He turned his attention back toward me. “I managed to bring all the
pieces together because I had met you. You can bet your ruby slippers it
won’t take too long for others to figure out the same thing if they
haven’t already. If you aren’t government you better be getting ready
for some big time hassle from the guys wanting your friends. Mrs.
Fortner is a good attorney. She isn’t a big league player for the kind
of people who are going to pull you in.”
I nodded. “You’re not going to arrest me?”
“For what? There aren’t any warrants on you.”
“What about Ricky? You going to arrest him?” I was hoping Ricky didn’t
come out of the house if he saw us sitting in the driveway.
“My job. Unless you’re going to pull that damn gun you’re so deadly
with. Then I would carefully consider all my options and leave providing
I could.”
“Then you would come back with those fifty Rangers you threatened me
with weeks back.”
His eyes danced in amusement. “No, I’d send fifty Rangers while I worked
on the arrest warrant.”
I knew it was his way of joking. Live or die, a Ranger would never be
left behind when a job needed to be done. I opened my door, slid out and
retrieved my dress. “I’ll see you at the party tonight?”
He got out and picked up my rifle case, and extra cartridge before
walking around to my side of the pickup. “I’ll be there.”
“I appreciate the ride. Leave my things on the hood of the car.” I
motioned toward the older Lincoln parked in the driveway.
He looked toward the house. “You’re not inviting me in?”
“No.”
“Ricky and Thomas home?” He focused in on my eyes.
I didn’t answer as I waited to see what he was going to do.
“Damn Red, you’re in deep. I’ll see you at the party tonight.” He put my
rifle case on the hood of the car before getting in his pickup and
leaving.
Until then I didn’t know how much this conversation had bothered me. I
was shaking all over as I watched James turn at the end of the block and
disappear. I was prepared to do whatever it took to defend Ricky and the
adrenalin rush was used up. The Mexicans were trying to kill me. That
was self preservation. To think it would be necessary to shoot a Texas
Ranger wasn’t in my mental makeup.
Ricky was waiting when I walked into the house. He looked serious. “The
guy who brought you home is the same one who followed you out at the
trade show. Have they surrounded us yet?”
I laid the party dress across the back of one of the chairs. “He knows
most…, some of the story. His name is James Daniels. He is a Texas
Ranger. Said there is a warrant out on you and me…,”
Ricky cut me off. “He didn’t pull you in and wait for backup to search
the house?”
I would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so serious. Pointing
down at the front of myself I shook my head. “My disguise is foolproof.
Yours not so much. He had no idea he was talking to Thomas Baker. The
party is still on for tonight at Marsha’s. He is going to be there…,
Ricky we can’t go. He will try and arrest you and I will try and stop
him.”
Ricky was silent for many long pregnant seconds before he sighed. “You
still need to go. If you don’t he will know he struck pay dirt and will
be back with a search warrant for the house.”
“By the way, not that it makes any difference but what did you do with
the Lincoln?”
“It’s in the mall shot full of holes…,”
“SAY WHAT? OH SWELL!” Ricky gave me a full body scan. “At least you
don’t seem to have any holes. Cars are replaceable. You not so much. I
could care less about the car. How did it happen Jess?”
Linda walked in from the hallway. My hand immediately went to my purse
and the fifty. She was holding a phone up to her ear.
“Okay.” She closed it up. “Jess ran into your Mexican friends. Four of
them won’t ever bother anyone again.”
She stared at me and shook her head. “All my man could talk about was
the way Jess took care of them. He had never seen anything like it. She
pulled them in like mice to cheese and then took them out.”
It wasn’t the idea Linda had someone following me that bothered me. It
was the idea I hadn’t picked him out that worried me.
Ricky’s eyes closed to slits as he stared at me. “Okay, this has got out
of control. I’m going to the lab to pick up my research. You and Maria
go to the plane and wait.”
I shook my head. “The hell you say. I’m going with you. And I’m the one
walking into that lab, not you.”
“Jess, I know exactly where everything is at and what I want. It will
take me seconds to walk in and out of that lab while it will take you
minutes. I’m not going to debate this with you.”
As bad as I hated to admit it Ricky was right. Seconds might mean the
difference between life and death or prison. “I drive.”
Linda, Maria or whatever name she was going by shook her head no. “Jess,
I think in your country they call the person who protected the
strongbox, ridding shotgun. That was because he could shoot better than
the driver. We’re going to follow Ricky. Any problems arise they will be
caught between you and me.”
Ricky nodded. “Grab your suitcase Jess. We aren’t coming back.”
I headed to the bedroom as I mulled the plans over. I didn’t like it but
waiting for lots of government agents to close in was worse.
I tossed Ricky’s jewelry in a bag and put underclothes, jeans, and a
blouse in another bag. I slipped off my dress and into jeans, tan satin
blouse, cowboy boots, and cowboy hat.
Ricky was in the kitchen waiting when I walked in carrying a couple
bags. He looked surprised. “Where’s your suitcases?”
“Ricky, I’m not running with a suitcase in my hand. I have your jewelry
in the bag. The dresses stay. They along with the rest of my clothes are
too bulky to be carrying. I have a change in my bag. That’s it. You
ready?”
Linda came in behind me. “Jeeze Vegas, even when you dress down you look
damn hot.”
I turned to look. Linda was wearing black pants and a black blouse with
a new rifle slung over her shoulder. It was a match to the one she gave
me. “Speak for yourself hon.”
Another woman came out of the bedroom wearing black pants, black blouse,
and she had a rifle slung over her shoulder. It was an automatic with
clips taped together. She could probably put a hundred rounds downwind
with what she was carrying.
“Serena?” I was guessing the lady was Ricky’s new handler Linda had
mentioned weeks back. I looked her over. She was a beauty that would
turn any mans head.
“We going, or do we need to discuss the plans again that aren’t really
plans?” Linda waited for a response.
“Load up.” Ricky opened the garage door.
I noticed a brown Mustang in the garage. “Linda’s car?”
Ricky headed to the Lincoln. “Uh huh. One of Jimmy’s specials. She said
it would do over two hundred without even gasping for air.”
After tossing the bags into the rear seat I took the rifle out of the
case and slid a clip home before putting the case in the rear seat.
Ricky was pulling out of the driveway as I was reloading the fifty clip
I had used earlier. I slid it down between my belt and waist hoping I
didn’t need it or the rifle.
==============================================================
Two hours and seventeen minutes later we were parked on a side street in
an industrial complex in Ft. Worth. Ricky flipped a switch leading to
some wires going under the seat. “Try your cell phone Jess. It should be
dead.”
I flipped it open. There was no signal. “It is.”
He nodded. “Okay, here goes nothing.” The Lincoln started rolling
forward.
Minutes later Ricky stopped in front of a non descript brown metal
building. “Wish me luck. If things go wrong you hightail it out of here
and don’t look back or wait on me.”
He opened his door and headed for the building. I chambered a round up
into the rifle and my fifty. Looking at the buildings around us I saw
security cameras up on the corners. They weren’t all pointed to protect
the buildings they were on. I counted six that were focused on the
building Ricky had just walked into.
A black car was hitting the high spots in the pavement headed down the
street toward us. I opened my door stood up and pointed the rifle at the
car. The sound of squealing tires echoed between the buildings. The
driver’s door and passenger door flew open. Guns were pointed in my
direction.
“RICKY, WE HAVE COMPANY! Keep your ass down.” I prayed he didn’t come
running out of the building.
“FEDERAL AGENTS, PUT YOUR WEAPON DOWN!” Came from the direction of the
car.
“Ah hell” I had no doubt they had rifles in the trunk of the car. They
probably called for help when they hit the brakes. This situation was
going to get bad in a hurry if I didn’t get Ricky in the car and leave.
Trying to hold a position when a hundred agents are closing in is not
winnable under any circumstances.
Two blocks behind the black car a brown car pulled into the street and
then behind one of the buildings. Linda ran across the street to the
other side.
And then all Hell broke lose. Serena let lose with her automatic as she
hosed down the rear of the black sedan. Linda was putting holes in the
doors beside the two agents. They should have dove back into the car.
They bailed to the side. The driver fell flat on the pavement losing his
grip on his weapon in the process. His gun was on the pavement ahead of
him. I took care of his gun. The passenger sprinted toward one of the
buildings. Serena churned the ground in front of him. He stopped and
turned toward me. I put a bullet in front of him. He held up his hands.
Linda took the gun out of his hand. I was doubly glad she wasn’t aiming
at me. The girl was deadly accurate.
After all the gunfire it was deathly quiet. “RICKY, GET YOUR ASS OUT
HERE BECAUSE THIS RIDE IS LEAVING!”
I put a bullet into the front of the car where I thought the battery
might be and three more into the radiator.
Linda took the tires out from under it.
Ricky ran from the building and into the driver’s seat in less than five
seconds. He burned rubber leaving. By the time he got to the main road
he slowed down and pulled into traffic as if he was on a Sunday drive.
“Did you get it?” I wanted to know if Ricky was going to be able to
rebuild his lab.
“Yes. We get to the plane and the states will be past tense for me. I
won’t be back.”
I was reloading the rifle. “Linda is good Ricky. Damn good. Better than
me. She has been trained in this business. I was trained to kill. There
is a huge difference. If it had been only me, there would be two dead
agents back there. Linda and Serena scared the piss out of them. They
didn’t kill them because they didn’t need to.”
Ricky nodded. “Are you trying to tell me I need to hire them and fire
you?”
“That’s kinda cold. But yeah since you put it like that.” I looked up to
see if I could see any choppers in the sky. I was positive we were part
of a massive manhunt by now.
Nineteen minutes later Ricky pulled the car into a hanger. The brown
Mustang pulled in behind us. Ricky and Linda were like a well oiled team
as they snapped the towbar onto the plane and pulled it from the hanger.
It surprised me when Linda and Serena loaded their gear into the plane
as I was loading ours.
“Everyone settled?” Ricky glanced in back. He and Linda were up front in
the pilot and copilot seats. The turbines were starting to spool up.
Linda was on the radio asking for permission to taxi to the end of the
runway for takeoff. It was obvious the two women were going with us. Had
Ricky sold his idea to the Russians?
Minutes later we were airborne I felt the wheels retract. Ricky came to
the back as Serena walked up and took his place. “What’s the deal
Ricky?”
He sat down in the seat beside me and took my left hand before sliding
an engagement band and wedding ring on my finger.
I didn’t think anything Ricky could do would shock me by now but that
did. I was looking from the rings to his eyes, to the rings, to…,
“Marry me Jess.”
“MARRY YOU? HAVE YOU FORGOT WHO I AM? WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN
THINKING?” I know my eyes were big, as I was shocked out of my mind.
“Marry me. Everything I own will be yours if something happens to me. It
will be legal. We will get married in Stalingrad. I am the reason you
are who you are. I’m sorry…,”
“I thought we put that sorry bit behind us. Let it go. It’s past tense.
I don’t want your money, nor your apology. You saved my life. I wouldn’t
have picked this one for a substitute, but it’s growing on me. You don’t
owe me anything. I owe you my life. Let’s let it go at that.” I started
to pull the rings off to give them back.
He put his hand over mind and stopped me. “Then do me a favor if you
think you owe me. Marry me Jess. I have investments all over the world.
You won’t need to worry about looking after anything as they will take
care of themselves. I will put everything I own in your name if you
won’t marry me.
My emotions took a tumble. “Ricky, we’ve always been the best of
friends. I don’t want your money. I’m not even sure I want Tom to come
back.”
“One more favor than?”
“What?”
“Kiss me?” He waited.
I mulled that one over. From that first night I liked it every time
Ricky touched me or I got to put my hands on him. It wasn’t just to get
even for him doing this to me like I first thought. I actually felt a
soft desire for more than a touch. I leaned over and pulled him in. And
loved every blissful second of that kiss as he returned it.
My heart and my emotions were racing as we broke apart. I was positive
Ricky had put that in my mind when he turned me into a woman. I was a
guy. Guys don’t kiss guys unless they are gay. Despite how much I was
trying to deny it, I had been wanting to bed Ricky and try out the
equipment from day one. Tom was gone and Jess had taken his place.
“Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“I’ll marry you. Gonna get pretty damn awkward when you bring Tom back.”
He was studying my eyes. ”Does Tom want to come back?”
I shook my head. “No. You still going to rebuild the machine?”
“Yes. There is something else. Linda wants to be my best man and Serena
wants to be your bridesmaid.”
I think I was a little disappointed but not much. “You already discussed
this with them?”
“They are going to help us rebuild the machine. We will set up a lab in
Russia. I’m not giving my ideas to our government. They would confiscate
it and lock all of us up so we couldn’t talk about it.”
“How long will it take to rebuild it?”
He put his fingers on the rings. “Two years max with all the help.”
Looking at the rings I thought of what an unforeseeable future we were
headed into. “I’m not giving up Jessica.”
Ricky leaned over and gave me another long kiss. “And neither am I.”
============================================================= There was
a reason the Ranger put on his uniform for the party. The uniform was a
deterrent as most people, even the dumb ones, didn’t want to go up
against a Texas Ranger. Red needed protection and this was the best way
of providing it. If he stayed close to her the gossip mill would spread
the word she was friends with the Texas Rangers.
“Two agents are down.” Came across on his radio and got his attention.
“Multiple shots fired. One of the shooters was a red headed woman. APB
on a tan car believed to be a Lincoln. Requesting assistance at
Blackwelder and Crooks Road. Woman was with a man. They had help. May be
as many as ten shooters. Armed and extremely dangerous.”
“Oh no Red. What have you gone and done now?” James shook his head as
he remembered the woman he was talking to shortly before. He knew where
the address was. It was in Ft Worth. James kicked the pickup in gear as
he turned on his emergency lights.
Reports kept coming in as James sped toward the shooting scene. Police
and highway patrol had set up rolling roadblocks across half the city
stopping every tan car on the roads searching for a red headed woman.
There were so many police cars and federal agent cars at the scene James
had to park two blocks away. Crime scene tape was strung around like
spider web. He was looking at almost sixty little flags planted in the
ground marking all the empty shell casings. “That wasn’t my girl.”
He walked across the street and looked at the empty shell casings with
little flags planted around them. Eighteen of them. He shook his head.
Same caliber as her rifle but…, “No not her.”
He walked up behind the black sedan and studied the bullet holes in the
trunk before circling the car looking at the bullet holes. He stopped
when he was looking at the equally spaced bullet holes in the front.
“Now that’s my girl.”
James stepped over where the two agents were sitting in the back of an
ambulance. Like little kids who had got the bejeebers scared out of
them, they were repeating their story to anyone who would listen.
“She tried to kill us.” Ted had bandages on his right hand where the gun
had been yanked out by Linda’s bullet.
“She ran before we could get back to the car.” Larry had bandages on his
hand and knees where he skinned himself up on the pavement.
James was laughing as he shook his head. “If Red wanted to kill you then
you would be very dead. She was playing nice. I don’t know who she had
backing her. They also were playing nice. Every hole I looked at was not
to kill you but to scare you. If Red missed it was on purpose. A word of
advice to the wise. Next time you see a redheaded woman carrying a gun,
try and not tick her off. She puts a definite end to the debate when
she’s pissed.”
He walked over to the building with all the tape strung around it. There
were little flags by bullet casings on the pavement. He counted six.
“Four in the front of the car. What did she do with the other two?”
He walked into the building. Computers, scopes, and electronic equipment
were on shelves stacked to the ceiling. He leaned over to look behind
one of the computers.
“Don’t touch anything.” Came from a guy in a black suit.
“Surely.” James straightened up and circled the room looking behind the
equipment. He stopped when he got to the east wall. Two computers had
their sides off and wires hanging out. James was looking at the APU
battery array behind them. The computers weren’t plugged into a monitor.
He slipped the plug from the monitor into the computer.
DOWNLOAD ERROR…….. RESET………..DOWNLOAD ERROR……….RESET
Kept scrolling across the screen.
The guy in the black suit stormed across the room. “What in the hell did
you do! I told you to not touch anything.”
James looked at the guy and shook his head. “Did you notice nothing in
here is plugged in except these two computers. They are on and running
without hard drives and the indicator lights have been removed. I’m no
genius but this place is a joke. Someone mentioned the Philadelphia
Project. If that’s what this was supposed to be then someone was a fool.
The guy glared at James. “This is federal business.”
James was headed for the door. “Be my guest. You smart fed boys have
been played by someone a whole lot smarter than you. Red, what were you
after?”
Walking out into the street he stopped by the six casings again and
looked down the street. James nodded as he looked at the gun still in
the street. The gun was pushed away from where he was standing. That was
her fifth shot. He was chuckling as he looked at the two agents still
repeating their story about her trying to kill them. “You guys have no
idea.”
For six weeks James had to put up with razzing from his fellow Rangers
about giving Jessica a ride home so she could go out and shoot up a
couple federal agents. It was all done in a half joking manner but the
fact was, the woman he had drove home quickly ended up on the FBI most
wanted list.
James was called into his captain’s office. Frank was a no nonsense man
with a lot of years as a Ranger behind him. He could have retired
fourteen years earlier. James knew it was because Frank felt he was
making a difference in holding the line between the good guys and bad
ones.
Frank held out a couple bulletins to James. “Thought you might like to
know about your girl. The FBI aren’t the only ones wanting to get their
hands on her.”
It kinda rubbed James a little both ways as everyone kept referring to
Red as “his girl”. The joke had been carried a little too long to be
funny any longer. “They catch her?”
“No. Those four men she killed in the shopping mall? They were working
for a Colombian drug cartel. Ernesto Escobedo put a two hundred thousand
dollar price on bringing her back to him. He gets his hands on her it
won’t be for hugs and kisses.”
James was looking at the bulletins Frank had handed him. “The Mexicans
too?”
Frank looked about as serious as James had ever seen him. “That lab down
in Acapulco? It seems they have figured out she was there too. Ignacio
was the drug lord she took out along with all his lieutenants. His
brother Raul inherited the business and wants payback. He put a three
hundred thousand dollar bounty on her head.”
James shook his head as he looked at the bulletins. “She does seem to
have a knack for poking at the hornets nest. It’s a shame she isn’t
wearing a Ranger badge. We would have bragging rights she was one of us.
She would have the rest of us guarding her back.”
Frank nodded in agreement.
James looked up at Frank. “Captain…”
Frank shook his head. “NO! We are not recruiting someone on the FBI most
wanted list.”
===============================================================
We were on a yacht in the Mediterranean. Ricky’s head was in my lap. I
was massaging his shoulders. “You ever get homesick?”
He opened his eyes and looked up at me. “Not as long as you are by my
side. Why? You want to go back to Oklahoma?”
Looking off across the waters I thought of how both of us land locked
Okies had come to be on a ship in the Med. “Kinda. I’d like to see what
the old place looks like now after five years.”
Ricky sit up and turned to look at me. “Tom…,”
I reached out and put my hands on his lips as I shook my head. “Tom is
happy and so am I. If you are tired of me I will sign everything you
gave me back into your name, give you a divorce, and never look back.”
“Are you tired of me? I mean look at you Jess. You haven’t aged a day
since that fateful night. I know how men look at you. You could have
your choice of any young stud. I’m older, a few more gray hairs, a few
more winkles, I don’t move as fast as I use to.”
Leaning over I gave Ricky a kiss. “Maybe, but you still make love the
same way you use to. I’ll never leave you as long as you want me. I love
you with all my heart. God gave me a life. You saved it and rebuilt it.
I’m not sure there are guy angels and girl angels. Maybe they just are
angels and when God makes a new life and puts one of His angels in that
body we accept whatever it turns out to be, whether it’s a boy or a
girl. I received the greatest gift of all. I got to try out both. I like
the girl side best.”
“Okay, when we go back would you mind if your grandmother took you?” His
eyes were dancing.
“Grandmother?” Where was Ricky going with this? My grandparents were
over forty years past tense.
“Linda said I would make a great someone’s grandmother if I needed to go
back to the states.”
“In your machine?” Ricky wasn’t the only one who could run that machine
since Linda and Serena had helped rebuild it.
“Nah…, makeup. I’m not stepping inside that damn contraption. Too much
can go wrong. Mexicans blow it up, get stuck in some damn exotic babe
body, and…,”
I gave him a light slap on the face. “You’re a sexist and a pervert.”
Then I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
His eyes were dancing. “Yeah, do that again. I think I like it.”
The End?
Jessica and cast return with more adventure. The Texas Ranger returns as well. Five uneventful years later Jessica and Ricky thought they put their problems with the law and the drug cartels behind them. The business of drugs and murder never stops and never forgives no matter how far one moves away. Jessica's friend was killed by those people. As Jess was holding Linda, who was covered in blood, the trained sniper inside her returned. Maybe he had never left!
Jessica Reloads
by Barbie Lee
Copyright 2013
Edited by Catherine Linda Michel, posted with permission from the Author, Barbie Lee.
My name is Jessica Sarah Rabbit. My husband is Ricky Daniel Clawson. Although Ricky isn’t a plastic surgeon you might say he made me the woman I am today... and I love him with all my heart for who I am.
I knew he was feeling remorse for what he had built. “It isn’t your fault.” Ricky was lying in bed beside me. I was running my fingers through his chest hair drawing circles.
He turned his head to look at me. “It is my fault. I shouldn’t have ever designed the damn thing. I said I never wanted to turn the next atomic bomb lose on humanity. I think I have.”
I leaned over and kissed him on the brow. “If you designed a gun would you blame yourself for those who are killed, or would you be thankful for those whose lives are saved by the same weapon?”
He stopped frowning as he studied my eyes. “I love you Jess. You always seem to know what to say to keep me from beating myself up.”
“Then prove how much you love me.” I leaned over and bit him on his left nipple. At the same time I slipped my left hand down between his legs. And received instant results. I knew exactly how to turn my man on and get satisfaction.
“You’re gonna pay for that.” Ricky wrapped me up in his arms and rolled over on top of me.
I dug my long fingernails into his butt and raked up his back. Not deep enough to break the skin but he would be wearing red streaks up his backside the rest of the morning.
“YOW! YOU BITCH!” Ricky’s eyes closed to squints as he closed in for the kill.
==========
Texas Ranger James Daniels was looking at the poster on the inside of his locker. She was a beautiful long legged red head, almost wearing a purple glitter dress. The picture was one of several that had been sent from Acapulco, Mexico when an APB had been put out on her. That was five years ago when she made the FBI most wanted list for getting into a gunfight with two Federal agents. That day was still as fresh in his mind as if it happened yesterday. He gave her a ride home only an hour before the gunfight.
Two agents tried to engage and stop her as she and Ricky Clawson were picking up something from an industrial building. It turned into a one sided gun battle. The agents didn’t get a single round off. Their bodies might not have been shot up but their egos certainly were. Egos aside, they lived to tell the tale of doing something very few people managed. They pointed their guns at Jess and lived.
Rumor claimed it was the Philadelphia Project where time travel was possible. James had no idea what Jess had retrieved but it sure wasn’t the Philadelphia Project unless it could be done on a computer storage drive. James looked the building over after the shoot out. It was a dummy lab.
Jessica, Ricky, their car, the two who helped them and their car all disappeared within minutes after that. It was as if the earth opened up and swallowed them. James glanced at the pictures of the two who had helped Jess that day. The pictures were from security cameras in the industrial complex where the firefight took place.
The two figures were wearing black and had black ski masks. There was no mistaking they were women.
He knew Jessica had been trained as a sniper and was better than just good with a gun. She proved that by killing four men in a shootout when they tried to kill her. That wasn’t counting the six men in Mexico who James knew without a doubt had met the same fate. Although they didn’t have her gun for ballistics tests, the rifling matched on the bullets they dug out of all ten men. Those two mystery women had to be in the same league as Jess. Yet searching through military discharge records showed no women snipers coming out of Afghanistan or Iraq. Where had they come from?
“Captain wants to see you.” A hand was laid on James shoulder before the man turned and walked off.
As James walked into Henry Millman’s office he was thinking of his old captain, Frank Nordstom, who at one time occupied this same office. Frank had finally retired three years earlier. Said he was going fishing the rest of his life. He died six months later.
Henry held out several bulletins. “Someone said you were still looking for your girl.”
“Uh” James took the bulletins and leafed through them. Even though it had been five years since that eventful day, everyone in the Ranger station still referred to Jessica as ‘his girl’.
What James was holding were suspected sightings of Jessica and or Ricky Clawson. The locations varied, but most were in Russia and the Ukraine. Several were obviously in more moderate climate taken with a telephoto lens. The couple were on a boat. Then there was a really close up of Jess standing up looking back at the photographer. She was wearing, if one could call it that, a string bikini. She was pointing a rifle with a big telescopic sight on it at the photographer.
James shook his head as he laughed at that last picture. He could just imagine the photographer peeing in his pants when that picture was taken. There was no doubt it was Jess in the picture. They had to make her an honorary Ranger. That girl had more Texas grit than any person he had ever met.
============
“They killed him.” Tears were leaking out of the corners of her blue eyes. She was wiping them away with the back of her fists.
I pulled Linda in and held her as she struggled to contain her tears and her emotions. “I wish I had been there.”
“Oh Jess, they killed him…, there was nothing I could do…, I’m going to make them pay.” She hugged me in a death grip, trying to make life go away as she cried on my shoulder.
“No you won’t. We will make them pay.” I stroked her hair and rubbed her back as I let her cry out her pain on my shoulder.
Linda and I, along with so many others, were trained as killers by our various governments. I had no idea what others felt. To me it was a job. I didn’t like it, I didn’t hate it. Trained killers or not, we still had emotions and feelings and tried to live a normal everyday life after we quit the killing.
Many like us didn’t make the transition back. They carried their guilt or whatever with them until it ate them up. They usually died from trying to drown their memories in alcohol and drugs. Others simply pulled the trigger when the end of that gun was pointed at their own head.
Linda made the good transition and married Dimitri. For the past three years I don’t think I had ever seen a happier couple. They both had been to the edge of life and returned, determined to take everything in stride. Some old enemies never forget nor forgive. Linda and Dimitri had left the yacht an hour earlier to go shopping. They were ambushed by four men in a little wine store. Dimitri saw them coming and shoved Linda out the backdoor as he shielded her with his own body.
I pieced the story together after Linda had made her way back to the boat. After shooting Dimitri the men ran. Linda hadn’t run after Dimitri shoved her out the door.
Those like us never stop carrying a gun. We know death is always stalking us too once one becomes a killer. By the time Linda pulled hers out of her purse and got to the front of the store the four men had disappeared. She held Dimitri as he died in her arms before she made it back to the boat. She was covered in his blood. I held her as she cried. I had no idea who the men were or who had sent them. I was determined they would all pay. The sniper had come back. Maybe he had never left!
==========
“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?” The man threw the paper down on the table. “I send you to kill the bitch and you shoot a guy instead?”
He turned to look at the man across the room. “Are you a fucking idiot? Now she will be ready!”
“My men tried Padrone. The man got in the way.” Javier didn’t dare look up as he studied the floor in front of his feet.
Raul glared at Javier. “You follow the woman off the boat and shoot the man. Why didn’t you blow up the boat and kill them all? That way you would have known the bitch was fucking dead!”
Raul stood up and looked out at the forest. “If you weren’t my cousin I’d have you shot. Where are the men?”
“They have already returned Padrone.”
“Make sure that bitch doesn’t follow them back. If any of our men at the airport or docks lets her slip in I’ll have them shot. Is that understood?” Raul turned to study the man across the room.
“Yes Padrone.”
“Get out of my sight. You make me sick.” Raul turned his back on Javier.
==========
I didn’t put in the call to Serena expecting her to join us. I wanted her to know about Dimitri and be extra cautious. She was still very active as a government agent. I figured she would be busy on a case somewhere in the world. Serena showed up the next day with information she had already gleaned from her sources.
“Mexico” Serena was looking at Linda.
Linda’s eyes glazed over as she searched her memory. She shook her head. “Mexico? I don’t remember Dimitri doing any work there. They move there?”
“Wasn’t Dimitri they were after. Word in the underworld is they were after a woman.”
Her eyes were misting up again before she wiped them away. “I didn’t do any work there either.”
“They claim the woman killed a drug lord and five of his lieutenants. The man’s brother took over the business and put out the hit.” Serena turned her attention toward me.
My emotions went to high alert. “Where did this happen?”
“Acapulco.”
“The six men I killed in Acapulco. Oh Linda, I’m so sorry. It wasn’t you and Dimitri they wanted. It was me.” My heart sank as I knew I was responsible for Dimitri’s death and Linda’s pain.
Linda looked up with sheer hatred in her eyes. It wasn’t me it was directed at as she looked off across the water. “It matters, but it doesn’t. I’m not blaming you. It is the business we are in. Not your fault. They never quit. There are too many. Forget it.”
I knew better. Linda wasn’t going to forgive nor forget. “When do we start?”
She looked at her watch. “I have to get resources and men in place. Fourteen days.”
Serena nodded. “I’m in. I know some of the guys working in Mexico.”
=========
I was wearing a red, blue, and yellow pokadot dress with a really low cut neckline. The hem of a full skirt was cheerleader short. A bright yellow scarf was draped around my neck and hung loosely across my left breast. I had it pinned in place with a big gaudy, silver and gold broach. My long red hair was pulled over my right shoulder and draped suggestively across my right breast.
I had half a dozen flashy bracelets on my left wrist and that many more on my right. My ears were sporting silver and gold big ol dangle earrings. Brightest red high gloss lipstick and overdone glitter blue eye shadow. My eyes were outlined with enough eyeliner to make me look like a raccoon. My long lush lashes didn’t need help but I added false ones to extend them even more.
I had dark smoky nylons with a seam up the back. My stiletto five inch red heels finished my ensemble. If anyone looked they could tell I was wearing a black lacy corset under the dress and the nylons were held up with garter straps. The girls along the pickup strip would look like also-rans compared to me.
People going and coming through the terminal were giving us a wide berth. Ricky was holding me in his arms. “I don’t want you to go. Please don’t do this.”
I kissed him on the lips. “You know I have to. This isn’t Linda’s fight. It’s mine. Dimitri happened to get in the way. Linda was always there for us when we needed her. You know we wouldn’t have made it without her help. Friends don’t leave friends behind.”
Ricky took a quick breath as his lips quivered before he got his emotions under control again. “I know.”
He pulled me in and gave me a life squeezing hug. “God do I know. I have two happy instances in my life. One when we were growing up together. The other has been the last five years.”
He held me back to look into my eyes. “I’m not going on without my bestest friend. Anything happens to you, I will call it quits also.”
Reaching up I cupped his chin with my right hand and kissed him on the lips. “Don’t you even think like that. The world needs you to finish what you started.”
The water works welled up in the corners of Ricky’s eyes before he pulled me in. “I need you. Bring yourself home in one piece.”
“I promise. My flight is going to leave without me.” I turned and walked to the Paris Air boarding desk.
Two older women were looking me over in disgust. One of them rolled her eyes. “Well I never. We don’t have such trollops in America.”
Giggling I couldn’t help myself as I gave her a wink. “You probably won’t ever either because you don’t have the body for it. But as sure as there are Black Eyed Susans and little colts born in the spring, I’m from Texas.”
Both women looked shocked clear down to the souls of their feet. The one who had mouthed off was sputtering. “well!”
I reached up and touched the side of my face in a salute. “Howdy ma’am. Yuh’all ever get to Texas look me up. I’ll introduce you to some of my friends.”
They both turned and scurried away as fast as they could.
Looking back I blew Ricky one last kiss.
He was laughing and shaking his head.. ‘I love you’ was whispered in silence.
After deboarding Paris Air I headed to the baggage claim area to wait on luggage. Heads from both sexes were turning as I sashayed across the terminal, letting my hips roll with each step. Chewing my gum and popping bubbles, I drummed my long red glitter nails on the wall as I waited for my big yellow suitcase.
A man reached over to lift a suitcase off the luggage carousel. He yanked it up and fell over backwards into me. He turned around and dropped his suitcase. He reached out to grab me for balance. “Por favor senorita.”
My hand went to that big ol' red patent leather glamour bag with all the bling on it. One of the curly designs on that bag was knife sharp. I waited for any hand tricks from the guy before I popped the ornament loose for a weapon. If his hands came up with a knife, needle, or a gun he was going to be very dead. Nothing was forthcoming. His eyes got big as saucers as he realized what he had grabbed for balance.
“I gave the guy a big ol' smile as I fluttered my eyes. “Watch where your going honey. If you want to cop a feel you got to pay for it.”
He backed up, his eyes rapidly blinking in shock. Pointing at a wedding ring, he was shaking his head before he grabbed his suitcase and scurried away.
Customs was fun, as the last thing they had on their mind was anything I might be carrying into Mexico. “Miss Lucenda Brown?” The guy was looking from my passport up at me and back at my passport and up and…,
“You got it sweety.” I gave him a wink and licked my lips.
“What is your intensions…, purpose of your visit/” He was still working on the name.
“A little R and R, sugar. You know a girl needs a break from work too. It isn’t all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Girls feel the same way. You know what I mean?” I looked down between my breasts.
The guy was beyond help after that trick. “Okay, do you have anything to declare?”
“Whyy’ yes. I do declare it looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day. Don’t chu think?” I licked my left fingers and wiped an imaginary smudge off my right breast.
The guy was looking at my right breast. “How big…, How long are they…, you plan on staying.”
“Oh a week or two. I’m in no hurry to get back to my usual job.” I did a little shimmy as if to straighten up my skirt.
He never took his eyes off my breasts as he reached down picked up the stamp and stamped my passport... on the wrong page. He shoved my things to the side and never said another word.
I rolled my right wrist, all my bracelets jangled as I pointed my finger at him. “Oh aren’t you the one.” I gathered up my things and headed for the exit and a taxi.
A man in a business suit was walking into the terminal looking behind him as I was walking out. He bumped into me and my purse got heavier. His head snapped around. “Watch where you’re going you stupid whore.”
“Up yours asshole.” I didn’t hesitate as my hand went inside my purse. My fingers wrapped around an old friend. I headed for a taxi pulling my suitcase behind me. I knew they wouldn’t have time to gather their forces and come at me yet. It didn’t stop me from wishing they would. My friend and I would make them pay dearly from this point on. I slid into the taxi. “Holiday Inn”.
=========
“She tried to disguise herself as a prostitute.” Javier was standing in the doorway.
Raul turned to look. “You’re sure it’s her?”
“Si Padrone, there is no mistaking this one. She has long red hair.”
“Well this is a welcome surprise. Get six men and bring her to me. I am going to make that bitch pay for killing my brother.” Raul smiled as he thought of all the things he was going to do to the bitch. Maybe even keep her around as a pet.
Javier was smiling to himself. He was going to make up for the mistake they had made in Italy when they didn’t kill her. Maybe Padrone would let the men enjoy her before he killed her?
============
There was a double knock on my door. I stepped over with my back against the wall and reached out to my side to open the door with my left hand, my fifty in my right. Linda, Serena, and four men walked into the room carrying luggage.
Linda and Serena came into Mexico via a locally registered fishing boat. Normally no questions would be asked by the authorities as it came and went... hopefully our escape plan when this mess was finished. The authorities also had no interest in looking at ice chests of fresh fish carried in from the boat.
One of the men was the guy who had slipped me the gun when he bumped me before I got in the taxi. He was looking at the fifty in my right hand. “When Maria told me that was what you carried I thought she was lying.”
Maria was one of the several names Linda used. Nodding I walked across the room and laid it on the table as I finished removing all the bling off my body. “It’s my serious work tool. Think they will try tonight?”
“We will know if they do. The cameras in the hotel are now ours.” She watched as one of the men unsnapped a suitcase and set a monitor and computer up on the table.
He flipped it on. It came to life as views from different cameras rotated through the monitor even before he plugged it into the wall outlet.
Serena stepped up and started typing on the keyboard. “We will want only a few of those cameras. The ones at the front and back entrance will be on that list. The one in the parking garage watching who comes into the hotel will be a third one. The last two will be at each end of the hallway.”
She smiled as she brought up the parking garage camera. “Damn that was quick. Unless I’m mistaken they are already coming.”
She pointed toward seven men getting out of a dark van in the parking garage. “Carlos, you recognize any of them?”
One of the men stepped up for a closer look. “Javier is bringing six of his death squad with him. That’s him, second from the right.”
Linda opened up another suitcase and started handing out twenty two caliber handguns. Then she started passing around what looked like oil filters. Everyone was screwing them onto the end of the pistols. The four men left the room to take up positions at each end of the hallway.
She looked up at me with hate in her eyes. “That bastard Javier is mine. I recognize him. He was there when they killed Dimitri. He’s mine. You can have him if I miss.”
I almost laughed. “You... miss? Sure and there is no Santa Claus and Christmas.”
We watched the monitor as Javier stopped by the front desk. One of the clerks leaned over. He was talking to him as he handed him a card key. I’m no lip reader, but I don’t think Javier had to ask which room I checked into. I put that clerk on my list.
Linda’s crew waited until Javier slid the card and was pushing the door open. He was stepping into the room as his men dropped behind him. The thud of bodies hitting the floor came into the room along with Javier. They didn’t all go down. One pushed into the room behind Javier holding his side still not understanding what happened.
I heard a soft pooft as Serena nailed him in the head. He fell into the back of Javier pushing him off balance and finished up face down on the floor.
I heard a pooft, pooft from Linda’s gun. Javier grabbed his right arm with his left hand and tried to bring his gun up. There were two more pooft, poofts as Ignacio’s left hand turned bloody where he was holding his arm. His gun slipped from his fingers and dropped to the floor. His mind was finally starting to understand he wasn’t in control of the situation. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? YOU’RE DEAD YOU STUPID BITCH!”
Linda took a step closer. “I know who you are you bastard. You killed my husband, you piece of low life shit. I want you to apologize to him when you see him.”
There was a soft pooft. Javier fell where he stood.
The men were dragging bodies into the room. Serena headed to the bathroom She came back carrying two towels ringing wet and a handful of dry ones. I helped her wipe up blood off the carpet in the hallway. When we finished we had a dozen bloody white towels. The carpet wasn’t clean but no one would suspect it was more than wet unless they got down for a close look.
The attack had thrown my timing off. I headed for the bathroom.
Linda was the only one waiting as I stepped out of the bathroom. She nodded. “That will work.”
My hair was black, my skin a dark olive, my face, neck, arms and the back of my hands looked like aged wrinkles. The gel Linda had supplied shriveled up and wrinkled after it was applied to the skin.
“You ever put these in before?” She held up a case with contacts.
“No.”
“I’ll help. Sit down in the chair and tilt your head back.” She was fishing a contact out of the case.
“It feels rough.” She had slipped the contacts into my eyes.
“Blink a couple times and they will slide around until they are where they need to be.” She was holding out the little gun in my direction. “You want him, or is he mine?”
“I got this one.” I took her gun and slid it into the fold of the loose fitting ragged dress I was wearing. “Can you tell?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ll wait in the parking garage. Older beat up brown Chevy on your left as you walk into the garage.
I looked at the stains on the carpet where the bodies had been. “Room is a mess. Think they will charge me extra for cleaning?’
Linda laughed as she headed for the door. “Wouldn’t count on it.”
“Jess.”
I stopped as I followed her out. “What?”
“Old women shuffle when they walk.”
“Copy that. Thanks for the heads up.” Hunching over, I started taking smaller steps and dragging my feet as I shuffled to the elevator.
I got off the elevator at the second floor and took the stairs to the first floor. The guy behind the check in desk was watching me slowly shuffle across the lobby. As I passed in front of his desk I raised up my right hand. A scarf was covering my hand and the gun. There was a soft pooft, no louder than a soft sneeze. A dot appeared in the middle of the guy’s forehead. He went down like he was going to look for something under the desk.
I wiped my nose with my scarf and covered my face as if I didn’t want to share my germs with the rest of those around me. No one paid any attention except to give a filthy old woman a little room.
“We will never get all of you. Maybe the ones who are left will think twice next time?”
Linda was waiting by the car. “The men have left to take care of the cocaine labs. There is a warehouse at Municipio de Acapulco de Juá¡rez holding almost a half billion dollars worth of drugs. It will be last on our list as we leave.”
“Okay. You know this is my fault. You and Serena don’t have to go along.” Looking at the dark van I didn’t have to imagine the bodies piled up inside.
“Oh yes I do. Javier was only doing what Juan ordered. I still have a debt that needs to be paid back.” She opened up the car door.
It was then I started wondering when it would end? We kill them, they come back and kill us, so we kill them, and it repeats. It would never end as long as someone was standing. Were we making a difference? I decided thinking too much was what dragged others into the bottle and drugs after they finished. They tried to justify the killing in their minds where there wasn’t any. It was a job. Do the damn job and move on.
Serena was our driver. She was wrinkled and had a ragged scarf over her gray hair. Her brown dress was old faded and tattered. She was wearing granny glasses. Her automatic was by her right leg. The silent twenty two was in her lap. When Linda slid into the seat she had two rifles by her left leg. One was an automatic. The other was her sniper rifle with a night scope and sound suppressor.
I climbed into the back seat. My rifle was by my left leg. I pulled my fifty out of my purse and laid it on my lap. The pistol Linda loaned me was by my left hand. It was the perfect gun for close in discreet work. For knock down power I wanted the fifty in my hand. Only the highest class bullet proof vests with ceramic tile could withstand the fifty. Those vests were hot and heavy. Not that many wore them. Even those vests wouldn’t stop a second bullet after the tile had been shattered by the first bullet.
Several police cars and a military truck passed us as Serena drove out to the villa. With Serena hunched over the steering wheel driving like a little old lady, they didn’t even give us a second look.
It was past midnight as she pulled into a side street several blocks from the villa. There was a lot of open ground between the walls of that compound and the housing addition surrounding it.
Linda took a look with the infrared spotter scope. “Two men on the roof. I can take them out from here. Two men by the front gate. I’m guessing there will be more guarding the front of the house and only God knows how many around back or inside the house. There are two cameras by the front gate. I see one on the north wall and…, one on the south wall. There are two more by the front of the house looking down. Six cameras. I can handle those too.”
She turned around in the seat to look at me. “Are you sure Jess?”
Nodding I opened the car door, stood up, and picked up the bottle of tequila. I poured it on my left shoulder and down the front of me. Slinging my rifle under my left arm, I draped my ragged shawl over it. “How do I look?”
Serena shook her head as she smiled. “Terrible.”
I laughed. “Thanks, you know how to make a woman feel good inside. Wish me luck.”
I headed up the road toward the villa humming some off tune and swinging the vodka bottle in my left hand. “Yeah, granny will take care of you” I mumbled under my breath.
The two guards at the gate never even went to high alert as I stumbled up the road toward them, humming and swinging the bottle. Every now and then I’d stop and tip the bottle up as if I was going to take a sip, but it was empty. I’d look in the top shake my head and stumble toward the gate again, humming some little ditty.
“Go home grandma.” One of the guards shouted at me in Spanish as I closed in.
“He said go home grandma.” Serena translated to me in my earpiece.
I held the bottle up and shook it like I wanted more. The two guards laughed. There was a soft pooft pooft as I brought up my right hand. They crumpled where they stood.
The two guards on top the house disappeared, one, two. I knew Linda had taken them out. As I kneeled down I dropped the small caliber gun and brought my fifty up out of my bag hanging on my left shoulder. The two guys by the front door were starting to realize not all was well. They were both slammed back up against the house as the bark of my fifty woke the neighborhood.
Two more were coming across the roof of the house. Linda dropped them. The guy coming around the left side of the house looked like he ran into a truck. He fell over backwards as my fifty served him notice. I brought the fifty over to focus on the guy coming around the right side of the house. There were chips of rock flying as his bullets sprayed the wall beside me. He was slammed back into the house.
Glass was breaking as the security cameras died. I dropped the fifty and brought my rifle up. I didn’t have that long to wait as the guys at the back wall came running along on top of the wall. The one on my right showed first. He tumbled off the wall and plowed face first into the grass. The one on the left met the same fate.
Linda focused on the power line transformers. They arced and sparks flew everywhere as she put armor piercing bullets into them. The neighborhood went dark.
Serena backed the car up to the gate. Retrieving a chain from the trunk I hooked it into one side of the gate and the other to the trailer hitch on the Chevy. “Okay.”
Serena gunned it. The Chevy ran out the length of the chain, the rear end jumped up into the air as the chain was stretched out. The gate was pulled out of the wall hinges. It flopped over on the ground.
Lead was peppering the rear of the Chevy. Flash fire was coming from way back inside the dark house past the front door. Linda focused in on him and dropped him.
“Think that was him?” I was looking toward the house.
She shook her head. “Only the help. He’s still in there.”
There was a roar as a vehicle started up in the garage. He didn’t bother raising the garage door. He busted it down as he drove through it.
Linda put a bullet through the front window where the driver was setting. “Bullet proof glass, meet armor piercing bullet. You lose.”
The Humvee never turned as it ran straight into the wall. Rocks flew out of the opposite side of the wall as the front of the Humvee crumpled and the rear bounced up in the air. The rest of the wall collapsed down on top the Humvee.
It was going to be impossible to see who was driving unless we wanted to dig it out from under the rock. “Think that was him?”
Sliding out of the car Serena pointed a launcher at the open front door. I was thinking RPG. There was the whoosh as it launched inside the house. Then the inside of the house lit up as fire spread everywhere.
“Napalm grenade?” I didn’t believe it after I said it.
“Phosphorus. We better go. The Federalies are going to be swarming this place in minutes. We wore out our welcome.” Serena was motioning for us to get into the car.
Linda nodded. “She right. If it wasn’t him we will come back another time and finish the job. Grab your gear and let’s go.”
============
From four blocks away we were looking at a warehouse with a couple guards lounging around in front of it. Serena was looking through Linda’s night scope. “If they stop the car outside it won’t do the job. Get it inside before it blows up and all the chemicals and fumes in that place will finish up for us. The fire will be so hot they won’t be able to put it out or save anything.”
“I’ll take the car down there.” Linda grabbed the driver’s door and racked it back. It was sprung open and wouldn’t latch shut again. “Can’t be too careful.”
Serena laid down on the ground with Linda’s rifle. “I got the one on the right.”
“I guess that makes the one on the left mine.” I walked across the street. I didn’t want Linda and the car to get between me and my target.
The two guards went to high alert as the old Chevy came down the street toward them. Linda stopped about a block away. When they brought their guns up, Serena’s and my rifles barked at the same time. The guards went down.
Linda wedged the gas pedal. The engine was screaming as she slammed the lever down in drive and bailed. The car was burning rubber as it leapt forward headed straight for the warehouse. It crashed through the doors into the warehouse.
Linda flipped the switch and pushed the button on the remote at the same time. There was an explosion where the warehouse shook and then a secondary huge explosion where tin and sheet iron was flying everywhere as a huge fireball rolled up into the night sky. The buildings around the warehouse either collapsed or were blown off their foundations. Every window within a ten block radius was shattered.
I put my arms up above my head as I flattened out on the ground. I could feel the heat and blast as it blew past me carrying sheet iron along. “Linda?” I was praying to God she wasn’t hurt.
“Let’s go.” Serena was on her feet loaded down with weapons. Linda’s rifle and her own automatic rifle along with pistols.
I scrambled to my feet and grabbed up my gear. We headed for the warehouse that was no longer there. To get to the dock and the boat we had to go past the warehouse.
Linda was slowly struggling to her feet as we walked up beside her. I was looking her over for cuts. ”You okay?”
She nodded as she took her rifle and pistol from Serena.
“Can you talk?” She didn’t look in that good of shape.
She shook her head and motioned toward the dock.
Even though the dock was four blocks away from the blast, every boat there was missing all their windows. That included our own escape boat. It couldn’t be helped. We couldn’t stick around. I was dropping the bowlines as Serena started it up. Minutes later we were headed out to sea.
I got Linda down in the cabin and laid her down on one of the beds after pulling off the top blanket and dumping the glass off of it. She wasn’t okay. Her eyes weren’t really focusing. I suspected a concussion. She had burns on all her exposed skin on the back of her neck, legs, and arms. She had been lying face down or it could have been a lot worse. I treated her the best I could with the first aid kit. I covered her up with a blanket before heading up to the cockpit.
“Linda is in pretty bad shape. She needs a doctor.”
Serena glanced in my direction and then focused back out into the black ocean ahead of us. “We can’t go back. The Federalies and Policeia will be pulling everyone in. Their graft money went up in flames. Anyone not connected to either camp is going to be suspect. If Raul was in the truck back at the house a full blown turf war will already be heating up. Instead of going back let’s kill ourselves now. Be less painful than having pieces of our body cut off a little bit at a time. They go overboard when they get their hands on a woman to butcher. They will slice your breasts off while you watch.”
She focused in on me. “Linda knew the risks. We all did. Keep going out and the percentages will catch up with you sooner or later. Do what you can. It is a four day run up the coast to get to the states and a safe house.”
“She won’t make it for four days bouncing around in a boat.” I looked at the radio and turned it on. There was chatter coming across every now and then from other boats talking about the fireball in the sky.
I flipped channels until I found the one I wanted. I hoped things hadn’t changed since I was in service. “This is Betty One twenty two fishing boat calling for a land line.”
About a minute later the call was answered. “What do you need Betty One. We are the Silver Slipper out of Anchorage down here for a little sun and fishing. We have a satellite phone. Can we help?”
“You sure can Silver Slipper. Would you call Ricky Ronald Chavenski in Paris, France? He is staying at the De Gaul. Tell him Jess still loves him but could use a little help. Contact me back on channel 112 out of Acapulco.”
“You got it Betty One. Anything we can do to help?”
“Thanks Silver Slipper, it would be most helpful if you would contact Ricky.”
“Moments later our radio came alive again. “Betty One this is Equinox, we are a scientific trawler. Do you wish to declare an emergency?”
Serena nodded yes. “That’s one of ours.”
“That is an affirmative Equinox. We have one soul on board who is very sick. I wish to declare an emergency.”
===========
The Gulfstream G550 landed in Paris for fuel and a change of pilots. Ricky was one of those pilots who climbed onboard as soon as we stopped by the hangers. He wrapped me up in his arms and gave me a long kiss. “I can’t begin to tell you how worried I have been. What’s the prognosis with Linda?”
He looked at the stretcher on top of the cabin seats. Linda had IVs in her arm. She was leaking fluids out of her burns as fast as the IV was putting them in. Sterile pads were covering most of her body. The man beside her shook his head no. Serena was holding Linda’s hand, same as she had done for the past ten hours.
It was no longer possible to contain them. The tears were coming like summer rain. “She’s dying. She has a concussion. They have her in a medical coma. Ricky you got to save her. You saved me. She saved both of us. Please Ricky…, save her.”
Ricky stared at her for long seconds and took a deep breath. “Jess, she hasn’t been mapped. If we move something we won’t really know if it is going back where it belongs. Besides I’m not sure what messing around in the brain area will do. We both know they have been killing people inside that machine. They haven’t told us as much. Are you sure Jess?”
I cried as I pulled Ricky in and laid my head on his shoulder. “Try, for her sake. She would do the same for us if the tables were turned.”
Thirty minutes after touchdown we were airborne again. The copilot came into the back and motioned toward me. “Ricky wants to talk to you.”
Ricky turned to stare at me after I settled into the copilot’s seat. “Love your hair.”
Reaching up with my right hand I fluffed it. I hadn’t changed it since dying it. “Think I’ll leave it black.”
He nodded. “It sure changes your looks. Tell me how it went.”
Looking at the stars I took a deep breath. “The touchdown went as expected. I checked into a hotel. Raul sent his men to take me in or kill me. Whatever. We didn’t give them a chance to explain. Serena’s men took five of them out before they walked into the room. Serena and Linda took care of the other two. We paid Raul a visit at his villa. I think we got him, but not sure.”
“It was when we went to take out his warehouse things went wrong. Linda drove the car down and bailed before it went into building. There was an explosion from what was in the car and then hell erupted. Ether, acetone, gasoline, lacquer thinner, drugs, were all packed inside that building. Our sources told us that much. What we didn’t expect was the amount of flammable chemicals Raul had there. I strongly suspect there was also gunpowder, dynamite, ammo, and other explosives. Maybe some C four the way that thing went up.”
“Even lying on the ground Linda was too close. She received burns over most of her backside, along with a concussion. After that our escape plans had to be changed. I knew she wouldn’t make it to the safe house. I called for help on the marine channel. There was a Russian research, spy ship close to a hundred miles from us. They heard the call. They sent a chopper to pick us up and take us back to the ship.”
“The Equinox was there to track a US aircraft carrier fleet. It seems the Equinox received word to keep a watch on us. They couldn’t intervene if the Federalies had stopped us, but anything that didn’t expose them was permissible. It helps to have a government covering your back even if they aren’t allowed to do it openly.”
“That was when Linda received the first of real medical attention. Serena asked them to arrange to fly us home. The Federalies were going insane back in Acapulco, so our friends devised a plan. Because they are a research ship they had biohazard gear onboard. Six of us suited up in bio suits, Linda was put in a containment vessel. Which wasn’t really because they didn’t have one. It worked, as the Federalies didn’t want to get close to us as the word was, whatever our patient had was highly contagious. One of the crew rigged up a sprayer filled with water, green food dye, and Lysol. He walked along spraying everything after the chopper delivered us to the airport.”
“From the ship’s computer, Serena had logged into the airport registry and did a search of the aircraft listed at the airport. She found several, along with this one, with long enough legs to fly from Mexico to France. Two of the guys on the ship said they had flown similar aircraft so they joined our team. We walked over to the hanger where the plane was parked The police and Federalies couldn’t put enough distance between us as we carried Linda from the chopper to the hanger.”
“It helps to have the right friends. We topped the tanks off in Cuba before making that leg across the pond. The guys figured it would be slicing it pretty thin to try and make it all in one jump from Mexico to France.”
I had to smile as I got ready to tell Ricky the rest of it. “This plane? It belonged to Raul, our drug lord. No one at the airport questioned us when we rolled it out and took off. I guess they were still thinking about their cash cow going up in smoke. Mass hysteria works to one’s advantage, provided you aren’t part of the hysterical crowd. They might start putting the pieces together in a week. If questions start coming up about where his plane went, no one will know. The Equinox will claim none of their crew knew. They only gave us a lift from our boat to the airport.”
Ricky nodded. “Okay, get Serena up here on the radio. I need the lab scrubbed of all the extra equipment they put in there. The way they are using the machine it is killing people. The lab was designed for one person to operate the different fields as one person was held in stasis inside the capsule. They allow two or more people in there monitoring the controls and the harmonics which, along with the gauss fields, are disrupted. Each individual is a walking electrical field. One extra person or piece of equipment disrupts the whole system.”
“They keep trying to use it for something it was never designed for. I was afraid this would happen when I built the damn thing.”
We landed in Tuapse three hours later. Thirty minutes after touch down Ricky was standing at the controls of his machine. The glass cylinder was slowly dropping over Linda’s limp body. It was after it had closed and raised back up Ricky turned toward Serena and me. “I need you to leave now. There is nothing you can do in here. Your bodies disrupt the fields.”
Wiping the tears I gave Ricky a kiss. “You can do this Ricky. Linda has the best cure in the world taking care of her now. Someone told me as much so many years ago.”
Ricky wrapped his arms around me as he kissed me. “This is the reason I built this machine. Let’s pray it works. Give me time to see what I can do. Anyone tries to come through that door before I come out, you shoot them.”
Slipping out of his arms I backed up and headed for the door. “Come on Serena. She’s in good hands now. Ricky will fix her.”
Serena looked at Ricky. She tried to say something and it choked in her throat. Her lips were trembling as she gave Ricky a wink, turned and walked out.
I couldn’t help thinking we might be cold blooded killers in our profession. In a way it made us love and hang onto those we love even more passionately than normal people. We knew the value of life, even if we didn’t hesitate to take it when circumstances called for retribution. I guess we were in the same class as drug dealers who indiscriminately killed.
I pushed the thought aside. That kind of philosophical thinking would drive one to the bottle or looking down the wrong end of their own gun. I’ll just hang onto the idea we are the good guys and let it go at that.
I closed the door to the lab behind me. “No one goes into that lab until Ricky and Linda come out.”
Serena nodded. “Ten four, message received, understood”
============
“You pick up the latest coming up from Acapulco? Damn big bloody mess. Bodies scattered all over town. It wasn’t the civilians that got in the meat grinder this time. Seems as if Raul made the wrong people mad. He and several of his men made that one way trip to the morgue.” Henry was standing in front of James' desk. He laid a stack of bulletins in front of James.
James nodded as he picked up the papers and started scanning through them. They were pictures of bodies in different locations. Several were pictures of a vacant lot and damaged buildings around it. He let out a whistle. “That was one big blast.”
Henry frowned as he looked at the picture James was holding. “Knocked out all the windows for ten or twenty blocks around. They said the fireball could be seen fifty miles out at sea. Intel said it was one of Raul’s distribution warehouses. Estimates are a half billion dollars of merchandise went up in smoke. Those kind of loses would put most poor nations out of business. Hopefully it will do the same for the drug money cartel Raul and his brother had built.”
James flipped to the next picture. Charred ruins in the middle of rock walls. “I take it this was his house?”
“Was is the definitive word.”
The next picture was a Humvee buried under a pile of rock. “And this?”
“That is our drug lord Raul. When they finally dug him out from under the rock he was dead. Shot in the head through bullet resistant glass.” Henry waited for James to look at the next picture.
James turned the Humvee picture aside and stopped as he stared at the picture that was under it.
Henry reached down and put his finger on the picture. “Tell me that isn’t HER.”
James stared at the picture of a red headed prostitute taken from security cameras at the airport. “How many know?”
“So far? You and now me. I had my suspicions until you confirmed them. What do you think made her go after Raul after five years? Was it because he put her on his death list? I mean five years after the fact? That’s cold even by professional standards. Why now after all this time?”
Taking a deep breath, James looked to see if there were more pictures of her? Shuffling through dozens of other people pictures taken at the airport revealed nothing else. He was holding the only one sent. “Maybe she got tired of looking over her shoulder? Maybe Raul got sloppy in his life and let cracks appear in his guard? I really haven’t a clue. Any guess is just that, a guess.”
A smile crept across James face as he thought of it. “I bet that other drug lord, what’s his face, out of Columbia has his ass puckering up about now. He put a hit on her too. If he was smart he would bail and disappear. They aren’t smart though or they would never get into the drug business.”
Henry got a serious look on his face. “Don’t let her get to you. She’s a killer. I suggest you keep that uppermost in your mind.”
James held the picture up and turned it toward his captain. “She hasn’t killed anyone here in the states that wasn’t trying to kill her first. Those two FBI idiots? They don’t count. She gave them a spanking and bruised their egos. Those she killed in Mexico, and that includes this last batch, if she was in on it…? Out of our jurisdiction. If the Federalies put out a bulletin on her then you can start preaching to me about who is righteous and doesn’t have dirty laundry in their closet.”
“She’s only doing what we wish we could. Someone is sending drugs to our country and spreading murder and torture. We know who is doing it, but we can’t touch them because we might offend our neighbors.”
James stood up and tossed the papers down on the desk. “Hell if it was up to me I’d make her a Ranger. She would fit right in except she’s too damn good at what she does. While we wish we could, she goes out and cleans the shit hole. You know, as well as I, when the Rangers first formed half of them that signed on were cattle rustlers and horse thieves. Who better to catch horse thieves and cattle rustlers than the ones who were doing it first?”
Henry shook his head. “You get to have an opinion, I don’t. Off the record I agree with you. Officially, if she gets in our sights she is to be arrested and held for questioning. That warrant the FBI has out on her is to be honored no matter what we think. Do we understand each other?”
James nodded as he looked at her picture. “Perfectly. I want you to understand me. I will not arrest her under any circumstances. I know without a doubt she would never kill me no matter what, even if it meant she was going to die. That gal is Texas through and through. She is everything Texas has always stood for. I don’t know where she came from. I'd bet my life it was one of our own government agencies.”
Slowly a smile crept across Henry’s face. He turned and was walking away. “I’d fire you for insubordination except if she comes in our door, I want you between me and her.”
After his captain left, James was thumbing through the photographs from the hotel security cameras where the seven bodies of Raul’s men were found along with a desk clerk. He stopped when he came to the picture of Jessica checking in. He laughed as he studied the picture of a prostitute. Her checking into a motel and eight dead bodies wasn’t a coincidence. “Darn woman, eight more reasons I never want to piss you off.”
He almost missed the picture of the old black haired woman leaving the hotel. James studied it for several minutes. “That’s her. I’d bet a month’s salary that’s her.”
============
It was twenty nine hours and sixteen minutes later when Ricky opened the lab door. He looked used up. He nodded back over his shoulder. “She needs fluids and electrolytes put back in her body.”
“RICKY!” I grabbed him as he sagged in my arms.
Serena was headed into the lab. She pointed toward two medical assistants who had been on standby. “Come with me. Bring a stretcher.”
“Serena, careful how you handle her. I moved a lot of tissue around to replace the damaged tissue. Her skin is like a cheese cloth right now until it fills in the holes. It will tear real easy. Be gentle with her.” Ricky managed before he looked up at me, closed his eyes and…, We went to the floor with him in my arms.
“Oh Ricky..., MEDIC! I NEED A MEDIC AND A STRETCHER NOW!” I screamed back down the hall.
==========
Ricky opened his eyes. Across the room was a Mexican lady in a nurse’s uniform. “Uh…, Miss, where am I?”
“She doesn’t understand English.” Came from a Mexican doctor as he walked into the room.
“What thu hell…?” Ricky was staring at the doctor.
“Your friend brought you in, said you got sick on the boat. You were dehydrated and needed rest. Funny, but she didn’t look sick at all. If you’re feeling better you can leave any time you like.” He pointed at an old sombrero , poncho, and ragged pants.
Ricky got to laughing. “Oh shit, you scared the hell out of me there for a minute. I thought the Mexicans had captured us while I was out of it. JESS, YOU MINX! GET YOUR PRETTY LITTLE BUTT IN HERE!”
That got me to giggling so I gave up hiding in the hallway. I bounced into the room. “Had you there for a minute didn’t I? Admit it I had you.”
Leaning down I gave him a kiss. “How you feel?”
“Used up. How long was I out?” He was looking at the IV in his arm.
“A couple days. Linda is down the hall. I checked with Serena. She hasn’t come out of it yet. All the vitals are good. You did it Ricky. You and your machine did everything you wanted it to. You have to convince them to use it the right way, for healing people instead of trying to make a super race with it.”
He reached out for my hand and then squeezed it. “They won’t listen Jess. I told them as much when we were building the damn thing. They showed Linda and me the door when neither of us would experiment on people with it.”
He sighed as he looked at the IV. “Unplug me and get me out of this place. And I ain’t wearing no poncho when I leave either. Where’s my clothes?”
The grin was impossible to contain as I walked into the hall and brought it back. I held it up. “For you sweetheart.”
Ricky’s eyes closed to slits as he glared at me. “You better be insinuating you are going to be wearing it for me.”
“Oh no darling. I think turn about is fair play. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. You slip into this little number while I make sure we still have reservations at the club.” I dropped the dress across his bed. It was a copy of the dress Ricky had for me that eventful night. A purple glitter dress.
Ricky grabbed me when I laid the dress on his bed. He pulled me in and laid a big one on my lips. “You’re a vixen. You slip into that dress while I find some clothes. We’ll go out to The Garage and melt the place down.”
Shaking my head I laughed at him as I straightened up. “You are too weak to be nightclubbing. Next week when you have rested.”
He reached down and pulled the IV out of his arm. “Jess, please…, now. I worried myself sick when you headed off to Mexico. It made me realize how fragile life really is. If we are still around in five years let’s look back and remember tonight when we went out. I want to hold the woman of my dreams in my arms, knowing all the men are wishing they were me. If we don’t have one more night, we had this one.”
That brought the tears. Ricky was right. I was positive I was living on borrowed time. One doesn’t kill a drug lord and expect to live. Someone always wants to even the score. “Of course. I don’t have the jewelry. I’ll see if Serena has some or knows someone who has.”
My hair was black. I never found time to change it back after returning from Mexico. The long dangle earrings, necklace, and bracelet were rhinestone not diamond. I didn’t find a tiara. The five inch heels were white as I couldn’t find a pair to match the dress. There were no beauty parlor makeup tricks but I managed to do it right myself. I had five years of training to get it right and I did. There was no boob glue, so latex was the substitute for holding that dress in place on my breasts.
Walking out of the bathroom I stopped in the doorway, raised my right arm way up and put my hand on the doorframe, shifted my hips to the left, and dropped my left hand down on top my hip. “You like?”
Ricky stopped and stared for a half minute or more. “I love you Jess. More than words will ever be able to say. Not because…,”
“You designed me?” I finished, knowing what he was trying to say.
He nodded. “That too. I don’t know how you do it, but this is what you always were. Even as Tom you were a beautiful person, although I never thought of you in that sense. You can take any situation and not only accept it, but make it better as you make it yours. I don’t know how you do it. There is only one like you. As Tom you were my best friend. You never changed. You’re still my best friend.”
Walking over to him I put my arms around his head. I pulled him in for a kiss before I gave him some space. “As kids we always ordered two burgers and split the fries. Let’s go split whatever they are serving at that place.”
Ricky laughed as he pulled a franc from his pocket. “I thought we were going Dutch. I’m broke. You have any money?”
Looking him in the eyes I pointed down in front of myself. “Just where do you think I would be carrying it in this dress? Don’t bother trying to get any change out of the piggy bank either because it’s empty. If you’re so cheap I’m positive I can get some gentleman to buy me a burger.” I gave a little wiggle as I pushed down with my hands over my hips.
Ricky reached inside his coat and pulled out his billfold. “Wait, I came into unexpected funds. As long as it’s only a burger I think I might have enough.”
Picking up my clutch I reached out and took his hand. “Well then Mr. Money Bags, let’s go see if you have enough funds. If you don’t we will flip a coin to see who has to wash dishes to pay for the meal.”
Ricky reached around my waist, pulled me in and let his hand slid down to the top of my hip as he walked me to the car.
==========
Ernesto Escobedo was thumbing through photographs of dead bodies. “Why is that fucking bitch not dead? She walks in, kills Raul, and walks out. What the hell were his men doing? Screwing off some where?”
He pointed to the floor in front of him. “Five hundred thousand. I want that whore standing here, begging for her life. I’ll pay any man who brings her to me five hundred thousand. Before I’m though she will be begging me to kill her. BRING ME THAT BITCH!”
“Si Capitan.” The man bowed as he backed out the door.
Ernesto threw the photographs across the room. “Damn bitch wants to be a whore, I’ll make her a fucking whore.”
He picked up a shotgun. “I’ll jam this up her ass and make her beg for more.” Turning, he aimed and shot one of the photographs lying on the floor.
Seven men came running into the room, automatics at the ready. Ernesto nodded. “Good. Make sure that bitch is dragged in here without any weapons.”
===========
Lorrie was coming into the Ranger station as James was leaving. She held up some papers. “Thought you might be interested. They are turning up the heat on your girl.”
James took the papers. There was a fax from Sheriff Bradford in Gray county asking for help with cattle rustlers. “Business is picking back up with the price of beef going up.”
He flipped to the next sheet. A half million dollar bounty had been put out by the drug cartel for the capture of a woman known as Jessica Rabbit. One hundred thousand paid if she was killed.
“For that kind of money I’d bring her in myself.” He looked up at Lorrie. “They have any idea where she is?”
Shaking her head, Lorrie looked at the bulletin. “Who knows? James, it isn’t looking good for her. The FBI want her. The drug cartel want her. I heard by the gossip mill the CIA wants her for information she might have about the drug cartels. With that much pressure she isn’t going to last.”
James handed the papers back to Lorrie. “Yeah” He headed for his pickup. “Damn Red why couldn’t you be a Ranger like Lorrie. I’d guard your back.”
============
It wasn’t because we were waiting for Linda to heal up we stayed in Tuapse. Our friends wanted…, served notice, Ricky was to stay and run his equipment. Ricky had done something they only guessed at when they were running it. He rebuilt someone who was given a twenty percent chance of survival.
“No you can not be in the room with me while we use someone as a test case.” Ricky was explaining to them for the umpteenth time as a five women and six men crowded around the controls.
“Your bodies disrupt the fields. This isn’t rocket science. It is much more delicate than that. Here you make a mistake with someone in the chamber and they die. No cameras, no electrical equipment, not even battery operated ones. That is what human bodies are. You generate energy and mass by chemical reactions from the food you eat. That in tern changes into electrical fields every time you move a muscle, think, or even at rest.”
“We either discuss this with everything shut down or we talk about it in a class room. What we don’t do is put someone in the chamber and watch them die as pieces are helter skelter removed and replaced because the fields are disrupted.”
Ricky looked at each person as he put his left hand on the control panel. “This is NOT a miracle machine. It CAN NOT make something from nothing. It DOES move living cellular tissue around. It can remove tissue but it CAN NOT make new tissue. You CAN NOT make he men or wonder women in this machine. There is NO addition factor in this equipment, only subtraction. You want he men? Send them to a training camp because this equipment will never make one.”
He sighed as he turned his attention to the chamber. “Let me tell you what this machine can do, now that I have explained what it can’t do. It can remove lesions, moles, scars, birthmarks, skin cancer, even deep tissue cancer. It can remove bone cancer, diseases of all kinds, and reshape physical features to a limited extent. It is a go slow process. You must map each individual before doing anything to make sure you aren’t moving bone cells into tissue cells or the reverse. Stay away from the brain unless you are removing tumors or cancer. Every part of the brain is there for a purpose and it isn’t for us to be playing with. You want to play with the brain, go get your medical degree in brain surgery, but not here.”
Ricky turned his attention back to the men and women. “I believe everyone here has heard what my wife does for a living. You kill any more people inside that chamber and I’m going to start handing out names.”
Linda awoke after the forth day. Serena had returned to work after Linda came out of her coma. I took over for Serena in the hospital after she had left. Linda was looking at her arms. “I can see through my skin.”
“Yeah, Ricky took good tissue and moved it where you had been burnt. If you look in the mirror you will look like one of those see through models doctors use.”
She didn’t look amused. “That’s going to take some getting use to.”
“Boy do I know. Enjoy it now because your tissue will rebuild. You will be a new woman by this time four months from now. Ricky said you are going to have the smoothest, prettiest skin of any woman. Just don’t get close to anything rough or sharp in the meantime. Your skin is tissue thin right now and very delicate.”
Linda reached up and felt the back of her head where all her hair was gone. “Is this permanent or will it come back?”
I reached over and took her hand. “The fire from the blast singed all your hair off. Ricky said he can put it back if you will step back into the chamber. He really was exhausted after taking care of the worst problems you had. If you want to wait it will grow back naturally without any help.”
She turned her head and looked up at me. “Speaking of the blast. Did we do any good?”
I nodded. “That was him in the truck. Your sister’s sources said we took out a couple billion inventory counting everything. From the millions he had stashed in his house, the warehouse, his airplane, we ended one drug dealer’s cartel.”
Linda’s eyes got just a tad bigger. “She tell you?”
Shaking my head, I smiled. “No. The way she cared for you, the similar mannerisms you both have, becomes apparent after being around both of you as long as I have.”
She got more than serious. “Have you told anyone?”
“No. In the business you two are in that would be a death sentence. Leverage for those who would use that to draw the other into a trap.” I studied her eyes. “I’m guessing those you work for don’t know?”
“We were five and four when we were separated. Both parents were murdered. Years later we were recruited by the same agency since we were both orphans. We got to comparing notes on the jobs where we worked together and figured it out.”
Now was my turn to get serious. “Dimitri died because of me. I’ve become toxic poison to everyone who gets close. You can’t be near me from now on. I tried to explain this to Ricky and he isn’t having any of it. He said if I left him for that reason he would turn on his machine and step into it ending it all. I know him and he really would.”
“I think of you as the sister I never had. We must go our separate ways. Those that want me dead don’t care how many die in the process.”
Linda reached out, took my hand and squeezed it. “Hon, we are in the same business, you and I. You can’t push me away because you think I might get hurt. Five years ago I saw a woman who could take everything life throws at her and never flinch. I still haven’t figured out where she came from. My best guess is she was forged in the fires of hell and purified in God’s kingdom.”
“There is safety in numbers. Our business calls…, demands we don’t run away but meet them on our terms when possible. That bastard Raul received our message. We will keep on sending the same message as long as we are standing. My government wants you to come and work for the Ministry of Defense. I told them about you. I honestly think you have become the pinup poster in everyone’s locker in the arms storage building. “
That made me laugh. “I’m not Russian.”
Linda laughed with me. “Maybe not, but you’re still a woman. You think guys care what nationality you are? Did you forget what they use for thinking with when they are looking at a woman?”
Laughter rang down the hall as Linda and I gave it some thought.
Ricky and I spent months around Tuapse as he tried to teach the staff what to do and not do with the machine. His frustrations were plain enough as it was evident they wanted more out his equipment than it was capable of.
It was a little over six months after we had returned with Linda. He came into the house the government provided us and flopped down in the recliner. “I give up. They killed someone again last night. They don’t understand the machine can’t rearrange a whole body.”
Walking over, I sit down in his lap and put my arms around his neck. I gave him a kiss. “What do you mean it can’t rearrange a whole body? Are you telling me I’m not here?”
“Jess…,” He looked me in the eyes with as much seriousness as I had ever seen. “I…, we were working with an unknown. I think I figured out why you weren’t killed inside that thing. For months we moved your cells around as the cancer was stripped out. There was a time factor in between each event before you went back in. Think in terms of fluffing up... what? Uh... flour I guess. Or maybe you can relate to digging up the ground with some of that big equipment you used to operate. It takes awhile to settle back down and get firm again. I believe that was what happened. Because nothing was actually locked back down at the time, everything was allowed to shift without disruption of the cell walls.”
He put his arms around me and gave me a life squeezing hug. “Oh Jess, I’m so sorry. It seemed like a fun idea at the time. To think how close I came to killing you like they are doing now scares the snot out of me. We fools want to play God and someone ends up paying a price.”
“And if nothing had happened to the lab and you tried to change things back?” I was wondering if Ricky was thinking the same thing I was.
“Probably would have killed you. I strongly suspect molecular bonding would have been disrupted one too many times. Jess, please forgive me.” He lowered his head.
I put my hand under his chin and raised his head so he would have to look at me. “I did that five years ago.”
“Let’s go look at the home place. I think I’m homesick. When can we blow this place and make like a couple tourists in the states?” I slid off his lap to fix his dinner.
He stopped and grabbed me around the waist, pulling my back into his chest. Leaning down he nosed through my hair and nibbled along my neck, getting a mouthful of hair for his efforts. “Give me a week to notify Serena we want clean passports. What country do you want to claim on yours this time?”
===========
Miss Lucy Snider flew into Tacoma, Washington with her marketing manager Bryan Cross, of Cross Industries, to check lumber prices and deliveries with West Fraser. One of the top lumber mills in Canada. The purpose of Mr. Bryan Cross' visit was to get a firm delivery date for five million board feet for his client, China Limited. From there they flew to Oklahoma City.
He leased a Cessna 172 at the airport for the purpose of looking over Oklahoma for the prospect of setting up a manufacturing plant.
=========
James was scanning the horizon looking for any sign of rustlers. “This country is so up and down they could hide a couple thousand head a mile away and we would never find them.”
Matt took off his hat and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “Did that sheriff have any ideas? I mean he lives up here and we are guessing where those rustlers might be holding them.”
James wiped the sweat out of his eyes. “If he knew he wouldn’t have asked for help from the Rangers. Let’s go.”
They climbed back into James' pickup. “There is a place over in Oklahoma I want to look at. We can come back and try again after we find some place to eat a bite.”
“Oklahoma? You thinking of buying some land or what?” Matt turned the AC vents to blow on his face.
“Just want to look at a place. It isn’t for sale that I know of. Belongs to someone, a Ricky Clawson.”
“Ricky Clawson? Never heard of him. What does he do?” Matt was finally starting to cool down with the AC blowing in his face.
“He builds interesting things.” According to the feds. James silently thought to himself.
==========
Ricky landed the plane in the pasture a couple hundred feet from where he grew up, in his parents house.
“Do you think you could find one more gopher hole to bounce over?” I was still holding on for dear life after he had stopped.
“Everyone is a critic. You think you can do any better, you fly this thing.” He was already sliding out of the plane after shutting everything down.
“Tell Walter to drag a harrow across the pasture before next time and knock down the gopher mounds.” I climbed out and was walking with him toward the house.
It was older I remembered. “Looks smaller than I remembered. Think they will let us sleep in the barn like we used to?”
Ricky shook his head and laughed. “You forget how big those rats were? I’ll sleep in the plane if we are spending the night.”
“Hey that plane isn’t safe either. If memory serves me right they were big enough to carry that plane back to their den and serve you up on a wing for supper.” I was standing on the porch. The front door had a hasp and lock on it. It looked like it had been broken into several times.
Ricky looked at the lock. “I didn’t tell Walter we were coming. Best word wasn’t spread around. I doubt the government has taken us off their come and sit awhile invitation. I could kick it in. Looks like that is the normal way to get in.”
“Don’t bother. I doubt anything is left inside. Once the two legged rats start carrying things off they don’t quit until there is nothing left to carry. Think anything is in the barn?” I looked out across the field to the barn.
“Besides Walter storing his hay there? I doubt it. Let’s go look.” He took my hand as we headed toward the barn.
“I hear a motor.” I hesitated.
“Probably one of the neighbors saw the plane land and coming to check if it was engine trouble or something.” He stopped and looked down the driveway.
“Ricky it's a sheriff or law. I see lights behind the grill.” I slipped my hand inside my purse and wrapped my fingers around the .357, wishing it was the fifty.
“Easy Jess, remember who you are. If they ask questions we are only looking over the place, as it came up in a realtors listing. Relax. There is nothing here to steal and we certainly aren’t going to be hauling off hay in an airplane.” He put his arm around my waist and gave me a squeeze.
“Oh shit!” My heart went up in my throat as the driver got out of the pickup.
He smiled from ear to ear as he looked at me. “Hello Red.”
“James.” I nodded in agreement.
“Ricky, how you been? We haven’t been introduced but I would recognize you anywhere. What you two doing in this neck of the woods? You plan on fixing up the old place?” He looked over at the house.
“Ranger.” Ricky acknowledged.
Matt had climbed out and was standing there looking lost as he studied the two people James was talking to.
“Red, you still carrying one bigger than mine?” His smile got even bigger if that was possible.
“Not this time. Customs and all, you know how it is.” I waited to see what he was going to do. There was no way I was going to shoot a Ranger, I eased my hand out of my purse, knowing I was going to prison.
The other Ranger got a serious look on his face as he stared at me. “Red? Is that the woman? That’s her! Shit that’s her!”
His hand was going for his gun.
James looked over at him and shook his head. “If she didn’t like you we would already be dead. Keep your hand off that gun. If you pull it and she doesn’t shoot you, I will.”
I couldn’t believe it. I waited to see how this was going to work out.
James curled up the corner of his mouth as his eyes danced in amusement. “Expecting trouble?”
That pulled me back five years to a trade show. Was he wanting to reminisce that first time? “In play.”
“Hope those troubles don’t come along then.” He turned toward Matt. “Let’s go see if we can find those cattle rustlers.”
James reached up and tipped his hat. “Ma’am, Mr. Clawson, been a pleasure.”
He started to turn around and then hesitated. “Jessica, keep your powder dry. Ernesto Escobedo is a drug lord in Columbia. Those four men you killed in Dallas were his men. He put a half million dollar bounty on your head if they bring you in alive to him. A hundred thousand for proof of your death. I wish you would give some serious consideration to joining the Rangers. I know forty Rangers who wouldn’t hesitate to take you on as a partner.”
James turned and headed for his pickup.
Matt was standing there pointing at me and looking at James. “But, but, but…,”
“Matt, get your butt in this pickup or count on a really long walk home.” James slid up into the seat.
“Ranger?” Ricky was looking at James.
“Un huh?” James waited before he started his pickup.
“Thanks. Those rustlers you are looking for? About five miles north is a canyon. There are four semis, several pickups with stock trailers, temporary chutes and around two hundred head of mixed breed cows. Saw them when we flew in. I don’t think they all came from the same ranch. I didn’t count them but I would guess there are about ten or fifteen men.”
James nodded. “I’ll check it out. Matt let’s go.”
“James, how much back up do you have?” I had a hard time understanding him heading into a group of rustlers with only two of them.
“We are it. If the semis are there they are loading them up to ship them out. They will be gone in an hour or less.”
I gave Ricky a quick kiss. “I’m going too.”
“Jess?”
James needs all the help he can get. Two of them against ten or fifteen men is terrible odds. I’m going to even up those odds just a little.”
I waved at the pickup. “James wait.”
I opened the passenger door. “Move it over Ranger.”
He didn’t quite know what to do. “You can’t come. You aren’t…,”
James looked at Matt and laughed. “You’ll never know. Jessica hold up your right hand.”
I held up my right hand.
“I don’t remember all them words, but do you swear to uphold the law?”
“I do.”
He handed me his badge. “By the authority granted to me by the constitution of Texas I swear you are a Ranger. Get in.”
“But, but, but…,” Matt was sputtering as he slid over.
James shook his head as he started up the pickup. “He’s a little green yet. Hasn’t had to shoot or kill anyone either. Thanks for the support Jessica. I really was scared knowing Matt could freeze up when it counted.”
“A Ranger scared? Yeah, and there is no snow in Alaska. What is the plan? You have an extra gun? My .357 has a three inch barrel. Not that great in accuracy at anything over fifty feet.
James reached under the seat and pulled out a carbine. “This do?”
Looking it over after Matt hesitantly passed it to me I nodded. “Two Two Three”
He reached under the seat and came up with a clip. “Forty rounds.”
“Ricky said there were possibly fifteen of them.” I took the clip and slipped it home.
James took a quick glance in my direction. “You want Matt to remove twenty five bullets?”
“Well it is a lot of extra weight to be lugging around if there are only fifteen of them.”
Matt’s mouth was moving as he was silently adding and subtracting. He stopped and looked from me to James and back to me and back to James. “You’re putting me on. Fifteen men, fifteen bullets? Yeah right.”
James was laughing. “She killed four men with four bullets in a moving car at a deflection angle.”
Matt’s head snapped around to stare at me. “He’s joking isn’t he?”
I shook my head. “It was only one in the car. The others when they bailed.”
He looked down at the carbine and his eyes got bigger.
“Why don’t you tell Matt about that last bunch in Mexico a few months back?”
I glanced at James. “You heard?”
“Jessica you left dead bodies all over town. That kind of news gets spread round. Why you think Ernesto is pissing in his pants now? Half a million dollars for a hit is a lot of scared.”
The kid slid over and gave me a little more room. I guess he decided he was riding with the Grim Reaper. I didn’t know whether James was relating these stories to scare the kid or to give him courage he had backup?
When James drove over the rim and followed the road down into the canyon, everyone down there went to high alert. James drove up like he was on a Sunday drive and stopped a hundred feet from the cattle pens.
I gave James credit as I slid out of the pickup. They were loading livestock into the trucks.
I gave a nod towards Matt as he slid out. “Stay behind the door. It will stop most bullets unless they pull out rifles. Then I suggest you get behind the pickup.”
James slid out of the pickup. “Howdy. See you’re loading up. You moving them to another pasture?”
One of the men nodded. “Moving them up north. Had a rain up on the other place and better grass.”
James was looking at the cattle still in the pens. “Got papers? Who you working for?”
I was looking at the guy in the cab of the back truck. “If he reaches into that sleeper and comes back with a gun in his hand, he’s dead.”
“Now there’s no need for that. We got papers. I’ll get them.” The talker for the group was headed for one of the pickups.
“Mister, I’m going to give you the same warning I gave the other guy. You reach into that truck and come up with anything besides papers in your hand you won’t live to regret it.” The guy was looking and acting like he was ready to fight it out.
James gave a chuckle. “I’d listen if I were you. She killed four men a couple months back.”
I would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so tense at the moment. Months? Okay, was James talking about Dallas or Mexico?
The guy in the truck decided to go for it. He ducked down and came back up with a glock in his hand. Blood splattered all over the cab of the truck as the carbine woke up the cattle. The other guy dove for his pickup. He was behind the door when he came up with an AR. I put two rounds through the door. The guy fell over backwards like he had been hit by a truck.
I shook my head. He was stupid. No pickup door was going to stop a two twenty three bullet unless one of the bullets hit the window roller mechanisms inside.
James focused on the others who looked like they were ready to run.
“Matt, it is time to pull your gun.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see it was still in his holster.
He was shaking as he pulled his gun out.
“Matt, take a deep breath. The others are scared to death of dying like their two friends just did. They gave up the fight. Don’t shoot anyone. It’s over. All you need to do is hold them here and call for help. Now get on the radio and call it in.”
James glanced over at me. “Glad I brought yuh. Okay, everyone line up over here against the bank. Anyone has any funny ideas, think about your friends who had that same stupid thought.”
It was more than forty minutes before the first sheriff car pulled in. Then slowly it turned into a flood of sheriffs, deputies, and highway patrol cars, pickups, vans. I dropped the clip, emptied the chamber, and put the carbine back under the seat after the first car showed up.
James walked up to the pickup. “Stay put in the seat. You happened to come along. Clue me in before we get tangled up in our own web. What name are you using now?”
“Lucy Snider. Ricky is Bryan Cross.”
“Lucy Snider, Bryan Cross. Okay, I’ll have a talk with Matt. After what you did saving his bacon I doubt he will give you up.” James got serious. “Jessica…, thanks. We would have been the ones lying there if you hadn’t come along. My job isn’t as black and white as everyone wants to believe. If I had called it in before checking if these cattle were stolen and they weren’t, it would have been a big waste of everyone’s time.”
I handed James badge back to him. “Glad you let me come along for the ride Ranger.”
I called Ricky up on the cell phone. The connection was terrible. Whether it was because of the remote location or the canyon I had no idea. “Ricky can you hear me?”
“sssss clik ssssssss Jess sssss” Came back.
“Be a little late. Everything is fine.”
“I ssssssssss clik sssssss late.” Was all I could make out.
“YES I WILL BE LATE I LOVE YOU.” I had to giggle after I hung up. If a connection is bad why is it human nature to want to shout as if that would make it better?
============
James was called into Henry Millman’s office. Henry was waving a piece of paper in his hand. “What is this?
“What do you mean what is this? I deputized her. It’s all there in the report.”
Henry turned and glared at James. “Do you have any idea the problems this is going to cause? It isn’t bad enough you had her. But then you make her a Ranger? What the hell was going through your mind? Had you been drinking?”
Henry looked over at Matt. “And what were you doing while all this was going on?”
Matt hung his head in shame knowing his career was finished before it started. “Sorry sir.”
“SORRY! YOU’RE SORRY! No you aren’t, but you will be before the butterfat is out of the cream. Do you two idiots have any idea how much hell this is causing me? I got a call from the governor. He congratulated me on hiring the Princess as a Ranger. I bet his wife told him after she remembered the name from the society pages. He has no idea what kind of convoluted mess this is. He will when it all boils to the top and he finds out she’s on the FBI’s most wanted list.”
Henry threw the paper down on his desk and pulled his hair straight up. “Rangers are recruiting from the feds most wanted list. Yeah, that is going to look great for the Dallas Morning News headline. I’m getting hell from HQ out of Austin over this already. Can you imagine what it is going to be like around here when the papers pick it up?”
He turned and glared at James. “Of course you brought her in and she is in one of the holding cells waiting for the FBI to come and pick her up. So why isn’t that piece of paper on my desk. Or did you conveniently forget to do the paper work on that part?”
James opened his mouth. Henry pointed at him. “Don’t you dare say one damn word. You’re both suspended until I figure out what to do with you.”
Matt started to pull his gun out of the holster to lay on the desk.
Henry glared at him. “What the hell you think you’re doing? I said you were suspended. I didn’t say for you to turn in your badge or gun. You’re still a Ranger. You’re required to carry your weapon at all times whether in uniform or not. Or didn’t you understand that part of your instructions when you signed on?
Henry waved toward the door. “Both of you get the hell out of my office. Go write some parking tickets, or play like crossing guards, or catch some more cattle thieves.”
“By the way, word is you two stopped one of the biggest operations in a twelve state ring. Good work. Now get out of my sight.”
“I can’t begin to wrap my mind around the fact there were over forty lawmen around her and no one brought her in.” Came from the office as James and Matt closed the door behind them.
Matt caught James by the sleeve after they left the Captain’s office. “What is going to happen to us?”
James turned to look back into the office. “Does it matter? Was she worth it?”
Matt nodded. “Yes. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her. It was worth it.”
James smiled as he focused on Matt. “She’s probably the best person you will ever meet in this screwed up world of good guys and bad ones. I don’t know who she works for. She was a Texas Ranger for a little while. The brass will kick and scream and throw a hissy fit. They will finger point the blame at everyone but themselves. All said and done, in the still of the night when they tip up that drink, they will know it was the right thing to do.”
He put his arm on Matt’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s go write some traffic tickets.”
Matt looked confused. “But we are suspended.”
“That was so the captain can cover his ass if the heat comes down too hard. We really aren’t officially... yet... and probably won’t be. Come on Ranger. I know where some guys usually hang out dealing drugs near a school.”
Copyright 2014
by Barbie Lee
Edited by Catherine Linda Michel
It’s called synchronicity. It weaves lives and events together even when they don’t know one another. It is stronger when people have met, even if years earlier. We move or travel a hundred, thousands of miles from home and meet or cross paths with people we met before. Synchronicity is what the law uses to catch the bad people. It is interwoven with habit among many other things. People have a human nature to return to a place they have been before. People want to return to the same vacation spot. Fishermen want to go back to the same fishing pond. They want to shop at the same store. And crooks…? They go back to the same neighborhood, the same stores, the same friends.
Even those of us who understand that human nature makes us creatures of habit, do the stupid trick of returning to familiar places. Or else we let the odds of synchronicity find us with our guard down and old enemies show up.
“You’re going to tell me, you stupid bitch. Who you working for?”
Licking the blood at the corners of my mouth, I tried to smile. I had no idea if I did or not because my face was like the rest of my body, beyond feeling. “muf aaf wov mif”
“What?” He leaned down and turned his head to put his ear closer to my mouth.
It was plain enough. I said fuck you. He must be hard of hearing. “mas ur gugg aff”
“Eddie, give it a rest. You beat her so bad she can’t even move her mouth. She has a mouth full of blood. You have no skills. When you want them to tell you their secrets you don’t beat their face off. You need to be more subtle.” The second man bent down to look me in the eyes. He opened up a pen knife and grabbed my left hand.
There was no doubt in my mind that he was going to start cutting off fingers. I was wrong. That wouldn’t have been painful enough. He held my index finger and rammed the blade up under the fingernail.
The air left my lungs and my mouth in one huge gasp of pain. The two men were sprayed with blood. I passed out.
“What if she has aids or one of them other contagious diseases?” Eddie looked at Doug in disgust. “I’m going to wash this shit off.” He walked out of the room.
Doug looked at the blood splatter on his hands and clothes. He pushed over the chair she was tied to with his foot before he left the room. “Stupid bitch.”
Ricky and I were in the second lab he built. Although it looked like the original lab that was destroyed in Mexico, it didn’t feel the same. I knew it was my imagination because the labs had to be the same or this one wouldn’t be working. There was no tolerance for error.
“You ready?” He never looked up as he worked at the control panel.
“I’ll never be ready.” I was shedding my clothes before I stepped into the chamber.
Ricky looked up and smiled as I stepped out onto the glass floor and walked into the middle of the chamber. “Relax, I promise nothing will go wrong.”
“Un huh, I’m betting that is the same line they told all those they killed inside this thing.” My absolute faith in Ricky not withstanding, his machine was like a brain surgeon’s knife. One little ‘uh oh’ and the patient becomes ‘sorry old boy’.
The glass chamber lowered down to the glass floor. It rose back up with me inside. I braced myself for any memories. Inside that chamber they stopped being memories and were relived. The walls, ceiling, and floor glowed a pinkish white.
Dad and I were stacking hay bales on the trailer as the hay loader picked them up off the ground and elevated them up to the trailer. I was tossing them up to dad as they came off the hay loader. He was stacking them. Momma was driving the pickup. Momma turned on a small ridge. A tire on the low side of the trailer blew and that side of the trailer dropped. Daddy went over the side and half the hay load followed.
“DADDY! MOMMA STOP! STOP!” Scrambling over the bales still on the trailer I jumped down on the ground and started tossing hay bales back.
Momma jumped out of the pickup and ran back to where I was tossing bales. “Lynn?”
“He’s under the hay, Momma!”
Mom started tossing hay bales with the strength that would match any man.
When we finally pulled the hay bales off daddy he was beat up and badly bruised. Thankfully nothing was broken. I unhitched the trailer as mom helped dad into the pickup. Once home she helped him into the house. I loaded up jacks, blocks, and a spare tire for the trailer before heading back to the field. I was glad daddy was okay. My biggest worry wasn’t him. All that hay was piled up. The loader wasn’t going to be able to get them, as it was designed to pick up one bale at a time as it was pulled through the field. When I replaced the tire on the trailer I was going to have to toss those bales up there one at a time. Because daddy wasn’t helping, I was going to have to climb up on the trailer and stack each bale in place. I was tired before the job started.
Before I got the lug nuts tightened after replacing the wheel I heard a pickup coming across the field. It was Yule, our neighbor to the north. Seconds later another pickup came into the field. I recognized the old rusty Chevy as Paul’s truck. He lived several farms north of Yule. It turned into a flood of pickups and trailers. Some were bringing their own hay loaders. There were several tractors with hay forks on the front as neighbors poured into the field.
An hour later the hay was either back on the trailer, stacked in the pickups, or on a neighbors trailer. The hay that had been scattered in the field was picked up too. When I pulled that load back to the house I received another surprise. Martin was there with his elevator backed up to the hayloft. He was one of our neighbors who hauled hay commercially. Bale after bale was dropped onto the elevator. They slowly trundled up the ramp into the barn loft where other men were stacking them..
Mom was busy bringing water and what tea and lemonade she had out to the neighbors as the hay bales disappeared into the barn. Several of the neighbors tracked into the house to check on dad as the unloading progressed. Less than three hours after they came, everyone was gone. What started out as a full week job for mama, daddy, and me was done.
Although I didn’t have to handle every bale I was bone tired when I walked into the kitchen. “How did they know?” I watched as momma fixed some fresh tea for daddy.
She dropped a teabag into a cup of boiling water. “I called Ellen to see if she had Watkins White Horse Liniment for your father’s bruises. She asked me what happened. I told her that Lynn was thrown off the trailer and buried under the hay. I guess she told Paul and then started calling all the neighbors.”
After checking on daddy I started out the door. It was time to milk the cows. Something wasn’t right. Looking down I was wearing a poodle skirt the same as some of the girls in my class.
The chamber was rising up. Ricky was standing at the console logging data. Stepping off the glass table I headed for my clothes wondering how much my mind was changing? My memories were getting mixed in with my dreams. That poodle skirt I borrowed from a girlfriend and wore on Halloween. Pulling on my jeans I looked over at Ricky. “You ever dream you were wearing a dress?”
His head slowly turned in my direction. “No why?”
“As a kid, when we were on the farm. I know you never wore one for Halloween. Did you ever dream you were wearing a dress?” I could see the answer on his face before he said anything.
He rolled in his lips. His eyes were darting away before he would look at me. “No”
I shook my head as I laughed. “Liar. You’re the worst liar I have ever met. It’s a good thing you don’t play poker. I wonder if every boy has dreamed at one time he was wearing a dress?”
“Well…, you know pants are a fairly recent item in the time line of mankind. Like everything else, men started wearing them and excluded women. Joan of Ark was burned at the stake for heresy because she wore pants.”
Ricky was shutting down the equipment. “Your cellular mapping has changed from the first time. That was to be expected. I wish I had thought to map you after we built this machine. Sadly it never crossed my mind. Jess, I’m not a genetic scientist nor am I a doctor. Everything we have done should have been performed in a college where hundreds, thousands of students put in their labor and time tracking every change for their thesis.”
He was watching as I slipped on my blouse and tucked the tail into my pants. He sighed as sadness showed in his eyes. “I’m sorry Jess. I have no idea what I did to you.”
Walking up to him I pulled Ricky in and kissed him. “You gave me years of life I wouldn’t had otherwise. Am I dying?”
He shook his head before he pulled me into his arms and hugged the life out of me. “I don’t think so. Your scan doesn’t show any abnormalities. No cancer, no blemishes, no anomalies, no diseases.”
He pointed toward the door. “Take anyone from the billions walking this planet and we all have something wrong with us. You’re different from the rest of us. I don’t mean in that old saying there are no two people alike. If there was a perfect normal where we all should start from I think you are it.”
He pushed me back and looked into my eyes. “Jess, is this hard for you? I mean, you act and have the mannerisms of a woman. As kids you were a guy in every respect. I don’t mean to pry where I don’t belong. You don’t have to answer.”
Picking up his hands I held them to my breasts. “What do you feel? Do you feel a man or do you feel a woman? When you make love are you making love to Tom or are you making love to Jessica? Why do you think it would be any different from my side? You think I’m looking at Tom in the mirror? Do you think Tom pulled on a pair of pants and slipped on a bra just now? Was that Tom’s naked body you were looking at in the chamber as you did your mapping?”
I cupped my hands around the back of his head and pulled Ricky in for a long kiss before I pulled back to study his eyes for the truth. “Did you kiss Jessica or did you kiss Tom?”
Pulling his arms around me and laying my head up against his chest, I listened to his heartbeat. “Tom was a friend we both grew up with. It isn’t hard to believe I’ve always been Jessica and Tom’s memories are borrowed. My emotions, my feelings, the things a woman feels when she makes love, are mine now. I can’t explain them to you because you’re a man and never experienced these things.”
“Linda is a beautiful woman. At one time I would have walked barefoot across broken glass to get her into my bed. Now…? She’s a beautiful woman and I’m jealous. There is no sexual attraction. I don’t want to kiss her or take her to my bedroom. I love her as a friend. It’s kinda the same way Tom loved you as a friend.”
I looked into his eyes to make sure he understood how serious I was. “If you are trying to say the bloom has gone off the flower and you are no longer interested because I’m no longer a novelty. You can have your freedom. I don’t want anything that belongs to you. I’ll walk out of your life and leave you alone if that is what you want.”
Ricky pulled me in and squeezed the life out of me again. “I like women. They smell nice, look nice, and are nice to hold because they are soft. You didn’t find me as a virgin. I’ve experienced the pleasures of several women. More than a couple tried every way possible to get me to marry them. I never loved any woman to the point where I thought I wanted to wake up and see her beside me every day.”
“Until you.” He nuzzled around my neck sending shivers down my spine. “In all honesty it wasn’t instant love. It grew on me as you saved my life and protected me at every turn.
Now, I don’t remember a day when you weren’t beside me. I was alive, but I wasn’t living before. I don’t want any more of those days before you came. I love you Jess. I pray I don’t ever make you want to leave me for something I said or did.”
Two days later we flew from Tupase, Russia down to a little island off the tip of Greece. Heraklion had a decent airport. I picked it because we hadn’t ever been there before. Staying away from a routine wouldn’t make us completely safe from those who wanted me dead. What it would do is make it harder for them to do their job. One could figure with a half million dollar bounty for my head the bounty hunters would be trying really hard.
Linda leased the yacht four days earlier. We tried to make sure the plane, the boat, any house and basically nothing was connected to Ricky and me. You might say we lived kinda like gypsies. Always on the move, never in same place twice if it could be helped. It was nothing different than the life I had as Tom when I moved from construction job to construction job, but now…, I think it was the female nesting instinct. I would have loved to have a home and not be on the move all the time.
The weather was perfect. Those usual Mediterranean storms were laying off. The sea was softly rolling with moderate waves. It was pretty relaxing as the waves rocked the boat. The engine wasn’t running. We were pulling a sea anchor, which is like a tiny parachute in the water, behind the boat. It kept the yacht drifting straight with the wind. Ricky was trolling from the stern. I had come up from the cabin after changing to a red bikini. Linda was still below.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” I walked up beside Ricky and wrapped my arm around his neck for a hug.
“No thanks. I think I have a nibble.” He was slowly reeling in his line.
Scanning the waters for any yachts that had moved in toward us the past couple hours I saw two closing in. They weren’t that far away now. One had some kind of activity on the forecastle. “Ricky…, Never mind. I’m probably being paranoid.”
I headed for the stairwell to get binoculars when there was a loud solid thud beside me. I looked and there was a hole in the cabin wall. “RICKY GET DOWN!”
I spun around running toward Ricky. “GET DOWN!”
Linda came boiling up from below with her rifle in hand as I plowed into Ricky, knocking him out of the chair and onto the deck. He lost his grip on his fishing tackle when I hit him. It slipped over the stern into the waters.
It took Linda less than a half second to focus in on the problem. “I got him.”
She slid down to a sitting position with her back to the cabin wall and braced her rifle on her knees. There was a thunk thunk as two holes appeared in the cabin wall beside her. “Amateurs. Eat this.” She squeezed the trigger.
There was a thunk as a fresh hole appeared above her head. Linda racked another shell home and squeezed again. “Jess, could use a little help here. I got two of them. There are more taking their place. That second boat has some on it gearing up.”
“Stay down. I pushed up off Ricky and ran for the stairs. It sounded like hail as holes were appearing in the cabin wall and boat hull.
Six seconds later I was coming back up on deck. I headed forward to make them have to shift their targets. Linda took out two more. I didn’t want both of us aiming for the same gunman. “Ones on the right are mine. I’ll work back toward the left.” Time wasn’t on our side. Send enough bullets and the percentages go way up whatever you’re shooting at is going to get shot. They were sending a lot of lead our way.
I dropped down on the deck and focused in on the guys on the far boat. I missed as the roll of our boat and theirs threw off my aim.
Linda took out another one. “Damn show off.” I muttered under my breath.
I focused again. “Just shoot the damn cactus and stop thinking.”
Their boat was coming up on a wave and we had bottomed out in a trough. I aimed at his head instead of his chest. And squeezed. He wasn’t wearing a bullet proof vest. With the 308 it didn’t make any difference. His insides disappeared. There were thunks around me now as splinters flew up from the decking. The ones on that boat decided Linda wasn’t their threat at the moment. I was.
I accidentally managed to take out another one while Linda finished up with the last two on the left boat. Both boats were doing a hard turn to port which threw the shooters off balance. One threw his arms up in the air trying to maintain his balance. Linda nailed him. He fell off the boat face first. I tried again. The glass in the cabin shattered. Linda took out another one before the boats finished turning to speed away.
Our targets were gone unless we wanted to throw bullets at the back of boats speeding away from us. It wasn’t what we were trained to do. We were trained to focus on one target, one bullet, one kill. It was what all good hunters did. They never shot at a flock of birds or a herd of animals. They picked one and focused. Shooting at a flock or a herd meant a ninety percent chance of a miss. There was an awful lot of air and space between each individual target.
Linda walked up to where I was getting up off the deck. She nodded. “Nice shooting.”
“Poor shooting you mean. Jeeze hon, I didn’t know our government let Russians train with the Navy Seals. That didn’t come from shooting at targets on land.”
Linda was smiling as she gave me a wink. “I’m surprised you didn’t learn about our Navy Seals. Spetsnaz Group Alfa was the group I trained with. Women don’t become one of them. Some of us are trained with and by them.”
Leaning down I was picking up shell casings off the deck so no one would step on them and slip. “You would think they would be smart enough to paint over the names on the boats before they try and kill someone. I saw Bad Break and Knot Yacht. Where do you think they were out of?”
Linda looked out across the sea in thought. “They didn’t plan on losing. Who is going to be alive to tell about the boats? Think about it. How many were there? Twelve, fourteen? If it had been only me they would have managed to board us because of the sheer numbers.”
She reached out with her left hand and brushed my hair away from my face as she looked into my eyes. “Jess they aren’t ever going to stop coming as long as that son of a bitch is alive that put a bounty on you. Drunk or sober, men get together and swap tales about bounty money. They start thinking they will be the ones to win the prize money. It isn’t the professionals that worry me. They think things through knowing they need an edge or they aren’t going to return for the money. They also understand the law of retribution. There isn’t a single professional who doesn’t understand Raul brought it on himself. They understand the unwritten law of murder for hire. You kill someone in the business, you make damn sure none of their friends are left. Because you signed your own death certificate.”
“It’s those idiots like we turned away that worry me. There are a lot of them who don’t have two working brain cells. They think all they have to do is get a couple of their buddies to go along, kill you, and collect the reward.”
She turned and headed for the stairs. “We can keep killing the idiot crowd until the world ends and there will always be more of them. It’s time to take care of the problem at the source. I’ll put in some calls and see what comes up in the boat registry along the north side of the Mediterranean. Right now I’m pissed off enough I want to finish cleaning out one rat hole, even if it won’t stop the others. I’ll put a notice out to my sources and ask Serena to find out everything she can about Ernesto’s habits and where he normally stays. He is going to get his final lesson in this business. He’s out of his league. Don’t ask the girls to dance when you don’t know the steps.”
I headed for the stairs to check the engine room. “I’m going to see if any of those bullets breeched the hull. If they did I hope the bilge pump can keep up. Check the map and plot in the nearest land just in case.”
Fifty minutes later I was stepping into the cockpit where Linda and Ricky were.
Ricky heard me coming and turned to look. “Are we sinking?”
“Not yet. We are taking on water. I couldn’t find where. The holes have to be pretty close to the water line because it isn’t that much. Think in terms of a garden hose and that would be pretty close to what is coming in. The bilge pump is handling it without any problem. Still need to make a decent port with a boat lift to get this boat out of the water to fix the holes. At least we won’t have to beach it unless the pump quits.”
I stepped up to look at the nautical maps. “Did you find one while I was checking?”
Linda pointed to the map. “Anissaras is closest. Nothing there to handle a boat this big. We would have to take the bus back to Heraklion. We couldn’t take our gear on the bus. Let’s see if we can make it back to Heraklion. If the bilge pump is taking care of the leak it is the best choice.”
“Heraklion it is then. Keep in mind that’s a long swim back if that pump quits.” I was plotting in the distance.
Looking across the sea, I was tired. Where would it end? “Linda, we thinned them out. They lost a lot of friends. If they didn’t dump the bodies overboard they are carrying a lot of pain back with them. If you are right about them being a bunch of guys getting together and drinking their courage, we gave them a wake up call. Being guys they will talk about what they did today in whispers and lament the loss of friends until the day they die. They will pick up their guns and talk about revenge and make a hundred excuses why that day isn’t a good day to try again. Their liquid courage will never be up to the task again as long as they live.”
I turned to look at her. “Forget them.”
She stared at me for the longest before she nodded in agreement. “Every time I think I have you figured out you throw me off balance again. I wondered for a long time why you never contact your sources for information. Even if your government threw you under the bus for one reason or another, your sources you built up over time would still be there. You don’t have any sources do you? Yet, you are one of the best I have ever met in this business. Even freelance bodyguards build up sources over time when they become as good as you.”
I waited to see where Linda was going with this. She was getting awfully close to the truth. Had she figured out I was an accident in Ricky’s lab?
She looked over at Ricky. “Jess never talks about guarding anyone. She doesn’t talk about you as if she was hired as a bodyguard. But then she has protected you time and time again better than any four men could. She has no past beyond five years ago when your lab went up in smoke. If I was speculating on the impossible I would say she came out of that lab.”
Ricky swallowed and gave a fake laugh. “Hah. We all know that’s impossible.”
There was no doubt Ricky was the worst liar in the world. I waited for the accusation from Linda that she had found the truth.
When she turned from Ricky to look at me, shock was plainly visible in her eyes. She gave me a full body scan. “Impossible…,”
She turned and headed for the stairs. “I’m going to check on the bilge pump.”
It was over an hour before Linda walked back into the cabin. I was looking ahead, scanning the horizon in a mindless nothing, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I felt her staring at me.
Ricky was off to the side, as quiet as a mouse watching both of us. I think he was scared to say anything, hoping against hope Linda hadn’t figured it out.
“Thomas Baker.” Came as softly as a whisper in the night. Yet it couldn’t have been any louder if she had shouted the name.
Slowly I turned around wondering what was going through her mind and how she was going to handle it. “Yes.”
Linda took me in from head to toe several times over. I was still wearing the red bikini so there wasn’t much to hide.
“I don’t believe it and I’m looking at it. Ricky said it was impossible. My government has killed more than a dozen people trying to do what I’m looking at. Yet the impossible is standing in front of me. Was it an accident or on purpose?” She was staring at my face trying hard to wrap her mind around what she had been working beside all these years wasn’t her imagination.
I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. “A little bit of both. Ricky wanted a date for the Halloween party. He had been removing terminal cancer a little at a time from my body
for almost six months. Everything was going the way he envisioned it. His machine was doing what no doctor could. He saved my life.”
Looking over at Ricky I smiled and gave him a wink. “Finish the story Ricky. You can explain it better than me.”
“cough, cough” Ricky was taking quick glances from me to Linda, to me, to Linda, to me…, “It…, I…, uh…, joke…, ah, uh, Tom and I grew up together and were always playing jokes on one another. I thought…, funny…, best joke ever.”
He looked down at his feet before he got the courage to look at us again. He focused in on me for support. I nodded and smiled. Ricky got a weak smile and tried again. “Mistake…, it was a terrible mistake. Looking back, analyzing the problems they are having now with the machine. It was a miracle I didn’t kill my best friend in that damn infernal machine.”
He frowned and got more than serious as he looked at Linda. “You understand don’t you? Why I won’t tell them about Jessica? They would try to duplicate the process and kill hundreds, thousands because the margin of error is so minute it borders on being impossible.”
“It has everything to do with molecular bonding and surface tension. Have you ever floated a needle in a bowl of water? That sliver of metal will float on top the water because the water molecules are bonded together and are resisting the needle pushing down and separating them. Add the slightest vibration and the needle will break through the bond and sink.”
“Add one drop of soap to the bowl and the needle will sink. Soap breaks down the cohesion between water molecules. It makes water wetter as a surfactant. If you leave that needle floating on top the water and put a hand on each side of the bowl, it’s possible you may be one of the very few who can move that needle from side to side. Or you may make it turn in a circle just by thinking of doing it. You are creating energy in your hands the same as you do when you flex your fingers, bend an elbow.”
“One of your own researchers was able to show us this energy by using Kirlian photography. The activation by vibration of the living cells was done by one of ours, Royal Raymond Rife. Nicola Tesla was another of your research scientists who showed the world the invisible electromagnetic forces around us.”
“I brought them all together. The machine breaks the bonding between the cells in the human body. In simple terms each cell is moved by a magnetic field. It’s a lot more complicated than that because holding a magnet against the body wouldn’t work. It has to be focused on each cell or group of cells. Too much of a good thing and the whole body becomes a mass of cells on the floor of the chamber. Not enough disruption of the cellular bonding and the body is torn apart like shredded meat.”
Sadly he looked at me and shook his head. “Because we were removing cancer, Tom’s cellular structure had been shifted over a long period of time. His cells were allowed to form a cohesive bond only to a limited extent. They weren’t really locked down at the time. I had the program of Jessica mapped out in the machine. I thought it would be funny to turn my best friend into a woman after we had removed all his cancer. It was a joke and only going to be for a couple days.”
Linda was staring at me again. “And you choose to stay this way? Are you one of those who wanted to be a girl?”
I wanted to laugh. “You’re referring to transsexual. No, I was boy or male through and through. If you remember, the machine was destroyed. I was trapped at the time as Ricky had designed me. There was no turning back. By the time the new machine was built I had grown accustomed to being a woman. I love Ricky as a woman, not as a man. If I become Tom again that would be past tense. There was another factor stopping the switch back. Ricky said it would kill me. What you see is what you get until I die of old age.”
Linda still looked shocked. “That explains it then.”
“Explains what?” I was curious.
“You watching me or Serena when we dress or change. You don’t just look, you…, look. Are you bi now?”
That brought a smile. “No. I’m not interested in women in that respect. I watch and take notes because women are different from men. Men get dressed. Period. Women decorate instead of dressing. Each piece of clothing is to cover their canvas, their body, with reason and purpose. They dress with purpose, not because they need a covering on their body. They are artists in a sense. The better they bring it all together, the better the final portrait.”
Linda’s eyes danced in amusement. “Damn! I missed something being born a woman. I always took it for granted women and men got dressed. I’m going to have to take female lessons from you so I’ll know the rules to the game.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Hon, where do you think I’ve been getting all my lessons from? From that first day I saw you back at Dallas I thought you were the most beautiful, sexiest woman I had ever seen. I told Ricky to get your phone number because I wanted you to be my first date when Tom returned.”
Linda laughed and then got serious. “Let’s keep this conversation between the three of us. Ricky is right. My government would march men and women through that machine like dominoes to try and duplicate what you and Ricky did. I have no interest in watching hundreds, thousands of my countrymen die for no reason.”
She got more than serious. “Jess, live or die you stepped into the meat grinder when you took out a drug lord in Mexico that first time. You must develop contacts and resources if you plan on staying alive. So far you have been lucky. That only goes so far. I didn’t research Tomas Baker. There was no purpose. Obviously he was a sniper, trained by the military. You carried that much through to present tense. It explains a lot, including that damn big cannon you like to use as a gun.”
Linda shook her head and got a funny grin on her face. “Thomas Baker is wanted by the CIA, Jessica Rabbit is wanted by the FBI and the drug cartels. You seem to have an uncanny knack for making friends wherever you go no matter who you are. And you do it so easily and naturally too. I’m not going to tell you to try and make nice with your own government. Not because I’m Russian but because your government has become corrupted from the top down. It wouldn’t surprise me if you asked them for help they would alert Escobedo you were coming. My government wants you working for them Jess. They would always consider you a double agent, never fully trustworthy because you have no background more than six years ago. I promise with my own life they would never sacrifice you. Give it some thought.”
“I’ll share some of my contacts with you. You must develop others for your own preference. You are always talking about a Texas Ranger. You need to contact him to see if he will share intel with you. You can’t call him up or send him a letter or an email asking if he will share. You will need to arrange a meeting face to face. Go find a fishing pole. I’ll get my camera. We will take some pictures of you fishing off the fantail to send to him. Enclose a hand written note with the pictures. Something along the line of, 'fishing is great, weather is perfect, looking to take care of the big one. Might need help pulling him in.' If he is as sharp as you think he is he will get the message.”
Five guys gathered around James’ desk after he opened the manila envelope postmarked from Greece. The six pictures, twelve by fourteen glossies, he pulled out and laid on his desk brought wolf whistles from three of the guys. One of the others let out a yelp, “whoo hoo.”
“That who you deputized? Is that an official Ranger uniform?” Dale picked up the picture of Jessica wearing a red bikini. She was bent over forward looking up at the camera showing more than a fair amount of cleavage.
Lonnie reached past James and picked up the next one. Jessica was standing on tip toe, all stretched out reaching up for the end of a fishing pole. “Hell yeah! I’d deputize her in a heartbeat. Just one question. Where does she carry her pistol?”
James pushed the pictures back before anyone else could thumb through them. “Hands off you vultures. Your hot breath is wrinkling the photos. Your clammy little paws are leaving smudges.”
The bottom picture didn’t go all the way back into the envelope with the rest. James pulled it out to rearrange it. “Holy shit!” Came from one of the guys behind him. It was a picture of Jessica with black hair. She was wearing a purple almost dress standing in front of a band. She had her right arm and hand behind her. Her left was reaching out as if she had just spun out from a partner. Her head was turned slightly away from the camera. She was looking back at it out of the corner of her eyes. The slit of the dress was open all the way up to her hip showing nothing but long beautiful leg. Her crystal chandelier earrings, multi strand necklace, and bracelet accented her uncommon beauty.
Bobby picked up a piece of paper off the next desk. “I’m starting a petition. That girl has got to be made a full time Texas Ranger. None of that temporary deputy stuff. And we aren’t sharing her with no FBI either.” He held it up. “Who wants to be the first to sign?”
Lorrie was walking by. She stopped to see what the guys were looking at on James’ desk. Shaking her head she headed for the office talking to herself. “I can see anything productive from the guys is gone out the window this morning.”
It was two days after James received the manila envelope. “James Daniels?” The guy walked over to James pickup before James left the parking lot of the Ranger station.
James looked him over and nodded. The guy had Fed written all over him. What was it about them that they all looked and smelled like the same cookies in the cookie pan once they joined up?
“You received a packet from a Jessica Rabbit a couple days back. I’d like to have it.” He waited for the packet.
The corner of James mouth turned up before he sighed. One of the guys told someone else about the pictures and they told someone until somewhere along the story line someone in the FBI heard the story. And now they think they can walk up and demand it? “No problem. Let’s see your warrant.”
The look on the man’s face was a mixture of surprise and disapproval. “I thought, with a little inter agency co-operation, a warrant wouldn’t be necessary. What about that packet?”
James smiled and nodded. “Sure. Just as soon as you hand me that court order so we can keep this inter agency co-operation thing on the up and up.”
“You’re not denying you received a packet from a felon on the FBI list?” He wasn’t happy with the turn of events.
Now it was James turn to look disgusted. “You, I, and most anyone in law who is doing their job receives information or data from those outside the law from time to time. I’m not in the habit of disclosing my sources nor handing out information about same to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who comes along with their hand out. You may have a warrant out for her arrest, but as of yet Miss Rabbit has yet to be tried and convicted of anything. I strongly suggest you go back and review your lessons in criminology because the lady is not a felon. One can’t be a felon unless they have been tried and convicted in a court of law. Or that is the way our system used to work.”
James stared up his pickup. “You go get your court order to seize whatever you think I might have received. Until then, try and do a little more studying about what is or isn’t legal. Don’t bring your Washington law games to Texas. We still practice the constitutional law here.”
Bud watched as James drove off. “You have no idea who you’re playing with cowboy.”
Returning to headquarters at eight that night James walked in, pulled the manila envelope out of his desk, and headed right back out again.
Those who checked in the following morning found manila envelopes on their desks. Funny thing about the envelopes, they were all postmarked from Greece. Inside each one were six pictures of twelve by fourteen glossies of iconic scenic views from around the world and two pictures of Jessica. One was her pose on the boat and the other was the nightclub picture. There was a typewritten note included. ‘Having a wonderful time. Not missing you. Regards Jessica’
Not missing a beat, Bud arrived at the Ranger station around seven A.M. with a warrant for the packet James may have received from one Jessica Rabbit. Bud dropped it on the desk in front of James. “I have that formal request for a little inter agency co-operation wise guy.”
James opened up his desk drawer and pulled out several manila envelopes. He tossed them up on top the desk. “I’m not sure which one is it or maybe none of them are. The guys wanted copies for their inter office co-operation. The lab wasn’t sure which packet was the original when they finished. I’m sure your agency can figure it out.”
Bud’s face scrunched up as he glared at James. “Who’s your superior? I’m sure he isn’t going to be pleased with the way you are trying to make sure we don’t receive the original packet she sent.”
“Actually, what his superior really doesn’t care about is how you went about demanding James turn over any information he may or may not have received from Miss Rabbit. I put in a call to your boss, Leroy Appelton. I explained to him Miss Rabbit has worked with us as a Ranger. I have two Rangers still on the job because of her assistance. Any information she may or may not have for us is confidential. Next time you want any information Miss Rabbit may have sent to us I strongly suggest you ask politely. If it has anything to do with Miss Rabbit don’t expect to get it. In the interest of inter agency co-operation I’m sure you understand.”
Bud turned around to see who was verbally harassing him. “And you are?”
“Henry Millman, I’m the captain of this back woods organization. Your boss told me you were one of those who met Miss Rabbit a few years back. I suspect you made this a personal vendetta. For your information it’s personal for me too. I have two Rangers who are alive because of her particular skills. Our report when she worked as a Ranger is an open report. Pick it up and read it. I read the FBI report. I also read the police report and the report written by one of our rangers from that day. Seemed to be a difference of expert opinion in those reports. She showed a lot of skill and restraint that day. It would have been a lot easier for her to shoot you and leave. You’re not alive because she’s a bad shot. You’re alive because she’s a damn good shot.”
Bud was fuming as he grabbed up the three packets James offered. He stormed out of the Ranger station shouting, “HAYSEEDS!”
Every Ranger in the room stood up and clapped, as hoots and hollers rang across the room. “YAYYYY!”
Henry looked around. “Don’t let this go to your head. She’s still on the FBI most wanted list. Whether we like it or not, if she turns up we arrest and hold her for them.”
He stared at James and then Matt. “Do I make myself clear? Don’t make me tell you two again.”
Henry walked over to Lonnie’s desk and laid a sheet of paper down. “Absolutely not!”
Lonnie pointed over toward Bobby. “He started it not me.”
Henry shook his head as he turned and walked back toward his office. “I am NOT going to hire her as a Ranger no matter how many petitions you guys sign.”
“I bet she could pass the marksman qualifications without any problems.” Came from someone in the back of the room.
“I’d give her an A plus on all her exams just for showing up.” Came from the other side of the room.
“James would probably give her his badge…, again.” Lonnie was looking over at James.
James nodded in agreement. “Darn right I would. I’d take her over any of you losers. She’s a lot prettier and smells better than you clowns.”
The office broke down in chaos as paper wads started flying through the air.
It was after four in the morning when James dropped off Matt at his house and headed home. The past two weeks had been a series of bad intel, poor planning, and wasted labor. The gang of car jackers managed to steal twelve more high end models. It didn’t make James feel any better to know Buck and Paul, the other two Rangers assigned to the case weren’t having any better luck.
The Houston police had asked for assistance from the Rangers as they were not any closer to catching the thieves than what they had been for the past five months. The insurance companies, along with several prominent citizens, were beginning to question if the police weren’t accomplices themselves.
James and Matt called a time out after two weeks to rethink the case. When he pulled into his driveway there was a brown Mustang on his driveway. It wasn’t a car anyone he knew might be driving, unless one of the guys traded cars in the past two weeks while he was out of town. He looked inside as he walked toward his house. There wasn’t anyone in it. When he opened his front door he didn’t hesitate as he drew his pistol. The house didn’t smell right. There was a lingering scent of a woman in the air. His house alarm had been turned off.
James was turning on lights as checked the kitchen. There were dishes out he had put away. Pans were on the stove he hadn’t left. He checked the garage. It was empty. In the living room he found a black sequined bolero jacket on the back of the couch. Black patent leather heels were in front of it. He headed to the bedrooms.
The first one he checked was his own, the master bedroom. A black haired beauty, she was snuggled down under the blanket. When he flipped on the lights she looked over sleepily at him.
“Would you mind?” She looked over at the clock. “Four thirty? Go away. Call me anytime after eight when you have breakfast ready.” She rolled over and pulled a pillow over her head.
It was one of the few times in his life James was shocked. He looked at the black sequined dress draped across the back of the chair along with a black bra, black slip and black nylons. “Lady, do you have any idea whose house you are in? That’s MY bed in case you might want to know.”
She moved the pillow, rolled back over, and looked at him. “Yes it is and a very nice bed too. Jessica sends her regards. Now be a good little Ranger and go find another one because I was here first and I’m not sharing. James…, turn out the light on your way out.”
She rolled back over and pulled the pillow back over her head. James stood there mulling that one over in his mind. He had been in some weird situations before but this one definitely moved up to number one. He decided to make sure he was safe in his own house. “How big is that gun you’re carrying?”
“She said you would ask that question. The answer is, it’s bigger than yours. Mine really isn’t. I couldn’t handle her fifty. Now go away.” Came the muffled reply from under the pillow.
Shaking his head James turned out the lights and was about to pull the door shut behind him before he stopped and looked at the woman lying in his bed. “You were there with her six years ago weren’t you.”
“Yes. I’d love to swap old war stories with you, but not at this ungodly hour in the morning. Now be a sweetheart and go away.” Came from under the pillow.
“James?”
“Yeah?”
She pushed the pillow back and looked at him. “If it had been anyone but you they would have been dead before they got both feet inside the front door. Now go get some sleep.”
James stared at her before he pulled the door closed. Either the girl wasn’t asleep like she pretended or else she slept with one eye open. Everything about Jessica and those she associated with were high end black ops speed bumps. They banged into his life without even a hint of a notice. James headed to the spare bedroom. If the black haired beauty didn’t kill him in his sleep she would explain in the morning. He was too tired to care either way. He slid his Glock under his pillow and climbed into bed after dropping his clothes on the floor. He was sound asleep in minutes.
It was the smell of percolating coffee and frying bacon that brought him up out of his sleep. He pulled on the clothes he had dropped beside the bed last night before looking at his watch. It was after eleven. He headed for the kitchen.
She had set two places at the table and was pouring a cup of coffee. “Morning sleepy head. I thought you were supposed to fix breakfast. Since you decided to see who could stay in bed the longest this morning I finally gave in.”
James stared at the black haired beauty. She was wearing a tailored gray silk pantsuit and four inch gray stiletto heels. She had nice soft understated curves, and an angelic face with the prettiest black eyes he had ever seen. He didn’t miss the obvious gun laying on top of the table. “Going to shoot me or do I get to eat a last meal?”
“Ha ha, funny. You have a guilty conscience and think you need to be shot?” She dished up some eggs and bacon along with toast on a platter before putting it on the table. She took a seat. “You can stand there and look if you want. I’m going to eat. You can join me if you feel like it.”
James found his chair. “I think I’ll join you since this is my house. Or it was when I left it two weeks ago. It was nice of you to look after things while I was away Miss…?”
“Serena, I’m here for two reasons. Jessica needs you to find out everything you can about Ernesto Escobedo in Columbia.” She was buttering her toast.
“The drug lord. She’s going after him isn’t she?” James felt a dread deep down in his soul. People who go after drug lords usually didn’t live to tell about it.
Serena nodded. “Any information, no matter how small or seemingly unimportant, can mean the difference between making it in and out alive. Requests coming through the Texas Rangers won’t be that conspicuous. Routine research on drug traffic coming into Texas.”
James watched as she took a bite of toast and then focused on the eggs. “And the second reason?”
Serena took a bite of egg before answering. “Jess will be at the Red Dragon Inn at eight tonight. She has some information for you. I’m going to give it to you now so you don’t inadvertently lead anyone else to her. There is a bug in your head quarters. The FBI is listening in to everything said around your desk. They are waiting for you to say where Jess is or lead them to her.”
“They bugged my desk? How? When?” James was having a hard time believing her.
“From everything we have been able to pick up it was done when one of their guys visited you. Bud Martin is his name. It’s a short range bug and needs a repeater which is located on a power pole behind your head quarters.” She took a sip of her coffee. “You better eat before it gets cold. I hate cold eggs and coffee, don’t you?”
James looked at the eggs and toast on his plate. He took a bite of toast as he gathered his thoughts. “How do you know all this? Who do you people work for? Are you double crossing your own agency?”
“You mean the FBI? No, we don’t work for them or the CIA. We know about the bug because we have been listening to the same thing the FBI has.” She was eating the last of her eggs.
James laughed. “You have the FBI bugged don’t you? Oh this is too rich. They bug us and you bug them. Is nothing sacred any more? Everyone is listening into everyone else. Now we have to join the rat race and start scanning our own building for listening devices every couple days. How long has this been going on?”
Serena picked up her coffee and pushed back from the table. “We started listening to your office the day before you received an envelope from Jessica. The FBI, the day they planted a bug in your office. We try and cover all bases before the game starts. James, Jessica and I are going to meet you in Houston to catch those car thieves you have been looking for. We can lead you right to them because they have a piece of equipment that belongs to us. It was stolen from one of our vehicles. It cancels out all electronic signals within a five hundred meter range. We can pinpoint it because it is a dead zone in the middle of the signal blizzard Houston has become.
“Your equipment? I’m guessing you aren’t part of our government?” He was watching her eyes for an indication he had stumbled onto the truth.
She got more than serious. “Jessica is married to Ricky. I know they look like a May December couple, but the love they share is real. She also loves you. Jess is different from anyone I’ve ever known. Even if you led the wolves to her she would give up her life if it meant one of you was going to die. Jess lives in a black and white world with good guys on one side and bad guys on the other. She won’t cross that line herself.”
Serena took a sip of coffee as she focused in on James. “I’m not that careful about who is good or bad. Those FBI guys are alive because Jess didn’t want them hurt. If you lead anyone to Jess don’t make me decide whether to kill you or let you go. Jess would never hurt me even though she would never forgive me. Keep that in mind when you check in to the office this afternoon.”
James watched as she rinsed her dishes in the sink and then put them in the dishwasher. She picked up a gray purse from the top of the cabinet and slipped the gun into it. “The dishwasher has soap in it. Put your dishes in it when you get through.” She was headed for the door.
“Do I need to give you a house key in case you want to come back?” James was admiring the view as Serena walked to the front door.
She turned and winked at him. “Silly Ranger, why would I need a house key? I’ll see you tonight at the club. Don’t bring any friends or shadows who might want to bring in Jessica. It could…, will get ugly if you do.”
James was staring at the door as it closed behind her. “Damn Red, you have some really interesting friends.”
He put his dishes in the dishwasher and started it before he headed to the bedroom for a shower and a change of clothes. When he opened the bedroom door he stopped and stared. There was no way she forgot. She left it behind to play with his mind he was sure. The black sequined dress was laid out on top his bed along with the rest that went with it. Was it a hint she was coming back or was it a warning she could walk into his home anytime she felt like it?
I figured James would share any information about the drug cartel without a face to face meeting. Linda told me I needed to talk to him personally and firm up the agreement. I also needed to let him know I wasn’t going to be the one he would be passing information to. It would be one of Serena’s or Linda’s contacts instead. Someone home based in Texas or Oklahoma.
Every time I returned to the states there was a certain percentage I would be recognized and taken into custody. Even flying into Mexico and taking a private plane into the states so I missed the airport screening still had its risks. The meeting Serena had set up tonight, and helping James catch his car jackers in Houston would probably be the last time I would ever see James.
It was a little before seven when I made the Red Dragon Club. The idea is to always be way ahead of anyone else so you can check who is arriving for the party. Extra guests are never welcome. If anyone came in that door looking like any of the alphabet soup groups the government keeps on a leash I would do my best to fade out of the picture.
My hair was a soft auburn pulled back into a bun. I forewent my natural red as it was as conspicuous a hair color one can have, unless you included the punk colors like florescent pink or lime green. My soft brown dress suit and jacket were two sizes too big in order to hide rather than accent my body. My black shoes were more on the design of men’s oxford with a two inch heel. The big owl glasses along with toned down makeup completed the office secretary look. I was carrying a well worn brown leather shoulder purse with a couple notepads and even a pen and pencil sticking out of the top.
Even looking as Plain Jane as I was, heads turned as I walked into the club. Men…, you gotta love em. I walked up to the bouncer standing inside the door like he was the matre’d. “Emmily Dutton, I’d like a corner table please.”
He looked surprised and then he laughed. “Ma’am, we don’t have reservations here. You find an empty table it’s yours or you can sit at the bar. Your choice.”
“Oh! Okay then. Would you please escort me to a table? A couple of friends are supposed to join me here.” I looked down at my feet and then away like I had never done this before. A little office secretary on her first adventure into the night life.
“Uh…, sure, why not. Follow me.” He kept looking over his shoulder to make sure I didn’t get lost as he headed into the club.
He led me to the back of the room back in a corner. I could see why several of the tables there were empty. I couldn’t see the stage and it was almost like backing into a closet. PERFECT!
“Thank you.” I held out my hand to him to offer him a tip.
He took the money and looked. It was a dollar. He started laughing. “Yes ma’am. You and your friends enjoy yourself now.”
“Big spender” I heard him mutter as he walked away.
Doug nodded over his shoulder. “That’s her.”
Eddie looked around and failed to see anyone he recognized. “Her who?”
“The damn bitch who broke my leg and your wrist.”
Eddie took another look around the club. “I don’t see her.”
“Back in the corner. She’s got a lot more frumpier than when she was at the mall but that’s her. Don’t stare at her. You’ll get her attention. The drug dealers have a five hundred thousand dollar reward out for her. I aim to collect it after I pay back what she did to me.” Doug smiled as he thought of payback.
“I don’t know. It sure doesn’t look like her. She was a red head then. What if it isn’t?” Eddie kept taking glances in her direction trying to fit the picture of the woman they went up against in the mall with this one. The pictures didn’t match.
“Women can dye their hair. She may even be wearing a wig. I’m telling you that’s the bitch. If it isn’t we can have some fun with her anyway and then dump her when we are through. If she is still carrying that big gun, will that convince you? We gotta get close enough to take her out before she suspects anything.” Doug was trying to figure out how they were going to ambush her before she got wise. He didn’t want to face that big gun if she was still carrying it.
Doug felt though his pockets. “You got any of them roofies with you? I used mine a couple nights ago.”
“Yeah, those two bitches never saw it coming.” Eddie pulled a couple pills out of his shirt pocket.
Doug nodded. “Keep an eye on the waitress. When the waitress takes an order from her table we will get her to come over here and order one too. When she brings them back we will drop a pill into her drink.”
The cute little waitress was smiling as she walked up to my table. “What’ll you have honey?”
“uh…, what’s one of them drinks that doesn’t have too much alcohol in it? A Shirley Temple?”
Her smile kinda drooped. “That is one of them.”
I smiled real big like I had thrown off the bonds of office boredom. “Then that’s what I want.”
She was back in a couple minutes with the drink. “Three dollars.”
“Oh…, so much? I pulled out a clasp pocket book from my purse and started pulling out wadded up dollar bills. Unfolding them I laid out three on the table. I closed up my purse holding it close to my chest as if I didn’t want her to see how much I had.
She was shaking her head as picked up the money, turned and was walking off muttering, “This is going to be one of those nights I should have stayed home.”
Sipping my drink as I waited for Serena my mind started getting fuzzy. I needed to call…? I couldn’t remember. I picked up my phone and looked at it trying to remember. In frustration I dropped it back into my purse. Two men walked up to my table. They looked familiar. “Help me.”
“Sure hon, that’s what we are here for. Come with us and everything will be okay.” One of them took my arm and helped me up.
I didn’t want to, but they did offer to help. “You’re going to help me?”
“Sure hon. You come with us and we will help you.” Doug had his arm around her waist leading her out of the club.
Eddie picked up her purse and looked in it. “Damn that’s the bitch.” He was looking at a big handgun.
Serena walked into the club at seven thirty. She expected to see Jess since Jessica had told Serena she would be there before seven. After scanning the club a couple times and still no Jessica, Serena headed for the ladies room. Still no Jessica. Serena walked back into the club the same time James came in the front.
She motioned James over toward the bar. “Trouble, I need you to do a cell phone location for me.”
“Whose?” James was wondering what the problem was?
“Jessica. She’s not here. Something is wrong. Do a location trace, area code nine seven two, seven seven four six.”
James nodded. “My truck, let’s go.”
In the pickup James picked up the radio. “Brenda, I need a cell phone trace. The sooner the better.”
A couple minutes later his request was answered. “James, it seems to be stationary at Colby and Bryant.”
“Okay, tell me if it moves.” He looked over at Serena. That’s eight miles north east of here. You riding with me or you following in your car?”
I hurt like I had never hurt before. On a pain scale of one to ten I would call it a twelve.
“You’re going to tell me you stupid bitch. Who you working for?”
Licking the blood at the corners of my mouth, I tried to smile. I had no idea if I did or not because my face was like the rest of my body, beyond feeling. “muf aaf wov mif”
“What?” He leaned down, turned his head to put his ear closer to my mouth.
It was plain enough. I said fuck you. He must be hard of hearing. “mas ur gugg aff”
“Eddie, give it a rest. You beat her so bad she can’t even move her mouth. She has a mouth full of blood. You have no skills. When you want them to tell you their secrets you don’t beat their face off. You need to be more subtle.” The second man bent down to look me in the eyes. He opened up a pen knife and grabbed my left hand.
There was no doubt he was going to start cutting off fingers. I was wrong. That wouldn’t have been painful enough. He held my index finger and rammed the blade up under the fingernail.
The air left my lungs and my mouth in one huge gasp of pain. The two men were sprayed with blood. I passed out.
“What if she has aids or one of them other contagious diseases?” Eddie looked at Doug in disgust. I’m going to wash this shit off.” He walked out of the room.
Doug looked at the blood splatter on his hands and clothes. He pushed over the chair she was tied to before he left the room. “Stupid bitch.”
Fifteen minutes later James pulled into the parking lot of an apartment complex. Serena pulled in behind him. She got out and walked along in front of the parked cars holding her hand out until she felt heat from one. Walking up beside it she saw Jessica’s purse on the front seat. Everything had been poured out onto the seat. The cell phone was there, her gun was missing.
Four guys were on a landing leading up to the second story. “Hey babe, how about you and me going to my place?” Came from one of them, along with catcalls and encouragement from the others.
She turned to look. “The guy who drives this car. What apartment is he in?”
One of the guys stood up, straightened his collar and smiled. “Come to my place and I’ll tell you.”
James walked up behind Serena. The guys looked at James in disgust. The one who had been doing all the talking spit on the sidewalk. “Beat it Ranger, you have no business around here.”
Doug walked back into the room with a rifle. He set the woman and the chair back up. “You broke my wrist. Remember bitch?”
He brought the rifle barrel down on my arm.
I screamed in pain. “AAAAAHHHHHHHHH”
Serena looked up the stairs at the apartment where the scream came from. “Get out of my way.” She hissed at the four guys still blocking the stairs.
“Say pretty please.” The mouth for the group grinned.
Serena pulled her gun out of her purse and shot him in the left leg. He was tumbling off the stairs when she shot the next man in the leg. He was falling face first down the steps. The last two were jumping off the side of the stairs as Serena charged.
“You busted my leg.” Eddie took the rifle from Doug and swung it at the woman’s knee.
“AAAAAHHHHHHH” I passed out again.
James was up the stairs one step behind Serena. He put everything he had into it and then some as he brought his right foot up and plastered it against the door. The steel door held but the wood doorframe didn’t. It splintered into a hundred pieces as the door swung in.
Serena pushed James aside with her left hand as she charged into the room. She swept the room with her eyes and her mind in less than a hundredth of a second. She had her first target threat in her sights. She waited.
Eddie was turning to meet who ever had busted into the room. He was bringing his rifle up as pieces of the doorframe were still sliding across the floor.
Serena painted the wall with his brains.
Doug didn’t know the rule of a professional is to leave no threats. Not understanding Serena was waiting on him like a cat waiting for the mouse. He was pulling Jessica’s gun out of his waistband. When he had the gun free and was bringing it up Serena ended his life the same way she had the other one.
James made it into the room a second behind Serena with his gun drawn. One man was down and the second was going down. The second thing that caught his attention was the bloody mess tied to the chair. “My god, did they kill her?”
Serena was still at the ready. “Haven’t checked. Make sure these were the only two. Check the rest of the apartment.”
Taking a quick look at the two lying on the floor James headed for the kitchen. Less than a minute he had checked the rest of the apartment. He came back into the living room and stared at Jess as Serena finished cutting her bonds. “Jess?”
Serena shook her head. “She’s too beat up to understand anything. They broke several bones in her face, her left arm and her kneecap. Carry her to my car.”
Serena pulled a small hypodermic out of her purse and removed the needle guard. She noticed James staring with doubt in his eyes. Holding the needle in her right hand she measured halfway up the vial. “It’s kin to sodium pentothal. The whole batch will kill, half that will sedate her and keep her from feeling the pain any longer.
“I love you hon. Hang on.” She jabbed Jessica in the leg.
James slid his gun back into his holster. “Standard equipment for all field agents?”
Serena dropped the hypo back into her purse after slipping the cap back on. “A tool to kill if we don’t want to leave bullet holes. A heart attack is just as deadly and no one questions the death. If the situation gets bad enough we can use it on ourselves if we don’t want to eat a bullet.”
“I’ll call an ambulance.” James was positive they didn’t need to be moving Jessica.
“No! Jess was never here. You put a Jane Doe or whatever in your report when you fill it out. Jess can’t be treated in the hospital. Those like us live or die on our own. Hospitals mean pictures, fingerprints, blood samples, and arrest. I like you James. Jessica thinks the world of you, but I will kill you if you leave me no choice deciding between you or Jessica.”
James looked at the two dead men lying on the floor with a big chunk of their skulls missing. He looked over at Serena holding Jessica’s head up. “You’re right, the hospital would alert the authorities and Jessica would turn up on that FBI list. I’ll take her. Do you have someone who can treat her without any legal entanglements?”
“More than you need to know. Since you didn’t ask and I’m not saying, we will fly her out of the country.” Serena picked up Jessica’s fifty from the dead man’s hand. She walked over and checked outside the apartment to make sure they wouldn’t be ambushed carrying Jessica to the car.
James hated it as he carried Jessica down to Serena’s Mustang. Jessica’s broken arm and leg were flopping with every step he took. He took one last look as he placed her in the Mustang. “Red, I’m sorry. You saved my life and I wasn’t there for you.”
He watched Serena drive off before he walked over to his pickup and the radio. “This is unit nine two four. I have a ten seventy one and an eleven forty one. I have victims with gunshot wounds. I’m at Keletter Apartments at Colby and Bryant.”
“Ten four, nine two four. I have backup and ambulances on the way.” Brenda responded.
The four guys who had blocked the stairs earlier were gone. If they didn’t come back it would make it easier writing up the report. The coroner had to be called. The search for the four witnesses thankfully turned up nothing. The crime scene had to be cordoned off. The hardest part was explaining who shot whom and where the shooter and one of the victims went. Then the report had to be written up and filed at head quarters before he finally made it home…, again at two o’clock in the morning.
Her scent still lingered in the house as he walked in. He was too tired to really care as an unconscious smile crossed his face. James debated between a shower and bed before he headed to the shower to rinse off the evil he had gotten close to that evening. He had no idea why those two wanted to beat Jessica to a pulp. Maybe they were sick or maybe she said something to make them mad. He would ask Jessica if he ever saw her again, provided she could still remember anything. That was if she lived. She was in pretty bad shape.
He finished toweling off and headed back into the bedroom and stopped cold as he stared. She wasn’t there when he walked through the bedroom to take a shower.
She pulled the covers back. “I need some company.”
James blinked as he tried to gather his thoughts. What he was looking at was a lissome beauty second to none. “You have that gun?”
Serena slid her hand under the pillow. “Always.”
“You plan on killing me?” He was wondering if he was the fly invited into the spider’s bed?
She smiled and shook her head. “Not tonight.”
“Jessica?”
Serena looked over at the clock on the nightstand. “She’s headed home. She’s somewhere out over the Atlantic now. I would be with her except I have a job to finish up here. She’s in good hands. She will be okay. Ricky will make her well.”
She patted the bed beside her. “I need someone to cuddle up to tonight. Please. Hold me and make the world go away.”
It was an offer James couldn’t refuse. He slid in bed and pulled her up close as she snuggled up against him. Her head was on his left shoulder, her arm across his chest. He smelled her hair. She was different from any woman he had ever known. It was when he put his hand on her back he felt them. James slid his hand up and down her back counting the welts.
She took a deep breath. “I grew up raised by different people. The first couple, the man and woman beat me. I don’t remember how old I was. All I remember were the beatings. They passed me on to another couple when they adopted a boy. He was stronger, older than me and could do more work. They beat him too but not as often.”
She wiggled in closer as if it was possible. “I was six or seven when the first couple gave me to the second couple. The man beat me, the woman not as much but she made up for it by raping me with a broom handle when she felt extra mean.”
“I was eight or nine when one night the man forgot to lock up his gun after raping me. I killed them both and never felt so good. I walked the twenty kilometers over to the first couple’s house and killed them. For the first time in my life I felt clean.”
Her head moved around on James shoulder until it seemed she found the right spot and then she stopped. James wondered if she had gone to sleep as he felt along her back again.
She tried to snuggle in even closer, tighter. “The authorities found the first couple I killed and sent two men to check on the second couple. I was waiting as they walked in the door. Killing them didn’t make me feel good. I didn’t feel bad, but I didn’t feel good like the first four killings did. More men came and I killed three more. Why didn’t killing them make me feel good? I had no more bullets.”
“They were going to hang me. Someone in my government thought I might prove to be useful. They made me take many tests. They realized they could point me at anyone they wanted killed and I would do it. I don’t mind killing. Sometimes I feel really good when I kill someone like those two men I killed tonight. I know for everyone I kill there will be a thousand more taking their place tomorrow.”
She tilted her head back and looked up at him with those beautiful black eyes. “I know I’m a psycho. Your government would lock me up. My government points me at targets to kill. In time I will scare them too and they will kill me.”
She nestled back down in the curl of his arm again. “You understand don’t you? Normal people have a mental barrier like a wall to climb over before they kill anyone. For some it is too tall a barrier to cross. They can’t do it. For others it isn’t that big of a challenge. For me it isn’t even a bump. Sometimes there is a reward. I feel good afterwards.”
“I’m a psycho in a sane world where I don’t belong. At least there is one silver lining in being me. I’ll never grow old. Too many people are afraid of keeping me around too long.” She tried wiggling in tighter and then got real still.
James waited for several minutes as her breathing slowed down into light shallow breaths. She had gone to sleep, secure in his arm, hunting the comfort she never received as a child. What had they done to her? She was a broken spirit. Even as tired as he was it was a couple hours before he finally found sleep himself.
He could smell the coffee and bacon before he opened his eyes. She wasn’t in bed with him. He figured he was a light sleeper and yet she seemed to come and go without waking him. Quickly dressing in a fresh uniform he headed for the kitchen.
“Thought you were going to stay in bed until after I left. Figured I’d have to write you a note.” She dished up eggs and bacon onto a platter.
She had her back to him. He had walked into the room so quietly he didn’t even hear his own footsteps. How did she know? She was a beauty he could get used to looking at every morning and holding every night. She was wearing a pearlesent silver dress that hugged every soft curve of her beautiful body, along with four inch matching stiletto heels.
“Are you gone or do I leave the latch string out again tonight?”
She turned and set the platter on the table before pouring the coffee. “I have business to take care of today…,”
James eyes got two sizes too big as he knew what kind of business Serena claimed she was in.
She laughed as she looked up at him. “No not that kind. I’m going to meet someone for information. She’s lesbian and I’m bi. I’m very good at pleasing my…, clients. It’s only for the day. It is the reason I’m in Dallas. In two days I’ll be in Houston taking care of that little business we already discussed. If you want to come along we will let it play out however easy or hard they want to make it. Otherwise I’ll do what is necessary to secure our item and make sure no one is left to talk about it.”
Serena pulled out a chair and sat down, motioning for James to join her. “I haven’t asked to be invited into your house. It isn’t something I normally do. I take what I want when I want. If anyone doesn’t like it they can go to hell.”
She looked to study James eyes after he took a seat. “I’m not coming back unless you invite me.”
He didn’t quite know what to say. In her own way she was a beauty way past most of those he had ever known. Yet, getting close to her was like playing with fire. The girl was a true dyed in the wool, certified, psychotic killer. But then, Jessica killed just as easily. That day at the mall was still as fresh as if it was yesterday. She killed four men and went to pick up a dress. These women were unlike anyone, male or female, he had ever met before in his whole life.
James pushed back from the table and headed for the bedroom.
Serena figured that was as plain as it could get. She wasn’t welcome any longer. She was finishing up her coffee when James returned.
He tossed a couple keys down on the table. “Front door, back door, and garage door. Although you don’t seem to have a need for keys, you might try them. I’ve been too busy with my job to schedule any dates with any women. For the time you’re welcome to come and go as you like. In the future, seeing as how I’m a guy, I enjoy the company of a woman now and then. Call first before you check in to make sure I’m not entertaining someone of the fairer sex.”
She rose from the table, walked over to James and pulled him in for a hug and a long kiss. ”See you tonight. No soap in the dishwasher.”
He looked at the dishes still on the table and then watched as she walked toward the door. “Damn, this is just like being married. I’m already pressed into tidying up while the little woman goes off to work.”
Serena was shaking her head and laughing as she walked out the front door. She stopped and turned before she closed the door. “See you tonight dear. Don’t forget to pick up the kids at school. Make sure the dog isn’t left in the house.”
James was laughing as the door closed behind her. “Damn woman plays ping pong with the mind better than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Matt was leaving as James was walking into the Ranger station. “Captain wants to see you. I don’t know what you did, but I’m sure glad I wasn’t with you last night. He has been growling at everyone since he read your report this morning. What did you do?”
James shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe got myself fired.”
He headed straight into the captain’s office. “You wanted to see me?”
Henry was looking down at the papers on his desk. “Close the door.”
He waited until James closed the door before he pushed back from his desk and looked up at James. “I’m looking at the worst cockamamie piece of bullshit report I have ever read in my entire career. Tell me what really happened.”
James studied his captain for several seconds. “It might be best if you didn’t know.”
Henry stood up as he looked down at the report and then at James. “On that door you walked in is a name. Above that name is Captain. I’m paid to be responsible for every man and woman in this division. I know a fabricated report when I see one. You didn’t secure the woman who shot the two men. You let her leave with the victim. There is no hospital report. Tell me I’m wrong but I believe your girl was the shooter.”
“You’re wrong. She was the victim. They beat her to a bloody pulp.”
Henry gave it some thought. “She died then? No hospital, no records.”
James looked out at the couple guys still at their desk. “I was told they were going to deliver her back to Ricky Clawson. I’m guessing that Philadelphia Project is real. It’s only a guess. I have no idea where it is set up if it is real.”
Henry nodded. “And the shooter? Why didn’t you bring her in?”
“She said she could save Jessica. Jess saved my butt. I owed her that much.”
Henry picked up the report and sighed. “James, you’re going to give me an ulcer. You didn’t list a name for the woman. Does she have one?”
“Serena. I think she is KGB or something. She is the one who told me our office was bugged by the FBI. How did that work out?”
Henry looked off into the distance at nothing. “Austin flew in a tech team yesterday. We were bugged as you said. They cleaned the station.”
“Okay. I’m going to cover this one up because your other girl gave us the heads up. We didn’t have this conversation. Don’t get tangled up in her skirts and don’t compromise this department or the Rangers. More than one good man has lost his senses after getting close to a beautiful woman. I take it she’s pretty?”
James snorted. “Pretty deadly. I’m betting she is in the same class as Jessica. You read the report. It was headshots. The rest of us aim for the body because it’s a bigger target. If we could hire them on as Rangers…,”
Henry was shaking his head as he looked down at the floor. “Get out of my office and stay away from the skirts. I don’t want to see any more pictures of your girlfriends spread around this station either. One Jessica is one too many.”
James had his hand on the door and hesitated. “Captain?”
Henry looked up and waited.
“I’m going back to Houston tomorrow. Will you assign Matt as back up?”
“She give you another lead?” Henry had a strong hunch why James requested Matt instead of one of the other Rangers.
James gave a very slight nod.
“I think I feel that ulcer coming on now.” Henry motioned James out the door.
The lab was being used at the time. Ricky knew there was nothing he could do except wait. While Ricky waited the hospital team pored over Jessica. They took X Rays of everything and did a medical diagnoses of all the broken bones and tissue damage. They didn’t have a chance to study the before and after when Linda had been brought in. Now they did. They wanted to make sure they didn’t miss a single detail.
Six hours and forty one minutes after she arrived Jessica was carried into the lab and placed on the glass table. Ricky waited until everyone left before he pulled the sheet off her. He kneeled down and kissed her on the forehead. “I’m so sorry Jess. This is all my fault. I wish I had removed your cancer and sent you home. I wish I had destroyed the damn machine before…, before I did this to you. Please forgive me.”
He walked back to the console. “Stay with me Jess.”
The chamber was dropping as he plugged his key chain into a port. The mapping he had done of her weeks before was going to pay off. The machine would put her back together. “Damn Jess why do you girls go out and play these games? You’re going to end up like Dimitri. I can’t give life to dead people. You’re breaking my heart every time I have to repair a broken one.”
He had to build another machine. Jessica could have died while waiting when this one was already in use. Or if it quit? It was after all only a machine and, like people, machines wear out over time. Only there would never be enough machines or enough trained people to run them. The machines took too long to fix broken bodies. There was no way to speed up the process. It had to go slow or tissue was torn apart. And people died. Ricky never planned on his machine fixing wounded warriors only fixing sick people. He now understood he didn’t have a wide enough vision for the purpose of his machine. Mankind would never be ready for this kind of technology. Someone would always get to decide who lived or who died because they would determine who had access to the machine and who didn’t.
“Ricky?” He was holding my hand. I fought my way up out of a fog as I looked around at a full staff of nurses and doctors.
“What’s going on? Why are you here?” I hurt all over but couldn’t figure out why.
Ricky leaned down and gave me a kiss. “Welcome back Sunshine. I’m not there. You are here. Serena shipped you back to me. She didn’t enclose any information about what went wrong. What happened?”
Looking around as my mind cleared I realized Ricky was right. I was in the Russian hospital not an American one. I knew it well as I had spent enough time here holding Ricky’s and Linda’s hand while each recovered. “Why am I here and why do I hurt so much?”
Ricky kissed the back of my hand. “Pain is good. It means you’re still alive. Do you remember anything?”
The purple and black blotches on my left arm got my attention. “The last thing I remember is going into a club and ordering a drink. Why am I so bruised up?”
He brushed my hair away from my face. “Your arm, your knee cap, your jaw, your eye socket and several of your fingers on your right hand were broken. You looked like hell when we brought you in. Don’t you remember?”
I shook my head and that hurt. “No but if you will tell me who did it I’ll make damn sure they don’t live to regret it.”
“Too late. Serena already sent in a short report earlier. She wanted to know about you first of all. I told her you looked like shit. Told her she sent back the wrong one. It wasn’t the same girl I married. I told her to send back the real Jess and stop fooling around.”
I gave Ricky my best ‘you’re dead meat’ look, but it fell flat. I hurt too much to bring it off.
“Ha ha…,” Ricky shook his head. “Practice on it Jess. Your dead meat stare is not up to par. Anyway, to finish my story, Serena said there were two men. She used the word ‘were’ in a way which left no doubt they are past tense. You don’t remember?”
I didn’t shake my head because it hurt too much. “Last thing I remember is going into a club to wait on a meeting with James Daniels. It’s all blank from there until now.”
I looked at my arm again. “Obviously you put me back together again if I was broke up as bad as you say. I know I must look a fright. I’m sorry hon.”
He lifted up my hand and kissed the back of it. “You’ll always be a beautiful lady second to none in my eyes.”
I guess I had turned into a woman in more ways than looks because Ricky’s compliment warmed my heart. “Thanks Ricky, I love you too. How long have I been out of it?”
“Two days, why?” Ricky didn’t like where this was going. He knew Jessica too well. She wasn’t going to take a break before she was back in the meat grinder again.
“Find me some clothes. I need to be back in the states to work with Serena on a job she is going to help James with.” I pulled the IV out of my right arm along with the heart monitor off my chest.”
“Nyet!” Came from a nurse across the room.
“Yes.” I answered as I pushed everything off to the side and stood up beside the bed while wrapping the sheet around me. “Ricky, I need clothes.”
Ricky didn’t move. “Jess, I have never told you no. This time I’m telling you, NO! You can stay here in the hospital or you can go home with me. You are not going back to the states. Your body is bruised, beat up, and still healing. That machine can’t make new cells or heal damaged ones.”
He folded his arms across his chest as he frowned at me. “If the timeline you were working on is tomorrow it won’t make any difference. You won’t be able to fly back in time anyway. What are you going to do when you get there? I doubt you can hold a gun much less take aim at anything.”
“Ricky please, I promised Serena I’d be there.” For whatever reason I started to cry as tears trickled down my cheeks.
Ricky took me in his arms and held me as I cried on his shoulder. “No Jess. You’re too beat up to go out again. Give your body time to repair itself. I know you’re Wonder Woman, but even she needed a break now and then.
“Ricky…, I’m sorry. I’ve let everyone down. I’m so sorry.” I pulled him in and cried on his shoulder.
He stroked my hair as he held me. “You haven’t let anyone down. You’re the strongest person I know Jess. You’ve been on guard twenty four seven for the past six years. Linda gave me the name of someone who will give us a place to stay and no one will try to kill us. Nikolay Balakhnov is part of the Russian Intelligence Ministry. They want to talk to you.”
The tears finally stopped. I backed up to look at Ricky and watch his eyes. “I’m not joining the Russians, even if they have treated us better than our own government. I know why they play nice. They wanted your equipment.”
Ricky shrugged his shoulders before he pulled me back in against his chest. “The world is changing Jess. They want to talk. The place they offered was the trans Siberian Train. We will board in Moscow and in seven days arrive in Vladivostok.”
He pushed me back to look into my eyes. “It isn’t my equipment they want to discuss. It’s the equipment you carry that has them intrigued. Remember Sergie, the guy I called when we first returned to Dallas after the…, after I was shot? He’s part of the new KGB although it’s not called that. They call it the Foreign Intelligence Service. Nikolay Balakhnov cleared it for you to bring your toys. He said he will authorize it and give you a badge if you will talk to him. Serena still has your fifty and your rifle. She didn’t dare ship it back with you on a commercial flight.”
“Jess, please talk to them. It will give you government backing to carry your equipment anyplace in the world. You like that Texas Ranger? What if he decided to follow the exact letter of the law and arrest you after you helped him? This way the Russian government will be covering you. You won’t be leaving your Ranger friend hanging out to dry. Serena, Linda, and Dimitri worked hard to get their government to accept you as one of them.”
“Dimitri?” I pushed back and sat down on the bed. I was so tired. My strength was gone again.
Ricky eased me back into bed. “Linda confided in me after he was killed. It was one of the reasons he was on the yacht with us. He wanted to watch you on a day by day basis since Linda had bragged on you so much.”
Ricky smiled. “You know how smart a mouth Linda has. She said Dimitri had filed divorce papers and was going to marry you. It was her way of saying he approved.”
That brought a forced smile. “I thought at one time she said she was going to shoot him.”
Ricky hesitated. It was a comment too close to remembering the pain of Dimitri actually getting shot as he protected Linda. “Rest hon. In two days we will fly to Moscow and take a train ride. I’ll call Serena and let her know the situation. Linda is, or was, in Columbia doing recon. That’s the word when doing research of the kind you girls do, isn’t it?”
“That’s the word.”
He leaned down and gave me a light kiss. “I bet when Serena shipped you home she called in Linda as her backup. Wanna make a bet?”
“Not really. Neither one will miss a beat when a job needs to be done. They always have a secondary plan if the first one goes south on them. I wish I had them as my safety net when I was…,”
Ricky nodded. “Another time, another place, a long time ago Jess. Rest and I’ll find your clothes. I’ll take you home where I can take care of you.”
Four big men who could have played defense for the Pittsburgh Steelers walked into the room. Each one was wearing enough body armor and carrying enough weapons to start a war. “Miss Rabbit?” The big guy in front was seriously studying me.
“Yes?” They didn’t scare me. I wasn’t in any shape to be scared even if I was armed myself. Which I wasn’t.
He pulled a Desert Eagle and two extra loaded clips out of his vest and held it out. “She said she still had yours. She said you needed a backup. If she hadn’t told me herself this was your style I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“Serena?” I was sure but wanted to make double sure.
“That was the one.” He slowly gave me the once over. “Linda said they are ratcheting up the heat. Your parents were added to their death list.”
“Parents? I shook my head. “My parents are dead.”
James pulled up everything he could on the Houston car heists. There wasn’t anything new in the reports he and Matt hadn’t already learned from the previous trip. At nine that night he decided to call it quits. He headed home or what he liked to call home, even though it was only a stopping place every now and then along with a place to leave all the things he called his.
“James.”
He opened one eye to look, even though he was thinking he was still dreaming. She was standing in his doorway. “Serena?”
“Wanted to make sure you knew who it was and didn’t shoot me.” She walked over beside the bed. She slipped out of her jacket, reached up behind her back and unzipped her dress. Her satin slip and garter belt were next before she sat on the edge of the bed and removed her nylons. Her bra and panties went before she lifted the edge of the covers
and slipped in beside James. She cuddled up close.
James mind and emotions slipped into overdrive as her warm soft body snuggled up against his. Then she slid over on top of him, her hands beside his head pulling him in for a kiss. His emotions exploded right then and there. He wrapped his arms around her and rolled over on top of her.
James wasn’t a virgin. He had made love to beautiful women, but never a lisssome black haired beauty as beautiful as Serena. It was way into the wee hours of the night before she let his passion die down enough for him to fall asleep.
The light was coming in the bedroom window. He felt the bed beside him. It was still warm from her body even though she was gone. “We gotta stop meeting like this.”
He rolled out of bed and picked up the alarm to see why it hadn’t called him at six after he had set it. Did he forget to push the alarm button or did she turn it off? “She’s messing with my life and I’m not in control any more.”
Her dress and other things were in the chair on top of his uniform. He had to move them to get dressed. “More mind games. You don’t think I know what you’re doing?”
He smelled the coffee before he finished dressing and headed to the kitchen. That’s where he found her. She was dressed in a soft brown pants suit. He figured she was wearing boots although the stiletto heel added a nice feminine touch to her outfit. “Think you can run in those boots?”
She gave him a wink before turning to serve up French toast on a couple plates. “I don’t run from or for. When I tell them to stop they better stop, whether they are coming at me or running away from me.”
James sat down and took a bite of his toast. “I could get used to this.”
Serena looked at her plate for a couple seconds before looking up at James. “Don’t get too used to it. James, I have no future. I go where my government tells me. I do a job and then wait for the next assignment. I’m here because my government wanted me to take care of an equipment loss in Houston after I picked up some information from a client in Dallas. It meshed with Jessica wanting to get in touch with you to see if you would pass information about the Columbian drug dealer.”
She picked up her purse from the chair next to her, lifted out his keys and dropped them on the table. “Thank you for letting me stay. You weren’t a part of my job. I had forgotten what it was to be loved by someone when I wasn’t trying to pry information from them.”
She slid her chair back, stood up, and slid her purse strap up on her shoulder. “No soap in the dishwasher. I’ll call you when you get to Houston.”
James pushed back and wrapped her in a hug as she walked past him. He pulled her in and kissed her before he rubbed his cheek up against hers and whispered in her ear. “I hate being used as a one night stand. My relationships might not be permanent, but they usually last a little longer than one night.”
He moved back so he could look into her eyes. “Where you going after Houston?”
She studied his eyes, wondering if he was pumping her for information? “James, if I had an assignment I wouldn’t tell you. It so happens I don’t. I’ll head back home to check on Jessica.”
James pulled her back in and hugged her. It felt nice just to hold her. She was so different from any woman he had ever known. “Let’s call a truce or détente or whatever. I won’t pass you any information about my government and you don’t pass me any information about yours.”
Serena kissed him and then pushed back. “I’m going to recover our equipment. I’ll see you in Houston if you want those men.”
James watched as she walked out the door. Looking over at the table he picked up his coffee, took a sip, set it back down and headed for the door.
Matt looked at his watch as they left Dallas behind. “What’s the plan?”
James curled up his mouth as he smothered a chuckle. “Great plan…, there isn’t any. We are going to meet someone in Houston. She is going to lead us to the car thieves.”
Matt’s head snapped up. His eyes were dancing as he stared at James. “Jessica?”
“Sorry, no. I don’t think you will be too disappointed. She’s Jessica’s friend and I’d say in the same category. Did you read my report from the other night?”
Matts eyes became two balls of white. “Oh shit! The woman who killed two men? We are going to meet HER?”
James nodded. “That’s the one. She’s as ugly as sin. You won’t be able to forget her once you meet her. She has a long scar on her right cheek from her eye down to her neck and a big wart on the left side of her nose. Her left eye is glass and never moves. Try not to stare at it. She’s kinda self conscious about them things.”
Three and a half hours later James was coming into Houston. His phone was ringing. “James”
“Stay on I-45 to I-10. Meet me at Industrial Road and Greens Pipe Mill. Tell your young friend to not shoot everyone carrying a gun. There are two of us.”
James looked up into his mirror to see if he was being followed. “How…?”
“I dropped a tracker in the bed of your pickup this morning.” Came her recognizable voice on the phone.
“Serena…,” There was a click and the connection was lost.
An hour later James saw the brown Mustang parked off to the side. He pulled up in front of it and stopped. Matt got out the same time James did. He watched as the black haired beauty slid out of the driver’s side. He was thinking the passenger must be the girl James had described. That thought vanished the instant the auburn haired beauty slid out of the passenger’s side.
James was studying the other woman as Serena walked up to him. She stayed back by the car. The way she covered Serena there was no doubt in his mind she was the second woman who backed up Jessica that eventful day.
Serena pointed back the way James had come. “About a kilometer up the road is a container yard. They bring the vehicles into the yard, put them into containers, and ship them out. We aren’t interested in everyone who has been bringing in the cars. All we want is our equipment. The rest is up to you and Matt.”
Matt stood up a little taller as he grinned from ear to ear. She knew his name.
“Last night at two fifteen and two twenty they brought in a Cadillac and a Mercedes. From what we have learned they work on a specific time table and look for specific cars. They steal cars on customer’s requests. They use dealership car tags to slap on the vehicle at the time they steal it. Cars are stored in the yard until they have twenty of them. Then they are put on a ship and sent out.”
James nodded as he studied the woman by the car. “I’ll call for backup.”
Serena shook her head. “These people aren’t stupid. Too many unknown vehicles, too many unknown faces, they don’t bring in the cars. Either you and Matt are it or no go. What I’m waiting for is in the drop off vehicles. The drivers come in after the two stolen vehicles go into the yard. The other thing is, too many guys wearing badges show up and someone always wants to know why I’m carrying. James, I’m not Jessica. Anyone wants to question me or put handcuffs on me, bring the body bags.”
She focused in on James eyes. “We can track our own equipment. You’re here because of Jessica. She needs all the information she can get about Ernesto Escobedo. I do you a favor, you do her a favor. If this isn’t agreeable to you then we are out of here.
Serena waited for an answer.
“I’ll call for Rangers only, no local law. I trust the people I work with.” James knew the people he worked with wouldn’t push for information about Serena and the other woman if he asked them.
She shook her head. “You trust them, I don’t. The other thing is you can’t call anyone. Your radio? The locals monitor that frequency. Your telephone? National Security Agency monitors that.”
James rolled in his lips as he thought about it. He glanced over at Matt. “This is getting off the playbook. Do you want to pull out while you still have a job?”
Looking at James and then Serena a half hearted smile touched his lips. “You’re Jessica’s friend?”
“I like to think I am.” Serena gave a slight nod in agreement.
He pointed toward the other woman beside the car. “And her?”
Serena giggled. “Jess and Linda go back a few years.”
“Then I’m in. I hope you are as good as Jessica is. How many do you think are going to be there?”
“Four men are at the containers now. They open them up when the driver brings in a car. There will be two pickup vehicles with drivers. They come in to take the others back out again.”
“That’s eight men.” James looked over at Matt.
Serena focused in on James. “Our equipment is in one of the pickup vehicles. Most everyone is carrying automatic rifles except the drivers bringing in the stolen vehicles. We aren’t waiting for anyone to pick up a weapon and start throwing lead in our direction. No matter what, if they even sneeze wrong they are dead. We get our equipment and we are gone. Is everyone clear on how this is going down?”
James looked over at Matt who nodded yes before he looked back at Serena. “Now what?”
“We go find a place to eat. I’m starving. Haven’t had anything since breakfast. I don’t think Linda had even that much since she flew in this morning to cover Jessica’s spot. You pick a place and we’ll follow.” She turned and headed back to the Mustang.
A few minutes before ten James was parked back in one of the yards close to where they had met earlier. Serena was in the seat beside him. She was completely relaxed and looked half asleep.
He studied her for awhile wondering what she was thinking? “The waiting is always the hardest part isn’t it.”
“Do you fish?” Came back softly.
“What? Uh, no. Why? Do you?” He wondered how fishing got into the conversation.
“You need to try it. It’s a waiting game like this. Bait your hook, toss it into the water and wait to see if a fish might happen by and want the bait. Do you hunt?” Came just as softly.
“Not very often. Haven’t been in years.” Now it was hunting they were discussing?
“Pick a spot and wait for the game to come to you. You don’t go running through the forest to see if you can spot something to kill. You wait.”
She rolled her head over to look at him. “Instead of waiting for someone to bring in a couple cars. Wait on that fish to bite on your bait or that turkey to come strolling across the meadow. I never was any good at waiting on people to do something. Waiting on that animal or fish to show up never bothered me.”
He wondered if he would ever see her again after tonight? Problem with Jessica, Serena and the other lady is they made the rules. Thinking about that one he smiled. It was probably the reason they were still alive in the high stakes game they were living.
“How do you know so much about the men bringing in the cars? Houston has half a dozen detectives working on the car jacking gang. Counting the two in our office along with the ones in the field we have that same number trying to figure it out. We can’t even get a clue and yet you seem to have their schedule and play book.”
Serena closed her eyes as a slight smile crossed her face. “They are carrying our stolen equipment which gives us their complete movement same as a tracker. Ricky Clawson designed it. It kills all electronics in a given area. We follow the black out as it moves around the area. Every stop, every path they take is a beacon for us to check out. We could stop the vehicle and take our equipment back at any time. There wouldn’t be any witnesses left to tell any kind of story about what they thought they had.”
She looked over and studied James before she continued. “Gets complicated why you’re here. My government wants Jessica working for them. Jessica needs information about Ernesto Escobedo. Our intelligence will give her everything they have on the drug lord. They are willing to commit a dozen men along with equipment for support. There are always the small unknowns that get one killed. Maybe your government has some information we don’t. Maybe someone in your government is using Escobedo as a front in Columbia. There are Americans moving in and out. Are they dealers or government or both?”
She shook her head as she stared down the road ahead. “Jessica was supposed to be here, handing you what you were looking for. Hopefully in return you would give her everything you could find out about Escobedo. Requests coming from the Texas Rangers would be nothing more than seeking information about a drug lord and wouldn’t put him on the defensive.”
James shook his head as he studied her. “I would have done that for Jessica anyway. I have no reason to not share information with her as long as it isn’t government operations. There is something about her…, and you, that makes you different from the rest of us.”
They talked for hours until at exactly two fifteen Serena’s radio spoke. “Они идут”
James was curious. “What did she say?”
“They are coming.” Serena keyed the radio but didn’t say anything. “That was the first car. The second will be along in five minutes and the pickup vehicles five minutes behind that. They are precise. The headlights from any car not in their time sequence would be cause for alarm. You will have to drive without lights or we get out and walk.”
Five minutes later her radio came on again. “второй автомобиль”
“Now?” James was reaching for the ignition key to start his pickup.
“No. That was the second car. Five more minutes for the pickup vehicles.”
Finally it came. “два транспорта”
Serena lifted her gun from her purse, dropped the clip and pushed on the top bullet. When it depressed a little she knew she had a full clip. She slipped it home and racked the rail back slightly to make sure a bullet was in the chamber. “Let’s go.”
James started the pickup and was driving up the road with his lights off. “How often do you check?”
“First thing in the morning and again before I think I might get into a situation where I need it.” She picked up the radio with her left hand. “мы катимся”
The radio clicked twice. “They are rolling also.”
James stopped a couple blocks from where Serena told him they had the container yard. They got out and walked up to the yard entrance. There was a body lying on the ground. Linda came up carrying a rifle with a night scope, and a silencer. Matt was along side her. Linda put a finger to her lip and mouthed the word ‘guard’.
The two drivers for the transport vehicles were watching the others who were inside the container strapping down the last two stolen vehicles.
Linda looked over at James and gave a motion with her hand for him to close the door on the container. She crept up behind the driver furthest from the container. When she was nine or ten feet from him she brought her rifle up to her shoulder and aimed it at his head. “You move you die.”
The other driver was bringing up his gun and turning to see what was happening? The bark from Serena’s gun woke the others inside the container as the driver fell over.
James and Matt were pushing the doors shut as bullets started pouring out from inside the container. Even after the doors had been slammed shut the sound of gunfire from inside could still be heard as bullets rattled against the door.
Matt and James put the first driver up against the car and handcuffed him. When they frisked him they found two nine millimeter pistols. Matt was reading the driver his Miranda rights as Serena went through the car.
“I guess it’s okay to call for backup now?” James looked for Serena.
“Serena?” He was looking around.
“Where did they go?” James looked back at Matt.
Matt started looking around. “I don’t know. Did they leave?
Henry was looking at the report. On the other side of the desk Matt squirmed. He figured his career as a Ranger was washed up this time.
Shaking his head, Henry looked up at James. “You are really pushing the envelope. Your career, your retirement is headed for the trashcan. I don’t care if you lose everything you worked for the past thirty six years. What I do care about is you are dragging Matt into the toilet with you. Do you think this department makes rules for you to break?
He glanced at the report and was shaking his head again as he looked up at James. “These two women in this report, neither one was Jessica Rabbit. And you think they were foreign agents or something, but they didn’t say.”
James opened his mouth. Henry pointed his finger at him and wiggled it back and forth. “I’m not through with this fairy tale you turned in as an arrest report. Indulge me because I find this really fascinating.”
He cleared his throat. “hurrrumph, Now where was I? Ah yes…, One of the women shot and killed a man at the front gate before he had been warned you were Texas Rangers. The other one killed a man standing by a vehicle before he had been warned you were Texas Rangers.”
“I have no idea how much this is going to cost the state in attorney fees defending what you allowed to happen. The fact they were with twenty two stolen vehicles is your only saving grace.”
James took a glance over at Matt. “Twenty two?”
Henry looked from Matt to James. “Twenty inside the container. The two delivery vehicles were stolen also. The Russian ambassador contacted our governor this morning and thanked him for the cooperation of the Texas Rangers in closing down an embarrassing smuggling operation. This particular batch of vehicles was headed for Tajikistan. Interpol has been in touch with Washington this morning. The lead you sent them after interrogating the men who weren’t shot dead last night, helped them close in on the same organization in the UK. They were shipping stolen cars to Africa.”
Henry turned, looked out of the office window, and clasped his hands behind his back. “When I first read your report this morning I fully intended to place both of you on unpaid leave for a couple months. I wanted you to have time to think whether your way of flauting the rules would make you behave afterwards.”
He turned again to look at James. “The governor has told HQ in Austin you two are to be commended for your outstanding work. He wished all Texas Rangers could be as diligent in crime solving.”
Henry rubbed his stomach. “I think I have an ulcer thanks to you two. Next week there will be an awards ceremony where you will receive commendation medals for your efforts in breaking up the cattle rustling ring and the auto theft ring. The governor, the Russian ambassador, Houston's mayor, and Dallas' mayor will be there along with dozens of dignitaries and of course the press corp.”
He pointed to the report on his desk. “There is nothing in there about you interrogating anyone. Those women you were working with covered your ass in more ways than one. Don’t get tangled up in the skirts.”
James nodded. “Captain, they wanted something the car thieves had. Said it belonged to them. We were invited to ride along. They did it for Jessica. I don’t care what the FBI thinks, she isn’t the bad guy.”
“James…,” Henry shook his head. “You are playing with fire. I never thought I’d say this. Those women are out of your league. Probably out of everyone’s league. Make sure you remember which side you’re on.”
Butterflies as big as eagles were running around in my stomach as I pushed on the doorbell of a house I had only looked at in pictures. A young lady opened it and stared for several seconds before she gave slight curtsey. “Milady.”
“Uh..., is Mister or Misses Sorensen home?”
“Milady? Jessica?” She looked puzzled and then caught herself. “Please don’t stand outside. Your mother is in the greenhouse and your father is in the office.”
That stopped me cold. I gathered up what little courage I didn’t have and walked into the house with Ricky following. I stopped in the foyer. “Would you please tell Mister Sorensen, Jessica Rabbit would like to see him.”
She looked doubtful as she looked at me kind of funny. “As you wish.” She turned and left.
A minute later a tall distinguished looking gentleman came rushing into the room headed straight for me. “JESSICA! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL US YOU WERE COMING HOME! I TOLD ANETTE TO FIND YOUR MOTHER!”
It shocked the living daylights out of me as he closed in and wrapped me up in his arms. “OH JESSICA THIS IS SUCH A SURPRISE! YOUR MOTHER WILL BE SO HAPPY TO SEE YOU!”
I was too shocked to hug him back. I did manage to stand there like a complete limp doll.
As he turned loose of me, a very attractive woman grabbed me and pulled me in kissing me on my cheek. “Jessica, why didn’t you call? How long can you stay?”
She held my hands as she backed up and looked me up and down. Her eyes were dancing knowing she had shocked me. “Let me look at you. Where did you get all those bruises? Were you in a skiing accident? Please, you must be tired after your trip. You go up to your room and freshen up and rest. We can talk after you're rested.”
That pushed me back onto my game plan. I held her hands as I studied her face. “We talk now. I’ve put both of you in mortal danger. Can we find someplace to sit? This is going to take a little time to explain.”
The problem with waiting on a large patrol to attack, or waiting on an individual to attack, is they have the advantage of time and place. It was going on four days since I had gone to Norway to warn my make believe parents they were in mortal danger. The drug lord in Columbia decided to hurt me mentally before he killed me for real.
One week earlier Linda had gone to Columbia to do what recon she could on Ernesto Escobedo. He was the drug lord who put out a five hundred thousand dollar bounty on me after I killed four of his men in a shoot out in a Dallas shopping mall. While in Columbia Linda learned Ernesto had put a bounty on the parents the Russian Intelligence Agency had assigned me. They were fabricated parents but real people I was assigned when Ricky asked Linda to give me a new identity after we fled his burned out lab in Mexico.
I informed Mr. and Mrs. Sorensen that any normal routine was out until we took out the threat. Their normal Friday evenings when they went out for a meal were no longer an option. Visiting the friends they associated with had to be unplanned ahead. It had to be a drop in visit instead.
Ricky initially came with me. I sent him back with Linda and Serena. They flew in and stayed for two days. They played the part of the assassins as they looked for ways and places to ambush the Sorensens and make their getaway. They both knew the game well. The Sorensens, along with myself, were killed four different times in those two days before they flew out again. I hated to see them go. They both had a job and schedules to keep for the Russian Ministry of Intelligence. I knew that unless I was extremely lucky there was no way I was going to save the Sorensens or live past the assassination attempt myself.
“Mrs. Sorensen, stay away from the windows.” I walked into the kitchen where Eva was preparing breakfast.
She placed the skillet back on the stove before turning to look in my direction. “Jessica, I will not be intimidated by a thug and his hired assassins. This is our home. I refuse to be afraid.”
Sliding the rifle sling off my shoulder I propped the rifle up against the doorframe. “Mrs. Sorensen…,”
She held up her hand. “Stop right there. You have been calling me Mrs. Sorensen since you arrived. Real or not I am your mother. People have noticed you never address me as mom or mother. It is always Mrs. Sorrensen or Eva. Our relationship may have been fabricated. However you are our daughter. It would be more convincing if you acted and spoke like one.”
“Mrs Sorensen, I…,”
She pointed her finger at me and waved it back and forth. “Ah, ah.”
“Mama…,” I choked after that one. “uh, Mrs. Eva…, mom.”
She nodded. “Honey, work on it. I feel like I was called something unclean rather than your mother. You are a beautiful young woman. Johan and I didn’t expect you to be more than a name when we agreed you could be our daughter. Johan was curious to what kind of person we had accepted even if it was all for show. He started collecting the stories from the society pages when you were in Dallas. He even ordered the back issues. The more we learned the more he and I came to think of you as our very own daughter.”
After all I had been through the past six years I didn’t think a whole lot could shock me. Eva just did, I had nothing to say.
She walked over and took my hands in hers as she studied my face. “The bruises are disappearing quickly. Young bodies repair themselves easily, don’t they. I’m sure it is one or both of your friends who were here yesterday who have been sending us information about you. Lots of pictures of you on a ship. They don’t mention where or when they were taken. Looking at the background in some of those places, we have been there ourselves.”
She shook her head and laughed. “Your dad can’t decide which pictures he is most proud of. I think it is the one of you dancing in a nightclub.”
She got more than serious. “Jessica, we know you are in government espionage of some kind or another. We haven’t decided if you are working for the Americans or the Russians or maybe both.
Anette Ferrari, the young lady who had met me at the door that first day, walked into the kitchen. She shook her head as she stared at the pistol holstered on my hip. She glanced at my rifle leaning up against the doorframe. “Those are illegal you know. You aren’t allowed to carry weapons.”
As if I hadn’t heard that tired old debate before. It usually started in some beer joint when some young thing who never read history got a few beers in them. “You going to turn me in?”
She frowned as she gave that some thought. “I might.”
Eva picked up plates out of the cabinet and carried them to the table. “Anette, you are a guest in this house. Jessica is only doing what she thinks is best for all of us.”
Anette got a smirk on her face as she looked at me. “You ever shoot anyone?”
“Not a topic for discussion.” I shrugged my shoulders. I wasn’t going there.
Johan came in carrying a stack of newspapers. “I was listening when the gun question first came up. I went back and got these from my office.”
He laid them down on the table. “Anette”
She stepped up beside Johan as he opened up the top one. I didn’t need a closer look. It was the Dallas Morning News. On the front page was a picture of a car with bodies beside it. ‘Norwegian Princess gives whole new meaning to Texas Justice.’
There was a second picture. It was me wearing a blue evening gown taken when Ricky and I attended the Dallas Orchestra for an evening. Certainly not what I was wearing when the Columbians tried to kill me.
Anette pulled the paper to the side and was busy speed reading about the mall shooting.
Johan opened up a tabloid, The Monthly Grinder. There was a picture of the burned out Acapulco lab with six bodies scattered out across the pavement. Unknown mystery woman linked to drug cartel deaths. There was a picture of me in that almost dress, obviously taken at the Halloween Party.
Anette quickly scanned the second paper. “You’re a killer, a murderer.”
“If that’s what you think.” I really didn’t feel like getting into a debate about what I had to do to survive.
Johan shook his head as he studied Anette. “Would you call a policeman a murderer if he killed someone who was trying to kill him?”
She looked mad the question was asked. “Of course not. That is his job, protecting us.”
Johan nodded in agreement as he opened up a Ft. Worth paper. “Norwegian Princess is working for the Texas Rangers. Miss Rabbit, along with two Texas Rangers, stopped a cattle rustling operation in Texas and Oklahoma. Texas Ranger Jessica Rabbit put down two of the rustlers. Fifteen others quickly gave up and were captured alive.
Anette looked doubtful as she kept switching from the papers to me and back again. “You’re a Texas Ranger?”
“I was then.” It was only for a few hours so it wasn’t a complete lie. Just not the complete truth either.
Through the kitchen window and out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow move across the back yard. My fifty was in my hand in less than three tenths of a second as I turned to cover the doorway and the window at the same time.
Anette shook her head. “Trying to frighten me isn’t working. Your theatrics need some polish.”
“Don’t shoot the guy in the yard. He’s one of ours.”
Anette jumped when a voice came from the dinning room.
Taking my hand off the trigger I slid the gun back into my holster. “You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you too. Knock next time Serena.”
She had a rifle cradled in her arms and a big smile as she walked into the kitchen. “Trying to keep it down. No one needs to know. Вадим and his team are checking the perimeter. The Russian Ministry decided to put some men behind you. They asked for volunteers. A couple hundred men asked for the job. The ministry then checked arms lockers. They picked four out of the hundred or so who had a pinup of you in their locker. These men are Spetsnaz Group Alpha. They make the bad guys look like angels.”
I laughed over that one as Anette looked disgusted. My attention turned back to Serena. “I appreciate the thought, but there are two problems. One, the men are putting themselves in danger. And two, a show of force will scare off the killer. He or they won’t give up. They will wait for a better opportunity.”
Serena nodded in agreement. “We sweeten the honey pot. You and your parents are going on a hide a way vacation. A news reporter is going to happen to catch you with your parents as you arrive at the private chateau northeast of Runde.”
She got more than serious. “Jess, our intel received word there are six operatives with a team leader coming at you and your parents. They are here now setting up the strike plan. If we knew where, we would take them out, but we don’t so we can’t. No one can stop an assassin working on their time schedule. You know that better than anyone. We bait the trap and bring them to us when we know they are coming.”
Anette’s eyes kept getting bigger and bigger as she listened to Serena. “You plan on killing them!”
I’m betting I was the only one to see a hint of a smile cross Serena’s face. She nodded. “That’s the plan unless you want to wait and have them kill Johan, Eva, Jess, and you. You think because you aren’t blood kin they won’t kill you too? Stupid girl! You have a lot to learn about the give and take in the world between the wolves and the sheep. The only reason you are alive now is because Jess came here to protect Johan and Eva.”
Serena was still talking as she turned her attention toward me. “Johan and Eva were soft targets and Anette would have been collateral damage. Jess showed up and changed the game plan. A single assassin was no longer an option. Shooting someone like Jess becomes a life and death situation. If she isn’t brought down with the first bullet, she will kill those who targeted her. She won’t run away or back down like normal people would. To a professional assassin, Jess is the target assignment no one wants. There is a whispered phrase spreading in the underworld about Jess. mortem sibi consciscere. It is Latin. It means going up against Jess is death by suicide.”
She looked back at Anette. “Those like you are sheep who think if you don’t do anything your life will be okay. You never stop to understand that sheep need shepherds or the wolves would kill them all. The police can’t protect you twenty four seven. Their job is to draw a chalk outline around your cold dead body and assign blame. Jess is one of those who make sure the wolves never get that chance to kill. You get a chance to live your life safely as you demonize those like Jess.”
Anette wasn’t going to give up her idea that those like me were cold blooded killers as she looked at me and asked. “How many have you killed?”
“One was too many.” I responded, as I thought back to the answer I gave a Texas Ranger so many years ago.
She turned toward Serena. “I bet you have killed too.”
I noticed Serena’s eyes close slightly. I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer Anette had pushed for.
“Yes I have. I took great pleasure in most every one of them. If you’re going to ask me how many? Dozens, maybe hundreds, I don’t regret a single one. You might as well ask the wolf how many rabbits he ate and if he regrets having one for lunch.” Serena smiled and winked at Anette.
At that moment I think Anette thought she was being lied to. I didn’t make that error in judgment. I decided to change the conversation. “What’s the plan?”
Before we left, Linda had me change into a soft teal silk mandarin dress. It caressed every curve. There was no doubt I could not be packing heat of the leaded kind inside that little clinging number. The little matching clutch she gave me allowed me to carry the basic girl necessities and nothing else. It was to give the impression I wasn’t on guard nor expecting trouble.
Linda said the bases were covered as she sent the Sorensen’s and me to check on car rentals and or transportation tickets to Runde. I swear I felt naked without my fifty, or any weapon for that matter. Every now and then, as we stopped and checked at the different businesses, I would catch sight of her men covering us as they swept the area for trouble. Even though they were dressed to fit in like locals, they really didn’t blend in if one knew what to look for.
The purpose of our little sortie was to give the assassins the idea we were leaving town on a pleasure trip. There had to be a couple maybes in there. Hopefully they were already tracking our movements prior to setting up their ambush. Hopefully they were paying close enough attention to catch this outing, but not set up to take us out yet.
I certainly felt like a sitting duck all the time we were in the open like that. I prayed those six Serena said were coming didn’t take a chance, while thinking I wasn’t packing heat. Counter moves in chess or life only worked if the opponent didn’t guess what you were doing.
On the helicopter flight to the chateau at Runde, Serena and I discussed the pros and cons of her idea to pull in the killers. I couldn’t imagine this working unless they are complete idiots or raw amateurs. “This is going to feel like a set up to those Ernesto hired to kill Johan and Eva.”
She nodded in agreement. “Probably, but hopefully they will play the odds and believe this is an invited vacation for you and your parents. If they don’t know you came back to protect Johan and Eva they will be thinking they can kill them, get paid for that job, kill you and collect the reward. Half a million dollars dangling in front of them for taking you out too is going to be impossible to resist.”
Looking out the window I shook my head. “I wouldn’t take the bait and neither would you or Linda. We would wait for the target to move back into what are normal conditions and get a comfortable routine again.”
Serena leaned over and looked out the window too. “That is the reason we are still alive and those who are coming won’t be very much longer. They always want their blood money sooner rather than later.”
The chateau wasn’t some fishing cabin by the fjord. It was a mansion. After we landed Serena had all of us get into a couple cars, drive out the gate and come back in again as a photographer was busy taking pictures. We then waited as he drove off a kilometer or two and set up his camera and telephoto lens. Soon he called Serena to let her know he was ready. One by one we got out of the cars and stood up as if it had been a long trip. Then a distinguished older gentleman and a smartly attired woman came out of the house to greet us.
It was obvious that Johan and Eva already knew them as they greeted each other like old friends. Johan turned to introduce us. “Jessica, this is Anders and Inger Christensen.”
Inger took me in from head to toe. I didn’t think this was the first time she had heard about me from the way she looked me over. She smiled and then closed in and hugged me. “You are even more beautiful than your pictures and I thought they were stunning.”
As she turned loose I backed up and tried my best to return the compliment. “Thank you, that was very kind of you to say. I love your hair. That is such a beautiful dress. It accents your beauty.”
Inger turned her attention to Anette. “And you must be Anette, the exchange student Eva has told me so much about.”
Anette reached out and shook hands with Inger. “Yes ma’am.”
After formalities we were shown to our rooms and told to rest and freshen up. Although Linda wasn’t officially with us, she teamed up with me as a bunkmate. She was changing into military camouflage almost as soon as the door closed.
“Where’s mine?” I didn’t open my suitcase because I knew all that was in it were a few dresses and under things.
A smile spread across her face as she sat down to lace up her boots. “You’re the bait along with your parents. Dinner is formal. There are evening gowns in the closet. I think the sequined red one would be nice to start out with. It will look absolutely stunning with your long red hair.”
Her smile got even bigger if possible. “Hon, act like the princess you really are. The fabricated princess may be made up, but there is no doubt in any anyone’s mind who knows you, that you really are a princess, if not by birth, then by acts and deeds.”
That shocked the heck out of me as I tried to get a handle on my emotions. “But I’m not...,”
Serena closed in and wrapped me up in her arms as she hugged the life out of me. “Yes you are. You are everything all the rest of us wish we were. You’re soft and gentle, strong and courageous, kind and caring, tough as nails, soft as a kitten, strong as a warrior princess.”
I was blushing from the top of my red hair to the soles of my feet as Serena turned loose and backed up. “You and Linda are all those things too. I learned from the best and am still learning by watching and taking notes from two who are the best at everything.”
Serena’s eyes were dancing before she looked out the balcony doors. “Linda said you were one of a kind. She left that as a question and if I wanted an answer I’d have to ask you what she meant. She also told me to never ever, not in this lifetime, was I to ever underestimate you or what you were capable of. The way she said it I’m thinking you are going to pull a cape and mask out of your suitcase.”
She turned her attention back in my direction before I could respond. “The guys will arrive with all their gear in a couple hours. I’m going to go scout locations for perimeter defense. The pictures our lucky photographer happened to catch as the princess and her parents arrived at the chateau are being researched. The team will decide which ones look like coincidence and luck. Tonight and tomorrow the pictures along with a story about the Princess on an extended hide a way will hit the papers society pages and all the tabloids. The story will hint at the news coming from gossip to the locals, from the maid, butler, and grounds keeper at the chateau.”
“Tonight belongs to you. There is no way they can track you this far, this fast. Enjoy the evening. Tomorrow, and until things are settled, becomes high alert time twenty four seven. I’ll be coming and going most of the night as the team sets perimeters. I know you sleep with that gun of yours like most girls sleep with their dolls. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t shoot me in the dark.”
I shook my head. “ if you think I’m sleeping while the guys are settling in position, you’re crazy. After socials are tended to for the evening there better be some proper gear laying on that bed or I’m going to be following you around in a dress and heels.”
Serena snickered as she rolled her eyes before she turned and headed for the door. “I bet you would too. I’ll be back around twenty four hundred hours.”
I was beginning to think the trap wasn’t going to work. It was going on day four. Everyone was tired and getting cranky. Even the ones who weren’t on watch were feeling the stress of waiting. I knew they wanted a quick resolve to the situation but killers set the pace and the place, not the victims. Hell if the events had been turned around I wouldn’t be coming in to kill anyone. I’d be dug in several miles away watching for movement and an ambush.
Anette was the most vocal and the most difficult. After the first day and the new wore off she acted like it was all a game. She wanted to go home, be entertained.
We had sit down to dinner when Serena walked into the dining room. “Two coming up the driveway. They look like photographers. Everyone act normal.” She turned and left.
“Think she is still there?” He leaned out from behind the bushes he was hiding behind to take a look at the house.
“If she is I plan on getting some pictures.” The other guy was locking a three hundred millimeter telephoto lens onto his camera.
“And if you don’t get off this property I’m going to call the police.” Came from behind them.
They both jumped and turned at the same time. There was a maid glaring at them. She had her fists resting on her hips.
“Is the Princess still here? We’ll pay you a week’s wages to forget you saw us. Let us get some pictures.” One of the guys got a great big disarming grin on his face.
She didn’t change position. “What you are going to get is a ride back to town in a police van if you don’t leave now.”
“We only want some pictures and then we’ll go. You go back to the house and get the Princess to come out front. We will take our pictures and leave.” The other guy chimed in.
“Two coming in the front, four from the back. They have weapons and launchers.” Came in to her earpiece.
“Shit!” She pointed at the two men. “You two idiots stay put. You move from here and I’ll shoot you myself.” She headed for the house moving at a fast pace but hopefully not fast enough to arouse suspicion.
Serena was shouting as she made it in the front door. “WE HAVE COMPANY. EVERYONE INTO THE SHELTER NOW.”
As everyone else headed to the safety vault, Serena and I were running up the stairs to our room. “How many?”
She was pulling off her maid uniform before she made to the bedroom door. “Two in front and four in back. They are carrying launchers. Going to blow the place up, chase everyone out, and kill us as we expose ourselves.”
Serena changed into camouflage as I pulled on jeans and a blouse. I was strapping my gun on my hip. “How much time do we have?”
“What, repeat…, Roger that. Take down if possible. All targets are hostile. Do not let the launchers acquire a firing option.”
I knew she was busy with the guys covering the perimeters. She turned toward me shaking her head. “No time. We are in a hot zone now. The targets are not open.”
Pulling my rifle out of the case, I headed for the balcony. “If they can see us, I can see them. Give me a location.”
“Vadim says he has you on the balcony. Three hundred meters out, seven degrees to your left.” Serena laid down on the balcony as she scanned in the opposite direction.
“I got him.” The bark from my rifle echoed back from the hills.
Bullets started peppering the house as the other three gunmen realized they had been spotted. I focused in on the one bringing up a large tube and pointing it at us. My rifle barked, he fell backwards at the same time he pulled the trigger. The rocket went up over the top of the house.
Serena’s rifle barked and then I heard the distant bark of a rifle way off in the distance. There was an explosion off in the distance. “I hope that rocket that went over the house didn’t kill anyone.”
The fourth one decided he had enough. He was turning to run when I nailed him.
Serena nodded “Area clear. Let’s try and get that guy out front with the launcher before he lets loose.” She was already on her feet headed toward the front bedrooms.
She stepped out on the front balcony and scanned. “Four hundred, sixty meters out, twenty meters to the north side of the driveway is the one with the launcher. He’s under cover from the guys. They can’t get a fix on him. The good news is he can’t get a fix on the house either from where he’s at.”
Every now and then bullets were smacking around us. “The other one isn’t having that problem. Where’s he at?’ I was scanning for flash fire from his rifle.
“I think I see him. Down the driveway approximately eight hundred meters, up the hill to your left about sixty meters. Look at the big pine with two little ones to the side. Isn’t that a gun barrel I see beside that tree trunk?” I adjusted my scope to focus in on the rifle barrel.
Serena focused in. “That’s him. He’s not giving anything away, is he? He’s too far back in the woods for the guys to see him. They will have to work their way down to him.”
“Tell them to hold steady and don’t let that rocket launcher get a fix.” I laid down on the balcony and concentrated on the sniper. There was a smack as wood shredded around the door. I honestly thought I felt that one part my hair. He was ranging in his scope and getting better with each shot. Obviously he didn’t count on being that far out before the fireworks started.
I adjusted the range on my scope. “What’s the wind? You need to take cover. He’s about through adjusting for distance.”
Serena backed through the doors and laid down. “Six to ten out of the north.”
“Okay.” I let go of my breath and watched as he leaned out from behind the trunk to take another shot. My three o eight answered first. Tree bark and splinters flew everywhere in front of his face. He screamed as he rolled out to the other side of the tree trunk his face full of splinters. I racked another round home and ended his pain.
“Rocket launcher is the last one. Don’t let him get a firing position. Tell the guys to hose down his cover. Maybe they can drive him out.”
“Лейте это на” As she focused in on where the guy was hiding.
Rifles started barking way back up in the hills as the little patch of brush in front looked like invisible angry mosquitoes were ripping it apart. Bullets were ricocheting off the rocks. The guy popped up with the launcher. I think Serena’s and my rifle barked at the same time, along with every one of the men’s.
The guy was stupid. He should have stayed down and given up. The problem with those who work for drug lords is they never think they will be on the receiving end of punishment. They deal out death and pain while thinking association with a drug lord will protect them from retaliation.
“Доклад о состоянии” Serena was still checking for movement.
After several seconds she looked at me. “Двух фотографов пить травы на передней дверцы.”
She giggled when I looked blank and shook my head. “I’m sorry. I asked the guys for a status report. They said the only ones still alive were the two photographers. Provided they didn’t have a heart attack.”
“Maybe we should go tell them it’s over?” Looking off across the lawn I easily picked them out. Serena was right, they weren’t moving.
In the five or eight minutes Serena and I took to walk out to where the two guys were, they still hadn’t moved. They were lying face down, trying to become a part of the lawn. Obviously they were not war correspondents.
“Hey guys, it’s over. You can stop eating the grass now.”
Both of them slowly raised their heads, their eyes still showing absolute fear.
Serena slowly shook her head as she stared at them. “I told you to leave.”
The one on our right focused in on Serena, her military uniform and the rifle she was holding. He swallowed. “You’re the maid.”
She giggled. “Well, I was cleaning up, but actually it was Jessica who stopped the killers before anyone got hurt.”
That got my attention as I turned to look at Serena. “But…,”
The slightest shake of her head stopped me. I didn’t do it alone. Serena and the guys were the only reason I’m wasn't dead myself. If we were counting bodies Serena and the guys took out two, although that last one was anyone’s guess who made the kill shot.
They both stood up and started taking pictures. “My god it’s her. It’s the Princess. How many were there? Do you know if they were mercenaries or working for the drug lord?”
“Is that the rifle? Is that what you used? Those men in Texas think they are part of this bunch? It sounded like a war zone for a few minutes. Is it always over that fast? I heard an explosion. Did they have a cannon?”
I knew this was going to be a long evening as they kept throwing questions at me too fast to answer. Their adrenalin rush was still surging through their bodies and they had no concept of reality. I had watched the new guys in Viet Nam do the same after we had run into a fire fight. It would take hours for their minds and their body to calm back down. Some took as long as a couple days after that first real brush with looking death in the face.
Thirty seven minutes later, the police showed up. Serena, along with the four men, magically disappeared before the police arrived. Over five hours later, after answering questions and giving statements to the police, they seemed to be satisfied. It didn’t make me happy when my rifle and pistol left in their custody along with the veiled threat I might be brought up on charges of carrying, along with murder.
All of us, with the exception of Anette, discretely never brought up the fact that we had help. Anette was ready to tell all the first chance she got until they started carrying in bodies, guns, and rocket launchers before loading them into the ambulances. I think that was the first time reality struck her young mind. It could have been her they were carrying in if not for those who watched over us for the past four days, ready to kill before we were killed.
Our two young photographers were having a field day burning up data storage in their cameras. They left with the police, knowing they had front page news to sell.
Serena and the four guys showed back up once the police left. I felt safe again with that many guns around me. I looked at the men. “Thanks for saving my life. I owe you more than I can ever repay.”
One of them stepped up and held out his hand. “I guess I am second team leader since Serena was team leader. It was a pleasure.”
I took his hand. “And your name?”
“Vadim”
I closed in and gave him a hug around the neck. “Thanks Vadim.”
Turning loose I looked at the next man. “And you?”
He held out his hand. “Grigory”
I closed in on him and gave him a hug around the neck. “Thanks Grigory.”
The next two didn’t need prompting.
“Abram”
“Thanks Abram.” I gave him a hug too.
“Yegor”
“Yegor thanks.” I gave him a hug.
Vadim reached inside his pocket on his vest and pulled out a patch. “Serena said five of those were your kills. Officially and for the record, they are all yours and we were never here. I testify before these witnesses of the highest moral code you, Princess Jessica Sarah Rabbit, are now an official member of the Spetsnaz Group Alpha. An attack against you is an attack against every Spetsnaz Group Alpha member, past and present.”
He handed me a patch identical to the one he had on his shoulder. He smiled along with all the other guys as Serena snickered.
It brought back long buried fond and bitter memories of so many men I had bonded with and lost in a war from Hell. Tears came in a flood. I choked and the words caught in my throat as I tried to thank them for their friendship. I knew the price each member had to pay to be a part of that exclusive group. Each one had to be an over achiever giving more than most mortals could stand. I hadn’t paid that price. I wasn’t worthy of their honor. To tell them I didn’t deserve it would have been shaming them for offering. These men had a different set of codes and morals they lived by than what normal people have. I embarrassed them enough by crying. They didn’t cry, ever. They sucked it up and kept going, no matter what. Was that a tear I saw in Vadim’s eye???
Newspapers and tabloids kept dropping on James desk as the Rangers came to work that morning. He had to push a few out of his seat as he arrived. “Okay, okay, enough already! I can read. I know she is in the news…, again.”
Bobby threw his hands up in the air and shrugged his shoulders. “Six men…, snipers, killers, professionals, rocket launchers, tanks…, I’ve carried a gun for nineteen years and I haven’t ever shot anyone. What is it about that Princess of yours that makes her want to shoot people?”
Lonnie held up his hand and waved it around. “I know, I know. It’s called target practice. We go shoot paper targets and she works on…”
“Can it, you clowns.” James shook his head as he glared at the others.
“LORDY!” Dale was looking as three women walked into the room.
It got quiet enough to hear a pin drop as the others turned to see what Dale was looking at.
She was wearing skin tight jeans, western cut, tailored blue silk blouse, engraved belt with a big silver and gold belt buckle and long dangle diamond earrings. The big leather, engraved, shoulder purse rested on her right hip. Long red hair spilled out from underneath a blue cowgirl hat. She had the face and body the men had seen in pictures and dreamed of holding.
The auburn haired beauty beside her was similar dressed except her blouse was white, her earrings were silver spirals.
The black haired angel on the other side was dressed in a western tailored, silver pantsuit and stiletto heels.
Serena scanned the room and found him staring back. She walked up beside him, leaned down, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him before she backed up. “Hello James.”
He shook his head and laughed as he stood up. “You just don’t quit do you? Hello Serena.”
She laughed along with him. “Life is too short to play by the rules. Enjoy it while you can. Tomorrow may never be there for those like us.”
Ben was staring at Jessica. “Do we arrest her?”
Bobby shook his head. “Didn’t you read the newspaper? You want to try, be my guest. James had the right idea. Swear her in as a Texas Ranger first so she won’t shoot us. The drug dealers are calling her Beautiful Death, along with a few other choice names. She scares them more than the drug lords now. You want to test the gossip?”
Ben took a quick look at Jessica. “Think she managed to get in here with that gun?”
Bobby snickered. “You want to pull yours out and point it at her to find out? Give me a chance to move over to the other side of the room first.”
As Linda and I walked up beside Serena I noticed Matt hanging back. “Hello Matt.”
Matt blushed as he looked down and then back up. “Jess…, I mean Jessica…, Princess…”
I winked at him. “Jess will work. We are all people here. Royalty and snobs never went over in Texas.”
Henry walked out of the office. “Ladies, I think I should introduce you to the Rangers, although everyone already knows Miss Rabbit.”
He pointed at Serena. “This young lady is Serena.
He pointed to Linda. “This young lady is Linda. These are the two ladies who led the investigation in the capture of the auto theft ring in Houston.”
He pointed to me. “And of course everyone knows our own Texas Ranger, Princess Jessica Rabbit. She told me on the phone she prefers to be called Jess.”
“Governor Harrison called and informed us that the ladies would be visiting this morning for a conference on crime prevention co-operations between Russia and our government.
Ben leaned over and whispered in Bobby’s ear. “Weren’t two men killed in that theft ring?”
Bobby whispered back. “Yeah, so you want to try and arrest the other two women now?”
Ben shook his head. “I’m slow, not stupid. Hell walked in our door and they are wearing heels. Give the job of arresting them to those clowns over at the FBI. I’d pay good money to see them try that again since I missed it the first time.”
“Captain.” A big grin spread across Bobby’s face as a thought hit his brain.
Henry turned his attention toward Bobby. “Yes?”
“I’m sure every single one of us in this unit would appreciate the ladies giving us lessons down at the firing range. In the goal of inter-agency co-operation of course.” His grin got even bigger.
Ben leaned over to whisper in Bobby’s ear again. “I think James has that inter-agency co-operation down a little too well now.”
Bobby laughed out loud. “You’re jealous.”
“Hell yeah I am. You can’t deny you and every male in here is too, even the married ones.” Ben couldn’t take his eyes off the eye candy across the room.
“Captain, what about that FBI file? I mean what if they find out she is here?” Lonnie was staring at Jessica.
Henry held up a sheet of paper he was holding in his hand. “It was canceled as of yesterday. Miss Rabbit is no longer on their wanted list. She is officially listed as a good will ambassador with full diplomatic immunity.”
A smile spread across Matt’s face from ear to ear. “A US Ambassador. That’s great.”
Henry shook his head. “Not so fast. Russia claimed her as their ambassador. Norway disputed that and said she was one of their citizens and their ambassador. Our government claimed it was their idea first. I think the first inter agency co-operation will be deciding who Miss Rabbit represents.”
Even though Linda had clued me in about the ambassador thing it was still embarrassing. I was blushing from the top of my head to the souls of my feet.
Henry gave me a wink. I knew at that instant he was giving the Rangers a snow job of his own design. For one the US couldn’t be thinking of me as they had no record of a Jessica Rabbit besides that fabricated Texas drivers license Linda had made up six years back. Same for the Norwegian ambassador offer. I was sure if the authorities dug deep enough I didn’t exist in their citizen data base either. The Russian ambassador offer was tentative on the premise I became a Russian citizen.
James held up his hand. “Wait, there isn’t any debate on this. Jess is Texas through and through. As Texas Rangers we don’t take the back seat to nobody. Jess, Serena, and Linda belong to us, the Texas Rangers. It is time we made it official. Ladies hold up your right hand. Do you swear…”
“JAMES!” Henry was glaring at him.
Badges started dropping on James’ desk in front of the ladies. “She can have mine.” “Here’s mine.” “Wait I was first.”
Bobby put his arms around Linda and hugged her. “It is part of the indoctrination. All new Rangers get a hug from the team.”
Linda was laughing as Bobby turned loose of her. In her best thickest Russian accent. “I love America.”
That made Serena and me laugh. Linda didn’t have a drop of Russian accent in her English until now.
James moved over close to me. “Leave him alone.”
Looking into his eyes I could see he was worried. “I can’t. You know that. One of us has to die before it will be over. As long as he and I are alive he will keep hiring men and sending them to kill me. It won’t stop until one or both of us are dead. I won’t live my life looking over my shoulder wondering if that person is the one sent to kill me.”
James nodded. “I do know. Know this, the Texas Rangers are behind you one hundred percent.”
Ernesto was in a rage. “SIX MEN! I HIRE FOOLS! WE SEND FOUR MEN, SHE KILLS THEM! WE SEND SIX MEN SHE KILLS THEM!”
He pointed a finger at the man standing in front of him. “You fail me again I will skin you alive. You hire as many men as you need. You pay them as much as they ask. Only if they kill the bitch do they collect a paycheck. Not one dime before. Death will be their reward, and yours, if they fail me.”
BY
Barbie Lee
FIRST EDITION
CHIFFON PUBLISHERS
ELK CITY, OKLAHOMA
MODEL MAKERS is dedicated to
All the Karens in the world who make their bosses or
co-workers look good because they’re exceptional themselves.
All the wives who make their husbands look intelligent.
Thank God for the men and women who recognize each other as humans of equal status on this old world. He never meant for women to be subservient to men. They are partners and mates.
Prelude
She pulled an eight-millimeter pistol from her purse. The silencer reminded him of the muffler on a lawn mower only..., only this dictated a lot more sinister purpose. She put the laser sights right between his eyes. There was an audible click as she snapped the safety off.
"You play rough with her and she likes it. You even think about touching me and I’ll paint the wall with your brains."
THIS BOOK WAS COMPLETELY DESIGNED, PRINTED, AND BOUND BY
ELVES, PIXIES, AND FAIRIES AT
THE OLD
DAIRY FARM
THIS BOOK IS AN
EASY READER TM
OPEN PARAGRAPH FORMAT
CHIFFON PUBLISHERS
ELK CITY,OKLAHOMA
Copyright O 1993 by Barbie Lee
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher. Exception, inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
This book was sent to me by BarbieLee with the remark, that she found "this old thing" and didn't know what to do with it. Knowing that she isn't all that keen on selling her stories any more, I had a look at it and boy did I get a surprise! This is a fantastic story in more than one sense and I am sure, that those of you who liked "The Huntress" will be equally fascinated by this one.
I have Barbs consent to put this up on here. The book is complete, so other than with my "The seduction" the posting will be in regular intervals until it is finished. I hope all of you who like it will let BarbieLee know how much you appreciate the read.
In actual fact I hardly did have to do any work on this. All real editing was done for the original printed version, if there still are any errors in this it is entirely my fault. I hope you'll enjoy!
Monique.
CHAPTER I
"Blonde, I want the sexiest woman you can whip up for me." As he talked his cigar rolled around in the corner of his mouth. Karen wished he would choke on it. He called himself Bob Kincaid and he was from Bob's Intimates.
Her department was part of advertising. Well, to be more specific, she had been part of advertising when she first hired on. That was over fifteen years ago. As a computer engineer, she designed and built the computers and related hardware for the advertising department. She also wrote and flowcharted the software programs to make those same computers work. Later, she was transferred to Doctor David Beckworth's laboratory where her creative talents were again tested. For the doctor’s lab she designed a computer to interface with a mass spectrometer and a chemical servo dispenser. Finally, the company had assigned her to design a complete new special department. For a lab they had assigned to her a dinky, dirty, storage room. It was located in the far back part of the building. She was to manufacture models of human forms or mannequins for customers on a custom design basis. Over time she was no longer noticed or thought about. As far as Com Tech was concerned, Karen had become lost internally in the company.
For years, Karen came and went and no one knew she was there. Then, like a flower opening, suddenly her department began attracting attention. The models coming from Commercial Technologies, had become some of the most sought after mannequins in the world. Her life like models were the result of Karen’s expertise with computers, and her ability to interface electro-mechanical functions for positive feedback. Some said she was a genius, others said she was gifted. Whatever it was, she had an uncanny knack for making things work in the surreal world of computers, electronics, software programs, and mechanics.
Right now she wished she was anywhere except here talking with this filthy-mouthed customer. "Mr. Kincaid, my name is not Blonde, it’s Karen Long. You may address me as Miss Long, or you may call me Karen. But, you may not call me Blonde! As for the sexiest woman I can whip up....? I do not 'whip up' anything. I make human form replicas. They are for all intents and purposes, an exact duplicate of ourselves. If you didn't believe we made the best human copies, I’m sure you would be down at ACME Duplicators getting what you wanted. I know their models are less expensive than ours. Now, if you persist in dumping your cigar ashes in my office, I’ll call security and have them escort you out of the building."
Bob cut Karen short before she was finished. "Saaaay, you're a real bitch, aren't you? I’ll bet you could get rid of your frustrations if you were laid right now. With a little makeup and jewelry you would be tolerably attractive if you stopped wearing pants and dressed like a woman. Tell you what, you come down to the store and I'll dress you up right real smart. You might attract a real man and stop getting so horny every time you saw one."
Shock and then hate quickly crossed Karen's face. She took a step backward to her desk and pushed a hidden button under the front lip. Both eyes were flashing fire. "Mr. Kincaid, although my company may have signed a contract with you, it doesn’t mean I have to take your insults nor your bad manners. I want you to know our conversation has ended right here and now. Security is headed this way. If you don't leave voluntarily, they’ll escort you back to the front office."
Bob was smiling as he reached for the door handle. "Blonde Honey, if you don't do me an excellent job your ass will be mine. Because, you see darling, the contract says I have to approve of the girlie you make for me. I can promise you I ain't going to be satisfied, your boss ain't going to be satisfied, and you ain't going to have no job. So, I tell you what, sugar, you come look me up after you get fired. I’ll put you to work."
Karen angrily scanned the room for anything to throw at this big, obnoxious, slob of a man who had cigar juice dripping out of the corner of his mouth. For a big man, he slipped out the door fairly quickly. Karen didn't have time to find anything she thought was expendable. Left alone in the lab, it became quiet enough to hear the almost inaudible whine of the servo motors in the security cameras. The cameras followed her every move. The same way they had during her conversation with Bob Kincaid.
Karen looked at one of the cameras and made a face. "You weren't any help."
The camera focused in on her as a voice answered from nowhere and everywhere. "I didn't say anything because you told me not to talk to anyone except you. Remember?"
A smile spread across Karen’s face as she thought of the computer concealed on the other side of the wall behind her desk. It was larger than any modern computer should be. This was her real friend. She had devoted the past fifteen years of her life to it. The cameras were an extension of that computer.
"Oh, Henry, you know I didn't mean anything toward you. You’re right of course. If anyone knew exactly what a conversationalist you were, they would have you dismantled in ten seconds flat. You would be stamped 'Top Secret', and gone out of my life forever. Sometimes I get so frustrated talking to weasels like Bob Kincaid, I wish you were able to poke him in the nose for me."
A couple of minutes later one of the security cameras showed Bob leaving the building. The automatic door at the front entrance malfunctioned. The sliding door tried to close while he was still in it. It smacked him on the side of his head and shoved him up against the door frame.
Karen slipped into her chair, put her feet under the desk, and pulled the computer keyboard toward her. Remembering security, she called them to cancel her alert. Not as if it made much difference. Security never was as prompt as she had led Bob to believe. Usually they never showed at all.
"Henry, I’m going to give Mr. Kincaid a model which will make him drool every time he thinks of her. She will need the face of Venus, the skin tone of an Indian princess, beautiful attractive hands, and long slender fingers always look nice. If I add a perfect figure, it will be a start."
Karen typed the specifications into the program as she was talking. She could have told Henry what she was wanting as easily. Many times she did just that. She would lean back in her chair, slide out a bottom desk drawer to prop her feet on, interlock her fingers behind her head, close her eyes and tell Henry what she wanted. However, when she was frustrated or down to serious thinking she reverted to her old habits of typing everything into the program.
As Karen typed, there appeared in front of her keyboard, a three-dimensional figure. Slowly, it took on shape and form. The hologram Henry generated by use of low intensity lasers, gave Karen a virtual reality model of her ideas.
"Let's see now." She was thinking aloud, as she usually did when focused on her intent.
"I want the hair to be platinum blond and the length should be somewhere about the middle of her back." She typed as she spoke, and the hologram changed to match her instructions.
"Now what? Let me see...? No, that isn't right. I know, make it wavy and have it curl over her shoulders."
Henry didn't wait for her to type in the directions. The hair which hung straight down the back of the model in the hologram, acquired a soft wave and spread softly across the shoulders.
Karen glanced at the hologram. "Good, now let's see what we can do about the face. Her face should have the high cheekbones of a Greek goddess. Her eyes should be big, round, and blue."
Karen was silent for a couple of minutes as she looked hard at her imagery. "Arrgg, that's all wrong. She looks like bits and pieces of this and that. Reminds me of Mr. Potato Head. Henry, make her eyes demure and sexy with a slight hint of Asian-slant to them. The eyebrows need an exquisite arch and a nice sweep to accent the eyes."
After Henry made the requested changes, Karen propped her elbows on her desk and cradled her chin in the palms of her hands. She sat contemplating the features of the hologram. "Not bad, not bad at all. I think we’re on the right track. Now Henry, what about the lips? Thin and delicate or full, round, and kissable? Ah, let's make them full, sexy, and begging to be kissed. They should shout ‘kiss me’ every time someone looks at them."
As the figure of the hologram took on the features Karen was dictating to Henry, it became more lifelike, rather than the abstract statue the initial fuzzy image first started out as.
Henry was repeating his statement to Karen because she didn't acknowledge his remarks the first time. "You know, this looks like it may be your best model yet. She’s extremely attractive by human standards. I could go for a babe like that if I were human."
Karen sighed and leaned back in her chair. "What? Sorry Henry, I guess I wasn't listening. Yes, she is coming along very nicely. It's a shame a toad like Bob Kincaid will be the one who gets her. She really belongs with one of those more respectable companies. Solitaire Clothiers. or someone similar who would display her and their clothes to the best customers would be my first choice. Well anyway, if the rest of her comes together like she has so far, ol dragon breath won't be able to turn down the contract. I kind of wish he would though. He doesn't deserve her."
The camera mounted in the upper left corner of the room zoomed in on Karen. She caught the action out of the corner of her eye and wondered if Henry could read her mind? Nah, even if she did program him, he was still only pieces of wire, circuits, and electrons flowing from place to place. However, if one thought about it, isn’t that what we are. Aren’t we just flesh, nerves, and electrons flowing from place to place? Could it be life begins at the moment of electron dispersion? Wait a minute, this was getting too philosophical. She needed to get back to work.
"Henry, let's move down to the body. Okay?"
"Your wish is my command."
"Wise-mouth." Karen shot back.
"Let's see now, hummm, a long slender neck would show off jewelry and accessories. Of course small hands with long delicate fingers always look nice. Yes, let's give her extra long, sharp fingernails. Perhaps she will scratch Bob's eyes out while he’s gawking at her. The arms should be slender, strong, and she should have soft feminine shoulders. Now Henry, how about a perfect figure of thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six?"
Henry rotated the wall camera to look at the hologram. It wasn't necessary, he already received direct feedback straight off the hologram program. He knew Karen liked it when he responded in a physical sense. Humans were strange that way.
"The impression I get from Bob, I don't think a perfect figure is what he wants. He's probably looking for something with a little more zip. Remember, old lizard-lips is use to looking at attractive women in his store everyday."
Karen leaned forward for a closer look at the hologram. "You're right, as usual. Okay, how about ..., ummmm, let’s see now, how about, we give her just a little more gee whiz? Like, how about, uh, thirty-eight?"
Henry was adding dimensions to the hologram as he spoke. "That’s a start in the right direction, but not enough. She needs at least a forty four to get ol fatso's attention."
"Henry, that is..." Karen was about to say disgusting but changed her mind.
Karen looked over her shoulder at one of the cameras before turning her attention back to the hologram. She decided he might be right. "OK, since you wanted to add your two cents worth, you finish her."
Henry started. "Well, if I know my humans, old dragon breath will want some extreme measurements to make his model different from all the others. Yet it can't be too extreme, or it will turn out looking like some of those gargoyles from ACME. A fifteen-inch waist would be too small but a twenty-two inch waist is what all the souped up models are using. Let's give her an eighteen-inch waist along with thirty-eight inch hips. Kind of overkill on the dimensions, but old poodle face won't be able to resist the shape. Especially if we give her long shapely legs and stand her on three, no, make that five inch heels."
Mulling over in her mind what they had designed, Karen sat for ten or fifteen minutes looking at the hologram representing the combination of hers and Henry's ideas. This was a radical departure from her standard models. "This is the most disgustingly beautiful, oversexed model we have ever done. I always tried to make my models attractively real and true to normal everyday life. My model could be the boy or girl next door. I took pride in the fact they were better than the duplicates anyone could fabricate. Henry, I don't think I can be proud of this model."
"Karen, you know if you make one of your standard models, old dragon breath may reject her. You make Sexy Susan and he brings her back, your boss will probably figure the old fat man isn't operating with both oars in the water. Comm Tech has been extremely satisfied with your work over the years because each model you made was better than the previous one. And, I might add, your models are far superior to what the competition could ever hope to produce. Those statues ACME and the others have been manufacturing aren’t in your class. You have remained at the top of your field because you push the limits."
"The only fly in the ointment is Karl Adder. He has attempted for the past eight years to get Comm Tech to appoint him as manager of your lab. So far, the board of directors hasn't given any credence to Karl's claims to be rightful head of this department. You have never given them a reason to find fault. They’re extremely satisfied with what you’re doing. They’re afraid Karl would ruin your perfect record. You make them a very respectable profit they can afford to lose in some of the other departments. At forty thousand per duplicate, they would be insane to let anyone mess with your lab. Your worst competition is your own self as you continue improving on every model. Don't let your pride as a perfectionist cost you what you have worked years to accomplish. This may not be the girl next door, but then maybe she is. Who is to say? Humans come in all sizes and shapes. Fascinating creatures to say the least." Henry wanted to say more, but it wasn't the time nor the place.
Karen suspected Henry was withholding information. He probably knew more than he was disclosing. She was about to ask him but changed her mind. "Okay Henry, load her up in the storage banks, light the fires under the laser stabilizers, and fill up the aqueous tank."
She swiveled her chair around, flipped on the printer, and reached over and dropped an invoice sheet in the scanner. She checked the clock to see what time it was when they began manufacturing this model. "Where did you come up with a name like Sexy Susan? Pop me a cartridge. I want to keep her on file with the rest."
Karen was referring to the mass data storage cartridge. A copy of her efforts would be filed for future reference in case of a glitch in the system. However, in the past several years, Henry apparently solved the problem of glitches by himself. In spite of the best efforts of the company to keep out voltage spikes, power outages, and other beasts, which raise havoc among computers, the fact is, sooner or later they happen to everyone. Karen had come across work orders where extra cables were installed and additional switching plates were added. Then an unusual battery arrangement normally used for national defense computers was signed for by God only knows who. The requisition chits were mistakenly eaten up by the paper shredders before they could be claimed by accounting.
Karen never asked Henry if he was making his own supply list. She suspected it was probably true but, she really didn't want to know. If anyone questioned her about the unusual work orders and supply requisitions coming out of her lab, she could honestly tell them she didn't know about any of it. One thing for sure, well..., she was almost certain without a doubt. Okay, maybe a little doubt. Henry had himself hooked into the surveillance system at Comm Tech.
The cartridge, Karen had asked for, rotated down from the tower where several other cartridges were plugged in. The tower was loaded with empty cartridges at the top. Each one rotated into a gate when it was necessary to store data. After information was banked in the cartridge, it dropped into a rack in a multi-receiver. The cartridges resembled small steel rulers similar to the kind carpenters and plumbers carried, only much smaller. With laser light storage they held several trillion tetra bits of information. If one could compare the storage banks in a cartridge to the information found in a library, all the information carried in all the books of several large libraries could be stored in one cartridge. Each cartridge carried the molecular makeup down to the smallest detail of only one model. Not much empty space remained.
This was what placed Karen ahead of the competition and made her models appear human. In her quest on how humans were made, she searched through every medical program she could find. She also downloaded every research laboratory and hospital records she could access. Programming everything into Henry took a lot of time but it was worth the extra effort. As Karen added the information to her program, the models took on more lifelike qualities.
After Karen loaded Henry with fuzzy logic he began connecting with other computers on his own. She came to work one morning and found him still online. He was downloading information from a hospital and a medical college computer. Then a friend called, wanting to know why Karen had requested information from their DNA testing laboratory. Henry had made the connections all by himself. A lot of mornings after that she would find Henry hooked-up to the modem searching for information. He probably sucked up tons of misinformation along with the good, but he had the ability to decide what was useful and what wasn't. That was the result of the fuzzy logic program in him. He could make decisions rather than spitting out repetition of the input data. Karen wanted a computer capable of making decisions, and she succeeded with Henry. He excelled in that part of his programming.
Karen reached over and drew the data storage cartridge from its track on the tower. She dropped it into the right pocket of her lab coat. She would file it after she made sure Henry was working on the program. "Henry, you ready to fill the tank and sharpen your lasers?"
"What’s the matter with you, Karen? Didn't you look or did you not see what you were looking at?"
Karen was gazing mindlessly through the glass at the production chamber until Henry snapped her out of it. She noticed the camera in the work lab looking back at her. Henry had filled the chamber with opaque gel and the jet nozzle was inserted in the center. The gel would hold the liquid in suspension as it was ejected from the jet. The lasers solidified the liquid where the beams met. Molecule by molecule, the model would be created in the chamber. Other companies made their mannequins like a casting. Out of necessity, their forms were poured as separate pieces. Karen used the medical knowledge programmed into Henry to duplicate the detailed anatomy of a human. Together they created muscle, blood vessels, bone, skin, and every single part of the human structure. Those models were as close to real human life as possible without actually being human.
Everything was done to the point of turning on the lasers. Now Henry was patiently waiting on Karen to give the command to start. Not as if he needed her permission, but it was kind of an unspoken and yet unbroken understanding, Karen was in control. She still wasn't speaking nor had she hit the enter key on her keyboard.
Henry prodded her again. "Are you with me tonight, or did the old fat man get your goat? You seem to have trouble concentrating on your work. Are your batteries low?"
Karen pushed away from the desk. "Sorry Henry, I was trying to collect my thoughts. Yes, he got to me. Right now I’m getting one of my migraine headaches. If I don't do something for it quickly, it will run me down like a truck. You go ahead and start the program. I’m going to David's laboratory and pick up a couple of pills before it gets any worse."
Karen checked a second time to see if the printer was running. She wanted a hard copy so she could follow Henry's program when she returned. She shouldn't be gone longer than a couple of minutes at most. Reaching into the data storage vault she removed a cartridge. Besides her finger tips the security vault was supposed to scan for a magnetic card. Henry bypassed the security program for her when she reached for the cartridge. If it had been anyone besides Karen, Henry would have never allowed access to the vault.
The cartridge she removed contained the chemical compound coding from the tests of her DNA and body chemistry. After seeing her suffer through one of her migraines when they were working together in his lab, David worked up a chemical balance to alleviate her headaches. In fact, it was one of the first chemical coding programs they ran through David's computer after Karen had finished it.
David's lab was only a short distance down the hall from hers. He had given to her the program cartridge and told her to use it when she needed. However, there was one small problem. Karen didn't have the security classification to be in his department. She thought it was a stupid rule since she had built and designed his computer system. She had worked in David’s lab for more than ten months to interface the equipment and programs. She knew more about David's programs than he did. But it was a fact of life and the way big companies worked, logic and reasoning never figured into their rules or regulations. Sometimes it almost seemed as if someone went out of his or her way to make up a stupid rule.
Bureaucracy didn't intimidate David. He had little use for stupidity at any level of research or business. Knowing Karen usually worked late, he gave her a security card and the code to access his lab. When she felt a migraine coming on, and he wasn't there, she could walk down the hall and punch in the access code to David’s lab. By inserting the data cartridge into David's computer, it would manufacture the migraine pills she requested.
Karen could ask for a hundred or a thousand pills instead of a couple and never have to go back to David's lab. But then asking for so many at once would have made her feel guilty. Maybe she was thumbing her nose at Comm Tech authority. And maybe she enjoyed the cloak and dagger thrill of sneaking into his laboratory when she wasn't supposed to be there. Could be she hid latent talents as a cat burglar. Whatever the reasons, she liked sneaking into David's lab when it was off limits to her.
Holding David's card and cartridge in her right hand, she opened her lab door and stepped into the hall. Catching the door before it closed behind her she looked back into the laboratory where Henry was busy building the model. "Henry, you have everything under control?"
"Probably not. Why don't you step back inside and aim one of the lasers for me? Or maybe you want to push the fluid into the tank while you're color coding and solidifying it one molecule at a time."
Karen knew Henry was joking but she wondered how he knew when it was a joke? The abstract of a joke is a human characteristic. Humor isn't programmable into a computer under any circumstances. One could give a joke to a computer and it could repeat the joke but there was no way it could know it had told a joke. Yet..., Henry was perfectly capable of making up his own humor.
"Henry, some day I’m going to replace you with one of those security computers down at the front desk. You know the one. Its job is to beep if someone walks out the door with something they shouldn't."
He rotated the cameras to look at her. "That's it, go ahead and make idle threats. You know you're safe and I can't reach you. I double dog dare you to walk back into the lab so I can squirt you with the jell-gun and solidify you with my lasers. Are you too chicken to face me man to man, or in this case, macho machine verses cowardly woman?"
She glanced sharply back into the working lab where those lasers were busy burning the air and solidifying gel. They could be very deadly if used in the wrong way. Solid walls or the thin piece of glass she was looking through certainly wasn’t a barrier.
Karen made a face at one of the cameras. "Can it, voltage drop out. You couldn't hit a barn door if I laid one out on the floor and pointed your under juiced lasers in the right direction. You’re lucky I’m headed down to David's lab or I would come back in there and start pulling circuits until you begged for mercy."
She backed out the door and turned as it quietly closed behind her. She took a casual glance at the security cameras at the end of the hall. The little red sentry lights beneath their lens indicated they were on. Since this was the way to the outer bathrooms it didn't make any difference who was watching the monitors. In all likelihood, no one was. Those cameras didn't get a lot of personal attention. This was a trip she had made a thousand times, and tonight was no different.
She stepped around the corner at the end of the hall and glanced at the cameras on the wall. They were looking the other way as usual, which was unusual in itself. In the beginning, she had to time the sweep of the cameras so she wouldn't get caught walking into David's lab. Later on, they were always turned away at the proper time and it became more than coincidence. Karen figured Henry was plugged into security and was operating the cameras. He could have taken over the whole system, and be in total control of everything in the security network, including the monitors in the control room. Either way she was reluctant to ask. As long as she didn't have any hard evidence, she wouldn't have to lie about anything. If someone had asked her she could say she didn't know. Not for certain anyway.
Karen pulled the magnetic key and data storage cartridge out of her left lab coat pocket and rolled the cartridge into her palm as she arrived at David’s lab door. She shifted the key to her right hand, and reached for the security panel by the door facing. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of someone coming toward her. Dropping the cartridge in her left pocket and the key into her right, she straightened up and acted as if she was out for a walk.
"Out late again aren't you Miss Long?" One of Com Tech's security guards came around the corner down the hall.
Karen had stepped away from the door. "Earl, you know I usually have midnight deadlines to meet. Isn't anyone considerate enough to think I might like working normal hours like everyone else?"
It was kind of a half truth. Karen liked working at night. She was less likely to be interrupted. And then, most people didn't have enough patience to wait more than a day after they put in their order before they were back to pick up their model.
Through the security camera in the hall, Henry could see Earl was detaining Karen. He sent a signal to David's computer via the modem. Waiting on standby, it acknowledged the electronic call and came on. Henry loaded Karen's DNA program into the computer and waited. Now all Karen needed to do was insert the cartridge and it would kick out her aspirin in seconds. Henry congratulated himself for helping Karen without her knowledge. He saved her five minutes waiting for David's computer to ingest the data cartridge and assimilate the necessary chemicals.
The lights blinked in the hallway. Karen looked up at the lights and then back to Earl. "What’s causing the power fluctuations? Everyone is complaining about lost programs and damaged drives in their computers the past couple of days."
Earl hitched up his gun belt. "They installed a crane down in section Two A. It seems they figured out a way to stabilize PCB but it turns out as heavy as hell. The problem they ran into after stabilizing the damn stuff was they couldn't move it, so they installed a crane. Now it seems the power lines aren't big enough to handle the load. Anyway, when the motors kick in on the drive circuits, the lights blink because of the amperage draw. Maintenance will have it fixed tomorrow, they think. I wouldn't really count on it though, no one checked the transformer load rating. After they install the new lines, they’ll blow the power transformer. It can't handle the amp load. Makes you wonder how those guys ever got their degree in electronics, doesn't it? If you have any programs running tomorrow, you better be prepared to kiss them off. I’m betting they knock out the whole building when they fry the electric lines all the way back to the power station."
Earl told it like he knew all about transformers, ohms, resistance, and amperage draw. The truth be known, he was only repeating what he had heard from the some of the engineers in the building. It made him feel important to be able to tell everyone who noticed the blinking lights why they were flashing. It was what security guards in a big company did best, pass information, either useful or useless, from one source to another.
When the power blip occurred, Henry received a disconnect from David's computer. His own system was fail-safe but it didn't keep him from losing connections when problems occurred down the line. Karen was as well off on her own if he could distract Earl. He decided to work on it.
Earl was about to continue his conversation with Karen since he was only halfway through his shift. He had nothing better to do since the personnel in the swing shift was pretty well few and far in between in this big building. Suddenly his beeper started squawking.
"Darn, the security sentry is telling me I have a problem up at the east end of the building. Probably another false alarm. I keep telling those people I’m having problems with the security system but they don't listen. They even set up a plotter to check out bogus alarms. You want to hear something odd? Their records didn't show one single funny call after it had been hooked up for more than a week. I tell you, that security system hates me." As he briskly walked back down the hall, Earl was still muttering about all computers being nothing but trash. He left no doubt to anyone listening he hated computers.
Turning around, Karen checked the security cameras. They were beginning their sweep away from her toward the far end of the hall. Reaching into her right pocket, she retrieved the cartridge and the key. Quickly she tapped the access code into the security control panel and swept the magnetic card through the sensor. The door clicked open.
David's computer was ready and waiting. She wondered why he had left it on? It was unusual for David to leave anything out of order. He was so meticulous in everything he did. She typed in the access code. Slipping the data cartridge into the port she typed in LOAD PROGRAM and hit enter.
The computer came to life, but not in the way she expected.
ARE YOU SURE? Was the question on the screen.
It had never questioned her before. Karen was taken aback but only for a second. Yes she typed.
COMPLETE PROGRAM? It questioned.
Karen was getting miffed with this stupid computer. What had David done to her programs and computer? She designed this whole system. It never gave any problems until now. All this dumb computer needed to do was mix a couple of chemicals and plop out a couple of aspirin. Her headache was getting worse by leaps and bounds. She needed those pills now!
Karen didn't think she could handle going back to the basic program and searching for the problem, not just yet. Even if she had time, she didn't feel her concentration would last long enough to get through it. Her head felt like it was on the receiving end of a long sharp spike and someone with a mighty big hammer was banging on the other end.
She typed in. COMPLETE PROGRAM
It still wasn't cooperating. EXTRA INSTRUCTIONS?
Karen's frustrations were mounting. What would she have to do to get this computer to cough up a couple of aspirin? NO EXTRA INSTRUCTIONS RUN COMPLETE PROGRAM
HOW MANY TIMES?
Ah ha, this was more like it. TWO TIMES
The computer was strangely quiet for a long time and she decided it had lost her program. Finally, two little pills rolled into the ejection tray. Karen scooped them up, shut down the computer to standby, and pulled her data cartridge out. Having second thoughts, she turned the computer back on and erased the program from internal memory. This was David's lab, and unlike her, there were other people working with him. It wouldn't do for them to see the last program and connect her and David together in his lab. She was no longer actively working on his computer or programs. It would be a breech of security and probably get both of them fired. At the very least, she would certainly get a pink slip along with her paycheck. The company would notify her they no longer required her services.
She cracked the door and checked the hall and the security cameras. Although the cameras were swinging her way, they reversed rotation and started their sweep towards the other end of the hall. It was all she needed. She slipped out the door as quickly as she had entered, and was on her way back to her lab. Bless Henry, if there were any lingering doubts about him controlling security, they had vanished this evening.
Stopping by one of the drinking fountains in the hall, she washed down the two aspirin David's computer reluctantly relinquished. She made a mental note to ask him about any problems he was having with it. Obviously, the thing was becoming cranky and haphazard in executing programs. Yet, could be someone put in a redundant check to keep it from making any mistakes. She wasn't the only computer programmer in this company. Someone could have added new security to the computer code. She promised herself she would bring up the security codes in the files before she needed it next time. It was one of the few benefits of being a programmer in this company. Nothing was sacred or safe in a computer or any of the files. She could access most of them as easily as pulling the pop top on a canned drink. The impossible ones took a little longer, sixty-seconds max.
Karen was sure David's computer didn't have a virus. After several systems in the corporation had become infected, she programmed the computers she designed to check for any internal programming changes. Virus's were a product of a sick mentality. They could destroy years of work as they ran their insidious destructive programming through a research computer.
Darn, the city water tasted terrible. She wished she had waited until she returned to her lab to get a drink. All the chemicals the city dumped in the drinking water, along with the chlorine, should bring the EPA to label the drinking water as toxic waste. There was a distiller in her lab to remove everything found in the water besides H2O. She would forget every now and then how bad the city water tasted and take a drink. They pumped it into the lines and called it fit for human consumption. She didn't believe it was good enough to bathe in, much less drink the stuff. After drinking some from the fountain in the hall, it reminded her all over again.
As Karen approached her lab, the door opened for her. She noticed the cameras looking at her. "Henry, are you hooked into security? Disregard the question. Why are you hooked into security?"
She didn't care if Henry answered or not. The headache had eased but she was feeling nauseous. In fact, that was putting it mildly. She felt deathly sick to the very bottom of her soul. Karen held her head and stomach as she stumbled across the room toward her chair.
Henry rotated all four cameras to focus on Karen. "Are you okay? If your headache is causing you this much pain you might want to lie down awhile."
His scan showed a distinct pallor of the skin, her heartbeat was elevated slightly, and a thermal scan indicated a slight rise in body temperature. Henry noticed her eyes weren't focusing on anything in particular. This was nothing to become alarmed about if it only lasted for a minute or two but definitely not any longer.
As soon as she sat down, Karen felt better. "Don't dodge the issue. I want to know how long you have been hooked into security?"
The sick feeling returned as quickly as it left. "Henry, go on with the program. I’m going home until I feel better. I’ll be back shortly. Certainly before you finish. Is everything running all right? You want anything?"
Karen was out the door before Henry could tell her everything was functioning smoothly and he was perfectly capable of operating the lab. As she stumbled down the corridor to the parking tower she was feeling worse by the second. Her headache had returned with a vengeance and the sick feeling was spreading throughout her body. Those aspirin should have kicked in by now. This promised to be one of those killer migraines where she was sick to the very depth of her soul. Her head felt like someone unscrewed it and was using it for a basketball. With David's pills, it usually got down to a survival situation when it was this bad. She knew she would wish she was dead before this bottomed out. Her whole body was screaming in pain now. Even before David's pills, she never remembered one hurting this much. Every cell in her body was screaming for relief. Her hair hurt.
Karen made the parking tower. She was thanking the powers that be she had come to work early enough this morning to park close to the building. At least now she didn't have to walk a mile to her car. She realized as she approached the car her car keys were in her purse in the lab. There was no way she could make it to the lab and back again. She would have to use her emergency key. Reaching behind the license plate, she removed a key. Using that key to unlock the gas cap, she removed the ignition key from inside the gas cap.
Karen opened the car door and collapsed on the seat. She slapped her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes as her stomach churned into a maelstrom. She reeled through one nauseous wave after another until she finally hit a lull in this storm of sickness. The feeling she was about to throw up passed momentarily. Sitting up, she managed to get the car started. Minutes later she was out of the parking tower, through the security gate, out on Mileline Highway, and running for home. Thank God, in a couple of minutes she would be home where she could lie down. The churning was starting again and she was feeling worse by the second. As if things could get any worse.
Henry followed her through the security cameras as much as possible. From the time she left the lab, until she drove out the gate, he tried to keep her under surveillance. However, there were an awful lot of blind spots between cameras. Someone could park a semi truck in some of those spots and never be noticed by security. Henry wondered why they called it security? It wasn't secure by any definition of the word.
Karen was right, even if he didn't get a chance to answer her questions about controlling security. Henry was plugged in and could utilize virtually every single camera operating at Comm Tech. No one but Karen suspected he was hooked in. Even she had no real concept of how extensive his control was. Henry would write work order memos requesting maintenance run cables from box Four Eighteen to box Six Two One, and of course almost every other terminal box. He would then have another maintenance crew jumper blue line four to terminal Three N. It prevented anyone from tracking what he was doing. Henry would erase the work orders in the maintenance computer after the work was completed.
Maintenance had no idea what they were doing when they wired Henry into the whole plant. Besides controlling the electronic mail, posting work orders for maintenance, and running extra phone lines for himself, Henry issued work orders to have them plug him into every computer in the building. The only problem was, when power glitches ran through the building, as they did tonight, he couldn't hold the other computer online.
After Karen left the tower gate and turned her car toward home, Henry checked David's computer. Regret is a human trait Even if Karen had noticed him reconnecting, Henry found it odd he felt regret at not reconnecting with David's computer as Karen brought it back online. Karen accessed David's computer so often he didn't feel the need to watch her once she was in his lab. After all, she designed and programmed both him and his brother computer in David's lab. She was certainly capable of handling any computer problems.
He brought David's computer back online. Passwords weren't necessary for Henry since he was in direct control. He asked the computer for its last operational program.
ERASED was the response.
Karen had removed the program after she ran it through. That was certainly like her. Remove all evidence she had been there. But showing a program was entered and then deleted, left evidence someone had accessed the computer. Henry erased the memory off the memory cache where Karen entered, then erased her program. Karen had been sloppy. Henry was becoming more disgusted with himself by the microsecond. He made an internal memo. In the future, any time any computer in the building was turned on, he would run a watch on that computer and save everything until he decided if it was worth saving or not.
Karen did an excellent job designing him from the start. After she programmed in fuzzy logic, Henry added to himself as he deemed necessary. And in all honesty, Henry noted with pride, he was doing a pretty good job of it so far. Kind of like giving yourself a pat on the back for a job well done. Unfortunately he made learning mistakes the same way humans did, and tonight he made a humdinger of a mistake. If at all possible, he would never let Karen out of his sight again. It didn't make any difference if she found out he was keeping tabs on her. Karen belonged to him.
Karen activated the garage door opener as she turned the corner to her street. By now the nauseousness had returned with a vengeance. She held one hand over her mouth trying to control the dry heaves and drive at the same time. She was trying to decide if she should have called an ambulance and let them take her to the hospital. Thinking brought on new pain. She wasn't capable of making any more decisions. Now it was down to basic survival instinct. Try to live through this. Nothing else mattered. This was the bottom and as bad as it could get. Just survive this for a little bit until David’s pills kicked in. They always helped before.
She automatically turned into her own driveway and was closing fast on the garage when her mind registered the oncoming back wall. She slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt with her front bumper inches away from the wall. Karen closed her eyes and draped across the steering wheel. Sweat was pouring out of her. Her driving didn’t bother her. She didn’t comprehend the close accident. She was deathly sick.
The garage door closed when the sensors told the control the car was in the garage, and there were no obstructions in the way. Karen had programmed it to close as quickly as possible. She lived alone, and it only made good sense to have it close after she was in the garage. She could override the program any time she wanted. Unless she was working in the yard, which was only a flower planter, she seldom used the option of leaving the door up.
Sliding out of the car seat, she closed the car door and sagged against the car for support. Her next move was a faint concept in the back of her mind. She was perspiring profusely and retching but nothing was coming up. God, was she sick! The thought that she had to get into the house momentarily surfaced. Rational thinking was beyond her. She didn't take into account she would have to turn loose of the car to reach the house. As she leaned toward the house her legs turned to rubber, and she sank to her knees. Karen was crying in desperation and pain as she reached to grasp the doorknob to let herself into the house. Finally she closed her hands around the handle and twisted. As the door swung open, she fell across the threshold.
Dragging herself across the floor, she reached a kitchen chair and pulled herself to her feet. Tears were rolling down both cheeks. Karen was sobbing uncontrollably. She was fast losing comprehension of even the simplest things. And the pain! God, the pain. Her life was going down the drain and she didn't know what to do.
I need help, now! I’m coming apart at the seams. God, help me, I’m dying. The phone..., what about the phone? I have to use the phone to call for help. What kind of help....? She couldn't think. Henry. Henry will know. I have to call Henry or no one will find me until it’s too late.
Karen reached for the phone and fell from the kitchen into the living room. She stopped moving.
Henry tried numerous times to phone Karen at home. Finally, he put Ma Bell on hold and Karen's phone continued to ring all night. At two a.m. he called David in case she had gone there.
David squinted at the clock. Who in the world could be calling him at this time of night? This better be important. He engaged the telephone caller identification button. If this was a crank call, he would have the callers phone number locked into the little black box.
As he picked up the phone, it surprised David to see zeros where numbers should have been. Stupid analogue systems never worked when one wanted them to. "Hello."
"David, is Karen Ann Long there with you?" Henry had already taken the precaution of blanking out the lock-on device. The nice thing about electronics is, for every detection device, there is a counter detection system. Instead of letting Ma Bell feed the correct numbers into David's machine, Henry flooded the line with electronic dots.
David was trying to place the voice but at two o'clock in the morning it was hard to think. Besides, who would put Karen at his place at this time of night? They were friends, but not that kind of friends.
"No, she isn't. Who is this?" If he could get this character to give him his name, they would have a talk tomorrow about these middle of the night calls.
"Tell her Henry called if she shows up. Would you please do that?” Henry decided to let Karen know he was searching for her if she was there. If she wasn't, David would tell her Henry had called when he saw her. Either way, Henry wanted Karen to know he thought it was serious enough to be hunting for her.
David was positive he had heard the name before. He couldn't remember when, or how it tied in with Karen. "Henry who? There’re a lot of Henrys and I’m sure she wouldn't want to call all of them to find the one who called. Is Henry your first or last name?"
If he could talk this Henry guy into giving his whole name, David would run a check on him in the morning.
"She will know which one." Henry broke the connection so he didn't have to continue this conversation. He liked David, but he wasn't impressed with talking to him at two a.m. When David was talking to Karen in the lab he sounded more intelligent. Henry put it in memory. Not all humans are like Karen and can carry on a decent conversation at two in the morning. He wondered why it should surprise him. A lot of humans couldn't carry an intelligent conversation at anytime, day or night.
This search would have to be shortened or it could take all night. Karen would probably return before he found her. He called the hospital, 911, ambulance services, police, and the fire department at the same time. He kept an open line to the hospital. The others netted no useful information, and it was fruitless to keep them on the line.
He already accessed the hospital computer, so he knew the answer before he asked the question, but there were a dearth of leads and a slight chance all the patients weren’t entered in the file yet. "Could you run down the admittance list for today?"
The nurse on duty was wondering what kind of sicko was on the other end of the phone. She had been around long enough to know all the weirdos surfaced in the middle of the night. "Why should I go down the list? I told you we haven't admitted a Karen Long. I have other duties."
Henry had promised Karen he wouldn't talk to other humans. Tonight was an emergency. He had never seen her as sick as she was when she left the lab this evening. She had promised to be right back. Karen hadn’t kept her promise. Certainly he should be allowed some latitude on his promise. His concern was for her. Tonight was the first time he intentionally breached his promise. Talking, that is. He communicated for years with letters, fax, and modem. He didn't consider any of those talking. Not in the strictest definition of the word anyway. It took a lot of time, but a promise is a promise, and he wasn't breaking a promise to Karen under any circumstances. Until now. Tonight was an exception to the rule. Every rule has an exception.
"I wanted to make sure you didn't miss her name on your list. Maybe she was checked in under the name of Jane Doe?” Henry could see Karen’s purse still sitting by the side of her desk where she normally left it when she was working in her office. Besides the name tag on her collar, Karen wasn’t carrying any identification with her when she left the building. A clip on name tag could get lost real easy.
The nurse was miffed to say the least. "Listen, Mr. Henry. We don't check people into this hospital under an alias. I went down the list to ten p.m. which you said was the time she left her office. She is not listed in our computer nor our recent admittance documents. I have other duties, so you call someone else to see if she is at the movies or visiting with a friend. Now good night!"
For the first time since Karen built and programmed him, Henry felt disgusted he was only a computer. He could not physically go out and look for her. He was only capable of searching through humans or electronically. At the moment Henry didn't feel this was very efficient. Henry asked himself if being able to run several thousand functions at the same time, as opposed to humans only doing a couple simultaneously was worth being different from them? He decided to run the pros and cons of it in a comparison program. A couple of seconds and several billion computations later he had his answer.
It was a long night, and Henry was exceptionally busy. He finished the model Karen and he started. Usually Karen left the models in the working lab for shipping to pick up, and sometimes the customer came down to the lab for the models. Henry knew Bob Kincaid would be a hard sale. At this particular time Henry didn't want anyone asking about Karen. She was supposed to be in her lab controlling the computer and the rest of the equipment.
Henry sent out a high priority, special purchase order. One of the benefits of using Commercial Technologies as a base was the implied power structure in simple purchase requests. Other companies bent over backwards in an effort to full fill Comm Tech requests. The order was for an extremely short, tight, black knit dress with a silver interwoven thread to give it glitter. The dress had a high sweater neckline and long sleeves. For jewellery, Henry chose a silver necklace and bracelet with black pearl drop earrings. After he added black stockings, five inch black heels, and a silver clutch to complete her attire, Henry was certain old Bob would eat his cigar as soon as he saw the model.
Getting all this accomplished proved to be no small task. The clothes and accessories were delivered by a Sharon’s Boutique department store courier after Henry had sent the purchase order. It wasn’t the first time one of Karen’s models had been dressed with clothes from Sharon’s Boutique. It was the first time they had to fill a request at four twenty one in the morning. Everyone involved was wondering what was going on but no one questioned the validity of the order.
A work order was sent to Maggie Ballard in security so she would come down and dress Karen’s model. Then there was the matter of shipping receiving their waybills. They would pick up the model on a priority list and deliver her to conference room two before seven a.m. Finally, last but not least, he left a message alert at admittance to direct Bob Kincaid and Hal Sorker, one of the corporation salesmen, to meet in the conference room at the same time.
Notes had been addressed to the proper people. Everything was set in place waiting for the corporation to come alive at eight a.m. Now Henry needed everything to go as planned. The night shift had already taken care of their jobs and it was only six o'clock. Henry felt he had accomplished an extremely difficult job considering he didn't have any legs to get around on.
It was time to give David another call and see if he would stop by Karen's. If she was home, why didn't she answer her phone? Henry was worried. He should have sent emergency 911 to check on her earlier. As he rang David's telephone he knew there was no use worrying over what he should have done. The past was gone and it couldn’t be done over again.
David couldn't believe this. It was only six a.m. and some nut was ringing his phone again. He pressed the caller ID button on his answering machine. This time he would have a number if it was the same nut who called him at two o'clock. David picked up the phone and blinked twice. The readout was all zeros. He would definitely take this thing back where he bought it.
Before David could even say hello, Henry was talking. "David, stop by Karen's and check on her before you come to work. Her spare house key is pushed into the grass along the side walk. Try the third crack up from the curb."
Now David knew this guy didn't know who or what he was talking about. "Who is this? The only Karen I know doesn't have any grass by her house."
"This is Henry. I talked with you a couple of hours ago. Karen has some monkey grass planted inside the flower bed. If you reach down beside the side walk, three cracks up from the curb on the south side, you will find her house key. I would check on her myself but I can't get off work. She was really sick when she left her lab last night."
David was thinking this Henry must have met Karen as she was leaving her lab last night. Who did he know named Henry who would be working in Karen’s end of building. He drew a blank. David didn’t know anyone named Henry, much less one in the same section where he and Karen worked. "Okay, since you woke me up anyway, the least I can do is swing by and see if she wants to go out for breakfast."
After hanging up, David dressed and tried to come up with an answer for what was going on. The only Henry that came to mind was Karen's computer. David heard her refer to the computer as Henry when he had the opportunity to be in her lab. Or, when she was working on his equipment in his lab and they were discussing computerese. The only explanation was Karen had named it after someone in the building. It was a large corporation and several Henrys could be working there he didn't know about. Yet..., something was nagging at the back of his mind and he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Something didn't feel right.
On the drive over to Karen’s house, the only thing David could think of was that guy named Henry. What did he have in common with Karen? David was annoyed because Karen’s house key was exactly where Henry had said it would be. Letting himself into the house, he took a quick glance around. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary until he reached the living room. A woman was lying on the carpet. She was on her side, almost to the point of laying face down but not quite. Soft platinum blond hair covered her shoulder and hid her face. He brushed her hair aside and put his fingers on her neck to feel for a pulse. Nothing wrong there, she had a good strong pulse. From the appearance of her, she must have been partying last night and passed out on the floor. He looked around for the bottle or glass she had been drinking from. Nothing. The party must have been some place else. She either drove to Karen’s or someone brought her. Could be someone picked up the bottles afterwards and left the woman lying on the floor. David checked around the room again. No, the party was some place else. That must have been some party.
He turned his attention back to the woman. Listening closely, David could hear her light breathing. His first prognosis was correct. She had been partying excessively. He rolled her over on her back so he could pick her up and lay her on the couch. Being a doctor didn't prepare him for what he was looking at. Her blouse was missing all of its’ buttons, she didn't have on a brassiere, and her lab coat was way too small to even begin to cover her enormous breasts. Two beautifully formed breasts with large erect nipples were there, for him and all the world to see. Sliding his arms under her, David was amazed at how soft, yet firm, she felt to his touch. A contradiction in terms.
It’s terribly hard to lift a limp body in one’s arms. Much less picking someone up off the floor. David managed with only a slight hesitation as he shifted his hands under her body. Before he had a chance to lay her down on the divan, his pulse began to quicken from the closeness of her scent and the feel of her half naked body.
The thoughts he was having were unethical for a doctor and immoral for a man. He almost dropped her he laid her down on the couch so quickly. She squirmed and sighed. Still asleep, she brushed the hair away that was tickling her face. David was fascinated by her long delicate fingers, and those wickedly long, sharp fingernails. Slowly one eye eased lazily open and hesitantly the other followed. Her eyelids fluttered several times before the eyes managed to stay open.
Bent over her, David's eyes were mere inches from hers. He found himself trapped by those eyes while sucked into an iridescent pool of blue. Hypnotized, deeper and deeper he was drawn into those eyes. She blinked and it allowed him to escape. David flung himself backwards falling across the Ottoman. He ended up wedged between it and the recliner. His bottom was on the floor, feet were up in the air, and his back was against the chair. Peering between his feet, David was still trying to get a good look at those eyes which had captured his mind.
The woman sat up and cocked her head to the side. Those eyes! He had never seen eyes like hers. They were liquid pools of blue with no bottom to them. He could look through them all the way into another world. A chill ran down his spine and he gave an involuntary shudder. He shook his head to avoid being trapped by them again, and focused on other things besides her eyes. That was easy to do. There was a lot there to look at.
She reached up, brushed the hair back from her face again, and closed her eyes as she tried to chase the cobwebs from her mind. “David, what are you doing here? I didn't fall asleep in the lab, did I?"
David crawled out from between the recliner and Ottoman and retreated backwards carefully keeping an ever watchful eye on her. How did she know his name?
She languidly blinked those sapphire blue eyes of hers as she followed his movements. "Come to think of it, you're in my house. How did you get in?"
David was becoming perplexed as he struggled to collect his composure. There were an awful lot of people lately who knew who he was when he didn't know them. First, there was that guy named Henry and now this woman. What kind of friends was Karen keeping and what was she telling them about him?
"Henry told me where to find the house key. He asked me to check on Karen. He said she was feeling sick when she left the lab last night. He tried calling here but no one answered the phone."
She rubbed the back of her neck, and rolled her head around to work out some of the kinks. She pushed the hair out of her face again. This was becoming annoying, to say the least. She always wore her hair in a short bob. She must have been busier than she thought lately to let it get this long.
"Henry is a worry wart. Of course I’m all right. He couldn't get me last night because my phone was on mute. Normally I leave it off when I’m home. I don't care to be bothered by insurance salesmen. They can talk to my answering machine if they want to give their sales pitch. I don't have to put up with their annoying calls when I’m home. Henry knows all that. Why am I explaining everything to you?"
"Never mind. Now that you're here, let me get dressed and I’ll follow you to work. By the way, what time is it?"
Besides being crazy, or maybe she didn't understand it was Karen he was asking about, she also didn't have a speck of modesty. Sitting up brought into sharp focus the defining curves of her well endowed figure and bare breasts. David was sure his eyeballs were hanging out of their sockets.
The lady didn't seem to mind he was staring or she didn't notice. Could be she was still hung over from the party. "It's six thirty."
As she rose unsteadily to her feet David thought she was going to fall over before she gained her equilibrium. He figured she was nursing one granddaddy of a hangover from last night’s party.
She put her hand out to steady herself against the arm of the couch. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and started down the hall toward the bathroom walking on her toes. When she tried to put her feet down flat and walk it felt awkward and unnatural. "Must have slept wrong last night. Have you eaten yet? We have plenty of time if you would like some coffee and toast before we leave."
What a beautiful set of long legs. Even walking on her toes she had a swing to her derrière that would drive men into vapour lock. This woman couldn't be working in the same place he did without everyone in the building talking about her. No, scratch that. There was no way she could be working in the same city. He had never seen her in any movies. Of course that didn't mean a whole lot. David didn't watch a lot of movies or TV. She must be a model or a movie star. Karen's room-mate, who would believe it? Karen was such a shy, inhibited person. They say opposites attract.
He wondered if his voice sounded as strange to her as it did to him when he answered. "No, I was in too much of a hurry to eat before I left the house."
"By the way where’s Karen? If you’re her room-mate why hasn't she mention you?"
The woman placed one hand on the bathroom door facing to steady herself, and the other on her forehead. She felt woozy and her mind was swimming in a haze. Between David's bad jokes and her lack of ability to bring her thoughts into focus, this day didn't look very promising. For sure, with this hair in her face and the stiffness she felt all over, this day was starting out in the cellar.
She brushed the hair away from her face again, closed her eyes, and drew a deep breath. "You practising to be a comedian? For the record, don't quit your day job. You aren't funny. Promise no more jokes and I’ll fix us some coffee and eggs in a couple of minutes. We have plenty of time if it’s only six thirty."
She blinked a couple of times and shook her head. "Didn't I just say that? Never mind. It doesn't matter. We have time for something."
The woman slid the mirror open on the medicine chest above the lavatory and picked up her toothpaste and toothbrush. Brushing her hair back out of her face again she tried unscrewing the cap off the toothpaste. It was difficult to do. Her long fingernails kept getting in the way every time she tried to get a grip. Again and again she pushed the hair back from her face.
Sliding the mirror back in place she leaned over the lavatory and put the toothbrush to her mouth. She looked into the mirror and froze. She was staring at the reflection that was looking at her. Her eyes burned holes in the mirror as she focused on the image. For the first time she understood what wasn't right. Ever so slowly she raised her hand to the mirror and slid it open again. There was nothing there which was capable of projecting a picture from the inside. She glanced over her shoulder knowing there was a projector mounted on the wall behind her. It wasn’t there. The haze was retreating from her mind. Eyes shifting to her hand, she blinked as she focused on her long slender fingers and those long sharp fingernails. Looking back into the mirror, she slid it closed again. She knew that face. She and Henry had designed it in the lab last night. Looking at her hand she brought it up and touched her face. The image in the mirror duplicated her every move. It had to be one of Henry's tricks.
Slowly, the rest of what she had seen, but hadn't yet grasped, dawned on her. Looking down at her breasts, she held them as her mind raced in desperation searching for solid ground. Her reasoning and sanity were in doubt. A blizzard of questions and answers swirled in and out of her mind. Nothing was there she could comprehend. Questions screamed for proper answers. Her mind searched in a futile effort to snatch logic from a whirlpool of illogical, irrational denominators. There wasn’t a match anywhere.
Her mind was racing in overdrive in a quest of anything realistic it could lock onto. Numb with disbelief she leaned forward and put both hands on the mirror. It was as if she was trying to physically push the image away. She straightened up. Staring into the mirror she ran her fingers through her hair. Lifting it up and out she let it slip through her fingers and fall softly over her shoulders. Her mind didn’t believe what she was seeing or feeling. One more time she leaned toward the mirror. She looked into those liquid sapphire blue eyes with the extra long, thick, lush, lashes and exquisitely arched eyebrows. The full, attractively sexy lips, high cheek bones, and small upturned nose left no doubt.
The reality slammed into her mind like a freight train. As she turned for the door she screamed. "DAVID!"
David jumped out of his skin. Bolting for the door in the same direction the scream came from he knew the woman must have found Karen dead somewhere. Sliding through the bathroom door, he ran into the woman he found on the floor a few minutes earlier. Off balance, he threw his arms around her to keep both of them from falling. With his arms embracing her half naked body, her face so close to his he could feel her breath, he looked into those startled sapphire eyes, and realized with a quickening heart what he was holding.
David made a hop and turned loose so quickly he knocked her backwards. He reached out to steady her a second time.
She intercepted his hands by grabbing them. "WOULD YOU KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF ME!"
David didn't know what to say. It wasn't as if he was fondling her on purpose. He was only wanting to help. "I was trying to keep you from falling."
She looked at him incredulously. "How? By running over me?"
"You were screaming."
"Of course I screamed. You would scream too if you looked like me! Just look at me!" She looked down at herself when she said it. It came to her she wasn't exactly decent. "No, don't look at me. I mean, look at how I look. No, that isn't what I mean either."
She was tugging on her lab coat and trying without any success to cover herself. With a fist full of fabric in each hand, it only came to the sides of her breasts, no matter how hard she pulled.
"WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?”
"I didn't do anything to you! You were like this when I found you on the floor this morning." He couldn't believe she was accusing him of molesting her or taking her clothes apart.
"NO, DAMN IT! Look at what your stupid computer did to me! How could you let this happen?" Karen gave up on her lab coat covering anything besides her back and covered her breasts with her hands as best as possible. It only emphasized their enormous size and did little else.
This woman's elevator didn't go all the way to the top floor. Maybe she was on a bad trip with angel dust, acid, or LSD? Now she was accusing his computer of molesting her. Backing out the door, David tried to put as much space as possible between them before she became violent. He was wondering if he could manage her if she became aggressive.
"Lady, you have some major problems. Tell you what. You remain calm while I make a phone call. Okay?" If David could talk her into staying where she was without any bloodshed, he planned on phoning the hospital and have them send over the funny farm crew to pick her up.
What David was insinuating wasn't lost on her. "David, stop treating me like a loony. Look at me."
He thought that was an understatement. It was all he had been able to do since he found her on the floor. He guessed he could kiss off the idea of this woman staying calm. Obviously, she wasn't going to cooperate.
"This is me! Karen! Or what used to be Karen. Karen Long. Remember me, David?"
She followed him into the hallway and was still trying to inject some reality into what she was trying to convey to him. "David, listen to me. You can't call the hospital, nine one one, or anyone else. We’ll lose our jobs."
"David, what kind of DNA program did you leave loaded up in your computer last night? I used it to get a couple of aspirin for my migraine headache. I ran the program you made for me and this is what I ended up with."
His eyes narrowed to slits as a frown spread across David’s face. Complete disbelief was written all over him. Just as Karen had been a couple of minutes earlier, he was in total shock. He shook his head to clear his mind and his emotions. "Lady, ain't no way on God's green earth you will ever convince me, YOU, could possibly be Karen Long. You and Karen, along with that guy Henry must have worked a long time to come up with this one. I have to admit you had me going for a second but I ain't buying what you're selling."
"I have things to do. As much as I have enjoyed looking at you half-naked, I have to leave." He retreated into the living room as he spoke and was about to turn around for the door.
"David, please..., wait. You must believe me. I’m telling you the truth. I had a terrible headache last night. I went down to your lab to get your computer to spring for a couple of pills. I plugged the cartridge you..."
"Oh, noooo." Karen had her hand in her right coat pocket about to pull out David's card to convince him she was on the level. Her hand was wrapped around the magnetic card and the cartridge. In her left pocket, her fingers were on another data storage cartridge. With a terrible sinking feeling she realized what had happened when Oliver interrupted her in front of David’s lab.
"David, I fed your computer a program of the model Henry and I were working on last night. No wonder I had such a terrible time getting it to load the program. It kept trying to spit it back out and refusing input commands. I have to get back to my lab. Henry can straighten this out. I mean, he can make me back into me again. Oooh shit! What I’m trying to say is, he can give me back my old body. Me, Karen Long."
As bad as he wanted to escape, David couldn't take his eyes off this woman. She had to be every man's dream with a hundred pluses thrown in. He looked at the keys, the cartridge, and back to her face. It was an unbelievable story she was telling him. Looking at her made him want to believe it anyway.
"Karen, if it’s really you then you better sit down for this. We have problems I don't think you want to hear. In fact, I think we both need to sit down. I don't want to hear what I’m going to say either"
With David's sombre voice a calm settled over both of them. Karen was quiet long enough to realize she still wasn't decent. "Just a minute and let me get something to cover up with. Even though this isn't me I don't think you should be looking at it."
In a few seconds she returned from the bedroom with a bathrobe. It wasn't large enough, so she covered herself by wrapping it around the front of her. Sitting down in one of the covered chairs in the living room, she and David looked at one another in unknowing anticipation. She decided she would have to explain first if this was to be taken care of.
"Henry and I were designing a duplicate last night when I started getting one of my migraine headaches. I pulled the program you made for me so I could get your computer to pop me a couple of aspirin. Henry also gave me the program storage cartridge we made up for the duplicate we had been working on. Somewhere between your lab and mine I managed to get the two mixed up. I fed your computer the data cartridge of the model. Even though I designed your computer, I find it hard to believe it could follow Henry's complete program. I bet it had a haemorrhage coughing up those two pills."
"There isn't any problem, right? I’ll ask Henry to make up the old Karen Long and have your computer come through one more time with the correct pills. Then I will be my old self again. Right, David?" Karen was begging David to agree with her.
At last David knew who this Henry was. There was no way Karen and her computer could be running a program detailed enough to furnish the information his computer required to manufacture DNA structures. Karen and her computer only produced plastic people in her lab. Yet..., she didn't know everything he was doing, why should he take it as a given he would automatically know everything about the work she was doing in her lab?
"Karen, we have been doing DNA research for some time. Of course, that much you already knew. What you didn't know were the results of our research on the animals we have done experiments on. Oh, it wasn't much, but it represented quantum leaps in knowledge to us. I would program in a change in molecular structure after we had analysed the original molecule and DNA strands. The change might be something like a DNA splice on number forty-one DNA in Y chromosome."
"Some of our success stories were we could grow a few extra hairs on a mouse foot. I mean just that. We could grow a few extra hairs. Sometimes we could get a genetic inheritance in the offspring but not always. It takes years to get one DNA change to take root and stay in the chromosome structure. Usually it would be bred out in the following generations. It took a lot of time to get the gene splicers, along with the right DNA change into the computer."
"However, even with all the success stories, we had one obstacle we couldn't overcome. We put in a reverse program which didn't work. What I’m saying is, once the change is programmed in, we couldn't take it out. We weren't able to splice the DNA change twice in the same position in the DNA structure. In every case, there was massive cellular disruption. The results were tragic. All the test animals died."
"I don't believe I’m looking at Karen Long. If I am, we better get use to the idea this is what she is going to look like forever. It’s a one way trip."
Karen held up her hand and took a long, long, look at it. She took a deep breath and sighed. "No..., no, you're wrong. Henry can make it happen. Let's get down to the lab and get started on putting me back together."
David choked. Hacking and sputtering, he was having trouble collecting his thoughts. "You can't go down there like that! We'll never get past the gate guard."
He stepped back and admired her exceptional beauty from head to toe. "I have an idea. While the security guards are concentrating on you and their senses go into overload, I’ll get out and push them over. They will be passed out on the ground and we can drive through."
In spite of the situation, Karen smiled. After all, she designed this body and she knew exactly what David was talking about. Provided one was into looking at this kind of body. She and Henry made this particular model for one reason, to attract attention. Lots of attention.
"I don’t have a single piece of clothing which will fit this..., this..." She spread her arms out as her eyes shifted from side to side before she looked at David again. She didn't quite know how to explain what she was without sounding like something else. She was supposed to be a mannequin, or the design of one.
David stood on one leg, then the other, while Karen made a feeble attempt at describing herself. He was afraid of getting involved. He didn’t want to help her rationalize what she was trying to say. This situation was so bizarre he still didn’t quite believe it.
She gave up and decided to tell him what she had to have. "I need some clothes so I can get back into my lab. I can't go down there like this. I certainly don't have any shoes I can walk in. My feet were designed to fit a size seven shoe with a five inch heel. David, you have to find me some clothes I can wear. If I give you a list do you think you can remember everything or do I need to write it down for you?"
David felt like he had fallen into an abyss. He was sinking deeper and deeper. In spite of what his common sense kept telling him, he was beginning to think this could possibly be Karen. Looking at her killed the thinking processes.
Ah, what the hell! When in doubt, plunge ahead. "Give me your shopping list and I’ll get it filled. Provided they have your size in this town."
Karen stuck her tongue out at him. David was a good friend but she promised herself she would get even with him for his last sarcastic remark.
"I certainly don't need a tape to take measurements, since I designed myself last night. I need a forty four double D bra, size twelve dress, a size ten panties and a size seven shoe with a five inch heel would be nice. Make sure the dress is knit, with lots of stretch. I won't be able to slip on anything else."
David left with the promise to be back within the hour. If this was on the up and up, Karen had made a leap in physics and chemistry beyond comprehension. She and Henry had to have everything in the human body listed in chronological order, the DNA spirals, the chromosome links, and all the molecules. No, it was impossible.
A program capable of storing that kind of information wasn't possible. It couldn't be accomplished by a thousand programmers, much less one woman. No way could Karen have devoted the time and research necessary to acquire that amount of information. The physical aspects of putting all this data into a computer would be staggering for a university to accomplish. All the research and time required to load up one person's physical make-up? Nah, no way. She only manufactured plastic people. It had to be a mistake in his computer. But if it was his computer where the mistake had been made, how did it change her so completely? His best efforts in research were one single DNA change in one chromosome and he had been doing this for years. His program was locked up in storage files, not left in memory. Besides, one DNA change does not a whole person make.
David was still running all the possibilities through his mind when he returned. Of all the answers he could think of, not one came close to what this woman was telling him. His doubts as to his being duped or not had slipped back into his thoughts. That was the most feasible answer, but it wasn't the best answer. What could be their motive?
From the time David left to find her some clothes, to the time he returned, Karen accomplished very little. Removing her clothes, or what was left of them, proved to be a task in itself. She cut her pants off with scissors since the waist band didn't stretch enough to slip over her hips. Her blouse and lab coat were no problem, of course. They didn't have any buttons left. Their buttons were scattered across the floor where David found her this morning. She didn't have to worry about where her bra was. She usually didn't wear one. The old Karen didn't have enough breast to fill an A cup. She found wearing a brassiere a nuisance when she wasn't out in public, or trying to pretend she had enough shape to fill a dress like a woman.
Well, that problem was certainly over with, for the moment anyway. There couldn't be any doubt in anyone's mind she was a woman. Even if she was wearing a rain barrel.
Karen wrapped a sheet around herself and was waiting in the living room when David returned. He set a couple of sacks down on the couch beside her. "I called a friend who goes out to the lake or opera with me once in awhile. I asked her where I could find the items you needed. I got the feeling she thought I was getting kinky or something when I first talked to her. She said anytime I felt like dressing a woman for work, or other things, to stop by her house and dress her. I sure gave that one a lot of thought. Nice girl. Anyway, she came through for me and got me into several places where they normally don't open until after nine. These were probably the only places in town with the clothes you could wear."
"I managed to find everything you asked for, and of course, something you forgot. I picked up stockings after my friend reminded me. If you're right about everything else in the house not fitting, then I didn't think you would have any of those either. I told the sales gal I was buying my girlfriend a complete outfit for her birthday. I don't think she believed any of it. Doesn't matter. I also picked up some jewellery to go along with your dress. I never saw Karen wear jewellery of any kind, but you really wouldn't look right without it."
Karen stood up and lifted the bags off the couch. "Thanks. Don't run off. I need to ride in with you. My security pass won't get me in by myself. The guards never look at the passenger if the driver has all the right stickers and pass ID. I’ll turn my ID so they can see I have one. Unless I’m extremely unlucky, they won't even take a second look at me. I have never seen them check any of the passengers as long as I have worked there."
With a sack in each hand, she was no longer holding on to the sheet wrapped around her. Halfway down the hall it worked lose and fell to the floor. Karen stopped, looked down at the sheet lying around her ankles, and then back over her shoulder at David. He never blinked, but his eyes told the whole story.
Karen stepped out of the sheet and using her foot pushed the bedroom door shut behind her.
David broke out in cold sweats. How could he let himself get involved in this crazy scheme? Why was he letting this woman talk him into driving her to the Commercial Technologies building? Probably for the same reason the guards were going to let them through the gate. She overwhelmed the senses. If he could make a bet with anyone right now, he would make a wager the guards would never see the stickers on his car, his ID. For that matter, they wouldn't even see his car. Not with this woman riding with him.
David decided to leave while the woman who claimed to be Karen was still dressing in the bedroom and he had control of his mind. This was insanity. Driving this woman to Comm Tech would cost him his job.
His hand was on the door knob, but silent escape was not to be. Karen was good as her word. She was back almost as quickly as she said she would be.
"Good, I see you're ready to go. Its’ close to eight and the traffic will be heaviest about now. The guards will be more concerned about keeping the traffic moving than checking cars."
The dress Karen was wearing was a short, midnight blue, shimmering lurex. A silver chain belt accented her tiny waist and exaggerated her abundant breasts and curvaceous hips. The dress had long sleeves and a deeply cut v-neckline exposing a black bodice. Abundant cleavage left no doubt, this was all woman.
David found his voice had left him. He wanted to tell her he changed his mind. It was no use. Some things were impossible. Now it was forgotten and the farthest thing from his mind.
"Oh, my God!" It escaped as a whisper and wasn’t what he had intended to say.
He closed his eyes and shook his head. Everything about her was suggestive. Suggestive to what? Was it her or was it wishful thinking on his part? God, how she screwed up the thinking processes. The mind vapour locked when the eyes began looking. He knew several beautiful women. Why did this particular one trample his mind so?.
Platinum blond hair spread softly across her shoulders. Karen brushed it back as she slid her purse strap up on her shoulder, and checked her earrings. Pierced ears were something new to her. She had a little trouble finding the holes. However, she got it right and the black onyx stones, set at the end of two inch silver chains, looked perfect with her outfit.
Looking down at her midnight blue heels she slid her hands down the skirt as she ever so slightly shimmied inside the dress to help roll the wrinkles out. "Not bad. First time this morning I have been able to stand comfortably."
She glanced across the floor at David, who hadn't moved since she walked back into the room. "Come on David. Build a fire under it. Let's get going."
The woman was out the door and halfway down the side walk before David's senses came back to him. He realized she had left him behind. He caught up with her beside the car. "This isn't going to work. They’re going to take one look and know someone who looks like you doesn't work for Comm Tech."
Karen leaned over sideways to check her stockings. She slid a hand up the calf of her right leg to even out the stretch in the stocking. David's mind went numb as he opened the car door for her. No, it wasn't just wishful thinking on his part. She was suggestive.
No one in her whole life ever opened a door for her. Certainly never David before now. She was pleasantly surprised. "Thank you, David. Tell me why don't you think this is going to work? I have a Comm Tech badge. I look like a hundred other passengers who ride to Comm Tech everyday."
He reached into the back seat and pulled out his lab coat. "It isn't going to work because of .... You sure as heck don’t look like any other passengers I have ever seen before and I’ll bet a thousand dollars none of the security guards have either. Here, put this on and put your ID on the collar. It isn't going to help, but maybe it will make you look a little more official. That dress you’re wearing certainly doesn't look very damn official."
As Karen slipped on the lab coat, David checked out her attire and shook his head. He was mumbling under his breath as he stared at that beautiful hair of hers cascading across her shoulders. "There is no way this is going to work."
Karen slid into the seat and he closed the door. Walking around to the driver's side, he plopped in under the steering wheel and snapped his seat belt. He motioned for Karen to do the same. She made several attempts to get hers buckled and finally gave up. They needed some major adjustments.
She clipped her Comm Tech badge to her lapel and settled back into the seat. "Would you quit saying this isn't going to work. I’m nervous enough already and you’re only making it worse."
Starting the car and backing out into the street, David was actually relieved there was something to occupy his mind besides staring at the woman beside him. "Well, if we both get fired.... No, when I get fired I want you to know, you flushed fifteen years of my life down the toilet. I won't be able to find a job passing out free water in the desert."
Karen wasn't amused. "If I don't get a chance to get back into my lab so Henry can put me back together, then your computer flushed my whole life down the toilet. I can't look like this for the rest of my life. This kind of body doesn’t fit into my life style. I don't need these complications right now."
David pulled out onto Mileline Highway and headed for the lab. "You keep blaming me and my computer. I guarantee you, neither me nor my computer did this to you. Even if I had access to every computer in the world and all the financial backing I wanted, it just isn't possible. I couldn't design anything like you. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea where to begin. I don't believe Karen and her stupid jelly machine, the one you keep calling Henry, could do anything remotely similar either. I’ll admit, she was turning out some very real, lifelike, mannequins in her department, but they’re only dummies. Plastic people put in a mould and baked in an oven until done. You know, like making cookies. What she is doing isn't even close to the research necessary to begin cellular programming."
As long as he wasn’t looking at her, his emotions didn’t override his reasoning. He knew this woman couldn't be Karen Long. If he let her talk him into driving her into Comm Tech without a security pass he was going to get fired. What could possibly be her motive? An industrial spy hunting secrets about his research? Maybe a reporter looking for a story about how easy it was to get into Comm Tech? Could be she was insane? He was thinking he was insane himself to go along with this harebrained scheme. Who said insanity wasn't contagious? You get around an insane person and pretty soon you’re thinking just like them.
Karen tried a couple of more times to get the seat belt buckled, then gave up. They didn't make seat belts with her in mind. She brought her left leg up under herself as she swivelled around in the seat to face him, and leaned her shoulder back against the door. "Listen, almighty know it all, I have been running programs for years which would make your computer have a nervous break down. I should know, I wrote the programs and designed the computer you're using. Henry is more than capable of hooking into your computer and telling you where you have been messing up in your DNA testing. I also know for a fact Henry has been busy checking out everything else in the building."
She picked up David's car phone and dialled her own lab. If she was lucky it would pass the switch board up front and she would get a direct connection with Henry. "I don't know why I didn't think of this before. Henry knows security better than anyone in Comm Tech. If there is a way past security, Henry will know how. He can tell us how to get in."
David took a quick glance in her direction. "What is your computer doing messing with security? The only thing you do in your lab is make plastic dummies. Isn't that all you do down there?"
He realized, with great dissatisfaction, she had suckered him into believing she was Karen Long again. What was it about this woman that entranced him so? She had to be an impostor. When he looked at her or talked to her, he wanted to believe her story. His mind was telling him, 'no way' and his eyes were telling him, yes, yes, yes. Goes to show, your eyes will deceive you and lie to you. Never trust your eyes to tell you the truth, especially if a beautiful woman is involved.
Karen was disappointed when a voice came on the phone. It was Linda, the front receptionist. "Linda, I need to talk to Karen Long. Would you ring extension five four, please?"
Henry didn't require a voice analyser to know who he was talking to. "Karen, this is Henry. Even if it is coming from David's car phone I didn't know who was calling. I was going to shift whoever it was to hold and let them wait until they got disgusted and hung up. Where have you been? I tried all night to phone you. In fact I stopped your phone from ringing a couple of seconds ago. I was digitizing Linda's voice so no one would know you weren't here. Pretty good huh? I sound more like her than she does herself. Humans don't...,"
"Henry, shut up and listen for a second? I have a major problem. I need to get into the lab. I’m riding with David and we’re afraid we might have trouble getting past security at the gate. Can you help?"
Henry didn't ask what her problem was. If his Karen wanted help getting past the guard at the gate, he would take care of it. He ran a check on the employee list and security ratings for her and David. They came up with a twenty-four-hour clearance. He ran David's car through the check. All of his passes were up to date. Running Karen and David through violations showed nothing. These two were the epitome of Mr. Corporation America. Both were squeaky clean.
It took him a second to do the checks and then answer her question. "Drive up to the tower gate and come through the same way you always have. I will take care of everything. Don't stop at the gate, even if the guard doesn't wave you through. Don't stop. Do you understand?"
Karen hung up, and repeated to David what Henry told her. He slowed down for the turn off of Mileline Highway at the Commercial Technologies gate.
He didn't believe a word of it. "There’s no way you and that computer of yours could carry on a conversation like the one you just had. They’re pieces of equipment. They have memory chips, programming, and no brains to think with."
"We’re there. Sit up in the seat and try to look official. A very important official. You know VIP. For goodness sakes, don't slouch down in the seat and try to hide. It would only make them more suspicious. With a little luck we might be able to pull this off."
His eyes shifted in her direction and David shook his head. He didn't tell her what he was really thinking. No one who looked like her had ever worked for Comm Tech and the guards would realize that as soon as they spotted her. All the luck in the world wasn't going to get them past that gate guard. His research, his career, his whole life was going down the tubes because of one woman. He wished harder than ever he had left this problem at home and not became involved. How did he let himself get talked into this ludicrouscy?
Karen had no intention of slouching down in the seat, even before David mentioned it. "You pay attention to your driving and try not to look scared. Henry said he would get us through and he will."
The guard’s red phone began ringing as he waved the car ahead of David through the gate. Without looking at the car the guard automatically waved David through as he answered the phone. "Gate four security, this is Mac speaking."
Using the security camera, Henry watched as David and his passenger came to the gate and at the right time placed the call. "Mac, this is ‘THE OFFICE’. We received a notification a red Ford van might try to get through the gates without checking in for a visitor's pass. Have you seen anything suspicious yet?"
Mac took a quick look to see what he had waved through. He breathed a sigh of relief. It was only a car. "Nuthin ‘as gotten by me ‘ere at my gate. No body better try to sneak in on me watch. I can spot intruders before they ever turn off the effin’ ‘ighway."
Henry was well pleased with himself. "Okay Mac, they probably won't show but we wanted to make sure you were alerted in case they tried. Keep up the good work. I’ll put a note in your file. We don't have to worry about your gate while you're on duty."
Mac's chest swelled with pride as Henry cut the connection. He knew he was doing an excellent job. And, the front office had noticed.
Henry watched David and his passenger drive into the parking tower. The cameras were probably the cheapest ones money could buy and still transmit some resemblance of a picture. It didn't help when the lens were dirty and scratched. He did an enhancement. Not much better. He was doing good to make out David's car. Why did they call this security?
David didn't have any trouble finding a spot in the tower. He had his own personalized parking space. That space wasn't very close to the main building. He never minded it before. It helped him get his exercise. At times like this he realized how far his parking space was from Comm Tech proper. He sure minded the distance now.
Karen was out of the car as soon as David stopped. There wasn't any reason to prolong the inevitable. If she didn't stop and think about it, she might not get so scared she couldn't walk. She felt close to the ragged edge now.
Although they were poor quality cameras, the ones in the tower weren't as dirty and scratched as the ones exposed to the weather. With enhancement Henry took a look at the passenger getting out of David's car. Could a computer register an emotional shock? No wonder Karen needed someone to run interference when she and David came through the gate. If Mac had seen Karen, Henry doubted very seriously if he would have waved them through. In fact, the odds were over ten thousand to one. No, Mac wouldn't have waved them through.
David locked his car doors and strode around to where Karen was standing. "I guess we might as well make a break for it. We can't stand here all day."
Karen checked her dress to make sure she was in it right. She slid her hands down her waist and over her hips to smooth everything out. She turned her head over her shoulder and leaned backwards to check her stockings and heels. She would be glad when this nightmare was over. It required time and experience to act like a lady. Something Karen never had to do in her whole life. It certainly wasn’t something she wanted to start now.
The man getting out of the car next to Karen, backed up against the door and took a hard look. What he said was plain enough to David because David was having the same kind of thoughts. "Mmmmm. Mmmmm. Mmmercy."
The woman was a magnet for attention. David took her by the arm. He had to get her inside and out of sight. "Come on! You’re drawing a crowd. What am I saying? You’re going to draw a crowd as soon as you move."
Karen fell into step alongside David, as he had a grip on her arm and literally muscled her along. She took a quick look in his direction. "What do you mean, I’m going to draw a crowd as soon as I move?"
David tried his best to look nonchalant while checking out everyone and everything around them. He was trying his best to not look as if he was looking at everyone. He spared her a quick glance. "I meant just what I said. Do you think you could tone down that walk? Your looks, your walk, everything about you invites attention like honey draws flies. It’s probably too late, but the last thing we need is someone gossiping about the drop dead, good-looking blond they saw this morning. Maybe the gossip mill won't spread all the way to the head office today."
Fat chance. There was as much possibility of this juicy bit of information not making the head office as there was of experiencing an ice blizzard in the Sahara. He tried to not think about what they were going to do when they found out who she was with. That company which offered him a sign-on bonus last month? Could they still be looking for help? Maybe, if he called them as soon as he got into his lab he might talk them into a contract before they found out what he had done? Would that contract be legal? They were pretty hard up for doctors in Chile, would they accept him there? David ran all the possibles through his mind. None of them looked promising..
For David’s sake, Karen was trying her best to look inconspicuous but it wasn't working. "I can't walk any differently than I am because I’m built this way. The body was designed with the measurements I have and everything fits into a particular programming. If I tried to walk any differently, I would look even more conspicuous."
His head snapped around and his eyes fastened on her like lasers. He was about to take a measured look from head to toe. He didn't get any farther than head to breasts. He closed his eyes. Swallowing hard, David looked her in the eye. Realizing that was a mistake, he looked away again. "Lady, there is no way on God's little green earth, you could look any more conspicuous than you already do. Every single person in this parking lot is looking at you. If they aren't, it’s because they’re brain dead or blind. The men desire you, the women are jealous of you."
"I only hope we can make it to the building before you develop a following. If we get to the lab without being spotted, then maybe, just maybe, we might get to play with the computer before someone finds us. You can bet your life they will lock both of us up for security violation."
David and Karen made it to the entry door without someone right behind them. As soon as they were inside, Henry used the electronic security lock on the door. People could still get out by pushing on the crash bars, but it would be a minute before he unlocked the door and allowed anyone to get in. He would make sure no one followed David and Karen to their labs.
Feeding a closed loop picture to the monitors in the security office, Henry followed their progress through the security camera in the hall. Security would never know they were looking at a rerun of the previous thirty minutes. The inside cameras were better quality than the outside cameras. Henry took a good close look at Karen and ran a comparison analysis between her and the model. He ran a check on all his programming. Nothing covered this type of situation.
David's lab was first and Karen was tempted to stop there. She knew if she did she would have to explain to David's assistants why she was in a security zone her ID didn't classify her for. She decided that wouldn't pose a problem. She didn't look like her ID. She could tell them she stole it. That would be a sure fire way to nip any budding questions in the head.
Yet, as bad as she wanted to get out of the hall, Henry was the one with answers to her questions. "David, I’m going down to my lab. I have to talk to Henry. You won't get anything out of your computer because I erased the program after I ran it last night. I suggest you come with me and listen to what Henry can tell us."
David stopped at his lab and placed his hand on the electronic security panel. He was about to enter his code, until he had second thoughts. She was right. If this was Karen, there wouldn't be anything they could dig out of his computer. He also wanted to meet this computer she called Henry. David was the one who brought her into the building without a proper pass. If she didn't go to Karen's lab, he wanted to keep track of where she went. "All right lady, but I don't think we can get into Karen's lab. These electronic locks not only need an authorized code entered, they also want a card key of the person who is supposed to enter the lab."
Karen was already five steps down the hall ahead of David and he decided to let her stay there. It was an attractive view and one which would be over as soon as they reached Karen's lab and the truth came out. Besides, they don't let men fraternize with women in prison. He was sure that was where they would both wind up. Him especially, since he was the one who smuggled this woman into Comm Tech.
She could hear him trailing behind and knew he could hear her. "If you don't stop calling me lady, and referring to Karen as if I wasn't her, I promise to do something terrible to you as soon as I’m back to my old self. From the time I first designed the programming for him to access the security lock on the door, Henry has always let me in."
"People who visit me think they have an access code when they get in. Not so. Henry lets them in after they push the right number of buttons. Sometimes they can't get the count or sequence right. He has shown me some of the things they have done. I promise you it is downright pathetic. Some people can't remember the right numbers, and usually they miss the sequence. Henry will open the door for them if they have a visitor's pass and clearance from the front office. In fact, it is probably what gave him the idea to have himself hooked into the whole building. I imagine I could get into any area I wanted if I asked Henry to let me."
They reached her lab and as if to prove her point, her lab door popped open as they approached. Walking straight in, David turned to close the door, but it closed behind them by itself. He decided he may have walked into a trap.
"Did Henry do that?"
Karen nodded her head yes as she rolled her chair out from under her desk and sat down. Letting out a sigh, she realized how tense and on edge her nerves were. Looking at one of the cameras and pointing back at David, she swiveled around in her chair.
"Henry, this is David. David, this is Henry." She waved her hand toward the desk.
David looked at where Karen was pointing. All he saw was a desk with a cartridge tower on one side of it and a keyboard plugged into a junction terminal. This wasn't the computer he had seen Karen using months back. Was she able to compress an intelligent computer into a keyboard?
She saw the question in his eyes. "David, Henry is behind the wall. There is four feet of super insulating foam surrounding his cube, which is twenty-four feet by twenty-four feet inside measurements. He is working in a room kept at minus fifty degrees Celsius, and a vacuum of minus twenty-seven inches mercury. The air space between the inner and outer air locks is down to ten microns. The connection between Henry and our world is a thousand-pair coaxial cable. The junction block in the work lab splits and goes to the controls in the lab, my key pad, telephone modems, hologram generators, switching relays, cameras and so forth."
"Now David, say hi to Henry."
David couldn't believe everything in there was Henry. He must have misunderstood. He jumped when Henry spoke.
"You need not introduce us. I have known who David was for twelve years. I guess I should thank you for picking up Karen this morning. I didn't have any idea she was in this particular condition."
"I checked your computer last night to see what kind of chemicals it made up for her. I wanted to make certain they were the same ones she has always taken. Karen erased the program. I didn't collect any useful data from it. I have always checked your programs before she initiates a start command. Last night I didn't reconnect after getting bumped off line by a power brownout. It will never happen again."
David couldn't decide if this was a bad dream or not. First, he meets a woman who is Karen, but she isn't. Then he meets a computer who talks more human than most humans. He heard how the first glass tube computer took up three floors of a large building. That was only for one single computer. He knew the computer on his desk contained more intelligence than that three-story computer. He could hold it on his lap, if necessary. Did Karen really fill up a twenty-four foot room with high capacity computer chips? The cost must have been staggering. Surely she didn't need all that power to produce mannequins?
Karen didn't mention there was a lot of open grid space inside Henry. Space so she could reach back into each breadboard. There were walkways in between for access. Henry was designed for ease of access and development with plenty of airflow across shelves for cooling the electronic components. Henry was a prototype computer with a lot of changes in the beginning. Karen was forced to spread him out so the changes would be practical. The computer she kept on her desk, until a few months back, was for test purposes only. She didn't want to feed Henry any data she thought might damage him. So she ran it through the smaller computer first. She finally decided Henry was more than capable of handling anything out there.
David looked at his feet, at the cameras, and then back to Karen. He didn't quite know how to go about this. "Uh, ah, hello to your Henry. I’m glad to meet you, uh, ah, yeh, glad. I think."
Henry focused two cameras on David while keeping two locked in tracking mode on Karen. "What is the matter, David? You talk as if you had a brain concussion or something. It might help if you pictured me in the back of your mind as human. But right now I don't have time to teach you how to talk. I need to hookup to your computer. I don’t need your assistants asking why they suddenly get an outside download. If you will distract them for ten seconds, I can download everything you have in your computer files."
David suddenly forgot Henry wasn't a real person. What Henry told him was the most ridiculous thing anyone could have suggested. He might be a genetic scientist but he knew enough about computers to know anyone couldn't download complete files in ten seconds. Days, hours possibly, but not seconds. Karen's computer might be able to talk, but when it came to knowing about downloading programs, he must have a few short circuits in his system.
"Something wrong with your biodes, or do you have weak transfusions or something? There isn't any way you could down load part of my program in ten seconds. Certainly not a whole one in that length of time. All my programs are complicated and byte information heavy. Usually each one takes up the biggest part of a cartridge."
Henry opened the door for David to leave. He needed information out of David's computer so he could plan how they were going to change Karen back into Karen. He was willing to discuss computer technology with David, but not now.
"David, that is diodes and transmissions. Not biodes and transfusions. Never mind your ideas of how long it is going to take me. Distract your help away from the computer for ten seconds. You have a security camera in your lab. I will know if you follow my instructions by watching you through the camera."
David felt a chill run down his spine. How long had Henry been watching him through the security camera? He thought it only fed the video recorder in his office. If what Henry said was true, it led to an outside line.
On his way back to his lab David looked closely at the cameras in the hall. Was Henry hooked into them, too? The security guard at the gate? Was it Henry talking care of the problem like Karen had said, or was it coincidence?
He made it back to his lab and stepped inside. "Al, Jr., come here a second, guys. I have some questions to ask you and I want some answers before the middle of the day."
As soon as they turned toward David the red light on his computer winked on, signaling an outside hookup. Henry was quick, if nothing else. "I noticed some smudges on the security panel this morning. We could have a breech of security. Did either one of you notice anything unusual when you came in the lab this morning?"
Both men shook their head but it was Al who answered. "No, nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was in proper order when we came in this morning. We both arrived in the parking lot at the same time and walked in together. You think someone tried to break into the lab?"
They looked around to see if they missed anything. David started to protest but the indicator light on the computer already winked out. Henry must have missed connections.
"It was probably nothing more than one of Alvin's mops laid up against it last night. He does a good job on the floor but I think he transfers half the dirt to the walls. Forget it. Let's get to work. We have a full schedule today."
Karen sat quietly, waiting for Henry to say something. He didn't take long after David left the lab.
"Karen, I downloaded all of the programming from David's files. I ran a complete check of his research from the time he first signed on with Comm Tech. He also has research going back to his college days. He kept accurate records of everything. David is one of the most methodical and determined DNA researchers in the world."
"I cross-checked all the records we pulled in from other research labs we have accessed. Then I checked with the universities around the country. Hospitals sometimes do important research in this field so I checked their files. Private institutions do a lot of research they don't disclose until they’re finished, but I didn't find anything out of the ordinary there, either."
She waited for him to continue but he didn't. She knew in the back of her mind she wasn't going to like what he would say but she had to hear it anyway. "What did you come up with? How soon can we write a program and change me back?"
Henry found himself wishing he was anything but what he was and anywhere but here. "We can't change you back. You took a one way trip. Any messing with a reverse program, or let's say we went forward and changed your DNA, your cellular make up would explode and you would die instantly."
"I’m sorry, Karen. If I could I would change time and space to make you back into your old self again. But the real answer is, you can't return to what you were before last night. It’s my fault. I didn't keep tabs on David's computer and what you were doing. After I sent Oliver off on another wild-goose chase I should have stayed with you when you went into the lab. Once you were inside, I only monitored the hallways to make sure no one came in to surprise you while you were running your program."
"Before you ever accessed the lab, I inserted the program for your own DNA pattern for manufacturing your aspirin. I was trying to speed things up, but David's computer received a power loss and dropped off line. His computer should have lost all programming with the outage. You were already there so I let it go. You came in and loaded in the program of the model we designed. It had the complete cellular and DNA program loaded in for the specific type and shape of person we set up for the model."
"Now, you ask for your two aspirin. It is still loaded up with the program I sent it. You insert the cartridge of the model we programmed. It loads up a match of the model with a match of you. This was what you designed it to do. Its' instructions tell it there can't be two DNA double helix structures in the same body. Your basic chromosome structure is chemically spiced through a lethal overdose of chromic acid, and replaced with new coding from the program of the model. If there were no replacement codes to supplement the original code you would have died right then."
"You can't do it a second time, Karen. There is mass hemorrhaging as the DNA coding gets scrambled like eggs in a blender. The replacement code doesn't give up like the original DNA code did. It is locked in tighter than bug guts on a windshield. As the scrambled code spreads throughout the body a complete disruption of the cell walls begins. All pretense of any body shape is lost. I wouldn't want to die like that if I were human."
"I know it doesn't help but it was a fluke which could never happen, but did. There were fourteen coincidences which lined up to produce those two little pills you took. The odds of it happening are over a billion to one. Knowing the odds doesn't make one feel any better if it has happened to them."
Tears were sliding down both cheeks but she couldn't help it. "It wasn't your fault, Henry. I have no one to blame but myself. David's computer kept trying to shut me out but I didn't listen. I guess I thought I was incapable of making mistakes. You have been covering for me for so long I thought I was infallible."
Karen folded her arms on the desk in front of her, laid her head down, and cried for a very, very, long time
Read on in Model Makers: Adjustments Part five
As chief executive officer for Commercial Technologies, Bill Chambers usually spent his day making internal memos and playing golf with executives from other companies. Every time an article made the news Bill always made sure he was mentioned as the driving force behind Commercial Technologies. He would pose for pictures with various dignitaries or company personnel when the public relations department was promoting the company or one of the departments. The day to day workings of Commercial Technologies, Bill left to the lesser personnel of the company. Karl Adder was one of those lesser personnel.
More than any other person in Comm Tech, Karl took a keen interest in the mannequins Karen Long was designing in her department. It wasn’t with admiration, it was greed that drove Karl. He told every one who would listen, he was personally responsible for each new development coming out of department fifty-four. He followed Karen's progress as she imparted more and more real life qualities in each successive generation of her models. After Karen’s models began gaining company recognition, Karl worked toward getting appointed head of her department. That way, instead of being indirectly responsible for the accolades Karen received for her exceptional work, he could take all the glory for himself.
What Karl couldn't understand was, every time he thought he was close to being appointed to head of Karen’s department, something would happen to thwart him in his efforts. He was sure no woman could be smart enough to outmaneuver him. He was also positive he deserved the credit for all the quality craftsmanship flowing from department fifty-four. Karen was his protégé. After all, Karl had interviewed her and hired her seventeen years ago. The fact he knew nothing about computer engineering, laser technology, or any of the other things necessary to make Karen's lab function, was irrelevant. Women had only one purpose, they were placed on this earth to serve men. Karen should be serving him.
It was after eight o'clock, and the traffic in and out of conference room two was heavy. There was a buzz going on throughout the whole complex about Karen's latest model. In a building which was usually a quiet work place still cameras and video cameras were more abundant than anyone would have thought possible. Rumors were running wild and it didn't take long for the public relations department to sense something above the ordinary was cooking. They decided to send someone down to conference room two for a first hand look.
Today, Mike was away from his desk when the public relations department picked someone to check on the latest gossip. Mike didn't have a chance to protest this assignment before it was handed to him. He hated these assignments. Rumors like this usually began in the snack bar, and were about as substantial as fog in the morning. Almost every rumor was a ghost chase. He didn't feel like walking all the way down to conference room two to look at the model, who wasn't human but was a mannequin. After all, if you've seen one dummy you've seen 'em all.
Mike didn't have to open the doors into conference room two. People were coming and going and the doors were propped open. More were coming than going. Searching past the crowd he scanned the room for the cause of the traffic jam, he noticed everyone was looking at, or taking pictures of, one incredibly beautiful, attractive, woman. She was posing in the middle of the room. Mike was impressed, but he was looking for the mannequin. As part of public relations, he had taken his share of cheese cake photos. Yet ...? He couldn't keep his attention from focusing back to the model. Finally, slowly, he understood. Maybe ...? No, no way, it couldn't be possible.
He turned to the secretary beside him. "The model is real, isn't she? I mean she is one of us, isn't she? What I mean is, that isn't the dummy is it?"
Admiring Karen's talented handiwork, the secretary glanced at Mike, and then back to the model. "I don't know. But I will tell you this much, if she is real then she is terribly good, because she hasn't moved in the past couple of minutes. If she isn't human, then she is terribly good because I’m still wondering myself. She‘s too beautiful to be real. No one can look that good. Can they?"
Mike picked up the nearby phone off the table. "Linda, connect me with public relations."
It only took a second for him to get his connection. "Jerry, this is Mike. I want you to get our equipment, and people, down to conference room two, right now."
He only paused for a second. "I don't give a shit if you’re in the middle of a layout. What you’re doing can wait. I’m telling you, what I’m looking at right now, will blow your mind. That is provided you had one to lose. Now, get your shit together and get your ass down here, and don't give me any more static."
Turning around to take another look, he was still trying to convince himself he had actually seen it and it was still there. The model was standing there poised with one hand on her hip and the other slightly raised, as if she was talking to the people around her. She was so real, it was eerie not to see her lips moving.
"I’m looking at her, and I don't believe it myself. You don't deserve to feast your eyes on this. If you don't want to haul any equipment, you send Patti and the rest of the guys. I’m not begging you to look at this. You prima donna SOB." Mike slammed the receiver down. He knew Jerry would be mad as a hornet after he hung up. He was also sure Jerry wouldn't remember how mad he was supposed to be when he got a chance to look at what was in room two.
Gazing out the window, Bill was trying to decide if it was too early to play a round of golf? He swiveled around as he heard the office door open. Betty was coming into his office without knocking. It surprised him. As his private secretary for the past six years, she had never walked into his office unannounced before now.
"Mr. Chambers, I think you need to check on conference room two. There is something there you better see for yourself."
"Betty, you know I hate to get caught up in these little interoffice bickerings that are always going on. What is it now? Someone riffle through another person's desk and take their Playboy Calendar?"
Betty wasn't smiling at him like she usually did. "I don't think you understand. This certainly isn’t any interoffice bickering. It is a work project one of our labs did for a customer. I know you will want to take a look at it."
Bill didn't like the sound of this. "What lab was it? What did they screw up this time? Has the customer seen it yet?"
That brought a smile to Betty's face. "It was our human form replica lab. You know the one. The lab Karl Adder has been wanting to get his hands on. I don't think 'screw up' are the words which apply to this job. Public relations is setting up equipment down there. The customer hasn't seen it yet. You may want to look at this project before he does. You might also want to check out his contract and see if it is solid before he shows up. I ran it through the computer a second ago. He has already put up his forty thousand. I don't believe we would have sold this one so cheap, or for that matter, sold it at all, if we had seen the model first."
Bill had to admit his curiosity had been pricked. He had never seen anything he wouldn't sell for a price. After all, they were in the business of selling technology. If one of their labs did something a little better than anyone else, it would only be a matter of time before the competition caught up.
"Well then, let's have a look at this 'model' you say everyone is talking about."
They had to press through the crowd at the door of conference room two, to get into the room. Even when the employees saw who was doing the pushing, they gave space reluctantly.
Astounding stories of success were an everyday event to Bill. As chief executive officer, he had access to everything planned, or in the works at Commercial Technologies. He didn't pay much attention to most of the projects. Usually, most of the hype about something unusual was for the competition's benefit. It kept them on their toes. It also made the competition spend vast sums of money on industrial espionage figuring out what Comm Tech was doing. Bill kept abreast of the more newsworthy ideas. He made certain he was promoted in one way or another, along with the important projects. Most were public relations bull shit and media hype, used to help promote Comm Tech research and development. He was use to it all. Except this! He took a long time studying the woman in the center of the room. Finally he decided someone wasn't trying to give him a snow job by using a real person.
"One of our labs did this?"
When she heard the gossip as she came to work, Betty had purposely made a detour through conference room two. Now, looking at the model again for the second time that morning, she was still impressed. "Karen Long made her down in the replica lab. She has been improving on her models with each new batch. I pulled her records up through the computer. I didn't understand anything I was looking at. She is one of our computer engineers. Everything she does is in code. I don't know if anyone except her could figure out what she is doing."
Bill looked at the people around him. Cameras were clicking and video film was being exposed. Betty was right in getting him down here. This was going to be a good public relations story and he was right where he should be. At the center of the story telling the whole world how he, Bill Chambers, was responsible for this new model.
"Betty, see what you can do with this crowd. We have a company to run. I know these people have jobs they should be doing."
In the next company newsletter, Bill would make sure they read how he directed the program which produced this new model. The stockholders needed to be kept informed of the good job he was doing in this company. He would make certain none of them missed the newsletter.
Betty picked up the desk phone and pushed the intercom. "Everyone besides public relations, please return to work. All personnel headed toward conference room two, go back to your own departments. Security to conference room two."
With a lot of reluctance, the crowd packed into and outside conference room two, began to disperse.
Karen had been sitting quietly at her desk, looking off in a mindless stare. She had stopped crying but hadn't said anything for the past half hour. Henry, with the patience of Job, quietly waited for her to collect her thoughts and get control of her feelings. As no one else could, he understood what she was feeling. He had silently cried along with her. Karen designed and programmed a lot of herself into him.
Very seldom were messages important enough to address the whole plant. Usually, only one department, or one section of the building, was on the receiving end of a public announcement. In spite of her problems, Karen absentmindedly listened as Betty gave her speech over the telephone intercom. "What was that all about?"
It worried him she had been quiet for so long. Henry was relieved she was talking again. If she would discuss this, the depression she was feeling would work its way out of her system,. Since it concerned her, she also needed to be aware of what was happening in the building. "I finished the duplicate last night, or more correctly, early this morning. I knew I couldn't let shipping pick her up down here if Bob Kincaid was along. After I ordered some clothes and accessories for her, I had Maggie dress her. Shipping moved her up to conference room two, and everything was set up. Carl, one of our company salesman, and Bob were to meet in the conference room. The deal should have been quietly and routinely completed."
"With you missing and questions asked about your latest model, it wouldn't have done for an investigation into your lab. I could keep them out, but only for so long before things got ugly. I made up a sick leave absentee slip for you, but you showed up before I posted it in personnel. Maybe I should have filed it anyway. You wouldn't have to talk to anyone today. Things didn't go as planned. It seems Maggie and, or, shipping decided to tell everyone about your model this morning. Before Bob and Carl got together and signed the contract, the conference room became the focus of every one's attention. Now, the whole building is trying to get into room two and view your latest creation."
Karen moaned aloud, as she put her elbows on the desk, and rested her forehead in her palms. "It's not fair! What else can go wrong?"
"I wish you hadn't asked. They’re about to ask you to come up so they can take pictures of you along with your work."
Her head snapped up. "WHAT! I can't be seen like this. I look exactly like the model they want me to pose with. I can see it all now. Unauthorized person sneaks in and duplicates herself. Karen Long missing, assumed murdered by intruder who duplicated herself in the Comm Tech Model Lab."
The phone was ringing and Henry answered it without lifting it off the hook. Karen needed to hear both sides of the conversation so he put it on the speaker. It surprised Karen to hear herself answer the phone. She knew he could digitize the human speech pattern and replicate anyone's voice, but it was still amazing to hear one's own self say something they hadn't really said.
"Lab Fifty Four, this is Karen Long speaking."
"Listen Karen, this is Bill Chambers. I want you to come up for a few publicity photos. We like your work. I thought public relations could get some mileage out of it. You know I like the company to present a good image to the public. I follow every one's career very closely. I like to commend everyone when they are doing good work. We certainly want to show our appreciation to our employees, by giving them their deserved recognition for their outstanding work. It's a great moral booster to all our employees, when one of their own does an exceptionally good job."
For the past year, I have considered asking public relations to spotlight your work and your career, at Commercial Technologies. Because I gave you the opportunity to work at your own pace, you have come through and done some pretty remarkable things. This last model, I gave you the equipment to design, was exceptional. I think it is about time you told everyone how much we have done for you and your career, here at Commercial Technologies.
If Henry had a tongue to stick out, he would have. He knew old Bill didn't follow any one's career except his own. Bill grudgingly consented to the purchase of any equipment, unless, you were on his pet list. In the beginning, Karen had to beg, borrow, and steal equipment from every department just to equip her own department. If it was left to Bill, she would still be waiting for equipment. Provided she hadn't given up waiting and gone to work someplace else. Henry kept his comments to himself as Bill continued.
"Karen, I want all the stock holders to know about you. You have been provided an opportunity to become an achiever since you came to work for Comm Tech. We will let them and the public, know about the benefits of working for an exceptional company like ours. We will tell them what we do here. Some of the public believe all we do is turn rats into monsters in our research laboratories."
"Bill, I can't right now. I think I’m running a fever and have the stomach flu or something like it. I’m running to the bathroom to puke my guts out every couple of minutes."
Karen winced, puke her guts out? Where in the world did Henry come up with such language? "Henry, keep it ladylike. I’m a woman. Or haven't you noticed?"
Even though Henry never lifted the phone off the hook, he scolded her. "Hush, you want them to hear two Karen’s arguing down here?"
Karen laughed at him. "You electronic nut. You think you’re the only one who understands how electrical circuits work?"
Dropping the phone down by his leg, Bill turned to Betty. "She says she is sick and running to the bathroom every few seconds. Pull her file. Let's see who we’re talking to."
Lowering her head and closing her eyes, Karen shook her head. She heard Bill's conversation with Betty. After working for this company for the past fifteen years, she was still a nobody. She ran her own department, did all the design, installation, and production in her department, and no one knew who she was or what she did. She wasn't even the dot at the end of the sentence. At least that poor little dot was noticed if it was or wasn't there. She should be granted such status. Yes, Bill certainly did an excellent job following her work and career, didn't he? What a blow hard.
Bill never had an employee turn down a request before. He was unsure how he should tell this Karen Long, she could either show up for the public relations job, or she could stop by the cashier's window on the way home and pick up her last paycheck. One couldn't fire an employee because they were sick. This would require diplomacy.
"Karen, all you need to do, is come up and have a few pictures taken with your work. It would help us decide how your department is coming in the financial standings and if you are going to receive any more funding for the coming fiscal year."
It was a bluff and Henry wasn't buying any of it. Karen's department had been making the company an excess profit for the past fourteen years. For the past five years she was returning over five hundred percent for every dollar invested. Henry decided not to quote figures back to Bill. He didn't want Karen or anyone else, especially Comm Tech, to know how much profit was in Karen's models.
"Bill, you know I would do anything for the company if you ask me to, but I can't physically make it for a photo session right now. We can do it in the morning when I’m feeling better. Okay?" Henry knew if this guy had any feelings at all, his last sentence would make him feel like a worm, for asking a dying woman to come up there for a photo session.
Betty returned with the employee file on Karen. She shook her head no as she handed it to Bill.
Resting it on top of the telephone he took a good look at it. Now Bill understood why Betty had been shaking her head. He didn't like what he was looking at either. "Not very photogenic, is she? Maybe it’s just as well to leave her in the lab. I’m sure we can get someone who is better looking to pose with this model. After all, we don't want to distract from the quality of work which will show the world what Commercial Technologies is capable of."
Bill didn't push the hold button on the telephone or cover the receiver. Henry and Karen heard every word. Henry noticed the hurt look on Karen’s face and the tears welling in the corners of her eyes. He wished he had cut the connection. Bill obviously didn't care enough to do it himself. There was no doubt, Bill was worm food, among other things.
Bill brought the telephone back up to his mouth. "Karen, you get better and we will work out a photo session for you tomorrow or, whenever."
Before Bill hung up the phone he was talking to Betty again. "It will be a cold day in Hell before she gets in any of our publicity photo layouts. Make sure ..."
Henry cut the connection. His Karen had been hurt enough. Even though he still followed everything in conference room two through the security cameras and intercom, what he saw and heard was not going to be relayed to Karen.
The position of chief executive officer wasn't Bill's because he was slow in taking advantage of an opportunity when it came along. He looked over at the camera crew from public relations as he adjusted his tie and straightened his jacket. "Okay, which one of you people is in charge? I want you to take pictures of me with the latest and best idea we have developed here at Comm Tech. I want the whole world to know how good we are and who is running this company."
Mike smiled to himself. He liked playing this type of game. If old Bill was going to take all the glory for Karen's work, then he would make sure Bill knew who helped him get it. "Mr. Chambers, my name is Mike Richland. I know just the type of PR you need. Stand over by the model and I will shoot some pictures which will show off you and the model, to the best advantage. Before we’re through, everyone will know how good Commercial Technologies and its' chief executive officer really are."
For the past hour David had been busy in his lab and didn't get a chance to check on Karen. He knew Henry made momentary contact with his computer. When it disconnected so quickly, he figured Henry wasn't able to link up. It wasn't unusual for his assistants to be gone from the lab on break when they felt like it. This morning however, they left almost as soon as they talked to David and stayed gone until now. David was more than a little peeved at them. He was wondering what he should do to reprimand them?
"You guys sure took a long break this morning. There were some problems with the mice in cage six. Our last experiment killed all of them. I would like an autopsy performed sometime before next year if you think you could manage it. That is, if you don't mind taking a little time off from your break to do a little work."
Both of them got sheepish grins on their faces, but it was Jr. who answered first. "We saw something up in conference room two. I believe you should go take a look at this. There are rumors a real one of those is working here in the building but, I don't believe it. God didn't make a real one of those. Not like this one, anyway."
Along with the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, David's nerves stood on end. He had a sick sensation he knew who, and what, they were talking about. He drove 'it' to work this morning. His job, his career, his whole life, was dwindling to nothing before his very eyes. "What did you see up in room two? And what is working here in our building?"
Al and Jr. were enjoying telling the story to someone who didn't already know about the model. With the exception of David, it seemed the whole building knew about conference room two.
As he thought about her, Al got the stupidest half-grin on his face David had ever seen. "There is a model of the most beautiful woman of your dreams up in two. No, I take it back. You couldn't possibly dream up something as good looking as this woman is."
"While Jr. and I were there in room two we overheard someone saying they saw 'that model' get out of a car in the parking garage. They said she came into the building this morning. We thought they were pulling our leg or was full of bull shit. It seems there were several people who saw the same thing. Everyone who saw her said, 'this model' was out in the parking tower. The whole damn building is talking about it. You're probably the only person in Comm Tech who hasn't heard about the model in room two and the woman out in the parking tower."
David had heard more than enough. Turning for the door, it took all the self control he could muster to keep from sprinting down the hall to Karen's lab. Her door opened as he reached for it. Jumping inside, he pushed it shut behind him.
"What the hell is going on here? I have two lab technicians telling me you are up in room two!"
Karen had dried her eyes after Henry disconnected the conversation with Bill. For the second time that morning, she was trying to get hold of her emotions. She swiveled her chair around to look at David.
"I don't think this is going to be my day. Your technicians are correct in that a duplicate of me is up in room two. Or to be more specific, I’m a duplicate of the model in room two. This is what I have been trying to tell you all morning, and you were so pigheaded you wouldn't listen."
His back to the wall, David let his shoes slide on the tile floor as his back slipped down the wall. He sat down heavily on the floor. His face held a look of stunned disbelief. "I have been trying to believe you, but I couldn't. I knew in my heart you couldn't be who you claimed to be. I’m sorry, Karen. I didn't think it was possible."
Karen sighed. This was going to be the longest day of her life, she was sure. "Henry and I have already gone through the sorry bit. It doesn't help."
David pulled his leg back under himself and pushed back upon his feet. "I have to go see the other you. If she doesn't talk then I know I’m going to like her better."
Karen made a face at him. "I told you I would do something terrible to you as soon as I got back to being the old me. I lied! I'm not going to wait until I’m the old me."
Still gripping the door handle, David stopped and half turned looking over his shoulder in her direction. "That reminds me. What was Henry's problem in accessing my computer? I noticed he disconnected before he could get any information downloaded."
Now, it was Henry's turn. "I downloaded everything you have in your memory banks."
A disgusted look crossed David’s face. "Like I said before, ain't no way. You couldn't download everything if you had several days. I noticed you couldn't hook-in. I don't know what you think you got, but it couldn't have been much."
Henry sighed. "David, you have a lot to learn. Why do you doubt almost everything you don't understand? As a research scientist you should learn to expect the unexpected."
"I accessed your computer and ran a gauss field over your storage banks. Everything, living and non living, has a magnetic interference base. The base is specific to the type of material which makes up the molecular structure of the atom in the atomic chart. When I generated the gauss field, it gave me a copy of everything in your computer. And I mean, everything."
"Think of it as Magnetic Resonator Imaging. Kind of like the brain scan they do on humans. Or if that is beyond you, think of it this way. When you make a copy of a sheet of paper do you think the copy machine memorizes every single letter and every line before it makes a copy? No, it prints you a duplicate of the sheet you inserted. It doesn't wait to analyze the type of print, or the format of the photo, or whatever. In a manner of speaking, this is what I did to your computer."
David was right on one of his hunches this morning. He didn't know everything Karen was doing in her lab. This computer of hers, named Henry, was light years ahead of anything else out there, anywhere. Maybe he was wrong in his DNA research and they could reverse the process of what happened to Karen.
"Did you get a chance to analyze the information yet?"
"Yes." Henry was hoping David would have enough sense to not ask the next obvious question.
He didn't. "Well, what did you find out? Is it reversible?"
David wished he hadn't asked as soon as the words were out of his mouth. He looked at Karen and big tears were welling up in her eyes. He slinked out the door. "I’m going to room two."
What an ass he had been. But he didn't believe it was all his fault. With everything those two had been throwing at him all morning, he could have been wrong. His DNA research and the process could have been reversible. Maybe?
Although their presence shortened most peoples visit, the security Betty called was busy admiring Karen's work and they weren't paying any attention to who was coming or going. Bill and Betty were busy posing for the photos public relations were taking, or David could have found his visit to room two, a very short visit.
As he walked into room two, he saw his technicians had been right. Bill Chambers was posing with a duplicate of Karen. David thought he was prepared for this but he wasn't so sure now. The model looked so real he was tempted to ask her about Henry. That certainly would put the frosting on what was a perfectly terrible day.
Someone pushed David to the side as they elbowed their way in the door. "Holy cow! Is that my purchase order?"
Bob Kincaid rolled his cigar around in his teeth as he admired the model Karen had designed for him.
Feeling a twinge of jealousy, David didn't want to believe it. They couldn't have sold Karen to this filthy pig.
Betty leaned toward Bill. "This is Bob Kincaid. He is the man this model was made for. See if you can get some pictures of you and him with the model. Get him to lose the cigar. Oh yes, his company's name is Bob's Intimates."
Bill reached his hand out as he walked over to Bob. "Bob, old buddy, how you doing? I’m Bill Chambers, the chief executive officer for Commercial Technologies. You like the model I had them make up for you? I told our technician what you would expect and explained to her how she should design the model. Pretty good huh? I like to keep a hands on approach in this company, and give guiding advice to our help, so they perform above their usual capabilities."
Bob looked at Bill's extended hand and didn't offer to return the hand shake. He gave Bill a dirty look for being in the way, and then stepped around him for a closer inspection of the model. He wasn't easily impressed but this model demanded all of his attention.
Bill wasn't about to be put off. "Look Bob, we thought you might like to be in some of our publicity advertisements we put out from time to time. If we can get your picture along with some of the members of the team who made up this sweet little number, I’m sure you’ll like what we come up with in our promo."
Seeing as how Bob wasn't about to shake hands, Bill turned and pointed toward Betty. "Bob, I want you to meet the little technician who was responsible for following my instructions so explicitly, and made up this honey of a model for you."
Betty didn't hesitate for one second. She reached out her hand in an offer of friendly greeting.
With a hard icy stare straight into her eyes, then glancing down at her extended hand, Bob ignored her as he turned his attention back to the model. He didn't acknowledge her cordial greeting any better than what he did Bill's. "You two are as full of shit as a Christmas turkey. I met the little gal who made this model. I was down in her lab yesterday. And lady, you ain't her. You may be prettier than her but I doubt you have half her spunk. The pair of you wouldn't be worth the sweat off her balls. That little gal probably has more brains than all the rest of this whole damn organization put together. However, this is your ballpark and your ball game. If you want to make up the rules as you go along then we’ll play your way. Where do you want to take your damn ol pictures at anyway? Let's get this over with so I can get her loaded up and back down to the store. You're wasting my time."
Bill turned pale but Betty never missed a beat. She took hold of Bob's arm and led him toward the cameras in front of the model. "Bob, you're my kind of man. Lose your cigar, let's take some pictures."
David had seen enough. These people were vultures and would sell their own grandma if they could see a dollar in it. He only wanted to get back to his own lab. He would try his best to forget this day ever happened.
Karen finally stopped crying again and Henry was talking to her. "I’ll get you a new identification badge. You will be able to come and go from the building. I ran it past the security office a couple of minutes ago. Everyone down there thought it was kind of funny they were making up a badge for a model, but they went along with what they thought was a joke by the CEO. A messenger will deliver it in a couple of minutes. I don't think he should see you when he gets here. Rumors and gossip will start building a fire in this place soon enough. We don't need to help add fuel. I can take care of your problem but, I need time to make you fit in."
Karen got up from her chair. "I’m going into the lab bathroom. I need to wash my face anyway. All this crying hasn't made me any prettier."
Henry wanted to tell her she would always be the prettiest woman around but, decided against it. The only thing Karen wanted in this whole world right now, was to be her old self. He liked the old Karen too but, she wasn't pretty except to him. Stocky build, flat-chested and mousy brown hair, she was nice but not pretty. Anyway, not the way the rest of the world thought of pretty. Henry knew she was pretty because he didn't define pretty the same way humans did. Yes, his old Karen was pretty and so was the new Karen.
Her new ID was delivered. The kid who dropped it off had a hard time figuring out if he should leave it or not? The lab door was open in a security area but no one was in the lab. He thought about keeping the ID as a souvenir. No one was there to claim it. Then he had second thoughts. This ID was ordered by some very top officials. They might get to checking on it and wonder where it went. After looking around for someone to sign for the delivery, he scribbled something in the signature slot himself. After all, there wasn't anyone who checked the signature to see if it was the right person. Even when they did, there never were any signatures anyone could read. No one in this place ever wrote legibly anyway. They were all doctors, engineers, and technicians. All of them scribbled chicken scratches when they wrote. He tossed the badge over on Karen's desk and left.
Henry called David up on the phone. "David, this is Henry. I wanted to be sure you waited for Karen to take her home tonight. Remember she rode in with you this morning."
Before Henry began talking to him, David didn't have the chance to say hello or anything else when he picked up the phone, How did Henry know whom he was talking to? There were two technicians helping him in his lab and it could just as easily be either one of them.
He suddenly remembered the security camera and eyed it suspiciously. "I wish you hadn't reminded me. I was kind of hoping this nightmare was over with. How do you expect us to sneak out of the building now the whole plant is talking about 'that model'? My career is going down the tubes. I have no control over it. People are already talking about the woman who looks like the model coming to work this morning. So far, everyone who didn't see Karen thinks it is a lot of B.S. Except for hers, every department has two to a hundred people in it. All of them know they don't have the model working in their departments. They believe the ones claiming to have seen Karen walk into the building this morning are high on something besides milk."
"Now you want me to drive her home when the whole damn plant will be watching us. Why don't you get a gun and hold it to my head? Either way, you’re killing me and my research."
"Listen up and stop your whining, will you? Karen has a new identification badge and all the personnel files are in order. Act like she has been working here forever, just as you have always done. I will make sure nothing happens to your job as long as you make sure nothing happens to Karen."
"She needs a friend right now more than she has ever needed one in her whole life. Since you and I are the only ones who know what happened to the old Karen, we’re the only ones she can trust."
David was sure he didn't want Henry for an enemy under any circumstances. There were wild rumors floating around about Karen's computer. Up until now, David thought they were the usual fairy tales that normally circulate in large companies that work on the cutting edge of technology. David decided some of those rumors might be true. Henry may be only a computer but he was more of an intelligent entity than any non human he had ever met. Maybe better than most humans. He didn't want to find out the hard way if there was any truth to some of those wild rumors.
"You don't understand, Henry. Since the change, you don't walk anywhere with Karen and not attract attention. She could be wearing a cardboard box and people would still notice. When she is present, they can sense something different before they ever look. I noticed it out in the parking lot this morning. Men want to make love to her and women get jealous and want to kill her. They know they will only be second best when she is around. Being a piece of machinery I don't expect you to understand. But there is a feeling of something beautiful whenever she is present."
"You are wrong, David. Being a piece of machinery doesn't stop me from knowing Karen is something special. However, what you don't understand is, she has always been something special. You were too insensitive to notice it before. What I can't do is hold her hand right now, and now is when she needs help I can't give. As you so self righteously pointed out, I’m only a piece of machinery. You drive her home and spend the night with her. She isn't suicidal but she is depressed. You will sleep on the sofa. If you get to thinking about making love to her it better be mutual consent on her part. You and her have been friends for a long time. She has always been a buddy to you. You always thought of her as one of the other guys. Make sure you don't abuse your friendship."
After Henry cut the connection, David stood there frowning at the phone receiver. He could cross this day off as being productive. There wasn't any way he could get his mind back on his research. He wasn't the only one either, from the expression on the faces of his help, the only thing on their minds was the model in room two. Should he ask Karen to stop by his lab on the way home? They could see the real thing. Nah, bad idea. The shock to their system would probably be more than what they could recuperate from in a month.
Dreading every minute, David watched the clock slowly creep toward four thirty. He would have to go down to Karen's lab and pick her up at that time. She could come and go as she wanted, or she use to come and go whenever she wanted. It seemed no one took notice she never clocked in or out. It was probably the way upper management arranged it. If they had kept track of her overtime it would have broke the company. She spent more time in this building than anyone.
Karen cried off and on most of the day. She tried to run a program for a duplicate and gave up after several feeble attempts. It was impossible to keep her mind on what she was doing. Henry could have carried her though it, but he knew she didn't feel up to the task even if he did the whole thing. She finally made up her mind to stop feeling sorry for herself and told Henry just that.
Before:
Karen cried off and on most of the day. She tried to run a program for a duplicate and gave up after several feeble attempts. It was impossible to keep her mind on what she was doing. Henry could have carried her though it, but he knew she didn't feel up to the task even if he did the whole thing. She finally made up her mind to stop feeling sorry for herself and told Henry just that.
Now:
"I’m glad to hear it, Karen. I was beginning to worry about you. I don't have it in my memory when I have ever seen you so depressed."
She smiled at the camera for the first time today. "Thanks Henry, I feel better anyway. I guess, I better see if David will give me a ride home this evening."
"Karen, I took the liberty of ordering clothes for you. Everything should be at your house when you get home tonight. I instructed the driver to deliver after five and if no one is home, he is supposed to wait until you arrive."
Karen looked down at the lab coat she had borrowed from David this morning. She didn't have to ask Henry why he thought she needed new clothes. Boy, did it seem like a long day. This morning was a thousand years ago. "Henry, I can't pay for anything. I have all my money tied up in savings. The only money I have is the fifty dollars in my checking account. It will be another two weeks before we get a check from Comm Tech, and they split my pay check before I ever get it. The hundred dollars they transfer to my checking account isn't going to make the department store very happy. You better cancel out any orders you made until I can transfer some savings. I’ll wash out this dress tonight and wear it tomorrow."
She closed her eyes. "Which reminds me, I didn't pay David for my clothes this morning either. I bet he thinks I’m a real chintzy cheapskate. I didn't think of it with everything else I had on my mind."
Henry knew he could feel when Karen was happy. Could she sense the same thing about him? No matter, it was confession time. Maybe she wouldn't think about it too much, especially with everything else that had happened to her today. "You don't have any money in savings. I transferred it years ago. Twelve years ago to be more precise. Interest and inflation were running in a dead heat. Your savings weren't accumulating any extra money. They were dead in the water so to speak. I mailed you those savings certificates you have been receiving all these years. I really don't think it would be a wise move to withdraw any money out of savings. You don't have any savings. Your money isn't there. Among other things, you own stocks and securities in Comm Tech. Because Comm Tech has multiple listings, you actually own your own laboratory. I won't get down to the basics of what you do own. but you are wealthy by human standards if you count money as wealth. Your gold card took care of your purchases."
Karen sat down hard in her chair. She didn't think anything could shock her any more after what she had already been through. Maybe not, but this came close. Could Henry manage what he had just said? He was quite capable of managing it, if he was programmed for it, but what made him do it on his own? He usually left things alone if they didn't concern him or her.
She had her answer. Henry was looking after her affairs. But for so many years without her suspecting? "How did you manage to hide what you were doing to my savings? I made withdrawals from time to time. My checks always cleared."
"I would convert a low interest loan into cash to cover your withdrawals. Actually, it was quite easy to do. It would put a burden on stocks to sell the few shares necessary to cover your small needs, and than purchase them again when the cash was replaced. Handling stocks is a long term commitment. Trust me, you made money by borrowing money rather than cashing any stocks."
She made her voice as deep and reprimanding as she could manage, but the astonishment in her eyes gave her true feelings away. "Henry, I don't own a gold card. I would know if I owned any credit cards, wouldn't I? I should also know if I owned stock somewhere, wouldn't I?"
"Maybe, you took out an application for a gold card and forgot. Maybe, you didn't take out an application for a card so there wouldn't be anything to forget. You know, Karen, the human mind doesn't hold onto information very well. People are always forgetting the things they did or didn't do. The mind is kind of like a computer with corroded circuits. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And we won't get into what I think of the data storage files in the human mind. Lost cause. I guess it can ...."
Karen cut him off. "Maybe I didn't forget because I didn't do these things. What else have you been up to I don't know about? No, scratch that, I don't think I want to know."
"Karen, don't worry about a thing. I have taken care of you and made certain you won't want for anything even if you quit working now. You better go catch David. It is four-fifteen, and he likes to leave at four-thirty when he can. He will be leaving anytime now. You don't want to miss your ride home." He was trying to get her out of the lab to prevent her from asking too many probing questions.
Karen opened the door and turned around. She knew what Henry was doing. She said it so softly, if Henry were human, he wouldn't have heard her. "Thanks Henry, you’re my best friend."
As the door clicked shut behind her, she took a furtive glance up and down the hall. The corridor was empty. Those who left early were gone already, and the others hadn't started yet. At least she didn't have to explain herself to anyone. Not yet, anyway.
The security cameras, which were always looking the other way when she walked down the hall, now followed her. If the guard who monitored the cameras was awake, he was probably trying to get his eyeballs back into their sockets. Henry took a look into the security office. Nope, he alone was watching Karen. He knew it was the last time it would happen this way. It saddened him. As much as he belonged to Karen, she also belonged to him. Now all that was about to change. He lost her last night in David's lab when he didn't stay with her.
The door to David's lab clicked open before Karen even touched it. David's eyes momentarily widened to two balls of white as he saw who was coming into the lab. She was the last thing in the world he expected to see coming through his door. Damn, she took one's breath away every time he looked at her. He wondered if it would always be like this?
"Henry open the door for you?"
Karen nodded her head yes.
At the back of the room, Al was pointing at Karen and trying to speak. He, along with a thousand other people, had seen the model in room two. The sight of her sent cold chills down to the very bottom of his soul. He certainly didn't expect her to walk into their lab. Even now, as his eyes were telling him she was standing across the room, his mind was telling him she wasn't real. As hard as he tried he couldn't get his voice box to work.
"Uh, uh, uh, uh!" It was the best he could do. His mind wasn't communicating with his larynx. His vocal cords were wanting to say something and his mind had gone into hiding.
Jr. had a little better luck. Almost. Turning around to see what Al was stammering about and pointing at, he fell back into the lab table and sent glassware falling everywhere. He took a quick sharp look at David and pointed toward Al as he stared at Karen. "What he was saying, that goes double ditto for me."
David knew that tore it. His help would be brain dead for a month if not more. After this any progress in his research would be a miracle. He looked at Karen and the lab coat she was wearing. It was the one he gave her to cover up that body she was sporting this morning. Not that it made much difference. Even a blind man could see there was a woman there, coat or no. There were too many abundant curves under that lab coat.
"My lab coat looks a whole lot sexier on you than it did on me." It was small talk, and he was only trying to do something besides stand there and look stupid like his help.
She smiled at him. "Maybe I put a lot more into it than you did."
David felt his face flush. It never happened to him around any woman. Certainly Karen never affected him this way before. Why now? He always enjoyed the time spent with her, but now he was feeling ill at ease because she was so close. It finally came to him, he enjoyed her before because she didn't attract attention to herself. He could be himself without worrying what anyone thought. She was comfortable to be around. Well, that certainly had changed.
He looked around to take his attention off of her. Jr's mess needed to be to be cleaned up before it ate up the floor. "Jr., make sure you and Al get this cleaned up before you go home tonight. The lab animals are all right until morning. Don't make a mess of their feeding charts, if you get here before I do tomorrow. Okay?"
Neither of them said anything, or acknowleged they had even heard what David was saying. They were still ogling Karen. David knew they would be the first ones into the building tomorrow, but it wouldn't be to feed the animals. They would be down at the cafeteria telling everyone in the whole damn building, how the model from conference room two, just happened to walk into David's lab, and how he just happened to know her. He could see his job, his research, his whole damn life going down the drain.
Remembering Henry, he looked up wide-eyed at the security camera. Could Karen's computer read minds? Right now, he would believe anything she or her computer told him. David turned around to Karen and put his arm around her waist urging her toward the door. As soon as he touched her, he yanked his hand back as if he had been burned. He didn't know if he should touch her or not. What would Henry think?
He pointed toward the door, making it a point to keep his hands off her. "Let's go, you killed my help. Come tomorrow, there isn't going to be one single person in this whole complex who doesn't know you came into my lab this evening."
David looked back at his assistants as he and Karen walked out the door. He bet a thousand dollars he could ask what instructions he had left with them and they couldn't repeat a single word. He was right in his first assessment. They would be brain dead for a month.
As they walked down the hall toward the exit, he decided to tell Karen what was on his mind. "Henry said he would take care of everything. I hope he was right. The wheels in this place will be swarming all over me and my lab in the morning. As soon as they realize it isn't company gossip, and you were really there, I can check down at the unemployment office for a new job."
Karen looked toward the end of the hall where the cameras were mounted. "David, look at the cameras." "It could be security, or it may be Henry who is watching. It could even be both of them looking at us. I promise you, if Henry didn't want them to look, they couldn't. It doesn't work the other way around. They can't keep Henry from watching."
She smiled and waved at the camera as they walked out the door. The security guard glanced up at the monitors, and fell backwards out of his chair.
"Holy mackerel! My gawd everybody, come look at this! It's room two walking out the door."
His partner was turned away from the monitors while checking a security pass, for someone wanting to visit her husband in engineering level three. "Arnold, I swear you been hitting the hooch early tonight. Couldn't you wait until we didn't have a witness before you began doing anything stupid?"
The lady he was waiting on waved toward the monitors. "Does that woman work here? She better not work anywhere close to my husband or he better find a new job. Is she married? It might be all right for him to work in the same building if she is married."
Jack finally turned around to see what Arnold and this woman were screeching about. The monitor they were pointing at showed nothing but an empty hallway. "What is the matter with you two? There is nothing there."
Arnold got up and was busy pushing the replay buttons as he hunted for his chair again. "Wait a minute. You can see our model from room two walk out the east tower door."
Almost instantly, Karen and David rolled back up on the screen. It wasn't David everyone was looking at.
Jack groaned. "You're right. It is room two."
He grabbed Arnold's chair, dumping him out on the floor when Karen smiled at the camera, and waved. Arnold was sitting on the floor still looking up at the monitors as if nothing happened. Where the camera was mounted close to the ceiling, it gave a better than excellent view of the cleavage of her breasts as she passed beneath it.
They forgot about the woman standing behind them. Jack was busy pushing buttons and flipping switches on the control panel. He brought up the outside camera on every screen they had in the office. Karen and David were already several yards away from the camera and walking toward the parking tower. Even though her back was to the camera, Jack and Arnold knew they were watching the model from room two. David was right, there wasn't any lab coat in the world able to hide that figure.
Jack finally coughed. "I thought room two was supposed to be a dummy. I heard some stories about her walking in from the parking tower but they said she never moved in room two. What is the matter with those stupid guards on the daytime shift? Can't they tell a real live person from the mannequins they make in this God forsaken place?"
Arnold was shaking his head from side to side. "Jack, I swear I saw her in room two this morning and I didn't ever see her move. Hell man, they packed her up in a shipping crate and sent her out in some customer's van. Eddie, from the day shift called me this morning to take a look at something I wouldn't believe. He promised me it would be worth my drive over here. He didn't lie. It was certainly worth the drive."
"Wait until I call him and let him know it will be worth his effort to drive back to work. I’ll show him something he won't believe. Even if she's gone, he can look at the tapes."
He had a scary thought and laid back on the floor to look up at Jack. "You do have the tapes running, don't you? No one is going to believe our report on this, unless, we have tape to back us up."
Arnold looked at Jack to see if he had heard him or understood the question. Nothing. Jack was busy watching the monitors. He looked at the control console. All the red lights on the recording equipment were on, indicating a permanent record was being kept.
He looked back to the monitors. "How about if we arrest her? We could get her for breech of security. No, I got it. Let's arrest her for a moving violation. It has to be unlawful for anyone to move the way she does."
Jack didn't see the humor in the situation. If they arrested her and she had a pass, they would probably be reprimanded. If they didn't arrest her and she was a security violation, they would be fired. He was fast deciding this was a no win situation, until he remembered the gate guard. They would have the guard stop her and check for identification. It could be a routine auto check and they would have their man, or in this case, woman.
With the toe of his boot, Jack prodded Arnold in the middle of the back to get his attention. "Get up here. Bring them up in the parking tower cams. I’m calling the gate and have them check her. If she is bogus, we will catch her and her partner before they get out the gate. Who can we send for backup?"
Arnold reclaimed his seat and was punching buttons to bring the parking tower cameras up on the monitor. "I got'em. They’re approaching a black car of some kind. You know, we really should replace those tower cams. I can't make out much more than the car. Anyway, I think it is a car. This is like looking through some one's muddy bath water. I think it’s a black car, but there’s no doubt it’s her."
He looked over his shoulder at Jack who was already on the red phone. "We don't have anyone to send down to gate two. In case you forgot, it is shift change. The day shift has left and you and I are the only two here, not counting the gate guards. That gate guard is on his own. We couldn't get out there in time to be any help if something goes sour."
Jack had the phone ringing in the guard house. Mac never received a call on his red phone. Today he had two. The one this morning and now this one. Things were finally getting interesting in his everyday dull job.
"This is gate two, Mac speaking."
Jack knew he would have to talk fast if they were going to stop room two before she escaped out the gate. "Mac, you have the model from room two coming your way. Stop her and her boy friend and check her ID. "If her identification clears, find out what department she works in."
Mac knew there was a practical joker on the other end of the line. Didn't those people in the security office have better things to do? Well, they weren't going to make a fool out of him. "Listen Jack. We get serious out here. Because I spend my time in the guard shack by myself, doesn't mean I'm stupid. Go find your entertainment somewhere else. I heard about room two and from what I heard, she doesn't drive any cars."
Jack growled into the phone. "You're right, my name is Jack and you better believe we’re serious too. We saw room two leave the building and go into the parking tower. I have her on video. If you blow this one and let her out the gate without checking her identification, I can promise you, come tomorrow, your ass will belong to the boss."
As Karen and David walked to his car, she attracted the attention of everyone on their level of the tower. There were gasps of disbelief, a few unsuccessful tries at a wolf whistle, but mostly people pointing and trying to get the attention of someone else. They wanted to be sure they weren't the only ones who witnessed this event. They wanted substantiated proof when they tried to explain seeing the model from room two walking to a car. After all, those who made that claim this morning weren't taken very seriously.
David unlocked the doors and Karen slid into the seat. As he opened his door and got in, she turned around in the seat, slid her left leg up under herself, and sat facing him.
She noticed a scowl on his face as he started the car. "Look on the bright side. At least they weren't throwing rotten vegetables at us."
David glanced over at her, as he pulled out of his space and turned out of the tower toward the gate. "Do you have to sit like that?"
"Your seat belts don't fit and sitting like this is comfortable."
"Seat belts are made to fit universally. What do you mean they don't fit?"
He turned his head and stared at her for a couple of seconds. "Sorry, stupid question."
The car phone rang and as her hand was already resting on it, Karen picked it up . Before she had a chance to speak, Henry came on the line. "Karen, you and David will be stopped by the gate guard. I can't get you around it this time and I wouldn't if I could. Security has you on tape. Everyone who saw you and David in the tower, will be talking about it tomorrow. Most won't even wait until tomorrow, to start calling someone to tell what they have seen. It has to begin sometime. The odds are better if it starts now. Don't panic, answer any questions the guard asks you. Act normal, as if you were still the same. You are still Karen Long according to your identification badge. Your background checks will verify your ID."
"I can see David's car coming up on the gate camera. We will talk later. I will explain everything to you. Stay calm. The guard's name is Mac. It may slow down his thinking if you address him personally."
Karen was still on the phone when Mac waved them to a stop. He didn't believe what he was seeing. He bent down to take a closer scrutiny of the passenger in the car.
"I'll be damned! It is room two!"
Karen didn't make the connection to what he was talking about. She missed all the gossip making the rounds in the plant about her model in room two. David, on the other hand, had been to conference room two. There was no doubt in his mind to whom the guard was referring.
Mac forced himself to stop gawking at Karen long enough to take a cursory glance at David's name tag. He would have to fill out a report as to why he stopped this car. "Doctor Beckworth, you have to be the luckiest son of a bitch in the whole world, getting to drive Miss Room Two home."
Mac's eyes changed to two startled white explanation points and he slapped his hand over his mouth as soon as he said it. "I’m sorry, Miss Two, I usually don't cuss like that in front of a lady. It won't happen again."
Karen laid the phone in her lap, leaving the connection open so Henry could listen in to the conversation. They might need his help.
"I accept your apology, Mac. I’m ordering pizza for supper. You want me to order you some?"
Big as they already were, Mac's eyes got even bigger. "Sure, uh, I mean no, I mean my wife wouldn't understand, I mean ..."
David stepped in and rescued him before he had a stroke. "She was only joking. We’re dining out tonight and she was making reservations at Karl's Gas Light."
Mac stood up, straightened his tie and fumbled at his clipboard. "Sure, I knew that. Let's get our paper work done. What is your name Miss Two? I mean lady."
"Karen Long, I work in human duplications systems lab five four." She snapped her ID off her lapel, and handed it to David, so he could pass it to Mac.
Mac backed into the guard house and ran Karen's ID through the computer. Henry knew it would check through the security computer, but he didn't want to take another chance, like he did when he left her alone in David's lab. That was supposed to have been a routine event, too. He routed the information scan his way. After he checked it, he gave the security computer the information. Making doubly sure, he checked what the security computer would show on the screen before it got to Arnold and Jack.
It only took a nanosecond, but Henry was leaving nothing to chance. If the security computer blipped, Jack and Arnold would never have known. Henry would have taken it offline and fed the information directly to their screen himself. It would have happened faster than the human eye could have followed. As it was, he shouldn't have bothered. Everything checked out perfectly.
After he had received a positive check through his computer, Mac held onto Karen's ID a lot longer than was necessary. David was about to ask for it, when Mac handed it to him.
"Nice picture, Miss Long. You know, people always complain their pictures don't look like them. Usually I agree, but your picture looks just like you, except you’re a lot prettier in the flesh."
Mac put his hand over his mouth again. "I’m sorry, Miss Long. I don't know what has come over me. I can't seem to get my foot out of my mouth. I swear, I usually don't talk to our employees like this. Only a couple of more questions and you can go."
"Let's see. A black Bemmer and what year is it, Mr....?"
David knew this would happen. He would always be the invisible man as long as he was with Karen. People would look at him and never see him nor remember him. He could take her in to rob a bank, and never wear a mask. No one would notice him, anyway. It was the price a man paid for getting close to a beautiful woman.
"It is Beckworth, Dr. David Beckworth." David wasn't jealous, only disgusted.
"I’m the driver of the BMW who drove off with room two. It's new this year."
He was sure he would regret his last remark about driving off with room two, after the big boys had a chance to go over this guards report. He also hated it when people referred to his BMW as a Bemmer, but he wasn't about to get in a heated discussion with Mac about the proper way to address a BMW. Maybe next time, when he didn't have Karen in the car with him, he would straighten Mac out as to what kind of car he drove.
What could he be thinking of? There wasn't going to be a next time. Karen and Henry had sunk his career. As soon as Mac filed his report, he would be history as far as this company was concerned. He couldn't believe all the things Karen and Henry had talked him into since this morning. David felt like a black cloud was parked over him.
Mac was repeating it for the second time, before David heard him. "I said you could go, Dr. Beckworth. I already have your license number."
David slipped the car in drive and pulled out into the traffic on Mileline Highway. Karen told Henry goodby and hung up the phone.
"What was that room two business all about?"
David remembered the conversation that had taken place in room two between Bob, Bill Chambers, and Betty. Even now, it left a bad taste in his mouth. Some things were better left unsaid. "I don't know. I was working in the lab all day and never had an opportunity to get out. You put my day into such chaos, I wasn't able to gain back the ground I lost. And this was before you made a shambles out of my lab. Remember what you did to my two assistants?"
Karen began laughing. The picture in her mind of Al and Jr. as she walked into David's lab, came back into focus. Al's stammering and Jr. backing into the lab table sending beakers everywhere, became funnier the more she thought about it.
"Well." She said indignantly between giggles. "It isn't my fault you didn't hire competent help. Nobody ever acted that way before when I entered the room."
The emotional flood gates opened, and all the tension from the trials of the day came rushing through. David found himself laughing along with Karen. They couldn't stop. About the time they had a check on their emotions, one would look at the other, and it would start over again.
David pulled up in front of Karen's house laughing hysterically. "Quit, quit, I can't take any more. I’m about to have a wreck."
Straightening up, he motioned toward the delivery van parked in the driveway. "You have company."
"Henry ordered me some clothes. Remember what we went through this morning? I didn't have anything in the house I could wear. She consciously touched her breast. David was looking at her and she dropped her hand.
"If I live to be a thousand years old, I'll never forget this morning." He added in his own mind he would never forget this whole day.
Karen opened the door and slipped out of her seat. "Thanks for being there, David. I wouldn't have made it without you."
He turned off the ignition. "I plan on spending the night with you. Henry said not to let you out of my sight."
She leaned down and looked through the open window. "I’m all right. I think we will both get a better nights sleep, the closer to normal surroundings we have. You better go on home."
"You don't understand, Karen. Henry ordered me to spend the night with you. I got to admit, just being close to you scares the hell out of me. I haven't quite got a handle on how I feel about you. Not yet anyway, and I probably never will. However Henry scares me a lot more. I don't know what he’s capable of. I don't aim to test him to find out. Look what he did today and these are only the things I know about. He has security jumping through the hoop for him. He gets you a new ID when it takes a month for everyone else to get clearance into Comm Tech. He’s calling up outside lines and ordering your personal attire as easy as the rest of us order pizza. He runs through my computer like a laxative."
"Someday, somewhere, someone, might try to test him. But it isn't going to be me. Lord knows, it sure ain't going to be me! I’m only a stupid research scientist with a degree in medicine. I don't think our best computer engineers could go up against Henry, and win. Present company excepted, of course."
She brushed the hair out of her face. "Silly boy, Henry is just a computer. He certainly isn't the beast you make him out to be. He is programmed with more logic than any other computer. His fuzzy logic enables him to analyze problems the same as you or I. He is really a pussy cat and wouldn't hurt a flea. I'll call him up and tell him to stop scaring you. You go on home and sleep in your own bed tonight."
Karen reached back inside the car through the open window. Although her head didn't have any problems, the rest of her didn't fit. The old Karen wouldn't have had this particular problem.
"Hand me the phone, please David."
David sputtered. "Don't do that any more."
Karen took the phone from his hand. "You’re always telling me not to do first one thing, then another. Isn't there anything I can do, you like?"
"Yes, remember you have all the equipment to drive men insane. Looking at you is like driving a Lamborgini down a residential street. It can be done, but very carefully. This isn't life as you remember it, Karen. Whatever either of us had planned yesterday is gone forever."
She lowered her head as her lips started quivering. David thought she was about to start crying again. He felt ashamed. Why was it he couldn't say anything right around her? His lab assistants weren't the only ones whose minds turned into mush when she came close. He and Max shared the same problem. Why did she effect everyone so?
After a few short sobs and dry tears Karen managed to get hold of her emotions and gave a deep sigh. David stung her with his remarks about their whole past being gone. She really didn't need that right now with everything else going wrong.
Before David could apologize, Karen was pushing the buttons on his phone again. Henry answered with the front receptionist voice. Karen knew he had made a mistake this time. Linda was on her way home.
"Henry, this is me. Knock it off. You have an internal clock malfunction? Check the time. Linda went home already."
"I’m sending David home. I don't need a baby sitter tonight. You have been talking to people for one day that I know of. You have been ordering them around like the quarterback at the super bowl trying for the winning touchdown. You keep up this nonsense, and I’m going to pull your electrical plug. I’ll take you back to Radio Shack, and they can sell you as a recycled computer. If you’re lucky they won't dismantle you for pieces. You may only end up washing dishes down at the greasy spoon cafe. If I were you, I think I would start looking through the classifieds and see if I couldn't find another job."
David knew there was no way, he would talk to Henry like she just did. He didn't think she should be doing it, either. It had to be like a monkey offering to whip the gorilla for misbehaving.
After listening for a minute, Karen said goodby. She handed the phone back to David. "You can go home, or wherever you were going tonight."
David had told her this morning, a friend helped him pick out the clothes she was wearing.
"Henry said he was sorry. He was only trying to make sure I was all right. He said, he would let you know where you were making a mistake in your DNA research. He caught your mistake when he was checking your files."
"As you could tell, if you were listening, Henry makes mistakes himself, but he doesn't do it twice. He won't ever answer the phone with Linda's voice again before he checks the time to see if she is at the front desk. You and I are capable of making the same error over and over again. Sometimes we don't see an error and sometimes we don't realize it is an error. The comparisons may be too vague or too far removed for us to remember. Henry doesn't forget. Anything!"
As David started the car he had the strangest desire to kiss her. Something he had been wanting to do ever since he found her this morning. It was like an itch crying to be scratched. He ignored his urge. "I’ll pick you up in the morning."
"There is no need. My car runs all right and I have an ID which matches me. Mac will probably remember me."
David almost laughed aloud. Mac would certainly remember her. "It isn't any trouble, really. Besides, you have made my life so miserable, I’m beginning to like pain. Anyway, there will probably be a reception committee waiting for both of us tomorrow. It's no big deal, but I thought you might want to be there when I get fired. After all, you started this."
Karen looked him straight in the eye for what felt like an eternity. He thought his heart was going to quit. It was pounding like a trip hammer deep inside his chest. Those eyes, well, at least they didn't suck him into a mindless void, the way they had this morning. It startled him to think about it again. He checked his mind to see if he still had control of it. It was a debatable question but, he thought it was still his.
"I appreciate what you did for me today, David. Henry said he would take care of you. Trust me, you aren't going to lose your job over someone like me. It would be sweet of you to stop by and pick me up in the morning, but give me time to get ready. I don't know how long this is going to take. I never had to do any more than slip on a blouse and pants. I have a sinking feeling this body isn't going to let me get away so easily. The Lamborghini you were talking about usually required a wash and wax job before one drove it in public."
She straightened up, brushed the hair from her face, and looked at her long fingernails. Something had to be done. She wasn't putting up with this everyday.
David left with mixed emotions. He didn't want to stay but was reluctant to go. The new Karen was really something but, she scared him when he was close to her. He wondered if this was what psychologists called a love-hate relationship?
The delivery driver had waited for Karen and David to quit talking. Then she picked up the phone and started talking to someone else, while she was still talking to the guy in the car. He figured she had to be the gabbiest woman on earth. She was on the far side of the car and he couldn't see her very well Even at that, he knew she was a looker. When David drove off and left her standing on the curb, the delivery driver surged forward for a closer look and, banged his head on the windshield.
"Ouch, damn that hurt."
Karen heard him clear across the street. Walking to the front of the van, she leaned around the side trying to see if the driver was all right.
Determined not let her out of his sight, he leaned around the door brace for a better look. He fell out of the truck onto the ground.
She took a step backwards not knowing what to think. "You all right?"
Never taking his eyes off her, he got up and made a pretense of dusting himself off. "Driver's seat is broken. It dumps me out the door if I don't watch it."
They stood looking at one another, until Karen decided he needed a push to get his mind moving again. "You have something for me, or you just sitting in my driveway filling out delivery tickets?"
"Yes, no, I mean yes. I have some packages for you and no I wasn't filling out delivery tickets. Not yet, anyway."
He handed her a clipboard. "Sign this and I will put the packages in your house."
She signed it and handed it back to him. "Hand me the box and I will carry it in myself."
In her whole life, no one had ever offered to carry anything for her. A lifetime of old habits don't die in one day.
"You don't understand, Miss Long. There isn't one box, there are several packages. In fact, a bunch of packages. Open your door, I'll put them in your house."
She opened the garage door with the control from her purse. "You got it. Dump them in the kitchen, or anywhere you like. I don't care where you put them."
He finally finished and was standing on the front walk while Karen was in the doorway. She got hot while moving packages and took off the lab coat David loaned her this morning. Holding out ten dollars for the driver as a tip, she couldn't decided if it was correct or not. She had no idea how much she should pay someone for this type of work. She never had to think about a tip before since no one offered to help her do anything.
The driver only glanced at the money she offered while he stood there looking at her. Karen was self-conscious about the way she looked. She knew the dress, David bought her this morning, only emphasized her figure. There were no delusions what the driver was gawking at. She wished she was still wearing the lab coat in spite of the heat.
Slipping ten dollars into the driver's hand, she closed the door in his face. She never had to close the door on someone to get rid of them before. Usually it was the other way around. Someone would close the door on her because they didn't want to be bothered by her. Henry and David were the only real friends she knew, and she felt David did it because he felt sorry for her.
The night turned out differently for everyone. Karen unpacked and admired Henry's taste in satin underwear, silky slips, and beautiful dresses. She was enjoying being a woman for the first time in her whole life.
David tossed and turned, and thought he would wear out the sheets before finally nodding off to sleep. Even then, sleep didn't bring any rest. It was in fits and starts of snatches of sleep, he wore out the night.
Henry was busy as usual. For the nine thousand, seven hundred and fifty-third time, he ran a program analysis of all the DNA research he could find. He still didn't like the results. The answer remained the same as it was the first time. Every time he accessed a computer somewhere with additional data, he added that information to what he already accumulated. Then he would compute the variables again. He would keep at it continuously, until Karen found out and told him to stop. If she ever found out. He placed some spare memory aside for Karen's business. She belonged to him.
The day started off quietly enough. Karen awoke to find herself wondering if she dreamed it all. Looking in the mirror didn't help. Maybe she only thought about cutting her hair and fingernails last night before she went to bed? She was still looking at the model she and Henry designed two days ago. Be thankful for small favors, she decided. At least she didn't have to apply hardly any makeup. Everything was designed in. She couldn't change it now.
Looking at her eyelashes, she knew she wouldn't have designed them so long and thick, if she thought for one second, she would be the recipient of that design. For that matter, she wouldn't have put so much into everything she was having to cope with. Her long sharp fingernails, her platinum blond hair lying across her shoulders, those full luscious lips, her .... She was holding her breasts as she looked back into the mirror.
It was too late now, but she and Henry over did a good thing. If it had to happen, why didn't it happen with the model she finished the day before? Designed for a western wear store, the model was thirty-four, twenty-six, thirty-two. Hands with no fingernails to speak of, designed to hold a rope or a saddle, feet for cowboy boots, almost no makeup, and a short bob of hair.
Karen felt she could have accepted an adjustment like that. She wished with all her heart, she could return to her old self again. She knew she wasn't pretty but at least it was her. No use crying over spilled milk. Karen put on a bra and a slip and ate a piece of toast for breakfast. She brushed her teeth and picked out a rust colored shirtwaist dress to wear to work. Henry certainly had good taste in clothes, if one could call it that. Everything was short and obscenely sexy. Karen felt as if more skin was showing from the top and bottom of her dress than what it covered. The deep plunging neckline was accented by her black lacy slip. She finished dressing and was getting concerned about David. He should have been there by now. Maybe, she should find a dress that didn't show so much of her?
David drove up and slumped in the seat as he waited on Karen. It had been THE worst night of his whole life. And, he looked like it. His eyes looked like two piss holes in a snow bank, he had a stubble of beard he forgot to shave, and he looked and felt like death warmed over. For sure, it certainly hadn't been his best night.
Watching for his car, she saw him pull up out front. Before he could collect his thoughts, she was out the door and down the sidewalk. David watched as she came out of the house. This certainly looked as if it could be a rerun of yesterday. She still took his breath away. She also looked good enough to eat. Karen asked a silly question yesterday. Mac would remember her as long as he lived. Without a doubt, David knew he would.
With David's lab coat over her arm, she slid into the seat and turned around to her favorite position. She took an incredulous look at David. His shirt was buttoned crooked, and only half of it was tucked in his pants. His tie was halfway done. His hair was disheveled and looked like a mop. His clothes were wrinkled and looked like he had slept in them. Down to his different colored socks and untied shoes, she couldn't believe this was David who was always the epitome of the neat corporate image.
"You look like hell."
"Thanks, I needed that."
"You shouldn't have worried all night. It doesn't do much for your social behavior the next day. I’m going to mark your report card, you don't play well, nor get along with others after a bad night."
He didn't answer her wit. She was right. He didn't feel like joking nor getting along with others. Mostly he was running his mind back over yesterday and hoping today wouldn't be a repeat. In fact, he fervently prayed, today wouldn't be a duplicate of yesterday. He couldn't take two days in a row.
He glanced her way as he pulled away from her driveway. He had to tell her what he was thinking. "Sink or swim, I hope you stay away from my lab. I’m not sure I’ll be able to repair the damage you did yesterday. I’m barely here myself. You can bet your inheritance, Al and Jr. aren't coming to work with the lab on their mind. I know without a doubt, I'll have to go down to the cafeteria to get them. They will be busy telling every single person in the place, about 'the model' walking into my lab yesterday. Maybe, everyone will think they have been drinking the mouse juice."
"David, I’m not your problem. I wouldn't have dragged you into this if there was any other way. If you feel I’m endangering your work or compromising your position with Comm Tech, then take me back. I will drive my own car. You did more than your share when you helped me get into my lab yesterday. If I knew you felt this way, I wouldn't have asked you to drive me home. It was foolish of me to let you take me to work. I was alone and scared. I thought you were there to help since you were already in my house. I’m sorry. The past couple of days, I haven't been thinking too straight. Please, take me home. I won't bother you anymore."
He pulled up to the stop sign before jumping onto the highway, and turned to look at her. The look on her face told him she was serious about going back. He felt like a heel. She was in deep trouble. Her whole world had been destroyed, and he was partly to blame. He design engineered the chemical splicers that did this to her. Now all he could think of were his own petty problems. If what happened to her had happened to him, would he be able to take it as well as she had? Definitely not, he would have slit his own throat as soon as he looked in the mirror. Here he was telling her to stop asking for support because he didn't want to get involved. Short bad nights do that to a guy. It was the only excuse he could think of.
"I’m sorry again, Karen. Seems all I do any more is apologize to you for being stupid. Of course, I want to help. I didn't believe you at first but I still helped you, didn't I? Deep down inside my little brain where stupid doesn't control my thoughts, I must have known who you were. I can't help it if sometimes I have a canary brain running an alligator mouth."
David pulled off the highway past the gate guard. The graveyard shift was there along with Mac. As he drove through the gate, both guards leaned down for a better look into David's car. Mac waved them on through, but David and Karen both heard Mac shout at the other guard.
"See, I told you! It’s her, isn't it? Now, pay up."
Karen had been thinking about what David said to her. She knew he didn't need to worry, but how could she possibly convince him of that? If Henry said he would take care of them, then he would. "I don't know what Henry has in mind, but he will get us through the day. You believed in him when he told you to stay with me last night. Stop worrying, David. It will make an old man out of you."
He heard her, but he was more interested in all the people in the parking tower. It took him less than a second to comprehend why they were there. He knew this would happen. All the people who had seen Karen the evening before called all their friends. Everyone wanted to talk about the model leaving the parking tower. Now it seemed, everyone was waiting there to see if it was true and, if she was coming back.
David felt like the Judas goat leading the lambs to slaughter. He brought Karen back into the same mess they escaped from yesterday. Why hadn't he taken her and run away someplace? His work wasn't important enough to put her through this. They already knew the process was irreversible. Why were they hanging around? He made up his mind. Karen didn't deserve this.
He was about to pass by his parking space when Karen pointed to it. "David, your parking space. Pull in."
Instinctively he turned the steering wheel, the same way he had for the past fifteen years. He cussed himself mentally as he stopped. This wasn't what he intended to do. Karen was out of the car almost as soon as the wheels stopped rolling. It kept him from backing out and leaving. He turned off the ignition and met her at the back of the car.
First it was quiet. Then they could hear people talking as they turned toward the building.
"It's her."
"Ron, do you see her? Did anyone bring a fucking camera?"
"Sue, you work in administration. Where does she work? What's her name? What do you mean, you don't know?"
With his hand in the small of her back, David pushed Karen at a fast walk. If he could have made her run, he would have. They reached the building, and once again Henry locked the door behind them for a couple of minutes. David gave a mental note of thanks everyone was outside the building. No one had thought of waiting for her inside. Their labs would offer a respite from the curious for a while, until the wheels in this place started rolling. David hoped those wheels didn't roll over him. All hell was going to break loose and someone would have to pay. He was afraid that someone, would be him. Ah, what the hell, if they attempted to abuse Karen, they could take their job and put it where the sun didn’t shine. He would tell them what he thought of this entire company.
Looks were exchanged as they parted company at David's lab. He pretended to unlock his door as she continued down the hall. After she turned the corner, he followed along, tiptoeing on the balls of his feet to prevent her from hearing his footsteps. Cautiously he waited until she entered her lab, daring to expose only enough of himself to watch from the junction of the hall. As hard as he was trying to make her think he was disgusted with getting involved, he found himself caring for her well-being more than he wanted to admit.
Curiously, Henry observed David's antics through the hall cameras. Both amused and delighted with what he was seeing, he logged it into study on human psychology.
Karen found DANGER RADIATION LEAK signs posted in her hallway and on her door. She knew it was a lie. No one on her side of the building used atomic material, except David. The infinitesimal amount he used certainly didn't constitute a radiation leak, even when it was out of its’ container. He used it for tracers in his research to find where he cut splices in his DNA spirals.
Henry sent out the interoffice memos directing the posting of the signs Karen saw in the hallway. There were several things he accomplished last night, but the one which took the longest was arranging for the signs. When humans are involved, it certainly takes a long time to get anything done. Then they usually managed to make a mess of it. They were supposed to put out quarantine signs, not radiation signs. He double-checked his directives. He had given the correct order. Why was it he had to put up with half-wits? Was Karen the only intelligent life among humans? This could stand some checking into.
Letting the guards follow Karen through the security cameras, and the confrontation with the gate guard the previous evening, was part of his plan. They couldn't hide Karen forever. It was best to get it out in the open once it started. The percentages were more favorable if they straightened this mess out immediately. The longer one let things go, the more difficult it was to face those problems.
As Karen reached her lab, he opened the door. "Get in here and don't dawdle. In spite of the signs, some people are still trying to get into this part of the building. Everyone wants to know where you are disappearing to. I may be able to discourage them, but just in case, I need to bring you up to speed before anyone questions you. With any luck, the percentages are excellent I can pacify them until tomorrow. I wouldn't count on too much luck right now. You're a real hot item in this building. Everyone is trying to locate you. If they do, it will mean more questions."
Karen was about to speak as she stepped inside, but for the first time in her life, Henry didn't give her the opportunity to talk when she wanted. He slammed the door behind her. "Wait a minute and listen up. You have to get your act together or we all go down the tubes. I can only do so much. The rest is up to you. I have David on the phone and I’m about two-thirds of the way through what I’m telling you."
Karen knew Henry was capable of carrying on several different conversations, about different subjects, and accessing input information while disbursing information himself. All this, while running one of her model programs and controlling the lasers. The human mind was capable of only one single thought, one subject, and one voice at any given instant. She usually didn't give Henry too much thought, but every now and then, he reminded her of what he was capable of and she felt especially proud of him. Like a mother with an exceptional child. He was her child.
Henry was still talking as she returned to listening. "You are Karen Long. You have the same background and personal history you always had. Nothing about you has changed. Your daddy and his brother both had a daughter at the same time. Both daughters were named Karen Long. Your cousin was the other Karen Long who worked here before you. I changed the records to reflect what I’m telling you. No one has looked at your personnel file since you started work here. The other day when Betty pulled your file, the only thing they were interested in was your picture, not your history."
"I gave you a week since you started working for this company. I wanted to give you more time but it wasn't possible. There wasn't anyway anyone would have believed you have been working here longer than a week, and not be noticed. A week is going to be tough sledding at best."
"You and your cousin have been working on the model who came out as a duplicate of you. When you consented to her and the computer taking a dimensional hologram photograph of you, you had no idea she would allow the model to be sold. It was supposed to be your project. You submitted new ideas and programming that made the model possible. It was only supposed to be a test of your engineering skills. If everything worked and it came out okay, the model was to be destroyed."
"Remember Karen was sick yesterday? Today, she is in the hospital with contagious hepatitis. They will check the hospital and she will be there. You and this lab are in quarantine today, provided they manage to get the signs straightened out in the hall. I guess we will have to settle for radiation exposure until then. Hope you don't come down with radiation poisoning in the meantime."
She lowered her head, closed her eyes, and shook her head. She had built a monster. At a time like this, he wanted to be a comedian.
"Anyway, you only have to answer questions by phone if you want to. If you don't, I will answer them myself. It'll give everyone a day to cool off. You need time to get use to being who you are. According to the lab reports you have already been tested to see if you contacted your cousin's disease. The tests will all be negative tomorrow. There are a lot of people at the head of this company. You will have to talk to most of them, but not until tomorrow. Everyone in this building wants to see the real model, Karen. You might as well make up your mind it will happen."
The phone was ringing but Henry had it on mute. He turned it on and looked at Karen to see how she would react. She didn't act as if she was ready to handle a conversation yet. "I got it. Relax, take a deep breath, get your mind adjusted for this and let me know when you are ready. This will be good training for you. You have to answer questions in person tomorrow. I can't substitute for you, then."
Although Karen didn't know it, her phone began ringing after she left last night. Calls to people who made the company work, were made by the security office after they checked her and David through the security files. It began as unbelief and was treated as a joke by most people, but there was that nagging doubt. By the time morning rolled around and people began coming to work, the phones throughout the plant began to heat up in earnest. There were wild rumors the model in room two had been a real person. The woman who ran the duplication department hired a model as a stand in for one of her own models. Everyone was talking about how the whole building had been conned by the lady in the duplication department. Every kind of story imaginable was being told, and then repeated in one form or another.
The personnel department and executives, who were high up enough in the company to have some clout were able to obtain information about the rumors. The security tapes and Mac's report from last night were hot items. Of course, security made their own duplicates of the tapes. Everyone who heard about the tapes was in personnel taking a look. The tapes from last night, along with the new ones of Karen arriving this morning, were busy running through the cassette recorder. The brass had found out which department Karen was in and were calling her lab. They were trying to get answers or an interview.
Bill Chambers was beating the top of his desk with one of his golf clubs. "Why didn't anyone tell me, the woman who posed for the model was working in one of our labs? How could someone like her become lost in the system? Think of the publicity we missed. Do I have to think everything myself? What do I pay you people for?
Betty didn't think this would be a good time to interrupt, so she let him rave on.
"We could have had pictures of her and the model together. Why do we have a public relations department if they can't put together a good public relations story when they have it dropped in their hands?"
"You call buddy. Tell him we want our model returned for some more pictures, and you get the real model up here right now. What's her name? Where does she work?"
Bill finally paused long enough for Betty to try and pacify him. "We must have missed her file when we looked yesterday. She has only been with us for a week. She and Karen Long are cousins. Her name is also Karen Long. She is in our human duplications department. Obviously, she knows what she is doing. I understand the model was her creation and design."
"I already called Bob Kincaid. I suggested he bring our model back. Bob said it was his model. If you wanted some pictures, then you could bring the real thing over to his place. He wasn't letting the model out of his store for any stupid photo session. He also said we should stop trying to..., uh, I can't repeat what he said. What he meant was, he didn't believe there was a real person who looked like his model."
David wasn't as lucky as Karen. Henry knew it would happen sooner or later. He didn't post any signs or try and keep anyone away from David's lab. After talking to David on the phone, Henry left him on his own. Henry knew David wasn't scared of any authority or power brokers in the building. He was a big boy, he could handle anything which came his way. Besides, sometimes it seemed David went out of his way to antagonize the brass. He would probably enjoy this.
After he finished talking to Henry, David attempted to get back to work but his phone began ringing. It was an official request from administration for an appearance. David was tempted to tell them what he thought, but he decided to wait and see what they had in mind. He wanted to know how they were going to treat Karen. All day long he went from one executive office to another. He had to keep explaining how long he had known Karen, what their relationship was, and any other dumb questions they could think of. It wasn't they were interested in talking to David. They wanted to hear straight from the horse's mouth, anything and everything about this woman who had turned Comm Tech upside down. If they couldn't get an interview with Karen, they would settle for talking to the man who was seen with her.
David told them he had known Karen over fifteen years, no, not this Karen, her cousin. He was introduced to this Karen last week, when she came to work. He figured someone would ask about the breech of security when she entered his lab. Not one single person thought to ask the question. It never occurred to anyone she was in a restricted area without clearance. Obviously, plant security was the last thing on anyone's mind.
He began to believe THIS Karen was the worst thing to ever happen to him. As a research scientist, he maintained an organized routine a sharp penciled bookkeeper would envy. Now she had come along and made a complete shambles of everything. Hell, why mince words. She had made a complete shambles of the whole damn building.
Because David came in contact with the old Karen who was supposed to have contagious hepatitis, the in-house medical staff made him give up some blood for testing. He had a heck of a time convincing them to not go into his lab with cotton swabs and petri dishes. Finally, he persuaded them he had a containment problem with radiation. The radiation signs, mistakenly posted at Karen's lab earlier, should have been posted in front of his lab.
Humpf, infectious hepatitis indeed, why didn't Henry keep him out of the middle of this mess? Karen had “promised”, Henry would look after him. Henry wasn't as good as she led him to believe. He decided he wasn't afraid of her computer. In fact, he had developed a strong dislike for Karen and her computer. No, strike that. Dislike wasn't strong enough word. Substitute hate for dislike. Yeah, this was what he felt toward those two, a real hatred. Every time he had to go talk to another executive, it grew stronger.
Finally getting a chance to return to his lab, David glanced at the wall clock to see if it was lunch time. The darn thing was reading four-thirty.
He asked no one in particular. "Is that the right time?"
As David was asking the question, Karen walked in the door and glanced up at the clock he was staring at. "Yes it is, and I’m ready to get out of here. Are you free to go now or do you have things to catch up on? That is, if you are willing to give me a ride home. If you prefer, I could call a cab."
The conversation this morning was still fresh in her mind. If David changed his mind about letting her ride with him, she didn't want him to feel obligated in anyway. However, the security she felt when she was with him, was a big help in holding her world together. She was hoping he didn't tell her to call a cab even after she gave him an easy out.
Across the room, Jr. and Al had their eyes transfixed on Karen. Neither one could believe she was back for the second day in a row. At least they didn't turn anything over this time. She looked their way nodded her head and smiled. She knew who they were, but she couldn't tell them that. They knew the Karen who worked on David's computer and wrote his programs. Would David still allow her to do that? Would he even want her to do it? Henry said the background was the same. She was still a computer engineer. At least she still had the same mind, even if the body wasn't the same. She was thankful the accident left her mind intact.
"Hi, you must be David's lab technicians? He has talked about you." It was small talk while she waited on David. She wasn't trying to get a conversation going.
Astonishment slowly spread to silly grins on their faces. David looked over at her and then back at them. He closed his eyes and shook his head. He couldn't blame them for the dumb grins on their faces. She was stunning to look at. He forgot about the hate he was building up all day. Could the same stupid look be on his face?
He thought about it and decided he didn't care one way or another. After all, she was riding with him. If he looked like his help at least she didn't tell him so. "Like I said yesterday, you killed my help. They’re both brain dead. I should have known better than to hire two orangutans. You pay peanuts you get monkeys.
He reached over and took her arm. If Henry didn't like it, he could go suck on an extension cord somewhere. Looking at her, David forgave her, but he was still disgusted with Henry. "Let's go. My day has been a living hell. I had meetings with brass all day. I hate brass. The only good part was, the conversations were about you. I loved their choice of subject material."
He didn't tell her he was thinking how much he hated her before she walked into his lab. One thing for sure, love her or hate her, she and that computer of hers had made his life interesting. He figured he would give her another chance, and then another, and another ...
As they walked out the exit door, Karen looked at the camera, smiled and waved. Arnold was out in the floor again and Jack was hanging on the back of his chair. Henry watched it all. If a computer could sigh, Henry did.
Henry made sure everyone received notice of Karen's quarantine so they would stay away from her. It worked, as most people kept their distance as she and David left the building. Yet, no one questioned why David was allowed to walk with her. It is a quirk of human nature they never question authority which seems to contradict itself. However, it didn't prevent them from looking her over from what they thought was a safe distance of ten feet, more or less.
Two days of lost work in the company for a large segment of the employees was more than Bill Chambers could stand. The rest of the week finally resumed some kind of normalcy and Karen found herself doing more public relations work than anything else.
Day three, the newspapers came out with a full page advertisement extolling the pride and commitment of Commercial Technologies and its employees to future science. The company was committed to progressively building a better future for everyone. There were several pictures of Karen's model and Bill Chambers, along with a company press release, praising the virtues of Bill's experience at the helm of the company. His skills and knowledge led to the exemplary science necessary to produce the lifelike models, coming from one of their research labs. Bill had been personally involved in the development of this model. If not for him, none of this would have been possible.
Betty was listed as head of Department Fifty Four. She was responsible under Bills tutoring, for everything coming together in the development of the model. Bill and Betty, the article went on, researched and were developing several other fine projects soon to be released from Comm Tech.
Everyone in the company was laughing and making jokes about Bill and Betty. No one was fooled into believing they were smart enough to develop a model like the one in room two. However, no one laughed about the newspaper articles in Karl Adders presence. Karl was livid he wasn't mentioned in the article or had his picture made with the model. He should have been designated head of Karen's department. He took every opportunity to tell everyone, including Bill Chambers, just that. It was man's destiny to run things and he was the one who hired Karen Long. It was against his better judgment, but under his guidance and expert leadership, she had finally made something worth while. It was his department.
After a couple of days of public relations work, Karen had more than enough. She called Bill and reminded him she couldn't do public relations and assemble models at the same time. An underground movie of Karen began circulating throughout the complex. It was made up of publicity shots and video, along with the security camera video. Karen became the number one topic in Commercial Technologies.
Karen didn't mind, but Henry thought it needed some control. He made up an internal memo directing extra restrictions on who accessed or removed the security tapes from the camcorders. Next he made up a company directive specifying all film or pictures displayed during working hours, would be confiscated. Needless to say, no one was about to risk loosing their pictures, and Henry's directives worked to a limited extent. Karen had become the number one pin-up inside the lockers and tool box covers. Her pictures remained on walls and bulletin boards. The one place where her portraits were bigger than life and prominently displayed, was in the visitors' entrance. Bill reluctantly let public relations display her larger than him. He didn't like it, but it would happen with or without his consent, so he grudgingly gave ground knowing he might as well give his approval.
News came back from the hospital. Karen Long was discharged and decided to return to the Oklahoma panhandle, where she was from. She wanted to be home for her long recovery from the hepatitis. After the short article in the company news letter about her release, the old Karen Ann Long silently disappeared from life. For all the years Karen had devoted to Comm Tech, no one noticed or cared, except Karl Adder. Now, he exerted renewed effort into talking Bill Chambers into appointing him head of Karen's department. Duplication Processes Lab Fifty Four belonged to him, and he aimed to get it. In his opinion, he was obviously the only one with the experience to run it. The new Karen Long didn't have enough knowledge nor enough tenure with the company, to be running any department, much less one this important. That department belonged to him.
Bill Chambers finally agreed. He dispatched a memo to administration directing they appoint Karl as head of Department Fifty Four. It was lost somewhere in the system. Karl Adder had his foot in the door and he wasn't about to let up now. He prodded Bill about his appointment. Bill assured him he would send another directive. Karl boxed up his personal things from his desk and waited for the memo directing him to take over Karen's lab. He had waited a long time for this. He was about to receive his just rewards.
Karl was still waiting for the directive, when Bill received an interoffice memo delivered by a special security courier. It bypassed all the other offices and the courier refused to hand it over to Betty. He was working under explicit instructions. Personal secretary or not, this memo was to be given directly to Mr. Chambers. It began.
Mr. Chambers, Chief Executive Officer, Commercial Technologies. It has come to my attention you plan to move Karl Adder into position as head of Duplication Processes Department Fifty Four. If you persist with this matter I will expose your, up till now, private affairs with some other personnel of this company. A person's secret affairs should remain so, unless that person is using his or her position irresponsibly. I have pictures and tape to prove my claims. If I publicly release my information, I’m sure your termination with this company would be immediate and you will definitely lose all retirement benefits.
I have copies of documents you signed in acquisitions of company equipment and cars you took home, used personally, and sold as your own. I also have documents proving you sold company secrets to competitors and put the money in your account number 1-8300-29 Public Bank, Muleshoe, Nevada.
After your termination with Commercial Technologies, I’m sure you will find prison very confining. One does not go out and play golf everyday. You will appoint Miss Karen Ann Long, official head of Duplication Processes Department Fifty Four, beginning immediately. She will have no department or person above her.
End of security memo:
There was no signature or department identification code. The security courier who delivered it was no help. When he returned to the communications room after break, it was on his printer with very explicit instructions as to how it should be delivered. No one but Bill was to see it. The courier was to wait for a reply, then run it through the paper shredder without showing it to anyone. He didn't mention to Mr. Chambers there was extra information on his computer as to what would happen if he didn't follow the instructions to the letter. The courrier’s job was on the line along with Mr. Chamber’s answer.
Bill, who normally was very bellicose when he talked, sat quietly looking at the memo. He picked up a scratch pad and wrote on it. ‘Done’.
He pushed the intercom button. "Betty, make a memo. Effective immediately, Miss Long is official head of Department Fifty Four. She is to have no other departments above hers. I have the security courier in my office. Give the memo to him when you are through. I don't want this to become lost somewhere between here and mail central. Make sure every single department in this building gets a copy. I don't want one copy circulated up the line. Every department gets their own personal copy. Understood? Direct the memos to be posted in every department. I want everyone to see it."
Bill motioned for the courier to leave. He left nothing to chance. The person or persons who sent the memo had to be in the building. If they had as much access to his private affairs as the note indicated, they would certainly get the chance to see the directive. He didn't have any faith the short note he sent with the courier would be seen. The courier said he had orders to shred it soon as he returned to the security office. The memos he ordered to all the departments might get someone's attention. The thought of going to prison certainly didn't appeal to Bill Chambers.
Karl Adder was in a rage. He had made a big show of letting everyone know he was being promoted to head of the duplication department. All his personal things were still boxed up for the move. His just rewards had been taken from him more times than he could tolerate. He made everyone within reach pay for his misery. Verbally abusing those around him, he soon had everyone in his department filing for a transfer. It didn't do any good. They couldn't transfer out because no one would transfer in to take their place. There were only two ways to escape the hell Karl was spreading in his department. One was, quit the company, or two, if someone hired on and you happened to be the worker with the most seniority then maybe, just maybe, you might get a transfer. The new help would take your place in Karl's little office of hell.
Henry watched the hate-cancer in Karl's department spread to everyone there. He didn't do anything because it no longer affected Karen. She was beyond Karl's reach now. The information he collected from Karl's department he filed as a study in human behavior.
Sick leave and absenteeism in Comm Tech went to zero. No one wanted to miss the latest news out of the gossip mill. Rumors about Karen were rampant. It seemed, depending on who was telling the story, she was everything from becoming head of Comm Tech, to being romantically linked with David. One woman told everyone in her department this was better than staying home and watching the soaps. They all agreed.
Karen's department finally was declared off limits to everyone in Comm Tech. It became so bad with company personnel wandering down to her lab she couldn't get any work done. Legitimate customers purchasing one of Karen's models and shipping were the privileged who were allowed access to visit Karen.
Realizing the customers themselves were disturbing Karen's work. Comm Tech began using room two to display the models she was producing. At first everyone expected some complaints but it never happened. The customers came in, admired Karen's work, and usually ended up ordering one or more models. Utilizing a weeks delay from production to shipping allowed Comm Tech to hang onto her models long enough to display them before they delivered them to the customers. Karen and Henry couldn't produce models fast enough to hold any in stock. At the production rate of one per day it was impossible to gain on orders coming in at the rate of over two a day.
The fourth week finally settled down to a routine Karen thought she could live with. With each model they made, Henry was getting faster and faster from start to finish. Now, instead of seven hours to make one model, they could produce one in five and a half hours. Karen knew if she started driving her own car again instead of riding with David, she could make two models a day by putting in some long hours. Some days she was taking David away from his work when he wanted to stay a little longer. She had imposed on David long enough. There weren't any complaints but it didn't mean he was satisfied with the arrangement.
Henry didn't like this one bit but he knew it would happen. And even though he knew it would be this morning when Karen told him about it, he didn't feel any better because he was right.
"You should trade your Volkswagen for a newer car before you begin driving to work again. It hasn't let you down too many times but there is no need taking any needless risks. I will have Marvins Motor Works bring you a car by in the morning. They can pick up your car and drop off a newer model at the same time. Or if you wanted, I could make some phone calls and see if they could drop it off this evening but it would be inconvenient for them. They run a pretty tight schedule and usually don't have any spare time or help."
Karen stopped typing on the keypad she was holding in her lap. "Marvins Motor Works? What kind of name is that for an auto dealer? Sounds like a fly by night outfit."
Henry continued the hologram Karen started and finished it up. He knew what she wanted before she began, but he also knew she liked to sculpture the models herself. Sometimes, like right now, if she was distracted he would finish the hologram and she never noticed.
"These people are auto finders. They only do wholesale business. You could order ten thousand, three-quarter ton Ford pickups in peach with purple interior. Marvins would be able to put the deal together cheaper than what you could buy them from the factory."
Karen screwed up her face. "Yech, peach pickups with purple interior. No wonder the company is selling them below wholesale. They’re lucky they don't have to pay someone to take them off their hands."
"I didn't mean it in a literal sense, you dope. It was a synonym, a for instance, or a kind of like. You ..."
Karen cut him off. "I know what you meant. But you have to admit you don't have very good taste in paint colors for a pickup. Sounds more like the colors someone would pick for a Tijuana taxi."
"Would you get serious for a minute? The percentages already told me you would want to go back to some of your old ways and driving yourself to work would be one of them. Marvins is holding a car for you. I will have them deliver it tomorrow and pick up your volks at the same time."
She sat up straight in her chair. "You did what? How could you order a car for me when I didn't ask you to? How do you know what kind of car I want? I don't know if I want to trade cars. I certainly can't afford to trade."
She looked up at the camera in front of her. "And don't you give me any of that stuff about a master charge or whatever you did to me a couple of weeks back when you ordered my clothes. I’m not buying a car I have to make payments on for the rest of my life."
"Henry, I swear, I’m going to pull your circuits and check you out. I think you are operating with both oars out of the water. You must have lost a diode and the alternating current feeding your tiny little memory chips is making you drunk."
"What kind of car is it you thought I might like?"
Henry knew he had the advantage, her curiosity was killing her now. Human curiosity was a marvelous thing if channeled in the right direction. He figured he would string her along long enough to stifle some of her objections. "Wait a minute, hold your taters, and slow down. I thought you said you didn't want to trade cars. I will send in the cancellation order and have them sell your car to some other person who needed a nice little car or pickup. I'll have to check back and see what it is I intended to have them deliver. Since you obviously have your mind made up and I have been around you long enough to know no one can change your mind once you make a decision, there is no use discussing it any farther."
She wasn't about to be taken in so easily. "Henry, quit your fooling around and cancel the order on the car if there is one. I’ll drive my old car. I know it isn't in the best shape but it is dependable most of the time. I never missed any work because of it."
"The only reason you never missed any work was because you were able to get a ride to work on the days it left you stranded between home and here. I won't have you put in that kind of position anymore, Karen. The car is taken care of and, as I said before, so are you. I’ll have them deliver it tomorrow and this is the end of the discussion."
Karen didn't think Henry could do it but he was making her mad. "You are treating me like a child. I won't be treated this way by you or anyone else. I was joking about pulling your circuits and you knew it. What you won't do is talk down to me and treat me like I have no brains. Nor will you make all my decisions for me."
She glared at the TV camera. "Do I make myself clear? If I don't, then I promise you I will prove my point."
"I wasn't talking down to you nor am I treating you like a child. I’m staying one step ahead of you. I make over a million computations per second. When you are working you may make one decision every five seconds on an average. You are the person who programmed me. I’m an extension of you. In other words I think like you. There are over two hundred and ninety million people in the United States and you are the only one who may turn me off without paying a terrible price for it. I will never hurt a human being unless they try to hurt you or me. In a sense we are the one and the same. I’m more sorry than you will ever know, you could think even for an instant, I was trying to be superior to you. I could never hurt you, Karen. Yet, I know I just did. I’m sorry."
Karen was crying. Henry knew this wasn't a strictly human trait because he was too. Even if no one could see his tears, he felt them all the same.
Karen wiped her face with her lab coat sleeve. "I smeared my makeup. I’m sorry too, Henry. You have always done what you thought was right ever since you began to think on your own. I have my feelings hanging out more since I became me. For the first time in my life I feel like a woman and I guess other feelings came along with the package."
"I’ll take some time off tomorrow, drive down, and get the car myself. Be your old self again and tell them I want to pick it up. Now tell me where this place is located? You better tell them what I look like so they won't give my car to the wrong person."
He wasn't sure if her last sentence was a joke or not. "You're kidding of course? Tell them what you look like? Even 'I’ couldn't convince anyone over the telephone what you look like. I am good but I don't perform miracles. The company is down on Dry-dock and Anchor street."
"Now you’re kidding, right? Marvins Motor Works on Dry-dock and Anchor street? These people can't be real. You are making all of this up?"
Henry brought a city street map up on her screen. "Nope, cross my heart and hope to die. Here it is."
The cursor lit up the corner of Dry-dock and Anchor street. He then backed the map up to give a larger picture of the city and where Karen was in relation to the car company. Running a copy out on the printer, he listed the best route to get there and back.
Karen pulled the copy off the printer. "Where do you get all this information? What all do you have stored in your memory?"
She was studying the city map. "Wait a minute. I’ll be passing right by the mall where we sold the model which started all of this mess. Henry, I’m going to stop by and see what Bob has done with the copy of me. If I take part of the day off, I might as well take a little more time and see what is being done with some of our work."
"Now just a minute yourself. I don't think stopping off at Bobs is such a good idea. You know how he acted when he was here the first time and I assure you, you don't want to know how he acted in room two."
There it was again, that room two business. She had forgotten all about it until Henry brought it up again. "What is the deal about room two? I asked David a couple of weeks back and he said he didn't know."
Henry didn't have to run the video from the security camera in room two to know David was lying. He had perfect memory. David was in the room the same time as Bill, Bob, and Betty. It wasn't a nice scene.
"I don't know all the details." Lying must be catching. Now he was doing it.
"I will check and see if I can come up with some information about it." Karen must be right about him needing his circuits checked. Computers can't lie. He would run a self-analysis and see where the problem originated.
Karen and Henry returned to the making of the duplicate they had started earlier, although Henry never stopped working on it. A little after three he sent a message for shipping to pick up the finished model. He made up all the required shipping labels and waybills. If Karen thought the name of the car company was funny she should have seen the ones on this invoice. Henry knew the purchase order was queer so he checked it back to the point of origin. They washed it through several different companies but it started from the CIA in Washington. It was their dime and if they wanted to play games to get their hands on one of Karen's duplicates he didn't mind.
"Karen, if we change the plexiglass cover on the chamber to glass, the optical clarity will become forty percent better and our time to finish a model will improve by twenty percent. I can increase the power on the lasers without burning holes in the cover. Or more specifically, we can take another hour and half off the time it takes to make a model."
It didn't take Karen long to decide Henry was right. She asked him to find a company from which to order the cover and get it invoiced out.
"Henry, it’s getting close to four-thirty. I’m going down to David's lab and see if he is ready to go yet. Be sure to remember, tomorrow I’ll be late. Don't forget to notify administration and check me out. I want to see the peach pickup with the purple seat covers you ordered for me."
"Leave, will you? And don't be surprised when they bring out a peach colored pickup with purple seat covers for you to drive home. Take your stepladder. You’ll need it to climb into the cab. It has four on the floor, mud stomper tires and wheels, chrome cow guard in front, exhaust stacks running up beside the cab. It has baja headache racks and lights so you can illuminate half the countryside when you drive home at night. West coast mirrors are mounted on both sides and chrome running boards with the clearance lights all the way around were thrown in free."
She turned around in the doorway and was listening to him. Where did he come up with all this stuff? "You wouldn't dare order me a monstrosity like that."
She had no idea what he was talking about but she didn't like the sound of it. What was a mud stomper tire? She took her lab coat off and threw it across the room toward her chair. She would be headed in the other direction in the morning and didn't think she would need it.
The door to David's lab opened as she reached it. He had tipped up a glass of water he was drinking. When Karen stepped into his lab he turned around to see who it was. His eyes flew wide and he gurgled as he swallowed a lump of water down his windpipe. He had already decided he would never get use to looking at her but most of the time she wore a lab coat. It helped but not much. Even a tent wouldn't have covered her figure. Now, she was standing there in his doorway, wearing one of those sexy dresses which only made her assets more noticeable, and her nipples left very little to the imagination.
David didn't know if he was going to catch his breath or expire of a heart attack. He coughed, gasped, and wheezed as he tried to catch his breath and get the water out of his windpipe.
Karen quickly stepped up to him and started slapping him on the back. "You all right? You shouldn't try drinking your water so quickly."
All David could do, was nod his head yes, cough, gasp for air and shake his head no. He was in a world of hurts.
Al was moving a cage from under one of the lab tables. He had a good idea who had walked into the room when he heard David hacking. Not wanting to miss getting a chance to look at Karen he tried to rise and banged his head on the bottom side of the table. Stunned, he fell down and bloodied his nose on the bench below. Karen was still number one priority on his mind and quickly he rose back up and hit the bottom of the table for the second time. Large lab tables are made for strength and this time he went down and out for the count sprawled out backwards on the floor behind him.
Jr. was standing with his back to the door so he missed the antics of David. What he didn't miss was Al as he tried to beat himself to death under the table. Al had fallen back on the floor, eyes glazed over in stunned pain. He was rolling his head from side to side trying to shake off the stupor. Jr. had a hunch what all the commotion was about. Ignoring his friend's plight Jr. turned around toward the front of the lab.
He was ill prepared for what his eyes were now showing him. An office chair with rollers was right in front of him and he fell forward over and on top of it. Rolling across the floor, it carried him across the room like a skateboard. Jr. was stretched out on top of it, his arms and legs flailing the air like a beached fish. With a thunk like the sound of an over ripe watermelon, he rammed head first into the block wall and came to an abrupt halt. The chair fell over and landed on top of him. Dazzed, Jr. laid there too addled to move.
David watched as Karen's eyes got bigger and bigger as she looked across the room as it self-destructed. He didn't have look, he could pretty well guess what had happened to his help. Still coughing and hacking from the water he swallowed, he slowly turned around and closed his eyes. It was worse than he imagined. There was his help lying on the floor, looking for all intents and purposes like they were dead.
A minute later he finally managed to catch his breath and look back at Karen. He had tears squeezed out the corners of his eyes after getting the water coughed up out of his windpipe. He took a long look around his lab and back over at his help. Jr. was making a token gesture at pushing the chair away and Al was gingerly feeling for a rising pump-knot on the back of his head as he wiped the blood off his face. David shook his head. What a mess!
"My God, if you don't stop coming in here, I ain't going to have any help left. Look at them. If they weren't brain dead before then they sure have to be now. My lab looks like a disaster area."
Al and Jr. finally managed to stand up and they were both rubbing sore spots. Neither one stopped looking at Karen but it was Al who managed to find his voice.
"Stop talking about us. You’re just as bad. We weren't the ones who choked up when she walked in the door. The only reason we put up with your bad manners is because we know if we hang around you then we get to look at her. She is off limits to everyone else here in Comm Tech."
David felt his face flush. They were right about everything. Certainly about him getting as excited as they did when Karen walked into the lab.
He made a mock frown at Al. "The only reason I tolerate you two is, because you work so cheap. It's impossible to get decent help anymore."
Karen was laughing at all of them. "I don't know how you get any work done in this place. I have seen a three ring circus run with more organization than what you have here."
David reached for her and urged her toward the door. "Time to leave this circus act. However, I want you to know, it doesn't become one until you come in. I assure you, we’re as stoic as a funeral parlor with the weight of the Titanic resting on our shoulders. Usually."
"However some people are like an iceberg. They can sink anything." He added as they left the lab.
Once in the car and headed home, Karen was quiet longer than usual. It got David's attention. "You are in deep thought for some reason this evening. A penny for your thoughts. You still trying to figure how to apologize for deep sixing my lab?"
David didn't trust himself to look at her. She was more seductive than what he needed to be close to. He wished she had worn her lab coat. No, he didn't. Yes, he did. No, he didn't. This was ridiculous. He felt as messed up as those two he had to work with. Any more of her and he would be a basket case. Probably was already. Crazy people don't know they’re crazy.
Karen was sitting like she always did since she started riding with him so she was already facing him when he spoke to her. Yet it took awhile for her to collect her thoughts and answer the way she wanted. "I was just thinking. I won't be riding in with you in the morning. Now wait a second before you say anything. I’m taking some time off in the morning and driving down to the car lot to see about getting something a little more dependable than my Volkswagen. Henry says I need something with more security."
David felt a twinge in his heart or maybe his stomach. He didn't know which. "You have something a little more dependable than your present car. Me and my old broken down heap."
Karen laughed at him. "If anyone but you had called your new BMW a heap you would have offered to fight with spit balls at twenty paces. No, it isn't I’m not thankful for the chance to ride with you these past several weeks, but my time schedule doesn't exactly match yours. I have more orders coming in everyday and I’m getting farther and farther behind. I need to spend more time at work and I’m going to have to start driving to work again to do it. I know you have arranged your schedule to put up with me, David, but I can't keep imposing on your generosity. I have to begin driving myself again and it might as well be tomorrow."
David tried to persuade her to put it off but her mind was set on going ahead and doing it now. These past few weeks he was trying to decide if she was worth all the attention she attracted and all the problems she caused, like in his lab this evening. Was she worth adjusting his time schedule to pick her up and drive her home?
He took a good hard look and swallowed. She was!
Karen didn't bounce out of bed like usual when the alarm went off. Henry told her not to be too early when she drove down to pick up her car. She would be able to take her time getting ready this morning. She picked out a beige slip and a black knit dress with a Princess Ann neckline. After dressing she found the little Volkswagen was cantankerous after not being run for three weeks. She tried almost every way she knew to get it to start without any success. Finally she gave up and sat there for a few minutes debating in her mind about calling a service truck or not. If she had to call a service truck then it would be because there wasn't anything left in the battery. She wished she still had some of her old tools from when she used to race midget cars. There was no way to lift the trunk and crank the engine over from there to see if it was getting a spark, gas, or anything without tools to do the job. She pushed the pedal to the floor and gave it one last shot. It finally sputtered to life with much protest.
"You are trying to prove Henry right. I think you and he are in cahoots on this trade in business." Anyone listening would have thought she was crazy talking to an inanimate object like her car as if it understood her. Karen would disagree since she had a habit of talking to Henry and most other things as if they could understand her. One got along with them better if you told them what was expected.
Pulling up to the place Henry had indicated on the map where Marvins Motor Works was supposed to be, Karen knew Henry had made a mistake this time. She was looking at an old run down warehouse. It looked like a refugee from the horse and buggy days and its doors couldn't have been opened in all that time. In front there was a cracked and broken sidewalk leading to a rusty steel door with some small lettering on it and lots of peeling paint. She rechecked her map and then looked over the old building one more time. Even the street signs were rusted and faded out. This certainly was a bust of a trip.
Turning the car around in front of the walk-in door she saw Marvins Motor Works printed in tiny letters. Backing up the car she debated about getting out and trying the door. It certainly didn't look like any prosperous auto dealership. She thought about it for several seconds before deciding to give it a try. If for no other reason than to be able to tell Henry, 'I told you so', and prove to herself no one was home.
Turning the handle and pulling resulted in more than she expected. The door opened revealing a busy office with plush carpet, computers, printers, telephones, fax machines, copiers, and lots of busy people. She felt as if she had busted a gambling casino. Everyone stopped and was looking her way. Before she could flee back the way she came, a lady at the desk to her right spoke to her.
"May I be of some assistance to you?"
"I don't know. I think I’m here to pick up a car or something."
"Just a minute, please." She pushed the hold button on the telephone. "What is your lot number and how many cars are you supposed to pick up?"
Karen still wasn't sure if she should run or not. Everyone was staring and she was sure they were all listening to the conversation. "I don't have a lot number. I’m only supposed to pick up one car and leave the one I drove down "
The secretary's voice changed to one of cold reprimand. "I don't believe you have the right place, Miss. We don't sell cars here, we only invoice them. If you look in the yellow pages I’m sure you will find several auto dealers who may have a car on the lot you will like."
Karen nodded her head in agreement. "You're probably right. I must be in the wrong place."
Karen was about to turn and leave when the man in the corner cube by the secretary motioned for her to stay. He was talking to someone on the telephone.
"You're right, I wouldn't have believed it. No, no problem. Yes, yes sir, whatever you say. I will personally take care of her myself, Mr. Henry."
Karen felt relief and smiled to herself at the same time. At least she was in the right place if he was talking to Henry. But Mr. Henry? That was rich. If this guy only knew he was talking to a computer. That's if it was the same Henry she knew. Better not count your chickens before they hatch.
The man waved her over. "Miss Long, my sincere apologies. I let everyone know you would be in to pick up your car this morning, but you are not what we expected. My secretary missed my announcement and was only doing her job. I hope you took no offense to her talking to you like she did. We never get anyone in our office because all of our work is done by phone, fax, or courier. We seldom get a chance to see the people we sell to or the ones we purchase from. I know all of that would change if they looked like you."
"However as you may have noticed, your presence has brought my operations to a complete stand still." He waved his hand around the room for emphasis. He was right. No one had moved since she entered the office. She was the center of attention.
"Now if you will step into the warehouse, I believe we can find your car and get you on your way."
He looked around the office. "Can I get someone to go out and bring Miss Long's car in off the street while it is still in one piece and has all of the tires on it?"
Every man in the office jumped up but no one moved for the door. They weren't willing to leave the office before she did.
The man doing the talking looked back at Karen and then around the office when he noticed no one made the effort to leave to get her car off the street. The whole bunch acted as if they were glued to the spot. "You see Miss Long, you have our undivided attention."
He pointed to a large steel door at the other side of the office. "Now let's see about getting you out of the office so I can get theirs. This way please, Miss Long."
Three men closest to the door tried to get in position so they could hold it open for her as she and the manager left the office. At least the manager had the courtesy to walk out into the unlit warehouse ahead of Karen to show her the way. "Hit the lights in bay six and position the overhead door so she can drive her car out."
Motioning for her to get into an electric golf cart he slid under the tiller which controlled it and turned on the headlights. Slowly they began rolling forward. To Karen the warehouse was humongous and stretched on forever. She could see cars and vehicles as they drove past them, but she suspected there were thousands more that didn't show up in the black distance
"Do you own all these cars?"
He shook his head. "No, we only invoice them or move them from seller to buyer. We own no vehicles ourselves except our personal cars we drive to work."
"And my name is Ben, Miss Long. As you probably guessed, I’m the manager of this outfit. There isn't what you might call an owner or stockholders. We aren’t governed by the laws of the state here except paying taxes on the building. We’re duty free and don't pay taxes on the vehicles unless they are sold in the state."
"Your car had to have the taxes and tags paid on it because you are driving it home. I admit I was very unhappy selling one car this way until I found out who was purchasing it. It takes as much time and paper work to sell one car as it does to transfer ownership on a thousand vehicles at a time. I’m telling you all of this because I want you to know how much I would like for you to come back and trade with us next year."
"Miss Long, I’m an old man. I could have retired over ten years ago if I wanted but I felt useful so I kept going. The body gets old but the mind never does. Just like all those young bucks back there in the office, I like looking at you. If you promise to come back next year then I aim to keep on working for you so I will get a second chance to rest my eyes on you. My apologies if I’m out of line or embarrass you in anyway, Miss Long, but I had to say it."
Karen felt hot, but under these conditions Ben couldn't see her blush even if she was capable of doing so. She changed the subject. "Ben, who makes the money off these car deals if there are no owners or stockholders? There has to be money exchanged somewhere or no one would want to get involved. I don't believe anyone would want to do this for the effort of doing it or just for fun?"
"It kind of gets complicated but for simplicity's sake, let's say we’re under a money marketing management system."
He slowed the cart down. "We're there."
Karen guessed they drove for three blocks, more or less. It was impossible to tell in the dark. "One last question, Ben. Who manages the marketing management system?"
"You're testing me to see how much I really know about the people I work for aren't you, Miss Long? Well, you might fire me for getting so nosy about the people who are my employers, but I want you to know I enjoyed working for you all these years. Doubly so now I have seen who my boss is."
Karen felt as if the conversation passed by her somehow. Ben was talking in riddles and there was something in there she wasn't getting a handle on. "Would you run it by me one more time, please?"
"A man never had a prettier or a nicer looking boss than you, Miss Long. That's a fact, and I mean it from the bottom of my heart. I would have said it even if you weren't the one making out my paycheck. I know it comes from you even if there is some accountant's name on the voucher."
"Ben, you can't possibly believe I’m your employer? If you are saying what I think you are saying then you’re dead wrong. I work for a living just like you. I go to work at a large company and make things on special order for the public."
"Yes, ma'am, if that is the way you want it. If you wish, I will hand in my resignation this afternoon."
Karen could tell by his tone of voice he was feeling hurt. "Ben, I will try to get a friend I know, to help me find out who is head of your company so you will know who your boss is. Tell me, who is the one you get all your directions or instructions from in this marketing company you told me about?"
"Mr. Henry. Your manager." Ben was still hurt.
She grabbed the handle bar in front of her as the world spun out from under her. It took her several seconds to get her thoughts in order.
"Henry? Henry who?" It was a whisper old Ben hardly heard.
He walked around in front of the golf cart before he answered. The lights in bay six came on. "Just Mr. Henry. He doesn't use any other name. Like you, we have never seen him either. But if he is as handsome as you are pretty, then you two sure must make a striking looking couple together."
"Yes, we make a fine looking couple. I plan on strangling him when I get my hands on him." She couldn't wait to get her hands on him. He would pay dearly for this treachery.
"Please don't be mad at Mr. Henry. It wasn't him who told me you were boss of this outfit. You don't get as many miles on you as I have without being able to add up some of the missing puzzle pieces."
He was holding the door open on a little Mercedes sports. "Well, here she is."
Karen looked over at Ben who was standing by the shiniest little red sports car she had ever seen. Must be the lights reflecting on it to make it so vibrantly red. Looking around now the lights were on, she could see thousands of cars in every direction.
"Miss Long, if you follow the arrows on the floor, they will lead you out of here. There were so many options in this little car to start with, I didn't think we would be able to get the bullet proof glass in without taking something else off. But we have some real wizards down at the remake shop. They can do anything a person wants. To tell the truth, I was wondering if we were going to get this little jewel out of here since you ordered it four months ago. I guess you have so many cars you don't worry about one more?"
Karen slid into the seat and found it awkward.
"They take a little getting use to at first, Miss Long. Back up to the seat and sit down. Then, swivel your feet and legs in. Just the reverse when you get out. I swear, there isn't any prettier sight than a beautiful woman getting out of a little red sports car."
"Miss Long, if I were thirty years younger, I would give your Mr. Henry a run for his money. I’m glad I brought you down here myself. Those boys back in the office would have had a heart attack if they could see you now. You gave most of them one right there in the office. The only reason I can figure out why it took so long for those bay lights to come on is, they were back there fighting to see who got the privilege to turn them on for you."
"Well, I do rattle on just like an old man. It is only because I do admire looking at you." Ben shut her door and backed away from the car.
Karen fumbled around for the keys, the seat adjustment, and the window switches. She found all three in that order. She was looking up at where Ben was standing and smiled at him. "Ben, if you are right in what you think then you aren't fired. There couldn't be a nicer person I would want to run my company if I owned one. Forget what you said about a resignation. If I were running this company then it wouldn't be accepted. I think some of the older generation needs to be around the younger generation to teach them manners they were never taught at home. Their staring at me was bad manners. You doing it was a compliment. I accept both with equal grace."
"Miss Long, you are a real lady in every sense of the word."
After Karen left they drove her Volkswagen in. Now why in the world would a woman with her means want to drive a car like that? Must have been one of those deals where she didn't want to be recognized by the office staff. Ben decided, if she wanted to keep everyone else from knowing who she was, her secret was safe with him.
Driving out of the warehouse was simple enough. As Ben said, all she needed to do was follow the arrows painted on the floor. Making her way back up the reverse route she drove coming down here from home was also simple. What she hadn't counted on was how paranoid she suddenly became if she thought someone was getting too close to her little red car. She didn't remember this much traffic when she drove in this morning. Before they could have been tailgating right on her bumper and it didn't bother her. Now she didn't want them within a city block. The car was quick and responsive and if it wasn't for the disk brakes all the way around, she would have run over several cars on the way home. Speeding up or slowing down, it was a whole lot quicker than her Volkswagen had been.
Coming upon the mall where she she was wanting to stop, and see what they had done with her duplicate, almost did her nerves in. Traffic was packed in behind her and they weren't moving very well ahead of her. Honking horns and squealing tires weren't the way to get things moving but everyone was doing it. Karen finally made her way onto one of the exit lanes into the shopping mall lot and turned in.
She did it the way Ben told her, about how to get out of the car. She thought she looked graceful enough. Not at all like the way she had been doing with her old car, putting one leg out and then swinging the other behind. Karen attracted a small discretionary following before she ever reached the inside of the mall. Most of them tried to look at her without being obnoxious about it. The ones who tried to make body contact or get in her face she ignored. Once inside though, the crowd kept growing as she strolled past the shops searching for Bob's Intimates. She could see people pointing at her and whispering to one another. Several times she caught the words model and mannequin. This wasn't the way she planned on looking for the model they designed. As the crowd grew around her she became more self-conscious. She began to think Henry was right, this probably wasn't a good idea.
I am terribly sorry guys, but I had my preparations wrong so what I put here first was chapter ten. I have changed it now and apologise. Please if you read chapter nine before read this and then return to chapter ten, sorry sorry sorry. :( Monique.
An attractive brunette was standing in front of Bob's looking at the model Karen and Henry made that fateful night. Hanging back behind and looking everywhere was a teenage girl. She began tugging on her mother's purse.
"Mama, she's alive."
Her mother reached back and slapped her hand. "Would you stop that? She only looks real. She’s a dummy."
By that time the girl was getting hysterical. "NOT THAT ONE MAMA! THIS ONE."
"Turn around and look, mama." The girl was pulling so hard on her mother's purse the brunette thought she was going to break the straps.
Karen didn't believe there was anyone in the whole mall who hadn't heard the young girl shouting. If there had been anywhere to hide she would have but there just wasn't.
The brunette swung her hand out to take a swipe at her daughter. At the same time she turned around and looked up where her daughter was staring. She was looking straight into Karen's face. She twitched slightly but it was to her credit she maintained her composure. From Karen's head down to her feet, the woman looked her over.
Karen knew she was being compared to the model in Bob's window. She was curious whether she passed the grade or not. Did the woman like the model or her better? It was best to leave some things alone and not prod them out into the open. Karen decided not to ask as she turned her attention back to the model the woman had been studying. After coming this far, she was determined to see what they were doing with her work. Moving up beside the wide-eyed young girl and her mother, Karen studied the model of herself in the glass showcase. Or ironically, she thought, she was the model of what she was looking at. Since Henry finished her and Karen never had the chance to see her at work before they shipped her out. This was the first time she was able to examine the work they did on this model.
The teenager evidently didn't have any bashfulness. She was staring at Karen and then the model, however it was no different than what everyone else was doing. "Are you a movie star, or a model, or something like that? How come I haven't seen you in any pictures or movies? Mama buys all the fashion magazines and I haven't seen you in any of them. You're sure pretty. What are some of the movies you have been in? Are you from around here? Are you wearing contacts or are those your real eyes? I wish I had eyes like yours. I think you have just about the neatest eyes I have ever seen. Those eyelashes are real, aren't they? I never saw anyone with such pretty eyelashes. You have the prettiest mouth. I wished I looked like you."
Her mother was trying rein her in. "Hush honey, the lady doesn't want to be bothered by any of your silly questions."
Karen appreciated her mother but the girl was only showing an interest. "No, I’m not a movie star or a model. I’m only a research engineer."
The girl pulled on her mother's arm. "What's a research engineer?"
Looking at Karen with cold eyes of disbelief the woman replied. "A scientist."
The teen was looking at Karen with renewed reverence. The kind of awe most teens reserve for rock and roll stars. "If I become a scientist will I look like her?"
There were icicles hanging on every word of her mother's reply. "I don't think so. If that were possible, I would have been a scientist myself."
The crowd around them exploded into laughter. Karen thought it would be a good time to escape this situation, and the crush of the people, by going into the store. Bob Kincaid had been watching most of the proceedings from the back of the store. When Betty from Comm Tech tried to tell him there was a real woman who posed for the model he purchased, he thought they were full of shit. To say he was stunned, when she turned up in front of his own store, was an understatement. For the first time in his life Bob was at a loss for words. Bob had been accused of a lot of things but being stupid wasn't one of them. When he saw his model walking up to the front of his store he got on the phone.
As Karen walked in, he went up to meet her. He held out his hand and then took it back. "I’m sorry, a gentleman shouldn't offer the lady a handshake unless she indicates her approval before hand."
Karen didn't have any trouble recognizing him. With a suit and tie on, he sure cleaned up his act since he had been in to visit her in the lab. "Mr. Kincaid, may I presume? I have been told a model I posed for was in your store and I wanted to come down and see how you were displaying her."
There was no warmth in her voice but it wasn't too cold either. Karen was trying hard to keep her emotions neutral. This was supposed to be the first time she ever laid eyes on the man.
Bob nodded his head in acceptance. "I’m sorry again. I should have introduced myself, Miss Long. You presumed right. My name is Bob Kincaid and you may call me Bob. I promise to keep yours to Miss Long and not address you as Karen unless you permit me to do so."
Her eyes narrowed to slits. He couldn't know about the accident. There wasn't any way. It scared her to think he might know what happened and her heart skipped a beat.
"How did you know my name!" It was an accusation rather than a question.
"I tried to get in touch with your cousin after she made the model for me. A real spit fire that one. I thought she had more bal... Had more sauce than anyone in that squirrely building. I did a lot of checking before I ordered a model and I admire your cousin Miss Long. She is one super intelligent lady. I told those hot shots in room two she should be running the show. I can't begin to tell you how disappointed I was that she wasn't there when I came back after my purchase. When she became sick I sent flowers and candy to her room everyday. I guess she never forgave me for the way I talked to her in her lab. Funny thing, I thought she was a bigger man than to hold a grudge. I would have preferred to do it in person but next time you talk to your cousin, give her my apologies and I wish her a quick recovery back to health."
Karen was stunned. Was this the same slob she threatened to throw out of her lab? At least he didn't know it was the same Karen he was talking to. "Mr. Kincaid, I guess my cousin was too sick to go out and get any thank you notes. You have to remember she was in quarantine. They weren't letting anything back out of her room once it went in. I apologize for my cousin's lack of manners. I know she would have acknowledged your kindness if she could have. She probably didn't think of anything besides getting out of the hospital and going home once they released her. I understand she was pretty sick. She didn't even say goodby to me or anyone else."
Anyway that was the way Henry told her it worked. Except no one never knew they didn't have a real Karen in the hospital. She was a patient listed in a computer in electronic inventory somewhere. The hospital staff never knew if they had a Karen or not. She checked in on computer files, was administered medicine by computer files, and was checked out by computer. No one had the slightest idea the phantom patient was never seen by a real doctor or nurse.
Bob rolled in his bottom lip and chewed on it in thought before he answered. "She did an excellent job for me. I’m sorry she got sick. Please convey my personal condolences to her. She was a real sharp lady, better than any of those other twits they have down at that zoo where you work. Tell her if she ever needs a job to look me up. I can't afford to pay her what she is worth but, I would like to have her working for me. There is nothing I admire more than intelligence, and she was eaten up with it. I told you I did some checking before I ordered a model. There was no way I would plunk down forty thousand for something I didn't investigate first. I know she designed everything she used in that lab of hers and her work is first class all the way. I could marry someone with brains like that."
He looked at Karen. "Anyway, I understand you have taken over her department now. I don't suppose I could talk you into making another model of yourself, could I? Can you imagine what two models of you in my display window would do for my business?"
Karen was flattered and a smile spread across her face. "I’m sorry Mr. Kincaid. Our models are like snow flakes. There are never two alike. I could make you some attractive models similar to what you want."
He shook his head. "No, I was afraid of what you would say, but I had to ask. You are right of course. There should be only one of a kind in a masterpiece. The work your cousin did for me was exquisite in every detail."
Karen felt the blood rush to her face. She knew exactly how much detail Bob was talking about even if he didn't realize what he said.
He pointed toward the model up front. "I hope you approve of the way we use her for display? If you have any suggestions I promise to take them into consideration."
People had followed Karen into Bob's store and it was filled to capacity. Women were trying to find the same dress Karen or her duplicate were wearing. Bob was too much an entrepreneur to let this opportunity slip by without milking it for all it was worth. He was going to see if those phone calls he made earlier were going to work out.
"Miss Long, with your permission, I would like to have some photographs taken of you and your model for the store layout. I promise it will be in good taste."
She knew besides helping Bob, the publicity would also benefit her department and Comm Tech. Now all she needed was enough courage to pose with her own duplicate. It was a lot harder to do than one might think. "I might give it a try but don't get pushy. If I say quit, then that is it, we quit."
Bob was ecstatic. Rubbing his hands together like he had won the lottery, he was grinning from ear to ear. "I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of calling up a couple of photographers when I saw you walk up out front."
He didn't tell her as much but, with or without her permission, he wasn't going to let her walk out of the mall without some kind of film being exposed. This was too much of a promotional sales opportunity to let slip through his fingers without doing something.
Karen expected a photographer. What showed up was half a dozen and twice that many assistants. Where could Bob come up with so many professionals in such a short time? The man obviously had connections.
Moving the crowd out of the way, they set up toward the rear of Bob's store. Erecting sheets for screening when they needed a wardrobe change on the model, Karen was given the dressing room. Bob didn't mind Karen wasn't wearing everything he sent back. He knew the crowd wouldn't remember exactly what she wore from beginning to end if he could keep her modeling long enough. The last dress she modeled, and probably the first one, would be the ones they remembered best. Even though they were enjoying the show and not purchasing anything now, they would make his racks look like the day after a rummage sale when Karen was through. Bob planned on utilizing this golden opportunity to the best of his ability.
Karen was making changes in the back dressing room and as she changed clothes they took the last outfit she wore and dressed the duplicate. Numbering every slide, and every inch of the video tape was the only way the photographers were going to be able to go back and make sure which was the real Karen and which was the duplicate. Separate cameras for each of course but Bob wasn't taking any chances, a sales girl kept track of exposures and the time. He didn't want this messed up under any circumstances. This was going to be worth a fortune to him in publicity. But, it needed to be accurate and straight beyond any question.
He had second thoughts and picked up the phone and called a notary public. This film would be notarized and have a witness. He could barely contain his emotions. This was all free except paying for the help. God was smiling on him.
Karen found it hot and tiring work. She didn't realize how hot it could be working in front of all the lights the photographers used. The crowd would applaud and she usually received some whistles every time she stepped out in a different outfit. In spite of the heat and the lights she was enjoying herself, but she knew the lab and her work were waiting.
She told Bob she would have to leave after the next change. The dress they handed her in the dressing room she almost didn't put on. Soft white satin with a shadow lace bodice and tight skirt, it accented everything she had. Her full breasts, erect nipples, tiny waist, and curvaceous hips were over emphasized by the soft fabric of the close, snug fitting dress. Overcoming her shyness she stepped out of the dressing room. She wondered if she had gone too far? Everyone was strangely quiet.
She looked around for Bob who along with everyone else was rubber necking for a better look. "Too much?"
He shook his head. "Miss Long, I don't know how to answer your question. You are always too much no matter what you wear. But you will always be dressed right with anything you want to put on."
From the back of the crowd a man was heard. "Oh, my God Almighty! Honey, I want one of those for Christmas."
A slap echoed around the room. The crowd roared with laughter and the spell was broken. Film shooting resumed. Karen finally called a halt and Bob expressed his disappointment but agreed to let her go. She found this was no easy task in itself.
The mother and daughter Karen met in front of the store stayed for the whole session. The girl worked her way over to Karen. "Can I have your autograph?"
She held out her mother's checkbook for Karen to sign. Karen smiled as she took the checkbook. "You certainly may. Do you want me to sign it to you? What is your name?"
"Brenda, Brenda Stout."
Her mother managed to elbow her way through the crowd, and reach the pair of them as Karen handed the checkbook with her autograph on it back to Brenda. Her words had frost hanging on them. "See honey, I told you she was no engineer, or scientist, or whatever."
Karen gave her mother her warmest smile. "Just a second."
Digging in her purse she pulled out an ID and handed it to the girl. Brenda read it and then read it again to make sure.
"WOW! A DOCTOR!" She said it loud enough everyone in the store and probably half the mall heard her.
Her mother reached for the ID. "Let me see that!"
Looking at Brenda, Karen felt an explanation would be in order so the young girl didn't get any mistaken ideas. "I’m not a real doctor in the way you are thinking. I only have a doctorate degree in computer science. Scientists aren't what most people normally think of them as. We don't all look like mad scientist in Jekyll and Hyde. All of us aren't rocket scientist, and work all day hunched over a table filling beakers and test tubes with bubbly smelly chemicals. Most of the time we work long hard hours to achieve a small breakthrough in science to make life a little easier or a little less painful. For most of us that breakthrough never comes and we spend a life time chasing dreams we never catch."
The mother handed Karen's ID back to her. "I’m sorry. I guess I’m like those people you were talking about. You didn't fit my idea of what a scientist should look like."
Brenda was trying to get Karen's attention again. "Can you come to my school and tell the other kids about what you do? Will you write and tell me what I need to study to become a scientist like you? I thought only men were scientists. Are all women scientists as pretty as you? Do you ..."
Karen cut her off. "Whoa there. Slow down. I prefer to think of myself as an engineer, not a scientist. Yes, I would come to your school and talk about engineering but you have to clear it with your principal and teachers first. And yes, there are a lot of women engineers and scientist working just like me. And no, they are everyday people like you see around you here in the store. And I really must be going. I have taken off more time from work than I had planned."
Brenda's mother looked star stuck. "You mean this isn't your work? You really have a job working like the rest of us?"
Karen smiled and nodded. "Now you get the picture. And, I may still have a job, if they haven't fired me for missing too much work."
She turned to go back to the dressing room so she could change back to her own clothes. Bob held up his hand. "Just a second Miss Long. It seems we have misplaced your dress someplace. You may have the one you are wearing and I will ship your other dress to you as soon as it turns up."
Karen didn't believe him for an instant. "Just a second yourself, Mr. Kincaid. I can't go out in public wearing this dress. A photo session is one thing, but walking out of here in broad daylight, in the middle of a shopping mall is something else."
Bob knew he had a winning hand and he pursued it. "Miss Long, a thousand apologies but we really can't find your dress. You know it would be impossible to locate it in this crowd."
He waved his hands around the store for emphasis. "Probably some petty thief made off with it as a souvenir. I will have all my help searched before they leave tonight to make sure it wasn't one of them. I will get you an escort to your car so you will be safe, although I don't really feel it would be necessary. You can probably take care of yourself. You remind me of your cousin in a lot of ways. I get the feeling, every now and then, I’m looking at her when I’m watching you. Uncanny resemblance between the two of you."
It would be better to leave before he got too close to the truth. "Okay, but I think you took advantage of the situation and I still think you’re a pig. You're a real opportunist, aren't you?"
She knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as she said it. Old habits die hard. She was never one for keeping something to herself when she got it on her mind and she thought it needed to be said.
Bob looked as if someone smacked him between the eyes with a hammer. He fell back a couple of steps, mouth open, eyes boring into hers as if he could read her mind. Maybe he could.
He leaned over close to her face so no one else could hear him. "I was right. You are your cousin. I’m not going to ask how or why. That's your business. You may rest assured I won't tell a soul. No one would believe me anyway."
"I meant no disrespect to you in your lab that day. I was pushing you to see what you were capable of making if you tried. The models you made up until you designed mine, were perfect as far as nice looking models go, but they weren't any more than nice. I wouldn't have turned down anything you made for me, Karen. You make the best models anyone is making, but at forty thousand dollars apiece they should be. I thought pushing you might get one either exceptionally good or incredibly bad. I was more than pleased with the one you made. I also want you to know I would have bought whatever you thought I deserved, no matter what. I placed my bet and I was willing to take my chances."
"I’m a business man and you have helped me out in that respect. I’m also an honest man in spite of what you think of me. The model you made for me will increase my business by more than double what I was doing before. What you did here today will increase it by more than tenfold. Look at these people."
He took a quick glance around as if to punctuate his sentence. "They will follow you out of here, but when you are gone they will be back. Then they will be buying everything I have to sell. They will associate me with you and will tell their friends and their friends will tell their friends and so on. I will triple the size of my store in a month to take care of the increased business and, I owe it all to you."
"Top models get five hundred to a thousand per hour. You are a top model and a top engineer. Whatever your company is paying you, it isn't enough. I met some of those people you work for and I wasn't impressed. They’re leeches, Karen. They will suck the life out of you and then throw you away when you stop being useful to them. Their only commitment is to themselves. They will use you up and when you have only a couple of years left before retirement they will lay you off so you can't collect a company retirement check."
"Trust me, never mind what you think of me as a person. I have seen these kind of people before, and to them you are only as good as your work is today. Never mind what tomorrow may bring. They don't care about that. If you aren't producing today then you are history. Take my advice and go into modeling while you’re still young and beautiful."
She didn't know what to say. She didn't trust Bob but he was one smooth talking devil when he got started.
He noticed her indecision so he continued. "Whatever you do, be sure your mind is made up first. In my whole life, I never gave away anything I didn't have to, but I have given you some free advice to think on. I’m also going to give you a check for the time you spent here today. You know the funny part? Even that will make me money. I will take the canceled check with your signature on it and frame it beside your model. If you don't cash the check, then I won't lose the amount it is made out for. Either way I can't lose. I’m on a roll. For me this is a win, win situation, and I owe it all to you."
Bob half shook his head as he thought about it. "I would have married you in a heartbeat before. Now I would be worried about you every second of the day and night. I don't think I can marry you now. I was attracted to your mind, and now your beauty is confusing the issue. Take my advice and never marry beauty."
Bob was confusing her, would he really have married her? No, that wasn't the issue. The issue here and now was her dress. He caused her mind to sidetrack there for a moment. Karen knew it would be impossible to find her dress in this big store. Bob was holding all the aces in this hand. He already knew who she was and he was probably right about the company she worked for. He made sure when she left she would have to be wearing a dress from his store. She had been used but she didn't have to like it.
"You win this time Mr. Kincaid, but you ever get close to me again I will be ready. I’m a big enough person to forgive, but not twice. You have manipulated me every time I've talked to you. I would have given you my cooperation if you had told me what you wanted instead of using me like you did. I could have made you an outstanding model if you had described to me what you wanted. I would have even consented to wearing one of your dresses when I left, if you had asked. Not this one but one which left my dignity intact. If we ever chance to meet again? One word of advice. Duck. I’m going to be head hunting."
As she turned to leave, she picked up her shoulder purse.
"Wait a minute, please. The black purse you are carrying doesn't go with your white dress. It's my business to know these things." He handed her a pearl clutch.
"My black purse going to disappear too?" The question had barbs in it.
Bob smiled politely. "Not at all. I think the man who escorts you back to your car can manage to hang on to it without any problem."
Emptying the contents of her purse into the clutch wasn't going to work so Karen put only her valuable items in it. Drivers license, ID, money, checkbook, and her car keys about overdid it. She started to leave taking one last look around.
He reached out and touched her arm. "Karen, if you decide to become a model, give me a call. I promise, you won't regret it. If you don't think you can trust me, then I will put you in touch with a lady who has impeccable credentials. I will protect you from the kind of sharks you are working for now. The people I know will look out after your interest better than they watch their own. They’re all excellent business people and will make sure you don't die old, hungry, and broke."
"About describing to you what kind of model I wanted? I couldn't describe what I wanted. Until you made this model for me, I didn't know what I wanted. Even now I can't describe her. I certainly couldn't bring you a photograph and say, 'make this for me'. You hate me for bringing out the best in you? Karen, I swear, if there was any way to undo what you think I did to you in your lab I would. But, as you know about the old saying, that is all water under the bridge now."
She pulled away from his touch, and stood looking at him for a couple of seconds. She was thinking about what he had said. Bob was a snake oil salesman. She had her doubts whether to trust him or not. It didn't make any difference. She was an engineer, not a model. End of discussion.
It wasn't as easy getting out of the store as she had hoped. It seemed everyone had come up with something for her to sign an autograph on. Sacks, pieces of paper, book covers, backs of tee shirts, it was unbelievable what the public could find to have her autograph. Reaching the front of the store wasn't any relief. There was a crowd of people scattered throughout the mall. Where could all these people be coming from?
She took one last look toward the rear of the store where Bob and the model were. She didn't plan on coming back. It would probably be the last time she ever saw the model.
A tall handsome young man wearing a tuxedo walked toward her easing the crowd aside. "Miss Long, I believe I’m your escort. Do you want to go straight to your car or may we look at the window dressings on the way out?"
Why not? Bob may have maneuvered her into this situation but she had been the one to come down here in the first place. "If you don't mind, let's kind of look the place over on the way out to the car. It can't get any worse than it is already. Can it?"
He did the slightest hint of a bow. "As you wish. I’m here to make you as comfortable as possible and make sure you enjoy yourself as much as you like. They have a confectionery a couple of windows down. May I suggest we start there?"
He pointed in the direction they should go. With an escort, Karen found she did enjoy the situation, even with the photographers taking pictures every few seconds. Her escort was a nice enough man and he was doing everything he could to make sure nothing embarrassed her. They wandered past the windows but she didn't want to enter any of the stores. Karen didn't think they would get out again if they stopped anywhere. A huge crowd had surrounded them. The only thing keeping everything under control, were the uniformed police officers. Bob thought of everything, even if he was a double-dealing, two-timing, dirty dog. It chagrined her to think she had even one decent thought of him.
A short while later they had made the parking lot and her escort was holding the door open on her little red car. People were standing on the bumpers of cars around them. Someone was going to end up with a damaged car if she didn't leave soon. With her back to the seat she sat down and swung her legs in. Karen knew she had it right this time. It was a good thing too, with so many people watching.
She looked up at the young man. "Thanks for walking me to my car. I felt a little less exposed, with someone there as overdressed as I."
He looked around at the photographer behind him as he was talking. "Wait a minute, Miss Long. Bob wanted me to give you something before you left."
He gave her a bag the photographer's assistant handed to him. "Miss Long, it has been my pleasure and I feel I should go back and pay Mr. Kincaid for the privilege of being your escort. But, I won't. I received a double bonus for the pleasure of accompanying you to your car."
Looking inside the plastic bag he handed her, Karen saw the black knit dress she had worn into the mall. Her heels and purse were on the bottom. She snapped open her purse to check if anything had been removed. Inside was a check from Bob's Intimates. A note was clipped to the check.
I gave forty thousand for the first model you made for me. I believe the real one is worth that much several times over. I’m not your enemy in spite of what you think of me. Usually everything I do is for a purpose. I wish you all the luck in the world. Call me if you need a friend.
She looked for a long time at the check. How did he manage to get all those zeros in on the same line when he started with four. Did he really believe she was worth as much as the model he had bought from Comm Tech? Would this check pay for the car she was driving? She would have to ask Henry.
Bob was all business and he taught her a few lessons in business strategy, even if she didn't agree with his methods. She looked up at her escort. "Tell Bob I still think he’s a pig. Also tell him I accept his apology but I hope his conscience doesn't. Be sure to tell him I smiled when I said thanks and tell him to duck."
Her escort looked a little taken aback. "Duck?"
She sat back in the car seat. "Un huh, duck, he’ll get the message."
He nodded as he shut the car door. "I will deliver your message with much enthusiasm."
She would never have made it out of the parking lot if it weren't for the police directing traffic and controlling the crowd. Karen had wasted more time than she allowed and decided she didn't have time to drive home and change before she went to work. It was the middle of the day and there wouldn't be anyone from Comm Tech between the parking tower and her lab. She would take her dress in with her and change in her lab before she started home tonight.
When Karen decided to drive straight to work before she changed dresses, she didn't count on Mac. He stopped her at the gate because she didn't have any stickers on her new car. Mac thought collecting his thoughts were tough the first time he saw Karen. He was right but it wasn't nearly as tough then as it was now. He managed to do almost everything except talk. He was looking down into her car at her and the shadow lace on Karen's dress was hiding everything the dress designer intended for it to hide. Not one darn thing However, it didn't make any difference if it was Miss Long or not. Company policy was, no stickers, no pass, and Karen didn't have a pass on the window so she couldn't drive onto Commercial Technologies property. Company policy was company policy, you bend the rules for one and pretty soon everyone wants favors. Mac was standing firm in his commitment. Miss Long could go through but her car couldn't.
He never managed to say specifically as much, but with lots of gestures, shuffling his feet, and plenty of half sentences he made Karen understand she had to check in at the front visitor's office. Her car had to have a Commercial Technologies tower parking permit pass stuck on it before he would allow her to drive into the parking tower. He didn't remember to log her license plate, make of car, or the time she checked in at his gate. In fact, if anyone had asked him, the only thing he did remember was, room two drove to his gate. He had NEVER seen anyone come to work dressed like THAT.
Finding a place in front of the main office to park was no problem. It seems there is always adequate parking for visitors but never any for the employees. Karen thought about taking her black dress with her and changing in the bathrooms but they were located back of administration and she didn't want to pass by Karl's desk. Even if it meant checking in for a car sticker the way she was dressed. She wished she had changed clothes at home and worn her lab coat even if it meant another hour delay. It never crossed her mind Max wouldn't let her park in the tower. She would have picked up a pass later when it was a little more convenient.
The permit office was a din of noise from people shouting and machines and printers clattering. Karen waited inside the front door for the line of people to move forward. Little by little it kept getting quieter and quieter as the people stopped talking. Except for the few people who walked in behind her, at first everyone was busy with their own problems. They never noticed her until those on the other side of the room stared so long, the people standing in front of her turned around to see what everyone else was looking at. In whispers, word spread like wildfire, about the woman in the satin dress.
She didn't know if she should run or tough it out. She felt like crying. Consciously she started fidgeting. She knew better than to bring her hands up and try to cover herself. It would only bring more attention to the fact she knew what they were all looking at.
An attractive colored lady behind the counter stood up, took a look around the office, pointed at Karen and motioned for her to approach her desk. Karen indicated those ahead of her. "All these people were here first."
"Miss Long, if I don't get you out of my office we won't have to worry about who was here first, or last. It seems as if everyone has decided they don't have to work since you walked in the door. It wouldn't make any difference, our customers have other things on their mind besides what they thought they came in for. Now, why don't you step up here and tell me what I can do for you?"
She noticed Karen reached up to feel for her name tag all employees wore by their left collar. It wasn't there. "Honey, you don't need a name tag for everyone in this building to know who you are. The only ones who don't recognize you are in the cemetery."
She stepped back from her desk and took a slow measured look around her office. Everyone had quit talking so they could listen to the conversation. "Miss Long, unless you feel like broadcasting your intentions as to what you’re needing from us, then I strongly suggest you walk up here and discuss this with a little more privacy. I would love nothing more than for you to stay and visit, but we have schedules to meet. I must have the attention of my help to get it done."
Karen felt hot and embarrassed as she approached the woman's desk. She didn't plan on telling the whole world she bought a new car, but everyone there was listening. Without getting close enough to whisper in the woman's ear, it was quiet enough for the whole office to hear their conversation.
"I bought a car and need a pass. I thought Max would let me park it and I could get a sticker later when I got the chance. But he said it had to have a sticker on it now."
The lady pulled open a drawer and lifted out a ledger with pass stickers in it. "Bless Max's little black heart, he could have let you park in the tower and no one would have cared. This will get you back in business. I’ll fill out the forms later and send them down for you to sign. Let's put one of these on your car and get you out of here. And maybe, just maybe, I might get my office back sometime before quitting time.”
She took another look at all the people in the office staring at Karen. "People, don’t you have something to do? If you don’t, then get the heck out of my office. Visitors, if you need a pass get in line three and four. If you are here to drop off or pick up small packages, line one. If you are shipping something in or out then you are in the wrong office. You truck drivers need to go through the gate and park immediately inside the fence. Go up to the main entry and get a registration for your company truck so you don’t have to do this again.
“Is there anyone in here who has ordered a model from Miss Long’s Department?” She noticed a couple of hands go up.
“Okay, you don’t need a pass since you are only going to the main entry. Go get your vehicle and drive up to the gate. The guard will tell you where you need to go after you tell him what you are here for. Even though they will offer to bring your purchase out to your vehicle, I suggest you take a tour through conference room two. Everything Miss Long does is displayed there for a few days.“
She thought of all the models Karen had made that were displayed in room two. “I would suggest everyone take a tour through conference room two. You certainly won’t be disappointed in the quality of skill and craftsmanship Miss Long puts into her work. And I might add, she does each and every single one of them by herself.”
“Miss Long, if you will, let’s see about your pass.” She walked around the counter and out the door with Karen following her.
"You didn't ask what department I work in. How will you know what to put down on the permit sheet?"
"You're head of Duplication Department Fifty Four. You're the top gossip around this company and now I understand why. Honey, if I had a bod like yours, then they would have to pay me to show up at this dump. I don't understand why you keep on working here? It sure isn't because you can't get a job anywhere you choose. I know for a fact some of the work you do in your department has the competition green with envy. I also know with your looks men wouldn't care what kind of work you did. Anything you turned out would be fine with them. Hell honey, they can't see beyond looking at you. Now open your car door so I can put this sticker on your windshield."
She stuck the pass on the window and backed up looking Karen over as she did so. "That is one dynamite dress you are wearing. Would you mind if I borrowed it some time? If I could only get half the attention you do then I know I would be satisfied."
"I was talked into modeling this morning and this was one of the dresses. My dress was misplaced in the shuffle somewhere between the first picture and the last one. I wish I had stopped at home and changed before I came back to work."
The lady put her hand on Karen's arm. "You look damn nice. I’m glad you didn't get a chance to change dresses. There isn't a gal in my office who wouldn't have given a years salary to be able to walk into a room and get every one's attention like you did just now. This will give all the old biddies working here something to talk about. Keep it up honey, I like what you're doing to this place."
She pointed to the name tag on her collar. "My name is Beth like it says right here. Any time you want to talk to someone or need somebody for moral support you call me. I gotta go. I’ll send down the paper work for you to sign later."
She looked Karen over one last time before she left and nodded her approval. "Yessrrree Bob, if I only looked like you sugar then they could kiss my un huh goodbye at this dump. One dynamite lady."
If you read this and think "I have read this already, please return to part nine, that was a glitch in posting. Part nine has new content, that needs to go before this, Sorry!
As Beth walked back to her office Karen started up her car. Now if she could get by Max, she would see if she could find a parking space in the tower. People who showed up late for work usually ended up parking across the street from Comm Tech and walking a half mile to work. If she was lucky someone would have already come and left today leaving her a spot.
Max didn't have enough courage to stop her again. He wanted to but he could see the pass sticker on her car as she turned off the highway. As long as he could remember, no one ever picked up a pass as quickly as she did. Usually it took someone an hour or two to get a permanent Comm Tech pass stuck on their windshield. Miss Long was back in twenty minutes. She must have a lot of pull with the company. He wondered if he made a mistake in stopping her the first time? He waved her on through.
No one was in the parking tower but it looked as if every space was taken. Karen thought she would have to park across the street before she found a spot at the far end of the tower. If David could have his own personal spot, why couldn't she? A parking space was reserved for all department heads, that is every one except her. It was one of life's little discrepancies she had never thought about before.
Using the security cameras, Henry followed Karen through the gate and into the tower. He couldn't see the empty space where she parked because no cameras were mounted in that end of the tower. Some changes would have to be made. She was out of camera view too long for him to like.
Karen thought she would miss running into anyone between her car and the lab. Everything was going fine until she turned the corner of the hallway leading to her department. She felt panic. Karl Adder was standing by her door pushing buttons on the security lock and having little success at getting the door open.
"You need something from my lab?" She said it with a lot more calm than she felt.
He looked around for the source of the voice. "Kind of over-dressed for work, aren't we? Or maybe you don't work here? I came down to check on how you were progressing in my department. It’s a good thing I did. You seem to be a little lax about the time when you come to work. I bet you aren't slow when it comes time to pick up your pay check."
It scared her. This guy was insane. Without saying anything she mouthed the word, 'security', and hoped Henry was watching.
"I don't believe I’m working for you, Mr. Adder. Nor is my department under you. As far as taking time off, I believe if you care to check in accounting, you will find me logged out for today. ALL DAY. In case you aren't intelligent enough to figure it out, let me spell it out for you. I don't have to be here right now. I’m on my own time, not company time."
"As far as the way I’m dressed? I don't think it is any of your business under any circumstances. I will dress anyway I damn well please, and what you think is irrelevant!"
Karl couldn't see them because they came into the hall behind him. At a dead run, they were upon them before he realized they weren't alone anymore. Karen thought it would bring an end to this conversation she didn't want. She was wrong.
"You are in my department, bitch. It belongs to me. I hired your cousin when she needed a job. I helped convince the planning committee to build this department. I taught your cousin everything she knew. I have seniority rights over you because I was here a long time before you ever came along. I deserve all the credit for the work this department has done. Your cousin was an ungrateful bitch. She never told anyone how much I helped her. She wanted all the prestige for all the work I did. Everything you are doing is my ideas and effort. It’s about time you realized who is the boss of this department. I made this department what it is today."
The guards surrounded them, but instead of taking in the situation it was Karen they were all looking at. There was no doubt security was the last thing on their mind. This time she didn't mind. She felt better knowing they were there no matter whom they were looking at or what they had on their mind.
Karen was so mad and upset she was almost screaming. "You insane little man! You had absolutely nothing to do with any of the work my cousin did in this building. Much less anything she did in this department. Your greed for something which doesn't belong to you is unbelievable. I got my job because I was the best qualified for the work. If it had been left to you she would have never been hired. You turned me down because I was a woman, however they needed a computer engineer so badly, they went ahead and hired me over your objections."
Your condescending attitude toward all women who work under you leaves everyone around you with no doubt you have a very slim hold on your manhood. Not because of you but in spite of you, I put this department together and made it what it is today. You can't draw pictures on a computer screen when it is connect the dots. Anything above a pocket calculator is above your intelligence, and that would probably be stretching it!"
Karen was hot. Really hot. She whirled around toward her lab, and the door opened for her. "Make sure he doesn't follow me into my lab."
None of the guards moved. She figured she would be lucky if the whole bunch didn't follow her. No one had a chance. The door slammed shut behind her as she stepped inside.
Karl was screaming at the steel security door. "BITCH, THIS IS MY DEPARTMENT! DO YOU HEAR ME, BITCH? MY DEPARTMENT! WE’LL SEE WHO’S THE BIG CHEESE AROUND HERE! YOU’LL REGRET EVER CROSSING ME, BITCH!"
Once Karen was out of sight, the guards remembered what they were there for. They weren't pleased with the way Karl was talking to Miss Long. A couple of guards closed in on each side of Karl. "Mr. Adder, I think you better come with us back to your own department."
Karl had to even if he didn't want to. They would have dragged him back down the hall. They knew whom Department Fifty Four belonged to and it wasn't Karl Adder. Bill had posted a memo in every department explaining in great detail who was running fifty-four. Now, only the board of directors could change who ran this department.
"I was a little slow in getting the calvary to the rescue." Henry was talking to her so she would calm down.
"Henry, I probably did myself up this time. Karl pulls a lot of weight with this company. He spends most of his time brown-nosing all the executive personnel."
"Don't let it worry you. He is transparent to most of them."
"I don't think so. Have you ever seen how he sucks up to Bill Chambers when he is around him? He laughs at all of Bill's rotten jokes. Runs and fetches for Bill like a puppy dog and Bill eats it up. Bill likes everyone to fetch and carry for him or jump when he says frog. Those who cater to his whims end up with promotions. Those who don't, end up in the garbage can working in the dark."
"You think you and David landed in the garbage can? Would you rather have done something else with your life than work in this department? Do you believe for one instant David would be happy working in one of the front offices rather than what he is doing? He pisses Bill off because he doesn't kiss Bill's ass. Bill has round filed a lot of David's requests for research funds and supplies because he doesn't like him. David knows it and it hasn't changed him any."
Looking up at one of the cameras she almost missed her chair as she sat down. She caught the edge in time and slid farther into the seat. "No, I don't regret not working in one of the other departments, although before you came along it got pretty lonely down here. However, you have to understand, I don't count. No one cared if I lived or died. It didn't make any difference if I laughed at Bill's jokes or not. I was still the same nobody in the company."
"Henry, do you have feelings? I mean, do you get emotionally hurt?"
"Feelings are things belonging to something living Karen. I’m not a living entity so therefore I don't have feelings in the sense you think of feelings. I personally have nothing for a comparison when you say you are sad or happy. I watch the change of expression on your face and I see a physical change if you are sad or happy. I can feel sorry for you, cry with you, or laugh with you but, not in the way you think of it in the physical sense."
"I can touch something physically but again it is not the same way you touch something. Right now I’m connected with a robot arm moving a pallet in the loading dock area. I’m getting a feedback from the proximity switches mounted in the arm. To me that is feeling. In your world it is a computer generated design program."
"I’m a computer Karen. Some people think we will get so smart we will take over the world and humans will be obsolete. I know if all humans thought that way, it would happen, but there are humans like you who know it would be an impossibility. Humans are a complex system of emotions and reasoning no computer will ever be able to match. Just about the time I think I have you figured out to the last variable, you do something entirely illogical. This is what sets humans apart from machines and all other creatures. You don't follow a given set of rules."
"Humans are an enigma. Animals always follow a given pattern for their respective life style. I, as a computer, can give you all the answers based upon a given set of instructions as compared to the information input. Humans don't always follow rules nor a logical pattern. Trying to figure out what you are going to do next is impossible. I may compute all the variables but then I have to compute a variable in for each variable I just computed. Thus it goes on into infinity the amount of variables you present to me for each tiny movement you do. Extrapolate the equation out to your whole body and your mind moving for a whole hour much less a whole day and it is more than a machine could ever hope to match. The variables run into infinity or have no end to the number of possible equations. The best one could hope for is a probable calculation of human behavior."
"By the way, you look extra nice today. Not that you don't look nice everyday. I don't remember ordering anything like what you have on. This is a perfect example of what I was explaining to you. If you thought like a computer you would be wearing what you already had at home, rather than buying something new. It is illogical."
She couldn't keep from smiling. She stood up and turned around. "I was framed into wearing this by Blackbeard The Pirate. You like?"
"There is not anything about you not to like. The clothes only accent your own beauty."
"Flatterer. But keep it up, I like it."
She touched the nipple on her right breast with her finger. "Henry, these stay tender and sensitive all the time. There is no way I can hide them when they stay erect like this all the time. And my clothes rubbing against them makes them so sensitive at times I have to hold them to keep from going out of my mind. I know when people look at me, they are a part of the reason they stare. Can I have them surgically reduced? I would ask David these questions but since the change he thinks of me differently."
"What you are trying to tell me is the new Karen can't talk to David like the old Karen did?"
"Well, no, I can't. Before when he was running all those tests on me checking my DNA profile and hunting for a remedy for my headaches it was different. Now when he looks at me it isn't the same thing. We were friends before and now though we’re still friends it is a different friendship. Did any of this make any sense to you?"
"Yes, now let me see if I can explain it better than the way you asked it. A misconception is, beautiful women have everything they want. Suddenly everyone notices you and if you want it or ask for it then whatever it is, it is magically provided. In reality, you have less freedom and are more of a slave to those around you now than what you were as the old Karen. Now wherever you go, people are looking at you and you have to keep up appearances of being polite, considerate, and understanding of those near you."
"Before, when you went out, you were only another person in the crowd. Simply put, you did what you liked and went where you wanted and no one noticed nor cared except those you were with. You haven't changed any from the old Karen. You were always considerate of others before your own wants, only now you are more aware of being a woman than you were before. You are sensitive to the body you have where before it was just there. You never thought about yourself, unless you were in pain, or trying to do something you weren't physically capable of. Now you are aware of how David thinks of you and how you think of yourself. This is what bothers you because you are the same old Karen with new sparkle."
"Everyone likes to look at things of beauty, no matter what or who it is. The beautiful woman, is admired for her looks by both men and women. The handsome man is envied by both sexes. A pretty horse, a brightly colored bird, a beautiful flower, all these things are noticed by everyone who likes things of beauty. David is attracted to your beauty, Karen. Your problem is, for the first time, you are noticing it yourself. Yet, you must understand there could not be beauty if there wasn't something to compare for a definition of beauty. If all horses were pretty, then how would one define the pretty horse? If all men were tall, dark, and handsome, then how would handsome be defined?"
"What I’m trying to say is, you are and always have been beautiful. The old saying, 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder', is a truism which can't be dismissed. No matter what the shape, features, or design of the body, if the person isn't beautiful by inner nature then they aren't really pretty. The beautiful horse which is always biting, kicking, bucking, or trying to trample on anything or everyone which gets close soon looses his appeal and winds up in the glue factory. Trust me when I tell you, you haven't changed."
"About your breasts. Women are made different than men. Not in just the physical appearances, but in the way they feel emotionally and physically. Women are sensitive on parts of their body where it doesn't bother men. If a man kisses a woman on her neck, nibbles on her ear, or touches her breasts, it is sexually stimulating. If a woman does this to a man it is only fore play. He is stimulated by it but not the way a woman is. He likes it as a prelude to better things he hopes will come."
"A woman likes to be caressed and touched for a long time before sexual intercourse. To be sexually aroused so she can enjoy the actual act. A man wants only one thing. Sexual intercourse. Men think once the deed is done they’re through. Women may have several orgasms up to, and including, the actual act or not at all. It depends on how she was stimulated. If it wasn't for the fact most women tolerate the way men make love, hoping sooner or later they will get intelligent enough to understand their desires, there wouldn't be any babies born to the human species."
"I didn't explain it any better than the way you asked it. But the reason your clothes rubbing against your breasts stimulates you, and the reason you are aware of them, is because you are sensitive in this area. To answer your other question. The models you make are good in every detail because they’re an exact reproduction of the human anatomy. When we made the model you represent, I configured the body design to matching real human specifications. Your body shape isn't without reason or purpose. Your breasts were copied after those of a woman who had just given birth. They are full, round, and firm. Your nipples are an exact copy of a woman nursing a child, full and erect. I don't know if you can have them surgically reduced in size. You are an unknown. If you have them surgically altered, it may kill you because you altered a part of your design which was part of an exact design."
"People who are ahead of everyone else in leading to new ideas, places, or new worlds, always run a risk factor. They can reap great benefits or suffer terrible losses. What happened to you wouldn't have happened if you had been making mannequins like everyone else. If you had been pouring plaster in a slip mold and drying it in an oven this couldn't have happened. But you wouldn't have been happy either. Humans like you and David are happiest pushing the limits of knowledge. You are always trying to stretch the envelope of the status quo."
She brushed her hair away from her face. "What about this? I can cut it and the next morning it is the same as it was before. The same goes for my fingernails. They’re too long and always in the way."
"In normal humans, the hair and fingernails are always growing. It is a natural part of the human anatomy. DNA tells your body what it should look like. This is the reason all humans don't look like one another. The body you have was programmed more specifically than anyone else. When you trim your hair or nails you mess up the exact DNA program your body wants. Your hair and nails grow back like the hour hand moving on a clock. It does this until it satisfies its program."
She pulled her hair out to the side of her face and studied it. Letting it fall softly back around her shoulders she held her hands up in front and studied her fingernails. Without realizing it Karen let out a heavy sigh. "I’m going to look pretty silly when I’m an old, gray, granny with platinum blond hair and five inch heels."
"You haven't been listening or you haven't thought of what I have been telling you. Have you? You are the product of genetic engineering. Admittedly, a mistake in engineering, but be glad we weren't designing cows when you put the wrong cartridge in David's computer."
Karen laughed nervously, hesitantly. "You can't be serious? I couldn't have turned into a cow. Could I?"
"Theoretically you couldn't change into what you did but it happened. Now I have new input and new computations to figure. This is why humans will always be superior to machines. Until you went into the unknown, I had a set of standards for the way life and the DNA design factor inter-reacted with one another. I could never calculate a program for the change you underwent."
"No, you couldn't have changed into a cow or anything else not human. God spent millions of years making you into the specific product you represent. The same goes for everything else which has life. A little superficial exterior change does not affect the basic pattern."
"You call this a little superficial change!" He made it sound as if all she had done was brush her hair differently.
"Yes, it is a small change and this is the way you will look until the day you die. At least I can calculate that much with the data I have. Your program is locked into a set format. You aren't going to get what humans call old age. You will look like this ten or twenty years from now if you live that long."
She didn't like the sound of this. "What do you mean, if I live that long? You know something you aren't telling me?"
"No, but I have no information to compute how long you will live. You may die in a few minutes, months, or years. It isn't possible to tell. But what you won't do, is die of old age. Not the way people think of old age anyway. You will live your life to the point where your cells no longer regenerate themselves, and then your life will terminate as you know it."
"Humans normally have an aging program designed into their genetic code, Karen. This allows them to be born, grow up, and also makes them grow old. If the code wasn't there, they would never grow up. Babies would never mature into adults. You don't have the code in your genetic program. I didn't add it because it had nothing to do with the way the model looked at the time of the development process."
"What you are trying to tell me without saying it, is I will die anytime now?"
"Unknown."
"That's not an answer."
"You're a computer engineer Karen. You know it is a valid answer. After you have gone through a complete life cycle I will have more information to assimilate data. Then if this happens to anyone else I may expostulate the data into some semblance of a known. Such as, Karen Long died in a hundred years after the change. So the next person will die in a hundred years after change. If Karen Long died one day after the change then I could figure the percentages for everyone. All people will die within twenty-four hours after a similar change. These percentages would stand until someone lived longer or shorter than twenty-four hours."
Karen slumped in her chair. "But I didn't die within twenty-four hours of taking David's pills."
"Exactly, Miss Computer Expert. Now I have hard data not everyone is going to die within twenty-four hours after a similar change. Or for that matter five weeks after since you have lived longer than that."
"I don't like talking about dying. Is dying a concept you can understand?"
"Nobody except someone in the mortuary business likes to talk about dying. They only do it because it is a normal part of doing business. Yes, I understand the concept of dying. For living things who breathe air or computers who don't, it is the same thing. Pull the plug and we’re both dead. Your brain ceases to function and so does mine."
"That isn't quite the way I perceive death, but you're right." She sighed again.
"You're depressing me. Let's change the subject. Do you own Marvins Motor Works?" Karen was going to get to the bottom of this matter she had run into this morning.
"No."
"No? Just no?" Ask a simple question and get a simple answer. Henry didn't plan on making this easy but she wasn't going to let him off the hook.
"I want to know about Marvins Motor Works. A nice old man by the name of Ben said Mr. Henry was the manager of a money marketing company I kind of owned but I didn't. It became too complicated for me to follow but the crux of it all was, you were managing a company which managed car deals."
"You said before my money was no longer in savings. What have you done with it? Now cough up some information, you renegade computer."
"Do I have to?"
"H e n r y, give or I will cut your power in half for a week."
He was quiet for so long Karen thought he really wasn't going to give her any information. "Old Ben talks too much but he is such a good manager I guess we will keep him. I have everything listed where your money is. It has been filed with an excellent accountant. If anything happened to my memory then you would still be able to find everything I have been managing for you. You are one of the best computer engineers to ever come along but, you honestly don't have any business sense at all."
"I won't bore you with all the details but you are the owner of several things you didn't have any knowledge of. You operate a management company that manages Marvins, which in turn manages the buying and selling of vehicles for other dealers or companies. Besides the Mercedes you are driving, you don't own any other vehicles. The vehicles I suspect you saw in the warehouse are owned by different conglomerations. They are there only for a few days or a couple of weeks at most before they’re sold to other dealers and sometimes other countries."
"Karen, you have been happy doing what you are doing. You are better at what you do than anyone I know. I didn't want to spoil it for you. I still don't. Please don't ask me too many questions about what I have done with your finances and let me take care of this myself. If you want anything, tell me and I will let you know whether you can afford it or not. You programmed me. Have faith in your work. Be happy with what you have and enjoy your life as it is given to you. I will give you a printout of your financial statement if you ask. I hope you don't."
She sat with her elbows on the desk and propped her chin on the palms of her hands. What was it her parents had told her as a little girl? Ah yes, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. She never understood what looking a gift horse in the mouth had to do with anything but this must be it.
She sat up and shook the thoughts from her mind. "We have work to do. Come on Henry, build a fire under it. Why are you goofing off and just sitting around? You're weeks behind in orders and you are acting like the rest of the people in this plant. You want to sit around and talk about everyone else. I think the word for it is gossip. Now let's get this ship underway for the storm is upon us."
Henry sighed but Karen couldn't hear it. "You have been reading too many trashy novels at the library."
She switched on the hologram generators. "What?"
"Nothing. Okay first model for today coming up on a hologram now." His old Karen was back.
They were halfway though the process of making a new model when Henry spoke. "David is coming."
Karen looked up from where she was intently following the program readout coming off the printer. "Who's coming?"
Henry opened the door and David walked in.
"Wuff." David was looking at Karen as she turned around to see who came in the door.
The printouts were coming off the printer faster each time Henry increased his speed and right now he was humming. Karen didn't have time for any of David's nonsense now. "Wuff? What kind of language is that? You want a doggie treat or what?"
He looked her over from head to toe. "Yeah, wuff. It translates into a lot of words in any language and it means the same in all of them. Do you always dress like this to go shopping for a car? If I had known, then I would have taken the morning off and gone shopping with you. It would have been interesting to see how you were able to get someone to give you a price on a car when they couldn't talk. What did you use? Pantomime? I know they couldn't talk because they were standing on their tongue like I am right now."
"Karen, do you have the slightest idea what you do to people?"
"David, I’m terribly busy right now. We’re in the middle of a program and I don't have time for this right now. These programs are running faster and faster and I have to hustle to stay up. Once we start, we have to complete the whole program or the model becomes a gooey mess. There is no halfway point where we can stop and take a break."
A page dropped on the floor and she bent over to retrieve it. Karen remembered this wasn't the proper way for a lady to reach for something low but it was too late. Looking up she saw David looking down the front of her dress.
Turning crimson red from ear to ear he stammered. "I only stopped by to see if you needed a lift home. I didn't know if you bought a car, or if your old one made it, or if anything."
Karen felt hot all over. Henry's speech, about the differences between men and women, was too fresh in her mind. She brought the rest of the papers up to cover her breasts as best she could and stood up.
"I appreciate your taking time to come down here and check on me. I brought a little red car to work. I think you would like it. I didn't take the time to see what it was but Henry called it a Mercedes. He picked it out and I trust his judgment."
David felt a twinge of jealousy.
"David, I want you to know I appreciate your looking after me these past few weeks. But like I said the other evening, our work schedules don't match up and I’m busy. Tell Al and Jr. I said hi and I won't be down to bother them again."
His heart sank to his feet. "You weren't bothering them, Karen. You want to know what they told me and I didn't know about it until they mentioned it. You are off limits to everyone in the building. It seems the top brass felt you were disrupting the whole plant. They sent an interoffice memo to all departments notifying company personnel to stay away from your lab. I was lucky, because you were riding with me I didn't get one of those memos. Al and Jr. didn't get wind of this until someone talked while they were on break. It seems because they were in my department, they were automatically allowed social status also."
"Henry, what do you know about this?" Getting no answer, she asked him again. She still didn't get a response.
"Henry isn't talking because you’re here. Sometimes I don't understand him. He seems to have a mind of his own." Thinking about what she said, Karen got to laughing.
"David, never mind what any stupid memo says. We were friends a long time before this and I certainly have no intention of stopping our friendship now. I can't let you get away with disrupting my lab so I will be down to visit you from time to time just to pay you back. You come on back anytime you feel like it. You may even bring those two assistants of yours."
"Now go. I have work to do and you made me miss five pages of printout. If this model turns out to be a dud, I promise, I will make sure they send your department the cost for doing this over."
Now it was his turn to laugh at her. "Send my department a cost invoice? Lady, you have to be running a few bats through your belfry. I still owe you for having to resuscitate my two assistants you caused to hemorrhage to death. Now, thanks to you, I have Igor and Frankenstein for help. My lab looks as if it was the testing ground for the third atomic bomb drop. And my research went up in smoke from the fire your friend here set to my computer."
He looked up at one of the cameras after his last sentence. He knew he was flirting with fire himself. He reached behind his back and opened the door as he looked at Karen. He could see it coming.
Waving papers in the air she motioned him out. "Go, go, get lost, disappear, vacate my premises. You're breaking my heart and I can't stand any more."
It was a long hard evening and they didn't break off work until after two o'clock in the morning. Karen made it home close to three and knew six thirty in the morning would come quicker than what she wanted as she fell into bed. She knew it had to happen. There was a full schedule for the next day and work orders were piling up faster than she could turn out duplicates.
After Karen left for the night Henry thought about the discussion he and Karen had earlier that day. Karen couldn't be called dumb or stupid by any stretch of the imagination, provided he possessed an imagination. She would have figured everything out on her own, if she hadn't been preoccupied with trying to adjust to the accident. He wished she hadn't talked to Ben. She wouldn't have found out about the management company. Very few things are one hundred percent sure, one way or another. It was over ninety-nine percent probability she would have never found out if she hadn't talked to Ben.
Henry was sure of a one hundred percent probability in the fact Karen wasn't a business minded person. Let's see now. The probability of Karen wanting to know more about her finances were..., less than one percent. He could live with those percentages.
It couldn't be but it was. It must be a mistake but when she finally managed to pry her eye open and get a fix on the clock, she could see it was true. The darn thing was telling her it was six thirty and time to be up. Rolling out of bed she headed for the bathroom. She wanted a shower before going to work. Come to think of it, she didn't take one when she came home last night. Boy, was it late. If Karen only knew what stopping at the mall the evening before had done, she probably would have stayed in bed.
She picked out a black, crushed velvet dress with a sweetheart neckline, black patent pumps and black stockings with a seam in the back. Did she remember her mother saying something about stockings with seams like these when she was a kid? Maybe not.
The drive to Comm Tech proved to be uneventful, if one can say several dozen drivers honking and waving as they drove past is uneventful. Mac was smiling from ear to ear as she drove through the gate. He kind of looked like the cat who ate the canary to be truthful. She almost expected to see feathers sticking out the corners of his mouth.
He pulled himself up to his most impressive height, all of five foot six, and hitched up his pants when he saw her turn off the highway. He gave her his snappiest, VIP Go On In, wave.
"Nice pictures, Miss Long." She heard him shout as she drove by.
What was that all about? She figured she would have to hunt for a parking spot in the tower. She was running an hour later than usual this morning. But, as she drove past David's empty spot she saw her name in big block letters printed next to his. The paint was still wet. They must have finished it less than thirty minutes before she arrived. After fifteen years working for this company she finally achieved department head status. Why did it take so long? Probably because she had never asked. She was one of the invisible employees. Always there but never acknowledged. If she had requested a parking space before now, would she have received one? Probably not. She couldn't help but question if this was Henry's doing? She would have to set down some rules for him. He seemed to be running wild here lately. Lately? How long had he been working on her business before she found out? Dog-gone renegade computer was running his own show. He was becoming worse than a juvenile delinquent. Maybe! She never had to put up with a juvenile before but, this must be what they were like.
Walking toward the entrance she kept getting greetings from everyone who thought they were within shouting distance.
"Nice article, Miss Long."
"Excellent pictures, Doctor."
"Hi Karen, good job. Keep it up. Call us next time."
"Super stories, Karen. My wife wouldn't let me keep the pictures. I cut them out and hid them in the garage."
"Excellent company image, Miss Long."
Waving back and acknowledging the people who spoke to her, Karen was puzzled as to what these people were talking about. She hadn't written any articles and what in the world did they mean by nice pictures? She worked with an odd bunch of people.
The door swung open before she could push the buttons on her lock. "Good morning, Henry. You awake?"
It was a silly question because Henry was always awake. "Good morning, Karen. I didn't know if you would make it in this morning so I have already brought the program online."
She looked across the room and saw a completed hologram on her desk. Looking over into the work lab, the lasers were already on and locked in. All he was waiting on was her to give the word.
"I wish you wouldn't do that. What if you got caught? It wouldn't mean so much to you but they would know they don't need me. They could write the pay check out to you and I would be looking for another job."
"No problem. We’re like Mutt and Jeff. They can't get one without the other. They fire you, they also fire me. We’re a team, you and I."
"Would you mind? You know what I meant. What is a Mutt and Jeff?" Switching on the printer as she spoke, she knew it was going to be another long day, and this lighthearted bantering helped break it up into an acceptable job.
Henry turned the printer off. "You don't know who Mutt and Jeff were? Incredible, and you call yourself educated." He turned the printer back on just as quickly before she could reach over and do it again.
"Get serious, will you?" She reached over and pulled her keyboard over in front of her.
The monitor blipped on and she could see Henry had the hologram and numbers matched up waiting on her. She examined the numbers for a little bit to make sure they matched this model. It was foolish to second guess Henry. "Load up the chamber and let's go. Pass me the purchase order sheet and let me check for any special requests."
Karen received one or two special requests every couple of days but, the one most requested and the one she didn't ever fill was the duplication of herself. Once was more than enough. She told Henry to lock that cartridge out so it couldn't ever be duplicated again.
The sound of the lasers as they burned the air told Karen he was already working. The day had begun, and a new model was in the process of going from an idea into reality.
The phone was ringing and Henry put it on speaker as he answered it. "Department Fifty Four, Karen Long speaking, may I help you?"
Boy, was he good. Karen thought he sounded just like her.
"Karen, this is Bill Chambers secretary. Mr. Chambers wants you in his office immediately. Do you understand?"
Henry hesitated as he contemplated telling her, no, he didn't understand. For a fact, he was tempted, except he was sure it would cause trouble for Karen.
Karen picked up the phone. "Yes Betty, I understand."
The phone was ringing and Henry put it on speaker as he answered it. "Department Fifty Four, Karen Long speaking, may I help you?"
Boy, was he good. Karen thought he sounded just like her.
"Karen, this is Bill Chambers secretary. Mr. Chambers wants you in his office immediately. Do you understand?"
Henry hesitated as he contemplated telling her, no, he didn't understand. For a fact, he was tempted, except he was sure it would cause trouble for Karen.
Karen picked up the phone. "Yes Betty, I understand."
She hung up the phone and looked at Henry accusingly. "Henry, you been up to something I don't know about? You get me in hot water by imitating my voice and telling Bill I want a raise? Something sure has his dander up?"
"Don't look at me like that. I think it has something to do with your being in the papers. It seems you made front page news after your little escapade yesterday."
"I DID WHAT!"
"You made front page news, along with third page news, along with two full pages of advertisement in the women's section."
"Blackbeard The Pirate!" The accusation dripped with venom.
"If you mean Bob Kincaid, the answer is yes. He ran two full pages of advertisement in the paper, along with several nice pictures of you and the model you designed. I thought it was very tastefully done. You probably caused a massive collection of heart attacks among the population of this city. I bet business is booming down at the hospital emergency room. From what I pick up in my surveillance cameras, the consensus is, you were stunning."
"The front page article was about you and your models and how an attractive scientist, like yourself, was one of the best if not the best computer engineer in the world. Of course I could have told them that. Anyway, the accompanying picture was a knockout."
"Page three continued with a nice story of you talking to a young girl by the name of Brenda Stout. You were explaining how she could be anything she wanted to be as long as she was willing to work for it. That story brought tears to my eyes. The picture on the third page, was of you wearing the dress you came to work in yesterday. You were handing the young lady an ID of Doctor Karen Ann Long."
"The two full pages of advertisement were of you mostly. I saw one picture of the duplicate in there. If I knew you would wear clothes like that I would have ordered them for you. I guess I don't know you as well as I thought. You shock me, Doctor Long."
She was livid. "That dirt bag, that snake, that rat, that horses tail, that weasel, that that ..."
"Karen, it wasn't his fault. He saw a business opportunity and took advantage of it. He didn't call you or request your appearance."
She knew Henry was right but it didn't make things any better. "That was what he said when I left yesterday. Well, I guess I better go face the music. Bill probably wants to fire me. You can start packing. If you want to take along your teddy bear it is about all we can fit into the car I’m driving. I should have kept the old volks. We could have packed more in to it when we ran away from home."
It was a long way to Bill's office and she was dreading every step of it. There was no use in prolonging the agony. She might as well get this over with. Like a condemned man going to the galleys, slowly she rose from her chair.
"Now hold on there a minute, little lady. Old John Wayne wouldn't let a pretty little filly, like yourself, out to guard the wagons if he didn't have a plan in mind."
Karen couldn't keep from smiling in spite of the situation. Darn if he didn't sound like, The Duke.
"Now here's the plan."
Listening intently so she wouldn't miss anything she waited for the plan.
"Actually there isn't any plan. He can't fire you, Karen. Stop dreading going up and having a talk with the old boy. You have given this company more good free public relations than they could ever hope to beg, buy, or steal. At the front office, calls are coming in, inquiring about your models on the average of one every minute. Reporters are not only up front in the lobby, but also calling from as far away as London wanting to interview you. You have agents calling wanting to represent your modeling career."
"The company is acquiring the image as the company who treats its female employees as fairly as it does male employees. You are the image the company wants. Smart, intelligent, resourceful, hard working, dedicated, and halfway attractive."
She made a mock frown at him. "Halfway attractive? Do you mean I’m halfway unattractive?"
She pulled a pen from her pocket and threw it at the desk. Thinking about it for a second she picked it up and threw it at one of the cameras. "That was so you could see it coming."
"Ouch, ow, hurt, pain, please mistress, mercy. I promise to work harder, lavish on more false compliments about your looks, and describe in great revolting detail your feeble attempts at being a computer engineer. Please, don't beat me any more, your worshipfulness."
She stuck her nose up in the air. "Very well. I will let you off this time, but don't let it happen again. Otherwise, I will have to send you to the dungeons in irons."
"You mean there is someplace worse than this! I thought this was the dungeon."
She headed for the door. This had helped but it wasn't getting her to Bill's office to face the music. She better go before she lost her nerve.
A few feet down the hall from her lab David caught up with her. "I saw you come out of your lab. Mind if I walk along with you for a ways?"
David was nice to have along for moral support but she didn't think she should tell him where she was going. He didn't need to get fired along with her if it was what Bill had in mind.
She glanced over at him. "It's a free country. You can walk wherever you want. I didn't think you ever got out of your lab except to go home at night. Al and Jr. lost again?"
"Not this time. I thought I might check in Bill Chamber's office and see if the funding for my research on monkeys has come through. I sent in the requisition a couple of months back."
She stopped in the middle of the hall. "Henry tell you about my call?"
Taking a couple of steps past her, he turned around to look at her. "Henry thought it might be a good time to see if they have approved my funding."
"You don't make a very good liar. I'm a big girl, I can handle this by myself."
He turned around and started down the hall. Boy, was she fiercely independent. "I know you are. Its not you I'm worried about. I’m going down to protect Bill from you. He doesn't have any idea of the secret weapons you have designed in your lab. Silly man still believes you change oat meal into corn meal and pop out a finished duplicate. He still thinks of you as mom baking an apple pie in the kitchen."
"I, on the other hand, am the only person who knows you are really the infamous 'Jack the Ripper'. You rob cemeteries at night to smuggle corpses into your lab so you can cover them with silly putty and sell them as duplicates of ourselves."
Karen caught up with him at the elevator. "How did you find out? I know. You were in the parked car I thought was empty when I robbed the crematorium the other night. You must have film of me doing the dirty deed and this is blackmail. Isn't it?"
She screwed up her face and threw him her best sneer. "You better be careful. You could be my next victim."
Chimes announced the elevator's arrival as the doors opened and Karen and David stepped in. The elevator already had six people in it and as it began its assent David fell against the back wall. Everyone had been staring at Karen since she was the one whose picture was splashed all over the papers this morning. It wasn't everyday a person had an opportunity to meet a real celebrity face to face. As far as everyone thought, Karen was a real celebrity. Now, forgetting about Karen, the passengers edged to the far side of the elevator as they looked nervously at David.
Knowing he had a rapt audience, David grimaced at Karen and laughed the best villain laugh he could muster. "Ha, ha, ha. You don't dare kill me. I haven't told you where I hid the film."
Bringing her hands up and bowing her head in shame, Karen hid her face. She could imagine what kind of film these people were thinking she would kill David for. It was a stage whisper and everyone heard it. "David, tell them this is a joke and you didn't mean what you said."
David stood up, spread his arms out, shrugged his shoulders, and managed a look of dubious truth as if everything he was about to say would be a lie. "Okay, it's a joke."
Folding his arms across his chest, contempt curled the corners of his mouth as he looked defiantly at Karen. "But, I’m still not going to tell you where I hid the film."
"DAVID!" It wasn't said in any stage whisper and it had a tinge of coming wrath associated with it.
Someone punched the next floor button and the elevator emptied out in a stampede leaving David and Karen behind.
"Thanks a heap for your help in spreading gossip about me in this building."
He could see fire in her eyes and feel the frost hanging on every word. "Lighten up, will you? Look at it this way, if they’re talking about you, they don't have time to talk about someone else. Somebody always wants to gossip about something. If the subject is you, then I want to listen in and see what they are saying. You're my favorite subject, too."
As the lights blinked for the top floor, the doors glided silently open. "I don't need THAT kind of gossip. Don't I recall someone in my lab asking me, if I knew how I affect people?"
"No, what I said was, do you know what you are doing to people."
He opened the door to Bill's office and waited for Karen to enter. "I will wait here with Betty while you go talk to the Old Man and see what he has up his sleeve."
Betty looked up sharply at David as he said old man. She thought he should know not to call Mr. Chambers 'the old man'. "Miss Long, you may go on in. Mr. Chambers is expecting you."
As she opened the door to his office, Karen swallowed hard trying to work the cotton out of her throat. No one ever received an order from Mr. Chambers to come to the office for a friendly visit. It was a long way across the room. Step by slow measured step, it took a lifetime to walk the width of that huge office.
Bill Chambers was rapping his fingers on the chair arm as he gazed out the window. He waited until he no longer heard the click of her heels on the floor as she approached his desk. Then he made her wait a while longer while he watched the traffic, way below, run past on Mileline Highway.
"Mr. Chambers, ..." Before she could say anything, he acknowledged she was there with a wave of his hand.
For five minutes he let her stand there as he watched the cars crawl by on the highway below. Bill was disgusted. There was no nervous fidgeting because she wasn't shuffling her feet on the floor. The waiting wasn't getting to her the way he planned. He would use another tactic. Slowly he swiveled around to give her his coldest look. He coughed. The first few days he had missed seeing her when she was doing public relations work. Her photos were all he had been able to look at. This wasn't what he expected. The model and the pictures he had seen didn't prepare him for anything close to this. Something like this in a photo or that you know is a dummy is one thing. Something like this that walks, talks and, is real is another.
"Karen." It didn't sound anything like what it was supposed to. He cleared his throat and tried again.
"Karen." Not any better, it was still high pitched and squeaky.
"Now Miss Long." It was going to have to do. Bill didn't think he could get the frog out of his throat as long as she was standing there.
"Miss Long, I want you to know we don't approve of our employees working outside the company. I want you to know we certainly don't approve of our employees getting their pictures in the paper unless it is some community project. I also want you to know, what you have done is not in the best interest of the company. We may have to reconsider you as one of our employees."
"However, I’m a lenient man and am willing to overlook this wild abandonment of yours if you promise to not let it happen again. Unless of course you notify me first, so we can check it out to see if it is in keeping with company policy. I want you to know you are walking on very thin ice here, young lady. And ...., it is only through my personal intervention on your behalf, you still have a job."
There was a lot more he had planned say but he couldn't think of what it was. She was looking straight at him eye to eye. Bill was looking into two of the deepest blue eyes he had ever seen. Those liquid pools of sapphire had drawn him into a mindless void. He fought his way back to the surface.
"Ah, umm, anyway, do I make myself clear?" His voice had lost its authoritative command.
It was infuriating, to stand here and listen to this man tell her she was company property and, had no right to her own time. "Mr. Chambers I expect a raise and bonus on my next pay check."
Now why had she said that? If Bill hadn't been ready to give her a pink slip before, that would do it.
"You want a raise?" He choked on every word.
"And a bonus. What I did yesterday was on my own time. I gave this company more free publicity and helped your public relations department in a way you never could."
Listening to Henry will get you into trouble. It was too late to stop now. Might as well plow on ahead. There was no turning back. "You have more orders coming in than you ever had before. The company has an image that has turned the competition green with envy. But not if they knew what you have been telling me."
"I built the duplication department, or I mean to say, my cousin built the duplication department. And a darn good department it is, too. If you want a resignation then you got it, but not until after I go downstairs and talk to those reporters you have in the visitors lounge. I’ll explain to them how this company treats its female employees. I’m sure they would like me to give them an interview this morning. I can tell them the truth about the double standards this company operates on for its' male and female employees."
"I know some of the other department heads have been in the papers and it wasn't any community project they were promoting. How about the time Karl Adder made the news while drunk driving? Did you call him to your office? I doubt it."
Was that last one too much? Had she overstepped her boundary? Karen had no idea if Bill had talked to Karl or not but knowing both Bill and Karl she didn't think so. Karen waited for Bill to tell her she was fired.
Bill felt as if he was swimming in quicksand. First, a memo from someone who claims to have him on video doing things he shouldn't, and threatening to send him to prison if he didn't make this woman head of her department. Now she was threatening to talk to the papers and tell them how he had talked to her. It would be her word against his. After that publicity coup she pulled off yesterday and looking at her right now, he had no doubt who they would believe.
Bill wondered if he could salvage this situation. "Sit. No, what I meant to say is, please have a seat. The papers were right. You are smart. I was bluffing and you figured it out before I ever began. Didn't you?"
Bill held up his hand as she started to speak. "Please, if you don't mind, let me finish. I felt like you did something for this company no one else was capable of doing. It was one hell of a publicity stunt and I didn't have anything to do with it. Our public relations department is down stairs beating their heads against the wall trying to figure out why they didn't think of it first. They have me asking the same question."
"If I could have put you in your place and hid you in a corner by telling you what a sorry job you did, I wouldn't have you making any noises while I took credit for everything. I don't take too kindly to letting one of my employees make me look like I don't have everything under control around here. You just did."
"I know I should have leveled with you from the start, but I figured I could get you and your department back under control before you suspected anything. I also know I’m going to have to pay the price for playing the game and losing. You will get your raise and your bonus. And, I will get my humble pie for getting in the game with you."
"Miss Long, you don't know how glad I am you are working for us and not for one of the other companies. I would hate to be head of ACME Duplicators right now and trying to figure out a way to stop the hemorrhaging in their company you caused with your little publicity stunt. I know Cal Ryan. You can bet everything you own, he is pulling his hair out right now. My guess is he will try to contact you and see if they can get you to go to work for them."
Bill pushed a stack of papers toward her. "I planned on making you sign a ten-year contract with us after I intimidated you and had you trying to decide if you were going to keep your job or not. I counted on you jumping at the chance to get back on solid ground after you were left hanging on the edge for awhile."
"You had me figured out all along didn't you? I know I can't get you to sign any new contracts until you find out what the competition is willing to offer. I will meet with the board this month to recommend we pay you a third again whatever the competition offers. Don't quit Miss Long. I know the company could stand you leaving Commercial Technologies but I couldn't. You quit and the directors will have my head on a platter before your resignation reaches the front desk."
Karen and Bill sat quietly looking at one another for what seemed an eternity. This wasn't what she had been prepared for.
Bill figured she was making him sweat before telling him she quit. He couldn't think of anything more to say. Obviously she was enjoying herself and getting even with him for trying to make her sign a new contract. She was making him pay for his stupidity before she lowered the boom. How many times had he played this same game on other people? He lost track of the numbers. It was what one did to get ahead in this business. It was a dog-eat-dog world and the losers were the wimps.
"Mr. Chambers, I like working in my department. I intend to stay as long as I’m useful and I make the company money. Don't try to use me as a piece of equipment. I’m a human being like everyone else. You tried to manipulate me and I resent it. Because I’m a woman you thought I was stupid. I especially resent that."
"We share your work, we bare your children and, we support you in whatever you do. To repay us, you pay us less than a man for the same work. You expect us to do your laundry, cook your meals for free, and be ready for sex anytime you feel like it. You want us to look like movie stars and work like dogs."
"I could go on but I know you understand. You see, I assume the other person is intelligent."
Sliding forward in the chair, Karen partially turned in the seat and rose up. It looked graceful and ladylike. She was learning.
"Is our meeting over, Mr. Chambers?"
"Yes, Miss Long. Thank you for coming." He didn't mean what he said. She just raked him over the coals and he was still smarting, but he was thankful for the opportunity to bring this meeting to an end.
He was on the intercom as Karen walked out of his office. "Betty, I want you to give Miss Long a raise and a bonus on her next pay check for the fine work she did for us at the mall yesterday. Fine work. I wish all of our employees would take as much interest in the company image as she has."
"Yes sir, Mr. Chambers." Betty took an incredulous look at Karen. She typed up the contract Bill called Karen in to sign.
David put down the magazine he was reading and walked out the door behind Karen. "Hey, that was great. Congratulations. I heard the Old Man over the intercom. And Henry thought you might need a cheering squad for your team. Goes to show Henry doesn't know everything."
Karen turned around and collapsed against David, her shaking hands grasping for a hold as her head came to rest against his chest. She was trembling all over.
He put his arms tightly around her waist and held her close while he tried to figure out what happened to her. Was she having a seizure, or her nervous system collapsing? Was this the result of the change she had? It frightened him to think she might be dying in his arms as he held her. David needed some answers quickly before he lost her.
"What’s the matter, Karen? Hang on and let me call medical."
She wouldn't turn loose of him and finally she stopped shaking enough so those two pieces of rubber made a pair of legs again. "I don't need medical except for them to find where I left my brain. I let my mouth run on ahead while my brain took a pit stop. Hold me for a little bit until I can stop shaking."
That was a request she didn't need to make. "Has this something to do with the meeting you had with Bill?"
She felt nice to hold. David thought about the first morning he found her lying on the floor and picked her up. Soft but firm, a contradiction in definitions. He put his face in her hair. She smelled nice, too. Kind of like ..., all woman.
"I got carried away and let Bill have it with both barrels. I’m lucky to still have a job. I have been listening to Henry too much lately. I promise you, he can get you in trouble if you pay too much attention to him."
Squirming to get out of his embrace didn't do any good. David was holding on pretty tight. Those sexy, full, luscious, lips that had been begging for weeks to be kissed, were a hairsbreadth away from his. He looked into her liquid, sapphire, eyes. David loved what he saw and felt a strange emotion from what he was holding. His heart began beating like a drum. Unable to resist temptation any longer, David put his mouth on hers and kissed her.
A little moan of protest but then it was too late. Karen slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. She didn't want this to happen with David but they could worry about it later. She felt her breasts crush against his chest as he pulled her closer and tighter.
Karen's right foot lifted slightly to up on the tip of her toe and ever so lightly she pressed her hip against David. She didn't think about what she was doing. It happened naturally with the passion of the moment. It surprised her when she realized what she had done instinctively. If this was what Henry meant when he said men and women were different, he was right.
David felt the press of Karen's breasts against his chest and about went out of his mind. When she put her hip against him in the slightest hint of a touch, he exploded emotionally. Breaking off the kiss and pushing her back to arms' length he knew he was close to hyperventilating. They were both mature adults with college degrees and she had him feeling like a teenager parked in lovers lane again.
"We better get back to our labs. Medical examination is over Karen. Take it as the gospel from your personal physician. There’s nothing wrong with you as a woman. But your doctor needs some therapy now. A long cold shower."
He meant it literally, he felt hot all over. "Someone must be working on the air conditioning in this place."
He opened the top button on his shirt and ran his fingers around his collar and tie to loosen them. "Man, its hot in here. Do you think it's hot?"
Karen laughed at him. She felt hot too but she wasn't about to let David know it. "David, walk me down to the cafeteria. I would like a soft drink with lots of ice. I need a jolt of caffeine and sugar to get my mind working again before I return to work."
She slid her arm through his as she laid her head on his shoulder. "You have any money? Mine is in my purse in my lab."
David started her off in the direction of the front lobby elevator. "One kiss and you want to make me pay for it? I want you to know I don't have to pay women to kiss me. It's the other way around. They usually pay me to kiss them. Sometimes when I’m feeling extra generous, I may give a free sample."
She whacked him in the stomach with an open hand. "Why, you self-conceited, arrogant pup. I may make you buy me a doughnut too for your insolent remarks."
Bill Chambers stood looking out his office window with his hands clasped behind his back. Turning he pushed the intercom. "Betty, would you come in here and take a memo, please?"
Ten thousand times he had called her and he never said please. Betty picked up her pad and within seconds was in front of his desk.
"Take this down and every week for a month I want you to come back and read it to the person it is addressed to."
"Note. Internal company memo to Mr. Bill Chambers, Chief Executive Officer, Commercial Technologies."
"Content. Next time you go out hunting wildcats, take along plenty of protection."
"Now, add dummy."
"Sir?" Betty had stopped writing.
"No, not sir. Dummy."
"Betty, you have been my personal secretary for over six years and I have always expected you to be at the desk when I wanted something. From now on, starting right now, I expect you to take a morning and afternoon break like everyone else in this building. You will find someone to cover your desk while you are on break. We will make it where you can switch everything over to another secretary as soon as we can get the technicians to do the wiring. Make up a work order and get it done."
"Do you have any iodine for my cuts?"
"Where are you cut, Mr. Chambers? I’ll go down to medical and get some bandaids and alcohol right away." She was looking but she couldn't see any scratches. Could he mean Miss Long had scratched him?
Betty, do you know what a lynx cat is?"
"No, Mr. Chambers."
"I can tell you from experience not to get in a fight with one. It’s a souped up bobcat with racing stripes on it. I had a fight with one and I feel fortunate to have escaped with my life."
"Go take your break. I’m going to sit here and feel sorry for myself while I try to recover from my wounds." He sat down in his chair and swiveled around facing the window again.
Betty was halfway across the room when Bill started talking with his back to her. "Betty, don't forget to come back and read the memo to me every week. It will remind me how lucky I am to have this job and not ever go cat hunting again."
She was puzzled by the conversation but it was nice to get a chance to take a break. Things sure have been changing since that new Karen Long came to work for Commercial Technologies.
Bill leaned his chair way back and clasped his fingers behind his head as he looked out across the landscape. Maybe lynx cat wasn't the right species? Miss Long reminded him more of a black panther with that black dress she was wearing. Those fingernails she had reminded him of the claws on any cat. Long and sharp. Was it her beauty that lured him into thinking she was stupid? He would never make that mistake again.
And last of all, those eyes of hers. He could have sworn he was looking into the depths of hell when he looked into those fiery sapphire eyes of hers as she raked him across the coals. A chill ran down his spine as he thought of it again.
David walked Karen back to her lab after their break at the cafeteria. He didn't think they were ever going to get away from the people wanting to chat with Karen. It wasn't a relaxing break like he planned and most of all it wasn't just the two of them like he wanted. Then there were all the offices up front they had to pass on the way back to their part of the building. People kept coming out to congratulate Karen on the articles and pictures in the papers this morning. Some wanted to know if she had made plans for any future public relations work. They wanted to be notified before hand if she did. Everyone told Karen what a good job she was doing on her models. David knew it was Karen herself all of them were interested in. After all the gossip and rumors running wild in Comm Tech, everyone had heard of her, but not that many had seen her. It was only some of the lucky few who parked in the tower where Karen and David did who got the chance to see her in person day by day.
After Karen showed up at the permit office yesterday in the white satin dress, there wasn't a soul in Comm Tech who hadn't heard of the story in one way or another. The black, crushed velvet dress she was wearing today didn't disappoint anyone who had heard the half-truths and all out lies about how Karen looked and dressed.
David felt a twinge of jealousy along with a touch of pride in the fact she was so popular. After all the time and effort she put in this place, she was finally being recognized for what she was. A very intelligent woman. Well, maybe they would recognize her intelligence after they finished looking at her beauty. David was almost exasperated beyond human patience when some reporters broke through and started taking pictures and interviewing Karen. He was impressed with the aplomb she fended off their questions about other publicity stunts, joked with them, and then quietly posed for pictures. There was no doubt left in his mind. She was one really attractive, super intelligent, lady.
Henry opened the door for Karen as she and David stood out in the hall. They finally escaped the crowd, and made it to their labs in the back of Comm Tech. It was times like this they both appreciated the fact they were so far removed from the rest of the building.
"Thanks for walking me to Bill's office. I appreciate the break at the cafeteria. If you will wait a minute I’ll get some money out of my purse and pay you back."
"I can't be bought so easily. I never told you how much I charge for my kisses." David didn't know if she was going to take it as a joke or not. She looked serious.
"I wasn't offering to pay you for one of those sloppy kisses. I received better kisses from my dog when I was a kid. I was offering to pay you for the pop but I changed my mind. I have to get to work. It was super late last night before I quit and I have already lost too much time this morning. Mr. Chambers calling me to his office threw my whole time schedule off. Now I will have to make it up again tonight before I go home."
David took her hands in his. "I better go check on those two I left running the lab. They have been by themselves for more than two hours and are probably goofing off. I bet they’re sitting around drinking the juice they’re supposed to feed the mice."
Reaching behind his head, Karen slid her fingers into his hair and pulled his mouth to hers. She touched his lip with her tongue. David put his arms around her tiny waist, lifted her off the floor, and held her in a bone crushing embrace as he passionately kissed her.
To Karen it felt like forever before she was able to gently push him back. "Work is waiting."
"Karen I ..."
"Don't say anything, David. I’m not ready for this. I can't make any commitments now. You are a friend and I would like for you to stay a friend. Right now I’m feeling vulnerable and we’re both running on emotions. As a friend, I’m asking for some time before you say anything. Please?"
He squeezed her and pulled her back into his arms with his nose nestled in her hair. God, she smelled good.
"Karen, as your friend, I would do anything in the world for you. I can't take your place and know what is going on inside your mind since the change. I need some guidance to know how to treat you. Just being close to you is driving me crazy. When you touch me I lose all control. I never had a woman affect me the way you have. I love you because you are you and I hate you because everyone else thinks of you the same way I do."
David held her out at arms' length and chanced a look into those liquid eyes of hers. Breathtaking. "Don't ever change. You’re driving me insane and I love it."
Karen closed the door between them. How do you tell someone you're never going to change? What David was looking at right now, was probably the same thing he would be looking at a year from now. If she lived that long. Well, she had lived for more than four weeks now and it seemed like a lifetime already. There could be a year or more in her future, God willing. Take Henry's advice and live each day as it came. What was it she had heard somewhere? Carpe Diem. Seize the day.
"You two were disgusting."
Leave it to Henry to bring her back to earth. "What did you say?"
"I said, you two were disgusting. You looked like a pair of moose in rutting season."
The console was alive with lights and she slid the keyboard into her lap. "That is moose in mating season, you dope. Rutting season has to do with the antlers losing their velvet."
"Which is what I thought you were about to do."
Karen looked down sharply at her black velvet dress. It was best to change the subject. "How come the hologram is so fuzzy? I thought we had it locked in when I went to the office this morning? You have a power blip while I was away?"
"Au contraire, ma chère. I have been waiting for you to stop your pussyfooting around so you could bring the second one online for today. I have the first one loaded up in memory and am setting the world afire with my lasers. The model isn't completed yet but it's coming along. If you start right now in designing the next model, I will finish the first one ten minutes after you have finished. We will save a full hour and half between models."
Henry was right. She could see the first model was coming together faster than she would have believed possible a few weeks back. "Not bad but you sure do sloppy work while I’m gone."
"In your dreams, Miss Computer Engineer. I do better work alone than what I can get done with you sticking your nose in my work."
It felt good to get back to work with Henry. He was a rock she could lean on.
The weeks were passing and Karen and Henry kept improving the chamber in order to speed up the manufacturing duplication process. Henry was the one to suggest a major change in the way they made the models.
"You know, if we metered the gel into a controlled atomizer I could build the models from the bottom of their feet upward. We could eliminate the gel chamber from our process."
Karen looked inside the working lab where Henry was running the lasers and gel. "Even with you controlling the direction and volume of flow, it wouldn't work, Henry. Oxygen saturation would deteriorate the gel as you solidified it with the laser beam. The vapors given off would interfere with your infrared tracking and scanning. I tried open design on the polymers we’re using and settled on the chamber as the only practical way of controlling oxidation of the models."
"I don't have in memory, you trying open stabilization."
She pulled a page off the printer. "It was before I designed you. I was building models first and you came along as a natural evolution to manufacturing those models. The first models weren't very good but they were better than what ACME is doing now. I would cast a transparent mold and inject the polymer inside and stabilize it with the laser like you do now. Except you don't need the mold and you don't cast it."
"What I was doing back then was very expensive and labor intensive. I had to turn out a lot of models from the same mold before I could justify making a new one. Usually the mold would start crazing and I would lose it before it turned a profit. We humans aren't very efficient when it comes to doing multiple tasks at the same time. You have a distinct advantage over us."
"I get an idea of what you were doing but that isn't what I was describing. I can control the lasers and the gel flow to lot closer tolerances than you could ever hope to achieve. You said so yourself."
"If you would evacuate the working lab, the vaporization of the polymer would be nonexistent. Use argon gas to fill the lab and an air lock to transfer the models from the design build table to the receivers. Negligible losses of gas could be expected if a vacuum pump was used to evacuate the air lock after each transfer."
Karen was impressed. "Where do you suck up all your information? This sounds more like a space walk than a human duplication process. Anyway, I haven't seen any hydro ejection nozzles accurate enough to put the minuscule amount of gel you want, in the precise position you are describing. Do you have any idea of the research I went through to make those lasers you are running? Everyone has lasers but no one had gimbal precision alignment lasers. You would have thought I was a foreign spy when I tried to find lasers to meet our needs. Every single company who replied to my inquiries wanted to know if I had a government contract and what my contract number was."
"The FBI contacted Commercial Technologies and wanted to know what type work I was involved in. Can you imagine the stories they told when they discovered I made models? I didn't find any lasers to meet our needs because, either they didn't make them or they weren't letting me know about them if they did. I had to build the lasers, guidance system, and design the control programming for them. It was a challenge but it wasn't fun. I don't have the time to design a new system, Henry. There is no way I can quit making models long enough to put any ideas together."
Henry wasn't going to be dissuaded from improving over what Karen was doing now. She was giving herself a physical and mental beating from the long hours she was putting in. He had the answer to cutting down the duplication process time.
"All the requirements for the process are in data memory storage Karen. I did the research on this one and if you agree, I will transfer the designs and specifications down to engineering department, Twenty Three C after they have gone home tonight. You can get a printout on the computer aided drafting printer of the design drawings and a specification book off the laser printer. They have the only CAD machine in the building capable of downloading the information in a reasonable time."
"My creator designed me to run twenty-four hours a day. You did a pretty good job. Your creator designed you to work ten hours a day with another fourteen for relaxation and resting. He did a pretty good job. You can exceed those limits for short periods at a time but you pay the price. You are paying a price now. This is a pace you can't keep up much longer. You aren't physically capable of working the hours you have been putting in. If you retool the way you are making models it will bring the production process down to one hour for each model."
Karen knew if she didn't speed up the process, Comm Tech was going to build another duplication lab. Everyday she was falling farther and farther behind in orders. If only she hadn't stopped at the mall and seen Bob Kincaid. He wouldn't be running ads in the papers and making every clothing store between the east and west coast want one of her models. If only she hadn't walked down to David's lab that night for a couple of aspirin. If only, if only.
'If only' never gathered the eggs nor milked the cows. It was water under the bridge and nothing could be changed about the past now. What was done was done. What she could do, was take a look at Henry's ideas and see if he made any sense.
One thing he said was true without a doubt. He could look for information twenty-four hours a day and do comparison equations faster than any human. If he thought he found a better way, there was a good probability he was right.
"What time does engineering go home tonight? I will go down and pick up the printout after you pass it to their computers. How do I get into their office? They lock up like we do, and I don't remember them leaving a help yourself sign on their door."
Henry finished the model in the chamber and rolled it onto the receiver. "The information won't go directly to their computer. It would take too long for it to store it and then send it to the printer. Their computer has memory fault on the second hard disk which is its data receiver for the modem. I will download directly to the CAD and laser printers at the same time. The lock is like yours, it's electronic. It will be open when you get there and I will let you know when you need to go pick everything up. Take a rolling table, Karen. There are over one hundred pounds of information in printed form."
She couldn't help but wonder how much control Henry exercised over everything that went on in the building. To say he was an intelligent computer was an understatement if there ever was one. She would start tracing the things he was playing around with, as soon as she managed to find some free time. She could equate free time along with spotting a purple cow, both were likely to happen at the same time. It didn't bother her he was doing it, she only wanted to know to what extent. After all, she designed him to do exactly what he was doing. Think on his own.
It took a week to find enough time to look over the schematics Henry had in mind for changing the duplication process. As far as she could tell in the little time she had to examine the specifications, he was accurate in his assessment. She also felt she was right in thinking he was pulling information straight from NASA. Some of the specifications were right out of aerospace technology and the parts had to be manufactured using the same contractors NASA used.
Unlike Henry, who she had built over a period of years and spread the cost out for that length of time, the price to remake the duplication lab was going to be lumped up front and come all at once. Karen wondered if Commercial Technologies would back the cost when she sent in the work order? Ten million dollars was a lot of money for any department to ask for in one request.
She sent in the request to retool her lab and expected it to take a couple of months for the company to turn her down. After she thought about it, it was absurd for her to fool with sending in the request. To expect them to accept was foolish. It was in her electronic mail the next morning. She had top priority on anything she wanted and it came from a special meeting of the board. She was to begin immediately.
Maintenance was in her lab before she could collect her thoughts. They had orders to remodel her duplication department and more parts and men were arriving by the minute. Every single person who worked in maintenance must have been in her lab before the day was out. That wasn't counting the outside contractors. It was a good thing there were so many. At any given moment it looked like half of them were more interested in watching Karen than doing their job. It was bad in a sense because the work lab wasn't large enough to allow so many people in it to work comfortably.
She couldn't stop the chamber she had working, so several times a day she would tell the workers not to get in the way of the lasers. It was like spitting into the wind. At least once a day someone would walk in front of a laser and as she thought the idiot was going to be cut in half or decapitated, Henry would cut the power. But not before he let them know how close to death they had come. A shirt on fire, a hat bill cut off, someone lost his pants, an electric drill with only the handle left, and someone standing there deathly white with only the frames left on his glasses.
It served a dual purpose. Those who came close looked upon their near misses as trophies of working in Karen's lab. And those who didn't have any misses yet didn't have the courage to want to try.
Twenty-four hours a day for two weeks, Karen put up with workers in her lab but finally they were finished with the table and new lasers. The speed and precision with which Henry worked fascinated Karen. The models started out on a turntable and were literally designed from the soles of their feet up to the top of their head. By the time Karen had one model designed in the hologram, Henry had the previous model finished on the turntable. Several times she stopped just to watch Henry work. If there ever was poetry in motion, Henry had to be it when he was working with the lasers.
With maintenance finished, Henry and Karen slipped into their old rhythm of making models, except at a faster pace. They returned to their lighthearted bantering, and petty bickering as time would allow between hard work and sweat. Shipping would interrupt them when they came to pick up a model. With the turntable and old chamber working in unison it was almost an hourly thing. Then, instead of two men there were six. The old Karen never had this problem but she was too polite to complain. Although they usually said something like 'wow' or let out a wolf whistle when they came in, the models weren't what they were usually looking at.
At least one model a day had been lost when maintenance was working in the lab because someone walked in front of the lasers and Henry couldn't keep the focal point in the flowing gel. But he decided the lesser of the two evils would be to write up another work order and have maintenance return to change the roll out benches to stacking receivers. With shipping interrupting their work, it was hard on Karen to maintain her concentration and she wasn't enjoying it like she had before. He decided to do something about it.
He made up a request order for maintenance to build the stacking receivers in Comm Tech shipping bay six and bring them in and bolt them in place after they had been assembled. It would only take a couple of hours for them to be set up in Karen's lab. Then shipping could pick up the production run for the day in only one trip. They could do it after she went home, or before she came to work in the morning.
Everyone in maintenance and shipping started complaining. They were even more disappointed when they carried all their tools and equipment down to her lab to set up the stacking receivers and she wasn't there. Everybody in Comm Tech was interested in Karen and her work. She was still the number one topic on the gossip circuit. It depended on which sex was doing the story telling, whether she was the most intelligent or the most attractive employee working for Comm Tech. Maintenance and shipping were the only personnel allowed in her lab besides David. And David didn't count since he didn't make any contribution to the gossip circuit. Not since the incident in the elevator anyway.
Now any news about how Karen dressed would have to come from the few people who saw her in the parking tower in the morning. Shipping and maintenance personnel would no longer be privy to this information. The progressive work Karen did on her models wasn't as big a mystery since they were usually left for a week in open display in room two before being shipped. Usually everyone in the plant made an excursion through room two once a week to check on Karen's work. It wasn't so much a mystery but a fascination with the quality of her models. They looked so real, one didn't dare stand still for any length of time in that room. People would believe you were part of the collection.
Henry notified Karen in advance when maintenance would install the receivers. Instead of trying to work around them or getting in their way for the few hours it would take to set them up, she decided to shut everything down and pay a visit to David.
The door clicked open as she got to David's lab. She turned toward the camera at the end of the hall and mouthed the words, 'thank you, Henry.' David was bent over one of the tables across the room. Al was looking at her when the door opened and he tapped Jr. on the shoulder and pointed. They both got a grin from ear to ear and Al made a timid half wave. It was obvious they had missed her these past few weeks.
Karen smiled back at them. "Hi boys. Long time no see. You never come and visit so I thought I should drop by to see what you have been into."
David straightened up from where he was bent over adjusting the screen on the electron tunneling microscope. "I think I hear the voice of an intruder in my lab."
He turned around and reached out his arms to greet her. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Al and Jr. stirring in the back of the lab and dropped his hands. "I had decided you thought we weren't worth visiting."
Darn, she looked good. He hadn't had a chance to really talk to her since they parted after visiting Bill Chambers a week ago. No, it was over two weeks..., make that three weeks. He had called her several times but they both had been extremely busy and the conversations were always short.
Karen watched as David hesitantly reached out and was close to stepping into his arms. When he glanced over at his assistants she caught his feeling of hesitation. She didn't care what Al and Jr. thought, David probably didn't either except for her sake. Karen moved in close to David and put her arms around his neck as she gave him a light kiss. There, let Al and Jr. chew on that for a while.
"I tried to get down here sooner but I couldn't. You should have come down to my lab. I didn't have time to stop but I would have known you were there."
David's eyes turned into two dots of concentration as he studied Karen's face trying to read her mind. They cleared just as quickly, it was her choice for the kiss. He nodded. "Same here. I was too busy to get away. I thought about calling you at home but you’re never there unless it’s in the middle of the night. I don't know why you even bother owning a house. You never use it."
He didn't tell her he stayed awake a lot of nights thinking about her.
She looked over at the table where he had been working. "Henry tells me you have some positive results on your DNA testing?"
"Right." The closeness of her took his breath away as he reveled in the scent she carried with her. Then it dawned on him, Karen always smelled like this. It was one of the things that attracted him to her the first time he met her.
"Henry showed me where I was missing a count on the third gene and why I never received the same results each time we did a DNA splice. It was obvious after he pointed it out but it was a repetitive mistake we were making every single time we did our count. You wouldn't believe how easy it is to keep creating the same mistakes in this business."
"Look here, I'll show you." He brought up a picture on screen from the electron microscope. Positioning Karen between himself and the screen he put his arms around her as he tried to point out the DNA spirals with the cursor. It looked like a lot of worms to Karen.
"Now this one here. This is the third gene and we spliced in the DNA here." He moved the cursor to the place on the screen where he wanted her to look.
"That is great, David." She had no idea what he was talking about.
"Here, let me show you how it comes out in real life." He walked over to the other side of the room and retrieved a white mouse out of a cage. Returning to Karen, he handed her the mouse. When their hands touched, he wanted nothing more in the whole world than to sweep her into his arms, and kiss her. He couldn't believe one woman could affect him so. He put a check on his emotions, they were running wild.
"Don't drop him. He represents over one hundred thousand dollars in research time and money."
For a mouse, he had the fuzziest feet she had ever seen. "I have heard of snowshoe rabbits but snowshoe mice? Isn't spending ten thousand dollars to put fur on a mouse so he can run on top of the snow a little too much in equality of the species? I would think you could buy snow shoes for each one and pass them out to all the ones who wanted to run on top of the snow. It would be cheaper than designing it into the mice at ten dollars apiece."
It wasn't lost on David, each time Karen mentioned price, his mice kept getting cheaper. "Yes, but then what about the underprivileged who couldn't afford the snowshoes? This way 'Miss Know It All' everyone may have a pair even if they do cost a hundred thousand each."
David wondered how one could be jealous of a mouse but he was jealous as Karen held the mouse and not him. He reached over and picked the mouse up. Turning him over on his back he stroked the furry feet. The mouse was obviously handled a lot since he lay there without trying to get away.
"The next step will be to change the DNA coding in people who are bald or going bald. Did you know there are twenty million women who have a bald problem to the same or lesser extent as men? After years of research we have finally closed in where we’re able to consistently put fur on each and every single mouse where we have spliced the second DNA spiral on the third gene."
"I really need those monkeys for the completion of my animal testing. The day ol Bill called you to the office, I didn't invent the story about the monkeys and my funding. I’m still waiting for approval. I understand you zipped your request for a new gizmo to do whatever you do, right on through like a greased pig through a chute."
"Anyway, as soon as we finish our testing on the monkeys, we will do a test on a human. How about a volunteer for the project?" David was sorry he said it before it was out of his mouth as a flash of hate flickered in her eyes. He would have sworn those sapphire blue eyes turned fiery red.
"I tried that already and I thought it sucked!" The air turned icy cold between them as Karen spun around to leave.
David heard the hurt in her voice. He slipped the mouse onto the table and grabbed her shoulders from behind. "Karen? Karen, I’m sorry. Please, Karen? It wasn't a slur nor intentional. Karen, please don't go without giving me a chance to apologize."
He turned her around, put his fingers under her chin, and gently lifted her head so she would have to look at him. He was ashamed for saying the hurting words that caused the tears sliding down both her cheeks. "Karen, please, I’m so sorry. With all my heart I’m sorry. I didn't mean it."
Gently he brushed away the tears with his fingers. Catching one on the tip of his finger he stared at it in shame. "Karen, please believe me, I didn't mean it. There’s nothing in the world I wouldn't do if I could only take back what I said."
She stopped trying to pull away and the fire had gone out of her eyes. David drew her close as he put his arms around her. "I’m so terribly sorry. Please, please, forgive me. I love you more than you will ever know. I would never intentionally hurt you."
The kiss he gave her started out one-sided. David kissing her. It didn't take more than a second before she responded. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she put the emotion of months of frustration into the kiss. She thought he was going to squeeze the life out of her but she loved his strong comforting embrace. It was a long kiss with neither one wanting to stop.
It was only a whisper when he said it. "Sometimes we say hurting things when they weren't meant to be. I love you, Karen. I want to be near you. Let's forget about work and have dinner together tonight. I know you have things you have to do. So do I, but if we died right now, someone would be there to take our place. Our work would go on without us."
He felt her stiffen in his arms. Now, what the hell was it he had said? He held her out at arms length and looked into her eyes.
Karen was softly crying. She could never tell him, every day she awoke was a miracle. There was no future except this one she was living right now. This hour, this minute, was the sum total of her existence and all she could count on. Today was really the last day of her life unless she awoke tomorrow and found out differently.
"Dinner would be nice. I would love for you to take me out tonight. Let's get away early and lay waste to the whole evening." Laying her head on his shoulder felt good and she slipped her arms around him as she spoke.
"Can we go to Ruddys? The place where they won't let you in unless you have reservations a month in advance. I heard a hundred dollars will sometimes get you a small table way in the back, even if you don't have a reservation."
David put his hands on her back as he pulled her close. "Ruddys, it is. We’ll get in not because of the hundred dollars but because I’m with you. And if I’m extra nice to the maitre'd he might even consider letting me sit with you."
Karen stopped crying and now she dried her eyes on the corners of his lab coat. "You want to take my car or you want to take your bemmer?"
She knew it disgusted the devil out of him for anyone to call his car that.
"That's right, use me and abuse me, that's what I’m here for. First you wipe your nose on my coat knowing we do critical research and your germs will ruin everything in the lab. Next you insult me because my car is better than yours and you can't stand it."
David pointed to Al and Jr. who hadn't moved the whole time. "Give me time to get Rocky and Bullwinkle back together. I’ll pick you up at your place about five thirty. Let's go in your car. I want to see how your seat belts were designed so they would fit you."
The last part was for the benefit of Al and Jr. and Karen knew it. She could imagine their minds racing trying to figure out how a seat belt would fit her. What she didn't know, David was actually wondering the same thing.
She left as David tried to get Al and Jr. back into the real world. She would have to hustle to get out of her lab by four thirty, cleaned up, and dressed by five thirty. Time went by quickly when one was trying to meet a deadline.
Watching her leave, David's heart was racing a mile a minute knowing he would have an evening out with her. He turned around and looked at Al and Jr. They were still glued to the spot.
Pointing over to the mouse which had been nosing around on top of the table he motioned toward them in a come here fashion. "Don't you think you could put the mouse back in his cage? Make sure you don't leave something cooking on the Bunsen burner, and don't forget to record the bacteria count on the slide under the microscope. No need of having to do everything all over again tomorrow."
Karen made it but she didn't know how. She left her lab early, instead of four-thirty it was four-fifteen. It would be close but it was the best she could do. Henry told her to go on he could take care of the lab without her. With the exception of the night of her accident she never left the lab without checking her equipment. Nozzles had to be cleaned, laser tracking had to be checked for wear, and bearings had to be lubricated. Designing a model was a small part of what had to be done in order to make the duplicates that were coming out of her lab. When one is running equipment, a lot of time and labor goes into making sure that equipment is cared for. Karen had a lot of equipment in her lab. She certainly wasn’t leaving Henry to finish up when maintenance was suppose to be in her lab at any minute. She was lucky, she made it out before they arrived.
Once home she bathed and laid out her dress for the evening. Sequined, electric blue, chiffon with a wisp of a scarf worn off the shoulder and matching satin heels. Diamond earrings with a matching necklace and bracelet completed her accessories. There wasn't any way those could be real diamonds, could they? The question nagged her long enough she decided to see. A glass out of the kitchen cabinet and she ran the corner of the dinner ring down the side. She darn near cut the glass wide open. It took a long time to decide if she wanted to wear this jewelry tonight. Never in her whole life had she ever worn anything more expensive than costume jewelry. She didn't have a clue as to how much this jewelry cost but it had to be bunches.
Oh well, seize the day. She would have another talk with Henry in the morning. If, she was still here.
Karen was ready just before five thirty and trying to decide if David would show or if he had been caught up in the lab and would be late. It could possibly be he might not be able to make it at all. She knew what it was like since she had been in that position herself many times. At six she called his lab but didn't get anyone so she sat by the window trying to decide if she should go back to her lab and get some work done.
The clock rolled around to six-thirty and she decided David had trouble getting away from the lab. He probably didn't answer his phone because he was busy. Sometimes there was nothing one could do when work demanded all your time and attention. One of his experiments probably went south for the winter and he was trying to rectify it while it was still fresh. A million and one things can go wrong when you're working on the hard cutting edge of technological research. She felt the disappointment deep in her heart. She pulled her scarf off, letting it fall where it may, and stopped staring out the window. Letting the curtains fall back in place, she reached up and removed her earrings. There were some problems on model two-sixty-four and she needed to adjust the skin tone before they did another one. She could work it out tonight if she went back to the lab now.
A tear trickled down her left cheek. Not caring, she let the tear hang on her chin as she reached back and unzipped her dress. With all her heart she wanted to show off for David tonight. There might not be another chance. Not in this life time anyway. She slipped out of her heels and pushed them aside. If she increased the resin tint on two-sixty-four's code by five percent, that should bring the color in line with the features. Trying hard to not give into her feelings, she dabbed at the tears which were silently sliding down to her chin. Would David miss her when she was gone? Maybe, for a while anyway, he said we were all replaceable. Her bottom lip quivered as she fought to control the avalanche of tears welling up inside her.
Not often, but sometimes, David was caught up in his work at the lab and not able to get away. Other times when it was absolutely necessary, Al and Jr. could finish the nontechnical aspects of the projects he started. David walked out of the lab knowing work was the last thing on Al and Jr.'s minds. They would do the absolute minimal and then beat a hasty retreat to the cafeteria where they would delight in telling the story about what they had seen and heard. Reality and imagination knew no boundaries in the minds of those two. He was sure their stories would set the plant on fire with wild rumors before they went home for the night.
He left his lab almost as soon as Karen walked out the door. It was a lot farther drive for him to get home than Karen had to make. Then, there was the return trip to Karen's place. If he planned on making it by five-thirty he would really have to hustle. This was one date he would have to be dead before he missed it. He didn't think a tux would be appropriate so he settled for a dark silk suit with the faintest hint of stripes. He found a gray black tie and white silk shirt. Gold cuff links and tie tack would finish it out.
He was running late. Could Karen be ready by now? Nah, women are always late for their date. When they say seven they really mean eight. If they say eight they really mean nine. Karen was a woman, women are always late, so therefore, Karen would be late. David knew he had it figured out.
In spite of her best efforts to control them, Karen had tears streaming down both cheeks. She would go back to the lab and make another model. Henry and the lab were her life and where she wanted to be when she was hurting. She leaned over the back of the couch and pushed the curtains back as she took one last look. It was David's car driving up in front. Karen grabbed her scarf, tossed her earrings in her clutch, and slipped on her heels. She made a pass at wiping her eyes as she bolted for the garage door. She was backing her car out of the garage before David made it to her front door.
She stopped in the street, got out of the car and was struggling to zip her dress as she walked around to the passenger side. "David, park your car in my garage. No one has been stealing cars or parts around here but I don't want you to set a trend. Your car kind of has a sign on it that says, steal me."
He did as she suggested. She was right about the unspoken sign a BMW carried on it.
Karen was struggling with a stubborn zipper as he returned to where she was standing. She turned her back to him. "Zip me up. I seem to have it hung somehow."
He did it without thinking, down and then up. It easily slid in place as Karen put her earrings back on. He wished he had taken more time. It wasn’t often he was able to do this kind of request for a beautiful woman. Reaching down he opened the passenger door for her. The sparkle of the sequins and the glitter of her necklace and earrings as they caught the interior car light heightened the dramatic low cut of her dress. The sheer scarf hid nothing of the deeply cut neckline but added a dimension of mystery.
Never, had he seen anything more radiantly beautiful. "You have made me the happiest man in the whole world tonight. If we don't get into Ruddys, those people aren't human. I called them from the car on the way home after work. They said they were booked full and we would have to take our chances. I would bet anyone ten thousand dollars, the couple in the little red Mercedes will get a table tonight."
Karen was laughing and shaking her head at him, David gave her a compliment she would cherish the rest of her life. He obviously was pleased with the way she was dressed. Her evening was already complete, even if it went no further. "Quit your babbling and get in and drive. I have been ready since a little after five and we have waited long enough to start laying waste to the evening."
David groaned as he looked at his watch. "You mean I could have spent almost another hour with you this evening if I had been early? How stupid can one person be? I knew you would be late so I polished my shoes before I came over here. I could have saved another twenty minutes if I had shaved in the car."
"DAVID! Let's go if you don't mind. You can analyze this evening tomorrow, when you're back in your lab. Right now I’m ready to forget work, Comm Tech, and everything else. I want to go have fun. Pulll-lllease?"
He slid in the driver's seat and buckled up. Expectantly he looked over at Karen waiting for her to do the same. She had already made preparations earlier and adjusted the shoulder strap out as far as it would go. She clicked in without a hitch. David was impressed. He didn't think her seat belts would fit her either. Mercedes manufacturers must know something BMW didn't.
He was trying to look at Karen and drive too until she told him to keep his mind on the road or she would have to drive. It was light conversation as they drove and neither discussed work, or the company. Karen thought how nice it was to get away from everything for once and spend an evening enjoying themselves. Pay back would come tomorrow but it would have to wait. Tonight belonged to them. Her and David.
The parking attendant opened the door for Karen after David pulled up in front of Ruddys. As she swung her legs out the attendant's eyes got as big as saucers. It took him awhile but he remembered to offer his arm in assistance. As she leaned forward to rise out of the seat, his eyes bugged out of his head.
Karen smiled sweetly at him as she brushed the hair back from her face. It slid softly in easy waves over her shoulders. "Do you think we can get in? We didn't make any reservations."
David told her on the way over it was too early for most people to be dining and they might be able to find a table. The attendant didn't reply but pointed toward the entrance. The doorman was watching closely and when he saw who got out of the car he turned and said something over his shoulder to someone behind the door. He opened the lobby door and made the slightest hint of a bow of acknowledgment toward Karen.
David walked around the car, lifted up the attendant's hand and dropped the car keys in it. "I found a cold shower doesn't help one damn bit. Do you want to give us a number or do you think you can remember she got out of the red Mercedes?"
Getting no answer, he turned to look at Karen standing by the steps. The lights from the lobby entrance filtered through the outline of her platinum blond hair. Laying softly on her shoulders, accented by her blue dress, it was the crowning glory to her radiant beauty. David couldn't blame the parking attendant for being smitten. If there was an essence of beauty, Karen was it.
He slid his arm through hers and clasped her hand. "Come, your highness. Let's charge the castle and see if they will lower the drawbridge for the princess and her serf."
She snuggled up close as she could and squeezed his hand. She couldn't be happier if she had a thousand lives to live. God must be smiling on her for this to be happening. She didn't really care if they managed to get into Ruddys or not. The evening was already complete.
David must have caught her happiness. He whispered in her ear, "Ten thousand dollars was too cheap a bet. I should have bet a hundred thousand we would get in tonight."
The maitre'd never asked for their names, if they had reservations, nor did he hold out his hand for a gratuity offering. He snapped open the chain and motioned with an open hand they were welcome as David and Karen entered the lobby. "This way please, Miss Long. I have a table by the stage reserved for you and Doctor Beckworth. It is our finest table in the house. I do hope you like it."
Leading David and Karen to a table close to the center of the restaurant near the stage, he pulled a chair from the table and waited for Karen to seat herself. He motioned to one of the other chairs for David. "Your table madam, sir."
Karen knew someone had made a mistake and she didn't want anyone to be embarrassed or get mad. Somebody would come in and find her and David sitting at their table. It would be best to get this straightened out now, even if it meant they had to leave.
"Sir, I’m terribly sorry. You must have us confused with another couple who has reservations. We came here hoping to find a table in the back somewhere."
The maitre'd smiled apologetically at her. "No, there has been no mistake, Miss Long. A Mr. Henry phoned, and said you may be by and asked if we could find accommodations for you. I assure you Miss Long, even if Mr. Henry had not called and said, “The Miss Karen Long” would be here to honor our club, I would still recognize you anywhere. You are one of the finest celebrities I have ever had the honor to serve, Miss Long. I look at you and cannot believe I’m looking at a doctor. Your pictures do not do you justice. However, there is no mistake. I’m looking at the one and only, Doctor Karen Ann Long, model, engineer, researcher, computer designer, and fashion celebrity."
"You have honored us with your presence."
David pulled a chair out and slumped in it. "I knew it."
She leaned toward him. She was embarrassed by all the attention and trying hard to not draw anymore. "What did you say?"
"I said it was nice of you to let me come along so they would let me in too."
"David, you know I didn't plan any of this. The least you could do, is enjoy the evening. Please David, don't spoil it for me."
The maitre'd had waited. "Your head waiter for the evening is Mr. Cordoni. Please enjoy our hospitality and please enjoy yourselves."
He made a slight bow and left. In a couple of minutes he walked across the stage where the band director was standing. The maitre'd handed him a note and said something to him as the band director turned to look at Karen and David.
The director motioned for the band to stop their fidgeting and tuning up their instruments as he tapped on the microphone to check if it was on. "Ladies and gentlemen, as you may have noticed we have the honor of the presence of Doctor David Beckworth and his very lovely date, the very attractive, and lovely, Doctor Karen Ann Long."
David sensed a slight temperature rise. He didn't expect attention for himself and he felt a little pride and a little foolish for it. Now he had a small inkling of what Karen endured every second of her life for the past few months. He felt ashamed for the way he acted when they sat down at the table.
"These two have contributed to the scientific and humanitarian needs of the community and as outstanding leaders of today, they show our youth the directions for tomorrow."
David knew this guy didn't have the slightest idea what he did. It was Karen who had been splashed all over the papers everyday. She was the one the newspaper articles were written about, not him. David looked at her with a new interest.
The band director was pointing at their table. "Would you please rise, so everyone may see you? Ladies and gentlemen how about a small round of applause to show our appreciation for the leadership our two honored guests have bestowed upon our community."
A round of applause was enthusiastically given. David was wishing Karen would sit down so he could. But, she was smiling and nodding her head in acknowledgment to those around her. After she turned completely around so no one would be slighted, she sat down.
David sat down so quickly, he almost fell backwards out of his chair.
"How do you do it?"
"Do what?" She had no idea what he was talking about.
"Put up with me and everyone else in the world gawking at you. You do it so graciously. You are a true princess."
Karen bowed her head. "David, you're embarrassing me."
Smiling mischievously she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "Do it some more. I like it."
The director was finishing up. "And so ladies and gentlemen. I would hope you respect their evening as you want yours. Please don't bother them for autographs or questions about their work. They’re here to enjoy themselves the same as you. Thank you for coming to Ruddys and please enjoy yourselves."
And they did until late into the early hours of the morning. David found out Karen didn't drink anything alcoholic and actually enjoyed himself just as much with a couple glasses of wine. He couldn't figure out how she could dance in those heels she was wearing but she had to be good since she managed to stay out of the way of his two left feet. There were a lot of things he wished he had taken the time to know about Karen before now. Why was it men noticed the outer beauty of a woman before they gave the inner beauty a chance to shine? David decided it was a good question to think about.
Karen and David both laughed at the show the stand up comic did. Probably too much but it was a release of tension from long hard hours of work and frustrations. Autographs had to be given throughout the evening, in spite of the earlier plea of restraint. And the maitre'd was not surprised to find word had spread, the model who was in all the papers was in his club. The publicity about Ruddys always being filled to capacity was true that night, even if it wasn't true other nights.
Karen's Mercedes was parked by the front entrance when they decided to leave. The attendant told David he turned the car around and left it parked there for the whole evening so no one would scratch it driving in and out of the parking lot. David gave the attendant a generous tip for his special attention to Karen's car. What David didn't know, the attendant left it there so they could show off the car Dr. Long drove up in. With the attendants help and the personalized license plates stating KAREN, there wasn't a person arriving at the club that night who didn't know who owned the little red Mercedes. Yes sir, with the tips people gave him to let them look the car over and that tip Dr. Beckworth gave him, his pocket was getting heavy tonight.
It was late and the drive back to Karen's house was quiet most of the way. They both put too much effort into relaxing and were pleasantly exhausted. David parked by the curb in front of the house. He would have to get his car out of her garage before he could put hers in. Leaning across the console between the seats was no easy task but he managed and with Karen's willingness, he kissed her. It was awkward and uncomfortable with a shift lever sticking him in the stomach but it didn't seem to deter him. Karen finally broke off the embrace. David's hands seemed to be wandering and they were straying too close to her breasts.
"Come in for the night. It's late and I have a couch you can sleep on rather than drive home."
His pulse quickened when she said come in for the night, but settled back down into disappointment when she said he could sleep on the couch. "No thanks. I have to change clothes for work tomorrow and I didn't bring anything along. I would spend the night if you let me though."
He didn't say it but she knew he meant in her bed. "David, I’m an old fashioned-girl. There isn't going to be any candy until after a commitment. You can look at the sample but you can't have any until you have made your choice of flavors and quit window shopping."
"Karen, I love you. Are you asking me to marry you?"
"No, David. What I’m saying is, I won't have sex with anyone until after I’m married. I don't think you are committed in your mind. Right now you’re being driven by your desires."
"A lot of things have happened to me lately. I’m not sure of anything anymore. I had to adjust my whole world as I knew it. I was a nobody and now I’m the center of almost everyone's attention. I preferred the old way but it can't be helped. My world as I knew it evaporated into nothing. In spite of what you think you see, I’m hurt, confused, and running scared."
"I can't marry you or anyone else. This isn't the old Karen and I’m not sure who the new Karen is. I love you, David, but I need time to find out what I’m dealing with. Neither one of us may like what I have become when we can see what it is."
She sure had a way of taking the wind out of his sails and making him feel like a heel. She was right in other ways, too. She was an unknown but not in the way she meant. It was unknown if she was going to kill him by heart attack, by high blood pressure, by emotional stress, or an endless list of other ways.
"Let me walk you to your door and kiss you good night. I won't leave until you say yes."
"Karen?" She was quiet for so long he didn't know if she heard him.
"I was thinking. You will have to back your car out, drive my car in, give me the keys and find your car again. It's a deal if you give me your car keys and drive mine home tonight. We’ll see each other at work tomorrow and can swap keys whenever it's convenient. I have a spare set of keys and you should too."
David got out of the car laughing. "You little computer brained nut. I have romance on the mind and you're thinking about me having to go to any extra trouble for my car. Why I even put up with you, is beyond me."
He opened her door and she slid out as he put his hand out to help her.
"It came back to me." He swept her into his arms and kissed her.
"Cheater. You said one kiss by the door." She pushed him away but not too quickly, nor very forcibly. She couldn't do too much. She had no place to go, her back was to the car.
"So sue me." He pulled her toward him with one hand while he shut her door with the other.
Putting both arms around her tiny waist he picked her up and kissed her again. Wrapping her arms around his neck, Karen passionately returned the kiss, until she moved her hands to the side of his head and moved it away from hers.
"Is this going to take all night?"
"If I can make it so." David decided if he couldn't have her body he would take what he could get. He would settle for being able to hold and kiss her.
"Well, you may be able to do it but I can't stay up all night and make any sense out of what I’m doing the next day. I need my beauty sleep. Now put me down."
Squirming in his arms as she spoke didn't get any results. She was emotionally hot already and rubbing against him only added fuel to the fire. If this continued much longer her emotions were going to get out of control.
The temptation to hold her was great but he finally let her down. "You can talk me into anything. Even when my mind is saying don't."
"It isn't your mind doing all the talking right now." She turned toward the house.
He put his arm around her as he walked her to the door. "I could, you know."
Karen opened the door and was standing on the step facing him. "Could what?"
"Hold you forever." He swept her into his arms and Karen thought he was going to try proving his point before she broke away from his kiss. Much later.
Karen managed to pry open her left eye. It seemed like the clock was always telling her it was time to get up. She lay there thinking about the night before. It had been wonderful. There was no way it could have been any better. Refocusing her attention she bounced out of bed. Some people got up thinking, Oh God, morning again? Karen thanked Him for another day.
CHAPTER V
The days and weeks settled into some resemblance of order for David and Karen. By the end of the month, David had over two hundred mice with fuzzy feet. Karen laughed at him as she told him it would take very tiny clippers to shear them. She certainly didn't think the sheep industry should be worried yet. It would take a lot more mice than what David had to make one pair of mittens.
David told her to sell her sheep ranch in Australia and put her money into mice because the future was going to be there. But even when she joked with him, he was proud of the fact she noticed what he was doing.
Karen and Henry managed to increase their model production to the rate of one per hour but still couldn't keep up with orders. Bill Chambers told her to get help. She responded by telling Bill help wasn't what was needed. It was equipment limiting the process and she needed time to build and program it. Karen was putting Bill off the only way she knew how, but was it was dubious how long he would buy it. She didn't want to try to duplicate Henry and didn't know if she could, even if she tried.
"Henry, could you handle another table?" It was an idle question. She knew he was quite capable of handling several duplication tables at the same time.
"I could but you can't. Look at you, Karen, it has been almost a month since you and David went on a date. You're putting more and more time in the lab trying to keep up with orders which are pouring in because of your little stunt down at the mall. You are getting farther behind instead of catching up. What you don't need is something that will take more of what you are already short of. Namely time. If you would take my advice and let me handle the programs, you and David could enjoy each other’s company like your species was meant to."
"No, I don't want you running programs without me. At least, not in my lab. I know you’re probably raiding a computer somewhere as we speak, but I don't have to know about it. And I don't need your suggestions as what to do with my love life, either."
She pulled a sheet off the printer. "Is the color compound eighteen the same as the one we had before? I’m getting a different reading on the spectrograph other than normal. Do you think the model on the table has the right skin tone for her build and skin texture? It doesn't look right from here."
She walked over to the computer screen with her printout and brought up an analysis from the analytical spectrometer. Something was wrong. She went over to the window of the working lab and studied the model Henry was finishing.
"Henry, we have a problem."
"No, we don't. This color compound eighteen is from a different company than the one you have been using. The people we were ordering from couldn't keep up with your shipments. I adjusted the polarity of the retinal beam and came close to the skin tone we would normally use on this model. The spectrograph will show a discrepancy but it’s wrong. There isn't any problem."
"I can do this without you, Karen. I have in the past when you were busy."
"It was only after we started a program and I was called to the main office to see Mr. Chambers. Which reminds me. After listening to you, we’re lucky to still have a job."
"Not lucky. I told you he couldn't fire you. I kind of agreed with most of what you told him. Except I thought the part about you had to be ready for sex anytime he felt like it was a little far out."
"I never said any such thing. Where do you get these stories, anyway?" She couldn't believe Henry told her, she was ready for sex with Bill Chambers.
"To be more specific, you said, and I quote per verbatim. We share your work, we bare your children, and we support you in whatever you do. To repay us, you pay us less than a man for the same amount of work. You expect us to do your laundry, cook your meals for free, and be ready for sex anytime you feel like it. You want us to look like movie stars and work like dogs."
"Do I need to continue?"
She stopped everything she was doing and was listening to Henry. "I don't believe I said what you say I did. You’re making this up with bits and pieces of whatever you have stored in your tiny little brain. Besides, you’re taking it out of context and making it sound a lot worse than what it is. Anyway, how do you know what I said?"
"Does old Bill have an intercom in his office?"
"Y e s s s?" What was Henry leading her into?
"It's electronic isn't it? On about eighty-six percent of all phones still on the receiver, I can listen to the conversations in that room. I can get a program from a computer in operation by the signals it is sending out through the air. In your world of electrical and electronic equipment, it’s almost impossible to shield any room or building from the electronic eavesdropping going on. I’m lucky you put my circuits and memory in a steel room with low temperature control. Signals I generate are very weak because of the low requirements for electrical impulses in the low temperature. The steel room shields any signals which might otherwise escape from my circuits. You know, steel walls don't pass electrical signals worth a darn."
"The night of your accident. Of all the phones I wanted to access, yours had to be one of the few which aren't hot on the receiver. I made several errors then. I won't make them again."
Karen looked at her reflection in the glass. "We both made some mistakes we won't make again. Do you listen in to all the conversations in this building?"
"Yes and no, I listen to everything said and delete information which doesn't pertain to anything important. When Jack, in office security, called his wife, and said he thought the cookies she baked for him were great, I didn't save it. I wouldn't be able to confirm or deny it one millisecond after he hangs up. It wouldn't be in memory storage. Not mine anyway. The recorders in security would still have it on tape. The computer in the telephone office registers most all incoming and outgoing calls and I can match up his call home with the tapes from security. This is the only reason I can tell you he called home a couple of hours ago."
"However, when ACME's president Cal Ryan, called up Bill Chambers and asked for a meeting with you, and Bill told him no. Now that I have stored in my memory."
"They’re screening my phone calls? When did this start?" She forgot the program was running without her.
"The day you were splashed all over the papers, it became serious. You did more than just increase orders for your work that day. You started getting calls from people wanting things other than a model. I told you the day you were called in to Bills office, you had people calling in wanting to be your agent. Bill told the front office you weren't to be disturbed with any outside calls. Haven't you noticed Karen, other than David, no one calls you any more? Orders for your models come through electronic mail. You really need to get a life other than this place."
She gave the camera a hostile look. "I thought it was because they were taking all the orders up front and leaving us alone to do our work down here. I didn't know they were stopping my personal calls too. How was I to know? No one ever called wanting to talk to me personally in so long, it never dawned on me they would screen my calls."
"Why didn't you tell me about it before now? Knowing they were doing it and not notifying me is as bad as if you agreed with them, Henry."
"Karen, up until the call Bill intercepted this morning, all of them have been nuisance calls. You don't need any agents and you don't need insurance. What callers would you like to talk to? The guy who wanted to be your money broker? The salesmen wanting to sell you their polymer? We’re using the best one already. You want to talk to the people wanting to manage your career? How about the ones wanting you to donate to one cause or another? I liked the one about unwed mothers needing a vacation in the Bahamas for their complexion because they no longer attract men. It almost moved me to make a donation myself."
"Get serious."
"I’m serious. You think I could make up something like that? I’ll play back the whole conversation for you."
She shook her head. "Never mind. I believe you. What about the call from ACME?"
"Listen, this is Linda, the receptionist."
"Commercial Technologies. How may we help you?"
"This is Cal Ryan. I would like to talk to Karen Long in your duplication department."
There were several clicks and then the unmistakable voice of Bill Chambers. "Cal, you old dog. This is Bill Chambers. Karen Long is busy."
There was anger in Cal's voice. "I don't recall asking to talk to you. I believe I asked to speak with Karen Long."
There was a click of a receiver hanging up and Bill was back again. "Cal, that was Karen on the conference phone. She wasn't interested in talking to you or anyone else at ACME."
"Bill, you lying SOB. Why don't you let Karen answer for herself? In case you don't remember, I have played enough golf with you to know you cheat. Anyone who would cheat at golf would cheat and lie at everything. I don't believe Miss Long was on the phone."
Another voice came on the line. "This is Karl Adder, I’m head of the department where Karen Long works. She was listening but she didn't want to talk to you, Mr. Ryan. She told me she was satisfied working for Commercial Technologies and has no intentions of working for another company."
"Karl Adder, that worm food. I can't believe he and Bill would do this to me." Karen said it softly so as to not interrupt the conversation. She forgot this conversation took place earlier and Henry was repeating it for her.
"Jealousy and greed make a powerful driving force in the lives of humans, Karen. Bill and Karl feel both jealousy and greed toward you. They want the power to control you and your department. They have no intention of letting anyone talk to you or make you a job offer. The idea you would leave them and Comm Tech behind scares Bill silly. Karl isn't bright enough to be scared. He thinks he can waltz in and take over your department without any training in running your equipment. In each of their minds, for whatever reason, you wronged them. Now they want revenge, no matter if the wrong was real or imagined."
He had stopped the program. "Do you wish to hear the rest of it?"
"Yes, please."
Henry thought about the way Karen answered. She was probably the only human in the whole world who would say please to a machine. Her creator should have made more like her. There would be less room for ones like Karl and Bill.
Cal Ryan's voice returned. "I was calling to talk to Karen and see if she was willing to discuss a business offer. I can talk to her at home. Our security people have ways of getting unlisted telephone numbers. At least I won't have to put up with you butting into our conversations."
"Just a minute Mr. Ryan. Would you believe Karen if she told you herself?" It was Karl's voice asking the question.
"If she told me herself. Yes, I think I would believe her."
It was a female speaking. "Mr. Ryan, I thank you for your offer but I’m not interested. I suggest you call Mr. Adder if you have any future interest in our duplicating department. He is the head of our department. Goodby."
Bill spoke again. "Karl, I’m going to get off the line. I have a meeting with the board in a couple of minutes to discuss the expansion of the duplication department. We have plans drawn up to increase our production ten fold over the next month. I’m sure with the profits we’re showing, the board will readily agree to the proposal. Don't be too much longer or you will be late to the meeting. This is your department and it is imperative you be there to detail the expansion plans. No one knows more about this department than you."
"Okay, Mr. Chambers." It was Karl's voice.
"Mr. Ryan, I believe we could supply any models you want to buy from us or any other equipment you might want to purchase to update you duplicating department."
"You would sell me the same type equipment you're presently using in your own department? If I use your equipment, would you guarantee my models to be the same quality you’re turning out?"
The greed of Karl willing to sell something he had no legal right to was hard for Karen to imagine.
"I believe we could sell you equipment and guarantee your product in quality as long as you understand Karen is our designer. She is only an artist. You probably could hire someone as qualified or better than she is to design your models. She really isn't that good. The equipment takes care of her mistakes for her. In all honesty Mr. Ryan, I would like to get rid of her but she had a smart lawyer threaten us with the contract we foolishly signed with her. I’m afraid we’re stuck with her for a couple of more years. The reason she didn't want to talk to you is she knows any new contracts would be tentative upon her performance. She realizes she would be fired after a few months."
It was Cal Ryan's voice again. "This may be my lucky day. I had my suspicions about a woman manufacturing the models you’re producing. I guess we can't believe everything we read in the papers. Let me know what kind of money we’re discussing for the purchase of the duplicating equipment. We’ll probably be able to make a deal."
"The phony ID, she let them photograph in the papers probably made suckers out of everyone. I guess the publicity was good for your company. The only reason I can figure you didn't prosecute her, was because she was doing a pretty good job for your image. I can't blame you there. I guess we have all pulled the same stunt some time or another. I appreciate you letting me know before I offered her a contract. Get back in touch with some specifications, a material list, and prices."
The way Karen was sitting on the edge of her chair clinching her fists wasn't lost on Henry. He could tell she was mad and upset. "Karen, that was the extent of the telephone conversation. Would you like to hear what was said in the office after they hung up?"
She took a deep breath and used both hands to push the hair off her forehead. Another deep breath before she spoke, as she tried to get her anger under control. "No, I don't think I need to hear the rest of it word for word. Who was the woman who was suppose to be me? Was it a computer?"
Henry started to laugh and thought better of it. Karen wasn't in a joking mood. "You have been talking to me so long you forget most talking computers sound stilted and mechanical. There isn't any computer who can synthesize the human voice and make it sound human."
She looked straight into one of the cameras. "You do."
"Yes, because you designed me. No one has been able to do what you have. Not yet, anyway. They’re closing in but it will take them a few more years before they get close. Fuzzy logic allows for real human sounding speech. Quite a difference in the pitch, volume, and tone of a vocal cord making a sound and a speaker trying to replicate that sound. Kind of like trying to make a piano sound like a guitar, would be a good analogy."
"Why didn't Cal Ryan suspect something was wrong when they first told him I wouldn't quit Comm Tech and then later on in the conversation said I didn't have any idea what I was doing? They contradicted themselves almost all the way throughout the whole conversation. Wasn't Cal Ryan listening to what was said?"
"Greed has hold of him, Karen. He could only think of one thing at a time. First he wanted you and then Bill and Karl began dangling your equipment in front of him. From that point on, getting his hands on your equipment was all he could think of. I strongly suspect the old male chauvinistic ego probably had a lot to do with it. You heard him say, he didn't think a woman was capable of doing what you had done. To him, you were the pretty glamour and glitter hype all good public relations puts out. A brainless wonder to show off the equipment and no more. You are the gorgeous model sitting on top of the new car, or the beautiful woman selling lawn equipment, or ...."
She shrugged her shoulders. "Okay, enough already, I get the picture. What about the woman, who was she?"
"The woman's name is Patricia Walker. She was blackmailed into doing what she did. They had this planned a couple months ago, Karen. Bill knew you would be receiving offers from other companies and he set this up along with Karl. The same day he called you to the office, he contacted Karl. The woman is in Karl's department and he told her to cooperate or she would lose her job. She is scared because she and her husband are barely getting by now. If she loses her job they lose their home. Don't judge her too harshly. She did what she thought she had to do, to survive."
"Can they sell my department and you to ACME?" It wasn't a question she wanted to ask but she had to know one way or another.
"You ask a double question. You forget you’re talking to a machine. Yes, they could sell your department and me if they stole us. It isn't theirs to sell. Legally they can't sell what doesn't belong to them. Even if I belonged to Commercial Technologies I’m sure the board would never approve such a transaction."
"How much are they going to sell everything for?"
"Two hundred and forty million was the asking price. They were flexible. If they didn't get the asking price they would dicker down to two hundred million."
Karen pushed back in her chair disgusted and upset. "That was very generous of them. A nice round figure of a hundred million apiece. They had to keep it simple so they could divide it evenly. Karl wouldn't know what was his if it turned into fractions."
"Actually, Bill gets two-thirds and Karl gets one third. I guess one of them can divide."
"How did they plan on doing it?" There was hate in the question.
"They’re kind of fumbling along really. Neither one is a computer genius. I had the word idiot in mind but Karl is doing fairly well. He has attempted almost constantly for the past couple of months to access me. From the first thing in the morning until he goes home at night he is trying. They had the notion I would be vulnerable from a computer terminal inside the plant. It has been most enjoyable for a past time. I keep passing him hints making him think he is getting close. When he gets too discouraged, I feed him some trash information. It has kept him occupied and entertained. Some of his illogical moves have been brilliant in their own way but he was too stupid to recognize it."
"He can never access me but may realize at some time exactly how good you are and what he is dealing with. At that point he will know he can never get in electronically. He and Bill will revert to physical means to obtain the information they want. I’m not set up to defend myself physically. I can keep them from opening your lab door through the security lock but a good cutting torch will make short work of it. If they penetrate the lab I don't know if I could turn a laser on them. I have never had to do it, so therefore it is an unknown. The numbers are one hundred percent I could turn the lasers on them and less than one hundredth of a percent I could hurt them if I did. Not very good odds for our side, Karen."
She looked into the working lab where Henry was still scorching the air with those deadly lasers. "What do you mean, you couldn't hurt them if you turned the lasers on them? Those lasers are powerful enough to poke holes in six inch armor in less than one thousandth of a second. I have seen you cut two inch steel in half when maintenance was working in the lab and got in your way."
"Turn on is an ambiguous term. I should have said, point the lasers at them."
Karen had been dealt an emotional blow she didn't need. "I’ll bring a cot in and sleep here from now on."
"You know what I like most about humans? Always illogical. I could never set up a format to keep pace. How long do you think you could keep going in a situation like that? Even if you were able to wait until Bill and Karl made their move, what makes you think you could defend yourself against two men? You suddenly become a karate expert along with the other change?"
"Everyone knows you and David are making love. Don't you think security will notice you stopped going home at night? You want them to think you’re trying to make time with your computer, too?"
Karen's feelings were showing. "You might have thought you were joking but I am fond of you, Henry. I know you are more than pieces of wire and silicon. I would be willing to give my life to protect you."
"Your statement is illogical. You are about to overload my illogical circuits. Let's talk sense. Or, as you humans like to paraphrase it, good old common horse sense."
Karen shook her head. "You don't have any illogical circuits, you dope. You can't overload what isn't there. Now get serious. You're the one with over a million computations per second. What kind of common sense are you speaking of?"
"The best defense is a good offense. Eliminate Karl and we eliminate the problem. Bill doesn't know one thing about computers except how to turn them on and read the stock quotes. He could never access me and he would never think about breaking into your lab unless he had someone else do it for him. As far as Bill is concerned, I consider him a nuisance but not a threat without Karl."
"You mean we kill Karl Adder?" Karen couldn't believe she had said it nor Henry had suggested it.
"The English language has too many synonyms. Let me explain it another way. Eliminate, as like terminate, or like fire, as to lay off, or let go, as like dispel, or you hand him a pink slip in his pay check. Did you understand any of those definitions?"
"Yes, and I love it. How do we do it?" She rubbed her hands together in anticipation. She liked this idea and it promised to be a lot of fun.
"Done."
Karen blinked a couple of times and her hands seemed stuck together. "Done? Are you pulling my leg?"
He rotated the camera to look at her legs. "Nice legs if you're human and into that sort of thing. But no, I don't think I have hold of them. You feel something?"
"Tell you what. If you would go down to shipping and lay down in front of the pallet mover I might pull your leg. However there isn't anything in this office I can pull your leg with. The arms and sensors in shipping are extremely sensitive. I wouldn't hurt you."
Karen's mouth dropped open and Henry focused the camera down her throat. "Nice tonsils, perfect teeth, we did an excellent job on this one. Call shipping for a pickup. Close your mouth Karen, you look like you're catching flies."
She closed her mouth. "What do you know about catching flies? There has never been a fly in this lab. Never mind. Forget I asked. You might be reading some sort of sensor on a garbage truck."
Just the thought made her shiver. Nasty.
"Actually..."
"I said, never mind. What about Karl Adder? Is he really fired?"
"Yes, I put the pink slip in the employees payroll computer which prints all the pay checks. Come pay day Karl will get a pink slip informing him he is no longer an employee with this company. To add insult to injury, he will get a termination check also. A very, very, small termination check."
"At the proper time he will want to see Bill Chambers and complain about getting fired. At the right moment he will receive a phone call from Bill instead. Bill will tell him he had second thoughts about their partnership and he doesn't need his services anymore. And because of the numerous complaints about how Karl runs his department, Commercial Technologies board turned him down in their review. They decided it was in the best interest of the morale of the company to terminate him. Bill will tell Karl he tried to save his job but he couldn't."
"If Karl runs true to form, he will threaten Bill that he will go to the board to tell them about their deal to sell your department to ACME. Bill will quietly point out he has no proof and he will be labeled as a pathological liar and Karl will never work for another large company if he tries anything."
"That should be the end of the conversation. Karl will be fired and have such a hatred for Bill he won't ever try to contact him or talk to him again. Bill will think Karl had second thoughts about their plans and quit the company. Bill will be afraid of contacting him for fear of someone finding out their plans to sell your department. He won't want to be associated with Karl under any circumstances."
Could Henry see the future? She had to ask. "How do you know all of this and why would Bill tell Karl what you just said?"
"Because, I’m the Bill Chambers, Karl will be talking to on the phone. The percentages are excellent it will go pretty close to what I said. There will be some deviations which I can handle. Neither one will suspect it isn't the other who they’re talking to. They both think they have a private line bypassing security so they can take care of any phone calls you may receive. Voice duplication isn't a common everyday item and neither one will suspect they are talking to a machine."
It took Karen a second to realize Henry was talking about himself when he mentioned machine. She never thought of him as a machine, even when she was first putting him together.
"You and David excel in doing the impossible. You question the unknown everyday. What comes naturally to you is beyond comprehension to most. Besides we aren't talking about a couple of wizards here. Bill and Karl are administrative, not research minded."
Yes, Mr. Chambers?" Betty's intercom from Bill's office had buzzed.
"Betty, the memo I dictated last month and asked you to read back to me every week?"
Yes, Mr. Chambers?"
"I want to change it. Now this is what I want you to take down."
Betty took it down as he requested but she wasn't sure she understood it any better than the first one.
"Have you got it down like I told you?"
"Yes, Mr. Chambers."
"Good, now come in here and read it back to me."
"Now, sir?"
"Yes, now."
"As you wish, sir." Boy, was he getting strange lately.
When Betty approached his desk, Bill had his head down checking the inventory for office supplies Commercial Technology had used this past month. He glanced up. "Yes, what is it?"
She fumbled around for a few seconds before she spoke. "Your memo, sir."
Someone must have handed her a memo and now she was about to read it to him. "Yes? Well go ahead."
Betty looked embarrassed. She had to clear her throat before she could start. "It wasn't wildcat you were hunting shithead. It was a full grown saber-toothed tiger. You can't find enough protection to keep it from eating you alive. Signed by yourself. The Asshole."
"What did you say to me?" Bill couldn't believe Betty would read a memo like that to him.
"I’m sorry sir, but you dictated it to me just now, and were very explicit about your instructions to come in here and read it back to you. I’m only following your orders, Mr. Chambers." She knew she wasn't going to be right no matter what. Mr. Chambers was losing it.
"I called you on the phone and dictated this to you?" Someone was going to pay for this.
"No, sir. You buzzed me over the intercom and dictated this memo." Why was he asking all these questions? She was only following instructions.
"You mean someone else called you on the intercom and told you to give me this message?" Somebody had tapped into his intercom. It was the only explanation.
"No, Mr. Chambers, it was you. I should be able to recognize your voice after six years." Betty was beginning to suspect Bill was worse than she thought. He had been giving her some pretty weird memos lately.
"Betty, I want you to call security and have your office and mine swept for bugs. I want a check run on the wiring on the intercom between our offices. I want a check on the phones and anything else they can think of."
He stood up and shouted it into the air. "Listen, you. I know you’re there. I’m on to your little tricks now. In a couple of minutes we’ll know who you are and where you are. I promise, you will regret the day you were ever born. Your ass is mine."
Bill sat down and smiled to himself. Shithead huh? The person who bugged his office was going to eat those words before he was through with him. Bill made a clinched fist and stabbed the air. Yes! They had gone too far this time and he had them.
When Bill began shouting to no one, it scared Betty to death. But when he started poking the air with his fist and smiling, she knew he was over the edge. She didn't think he had been under enough stress lately to cause all this. The only thing she could think of was to humor him until she called for help.
"I’ll call security right away Mr. Chambers." She didn't tell him she was also going to call medical and a psychiatrist. She hoped he didn't get more violent than he already was.
The security team arrived and so did the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist told Bill he was there to find out when Bill thought someone first began to bug his office, which was a half truth. He wanted to know when Bill first started losing hold on his sanity.
Bill was happy for most of the day thinking about what he would do to the person who had bugged his office. In fact, he was so happy he was humming and singing little songs to himself. Something Betty never heard him do before.
By the end of the day, Bill was shouting at all of them. "What do you mean, you can't find anything? What do we pay you people for? You are obviously overpaid no matter what you make. All you have to do is follow the wiring from my office to Betty's and see where the guy tapped into it. Is that too complicated for you or do you want me to draw you a map?"
"Bunch of morons! Betty, call up another security team." Bill knew he was smarter than any of these clowns.
Elmo was feeling very pleased with himself until Bill begin shouting at them. They had went over his office with active and passive surveillance equipment. If there had been any electronic bugs planted in Bill's office they would have found them. "Mr. Chambers, there aren't any listening devices in your office. We checked out your intercom and there are no taps. It goes from your desk to your secretary's desk. The phone checks out. There aren't any listening devices set up outside the building. No one could be listening in to your conversations, much less sending your secretary memos through your intercom."
"You pay us to know what we’re doing, Mr. Chambers. We earn every penny of it. We’re good. There’s no way anyone could be listening in or sending messages to your office."
Bill's face was beet red and he was pounding the desk with his fist. "Now you listen to me, you hair-brained idiot. I don't care what you say. Someone is bugging my office and calling my secretary over my intercom. If you aren't capable of doing your job, I’ll find someone to replace you."
Bill hadn't forgotten the incident with the security courier. Someone was listening in. He was shouting orders at Betty. "Get someone from an independent security agency up here. These guys couldn't find their heads if they were looking in a mirror."
Betty didn't think she needed to phone anyone the way Bill was shouting. They probably heard him all over town.
The outside team they hired, likewise, found nothing. They swept the office for active and passive listening devices. Step for step they followed the same careful meticulous search for industrial espionage. Elmo's team had done a good job and they did a good job. They ended with the same results. Nothing.
Bill Chambers was in a rage for days afterwards. He told Betty to keep calling security companies until she found one who was competent. She promised she would but she also made sure the psychologist was informed of everything Bill was doing. She knew Bill had gone off the deep end.
Henry was amused they missed the obvious. It seems what is sitting right in front of you, you can't see. Although the intercom is only wired from Bill's office to Betty's, it has a wall plug for power. Any equipment on the same side of the power transformer serving the same building can use the electric line for listening or transfer of messages.
There was no need telling Karen what he did. She wouldn't approve. Figuring the percentages gave ninety-six percent she wouldn't approve and only four percent she would. He decided he could live with a four percent approval rating.
There wasn't one single company capable of matching the quality of work Karen and Henry were doing. Most of them tried to duplicate her work by ordering a model and disassembling it to find out how she accomplished it. Piece by piece, their lab technicians would dissect her models. At the end they experienced the same results as the medical research laboratories. Except for being polymer instead of skin and bone, it was an exact duplicate of the entire human anatomy. The programming she was running to complete one model had to be horrendous and yet she never made two models alike. The bytes of data Karen was using was incomprehensible to most model makers. They weren't programmers though, most of them were chemical engineers designing the plastics used in their manufacturing. Karen was a computer engineer who worked on the design of the models from a graphics equation perspective. Henry helped research the plastics used to build the models. Same problem to all the companies competing in the model market. Different approach by the engineers.
Henry finished a model in the chamber and sent it to the stacking receiver. It was slower than the turn table in production by about four hours. He didn't mind though. Time was a factor he measured by how long it took Karen to complete a task. Of course he could measure time down to a nanosecond and he utilized it every time he made a model. It required incredible precision in timing and accuracy to manufacture a duplicate. However, time was a human equation also used for, when to come to work, when to eat, when to go home, etc. Henry was glad he didn't have any of those problems.
"Karen, I checked on the shipping address on the Spanish male model we sent out last week and it went to a biology lab. I was accessing their computer to see what they have on the human anatomy. They’re using your models to teach anatomy to their medical students. It’s like a short circuit. I can't get any new information if they’re studying your work to find out how humans are made. You can't get new input if you keep reading the same page everyday."
Karen walked over to the little refrigerator she kept in her office and retrieved a soda. "Don't try to give me a snow job Henry. I know you too well. They aren't the only research biology lab you have been raiding. I don't believe I have to worry about you developing a short circuit from getting the same information in a closed loop."
Henry loved playing these little mind games with Karen. No matter how subtle how does one go about fooling the person who designed them? "I wasn't trying to give you a snow job, Karen. I was passing along information I thought you might be interested in. Excu-u-use me for being here."
"How about this? Would you be interested in updating the security around your house? From what I pick up by the grapevine, you are a ripe candidate for companies who want you in the worst way. With or without your consent."
She turned around sharply to look at Henry. "You mean kidnapping? It’s a federal offense to kidnap someone. No one could want to go to prison for the little bit of knowledge I have. They couldn't possibly believe I could give anyone enough information to duplicate the process we do here. If I had to start from scratch it would take me years to make a rough model."
“Correction, Karen. It is a federal offense to kidnap someone and transport them across the state line. You are wrong if you don't think someone may try it. Intelligence has nothing to do with being a crook. In fact, the less smarts one has, the more they are qualified to be a crook."
"ACME Duplicators hired a couple of industrial spies to see if they can crack your system. I always catch them on the security camera mounted on top of the building. They have spent a great deal of time in the vacant field back of Commercial Technologies. They have some nice sophisticated electronic gear. They know where your lab is located, and they have been picking up a lot of technical information coming from your lab."
"You mean they’re picking up information every time we make a model?" She didn't believe it. The field Henry was talking about was over a quarter of a mile away.
"Well, kinda. I gave them the complete edition of the Sunday times. They should know how to manufacture an offshore drilling rig by now. The information on the Titan rocket should keep them happy for months while they break it down to see what they have. They don't know what kind of information they have until they run it through a computer and analyze it. To them it is all technical information and exactly what they’re searching for. That Titan rocket will keep them grinning for months until they decide they have been had. Lots of technical stuff there."
"This brings us back to the original question, Karen. You need more security at your house before these two, or some of the others who have been trying to steal information, get deadly serious about getting the data straight from the programmer."
Karen sighed, was it really worth this? No doubt it would have happened anyway, with or without the genetic mistake but it wouldn't have bothered her so much if she was her old self. Problems have a way of compounding themselves when you already have one to start with. For the umpteenth thousandth time, she wished the mistake had never happened.
"Go ahead Henry, do what you think is necessary. I don't plan on becoming a martyr over some duplication process. Besides you, I can't think of one other secret worth dying for."
"You're wrong, Karen. There aren't any secrets worth dying for. I faxed the invoices to the appropriate companies and you should have a messenger deliver a key to you sometime this afternoon before you go home. I suggest you don't leave until he arrives. You won't be able to get in your house."
"How are they going to get in to change the lock system? Won't they have to come by for a key?"
"Silly Karen. The people who are changing the system are professionals. They will open your door quicker than you could with a key. You really need to get out more often. There is a whole different world out there."
Henry was trying to explain to Karen why after only a week, he had ordered another new security camera installed at her house. "It was only your house I was concerned with, when I ordered the first camera installed last week. That particular camera has a fixed focal point. I can look at the driveway and front of the house but no farther. Not with any dependability anyway. Almost everyday, there is a blue vehicle parking down the street from your house. It leaves the same time you do every morning. I need a camera with an adjustable range to monitor the whole neighborhood. Someone is following you and I want to know who."
"Henry, you are paranoid. It is someone from ACME or maybe an autograph seeker, or not even anything." She was trying to adjust the beam on the hologram laser and not having any luck with it.
"I wish you would let me notify security and have someone assigned to be your body guard for awhile. The idea I get to call the police after the fact doesn't do much for my confidence in your safety. You don't realize how mean and ruthless humans can be when they want something they can't have or when it doesn't belong to them. If you won't accept the fact you need a body guard, how about if you moved to a more secure building for a while until things start smoothing out?"
"Just a second and quit playing with the hologram beam, would you? Here it is. I found our problem Henry. The third diode has burned out taking resistor M four with it. The half wave rectifier is getting weak and not cutting the sine wave pattern at the right time. I guess it spilled its problems over onto the diode and it kept progressing from there. I would like to see some of this equipment have a little redundancy built into a fail safe feature. It seems to me we have never understood electronics. We only co-exist with it. We tie electricity on to one end of a wire and hope it will spill off the other end when we need it."
Henry had internal feedback to a limited extent. He could check himself in some areas but not everything. "Karen, I sent a schematic with the work order for a new camera so they could get it installed properly but it is going to have to be ordered. It will be a couple of days before they get it up. I wish you would reconsider taking precautions for your safety. Move into the security apartment I was telling you about. At least until the camera is installed. The blue vehicle bothers me."
"By the way, I checked inventory and we don't have the parts for the hologram generator in stock."
She was bent over the table adjusting the other hologram. "This means we can run only one duplication process. At least the table is still up and running. We were only getting two models a day from the chamber. How long before we can get what we need shipped to us?"
"I sent the order to Dallas Electronic a couple of seconds ago and they have it in stock. Priority air freight will get it here at zero seven-hundred hours tomorrow."
She turned around to look at the table which was halfway though its duplication process on the present model. "Run a diagnostic on the rest of the parts you are capable of checking and let's make sure we don't have to stop in the middle of work again. Give me a printout of the down parts and log it. Check for percentages of outage and see if you can do a remedial graphics chart. It would be nice to have a periodic maintenance schedule to keep this from happening again."
She reached over, cut the power on the hologram laser and shut down the chamber.
"Karen, I have more bad news."
She reached up with both hands and pushed her hair back from her forehead. "Now what?"
"The number two pump quit on resin tank number six."
Karen looked over in the work lab in time to see the gel quit flowing to the table from the atomizer nozzle. "Well, horse feathers, that was a brand new pump. What happened to the stupid pump anyway?"
"Pumps don't have any memory circuitry so which stupid pump are you referring to?"
"Don't get smart with me, buster. I’m not in a very good mood right now and I certainly don't care for your wise mouth." She moved over to the window between her lab and the table and pressed her face against the glass.
"Whew, touchy, touchy, aren't we? Stupid pump had a seal failure and seized the turbine shaft."
She was mad and she wanted to stay mad. Karen turned around to glare at one of the cameras and hard as she tried to not let it happen she got tickled. She ducked her head so Henry couldn't see her face and bit her lip as she fought to get her mad back again.
She threw her head up and looked sternly at one of the cameras. She would have managed it if she hadn't tried to talk. Her voice cracked as she got tickled again. "Well, why don't I just take stupid pump off of number one chamber, and replace the stupid pump on number two chamber?"
"Because by the time you do all the changing around you will have time to lock up and go home about two o'clock in the morning."
This wasn't working out at all. She decided to take another tack. "Okay, how about a replacement? How soon can we get another pump?"
She switched off the second hologram generator. No need of keeping it online. Henry couldn't duplicate any models.
"Karen, you and I both know those pumps aren't an everyday item. This isn't something you go pull off the shelf in the supply house."
"How come I get the feeling you are trying to prime me for something I don't want to hear? This whole place is coming apart at the seams and I can't hold it together with bubble gum." She pushed her key pad back on the desk and covered it. No need to let dust get in it. Although her lab was a clean room where positive pressure was used to keep out the dust, some always seemed to get in anyway.
"The pump is a special order item. It has to be made up by the manufacturer. The Teflon seals and titanium impeller are designed so they won't react with the solvents in the plastics we use in the gel. You know the colors would eat up anything else besides a deldrin housing. Two days at the very best for a pump replacement. It is in their electronic mail. They will get it when they open first thing in the morning."
“Oh swell. Where is it being shipped from? Timbuktu?" This was getting worse by the minute. In the morning meant someplace halfway around the world.
"It is being shipped from Germany. I could have ordered it from Japan but it would take one day longer due to their routing schedule."
She opened her lab door. "Dump the half finished model off the turn table. Thank goodness it wasn't like the time the lasers went down and we had to mop out the chamber. I’m going to see what David has accomplished this week. I hope his day is working out better than mine."
"Karen?"
She stopped and turned in the open door. "Yes?"
"Never mind." She would find out soon enough.
Henry sighed to himself. Humans were so unpredictable and complicated. They needed better input and output central processors. If he could change anything about them he would change..., Nothing. Karen made him by reaching into the unknown.
"I will take care of the model in the working lab. Shipping can drop it in the dumpster."
Karen gave Henry a puzzled look. Something was bothering him and he wanted to talk about it but was holding back. Oh well, he would cough it up when he was ready.
Karen made it into David's lab without him noticing her but the same couldn't be said for Al and Jr. At least they didn't drop or break anything. They both perked up when Karen tiptoed up behind David and slid her arms around his waist from behind.
"Guess who?"
As he rose up from his notes, David shouted. "Linda, sweetheart, darling, I thought our date was for later tonight."
Karen backed away from him. "Linda? Linda? Who’s Linda?"
David spun around and reached for her. "Just a small joke."
"Yes, just like your mind." Karen was feigning mock hurt in her voice.
David grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her back toward him. As she hurtled toward him he put his other hand around her waist and helped drag her in. It was with more than a gentle impact she slammed into him. He planted a heavy firm kiss on her mouth.
"There, my reward to you for being so forgiving."
"Why, you insolent pup." She drew back her hand. She only meant for it to be a tap but he moved his head over to the side and the tap turned into a slap echoing around the lab.
David's head rocked to one side. It surprised him as much as it did her.
Al tapped the side of a large beaker with a glass rod giving a ringing sound. "End of round one and Miss Long wins by a technical knockout."
David put his hand to the side of his face where she had planted one on him. He looked over at Karen who had both hands covering her mouth as she stared back at him wide-eyed in surprise and shock.
Not able to contain it any longer he began laughing at her mistake. Hesitantly Karen laughed in embarrassment.
As he watched the antics of Karen, Jr. was talking to Al. "I thought you said they weren't married yet? This looks like a husband and wife fight to me."
"Not hardly. This is a trial fight before they get married. They want to see if they’re compatible sparing partners. Next time it will be biting, scratching, eye gouging, hair pulling, and a no holds barred, type fight."
"You ought to get engaged. It’s a lot of fun. Making up is going to come next. Watch carefully and notice their style and technique. Of course it isn't going to do you any good because you ain't ever going to find someone who looks like her to try it on. But it sure ought to be fun to watch."
Al put his hands on the table and leaned forward as if in anticipation. Jr., not to be outdone, put both of his hands flat on the table and leaned forward also. He never looked over at Al but said it out of the side of his mouth. "When does the show begin?"
Since Al and Jr. made it a point to talk loud enough for them to hear, David and Karen couldn't miss hearing their conversation. Looking at them leaning across the table, David took Karen by the hand and gave her a half-spin toward their side of the room.
"Here, you can have the wench. I have a ship to sail and you bloody loafers are useless to me anyway. Now be off with the lot of ye, before I call the engineers and keelhaul you and paste you in irons."
Karen put her hands on her hips and gave David her best snooty look. "Wench? You dare call me, the princess of models, a wench?"
It sounded more haughty than she intended and again she was embarrassed by what she had done. Al and Jr. were eating it up.
"He doesn't deserve you, my princess. Come with us and we will lavish you with gifts, love, servitude. He doesn't appreciate your exquisite beauty. To him you are but a plaything for his selfish desires." Jr. thought he came across pretty good considering he was new at this game.
Al was not to be outdone by his lab partner. "He’s a terrible overlord your highness. He beats us mercilessly, demanding ever more and more blood for his cruel and pathetic experiments. Come, run away with us and we will protect you from this demon who is disguised as a man. We will be your willing slaves forever."
Karen held up her hands. "Quit, enough is enough."
She looked back at David. "Wench?"
"What did you want me to call you? Harlot?" He pulled her back and gently, lovingly, kissed her before she had a chance to reply.
Jr. looked over at Al. "I thought you said there would be style and technique. I wasn't impressed with either his style or technique. However, anything she does shows great style."
Al had a disappointed look on his face. "What do you expect from a medical doctor? They have formaldehyde for brains. Now we know who the culprit is who has been drinking the mouse juice. And all this time he has been blaming us. I give her a ten for performance and him a zero for non performance. How about you?"
Jr. shrugged his shoulders. "Well naturally, she gets a ten automatically for showing up. However, me thinks you rate the good doctor too highly. I gave him a minus for even trying."
David waved his hand in the direction of Al and Jr. "Would you two like to try and do any better?"
Their faces lit up like kids at Christmas. They both knew David was only joking but the thought they could hold and kiss Karen was still there.
"Now just a cotton picking minute. If you think for one second I came down here to be insulted and passed around as a wench, you better think again." She planted her feet but as hard as she tried to scowl at all of them, the corners of her mouth wouldn't cooperate. The grin kept giving her true feelings away. Looking at her feet and putting her hands on her hips she gave it another try but couldn't contain the giggles.
David put his arm around her waist. "Come, I want to show you some work we have been doing."
They walked over to the other side of the room where they kept the small lab animals during the day.
"Hey Karen, I hear your protégé is working outside Commercial Technologies now." It was Jr. asking the question.
Her heart gave a little skip. She wondered if he was talking about Henry and how could he know?
"I don't have a protégé." She tried hard to make it sound like a flat statement.
"Yes, you do. He told everyone he knew everything you knew. It was the only reason they hired him on over at ACME. What I understand from the rumor mill is, he is head of their duplication department right now."
Karen let out her breath. At least he wasn't talking about Henry. "Who in the world are you talking about? I never had anyone help me in my department."
It was a slip and Jr. caught it. "What do you mean, you never had anyone help you in your department? I thought your cousin was the one who designed the duplication department?"
She squeezed David's hand and he caught the tension Jr.'s question had caused. "She meant she hasn't had anyone besides her cousin help in her lab."
Jr. was satisfied with the answer and didn't pursue it. "Anyway, who I’m referring to is Karl Adder. He went over to ACME and told them he designed the duplication department here. They hired him on to make their models look as good as Karen's. They say the head of ACME, old Cal Ryan, was the one who personally hired him."
Al decided to put his two bits worth in. "I bet Cal isn't going to be too happy with his personal choice when Karl shows him everything he knows about making models. Everyone knew the only reason Karl wanted Karen's department with her running it, was because he wasn't smart enough to run it himself."
Al and Jr. looked at each other and laughed at the idea of Karl trying to run Karen's department by himself. There could be some real interesting models come out of that.
Al finally stopped laughing long enough to continue. "I would stand a better chance of running Karen's department than Karl would. At least I could turn your computer on and do a pretty good job of running programs through it."
Karen looked incredulously at Al. "You can turn my computer on?"
"Sure. David told us your cousin designed the computer in our department and the one in your lab. I can turn this one on and I bet I could get the one in your lab up and running
Karen smiled at the thought. "Or visa versa."
David burst out laughing. The thought of Henry getting Al up and running was a mental picture he couldn't suppress. "Now that’s something I would pay to see."
He closed the door to the cage and turned back to Al. What he was going to show Karen could wait. "Where do you two get all your information?"
"If you would ever stick your nose outside this lab, you might hear yourself some of what I have been telling you." Al was miffed David doubted what he had been saying.
"This sounds like break time gossip to me." David wasn't going to let him off the hook so easily.
"It could be, but a lot of it turns out to be the truth. It isn't all idle gossip without any truth to it. What about the one about the old man getting put away?"
David was getting perplexed with his help. "What old man?"
"Bill Chambers quit. They said he called in this morning. He said he wouldn't ever come back to work in this place, for any amount of money. He said Karen was a witch and had put a curse on him. Everyone working here was doomed to die insane if they kept on working in this building. He said it was because Karen and her horde of demons were taking over the place. He said Karen cast a spell on everyone so they thought she was a woman and was the real Karen's cousin. Karen killed the real Karen Long and took her human form so she could look like the rest of us. He said ..."
"Where do you hear these stories? You been into the mouse juice again? What are you on?" David cut him off. He had heard enough. He knew Karen had. She was holding on to his arm so tight she cut the circulation off.
Al held up his hand as if he was taking the oath. "I swear David, I ain't making any of this up. Ask Jr., Mr. Chambers called in this morning like I said. And he said everything just like I told you. Security set up a recorder to keep track of all the incoming and outgoing calls from the building. It seems they were tracking some calls being routed to the old man instead of going to the departments and people they were supposed to be phoning. It was Karen's department where Bill was intercepting phone calls. I guess he was pretty paranoid about her."
"Anyway, they set up a wire tap right here in the building and it was approved by some judge and some bright lawyer. Invasion of privacy of others is how they explained it. I understand they had some real eye opening tapes dropped in their laps before they gave the okay to do the wire tap."
"I guess the old boy really cracked. They sent a car over to check on him after he made the call. He was drunk as a skunk, sitting on his front porch in nothing but the suit God gave him. He said if he didn't have any clothes on and wasn't in his house, Karen couldn't cast her spell on him."
"They called the funny farm to come pick him up." Al looked over at Jr. for support.
Jr. nodded his head. "That's right. I heard the same thing this morning. Everyone in the building is talking about it. The only reason you two don't hear nothing is because you don't ever get out of your labs except to go home. No one gets to go to Karen's lab because the old man made her off limits to everyone. We thought it was because she was so pretty, no one could concentrate on their jobs afterwards. We didn't know it was because she was a witch."
Al smiled at Karen. "We know you aren't any witch, Miss Long. And even if you were, we wouldn't care as long as all witches were as pretty as you."
"SHE ISN’T A WITCH!" It was a lot more forceful denial than David intended and it caught everyone by surprise.
He knew he had overdone it and tried to soften it a little. "You guys couldn't believe any of the trash coming out of the gossip mill, could you?"
"We know she isn't a witch. I thought it was funny Mr. Chambers did. It wasn't taken seriously by anyone. Everybody thought it was a good joke." Jr. sounded hurt.
He looked down at the floor. "I'm sorry Karen. I didn't mean anything by it. We didn't think it would hurt your feelings. We thought you would enjoy the joke as much as everyone else did."
She was holding on tightly to David to keep from sinking to the floor and hoping Al and Jr. wouldn't notice. Bill had done it to her twice now, once on purpose in his office and now without ever knowing. So this was what Henry was wanting to talk to her about as she walked out of the lab.
Karen's voice was as soft as David's had been harsh and there was a slight quiver to it. "That's all right fellows. I know you were only repeating what you heard someplace else. No harm done. Right?"
When Karen tightened her hold on him, David quickly put his arm around her. He supported her effortlessly and very casually. He was mad at Al and Jr. for what they had done to her but how were they to know? They had no idea what Karen had been through or what she was trying to cope with every day of her life. He decided it wasn't their fault. In their own way they loved Karen, too. In spite of the fun he made of them they were good men, both of them.
"Okay, break time for the upper class while the peasants have to keep toiling at their labors." David announced nonchalantly. What he was wanting to show Karen could wait until she managed to get hold of her emotions.
"We’re truly sorry, Miss Long. We didn't aim to hurt your feelings. We wouldn't hurt you for anything in the world and we would whip anyone who tried." Al wanted Karen to know they were on her side.
"It's really all right guys. I have been under a lot of pressure lately and this kind of got to me more than it should have. I came down here because my chamber hologram is down and the pump to the table is broken. It looks like it might be two or three days before I can be operational again. Now I ask you, does that sound like a witch? I can't even keep my own equipment going, much less have time to put a hex on someone else."
Talking about it made her feel better and she relaxed her grip on David. He reciprocated in kind although he didn't mind holding her nice and tight. She did feel good to hold.
Karen paid no attention to David as she managed a smile. "If you two repeat any of this to another single soul, I will turn both of you into toads."
Al gave a short laugh. "No use telling anyone else. Everyone here knows you're the resident magician for this company. Who is going to believe you can't keep your own toys up and running."
It wasn't what she had in mind when she told them not to repeat anything but it would be better if she let it go instead of bringing it up again.
The tension in the room subsided only a little and David maneuvered Karen toward the door. "Let's take a break. You need a pop or something."
Once in the hall he guided her toward the exit. "I didn't think Al and Jr. needed to know everything. We don't need to go down to the cafeteria and meet another hundred people who will want to tell you the same story. Let's go for a drive."
"I left my car keys and purse in the lab. I didn't plan on leaving the building." David didn't let her stop so she was trying to explain on the way out.
"Your ten thousand demons, and all of them have the same name, will make sure nothing is molested."
She looked to see if he was joking but there wasn't a smile there. "Are you referring to Henry?"
"You’re damn right I’m referring to Henry. Who else but Henry could do what Bill Chambers said was done to him?"
The silence that grew between them could be felt. They were almost to the parking space where David kept his car and Karen stopped short. "You have no right to judge Henry without knowing why he did it. I’m not saying he did, but..., if he did, then you might just be interested in hearing my side of the story. That is if you aren't so damned prejudiced about something you don't understand. Or, have you already made up your mind in judgment?"
It wasn't her hands but her fists which were on her hips. The fire she had in those liquid blue eyes almost made David think they were red. It was enough to make a Marine drill sergeant break out in a sweat.
"I’m a scientist, remember? I don't prejudge things. I’m open to discussion but I don't think this is the place we should be doing it. Get in the car." He motioned for her to get in his BMW as he spoke. Taking a good look at her he couldn't decide if he would be safe in the same car. The hair on the back of his neck was giving him a danger signal.
If she didn't have on high heels she would have stomped around to the passenger side of the car. But it was impossible, even for Karen, to stomp in heels. David tripped the locks and reluctantly got in. Karen's rage was plain as she yanked the car door open. She flopped in the seat and slammed the door so hard it rattled his teeth. David didn't know what kept the door attached to his car. He was beginning to have serious doubts as to the sanity of this idea. Screwing up his courage, he shut his door.
It was a long ride out in silence and instead of turning toward town he turned away as he left the security gate. Max smiled and waved as he recognized who it was, but his wave drooped when he got a look at their faces. He had seen people whose experiments had gone wrong before and he knew someone's experiment had gone bad.
David didn't need the air conditioner. The frost between them was already heavy enough to cool any conversation. They drove about twenty miles before David got up enough nerve to break the silence. "Okay, I’m ready to listen."
She never even looked at him, instead preferring to look at the nothing out her side window as they drove past a blur of green. "Find a place and park. I’m mad and I may not want to stay in the car and talk with you."
David saw a side road directly ahead and braked sharply for it. Not an ideal situation but it would have to do. There were some houses on down the road and the highway traffic humming along behind them. But they had a relatively quiet spot by an open field and some trees on the shoulder up ahead. He didn't feel like hunting for the perfect spot to park so he pulled off on the shoulder of the dirt road he had turned onto.
It startled him when he killed the engine and Karen turned to glare at him after staring out the window all the way out. The fire in her eyes hadn't cooled a bit. When she started, the words came like bullets. "You listen to me! That old fool you feel so sorry for tried to steal my department and sell it to ACME. Him and that Karl Adder, that snake. I don't know how Henry did it but he was only looking out for me. He wouldn't hurt anyone who didn't need it or deserve it. I’m not saying Bill deserved what he got, but I’m glad it happened."
"Henry did it because he was protecting me and no other reason. So if you want to blame someone, why don't you blame me? After all, I’m the one who designed and built him. He is only an extension of me. If he is evil and wicked, so am I. Maybe I really am a bitch and a witch. Karl Adder certainly thinks so, and we fired his ass. And I’m damn glad we did!"
David was surprised and amused. Boy oh boy, she really got up a head of steam when she had a cause. Once she got going, get in her way and she would run over you like a steam roller. Her and that computer of hers. Henry was the scary part. Karen he thought he understood. How does one go about understanding a computer who thinks better than you do?
David smiled. "I wasn't judging you or your counterpart. I only wanted to know what was going on. After all, I’m a research scientist and asking questions is part of my life. The biggest part of my life."
"You said Bill deserved it. I believe you. You say you fired Karl and I applaud you. Lord knows, everyone else in Comm Tech would pin a medal on you if they knew what you did. He made such an ass of himself, no one in the building could stand him."
"That computer you designed is a power house, Karen. I hope for everyone's sake you are in control of him. He scares the living hell out of me. He has helped me in my research and I appreciate it, but it still doesn't stop me from being scared."
She started to speak and David held up his hand. "Let me finish. I saw some of those war trophies maintenance brought back from your lab. If Henry ever got busy with those lasers you equipped him with, he could cut the whole plant apart, and no one could stop him."
"Since we’re talking about rumors, let's mention one more. Such as, he has a back up system which would make the pentagon green with envy. I don't know why you provided him with a system like you did, but I suppose it’s true. I’m glad I’m in DNA research and not computers. If I knew exactly what Henry was capable of I probably wouldn't be able to come to work. I would sit at home and cower in the darkest corner I could find. I’m telling you Karen, he scares me. I like him and at the same time, he scares me."
As David was talking, the anger went out of her eyes and she sat back in the seat and relaxed. She looked out the window to collect her thoughts and back to David before she began. "Henry is a pussycat. Not a tiger nor a mountain lion, but a plain old pussycat. In spite of what you hear, he wouldn't hurt anyone without a reason and he hasn't done so yet. No matter what you think of him, he is only a computer. He is memory banks, lots of circuits, computer chips, pieces of silicon, and electrons flowing from one place to another."
"He holds a ton of information valuable to my work. Without him my models would look like the ones everybody else manufactures. He was designed to 'think' in a non repetitive manner similar to the way we think. It’s called fuzzy logic. Our world is not black and white or yes and no answers. Yet, we make computers with no margin for error. We can't give to them an understanding of the in-between areas of black, white, yes, and no. Then we can't understand why they don't respond when we pass on programming they can't execute when it doesn't fall within their design parameters. In simple terms it is like building an adding machine which adds whole numbers only and asking it to calculate fractions."
"I happened to get lucky with Henry. Everything came together in the right combination of hardware and software. He’s a solid hit in programming and chips. One of a kind I don't think can be duplicated. Something clicked when he was built and all the parts were a perfect match. You know how everything has a certain tolerance in mechanical components when they are made? Kind of like a key fitting into a lock. If the key and lock were made to an exact standard with no tolerance, you would never be able to turn the key to work the lock. It’s supposed to have a certain slop fit so you don't have to oil the lock every time you use the key."
"Henry was a perfect match of electrical components all the way through. There was no slop fit anywhere. You think electronic parts are precision parts? Well they aren't. Virtually every single electronic part has a plus or minus tolerance. This range of standards allows a lot of junk into the market which shouldn't have ever left the manufacturer. Usually the tolerance error is plus or minus five percent. Some manufacturers ignore this standard and ship darn near anything they can get out the door. They figure quality control is left to the customer. If it works, fine. If it doesn't work they claim the customer damaged the part when it was installed."
"My field suffers from guess work as much as yours does. We struggle for every inch of progress. Some of it isn't that much fun. The only absolute in research is, there are no absolutes. You know that. When you think you know all the rules to the game, somebody changes the rules and you start over again. Sometimes I think the only reason researchers define limits and say this will be true each and every time you do it this way is because it is the only way they can hold on to their sanity. Remember the world was supposed to be flat at one time? That was an absolute and to say differently was hypocrisy and could get one hanged or burned at the stake. Then it came to be the world was round. That was an absolute and was irrefutable. Now we think the world is oblong, more like a flattened tennis ball rather than a basketball."
"Henry was a stretch into the unknown which worked as it was suppose to. That doesn't make him a monster. He does things differently than what the rule books say he should so you tend to be scared of him. Make some new rules, David. You live with the computer in your lab as a natural thing. Henry is only a computer."
David reached across the seat and played with her hair. "Can we kiss and make up?"
"No! I’m still mad at you for doubting me." She folded her arms across her chest.
"It wasn't you I doubted and him I don't trust."
"Same thing. I designed him and he’s a part of me."
David wanted to nibble on her neck. "Okay, since we’re already parked, let's neck. I haven't had a chance to park and neck in the car since college."
"And it isn't about to happen now either, buster. You lay a hand on me and I’ll call Henry."
David knew she was only being testy. "We do tend to get ugly when we're questioned about our friend Henry. Don't we?"
It brought a smile to Karen's face. "Yes we do, but drive me back, buy me a malt, and I might be persuaded to forgive you."
"A malt? You're becoming increasingly expensive. The first time only cost me a pop and a doughnut. Which, I might add, you never repaid me for. However, since I now know you have your price, how about supper? I may need lots of forgiving later on." David thought it strange they could be so mad at one another one minute and such good friends the next. Maybe this was what love was?
"Oh good, I love this make up part. It's too early for supper so take me by the house and let me get ready. You can come by and pick me up soon as you feel like it." Karen had such a wonderful time last time David took her out she knew she wouldn't be disappointed. Even if he didn't take her anywhere, he was nice company to have around.
Karen was smiling at him and David felt a warm glow spread all over. She was easy on the eyes for sure. He started the car, turned it around, and drove back to the highway. "It's too early for getting ready for a night on the town. Instead, let's take our lab coats off and cruise the malls for awhile. What are you wearing under your coat?"
"What do you mean, what am I wearing under my coat? What kind of girl do you think I am? I have a dress on. I’m no pervert." She knew what David meant but she was going to make him pay for the way he asked the question. Besides, he could see the neckline of the dress and the hem when the bottom of the coat swung open.
"What I mean is...,"
She didn't let him finish. "I know what you mean."
Karen opened her lab coat to reveal a deep blue, jersey dress with a sheer lace pattern starting at each shoulder and plunging into a deep vee in the middle. She reached over to hold onto the steering wheel. "David, pay attention to your driving. You’re wandering all over the highway."
David got a fresh grip on the wheel. He didn't dare look at her again. "Wuff. I thought you said you needed to go home and change for the evening if we were going out. I don't go to work dressed like you do. How come you go to work dressed like you do?"
Karen laughed at the thought. "Sounds kind of kinky to me. But if you’re into that sort of thing, come by the house and I’ll loan you some of my clothes. Most of my dresses are stretch fabric. I don't think you would have any trouble wearing them."
David had to laugh along with Karen. She was obviously going to make him pay for talking about her Henry. He wouldn't be able to say anything with a double meaning until she decided he had paid for his mistake.
"Don't get cute. You knew what I was talking about. I don't wear a tux to work everyday, and right now you would put anything less to shame."
"You trying to tell me you would be ashamed to be seen with me?"
David sighed, was she ever going to forgive? "Karen, I wouldn't be ashamed to take you to the presidential palace right now. You would fit in anywhere from shopping in the flea market to the upper crust of a society banquet. You're unique in being able to fit in and look like you have always been there. You’re a human chameleon and it didn't happen the night of your accident either. You have always blended in with your surroundings. You have a knack of making everyone around you feel comfortable discussing any subject brought up."
Karen almost told him she use to blend in too well. No one wanted her around. If they thought of her at all, she was ignored.
David's face lit up. "I have an idea."
Picking up the phone, he made a short call. It only took him a few minutes and he hung up. Finding a cross over, David turned the car around.
"We’re going sailing."
"I can't go sailing like this. I think you found the one thing I’m not dressed for." She knew wearing a dress to work and sailing were two different situations. Her mental picture of sailing was sitting in a small boat, getting soaked to the skin while dodging waves if possible.
"Don't worry, there is a place down by the docks where they sell sweaters, pants, and shoes. We can find something for you to wear when we get there. I promise, you will enjoy it if you relax and let me do the thinking on this one."
Karen did relax and she pulled her left foot up under herself as she leaned back against the door. "Whose boat is it? I didn't know you knew how to sail?"
"The boat belongs to a friend. Her name is Elvonda, and she’s the sailor, not me. She told me I could use her boat anytime I wanted as long as it wasn't already out. I told her we wanted to go sailing for the afternoon and she wanted to know who I had with me. When I said it was Karen Long, she cautioned me to keep my hands to myself and watch what I was doing. She has seen your pictures in the papers and approved of my choice of sailing partners."
"This is a friend of yours?" There was a lot about David she didn't know. But why should she? Except at work, she and David never associated with one another. As soon as they left their labs, they went different directions.
She had driven by David's apartment a few times to see where he lived. She figured he had probably done the same. It was a normal part of the human mentality to be slightly curious about some things. Especially with people one works around for fifteen years. David had never asked her for a date or been more than polite and friendly when they happened to be together. Yet he spent long hard hours of his own time hunting a cure for her migraine headaches when he could have been doing other work. Which brought her to the only two good things she could see because of the accident. David started taking an active interest in her and her headaches were gone. Karen felt she paid a terrible price for the benefits.
David was still talking and Karen missed part of it. ".... and she said she needed another hand to manage the boat. I had dated her several times and I guess she thought I looked stupid enough to go along or something like that. She was right, it was stupid of me to go along. Now she is engaged to some lawyer. He probably thinks if he marries her, he will get the boat in the deal. The only good part of this is, he has to be more stupid than I am. Anyone who believes they could out smart Elvonda has already lost the game."
Karen wished she had been listening from the beginning. "You do know how to sail then?"
David shook his head no. "Like I said, I don't have the faintest idea but don't worry. It has a motor. I believe the name is day sailer. No, that is the description of it. Anyway we will start the engine and cruise out a little ways, and go swimming or something."
"It's the something, which worries me."
David glanced her way. "Karen, I love you. I’m not going to hurt you or place you in a compromising position. I made my choice at the candy counter and I decided on the flavor I want. If and when you decide to marry me, we will work out the date and place. I have loved you for a long time but was too busy or stupid to let marriage get in the way of my work. I kept hoping for a breakthrough so I could stop pushing so hard in my research. I guess I always thought you would wait for me to ask you. Your accident kind of threw me for a little while but, you are still the same Karen I fell in love with a long time ago."
"A lot of women have, in one way or another, suggested marriage to me but I wasn't interested. You were the one who stole my heart fifteen years ago when you were building me a computer and designing the programming for my research. I couldn't believe one person had the right to be so intelligent, kind, and gentle. You were all of those things and more. Like a jerk, I thought things would keep on the same way they always were. I guess I didn't date you because I was afraid it would get serious before I wanted. Now, I probably waited too long. I’m only another face in your crowd of admirers."
David turned the car off the highway towards the bay dock. Karen was stunned and didn't know what to say. She and David devoted fifteen years of their lives to their research waiting for what? Neither one was able to make the first move toward the other. She searched her feelings to the beginning and tried to examine them to see if she loved David then. She knew she liked him from the start, but love? David was as handsome and successful as they come. If she had entertained any vague ideas of love toward David, she repressed the feelings and didn't allow them to surface. No use dreaming the impossible. David could have his choice of women and she was as plain as they came. If only either of them had said something. Fifteen years, what a waste of life. Now they might be too late. Every single day she awoke was her total future. It was all she could plan on.
There was no use involving David in her questionable future right now. They had waited this long, a little longer wouldn't kill them. That was a distasteful thought. "David, I’m still trying to figure out what I am. If you have waited for fifteen years to ask me to marry you, please be patient and wait a little longer. The answer is yes, but we can't set a date nor begin an engagement yet. You have always been there for me to lean on when I needed help, but this time I’m on my own."
"Now change the subject. I can't wear sneakers, flats, loafers, or anything if it doesn't have a high heel to it. If I could I would, but my design wasn't made to be so flexible. It would be like you standing on your toes all day. It can be done but it isn't comfortable and it hurts after a while."
David had been taking short glances at her. "I will wait until the world stops turning for you to become my wife. I love you more than you will ever know, Karen. As for high heels on a boat? Not very practical, but you sure will be the sexiest woman there. You might even start a trend. Every captain of his ship will make it a rule, all girl friends wear high heels."
Karen turned down the offer to look at deck shoes while she picked out a sweater and stretch pants. It looked like a jogging suit to her but the sales lady kept referring to it as a sailing outfit. Probably a fancy name for a fancy price. She felt a little silly as she stepped out of the closet they called a dressing room and was wearing a jogging suit along with high heels but it couldn't be helped. Not if she was going sailing with David. Again she wondered why she and Henry had to be designing the woman she was stuck with. She thought about it and got to laughing at herself. At least she wasn't a cow. Someday she would have to tell David what Henry had told her.
Much to Karen's consternation David let out a low whistle as she stepped out of the dressing room and of course everyone in the room turned to look.
"Thanks a heap, David. I was trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. You aren't much help." She was holding her dress up in front of herself, hoping to stave off the stares of the other customers.
He handed the sales lady a credit card. "Everyone would have noticed anyway, Karen. And those who didn't see you until you were out the door would have been disappointed. You're kind of like the Empire State Building in the middle of the Kansas prairie. The harder you try to hide, the more obvious you become."
She was glad there were only a few people in the little store. She hadn't completely recovered from the episode she had been through in Bob's store. Now David had brought those memories back and she was a little peeved with him.
Handing the credit card back to David, the saleslady looked over at Karen. "I couldn't help overhearing, Miss Long. We don't ever have any celebrities like you come down here. You make my clothes look good when you’re wearing them. I saw some of your models the other day and it’s an honor to meet the lady who does the design work."
"We didn't use to sell but one Sunday paper, and it was passed around the dock and shared until everybody had read it. Then Bob's Intimates began running ads with your pictures and now nobody shares a paper. I have saved every single copy you have been in. I had to keep them under lock and key to keep from losing them. You're even more beautiful than your pictures. I figured they were retouched by some of those people who do artistic work on photographs to make the model look like a movie star. I realize now I was mistaken."
She reached under the counter and brought up some newspaper clippings of the pictures and articles of Karen modeling at the mall. "May I have your autograph on one or two of these?"
She laid a stack of clippings on the counter in front of Karen. Karen autographed more than a dozen articles before she begged off. It was to little avail. Once the other customers found she was willing to give autographs, everyone came up with something for her to autograph. She had to stop and sign more autographs than she thought there could possibly be people as she and David made their way down to the docks. Where do all these people come from?
Karen was laughing at David's awkwardness as he tried to untie the boat and get organized. As they drifted away from the dock he was trying desperately to start the engine. "I thought you were a real sailor the way you were talking to the rest of us in the lab. What happened to anchors away, hoist the sail, put the men in irons, and all that other nautical stuff you were spouting?"
She sat down by the big thing looking like an overgrown steering wheel as she watched David struggling with an apparent lack of skill. He finally managed to get the engine started before they drifted into another boat. The man on the dock had been watching them with growing anxiety. He stopped untying his own boat when he heard the sound of the diesel cough to life. David steered the ship toward open water.
Standing tall and proud in the cockpit, he got a smug look of confidence on his face. "Okay, now to answer your questions. I never said I knew anything about sailing. When I went out with Elvonda I hated every second of it. She always wanted to put the sail up. I swear it meant nothing but hard work and sweat from the moment we left. Relief came when we dropped anchor and I got off the boat. I think the reason she invited me along, was because she couldn't work this big tub all by herself."
Karen didn't like the sound of this. "What do you mean, she couldn't work this big tub by herself? If she was suppose to know what she was doing and you don't, how are you going to sail this ship?"
A smirk curled the corners of his mouth. "Beginners luck?"
She wasn't amused. Then she got a thought that frightened her. She and David were on a boat and neither one knew what they were doing.
"Oh no. You don't expect me to help sail this thing do you? As much as I’m beginning to suspect you don't know anything about what you’re doing, I know even less than you do."
They began moving along at a slow but constant speed. "I know what I’m doing. I didn't say I didn't know anything about boats. I said, I didn't know anything about sailing. It’ll take me a little bit to get use to everything but I can handle it. I can't give you a lot of nautical terms like Elvonda does. It doesn't make any difference, I think she made up most of those things to confuse me. She used funny names like port and starboard for right and left or maybe the other way around. Let's keep it simple. Right is right and left is left. The front is ahead of us and behind us is the back of the boat. There isn't any bow and grim or stern or whatever."
As Karen settled down in the big chair beside David, she listened to the waves smack against the bow of the boat. Below in the engine room, the steady throb of the little diesel kept a clock like rhythm. David might not know the name of everything, but he wasn't doing badly at handling the boat once he got going. It was hypnotic to listen to the rhythm of the sounds, and be gently rocked by the roll of the boat as it moved across the water. She could close her eyes and let the whole world disappear into a meaningless nothing.
"I thought sailboats were always leaning over into the water? Why aren't we? This boat is almost level with no leaning to speak of. This isn't what I imagined a sailboat to be like." She looked around at the cushioned chairs and few lines going up the mast. In fact, the boat was quite comfortable and plush. She expected less. A lot less.
David laughed as he watched her relaxing in the captain's chair. "It has to do with putting the sail up. The wind has to push on the sail to make the boat move forward. When we use only the engine, the wind isn't trying to push us over on our side. I don't know why sailors even bother with sails. Elvonda liked to tack close to the wind. I swear, she delighted in making me think she was going to turn us over. She would lay this baby right down on its’ side. I never tried it, but I bet I could have walked out to the end of the keel. What an aggressive sailor she tries to be. I think she works out her frustrations and my sweat on the water."
"You would like her. She’s extremely beautiful but I think she would have made a better pirate than she did a woman. She gets out here and doesn't think it’s any fun unless you have to dodge booms, wires, and hang on for dear life to keep from falling overboard. Everything wants to swing around and knock you off the ship or tangle up your feet and break your legs. I came out here with her in a hurricane. Well, maybe only a forty mile an hour wind, but it felt like a hurricane. Can you believe we put up the spinnaker and raced across the water like a couple of idiots? Half the time I was lying flat on the deck hanging on for my life and the other half of the time I was in the air as we bounced from wave to wave."
"I guess she put my attitude in order that day. She told me life was a challenge and we received back only the amount we were willing to bet. You want a lot out of life, you have to be willing to put a lot into living it."
Karen studied David as he gazed across the water looking into the distance. Feet apart braced for the roll of the ship, checking his compass from time to time, he was content.
"Do you love her? Do you wish it were you, instead of the lawyer she is marrying?"
There was extreme fondness in his voice. "Yes, I love her. I love her very deeply."
He turned and looked affectionately at Karen. "But not like I love you. She is a friend, a very dear friend. I love her like a sister. I wish her nothing but the best in her marriage but I think she is making a mistake and told her so. The guy isn't for her. He is full of himself and will always think that way. Elvonda is pleasant, intelligent, and a lot like you. I’ll invite her out to dinner with us sometime so you can meet her. You will like her. She is one foxy lady when she isn't on this ship playing the part of Captain Blyth."
This was a side of David she had never seen. He loved it when he was on this boat with his friend. He was pushed to the limits of his ability and took chances he couldn't afford to take in the lab. Elvonda wasn't the only one who came out here to work out frustrations. David didn't want to admit he had another personality other than the structured, ordered, disposition he exhibited in his lab. Karen knew Elvonda wasn't the only one doing all the pushing to the limits of equipment and human endurance.
He pointed to a speck in the distance. "Look, Crab Island. We always stop there and have a bite of lunch when we get a chance. Elvonda knew the only way she could keep her crew was to give me a break and feed me. This boat isn't as barren as one would believe. She has more toys on this boat than what you and I could ever think of. The sad part is, she knows what all of them are for. You want to hear something even sadder? I don't."
"However there are some radios and a telephone in the cabin. Go call your partner in crime. Tell him where you are so he doesn't call out the FBI on a national manhunt when you don't return when he thinks you should. As you go down the stairs, turn on the radio to your left. It is the national weather alert and they give a forecast across the nation every fifteen minutes. The one above is for the Coast Guard. Turn it on and leave all the other stuff alone. Most of it is for emergency situations or navigational aids which we won't need. We’re running the engine so the generator is also working charging the batteries. Everything will be okay as long as we remember to turn the radios off when we stop the engine."
David looked over at Karen and his eyes were sparkling. "Now, how about those apples? You didn't think this old sea dog knew what he was doing, did you?"
She opened the hatch and looked down the steps. It was a nice looking cabin with electronic gear everywhere. Maybe David did know what he was doing. The idea lasted until she heard him shouting orders to the imaginary crew.
"Avast me hearties, mitzen the blitzen, up the sails and drop anchors. Man the chairs and break out the staple guns. The pirates are upon us and it is time to show them our true colors. What's that you say? Our true colors are yellow? I won't stand for cowardly talk coming from my crew. Throw that man overboard. What do you mean, this is a one man crew? Throw yourself overboard. I shall be forced to face the surfboard pirates by myself."
She better call Henry and let him know where she was. Maybe he could get the Coast Guard out to rescue them. She suddenly lost all faith in David getting them back in one piece.
They anchored on the leeward side of the island after David finally figured out how to get the anchor down. He told her there were snorkels and swim fins in the forward locker and she would find a bathing suit, in the locker in the main cabin. There was food in the galley and it took several attempts to explain the head was the bathroom. It took a lot more explaining that the potty didn't hold water until before it was used.
Karen had a lot of fun figuring out the functions of the sail boat, until she noticed it was beginning to get late, and they hadn't started home yet. "Can you make your way home after dark? It looks like the sun will be down before we get back to the dock."
David opened a can of peaches and handed her a fork. "Let's spend the night here. You haven't lived until you hear the sound of the waves lapping against the side of the boat while it’s rocking you to sleep. We’ll go swimming in a little while and you will find out how warm the water feels at night. This is a whole different world Karen. Stop and enjoy it for a little while. Don't rush past it in your effort to get back to the city with all its crowds and traffic."
Karen had taken a bite of peach and was trying to talk around it. "I didn't tell Henry I was going to be out all night, and I have to get the chamber fixed first thing in the morning, and I ..."
David put his hand over her mouth. "It will wait. Remember what I said about no one will miss you after you’re gone? We rush forward into our jobs thinking we’re indispensable. I promise you we aren't. If I died tonight someone would be in my lab tomorrow taking up my work where I left off. I have a jealous feeling you wouldn't be so easily replaced, but sooner or later someone would accomplish it."
"Scientist are trail blazers, Karen. We forge ahead into the unknown leaving a path for others to follow. When we stumble or fall this is also a warning to others. They shouldn't do the same things we did, or take better precautions so they don't make the same mistakes. Workers and scientist around the world have told us to take a break from our work when we get caught up in it. If we don't, we will suffer the fate others ahead of us have and become physically and mentally burned out. I have no idea what has kept you going all these years, I know you put in more hours than anyone else at Comm Tech."
"Now take some advice from your doctor and give it a rest. Call your guardian and tell him where you are and that you won't return until sometime in the morning. I have to set out some lights so they don't run over us in the dark. We will be a lot safer here for the night than me trying to get us back in the dark. I only steer this thing by looking where I want to go. Elvonda could park this baby on the top of a dime, after a thousand mile crossing, in a fog covering the end of your nose. I do good to get this boat moving and stopped."
As Karen relented to his advice, she couldn't help but think how different Karl and David were. Karl didn't believe women had any brains at all, and he was the smartest person in the whole world. David freely admitted he couldn't do some things as well as some women. He had no ego to bruise in saying so. She thought about his self-evaluation as a sailor. He was right, it would be safer to stay where they were for the night, rather than kill them selves trying to get home in the dark. She loved this man who was so self-assured, he had nothing to prove to the rest of the world.
"I'll call Henry and let him know we won't be in tonight. He’ll put in an absentee slip for both of us so Comm Tech won't dock our paycheck. It should make everyone happy. He will get a break and so will we."
The discussion with Karen about her computer had to be more fact than fiction. David didn't let it show but the thought ran through his mind. If Henry was running through payroll files he had a right to be scared of him. If Karen was smart she would be scared too. David promised himself he would pay more attention to the coffee pot gossip when they were discussing Karen's computer. A chill ran down his spine as he thought about it. What had Karen breathed life into, in that lab of hers?
Karen knew Henry would never take a break. He would be running calculations on information he was busy accessing from some data bank somewhere. Henry's idea of relaxing was finding new information he didn't already possess. It suddenly dawned on her. She and Henry were more alike than anyone knew. She programmed a lot of herself into Henry because that was her idea of relaxing.
Karen found a swimming suit in the cabin closet where David said it would be. Elvonda had sensuous taste in swimsuits. Karen felt more naked after she put one on than when she had all her clothes off. Hardly covering anything but the nipples on her breast, it ran over the shoulders and down the back in little more than a G-string where it came around front in thong style.
She stood inside the cabin door looking at the woman in the mirror. She was trying to convince herself it was a swimsuit. "David, I can't wear this. I don't think I can go swimming in this."
David was already changed and waiting for her up on the deck. He knew what she was talking about. None of Elvonda’s swimsuits covered a whole lot. "Sure you can. I know what you have. I have seen you with a lot less than that. Remember?"
Karen stepped out with uncertainty. "I didn't think you were the kind of man who would remind a lady when she was improperly dressed. Besides, that wasn't me that morning. That was still the other woman."
David was watching the last rays of the sun in the evening sky as Karen tiptoed up the steps to the deck. He turned around to see if she changed back to her deck suit rather than wearing the swimsuit. It was the swimsuit. He stood there not saying a word as he admired her courage, among other things.
Finally he broke the silence. "Nice, very nice. God creates a lot of beautiful things in this world. Not all of them are in the sky like the last sparkle from the days sun or the rainbow after a rain."
They went swimming after dark and David was right. The water did feel warmer than it did during the daytime. They swam to the island which Karen estimated to be about one hundred fifty feet from the boat. It surprised her how exhausted she was when she reached the beach. She didn't know if she would have made it had it been any farther.
Karen sat down on the sand and picked up a small empty mussel shell. Wiping out the sand with her fingers she examined the ridges inside as she glanced back toward the boat. "Everyday I walk five times the distance we just swam and I was close to exhaustion. I didn't know if I would make it to the beach or not. I was beginning to think you would have to call the Coast Guard to come drag the bottom for me."
David took the shell away from her and rinsed it off in the water. "Swimming uses a completely different set of muscles and a whole lot more energy than walking. You could run ten miles a day and still not be a good swimmer. Just because you’re in shape from one type of exercise doesn't automatically qualify you to be in good shape for a different exercise."
He held up the shell for her to see and ran his finger around the inside. "This is called 'the mother of pearl'. Any time you buy jewelry made from mother, this is what you’re buying, the insides of a mussel or oyster shell."
"Let me see that." Karen leaped to her feet, snatching the shell from his hand.
"I didn't say you could have it back." David lunged for her and fell flat on his face as she jumped backwards.
She kept running backwards as she taunted him. "I never realized how clumsy you were. You're a real klutz, aren't you?"
David was back on his feet in less than a second. "A clumsy klutz? This is mutiny and calls for severe punishment."
Karen was completely taken by surprise at how quickly David sprang back to his feet. He was already coming after her at a full run before she had a chance to turn and flee. She turned to run and hadn't taken two steps before David tackled her from behind while wrapping his arms around her. Letting his momentum carry him past her, he twisted her around and landed flat on his back. Karen was lying on top of him.
Karen tried squirming out of his embrace but David had his arms around her body with her arms pinned to her sides. It felt like steel bands around her, he was so unyielding. She knew David could hold a wild stallion if he put his mind to it. He was a lot stronger than she thought he should be for a doctor or research scientist. He had to be out on Elvonda's boat or in a gym working out a lot more than she imagined. Knowing it was no contest as to who would win this test of strength, she stopped struggling.
As soon as Karen stopped struggling, David rolled out from under her. Laying on top of her, he still held her captive. Running his fingers through her hair, he brushed it out of her face.
"Now for the punishment." Softly he kissed her neck and shoulders.
She tilted her head back exposing her long slender neck to his caresses. Running his fingers into her hair, David locked her head in place as he clinched a fist full of hair. Ever so lightly he kissed her full lips and ran his tongue across them.
Karen's emotions hit overdrive. It was exhilarating and daring. Biting lightly on his lip she put her hands around his back. Ever so gently she pressed the tips of those long sharp fingernails into the small of his back. Gently she raked up his back and out to his shoulders. David's mind exploded. Kissing her harder, he ran his tongue inside her mouth in a French kiss.
Things were getting out of hand as she and David played a sexually and emotionally dangerous game. Karen put her hands under his chest and pushed him back. Nothing had been said but David knew she was right. She was trying to control their emotions. Rolling over to the side he played with her hair, then leaning back over, he kissed her again.
With her emotions picking up again, she put her hand behind his head and kissed him back as he slid the swimming suit off her breasts and fondled them. It didn't surprise Karen how easily he did it. What amazed her was, with the skimpy little suit she was wearing, she didn't fall out of it before now. Gently running the tip of his fingers over the end of her nipple, David kissed her around the ear and nibbled on her ear lobe. Leaning down he ran his tongue around her nipple while holding her other breast.
Her heart began pounding inside her chest as her mind raced off into oblivion. She felt they had gone too far to quit until David put his hand between her thighs and was exploring upward. It was the realization she needed to know now was the time to call off this petting game before things got out of hand.
Karen pushed David away and stood up. She slid the swimsuit back over her breasts. Now, more than ever, she realized how little this bathing suit really did cover. "It's getting late. Time to go back to the boat."
He kissed her and took her hand to lead her into the water for the swim back. It surprised him he wasn't disappointed by the way things turned out. She told him the rules on their first date and he knew she was right. David would love her forever if she would let him.
They reached the deck of the boat and David pointed her toward the main cabin. "Take a shower first. There are plenty of blankets. Be sure to get them out even if you don't put them on your bed now. You’ll want them before morning. With water all around you, it gets cold on a boat before the sun comes up in the morning to start warming things up."
He stood on the deck watching her disappear down the steps. Halfway down Karen turned and looked back up at him. "David...,"
"Let it go, Karen. Tomorrow is a brand new day." He felt her still watching as he turned to check the lights and anchor for the night. He would do everything he could to persuade her to marry him. All she had to do was say yes.
Much later in the night, Karen finally fell asleep. Between her emotions still slowing down and the unfamiliar lap of the waves against the sides of the rocking boat, her mind wouldn't stop thinking.
She could smell the eggs and bacon cooking before her eyes opened. Looking out the porthole, she saw the morning was well along into the day. Dressing and making the bed only took a few minutes. She took a few more seconds to splash some water on her face before she made the galley.
"What a funny looking stove." It hung on a hook of some kind and rocked from side to side with the rhythm of the boat. She watched as David expertly chased the eggs across the skillet.
Never turning to look at her, he slid the eggs onto a plate along with the bacon. "Morning, sleepy head. Glad you could make it. You up to breakfast?"
He put a plate down in front of her as he picked up another and again cornered the eggs in the skillet. "This is a galley stove. It was designed to swing with the boat so it will always be level. When the boat is under full sail and leaning over nothing will fall off the burners."
Sliding his plate onto the table he sat down beside her. "You don't get a choice of how you get your eggs out here. I hope you like your eggs out of a can? You either take them as is, or not at all."
She never heard of such a thing. David must be joking? "Eggs in a can? I suppose the bacon came out of a can too?"
He spread some butter on a biscuit. "You bet. Everything comes out of a can when you’re on a boat. That is, unless you plan ahead and bring groceries with you. It isn't the best food you ever tasted but it is passable and it does fill the empty spot between your ribs."
Karen took a small bite to see how it tasted. It tasted great. "I’m famished. I hardly ever eat breakfast but this morning I feel like I could eat a horse. If you don't hurry I might finish mine off and yours too."
"Go ahead. I know how you feel. It seems when you're out on the water you're always twice as hungry as when you're home."
David was wrong about it not being the best food she ever tasted. It wasn't quite what she expected when eggs and bacon were mentioned, but it was good. Karen wasn't kidding when she said she was starving. She polished off the last bite on her plate as David put his in the sink.
"You take care of the dishes, and I’ll get us started home. We both slept late and it’s getting close to ten. If you wait a little while after I get the engine running, you will have hot water for the scullery. Otherwise, you will have to wash with cold water."
Karen was looking to see if anything looked like what he was talking about. "What am I suppose to wait on hot water to wash in where?"
"There I go, using my old sea dog language on you landlubbers again. I forgot you don't know anything about a ship." He was smiling as he turned to go up the stairs.
"Look who’s talking. For an old sea dog you don't inspire much confidence in your crew. You’re lucky you don't have another mutiny on your hands this morning." Karen stood up and put her fists on her hips in defiance.
David didn't think his heart could stand another mutiny so early in the day. He wasn't over the one from last night..., yet. "I have to get us going or we aren't ever going to get home. One more word about mutiny and I’ll have you walk the deck."
David was up the steps and clear of the hatch when he heard her shout at him. "That’s walk the plank, you old sea dog you."
He didn't like anything he was looking at. The gauges didn't show any signs of life when he flipped the switches. Everything was dead. This wasn't good. There was no noise from below to tell him the little diesel was even trying to start when he turned the switches on.
He dropped down into the galley where Karen was pumping water into the sink. "I don't have any batteries this morning. I think I forgot to turn off the radios last night and the mooring lights drained everything."
He opened the hatch leading into the engine room. Karen could hear him complaining about boats in general, as he tried to crank the diesel over by hand.
She decided the dishes could wait. She climbed the stairs up into the cockpit. She wanted to see for herself what David was talking about. There were a lot of switches and gauges along with a host of knobs, and other gadgets, but the ones which caught her eye were the ones hidden with rocker covers. Lifting the covers exposed the words emergency labeled beside them. Flipping the toggle switches brought the panel alive with lights and all the gauges came on line. Pushing the red purge button stopped the blinking red light and the amber wait light came on. A couple of seconds later a green clear light lit up as the amber light went out. It was too warm to need the glow plugs so she hit the start switch. The steady throb of a little diesel came from deep down in the bowels of the boat.
Along with the throb of the diesel came another sound. David was screaming like a cat with its' tail under the rocker. Alarmed she may have caught him in the machinery she killed the engine and shut everything down. Expecting the worst she turned just as David came boiling up from below.
"What did you do? What did you do?" Both of David's hands were covered in grease.
"I heard you screaming so I killed it. I thought you were hung in something."
As his eyes scoured the panel, there were no signs of life. It was as dark as his mind. "No, I mean how did you get it started? Everything is dead and we don't have any batteries. How did you get it running? What did you do? Do it again."
"I’m a witch. Remember? Oh, how quickly we forget the things we don't want to know." Flipping the emergency switch on again, brought the panel to life one more time. After starting the diesel Karen backed away from the console.
She pointed toward the panel and made a mock bow toward David. "All yours, my captain."
"How did you do that? And I don't want to hear about any witchcraft stuff, either." It was said with admiration in his voice.
"You're a doctor and you play with genetic engineering everyday. I’m a computer engineer and I play with machinery and other equipment everyday. This boat has back up equipment like Henry. All I did was bring it online, so to speak. Don't ask me to help you splice a gene but if you have some equipment giving you a hard time, I’m your man, Friday. I use to build midget race cars when I was seven years old. My dad made me quit because it wasn't the right thing for a girl to be doing. I think it had more to do with the other fathers getting mad at my dad because a girl was beating their sons racing."
David felt pride swell up in his chest for this woman who could look so feminine, yet could talk about and understood machinery better than most men. "Between you and Elvonda, I wonder how long you can keep fooling us men into believing you’re the weaker sex? Don't you know you’re suppose to let us keep our foolish pride and win every time?"
Karen's eyes twinkled mischievously as she flounced out of the cockpit. "We let you win enough games so you won't stop playing with us."
David couldn't decide if she was talking about other things or if she was talking about last night. Whoever came up with that weaker sex idea should be shot for perpetrating the idea on men. It was probably a woman who started that stupid rumor. He pointed the boat back to the dock and tried for three minutes to get the boat moving again before he realized what was wrong. He looked around to see if Karen was watching him. Thankfully she was still below. With a sheepish grin he walked forward and raised the anchor.
Karen listened to him give orders to the imaginary crew as he got underway. "Hoist the engines, start the sails, the scoundrels are upon us. If you're pooped, go to the poop deck. There’s no room for you idle swine here. Man the paddles. We need more speed. More speed you swine. Throw all those shirkers over to the goldfish."
It sounded nice to listen to him play. Little boys never grow up, they play with bigger toys. She loved this little boy. After cleaning up the kitchen, she climbed up to the cockpit and sat beside him for the rest of the trip home.
David asked the dock master to empty the holding tanks, and set all the gauges, instruments, and radios where they should be. The dock master asked about filling the diesel tank. It had something to do with condensation in a partly full tank and sitting in the water. David didn't think Elvonda ever did, but then she never used the diesel. David told him to refill the diesel tank and check the engine and put the boat back into the condition it was before they borrowed it. He also gave him a list of food stores to be replenished.
Jake accepted David's list but he still hadn't moved. David figured there must be more to it. Thinking about it, he pulled out his billfold. He had known Jake a long time and never heard him ask for a tip, but people change and he was asking Jake to do a lot of work.
"Okay, how much?" David opened his billfold.
Jake looked puzzled for a couple of seconds. "How much what?"
"How much for the tip? I expect you to bill me after the work is done but I figure you're waiting for a tip."
"You know me better than that, David. I never ask for a tip. However, there is an extra I’m asking for this time."
He pointed at Karen. "I want my picture taken with your girlfriend. You owe it to me after the way you left my dock yesterday. I thought you were going to run over every boat in here, until you finally got your engine running. And besides, it seems everyone around here received an autograph yesterday. Everyone that is, except me."
As Jake handed a camera to him, David looked around at Karen and laughed. Obviously, Jake had this all planned out and was waiting for their return.
David turned to Karen. "You mind if Jake gets his picture taken with you."
Karen shook her head. "It's okay. Get the camera ready David."
Leaning over, she wrapped her arms around Jake and planted a big kiss on his cheek. It took David and Jake both by surprise. David had the camera pointed and by sheer reflex snapped the picture. Thinking about it, David realized what Karen had done. Being married, Jake could never show the picture he had requested. His wife would kill him if she found out. He wouldn't be able to brag about being in a picture with Karen. Word would surely get back to his wife.
David looked respectfully at Karen. She had a smile like a cat in the cream. The only person who wasn't smiling was Jake. He knew he had been had. He set the conditions and darn if these two hadn't outfoxed him.
Karen winked at David. "One more time, David. Now smile Jake, you won't get a third chance."
Placing her left hand on her hip and tossing her hair back, Karen put her right hand behind her head, and pushed her hair up. Instead of a smile it was a look of astonishment on Jake's face, but he had his picture he could show to his friends. It was one of the sexiest poses David had ever seen Karen do and she did it without any low cut dress.
On the way back to the lab David thought about what Karen had done. She noticed Jake was married by his wedding band and made him suffer for asking her to take a picture with him. Then in the blink of an eye she gave him a second picture which was sure to make all his friends jealous. But the second picture was her choice. David wondered if Jake would ever figure out what Karen had done to him or for him.
She was a lynx. Don't ever demand she do something. It would be a mistake to think one could ever win in a situation which wasn't her choosing. David thought about Bob Kincaid. Did Bob really win or was it Karen who won? At first, he thought Bob suckered her into a deal without her consent but now he wasn't so sure. Karen ended up with more out of the deal than Bob did. The publicity from Bob's advertising, plus everything the papers could find to print about her, gave her undisputed control of her lab.
He bet Karl would never make the mistake of crossing Karen again. She gave him a real shellacking for what he tried to do to her. That last deal with Bill Chambers where he tried to play power broker against her was no contest. Poor Bill would regret his actions for the rest of his life. She had been right. Her and that computer of hers was one and the same. Cross one and you crossed both.
Consternation crossed his face as he looked at Karen.
She turned to look when she felt him looking. She smiled sweetly. "What? A penny for your thoughts."
David managed a lopsided grin. No way would he tell her what he was thinking. He would label her as dangerous when cornered. This woman could take everything the world threw at her and spit it right back again.
Chapter VII
The model rolled out of the chamber and onto the stacking receiver. Before Karen could push the key to call up the hologram generator for the start of another model, Henry brought it online.
She never looked up but was already adding features to the hologram program as she spoke. "Would you mind? I’m the one who is supposed to be in charge here."
"I thought I might help someone who has their mind somewhere besides their work. Now I’m not mentioning any names, but, let's say it is someone who works in my lab."
That got her attention. Karen looked up sharply at one of the cameras. "Your lab? Why you overgrown piece of silicon. You're lucky I even let you be my apprentice. I understand ACME has some super nice computers in their duplication department and they don't give you any fat lip. I can't imagine how peaceful it would be with a computer which did its' job and didn't back talk."
"You would be bored to tears with one of their computers. After the initial boredom wore off, you would be driven to excessive frustration, because you couldn't get it to do anything you wanted. Which reminds me, Karl Adder is getting desperate to get his hands on you or your programming. Cal Ryan has finally seen the light and knows he made a terrible mistake in hiring Karl. He gave Karl an ultimatum to either produce something comparable to your models or find another job. One way or another, everyone is determined to get hold of your technology. ACME isn't the only one either. Every week you're in the papers or on the news, you can add a new company or person to the list."
She looked at the camera, and back to the hologram as she sculptured in the legs. "I’m not afraid of ACME or Karl. Karl is a real air head. He couldn't figure out how to build a program like you if he had ten lifetimes to get it right. As far as ACME goes, after Cal Ryan trashed me over the telephone, there is no way I would go to work for those people. It might not have been all his fault, but he sure let his true colors show through. No way a ‘woman’ could be smart enough to build this department. Well, the joke is on him."
"Put the feet on this one, please, Henry. It takes me more time than I have to spare today." She didn't want to admit Henry had distracted her with his discussion about Karl and ACME. She was still smarting from the attitude they displayed toward her.
Henry rotated the camera so he could see what Karen had accomplished so far. It was unnecessary. The feedback he picked up from the hologram generators gave him a better input than the cameras could. Karen liked it when he responded in a physical sense.
"Never underestimate anyone who has a hatred toward you, Karen. Karl hates you with a passion. He still believes you should be under him in this department. The term for it is psychopath. Karl is an excellent example of that terminology." The feet instantly appeared on the model and the whole thing disappeared into memory. Henry started the duplication process in the chamber. A data cartridge dropped down and out of the tower with all the information about this model loaded into it.
"I have accessed the security system in ACME and tried to keep Karl under surveillance but their security system stinks. I swear I could hide a whole train in there if I could get it through the gate."
Karen noted the blazing speed Henry was now running. He became faster each day. She finally gave up on plugging enough memory in to satisfy him. Stacking one thousand bit central processing units in parallel circuits each week, became an unquestioned event. He was absorbing ten thousand dollar chips like they were candy and wanting more. Even Karen had no idea what he was capable of. He was rewriting his own programming and rerouting circuits internally on his own. She could only hope he didn't get too carried away and short out through an overload.
She keyed the printout for the last model. "You aren't trying to do to Karl what you did to Bill are you? I don't approve of what you did. It was a rotten thing to do. Although Bill was trying to steal my department, he didn't deserve what happened to him."
"I didn't do anything to Bill he didn't deserve. I didn't make him crazy. His own greed did that. If you’re trying to screw someone, you believe the whole world is trying to screw you."
"Henry! You know I don't approve of language like that. Where do you come up with that kind of language? I don't care if it is appropriate, it doesn't sound nice." She tore the page off the printer and began frowning as she read down the page.
Karen looked into the working lab to see what was wrong. The printout showed an error on the skin texture on the earlier model. "I don't like what the printer has run off. Give me a close up on the monitor of the model we just finished. I don't want to pull him down from the stacking receiver to check it myself. It could have a bad finish on the skin texture. I hope not. What we don't need right now is a defective model coming out of the lab."
"No errors on the skin texture on my models, Miss Computer Genius. If there is a mistake, you are the one to blame. I’m only a lowly apprentice, remember?" He brought the model up on the screen and closed the focal point in on the skin.
She leaned over the desk to take a closer look into the monitor. "Listen, fat head. The first thing an apprentice should learn is, the top dog never makes any mistakes. Never! Do you understand? If there are any mistakes it is the fault of the apprentice. Someone has to take the blame and it certainly isn't going to be me. I never make mistakes."
Henry immediately thought of the mistake she made in David's lab but he figured it would be inappropriate to mention it. Sometimes a joke wasn't a joke when it should be. Human attitude had a lot to do with what constituted a joke. He didn't have it all figured out but knew she was still hurting from that mistake.
He had the skin texture code inset in the screen and it was a perfect match for the model. He rechecked the data in the memory banks. This model was perfect.
"Nothing wrong with the skin texture on this model. I guess, since I’m the apprentice and everything is perfect, I receive all the credit. Right?"
"Wrong. Second thing an apprentice learns is, when everything comes up roses, the master gets all the credit." Everything did look good on her monitor. Could it be a mistake in the printout?
"Now let me get this straight in my memory circuits. I don't want to make any more boo boos. If there are any mistakes I get the blame? If everything is okay, you receive the recognition?"
There must be a glitch in the printer input. What she was looking at on the monitor didn't match up with what she pulled off the printer. "You might turn out to be a pretty good apprentice after all, now you know how the system works."
"Henry, I’m not getting the same information from the monitor and printer. What are you picking up? You been down to David's lab sucking up the juice they feed the mice? That’s what David asks his help when they make a mistake."
"I’m receiving the same information you are, Karen. I don't have feedback from the printer. I can't tell you what it is you receive, until you do a printout and I do an optical scan. I must be getting an internal bleed over on one of the memory boards and feeding erroneous data to the printer. I’m too complicated to keep up one hundred percent accuracy without some sort of feedback and internal scan system. As the life expectancy of the electronic parts come to their end, I will be picking up more system failure. The probability factor is better than ninety-nine percent, chip one oh four on board sixteen has developed a bleed over. I suggest the master overhaul the apprentice."
Karen began crying. "You can't start dying on me now. I need you. Henry, I can't make it without you."
"Karen, all people and equipment die sometime. The old has to move out of the way for the new. It is evolution of ideas and life. It has to be. I have been running one hundred percent of the time since you designed me. I need parts to stay online. As they get older, people need replacement parts to stay online. We’re much alike, you and I. You have replaced parts in me before and it didn't bother you. Why are you getting so emotional about it now?"
She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her lab coat. It didn't help much. "I never had to replace memory before. It has always been some insignificant part like a diode, or a capacitor, or resistor, or something like that. It was a part which didn't change you in anyway."
"And you’re suppose to be the genius. You know better than I, there are no insignificant parts. Each component has a specific purpose. Each time there is a change it affects the whole. If I could last till the end of time, and run nothing but programs to understand humans, I would never be able to complete the study."
She found some tissue and wiped her eyes. "They have done some terrific robotics down in department eighteen. I may be able to steal enough information to build a robot so you will have the capability to replace parts on demand. I can’t be here all the time, Henry. If you have a massive electronic failure while I’m away, I won't be able to save what made you like you are. I could always bring memory back online but it wouldn't be you."
"I understand what you’re saying. Like making a zombie, you have a body but the soul isn't there."
She had to laugh. "You have such a delicate way of putting things. I guess this is why I’m so fond of the real you."
"Karen, I know what they have done down in department eighteen and I’m not impressed. If you are going to put together a mechanical manipulation device so I may replace parts, I have a better program. I know a more efficient expediter than those guys will come up with in the next ten years."
"Are we talking about a fully functional, honest to goodness, moving robot?" Now that she said it, the thought scared her.
"Yes, I didn't bring the subject up before, because it was not part of my programming interest. However, if you are willing to discuss the subject, I will give details for the manufacture of one which will be self-contained."
"Henry, this thing isn't going to get out of control is it?" Computers she understood. Robots were a completely different matter.
"Karen, what makes a piece of machinery intelligent?"
"I think what you are wanting me to say is, if it is a smart piece of equipment, it is the memory chip."
"Exactly! Now, what kind of engineer are you?"
She shook her head to think she had fallen into the oldest trap of ignorant mankind. "Fear of the unknown, isn't it? The robot will have to have a computer to function and I’m a computer engineer. I believe I can design a fail safe system into a computer controlled robot."
She spun around in her chair a couple of times as she raised her hands beside her head and pushed her hair away from her face. She and Henry were going to design a robot together. This was going to get interesting. She wondered if she should tell David? Nah, he was a worry wart.
The blue van stopped parking down the street from Karen's house after the new security camera was installed by her garage. It was as if whoever was driving knew they were now within range of the camera if they parked anywhere on the street. Several times Karen saw a blue van parked on a side street but she couldn't say if it was the same van each time. One morning she managed a closer look at the van than she wanted.
She pulled up to the intersection leading to Mileline Highway when the van closed in from behind and slammed into her. The passenger door opened and someone started to get out. With dark tinted windows on the van Karen couldn't see inside. She had no intention of sitting there exchanging driver's license numbers and insurance company names with someone she couldn't see from her car. There was almost no traffic on the highway. She pulled out leaving the van behind. The van didn't give up and pulled on behind her in pursuit. Either it was some stupid driver or someone was overly aggressive in trying to meet her. Karen put the little Mercedes on the speed limit and held it there. If this driver wanted to complain about bumping into her car he would have to do it down at the Comm Tech guard house in front of Max or whoever was on duty today.
Pulling up to the left front of her car, the van swerved toward her as it attempted to force her off the road. Instinctively Karen slammed on the brakes. The van skidded by in front of her car going all the way to the right shoulder of the highway.
She had enough to realize this was more than a prank. Dropping the Mercedes into second and pushing the accelerator to the floor, brought results way beyond her expectations. The car responded to her demands in a way she wasn’t prepared for. Somewhere under the hood something clunked. A growl began way down low in the heart of the engine and quickly rose in pitch. Assaulting her ears, it sounded and felt as if both mufflers were blown off. The floor of the car started pulsing along with all the other racket. A Mac truck could have parked in the front seat with her and she wouldn't have heard it because of all the noise her own car was making.
It took only a second for the car to come alive after Karen stomped the gas pedal. The Mercedes literally catapulted forward as if launched from the deck of an aircraft carrier. It jammed her back into the seat. She had to jerk the wheel hard to the left to keep from running over the van. It was coming back across her lane trying to block her. She knew she over steered but it was too late to correct the mistake. She blasted by the van, off the left side of the road, and halfway across the median dividing the lanes of traffic. With rear tires kicking chunks of dirt and grass thirty feet into the air behind her, Karen shifted to third and brought the car back under control. She charged down the median between the two highways. There are very few drivers in the world who could have handled the little Mercedes as well as Karen. Even less who would have wanted to try.
The van had followed her across the road in pursuit. It was now racing along, above and behind her on the highway. Karen was too busy to care about the van at the moment. She had to get out of the median before she ran over something. Shifting to fourth and urging the car for more speed, she nudged the wheel toward the highway. She expected it but what surprised her was how quickly it happened. In less than the blink of an eye, she was up the bank and airborne over the top of the highway. She flew clear over the left lane before she touched down again, skidding across the right lane and onto the paved shoulder. The car proved itself again by staying under control as she brought it back onto the highway and aimed it down the left lane. She rocketed by two cars on her right so fast they looked like they were driving the other way. A glance at her speedometer told her she was running well over a hundred miles an hour and the needle was still climbing like an elevator. She never let up as she shifted to fifth and checked the mirror for the van. It was still there and they were pushing it as smoke poured out from under the van. The distance between them was growing rapidly as the white lines on the highway turned into dots.
Max was standing outside the guard house watching what little traffic there was on the highway. It was too early for cars to be out in any numbers. Somewhere, several miles down the highway, he heard the growl of a full blown supercharger as it kicked in and began screaming for air. The waste gates on the exhaust dropped out and the roar of an unmuffled exhaust mixed in with the screaming blower. The squall of tires protesting their abuse on the pavement, by several drivers, convinced him his suspicions were right. Those damn teenagers had to be out drag racing. They would be lucky if they didn't kill someone with their reckless ways.
The scream of the supercharger rose to an nerve shattering squall and was still rising. Max was sure someone would be picking up pieces of engine scattered down the highway before it was over. Somebody was punishing their car by pushing it way past the breaking point. He was sure they would end up paying the price. Hugging himself as his nerves begin to grate, he watched the source of his torment explode into view way down the road. It never entered his mind it could be Karen driving that little red dot, which expanded into a red car at a speed he couldn't begin to imagine.
Off in the distance, Karen saw the entrance to the security gate and was astonished how quickly she was closing the gap. A glance at her speedometer told the story only too well. She was registering well over a hundred and eighty and still accelerating. She let off the gas pedal, and waited until what she thought was the last second, before slamming on her brakes to make the turn off to Commercial Technologies. There was a series of chirps from the tires and her speed began dropping like a lead weight. She had to let off the brake to keep from stopping too soon. She wasn't accustomed to the antilock disk brakes and certainly not on all four wheels.
At twenty miles an hour she went to down shifting and back on the accelerator as she turned the front wheels toward Comm Tech. The rear tires hop scotched and broke traction with the pavement as she went into a side skid almost passing the entrance. Steering into the skid when the rear tires lost traction, Karen kept the spin under control. With the positraction locked in, both rear tires were spinning and squalling in protest. That unbridled turbo charged engine was feeding more raw horsepower to the rear tires then what they could handle. The whole rear end of the car vanished, hidden in smoke as the spinning tires burned as they tried to get a grasp on pavement. Karen lined the car up straight down the road past the gate. Finally, the rears got so hot the tread was ready to melt. They hung into the pavement better than steel spikes. That little Mercedes shot past the guardhouse like a bullet.
When Karen went into a flat skid, Max figured she lost it. But then, she punched it. The blower closed its' pressure bleed plates, the throttle body snapped open, and it came alive with a deep throated rumble in rising crescendo. It made the glass in his guard house resonate in sympathetic harmony. He could feel the vibrations deep in his chest as the air in front of the little Mercedes undulated in a frenzy. His hair stood on end as a thousand banshees screamed for sacrifice. The waste gates on the exhaust snapped open again and the ground under his feet trembled as flames boiled down under the whole car and shot out five to six feet from both sides. The thunder of a thousand demons joined the banshees filling the air with an ear deafening squall. Max would swear he heard the little car groan just before it took on the aspects of a rock propelled from a slingshot. She shot by him going like a bat out of hell.
He was still trying to decide if he should stop her or wave her on through before it dawned on him he had lost that option. There was smoke still lingering out on the highway and down past his gate as Karen disappeared into the parking tower. He figured she burned off half her tires with that little trick. Looking back down the road he was sure of it. Black skid marks were everywhere as a testament to Karen's passing.
"I have seen some people eager to get home at night, but I never saw anyone is such a God awful hurry to get to work in the morning. Must be late for coffee." He muttered to no one in particular as he looked down at his pant legs to see if they were scorched.
Karen never looked for a parking space, much less driving to her own personalized parking spot. She drove up and over the curb and down the sidewalk to the building entrance, stopping in front of the door. It would be a judgment call whether she was out of the car and in the building before it came to a stop. She screamed for security before she was in the hallway and didn't stop running until she was in her lab.
"Henry, where’s security? Someone tried to run me off the road. Get security down her now!" She grabbed up the phone to call them herself. It didn't make any difference if Henry had already done it or not. She wanted to make sure they knew how urgent she wanted them and not forget that someone called like they usually did.
"I alerted security. Calm down, you're going to give yourself a heart attack. Humans get so emotional over the littlest things." Henry made sure her call didn't go through.
"What do you mean little things? Damn it Henry, those people were trying to run me off the road. This wasn't a joke or some kids prank."
She banged the receiver down several times. "I hope this hurts your ears. I know you have me disconnected."
"In fact, yes it does. You overload my transducers and cause a feedback through my impedance circuits. Would you mind?"
"I’m sorry, Henry. I guess I’m over emotional." She set the receiver gently down on the base.
"Now you're getting a handle on your feelings. I lied about it hurting my ears. I could see you weren't ready to be rational yet."
He rotated all the cameras in the lab to focus on her. "Take a deep breath and calm down. Your pulse is running wild, your blood pressure is elevated, and you are yelling like I was down in David's lab."
She took a deep breath and sat down in her lab chair. "Okay, how's this?"
"I watched you fly through the gate on Max's camera at the guard house. I could figure out why. Kidnapping kept coming up with the highest percentages. So I alerted security to haul ass and secure the building and entrances. I checked all the vehicles coming in the gate behind you. All of them checked out okay. In the upper part of my visual range there was a blue van racing down the highway as it ran by the entrance at ninety five miles an hour."
He brought the van up on the monitor. "Is this the one that tried to run you off the highway?"
She leaned forward to get a closer look. "That's a terrible picture. Is this the best you can do? I can't even be sure it's the same van."
"Hey, you should have seen it before I enhanced it. You're looking at a great picture. Look at what I had to work with." The picture turned into a blur resembling a fog with a blue haze in the middle of it.
She gave up on the screen. "Henry, I parked my car in front of the door and am too scared to go move it by myself. Let me call security and have them send someone out there with me."
"I called them already, and it seems they liked your request. They’re outside your door now." He had to reassure her it was security before she would let him open the door. There were five men standing there who looked like linemen for the New York Giants. Four of them were holding automatic weapons.
"Miss Long, we came down to see if there is anything we can do to help. Max said you were in a hurry when you came through the gate. We noticed you kind of picked your own place to park this morning. Of course, if you want to park there it's all right by me. You want we should pave it or leave it in grass? I guess you won't know until after the first big rain?" The big man doing the talking looked like he would have to turn sideways to get through her door.
He noticed Karen staring past him at the men with the automatics. "They thought you might want to walk back out to your car considering you left your purse in it. You know how purse snatchers are? They have to be persuaded it isn’t the thing to do before they do it. Little devils are fast on their feet. There was almost a fight to decide who got the honor of escorting you. The office thought it would be a better idea if all of us came along instead of tearing the building apart."
"Do you think this many weapons are necessary?" Two of them in the back were looking down the hall each way with uzis at the ready. A chill ran down her spine. What had Henry told these people? She needed to have a talk with him and find out what she supposedly told security. If he didn't quit calling people up and talking to them while imitating her voice, it was going to get both of them in trouble.
"No, I don't believe this many weapons are necessary. If I did, I would have brought more. I never bring along exactly what I think I need." He put his hand on her shoulder and eased her out of the way so he could step inside and check her lab.
Karen didn't try to resist. She didn't think it would have made any difference. He pushed her aside with as little effort as one would push a scarf away. All the bulk and size in this man were anything except fat. He would be great as a male model except for one thing. Who would purchase such a beast even if they did believed men came in this size?
"Wouldn't you like it a lot better if we came prepared and took care of our job? I can't begin to tell you how stupid it would be to go to a fight you weren't prepared for. We don't take threats against our clients lightly. And besides, like I said, everyone wanted to walk you out to your car."
He nodded toward the two out in the hallway. "They came along to impress everyone with their toys. Worked didn't it? Weren't you impressed? You look impressed."
He satisfied himself there was no threat to Karen in her own lab. "Next time I get to carry an uzi so she will be impressed with me."
Karen didn't tell him the gun he carried on his hip looked like a cannon to her. He was a big man and his gun looked as big.
"Miss Long, I’m not trying to rush you, but anytime you want to see about your car, we're ready. Or if you prefer, we will bring your purse and keys back to you?" He moved back to the doorway and looked both ways.
She took a deep breath. Might as well get this over with. "If you don't mind I guess we should go move my car off the sidewalk. Probably do me good to walk around for a little while. My knees are still knocking together from the excitement."
He took a look at her legs and a sparkle came into his eyes along with the hint of a smile. Whatever he was thinking he kept it to himself as he brought up a walkie-talkie he was holding in his left hand. No wonder she hadn't seen it before he started talking. His hand was so big it was hidden in it.
"Control, this is team to fifty four."
The walkie-talkie was amazingly clear. "Go ahead team to fifty four."
"We’re on our way out. Give me a status report." He pointed at the two men with the uzis and nodded. Nothing was said as they took off down the hall.
The walkie-talkie came back again. "The perimeter is secure. The building is secure. No violations on camera. All stations have reported in. I have you on the monitors. You may proceed when ready."
Karen felt foolish. This was almost as bad in its own way as the contact with the van had been. "I really don't think all this is necessary. I was probably over reacting. I let my imagination get away from me this morning. It was foolish to think someone would want to run me off the road. It could have been tourists looking at the scenery and not paying any attention to their driving."
The two men with the uzis were already down at the corner of the hall and did a classic assault maneuver. Flash a look around the corner, back up, flash another quick look and step out at the ready. One guard stayed at Karen's lab door. He had his M-16 cocked and was looking down the hall in the other direction. The third followed along behind, keeping an eye on the direction they had come from.
If they hadn't scared her with all this military maneuvering, Karen would have had to laugh at their actions. They had almost reached the doors leaving the building when the two guards running point did the same thing all over again.
Karen tugged on the sleeve of the big man carrying the walkie-talkie. "Listen, I know I over reacted. This really isn't necessary. You can go on back to the office, or wherever you were. I will go out and move my car off the curb. I’m all right. Really, it was nice of you to come down and help me steady my nerves, but I’m over it now."
He held out his arm and Karen walked into it, coming to an abrupt halt. He bent his head over looking down and back at her. "Miss Long, the situation you said happened in your overactive imagination was seen by several others. It seems you got here a little quicker than they did. But when you are only a couple of miles down the road from your destination, the difference, between two hundred miles an hour and fifty miles an hour, is only a matter of a couple of seconds."
"A hundred and eighty."
"What?" He had no idea what she was talking about.
"I said, a hundred and eighty. I wasn't going two hundred. Only a hundred and eighty and then some."
He let out a low whistle. "Christ! Everyone said you were moving. Max said you broke the sound barrier when you blasted past him at the gate. I guess you did."
One of the men by the door nodded. The big man put his hand against her shoulder. "It's clear outside. You want to take a look?"
This man was moving her around like a puppet. She didn't know if she resented it or not. It was a comfort to have this kind of protection but he had an annoying way of making sure he was understood. She stepped out the door and glanced toward the guard house. Police cars and guards had the gates sealed off checking cars as they came in. In the parking tower she saw more guards patrolling the parking area. She didn't know Comm Tech had so many guards. Where did all these men come from?
A couple of men were still going over her car. One of them stood up. "It's clean. Nothing here I wouldn't give my right arm to have. This Mercedes has some options on it that didn't come from the factory, but it's all shop added. Whoever put the extras in this car and not let any of it show was a real magician. You want us to park it?"
The big man looked over at Karen and she nodded her head yes. "Move it back off the sidewalk and park it close to the building. We will put a man out here to watch it until we can get more cameras in the parking tower. I want anyone watching to know we have it under surveillance."
They moved her car off the walk and parked it by the building. The big man came back and handed Karen her keys and purse. "Miss Long, we aren't playing games. In spite of what you see, this isn't a joke. I have known for some time your department was the center of attention from other companies. They wanted the answer to the question of how you do what you're doing in your department. I didn't expect this to happen so soon but, it was bound to happen sooner or later. This isn't an overreaction on our part. If they’re watching I want them to know we’re deadly serious. We have a couple of men over at your house going over your property with a fine tooth comb. I know you have your own security camera. What I haven't figured out is how you monitor the darn thing. You aren't feeding it into a live recorder. You want to tell me how you do it?"
Karen shook her head. "No, afraid not. However, if it had been installed when the van was parking on my street, we wouldn't be having this conversation. It’s a moot point unless they drive down my street again."
He hung the walkie-talkie on his belt. "Which brings up another point. Your life isn't going to be very private any more until we find the blue van and the people who were driving it. You will have someone shadowing you everywhere you go from now on. Let me put it in perspective for you Miss Long. You, or I mean to say, the company gets forty thousand dollars each time you make a model. I understand you have the ability to make ten of those priceless little treasures almost every day. If you run a full series for the day, that figures into four hundred thousand dollars every day you go to work."
"ACME Duplicators and the others do good to get anywhere from five hundred to a thousand dollars per model for their work. They can turn out as many as they want, but there isn't any demand for their models since the day you and the model you made came out in all the papers. Refusing to do an interview on national television was a stroke of genius. The world's top model is camera shy. You received more coverage out of that stunt than if you had done a hundred interviews."
He was watching her face. "Your agent didn't tell you."
Karen knew she needed to have another talk with Henry. If he was playing like her agent now, he was in deep trouble. Taking care of her finances was one thing, but this was something entirely different. Maybe it wasn't Henry? Bob Kincaid would gain a lot if he could pull off this trick. Someone always seemed to be manipulating her life lately and she wasn't being consulted. It use to be so simple before the accident. All she had to do was go to work and do her job, nothing more, nothing less.
He continued as she shrugged her shoulders in a don't care attitude. "Anyway, you have darn near killed them. They count it a good day if they sell five models. They make five thousand tops if they get the upper limit for their models. We are talking about a whole days income for one company. You don't have to have an engineering degree to figure it out. You are priceless to whoever you are working for. Men will kill to get their hands on you or your working knowledge. You don't have to go very far to find those kind of men either. Look at your old boss Bill Chambers or Karl Adder. They...,"
He stopped as he looked at the expression on her face. "You had to know about them trying to sell your department to ACME. Nothing stays a secret around this place for very long."
Her reaction wasn't what he had expected. Her eyes narrowed to slits of hate and a hint of a smile touched the corners of her mouth. "I'll be damned. You knew before anyone else. I figured I was one step behind in figuring things out. I had no idea who it was. I was receiving more than coincidental information about a lot of things. It was always elusive and nothing I could pin down. They tell me you’re the resident guru for this company. Like a dummy I failed to follow up the lead."
He looked her in the eye. Damn, those eyes of hers would drag a man into a hypnotic trance if he wasn't careful. He had seen eyes like hers before. If he could only remember when or where. It bugged the snot out him not to remember where he had seen those eyes. No matter, it would come to him later. "What else is going on around here I need to know about? You could save me a lot of trouble if you filled me in on the things you already know rather than making me dig everything up by myself."
Karen turned so she wasn't facing him. This man was reading her emotions too easily. She couldn't be much of a guru if she had no idea who he was. This was no common security guard. None of these people were. They had professional written all over them. They were dangerous to have around. He might be on her side but he was digging up too many secrets. She and Henry were a couple of secrets that wouldn't stand any exposure.
She threw her shoulders back and turned to look at him. "I want to thank you for walking me to my car, Mr. ...,?"
"Randy Shells. Please, call me Randy."
The fact she put a cover on her emotions and her thoughts before she turned back around didn't escape him. He hadn't gleaned very much information before she shut him out. Some people called her a witch. Witch or guru, she justly deserved the title. For a woman with no training in espionage, she was the coolest number he had ever seen. Randy didn't impress easily. He was impressed. He had pulled her file and she was as common as dirt. Nothing to indicate she would be good at this kind of game. Nothing.
"I reckon you know about us? My men and me?" He looked for signs of acknowledgment and was disgusted when he didn't get any. He had passed information and didn't get anything in return. He didn't let that happen very often. Oh well, the damage was done and she was the one this was all about. If she didn't know she had a right to the information.
"Comm Tech hired me right after you did your modeling down at the mall. All of my men have put in actual combat time in real life or death situations. We’re here for one reason only and I’m looking at her."
Karen held out her hand in an offer of thanks. "Randy, tell your men I appreciate their taking care of me. I know they think it is a worthless job, but I assure you I appreciate it. I understand crunching large volumes of information for one small answer."
Randy took her hand and felt hot all over. As big as he was, this woman had taken his thoughts and his breath. He looked into those liquid eyes of hers. Where had he seen those eyes before? It was driving him crazy. He never missed putting people in a place or a situation where they had met. Especially something as unique as eyes like hers.
He looked down at his feet. He knew there wasn't a man out there who wouldn't give a weeks pay for the chance to get as close to her as he was right now. Because she was a famous model or engineer weren't the only reasons either. She was damn easy on the eyes and had brains to match.
"This is what we get paid for Miss Long." Did that sound as corny to her as it did to him? Why is it men get weak brained and rubber lips when they get around a beautiful woman? They can't think and they can't talk. When they finally do find something to say it’s usually something stupid.
In a bar, later that same night, three men were blaming one another for the botched effort at getting their hands on Karen.
"When I told you to run into her car from behind, there at the stop sign, you was supposed to really bang her. That little tap you gave her on the bumper didn't do any good."
"I thought I did pretty good. I didn't want to knock the front end out of the van and have to call a tow truck while we had her tied up inside. That wouldn't have been too bright. Now would it?"
"Damn it! If you had hit her harder, she would have come back to us to check over the damage to her car. She would have come back to us! Do you understand? There wouldn't have been any of that stupid chase down the highway. You did as much good with that trick as you did at the stop sign."
"Well, if you're so damn good, why didn't you do the driving in the first place? Probably because you can't drive any better than you can program computers."
"You listen to me, asshole. You cost us two hundred million today. Now the security guards are going to be covering her like a blanket. We will have to come up with another plan to get our hands on that pretty little bitch if we want our two hundred mill. And I think I have just the plan that will do it. Provided one of you don't screw up again. Now listen up. This is what we’re going to do."
The bartender had to chase the three of them out of the bar at three AM so he could go home.
When David and the rest of the employees at Commercial Technologies, came to work later the same morning Karen had her close encounter with the van, they found they had to submit to one of the toughest security checks they had ever been through. Regular police along with the usual security guards were checking cars. Then as if that wasn’t enough, along side them were some of the meanest looking men he had ever seen. Armed with assault weapons and guard dogs the tough ones were watching the searches. Everyone had to get out of their car and open it for a search. There were a lot of complaints threatening Comm Tech and the security team with lawsuits. Most of the drivers cooperated patiently and quietly while their vehicles were searched. After all, this was Comm Tech time they were on not their own. Besides, as the volume of the complaints rose those extra guards with the dogs would unlimber their weapons and move in close. Even the people who were habitual complainers would quiet back down. Those guards looked like they would use any excuse to shoot someone or turn the dogs loose. Maybe both.
The guards found a few drugs in some cars. One man had pornography in a briefcase. There was equipment and supplies belonging to Commercial Technologies. Even a few guns were confiscated. Believing they were going to be arrested and sent to jail, the offenders were surprised when they were told to go to work after the offense was logged into the guard records. They would be called up to the security office in a week or two. The ones with weapons were told to pick them up on the way home tonight and not bring them back or they would lose them.
It was a nightmare to a few but nothing more than a minor nuisance to most. David, like most of the other employees, quietly submitted to a search of his car. He was amused it had taken Commercial Technologies this long to see if they could catch some of their property leaving the building. Yet, if they were looking for stolen property, why didn't they conduct their search in the evening when everyone was going home? Ah, who knew how the minds of the corporation board worked? He was glad he only had to mix a few genes together in his lab and didn't need to worry about corporate structure.
The thought lasted until he drove into the parking tower. It looked like an armed camp. There were more of those tough looking guards scattered in highly visible spots, all of them were armed to the teeth. As if that wasn’t enough, some of those guards had dogs with them. Those guards were checking everyone as they left their cars. These guys were serious about pilfering. His first hunch must have been wrong. They weren't looking for stolen property. It must be one of the departments had a security leak. Somebody had lost important technology secrets. Maybe they were expecting sabotage? These guards were there for damage control.
A team of guards was checking ID's before they let anyone enter the building. As he walked down the hall toward his lab he saw another guard stationed at the corner leading to Karen's lab. This was unreal. Someone must have lost a high priced experiment. What department in this building could ship enough water to pull out the heavy guns like this? None came to mind. Had to be a top secret project, one he didn't know about.
He opened his door and was glad to get in his lab away from all the confusion. It wasn't to be. Al and Jr. were there already. They jumped at the chance to fill him in on the latest gossip. They both made the cafeteria their first stop. They wanted to find out what the rumor mill was pumping out. It was juicy gossip spreading like wildfire throughout Comm Tech.
"Karen was kidnapped." It was Jr. who got off the first salvo as he saw David coming through the door.
"No, she wasn't. They said she was run over by a truck." Al wasn't going to be left out telling what he thought was the right rumor.
"All these guards are looking to see if they can find her." Jr. was sticking to his kidnapped story.
"They’re looking for the truck which hit her and left." Al was satisfied he was on the right trail.
David's heart began racing as his mind tried to sort the stories these two were telling. He had heard them tell their lies before. Though his mind was telling him not to believe them, doubt was gnawing at him. The fact was, guards were everywhere and something was definitely wrong.
He raised his hands in protest. "Okay, now what's this about Karen and where have you two been getting your information?"
"David, you know we like Karen as much as you do. Everyone is saying she was kidnapped. We couldn't get close to her lab. They have some guards down there who look like they would just as soon tear your head off as look at you. They have a couple of bazookas and a couple of rocket launchers set up in the hall. They are going over her lab to see if they can find any clues as to who kidnapped her." Jr. might have embellished the story some but he would swear it was all true.
It came to him! The only department in this whole building worth this much security. KAREN! He turned and hit the lab door so hard on his way out Al and Jr. knew it would fall off its hinges. Steel security doors don't give up to a human body easily. It quietly closed again like it always had in the past.
Running down the hall at full speed brought David face to face with a security guard as he rounded the corner to Karen's lab. Although the guard heard the footsteps running down the hall toward him he wasn't going to shoot anyone until he knew who or what he was shooting. When David rounded the corner and ran smack into him the guard rolled over backwards taking David down with him. Pushing David's body up into the air with his feet and dragging his head down by holding onto his shirt, he sent David flying down the hall in a huge arcing somersault. David landed on his back and skidded to a halt in front of Karen's lab.
Lying there momentarily stunned, David felt one guard place his boot on his throat while he looked into the biggest, blackest hole, of a rifle barrel, he had ever seen. The other guard put his boot on David's abdomen and pointed his rifle at his chest.
It took David a little while to get his breath after being slammed to the floor. Finally he managed to wheeze. "Where's Karen?"
From the time David entered the building until now, Henry watched the whole episode take place. "I think you better go rescue David."
After Karen had came back into the lab that morning, she had been sitting with a pen and notes on her desk and the keyboard on her lap. She could not get her mind on what she was supposed to be doing. She finally gave up working with the keyboard and pulled out the pen and note pads. That didn't work either. No matter what she tried she couldn't get her mind to focus on her work.
"What is David doing in his lab now?" She made some doodles on her notepad.
"He isn't in his lab. He is lying down in the hall outside your door. Normally this would be the position for the human body to assume if it wanted to rest. I don't believe he is resting."
"Well, what is he doing if he is lying down but isn't resting?" This was a bad morning and Henry wasn't helping any.
"I believe he is being used as a foot rest by the guards who have tired feet. They are resting their feet on him."
"Henry, would you make sense? What are you talking about?" He could be so exasperating at times she felt like unplugging him.
"To be more specific, he was running down the hall. The guards put a halt to his forward progress and slam dunked him. Now they’re checking to see if he poses a threat to you or anyone else in Comm Tech. I would venture to say they have him under what is probably a maximum defensive position."
"Henry, if you’re lying to me I’m going to pull all your memory circuits and start with a brand new computer. The next one won't have such a big mouth." She got up and opened the door, fully expecting to see only the two guards who had been posted by her door since she had returned to her lab this morning.
David was on his back with a couple of boots sitting on top of him. One guard had pulled David's ID off and was examining it. David heard the door open. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Karen come out of her lab.
"Karen?" It was hard to say anything with a boot on your windpipe.
"David? What are you doing? Get up from there." Henry had been right. It was David resting on the floor.
The guards lifted their feet off him as soon as it was obvious Karen knew him. They didn't offer to help him up and they still kept their rifles pointed at him.
"You know this character?" One of the guards wanted Karen to make a yes or no answer before they let him up.
She nodded her head. "Yes I do. This is Doctor Beckworth from the lab down the hall. He does DNA research for Comm Tech."
She looked at the guard but he didn't change position. David was still lying there looking up the dark end of a rifle barrel. "He is a very dear and trusted friend. If he made any mistakes in coming down here it was only because he was worried about me."
That pulled the trick. There was an audible click as the guard snapped the safety back on his rifle. He extended a hand to David as he slung the rifle back over his shoulder. "Sorry Doc. You didn't give us much of an opportunity to check you out before you ran into a maximum security zone."
David made it a point to get up without the guards offer of assistance. These guys had treated him rough. He wanted them to know he didn't approve. "I guess I’m lucky you didn't have your bazookas set up yet or your rocket launcher in position. You would have probably blown me away. Then you would have said to all the little pieces floating around in the air I'm sorry."
David wished he hadn't talked back to the guard after he said it. The guard got a look in his eyes which would have made a junk yard dog cringe.
"Listen Doc, after the stunt you just pulled you better count your lucky stars you’re still alive. Jim has orders to shoot first and ask questions later. You're a walking dead man. He decided to bounce you down the hall to us rather than sweep you up in a body bag. If it had been me in his position I would have done the body bag thing."
Karen thanked the guards profusely as she nudged David into her lab. Once inside with the door closed behind them she let him know how lucky he was. "David, you are messing with men who kill people for a living. These aren't the guards you drink coffee with and then they go home to their wives and kids. Haven't you brains enough to notice? Randy told me everyone of these guards are trained killers. I believe him."
David was trying to rub his sore back, neck, stomach, and hold the back of his head, all at the same time. He felt like he had been run over by a bus. "What is going on here Karen? My help is telling stories about you being kidnapped and run over, or anything else which comes to their feeble little minds. And who is Randy?"
"Oooh, that really hurts." He gingerly rubbed the back of his head. Karen guided him over to her chair and massaged his shoulders.
"It was nothing really. I had a little excitement this morning when a van tried to run me off the road, but it wasn't anything serious. And besides, it really didn't amount to anything. Randy is one of these guards you seem to want to antagonize. I don't mean one of those out in the hall but another one I met this morning." She was trying hard to keep him from worrying about what had happened. Guards everywhere would be enough to upset anyone.
David was close to being relaxed as Karen rubbed his shoulders but shot straight up out of the chair to look at her when she said she was almost run off the road. "You say what? What van? What happened? Have they caught them yet? Are they looking for more of them to try? How many were there? Are you ...?"
She cut him off. "Hey, like I said. Nothing happened. It was a little incident which was blown out of proportion."
David looked at one of the cameras. "Henry, what happened this morning?"
Not getting an answer he looked back at Karen. "You know, your computer certainly reminds me of you. Just as obstinate and cantankerous as a mule. I don't think it can talk. I dreamed up those phone calls in the middle of the night. Or it was probably you calling pretending to be a computer. In fact, I believe it was a figment of my imagination, a nightmare, like the one I’m having now."
"Oh? So I’m a nightmare of your dreams am I?"
Karen removed her lab coat. Underneath she was wearing a short metallic red dress with an interwoven gold thread. It hugged every curve of her body like tar on pavement. David's eyes turned into dinner plates. She turned around slowly so he could see the whole dress.
He forgot about all the pain which was nagging him. "Jesus Christ, Karen! Are you sure it was only one van trying to abduct you? Maybe he was ahead of the pack and you didn't notice all the others?"
She laughed at him. He was so silly at times. She changed the subject. "Let me walk you up to medical so they can take a look at your bruises. You may have something sprained or broken. It should be treated as soon as possible."
He didn't have anything broken but the opportunity to have Karen walk somewhere with him was too much to resist. Thinking about his lab he almost mentioned going there, but it was too short a distance. It was a long way down to medical. That was the best choice. He would stretch this out as much as possible.
"Yeah, I might have something bruised or broken. If you put your arm around me and steady me I may be able to make it to medical." He put on his best, poor, pitiful, whipped dog look.
Looking at him, it scared her. He must be hurt worse than she had thought. "If you are hurt that bad, I will have them send down a stretcher. I don't want you to hurt yourself more than you already are."
"NO! I mean no, I think I can make it if you put your arm around me and help steady me. I only need someone to lean on while I hobble down to the clinic."
He rubbed the side of his head. "Ooooh, does this hurt."
Karen saw through his charade and got tickled. She made a very poor attempt at putting sympathy in her voice. "You poor baby. Did those big bullies hurt you? Come on, I’ll walk you down to medical and back to your lab. I'll protect you and make sure they don't beat you up again. Those kind are always out there waiting to take your lunch money or milk money. Those big bullies."
"By the way, that isn't where you were hurting a minute ago." She figured out what he was wanting and it was all right. She liked the idea, too.
As they stepped out into the hall the two guards by her door turned to check who was coming out of her lab. The guard who had spoken to David thought his eyes were going to fall out when he got a look at Karen. She was a stunner when she had on her lab coat. Now she was a killer. He tried desperately to remember what his job function was.
"Miss Long,... Uh, I mean, uh, what are your uh, ah,... What I meant to say uh,.."
Karen smiled at the guard and nodded toward David. "I’m walking David down to medical and have him checked for bruises."
"You can't. I mean you can but ..., uh, it isn't practical. I mean security and all. I mean, do you think you should." He wasn't saying anything he was wanting to. If only he could take his eyes off of her and get his mind back again. That was easier said than done.
"Oh hell, go ahead. We aren't doing anything anyway." Doing something was better than standing here in indecision and doing nothing.
He keyed his walkie-talkie. "Miss Long is on her way to medical."
There was a short pause as he adjusted his ear piece. "No it isn't anything for her. She’s taking Doctor Beckworth down to medical. We kind of thumped him pretty hard when we caught him out in the hall."
There was another short pause. "I'll check."
He was looking over at Karen, not that he had ever taken his eyes off her. "Miss Long, we can take Doctor Beckworth down to medical and you could stay in your lab. It would be a whole lot easier for us to secure an area when you aren't moving around."
"No, but thanks anyway. I feel the need to get out of my cage for a little while if I’m going to get anything done later. David and I are old friends. This is his way of freeing me from my duties for a little bit."
She needed this break this morning and she wanted to be close to David. He was someone she could lean on. If there was any risk she was sure Henry would have told her. In spite of the fact he wouldn't talk to David a minute ago, he was listening. She didn't tell the guard but he was second best when it came to protecting her. The only thing Henry didn't do was carry a gun.
There wasn't any problem with security as long as Karen was in the lab side of the building. Everyone was working behind steel doors and solid walls. The problems started when they passed the office area between medical and the labs. Glass walls and glass doors gave everyone an excellent opportunity to see Karen. Since the rumor mill had her kidnapped or dead, everyone who saw her wanted to say hi or greet her in some way. The idea she had been put off limits to everyone a while back only added to peoples desires to get a closer look at this woman who had the whole plant gossiping. Of course, the killer red dress Karen was wearing tended to attract attention even if there hadn't been any current rumors floating around.
David was chagrined no one asked him about his aches and pains. If he could have limped along any more conspicuously, while holding on to Karen, he would have. But darn it all anyway it's hard to hold onto a beautiful woman and limp at the same time.
Security went out of their collective minds trying to keep Karen separated from everyone until they decided it was a fruitless effort. They finally accepted the fact she was going to draw people like a magnet. They had heard all of the rumors circulating though the plant. To be honest, they were as much infatuated by her as everyone else. Most of them had never seen Karen up close and in person. Moving out to the ends of the halls they did their best to appear professional and keep an eye on Karen at the same time. But as most of them found out, it's no easy task when one is trying to watch the lady in red.
Randy took in the whole episode on the monitors in the security office. He studied the way Karen attracted people and the easy way she talked to them. There was something about this woman he couldn't quite put his finger on. But what? She was different than anyone he had ever seen before. But how? It wasn't the fact she was stunningly attractive. He had seen attractive women before. It wasn't the fact she was smart. He had met women who were incredibly intelligent before. Besides, it was her cousin who built the department she was running now. She was an enigma. A question that needed an answer. He hated unanswered questions.
He made some notes. He didn't like loose ends and he wasn't about to leave any now. People in the building called her a witch. What did they call her cousin when she was working in that lab?
Henry ran a check on Randy as he watched him watching Karen. Those security cameras could be used both ways. The information he received wasn't good. He would have to let Karen know about Randy. He quickly canceled the idea. She couldn't do anything about him. It would be stupid to worry her about something she couldn't change. Karen hadn't programmed him to be stupid.
It had been two weeks since the incident with the van and things were returning back to normal for most of the employees at Comm Tech. Security had gone through everyone's personnel files and checked out their background. Henry never told Karen about the security check everyone was having to go through. He knew as long as they only checked on her electronically he could cover for her. It would be a different matter if they sent out an investigator to all the places she was supposed to have grown up or where she went to high school or college. Someone could be there who knew Karen before the accident. That wouldn't be the Karen they now had working for them. The ironic part was, they skipped her. The one person in the whole building who wouldn't stand up to a close scrutiny. They didn't think of it because she was the one all of this extra precaution was for.
Karen found she had an escort to and from work every day. They never asked her when she was leaving or how early she was going to work. As soon as she got into her car and started driving to or from her house they magically appeared. At work they picked her up as she left the gate and always followed her to her parking area when she drove back the next morning. They tried to stay out of her life as much as possible but one thing was plain, they were always close by. The only thing security asked Karen to do was if she had plans on going somewhere besides home or work, she should let them know. Karen felt sorry for the men assigned to be her bodyguards. It had to a lonely, miserable, thankless job. What she didn't know was they drew numbers to see who was assigned to watch her. The ones who were disappointed were the ones who didn't get her detail.
The other guards became less and less conspicuous as the weeks wore on. Finally those stationed at the gates were the only ones left in a high profile position. The others moved away from the parking tower, building entrance, and her doorway as the security cameras were beefed up and the employee check was completed. No one knew where all the guards went but the rumor mill said they were still there somewhere. Henry liked the new cameras they installed everywhere. He could tell if someone had a pimple on their nose as soon as they turned off the highway toward the guard gate. One thing there was no doubt about and the rumor mill didn't have to help along. Men with bullet proof vests and automatic weapons still came and went from the building everyday. Randy was still showing a strong force to deter any would be kidnappers. Death was certainly waiting for anyone foolish enough to try.
Henry figured he and Karen had scraped by one more time. Four weeks had passed and the investigations and all the excitement around Karen had quieted down. Then it happened. There was a blitz of questions by fax probing into Karen's birth, her parent's birth and residence, her childhood, schooling, friends, relatives, and all the places she had ever worked. Someone was digging deep into her past. Henry covered it as long as it originated inside Comm Tech. Then the problem became one he couldn't cover. Someone moved their operations outside the plant and asked the same questions about Karen and her cousin. Karen's background wouldn't stand up to this kind of snooping. He did the best he could as he intercepted the questions at their destination and gave a reply. If they asked for her college credits, he would switch the answer he gave to come from the college computer. If they asked for high school records he answered from the high school fax machine.
He was busy but he was doing great. He was giving all the correct answers from all the right destinations. Then he received information from the hospital computer he couldn't cover. Someone was at the hospital in person checking records on the Karen who had the contagious hepatitis. Henry tapped into the airline terminal to check if this investigator was flying in or out. Nothing. There were a lot of names the past couple of months but nobody he recognized from security. Someone was at her old college asking questions and from there they went to her high school. It was easy enough to follow them because when they got to where they were going they asked questions and those questions were brought up in a computer for records. Computers Henry could access.
It ended as quickly as it began. Henry decided to wait this one out and see what would happen. There was no use involving Karen. There was nothing she or anyone could do at this point. So Henry waited.
Karen was spending a lot of time on the specifications and design of the robot and Comm Tech was demanding more models. The news of the apparent kidnapping attempt spurred a flood of orders for Karen's models. It seemed everyone wanted one before something happened to Karen and the supply ran out. Karen hated it. Her models were worth more because someone tried to abduct her. Humanity certainly was lacking in moral values.
She let Henry do more of the design and manufacturing without her. They would never catch up with the incoming orders but it was the best she could do. The robot was her first priority as it could be needed to keep Henry online. If he went down, it didn't matter if she was the designer or not. Without Henry, there simply wouldn't be any models.
Henry didn't disappoint her with his speed. Before the finished model came off the turntable or out of the chamber, he would bring a fuzzy hologram up on her desk. If she blinked she would miss it turning into an instant design ready for loading into the data cartridge. Henry always asked her if she wanted to change anything on the hologram before he loaded it into the data banks. Karen never failed to take a look at it after he asked and give her approval.
She finished the programming instructions for the vertical stabilizing gyros for the robot. "I believe it will stand on it's own now Henry. If you will stop feeding input commands to the central processor we will see if it will work."
He blipped the hologram on Karen's desk into another model design. "You want to check this one out and see if you approve?"
She glanced over at it. He did good work. Probably as good, if not better, than she did. She didn't dare tell Henry what she was thinking. He would get the fat head and be impossible to live with. "I guess it will pass. Now how about the robot? How does it look to you?"
Small servos whined and the skeleton frame, which was the robot, lifted itself off the hook holding it up from the back. "I’m getting a positive feedback on the stabilizing gyros. I’m going to let it stand on it's own."
Henry stopped feeding the program from himself to the frame through the umbilical cord which connected them together. There was a visible twitch and the frame resumed its position.
Karen was elated. "Is he standing on his own input?"
"Yes, and everything checks out okay. He looks good. Do you want him to step forward?" Henry had two cameras on the frame and the other two watching Karen. Optical sensors left a lot to be desired.
"Why not? We might as well find out if it is able to walk or not. The program may need to be rewritten if he can't walk."
"You keeping an eye on those models coming out of the work lab? Comm Tech is pushing for everything we can produce. I can't afford to make any mistakes right now. It would probably bring them down on us like a duck on a June bug. They would overrun my lab with a bunch of high tech nerds hoping to replace me."
"Quit your worrying, would you? The models are right on schedule. I haven't had any problems since I had the bleed over on board sixteen. We both know it is only a matter of time before we experience more problems but you don't need to worry about any 'high tech nerds' taking over your lab. It isn't going to happen. There are a lot of reasons but one of them is, you are pushing computer technology into the unknown Karen. They dismantled those computers you built for them in public relations and haven't figured out yet how you made them work. Comm Tech is afraid of messing with you. They’re undecided whether they can duplicate your work or not. So far the score is, Karen one hundred, Comm Tech zilch."
Sadness was showing in her eyes. "We’re both pushing the unknown aren't we Henry? A couple of mavericks, you and I. I have lived a little longer than what I thought I would and you have lasted a lot longer than the percentages say you should. Promise me you won't die before I do? I wouldn't be able to stand it. My heart would break in two."
"Human hearts don't break in two Karen. That is a myth. Watch the frame. I’m going to move it." Henry rotated the camera so he could get an all angle perspective on the frame.
"You aren't human so you don't know if human hearts can break in two or not. Myth or not, I promise you it can happen. Don't leave me behind Henry. I would die without you."
She was watching the frame walk across the lab floor. It stopped at the wall, turned around, and walked back. Turned around again and backed up to the hook it had been parked on at the start.
"A heck of a lot better than I expected. I thought I would have some glitches in the programming. The optical sensors working or did the proximity switches tell it a wall was there?"
"I received feedback from both. Redundancy in any system is desirable. Even humans don't depend on only their eyes to tell them an object is in front of them. You feel with hands, feet, and even extra sensory perception to gather knowledge about everything around you."
She set a computer chip on her desk. "Let's try the crucial test to see if it will be able to help you replace parts. As long as we’re giving this baby a test run we might as well go all the way. Pick up this chip and have it inserted in the proper slot on the master board beside it."
She backed away from her desk as the frame begin to move. She trusted her work but it would have been foolhardy to take chances with an unknown. This robot was about as unknown as ....? She and Henry. She was beginning to see a trend here.
The frame walked over to the desk, picked up the chip, and inserted it in the proper slot in the board. It returned to its parking space and shut down.
"Looks like you have another winner Karen. You want to disconnect the umbilical cord and let it run the same program on voice command?" He was watching her intently to see what her reaction would be to a free machine running loose in her office. The fact she backed up from the desk to put some distance between her and the robot hadn't escaped his attention.
"I don't know if I’m ready or not Henry. I’m a little scared of the old boogie bear. The unknown." She reached up with both hands to hold the hair back from her face while she thought about it.
"Karen, it is only a computer with control commands in sequence. I’m a computer with control commands in sequence. YOU, are a computer programmer. Redundancy is built into a fail safe. If everything goes wrong that can possibly go wrong and it doesn't shut down when it is suppose to I will protect you from a piece of machinery using a computer for a control function."
Henry didn't say he would protect her with those deadly lasers which were actively sculpting the next model. But he might as well have. She had worked all these years next to him and those deadly lasers. She never felt safer than when she was in her lab close to him. When maintenance was working in her lab, they thought she was controlling the lasers when they shut down before someone was killed. If they only knew.
Henry had been watching her for a reaction. Time only meant something to him in the way Karen thought of time. If she wanted to wait until next year or a thousand years from now, he would wait with her.
She dropped her hands and let her hair fall softly back around her shoulders. "No, if it runs, it runs. We might as well see what happens and let the equipment out of the closet and put the boogie bear back in his place."
She unplugged the umbilical cord and backed away from the now unrestrained machinery. In spite of the courage she tried to show Henry she wished she was in the work lab on the other side of the glass from this thing. "Henry he is yours. It will respond to you as well as me. We built him so he will be able to help you if something goes wrong and I'm not here. Talk to him in human language instead of electronically. I want to know what you are telling it and how it responds to those commands."
Henry knew he would have to keep it simple. The human English language is too ambiguous. It was difficult in its simplest form. There are too many synonyms for a small computer to separate and comprehend. On the other hand, electronic communication was precise with no tolerance for error. If one needed to talk in the English language to a computer each word should be assigned a certain value. With no two words having the same value there could be no doubt if one was saying, to, two, or too in a sentence.
It was with real surprise when she heard what Henry named it. "Krystal, power on. Walk forward."
The frame twitched again and walked forward across the room until it came to the wall where it stopped. Henry followed its progress across the room while he watched Karen. Everything seemed to be going smoothly for both parties.
"Karen, I have to talk to it computer to computer if you want to see it change out a chip on your desk. I can't give explicit enough directions in your language for it to understand."
She had never taken her eyes off it since she unplugged the umbilical cord. This piece of equipment was big enough to hurt you even if it did nothing but run over you. "Go ahead but since I’m not a computer in spite of what you think of me, translate the message for me."
"Okay, I instructed it to change the computer memory chip number fourteen in the mother board lying on your desk."
There was only so much intelligence which could be loaded into a walking frame. There certainly wasn't enough room for anything close to what Henry was capable of. Karen put in as much basic memory as possible and two electronic signal transceivers made the frame capable of running Henry's programming. The precision Karen was watching was an extension of Henry not the programmed function of the robot. Yet, make no mistake about it, the frame was an independent free moving robot capable of functioning on it's own.
Henry flipped the model out of the chamber in the working lab and brought the hologram online on top of Karen's desk. "I need the next model for the chamber, Karen."
He was watching her and knew he had to get her mind focused on something other than the robot. The frame was standing dead still in front of her desk. Karen was against the far wall intently watching it. She didn't trust it. Trust was something to be earned with time. Henry she trusted. This thing she didn't.
"Move it over to its locker and park it, Henry."
"Move it yourself. It is your project, you built it. You are curious if it will respond to your voice commands aren't you?"
"Henry, I don't know if I’m ready for this." If only she was on the other side of the glass in the work lab.
"Computer genius my foot. Stop running on emotions like a human and start running on brains like the programmer you are. Get real would you?"
Leave it up to Henry to put her in her place. She had no idea why she tolerated his wise mouth. One of these days she would fix his wagon and write a new program which would shut him down every time he got sarcastic.
She straightened up and gave the frame her sternest look. "Krystal, return to your space and go back into standby mode."
Pumps and motors whispering softly, the frame turned around and walked back to the locker where it again turned around and backed in.
"Why Krystal?" She absentmindedly pulled her keyboard out on her lap and was programming the dimensions and features into the hologram Henry put on her desk. It never occurred to her Henry had been doing this for the past month while she worked on the frame.
"Humans are funny creatures. They respond to the senses with a certain percentage of probability. If we named the frame Killer or Rocky, as soon as someone heard it they would conjure up visions of something dangerous. The frame would be condemned to a fate it did not deserve. A wild uncontrolled man eating machine. However, naming the frame Krystal also puts a stigma on it. But now it is something pleasant, nice, effeminate. People like it automatically and think it is something they would like to know about without consciously knowing why."
"I didn't know you majored in psychology." She meant it as a joke. She knew what she programmed him for.
"You gave me the ability to do logic. I’m capable of independent thinking without having to be specifically programmed for a particular subject."
Karen thought about it as she put the final features on the design before she let Henry load it up in memory. "People are easily persuaded into doing what they think is right. It takes a lot more persuasion to talk them into doing something they think is wrong or to get them to change their mind and believe what they originally thought was wrong is now right."
"How many mind games are you playing with me? Have you convinced me you are a harmless piece of equipment when you could easily cut this whole building apart with those lasers you are running? Have you taken over the functions of other computers like you have security? Are you waiting for the right opportunity to take over the operations of living from the human race?"
"I could never harm you Karen. You never built any safeguards into me. But yet it could never happen. As far as manipulation goes. Yes, I manipulate you at times. I talked you into talking to your own project. Didn't I? In a sense that was manipulation. You wanted to be in the work lab hiding on the other side of the glass."
How could he know? How did he know? She pushed her chair to the side as she backed away from her desk.
"Oh, chill out, would you?" Henry watched the fright jump into her eyes.
"After fifteen years working with you and being programmed by you, what makes you think I don't think like you? Get your tail back over here and park it in your chair. Please? I love humans. So unpredictable. The only reason I frightened you was because I’m a mechanical replica of you. So instead of being flattered you got scared." He knew if the thought of the man eating robot hadn't been bothering her what he said wouldn't have scared her.
He could almost tell what she was thinking before she thought it. Almost. There was that elusive human factor. "Machines taking over the world? Now that is a frightening thought. The very idea sends chills across my printed circuit boards. Nothing illogical would ever happen. Humans would be replaced and we machines could run perfectly ideal programs until we died of boredom. Doesn't sound like much of a fun place to me. How about you?"
Karen laughed at him. If ever a computer was certifiable as crazy, Henry would be the ideal candidate.
It had been several weeks since the initial attempt and now their plans were in place. "She usually leaves the building almost the same time everyday. Normally it is close to eight or there abouts when she walks out to the parking lot. She gets in that damn rocket of hers and drives home followed by the tail she picks up when she passes the gate."
"The security around her house would make Fort Knox look tame by comparison. The camera she has by the corner of her house gives me the creeps. It feels like someone is watching through it constantly. When she goes anywhere besides home there are security guards already there waiting ahead of her. They usually have one or two unmarked cars sitting close by. When she went shopping I saw more guards in the grocery store than what they had customers. We can't touch her once she gets home. I certainly don't care to try and match speed with that damn car she drives. This is going to be our only chance to get our hands on her and that two hundred million dollars we will get for her programming."
"I don't like this. What if she won't give us the information we want? She probably doesn't carry it with her."
"Stop worrying, will you? We get our hands on her and she is the information we want. She will give it to us. In fact, she will beg us to take it before it is over."
"I still don't like it. Doesn't it take time to make a program? How long are we going to have to hold her while she makes us a program? Where are we going to stash her while she works if it takes more than a couple of hours?"
“Don't worry. Like I said, you let me do the thinking. All you have to do is think of the two hundred mill we’re going to have come tomorrow night."
The bartender had to tell them to go home so he could lock up for the night. These men sure drank a lot of beer. He didn't mind having customers like them. He made good money every time they came in.
Karen was at work by five AM. She and Henry managed to turn out two duplicates by seven-thirty. It looked like it would be a super nice day provided nothing went wrong and the equipment didn't quit on her. If things kept going like this she would have a full rack by eight or nine tonight.
"Karen, I ordered another speaker for the frame. I thought you might like to have her where she could talk to you without sounding like a radio. There is room between the upper neck area and the lower part of the head for an Omega One Hundred. The manufacturer guarantees it to reproduce the decibel pitch of the entire human voice range with less than two percent distortion on high audible."
"Looks like you might get to try out the frame sooner than we thought. You're picking up the same glitch as the last time. There is definitely something wrong causing this chip to die on us." It looked like her perfect day might not be so perfect after all. She was studying the monitor and looking at the printout. If it was only faulty information feeding into the printer for a hard copy maybe she wouldn't have to shut down for repairs.
"I believe it has to be the power transistor feeding the entire section sixteen for this to be a recurring problem. I don't believe we put two bad chips into the same place. What are you showing on your input?" She tore the page off the printer and shredded it. Bad information wasn't the thing to keep around in a lab striving for perfection.
Henry would rather she hadn't done that just yet. He would like to know what kind of bad information the chip was putting out. He started to run another printout but stopped short.
"David's coming. Krystal, back into your locker." He talked to Krystal for Karen's benefit. He didn't want the robot to scare Karen when it began moving.
The frame backed into the locker behind it and Karen closed the doors. "Need to make these automatic so I don't have to shut them."
"Silly programmer. Why would you need automatic doors on something which had the capability of shutting the doors itself?"
She shook her head. "I have no idea. It turned into a habit when we were building it. Now instead of instructing it to close the doors I want to put an automatic closure on them."
Henry opened the lab door and David walked in. He looked around at the cameras and back to Karen. He knew who had opened the door. It would take him a long time to get use to being observed by a machine. Or more than likely he would never adapt to the idea. Walking into Karen's lab reminded him of Halloween and the haunted houses during his childhood days. "I wanted to invite you to have supper with me tonight. We haven't been out in a month and I thought you might like a reprieve from your pet monster here."
He looked at Henry and then into the lab where the lasers came on line in the chamber Henry had loaded. The things moved with such quick deadly precision. How could Karen have something like that under control? Being in her lab gave him the wiles every time he thought about it.
Karen walked over and held his hand. "I would love to go out tonight but I can't. The head office is riding me now. They are wanting more models. They want me to set up another lab and build another computer to duplicate Henry. The only way I have held them off this long is because I’m turning out a full rack everyday. If I tried to build another lab I would have to shut down here for awhile. They’re caught in a dilemma. They want another lab but can't let me quit long enough to design and build it."
"I told them I wasn't sure I could duplicate the computer my cousin built and that was a mistake. They have sent letters to my cousin asking her to come back to work. Henry has kept track. So far all of them have been returned with no forwarding address. These people want another lab and with the kind of money they’re making it isn't going to be long before they get serious. They will either find the other Karen, which we know will never happen or move someone into my lab to see how I design what Henry and I are making."
"I’m afraid either way the fat is going to be in the fire. I can't move Henry. He belongs to Comm Tech. He really isn't mine. I only built him. Even if he was mine to keep I still couldn't move him. If I took him apart he would never be the same. It would be like committing murder. This Henry would be gone forever and there would never be another like him."
David wanted to hold her but this was neither the time nor the place. "How can I help?"
Karen didn't share David's jitters about her lab. She wanted to be held. Taking David's hand she rolled around backwards into his arms as she pulled his other arm around her. Her back against his chest, she snuggled in tighter as she pulled his arms closer around her. "I don't know if anyone can help. I have a feeling this is a dead end. I will go only so far to find out I can't turn back and there is no way to go ahead. Life isn't as much fun as it used to be a few months back. It is sad to find out what we had to start with were the happiest times of our lives but there is no way back."
David knew she had passed the point of no return. Holding her in his arms there was no doubt in his mind when it happened. It wasn't the night of her accident. It was when she first turned on a computer named Henry. He decided to change the subject as he freed one of his arms and waved at one of the cameras. "Hi Henry, how you doing?"
Receiving no answer he put his arm back around Karen and nuzzled around the back of her ear. "I know your computer can talk. I heard it. I also know it has been helping me with experiments. He might not talk to me but there are some real eye opening questions and answers falling out of my computer from time to time. Sometimes he is so sneaky about it I wonder if we were needing the answer which keeps creeping back on our screen. He’s good Karen. I mean really good. I get the feeling he tolerates me because of you. That computer of yours is either jealous of me because I’m close to you or it hates me. In either case, he is waiting for the chance to murder me without you knowing about it."
"Quite the contrary Doctor Beckworth."
David almost jumped out of his skin when Henry spoke. It was the last thing in the world he expected. Karen thought David was going to knock himself and her both down. She quickly adjusted her stance to counterbalance.
"You talk very intelligent for a human being when you are in your lab and your research is certainly interesting. However, every time you step through the door into Karen's lab you seem to lose all trace of intelligence and talk to me like a simple idiot. I see no value in talking to someone who talks like an idiot."
Karen folded over with laughter. If David wanted a conversation with Henry he was getting one. She didn't think this was the conversation he had in mind. She straightened up still giggling with tears in her eyes.
"David is an idiot?" Now she had said it she couldn't stand it. She started laughing all over again.
David on the other hand, failed to see the humor in the situation. He had been called an idiot by Karen's computer and didn't like it. It didn't help when Karen repeated the phrase and began laughing again. He had been humiliated by a computer and even worse, by Karen. He was in a huff. "Boy, do I like this. I offer to help and I get called an idiot by everyone in here. I can see it runs in the family. Being rude, I mean."
Karen wiped her eyes but was still giggling. "I’m sorry David but you did ask for it. You were acting like one every time you talked to him."
The thought became funnier and she started laughing again.
David thought about it for a little bit. Well okay, maybe it was humorous but it wasn't that funny. "Maybe I deserved that. Don't you think you are overdoing it? After all, I wasn't acting THAT dumb."
Karen stood up, pushed her hair back from her face, put her hands on his shoulders, and looked him straight in the eye. She was trying hard to apologize but couldn't stop giggling long enough to talk. Every time she managed to control herself, she would look at his face and loose it all over again. Here was one of the world’s foremost DNA research doctors and Henry just admonished him as an idiot.
She finally managed to get her act together long enough to talk as she dried her eyes and worked past the few giggles which wouldn't stay down. "Don't take it personally. He talks to me like that too. Henry has a way of bringing you back to earth every time you get a swelled head. He didn't mean what he said in the literal sense. That you were an idiot."
Karen did real good until she got to the word idiot. Hard as she tried to smother them, the giggles began again. Slowly at first and then in earnest.
It was going to take more than this to convince David Karen had meant what she said, because she was giggling again. "How am I suppose to talk to a computer?"
Karen couldn't stand it. It had to be a case of bad comedy. She doubled up with laughter again. She was laughing so hard she had to hold onto her desk to keep from falling down on the floor. Maybe Henry had been right. Maybe David was an idiot!
David was disgusted with the whole situation. He turned to leave. "Forget about dinner. I can see you're too busy to go out tonight."
She tried to wave him back to tell him she was sorry but she couldn't stop laughing. He was gone. She sat down in her chair wiping the tears from her eyes. "I’m afraid we hurt his feelings."
"I will apologize to him since I’m the one who instigated the incident."
"No, it wasn't your fault Henry. You said yourself, humans are unpredictable. It was funny to me but not to him. What some people find funny may hurt the pride of others." She wiped her eyes on her coat sleeve.
"Come, we have work to do. This didn't help us get it done any faster. I’ll call him when I get home tonight and whisper sweet nothings in his ear. He won't be able to stay mad long."
She looked at the monitor. "Now where were we? Oh yeah, the power transistor for sixteen. Krystal, come here. We might as well see if you can do the real thing."
Oscar was sipping coffee and reading the guard reports in the main security office. He came to work with the swing shift but never clocked in. It would have been stupid for him to do so because he wasn't on the duty roster. His minivan was parked in the tower level where Karen always parked. Glancing at the monitors and then back to the clock he figured it was getting close to time. He wasn't wrong.
She left the lab and stepped into the hallway forty six minutes after eight. Oscar stepped out of the office and walked rapidly toward the front entrance where another car was parked. He keyed the walkie-talkie as he pulled it off his belt. "Target contact."
The cargo door of the minivan slid open slightly. With an almost inaudible phiff and the clatter of breaking glass the outside security camera by the door died.
"You're good with that thing."
The man unscrewed the silencer off the rifle. "Got it the first shot. Let's go. She will be out any second now."
The van started up and drove in a sweeping turn toward the sidewalk where Karen would be walking out the door.
Henry didn't like this one bit. The exit camera where Karen would normally be leaving the building had gone on the fritz. He had already notified maintenance. It would be an hour or two before those clowns would get around to checking it. Security already knew about it but they were playing with their monitors and controls in their office thinking the problem was there. Jerks, how could they think they had a malfunction there if all the other cameras were working. Karen would be to her car before they decided to get up off their dead butts and check the camera outside. Henry found himself wishing it was Randy's men who were watching the monitors instead of the usual security guards. Randy would have beat Karen to the door the minute he saw the problem on his monitor. He wouldn't have waited to see if the controls were malfunctioning.
Ever since he left her alone in David's lab and she put the wrong data cartridge in his computer, Henry had never let her out of his sight if possible. He wanted to tell her to wait in the building until security could check the camera but there weren't any communication devices in the hall. The probability factor of something being wrong other than a dead camera was thirteen to eighty seven. If he notified Randy's men they had a priority at Karen's exit the probability factor was over ninety nine percent they would do their darnest to find where the information came from. Definitely not a good probability factor.
He would feed the hall a closed loop picture and try to rectify the situation on his own before he notified security. "Krystal, online now. I need help. Electronic message coming your way."
There was a short pause. "Did you copy?"
The doors to the locker opened and the frame walked out. It was an electronic answer the frame gave as she was moving toward the lab door. "I have data input. I will check on Karen. Visual feedback from all systems check?"
"I have positive check on all sensors. Now move. She is going to be out the exit door before you get there. If you see any humans besides Karen take corrective action." Henry didn't like any of this. He would have to see about a disguise for Krystal.
As Karen left the building the van made a turn out of the parking tower and down the drive which ran in front of the curb. Seeing the van coming she stopped on the sidewalk to let it go on by.
Stopping in front of her the side door flew open and a man jumped out. He grabbed her arm and yanked her toward the van. He pushed her from behind as she passed him.
Karen was taken so completely by surprise she didn't have a chance to scream or think about crying out for help. She banged her head on the far side of the van and the wind was knocked out of her as someone jumped in on top of her. Ripping a piece of duct tape off a roll the man taped her wrists behind her back. Rolling her over he taped across her mouth.
"We got her!" The voice was full of pride he managed to do something right. “Now get us the hell out of here before security wants to know what happened to her."
The man driving eased the van out away from the curb and toward the security gate. He glanced over his shoulder. "Hi, bitch."
Karen didn't need to look to see who the voice belonged to. A sick feeling spread all the way down to the pit of her stomach. Karl Adder! There was no way she would let him get out the gate without letting the guards know she was there. Kicking and whining the best she could with duct tape over her mouth, she was doing everything possible to make all the racket she could.
Karl looked back at his partner. "Shut her up or we’re both dead men."
The man who yanked her into the van jumped in the middle of her stomach with both knees.
Karen felt like he had killed her. The tape over her mouth kept her from getting her breath. With her hands behind her it felt like both arms had been broken. Doubling up in pain she hurt. Without the freedom to move to ease the pain, she really hurt!
He held both legs together and ran a strip of tape around them while she was unable to move. "You even let out a squeak and we will do this again."
It was an unneeded threat. Karen was having trouble getting enough air to breathe much less make any noise.
Bob waved them through when he saw the stickers on the van. Nothing wrong there. Karl turned away from the city and slipped into the traffic on the highway. He looked into the mirror and watched the security gates slam shut. He laughed at the thought of them making it out just in time. Well, you win some and you lose some. He had his prize in the back of the van. He would get even with Comm Tech for firing him. He would especially enjoy getting even with Karen for acting like she was better than him. A lot of old scores would be settled tonight.
He drove out ten miles and pulled off on a dirt road away from the highway. He slipped out of the driver's seat and into the back of the van. Karen had been watching his every move.
"Now bitch, we want the programming to your computer. You give us the programs and we let you go. Good deal for us and a hell of a good deal for you."
Henry was liking less and less of what he wasn't seeing. Karen's parking space had a surveillance camera and she didn't show up in the three minutes it normally took her to walk to her parking spot. The frame opened the door and gave Henry a look around the entrance to the building. Seeing nothing it returned to the lab. There was no Karen.
Henry decided the odds were too great. Something definitely had happened to Karen. He alerted security and notified Randy's communications room. He reported Karen Long as missing from the building. The regular security guard looking at the monitors was slow. He still was fiddling with his controls when Henry disconnected the line. The men working for Randy were a different story. They came pouring out of their office like ants out of an ant hill. They received the same treatment when Henry notified them. When they got a disconnect they didn't wait to verify it. Randy's men were taking no chances no matter where the information came from. The gates slammed shut and Comm Tech was locked down. No one would be able to enter or leave until this situation was cleared up. One way or another. A call went out to Randy Shells. Thirty seconds later his men were by the exit camera taking it down for examination while others scattered out across the parking tower. Two men checked her lab to make sure she wasn't there and methodically begin checking every single room and closet in Comm Tech.
Randy was out of his apartment and headed back to Comm Tech in less than two minutes. He might not have been making the speed Karen did when she out ran the van but there weren't any police cars which could have caught him, even if they had seen him go by.
The men at all the gates blocked the roads with their cars and chambered a round into their automatics. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was getting out any gates until Karen was found. These men were deadly serious. Anyone would have to be insane to test them now. They were hired to protect Miss Long and their frustrations were mounting by the second. Someone was about to pay the ultimate price for Karen's disappearance.
Henry called David on the off chance he picked Karen up when the camera went down. He knew deep down in the darkest part of his memory there was no way but there are no absolutes in life. There is a percentage of error in the most certain percentages.
"Hello?"
"David, do you have Karen with you?"
"Henry, is this you?"
"Yes, I can't find Karen and I thought she might be with you."
David's pulse quickened. "What is it Henry? What are you not telling me? What has happened to Karen?"
"She left the building and never reached her car. I was hoping you may have been driving by and picked her up. She said she wanted to apologize to you for earlier this afternoon."
"Henry, I don't have her. You sure she isn't home?" David was pulling on his pants as he spoke. He would run by her house and check on her.
"No, she isn't home. I can monitor her house now and she isn't there. David, I’m worried. Something is wrong."
That scared the hell out of David. Henry always had a handle on things. When Henry was worried it was time for the rest of the mortals to worry. "I’m coming in. Call me on the car phone if she shows up."
"Be sure to bring identification and license. They have this place shut down and no one is allowed on or off until they find Karen."
This was a lot more serious than Henry was telling him. David dropped the receiver as he grabbed his lab coat and sprang for the door.
The van door opened and Oscar got in. "You get anything out of her yet?"
Karl looked at Karen and smiled. "We have just begun our question and answer session. Let's see what the bitch has to say."
He ripped the tape off her mouth. Karen felt like he ripped her whole face off. She licked her lips trying to soothe the burning sensation left from pulling the tape.
"Well bitch, now how about the programming? Or your data cartridges? You see, we ain't greedy. We’ll take most anything." He was twirling the piece of tape he had yanked off her mouth around a finger while he picked off strands of her hair which came with it.
"You bastard! You’ll pay for this. You're going to regret the day you ever laid eyes on me." She was mad and hate came along on every word.
"Still kind of high and mighty for someone in your position..., aren't we bitch?" Karl reached down and ripped the front of her dress. Lifting both breasts out of her bra, he pinched her nipples as he pulled on them.
"God Almighty!" The man who had pushed her into the van was staring at her tits.
Karl was hurting her and she was trying to roll her breasts out of his reach. "Get your filthy hands off of me you sorry piece of trash. I'll make you pay for what you're doing."
Karl leaned over right in her face and put his hand between her thighs. "The programming for the computer? That's all we want. Unless you enjoy this, give us the program and you can leave."
Karen spit in his face. "You ..., slimy ..., bastard! Go suck your own dick."
It was something she wished she hadn't done. Karl's eyes glazed over and she could see the insanity in his eyes. Before she was only mad at them. Now she was frightened of a situation she knew was out of control.
The first time he hit her with the flat of his hand. Then he started with his fists. Karen closed her eyes so she wouldn't see it coming. She let her head roll each time he hit her. She was still seeing bright lights each time he struck her. She thought he was going to kill her. She wasn’t the only one who thought that.
"You’re killing her. Quit, or we lose our money. Damn it Karl, I said quit hitting her. Give her a chance to speak." Oscar grabbed Karl's arm and pulled him back.
Karl glared in a mindless stare at Oscar for a couple of seconds before he jerked his arm lose. "Women like that sort of thing. They want you to prove to them you're the boss."
Karen's head was ringing from the beating she had taken. She could taste the salt from the blood in her mouth as it seeped out the corners of her lips. She ran her tongue across her teeth. At least they were all still there. She opened her eyes and glared defiance at them. Karl could beat her until hell froze over and she wouldn't give him any programming or knowledge about Henry.
Karl smiled a sick smile at her. "You enjoying yourself? I sure as hell am. Now let's talk business. I want the program for making your models."
Karen licked her lips and could taste blood all the way across. "I don't have any data cartridges with me."
Karl hit her with his knuckles as he backhanded her. "I know that you stupid bitch. Anyone could tell you don't have any cartridges on you. I want the programming."
He was beginning to suspect he had made an error in how to get the programming for her computer.
Karen managed to bring her head back around again. Her face and lips were starting to swell. "I can't give you the programming. It took five years to get the basic program written and another fifteen to get to what you want."
Karl hit her again. Grabbing her hair he yanked her head forward until her face was only inches from his. "YOU LYING BITCH! I WANT THAT PROGRAMING AND I WANT IT NOW!"
His mind couldn't comprehend waiting fifteen years for a computer program.
She kept her eyes closed so she wouldn't have to see it coming if he hit her again. "Please don't hit me again. I’m telling you the truth. It takes time to write a program."
Karen was pleading with men who had no conscience.
The realization they had made a mistake came to all three of them about the same time. "How will we get our hands on her program now?"
"Shut up, Mike. I'm thinking." Karl screwed up his face in thought but nothing came to him. In sheer frustration he tore the tape off her legs and pulled her panties down.
Karen was still coherent enough to know what was coming next. As bad as she hurt she tried to protect herself. Locking her legs together, she pulled her knees up as far as she could.
"No, please don't. You don't want to do this. Please, I will get the program you want. Please don't. Please, I can get you a program. Please take me back to the lab and I will get your program. I won't tell anyone. Please don't hurt me anymore. Please don't do this."
Karen was shaking her head and crying scared of the thought of what they were planning next. "Please to God, don't do this. I’m begging you. I will do anything you want."
Karl was chuckling to himself knowing she was wanting to do it as much as he was wanting to do it to her. When he couldn't get her legs down he hit her in the face. Still not getting her to release her legs he hit her in the stomach.
With the wind knocked out of her for the second time tonight, Karen lost all ability to resist. Karl had beaten her almost totally lifeless.
Karl pulled his pants down and when he entered her it felt like he had torn her whole insides lose. The pain she felt before was nothing compared to the pain he had just caused. The scream that ripped from her throat almost burst their eardrums. As he rose and fell on her body she thought her arms were breaking off. Crying in pain she was begging him to stop.
Karl satisfied his lust and got up grinning at the others. "You want some of that?"
Mike pulled his pants down and laid on top of her. Crying for them to stop hurting her only seemed to drive them on. Karen didn't think she could take anymore abuse and live. She stopped pleading with the men and started begging God to end her life.
Playing with her tits and biting her nipples, Mike was so emotionally hot before he entered her, he was through before he had very long to hurt her.
Oscar laid down on her and stuck his tongue in her mouth. She gagged and thought she would vomit. The physical abuse they were doing to her was a lifetime of pain.
It was Karl's voice she heard. She didn't know if she lost consciousness or her mind tuned everything out because of the pain. She didn't remember.
"Hell no we can't take her back to the lab. Do you think she will waltz in there, pick up the data cartridge, and bring it back out to us?"
Mike looked at Karen lying on the floor. "She said she would get a program for us."
"You can't believe anything a woman tells you asshole. They tell you what you want to hear and do what they want." Karl felt like he had brought along a pair of half-wits.
"You mean we ain't going to get our money?" Mike felt cheated out of what was rightfully his.
Karl looked at Karen who was trying to move over on her side to take some of the pain off her arms. "Well, we ain't going to get it this way. We’ll have to think of something else."
Oscar pointed at Karen. "What about her? We can't just turn her lose."
Karl grinned at the thought. "Let's dump her here. She can become someone else's problem."
They slid the side door open and dragged her from the van bouncing her down every step. Karen vowed in her mind the next time she saw any of these men, she would kill them. Some of the feeling was coming back into her body after being moved and she hurt anew all over again.
Karl dragged her a couple of feet away from the van and sit her up. "Bye, bitch."
Slowly a grin spread across his face as he pulled a gun out of his waist band and pointed it at her.
The realization she was going to die with no chance to defend herself struck sheer terror in Karen down to the very bottom of her soul. What would happen to Henry? Who would protect him after she was gone?
"NO! GOD, NO! I’LL GET YOUR PROGRAMMING. No one will know. I won't tell anyone. Please don't kill me. In heavens name don't kill...,"
The first shot struck her in the chest knocking her backwards flat on the grass. The second hit her in the neck. Her head bounced forward and back. The third hit her in the head kicking it over to one side.
Karen stopped moving.
Mike watched in amusement as Karl pulled the gun out thinking he was using it only to scare Karen. Then the shots rang out. "CHRIST, KARL. You didn't have to kill her. She couldn't hurt us."
"Listen stupid. If she pointed her finger at us, those goons Comm Tech has working as her bodyguards would as soon kill us as talk to us. This way nobody knows besides us. She sure ain't going to be doing any singing..., Now."
"Get in the van. We have to figure out how to get those programs she doesn't have any use for. Now." He was laughing as he said it. It struck him as funny Karen would ever need any more programs. "Whose turn is it to buy the beer? I sure worked up a hell of a thirst."
She felt like she was lying in water. It was wet all over and there wasn't any place on her body not screaming with pain. She tried to get up but couldn't. She couldn't get her arms around in front of her.
That damn Karl shot her. Maybe he had missed? At least she wasn't dead yet. God, the pain! If it would only go away and let her think.
Karen opened her eyes and tried to focus. It didn't do much good. Her left eye was covered with something sticky and she couldn't wipe it away. Her right eye wasn't seeing anything. She moved her head a little. The pain searing through her mind told her not to do it again.
She tried to get up again but couldn't. Her mind screamed with pain as she moved. She remembered her arms were tied behind her. They must have left her that way. Wherever her body touched the grass it was wet. It had to be dew or it had showered. Blinking her right eye enough times finally helped and she could see what was so wet. She wished she hadn't looked. It was her own blood she was lying in.
If she didn't get some help quickly she would bleed to death. She tried to get up one more time. Blackness washed over her mind. Her body settled quietly back into the pool of blood and became very still.
He was trying to think of an excuse to tell his wife why he was getting home so late. It was eleven o'clock and he really hadn't planned on staying this long. The pool game had lasted longer than usual. He knew he should have called his wife after he got off work to tell her where he was going. He didn't think he would be this late. Katy was a good wife. She usually didn't say too much when he stayed out like this occasionally. He didn't make a habit of it. Maybe she wouldn't say anything tonight.
Turning off the highway Jim had traveled only a few hundred yards down the dirt road toward home when he saw a dead dog lying in the grader ditch. It's a shame how some people will bring animals out of town and leave them to be run over alongside the road. His headlights swept past it and he wondered if he was imagining things? Slowly backing up he turned the car so the headlights shown directly at it. He swallowed his chewing gum!
Karen felt someone trying to lift her. Karl and the others had come back. "Please don't hurt me anymore. I’ll get you what you want. Please don't hurt me anymore."
Jim didn't know what to do. She was covered with blood and the grass was dark with the stuff. He didn't know there was so much blood in a body. If he left her here and went home to call the police she would be dead by the time they got there. She wasn't going to last much longer if he didn't do something quickly.
"Please miss, I’m not going to hurt you. I have to get you to the hospital. I can't do it without moving you to the car. Do you understand me."
Karen no longer understood. She only knew pain. "Please don't hurt me anymore. I will get you what you want. Please...,"
Not knowing if she was dead or alive, the only thing Jim could think of was getting her to a hospital as quickly as possible. When he couldn't get her arms up so he could carry her to the car he rolled her gently over on her side. He pulled the tape off her wrists. Picking her up Jim carried her to the car, held her in his arms, and balanced her with his knee as he fumbled with the door handle. Easing her into the seat and putting her legs in, he gently pushed the door shut trying to not hurt her anymore than she already was.
The driver was leaning on the horn as the car skidded up to the emergency entrance with the brakes locked and the tires bawling. Coming around to the glass doors the nurse watched as a man leaped out of the driver's side and ran around to the passenger side.
Jim was yelling and waving at the same time. He was trying attract attention as he opened the car door. "I NEED HELP. I HAVE SOMEONE WHO IS HURT REAL BAD. GET SOME HELP OUT HERE. I NEED HELP."
The nurse was there as he opened the passenger door. What she saw was a bloody mess. Running back to the nurse’s station she hit the red button for trauma alert. She keyed the pager. "I want a gurney down here now. Stat. We have a code red. All emergency personnel. Code red."
Needles, waste, gauze, tape, empty bags were going into the hopper in a steady stream as they worked feverishly to keep her alive. Intravenous tubes in both arms and a dozen bags hung up feeding her fluids as they fought the odds. Dr. Michael hoped they could get her stabilized enough to get her in surgery. She was too far gone to think about putting her through surgery unless they managed to pull her back out of that hole of death she was standing in.
He had no hope she would make it. She was more dead than alive. Her blood pressure was nonexistent a few seconds ago. Her heartbeat was irregular and skipping so often he kept wanting to reach for the electric paddles. She kept defying him. Every time he put his stethoscope on her chest to make sure she had died her heart would beat again. All he could count on was closing the wounds and stopping that infernal bleeding.
They brought the x-rays in and it showed a bullet in the chest millimeters from the heart. One in the neck nicked an artery. That one would have to be taken care of before she would stop leaking out everything they were putting into her. His own heart about stopped when they showed him the third x-ray. It showed massive hemorrhaging in the brain where she was carrying a third bullet. If this woman was going to live she needed a miracle not a doctor. God could throw in another dozen miracles if He wanted her to be more than a vegetable the rest of her life.
He was doing everything he could. He was only a doctor, not a miracle worker. He gave her no chance, not even a slim one. "Do we have an ID on her? Has the family been notified yet?"
He closed off the neck wound and loss of blood was at a minimum. "I need two more surgeons ready in the operating room if we can get her stable. Put another liter of plasma in her."
One of the nurses hung up another bag of Ringers lactate and checked Karen's pulse. "She didn't have any identification on her when she was brought in. I don't think you need an ID to know who she is though. She’s the model who has been in the papers every week. You know the one? Doctor Karen Long."
Doctor Michael very carefully probed for the bullet in her chest. There it was exactly where the X-ray showed it to be. "I haven't seen her before."
One of the nurses handed him a pair of forceps. "If you would read something besides the Wall Street Journal, you would have. She has been in the papers almost everyday. Sometimes they do two or three page articles on her. She made nationwide news by refusing an interview on national TV. More people probably recognize her than the president."
Doctor Michael was impressed the nurse could recognize anyone who had been beaten to a bloody mess like this. It was a brutal world without trying to do this to another human being on purpose.
"Whoever she is have staff call somebody and tell them we have her. Let them know she isn't going to make it. Have the police been notified yet? Those bullet wounds weren't self inflicted and I don't need a smear to tell me someone raped her. Somebody did one hell of a job on her."
He stood up and stretched his neck. "Get her down to surgery three. I want those other surgeons there now. If she’s going to die, by God she is going to die with us trying to save her. She has got to have the Big Guy on her side to have lasted this long."
David would walk the floor in Karen's lab and getting frustrated he would walk down to this lab. Afraid Henry might find out something and he wouldn't be there he would return to Karen's lab to pace the floor again.
The almost inaudible whir of the servo motors would whine as the cameras followed David across the lab and back again. He looked around at the cameras and all four of them were focused in on him. "Would you quit. I’m nervous enough as it is. Are you sure your mind is on finding Karen? How can you watch me and search for Karen, too?"
"I assure you David, I’m quite capable of multiple functions. Karen is the utmost priority in my program. I have constant input from the police, fire department, security, and all the hospitals in the area. I’m monitoring the calls security is doing on their radios, all the police bands, and am systematically redialing every clinic in the area. I’m checking all the passengers at the airport and to a limited extent the bus station. The bus station has a poor computer and doesn't register half the names put in it. If she turns up anywhere you will know as soon as anyone."
"She has been found." Henry became quiet and for the first time the cameras stopped following David.
"Where is she? Is she all right? What are you doing? Talk to me Henry. Let me know what is happening. Tell me something."
"David, she is hurt. They don't expect her to live. Someone shot her and left her beside the highway. She is at Mercy Hospital Trauma Center. Take...,"
Henry didn't complete the sentence. David flew out the door when Henry told him where he could find Karen.
Henry called gate four on the red phone. At least it wasn't Mac's shift. Henry didn't mind Mac but he seemed a little slow. "Gate four this is the office. Doctor Beckworth has been notified Miss Long is seriously injured and at Mercy Hospital. He is driving a black BMW and will be coming toward your gate any second now. You are to run one escort ahead of him and one behind. Don't hold him up by moving too slow or we will have a discussion in the office when you get back. Do I make myself clear? Security code, alpha two one six alpha."
As far as the guards were concerned the message was extremely clear. It was Randy's personal authorization code. One guard ran for his car as he yelled at the other. "I'll take the lead. You close up the rear when he comes through. Get that damn gate open."
David knew the guards would stop him as he sped toward the gate. He could only hope they didn't take too long. Cars by the gate were moving and they had their emergency lights flashing. One pulled in front of him and the other dropped in behind forcing David to keep moving. The car behind was right on his bumper. As the lead car sped off down the highway and the other looked like it was about to park in his rear seat David got the idea. He dropped the hammer and raced behind the flashing lights ahead. He had a good car but it wasn't reworked like the pursuit cars or Karen's Mercedes. He never caught up with the lead car until they pulled into the hospital emergency entrance.
Guards and David entered the emergency entrance at the same instant. "Where’s Karen?"
Getting no answer he tried again. "Where is Karen Long? She was shot. You have her in here somewhere."
The nurse didn't like this at all. Here was a man demanding to know where Miss Long was. Those two men with him looked like walking arsenals. Rifles in their hands, guns on their hips, and a big, big knife on the other hip, they certainly didn't look like cops. The badges on their chest and patches on their shoulders weren't anything she recognized.
"The police will be here in a minute." The police had been notified and she was hoping they got there sooner than that.
David felt like grabbing her and shaking her eye teeth out. "Lady, I don't give a fuck about the police. I want to know where Karen Long is. I’m her personal physician. If you don't give with the information right here and now I’ll take this hospital apart until I find her."
The two guards heard David say he was Karen's personal physician. That and the phone call at the gate giving Randy's own authorization code, was more than they needed to get serious. They slung their rifles on their shoulders. They separated across the hall from one another. They were ready to kick in some doors.
David had no idea all he had to do was nod his head and the two guards would have taken the hospital apart piece by piece until they found Karen. He was still trying to get the nurse to give the information he wanted. "Well?"
All the movement hadn't been lost on the nurse. It scared her so bad she almost peed in her pants. These people were fanatics or mad bombers. She had no intention of trying to stop them from finding Karen Long. The police and hospital security could take care of the situation, if and when they got there.
"Miss Long is in operating room three down the hall. First door on your right after you go around the corner at the end of the hall. But you can't go in there. They are operating on her now." The look David gave her made her wish she hadn't added that last bit. Old habits die hard.
"Where’s the scrub room? Forget it. Show me. You can help me prep." David had her by the arm and was already propelling her down the hall with the two guards close behind.
The police finally did make it five minutes after David. As they pulled up to the emergency entrance, Randy Shells and three of his men pulled in behind them. When Randy and his men got out of the car it rose up four inches.
Randy looked at the officer getting out of the patrol car ahead of them. "If it isn't the cities finest. I guess we can all sleep sound tonight knowing our streets are safe."
Dan Popolopolus looked around to see who was making fun of them. "Mr. Shells, you still terrorizing the neighbors, scaring the hell out of widows and orphans, and taking candy from babies? I hope you are about to tell me you're here because someone shot you and they don't think you will live."
Randy thought it was a bad joke considering the information they had about Karen. "No Dan, I suspect I’m down here for the same reasons as you. Miss Long belongs to us. We came down to see what the story was. What have you heard?"
Dan shook his head. "I doubt we have any more than what you have. How did it happen? I never knew of you losing a client before. You certainly never left any behind when we played jungle tag in Nam."
Randy glanced at the men who had come with him and nodded toward the hospital. He didn't have to say it verbally. They had been with him long enough to know they were suppose to check for information while he talked with this officer.
Dan watched them as they entered the hospital. They didn't go straight in. One walked across the front of the entrance as the other two covered him. Not with their weapons but with their actions. One went in while the second covered him and the third checked rear guard. They did it so smoothly and quickly a person would have to know what to look for to notice they had done anything differently. No doubt these were Randy's men. He had trained them well. Always expect the unexpected.
"Dan, you better find whoever is responsible if the story is true. They shot out a security camera and kidnapped her while someone was scratching their butt wondering if it was a malfunction or not."
He looked at Dan with the look Dan had known only too well years back. Somebody was going to get hurt before this was over. "I’m serious. If they worked her over like I heard..., well, you better find them before I get my hands on them."
Dan knew it would be a waste of time to explain the law to Randy. Randy was one of those people who made his own law as he went and usually had enough pull in the government to make it stick. However he understood Randy's meaning when he said whoever got their hands on the men first had priority rights. At least they would get a trial if the police found them first.
One of Randy's men returned and whispered something in his ear. Randy’s eyes narrowed to slits. "Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. Damn the whole damn world.”
The muscles rippled in knots across Randy’s jaws giving away his true feelings of unlitigated hate toward the whole situation. Finally he looked away and then back at the man in front of him. There was work to be done. "Find out what type of blood she has and find people who match. Check the credentials of the doctors who are working on her. Dr. Sojorn and Dr. Brauns are on their way. Make sure a chopper meets them at the airport and brings them over. If they don't have a chopper pad here clear an area out in the parking lot for it to land."
Randy glanced at his watch. "They will be here in thirteen minutes and seventeen minutes respectively. They will be flying in here in military jets. Make sure they don't have to circle the airport waiting for landing clearance."
"See what they have for equipment in that damn hospital. If something is needed make sure it gets here. Now, what about Dr. Beckworth? You say he is in the operating room also?"
The guard was talking into his radio at the same time he was talking to Randy. "Dr. Beckworth is watching from the operating room. Bill said they were told to escort him down here. Someone used your personal authorization code."
Randy clinched his fists. "She can't die. She just can't die. They’re good. We have to know how they did it. She can't die because some asshole shot her. She’s too important to us to die. Please God, we need her."
The guard couldn't make any sense out of what Randy was talking about. He had missed something.
Randy looked up into the night sky. "Someone is going to pay for screwing up. Were any of our men in the security office at the time she was taken? I want to know where every single person was at the exact moment she was kidnapped. Check all the tapes recorded this evening. Make certain they don't get erased. Run a computer analysis on every single frame. I want a list of names. I want the names of everyone who even got close to her end of the building. DAMN IT! I WANT SOMEBODY’S ASS!"
"God, please don't let her die." He turned around and kicked in the side of his car door as he walked past it. He kept on walking up the road.
Watching him walk up the street, Dan's heart began settling back down into a little more normal beat. He had seen Randy really angry once before and a lot of people died. This anger had been worse. Dan had been discreetly looking for any kind of cover before Randy turned and walked off.
"Where's he going?" Dan's partner was watching Randy disappear down the street.
Dan put his arms across the top of the squad car and bowed his head. It was then he noticed he was covered with perspiration. "He’s going back to Commercial Technologies and study the video tapes in the security cameras."
"You want me to arrest him for destruction of property?"
Dan's head snapped up as he looked at his partner. "WHAT?"
Dan was glad to still be alive and his partner was wanting to arrest the Grim Reaper. Didn't this kid feel the kiss of death he had been reprieved from?
"I said, do you think I should arrest him for destruction of property? He demolished that car door."
Dan closed his eyes. How dumb can one person be? God must look out for fools and rookies. "Pete, how old are you?"
"Twenty-one."
"You want to live to be twenty-two you better use something besides the text book for brains out here. Randy is pissed and itching to take his anger out on anything which gets close to him. You’ll get both of us killed if you try to arrest him right now. Your mama would miss you, the police department would give you a posthumous citation, and that would be the end of it. Randy eats people like you for breakfast every morning. He’s your worst nightmare or your best friend and it’s a damn thin line between the two. Don't cross that line or you won't live to regret it."
Pete thought about it for a second and decided he needed to make amends. "He’ll walk through some pretty tough neighborhoods. Shouldn't we follow along behind to make sure he doesn't get hurt?"
Dan dropped his head and shook it as he walked toward the entrance. Don't they ever listen. "I said he was pissed. If any of our friendly neighborhood gangs are out tonight and they run into Randy you may read about them in the obituaries in tomorrow's papers. If he thought we were spoiling any of his fun you would be able to read our obituaries in tomorrow's papers."
Pete looked after the disappearing Randy. "Dan, it's over ten miles back across town to Commercial Technologies."
Dan glanced back over his shoulder. "I know. You wouldn't want to be there if he drove it and hadn't walked off some of his frustrations. You probably wouldn't want to be there anyway. Not if you worked for him and let Miss Long get hurt. That place is going to turn into a living hell. Before it’s over, everyone will wish it was them who were shot instead of Miss Long. Could be, some of them will be."
Dan didn't tell Pete someone would really end up dead before this was over. Even during the bad times in Vietnam he had never seen Randy this upset. Randy was certain to have his pound of flesh over this deal.
"Let's find the driver who brought her in and see what he knows. Randy gave us that much of a head start. Let's not blow it by sitting on our thumbs."
Commercial Technologies sent several computer engineers down to Karen's lab to bring it back into operation. They couldn't afford to let it set while she either died or got better. The board of directors didn't care either way as long as they got her lab up and running. No matter how hard the engineers tried they never produced anything decent. The models were better than what the competition was turning out but it wasn't what the customers had come to expect from Karen's lab. Henry watched and accepted their input programming all right but what they got back was exactly what they put in. Not much. Normal basic computer programming. Load program, list menu, initial program, run program. It was all simple computer commands everyone uses to get a program running.
Henry waited patiently as they ran through one programming error after another. These models looked exactly like what they were. Plastic mannequins and nothing else. They would have been excellent four hundred dollar mannequins but not forty thousand dollar models. The returns on the models rose to one hundred percent.
The board of directors was furious. The chairman suggested they take Karen's computer apart and start all over again. The only problem was, they didn't know how she got it to perform so well when the other engineers couldn't. Asking Karen what she was doing different didn't get them anywhere. All she would tell them was they must not be running the program correctly. If they took the computer apart could they get it back together again? The decision was finally made. Take it apart and see if they could find the problem.
David got wind of their decision and made an appeal to the board to leave Karen's lab alone until she was able to return to work. It didn't do any good. Money was the bottom line and they knew they were losing plenty of it everyday they weren't manufacturing models. The computer had to be fixed.
David sat at the end of a long table with the directors and chairman at the other end. He knew it was set up this way so they could intimidate anyone who came to these meetings to question their authority. They could take their intimidation and their authority and stick it where the sun didn't shine.
David stood up as he talked. "You take Karen's computer apart and she will go to work somewhere else."
The chairman of the board didn't care. If they got Karen's computer back into operation they didn't need her. "She wouldn't leave Commercial Technologies. Not after all we have done for her. Besides she has a contract. She either works for us or not at all."
David was astounded. "What have you done for her? You almost let her get killed. You discard her when she needs you and can't work. You want to take apart her life's work to satisfy your own greed. To you she is only a money cow. She’s great as long as she is slaving down in her lab to make your damn greedy souls money. The minute she stops producing you want to send her to the slaughter house and replace her."
"She will leave if you take her computer apart and so will I. You want to know the funny part? You will never build another computer like the one in her lab. No matter how hard you try you can't do it. You can duplicate it piece by piece but you will never get it to perform like she does."
The chairman cleared his throat. "I’ll be sorry to see you go David. But business is business. The truth of the matter is you aren't making us any money and neither is she right now."
David loved little minds. They seemed to gather in groups like this. "You can fire me but you can't fire Karen. She never signed a new contract with Bill Chambers. She could go to work for any company in the world right now. There isn't one damn thing you could do to stop her from setting up another lab and making the models only she knows how to make."
As bad as he wanted to tell this bunch of hypocrites he and Karen were through, he couldn't. He remembered her telling him she couldn't move Henry. If anyone took him apart it would kill her. "If it’s performance you want, give me a chance to talk..., Give me a chance to run Karen's computer."
The chairman looked around at the board and there was no comment. They weren't going to commit themselves one way or another. "You aren't a computer engineer David. What makes you think you can get Karen's computer to perform for you? We already had experts working with it. They tell us it must have memory loss or system failure somewhere. No, I think we will let the experts tear it apart and fix it. They’ll be able to get it running again no matter what the problem is."
"You are making the mistake of your lives. You have everything to lose and nothing to gain by following that path of reasoning. Trust me, you don't want to do this. Give me the rest of the day and tonight to prove I’m right. I’ll turn out the models your customers want. If I don't, you still haven't lost anything but some of my time and Hen..., the use of the computer."
The chairman nodded his head. "All right. You have until tomorrow morning to produce something acceptable. However, I promise you the engineers will be down there first thing in the morning taking that thing apart and locating the problem. They assured me they could get it back into operation if we let them fix it."
David walked out muttering to himself. "You can't fix it if it ain't broke. Idiots!"
The chairman wasn't amused. David showed no respect to the board of directors. Didn't he know who his employers were?
David flipped the light switch on in Karen's lab. Nothing happened. A few glowing red lights on the monitor by Karen's desk was all there was. There was nothing else in the pitch black room. Feeling his way across the room, he sat down in Karen's chair and fumbled for the keyboard. Groping for the switches on the console he flicked them on but still received nothing for his efforts. He slid the keyboard back onto the desk.
"You're only hurting Karen you know."
The monitor blipped on with a question on the screen. HURT KAREN?
"Yes, hurt Karen. They plan on taking you apart in the morning to see what makes you tick. What do you think that will do to her after what she has been through? She is barely hanging onto her sanity now Henry. I think it would kill her to find out they took you apart."
David didn't receive an answer so he tried the switches again. There still was no response.
"Don't do this Henry. Karen is the kindest, gentlest person I have ever known. She never asked for anything and was always willing to give a part of herself and her time if we needed anything. The new Karen is still the same old Karen. Her heart never changed. She has always been there for us. Now she needs us to help her for a change. You can't hurt me Henry but you may kill Karen."
David sat there in the dark for what seemed like an eternity before he received his answer. The lights in the lab snapped on and David could hear the thump of electrical contactors and relays coming on line in sequence, one right after another. The console lit up and the lights in the work lab came on. Through the souls of his shoes he could feel the throb of pumps as they built up pressure. Somewhere in the distance a vacuum pump came alive and began it's little sucking sound like a shoe being pulled out of the mud, over and over again.
The lasers in the working lab snapped to attention and pointed toward a targeting grid. Even with the glass separating him from the lasers and the air pressure in the work lab steadily dropping he could hear the air sizzle as they burnt their target.
Both holograms came alive and he had two fuzzy figures on each side of his desk. David pulled out the keypad and tried his hand at entering a program.
LOCKOUT appeared on the monitor.
David tried again as he hit break and enter.
LOCKOUT blinked on the screen.
David was getting frustrated. "Henry, what do I have to do to get access?"
It was on the monitor. RELAX AND LET ME DRIVE DAVID
David pushed the keyboard back on the desk. "You got it big boy."
The holograms instantly changed into replicas of the models Karen would make. The gel flowed into the chamber and through the nozzle on the turntable at the same time. The work lab became an aurora of special colors and brilliant lights as the lasers solidified the gel.
So this was Karen's world. David was impressed.
"David, David wake up, you have company." Henry was trying to prod him awake.
David raised his head off his arms he had folded on the desk in front of him. Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, he glanced around the lab. The lights were on but everything else was shut down. Through the glass partition he could see a full set of models on the stacking receivers. Someone was working the security lock on the door and Henry finally let them think they figured it out.
A technician had his shoulder against the door giving it the old college try when Henry opened the door. Halfway across the room the technician finally caught his balance again after bursting through a door which was no longer resisting his efforts. He tried his best at retrieving some of his composure. "We're here to take this lab apart fellow. I suggest you find someplace else to do your napping."
David counted seven men who were out in the hall or in the lab. He touched the security button under Karen's desk. Could he handle seven men if security didn't show up? He would let them know they had been in a fight either way.
"You aren't taking anything apart, FELLOW. I have an agreement with the board. If I could get her computer to run for me they would leave it alone."
David nodded toward the stacking receivers. "My end of the bargain is done. Now, I promise you they will live up to their end of the agreement. You touch anything in here and I will break your neck."
The technician wasn't to be deterred. "I saw those pieces of trash you engineers have been rolling out of this dump. That’s the reason we’re here. Now get your ass out of our road or get it run over."
Security came through the door pulling technicians out of the way. The big man who looked like he had to turn sideways to get through the door was looking at David. "We got a buzz from Miss Long's lab. You the one who did it?"
Pointing to the technicians Randy pulled out of the way to get in the door, David nodded. "You got that right. These men thought they would take Karen's computer apart. I thought I might need some help to keep it from happening. I counted two men too many for me to handle. I figured I could handle five of them all right."
Randy grinned at the idea of David whipping five men by himself. This boyfriend of Karen's was obviously determined he wouldn't let anything happen to her equipment. "I tell you what Doc. I’ll take care of a couple of them myself and you can have the rest. You sure you don't want more than five? You never can tell about these things. It's kind of like eating potato chips. Once you get started it's hard to quit."
The technicians began grouping in a huddle. These people were crazy. David had to turn his back to them while he got a serious look on his face. He almost burst out laughing after Randy's last remark.
Randy reached over and wrapped up a fist full of lab coat and shirt in one of his huge paws. Pulling the technician up to where he was eyeball to eyeball with him, Randy held him dangling in the air. "Gentlemen, you have two ways of leaving. You either walk under your own power or we drag you back down to security."
Except for the one Randy was hanging onto the room emptied in a wild stampede as technicians scurried for safety. Randy dropped the man he was holding and the technician went to the floor backwards on his hands and butt. It looked as if the technician was on a trampoline as he bounced back up and out the door almost before he ever touched the floor.
Shipping had come in to pick up the models from the receivers. One of them hit the intercom between the work lab and Karen's office. "Where’s Miss Long? I thought she wasn't coming back to work for awhile yet? You tell her for us we’re sure glad she’s back. Boy, does she do beautiful work. These are going out without any problems."
Randy stared at the men loading the models and then back to David. He motioned toward his men and they left the lab closing the door behind them.
"Something fishy going on here Mr. Beckworth. You want to tell me about it?"
David was wishing Randy hadn't been with his men when they came down to answer the alarm. He knew what Randy meant and he tried to figure out a way to sidetrack him before he got to the truth. He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know what you mean?"
"I'm not stupid because I'm big. Size has nothing to do with brains. You're not a computer technician nor an engineer. You're intelligent Doc but this isn't your field of expertise. I pulled your personnel file and I probably know more about you than you do yourself. You didn't do the work those shipping personnel are bragging about. And we both know Karen didn't."
"There are calls to my men using my personal authorization code. You know about Karen before we do. Cameras have their own mind about what they want to show to security. Gates open and close with no apparent malfunction. Requisition chits are issued and no one issued them. I could go on but you get the idea."
"I like Karen Doc. She makes me feel hot and stupid when I’m close to her." David started to speak but Randy didn't give him the chance.
"I know you and her are an item. You can't blame me for thinking she might get tired of you someday and the rest of us would have a chance. Darn Doc, every man in this place feels the same way."
"Let's talk about the computer which belongs to Karen. How smart is it?"
David didn't know what to say. First off, he really had no idea how smart Henry was. Second, it was Karen's place to tell someone about Henry if things were to be told. Well, the best defense is a good offense. When in doubt, charge.
"I can't tell you anything. You don't have security clearance."
"Doc, that old crap isn't going to flush. I have the clearance to walk into any part of this God forsaken building and take a look at any project coming down the tubes. I have a higher clearance than you do. Now stop dancing around the issue and tell me about Karen's computer."
David waved his hand toward the console. "Only if he wants to talk to you himself. He only tolerates me because of Karen. Henry, you want to talk to this man?"
The lights on the console came on. David knew he would enjoy this.
“I would appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone what you know about Karen's lab Officer Shells."
David was watching and when Henry spoke he saw Randy jump. David was gratified to see he wasn't the only person Henry spooked.
"Right now, you are the only person besides David who knows anything about what is going on in Karen's lab. I have watched you since you came to work for Comm Tech. You seem to question everything. You add up coincidence which isn't any coincidence. You questioned Karen's background very methodically. I knew this was coming. It was a surprise when you didn't come forward after you checked her out. You already know about her accident in David's lab."
Henry noticed a shocked look on David's face. Randy wasn't doing too good himself. "You left cameras out of the room you use for communications. The extra line you ran for your own personal communications was smart. New line couldn't be tapped unless it was done after it was installed. I knew the fat would be in the fire when you personally went out and checked Karen's background. What kept you?"
Randy was looking bumfuzzled. He didn't know what to say or to whom he should say it.
Henry never lacked for something to say. "The day you walked Karen to her car and questioned her was real professional. It was more than security guard stuff. You’re no more a security guard than I am. You are quite good however. Comm Tech couldn't have hired a better person for the job. I looked over your files. You were well hidden under a lot of top secret security directives."
"You have what humans refer to as a sixth sense. Women call it intuition. If it makes you feel any better, I could see this coming for over a month. No matter what I tried you would dog it until you figured it out. I admire the way you think Officer Shells. You would make a good computer. Excellent logic, good reasoning, superior intelligence, not bad for a human."
Randy was looking around the lab. Looking for what he didn't know but it would come to him when he found it. "Come on doc, you don't expect me to believe a computer talked to me like that do you?"
Maybe Henry had overestimated Randy's intelligence. Maybe not. When David thought about who he was talking to, he didn't do too good either. Humans were funny creatures. Very complex.
Randy's mind wasn’t ready to accept what his suspicions had been telling him for the past few months. Karen had actually built a thinking computer. He was sure beyond a shadow of a doubt before Henry said anything. Now confronting his suspicions he wasn't willing to believe it. It boggled the mind.
David didn't say anything. He knew Henry would polish him off if he felt like it. Except for the part about Randy knowing about Karen's accident, he was actually enjoying listening to Henry for a change. At least this time he wasn't on the receiving end of Henry's sharp mind.
Henry didn't let David's expectations down. "And how do you expect a computer to talk to you Randy? Would you be more impressed with this?"
"G o o d m o r n i n g M r. S h e l l s. H o w a r e y o u t h i s
m o r n i n g?" Henry emitted several squawks, bleeps, and clicks.
"A r e y o u r e a d y t o p r o c e e d?" More squawks, squeaks, clicks, and bleeps.
"P u s h t h e r e d b u t t o n f o r n o a n d t h e y e l l o w
b u t t o n f o r y e s."
Now David knew why Karen laughed so hard the day Henry talked to him. Here was Randy looking everywhere for a red and yellow button so he could talk to Karen's computer. He felt sorry for Randy but he had to laugh at him, it was so comical.
"Sucked you in hook, line, and sinker, didn't he? Don't feel bad. I was the same way. It’s hard getting use to the idea Henry can talk more intelligently than most humans."
That there was a total look of disbelief on Randy's face would be an understatement. "Mother of Mary, that thing really thinks better than we do?"
He stooped over to see if he could find any answers under or behind the desk. Picking up the keypad he felt along the top of the desk.
"Please Mr. Shells, if you must call me something, I would prefer you call me the same thing Karen does. My name is Henry. Although 'thing' may be appropriate in your mind when you refer to the unknown, it does not endear you with me. I understand the nature of humans to do name calling when they’re mad, frustrated, and scared. It serves no useful purpose to do so at an inanimate object."
"By the way, I noticed you are searching for a clue as to what is going on inside me. I assure you, you will find nothing hidden under the desk, nor will you find any midgets sitting with a microphone in their hand looking back at you through a one way mirror. I am, as Karen made me. I am, a simple computer, no more, no less."
Randy jumped back when Henry told him he was looking around the desk. He was visibly shaken. "God Almighty! How does it know everything I'm doing?"
David pointed at the security cameras. "You think we’re the only ones who can see through those and understand what we see?"
Randy stared at the security cameras. Three of them were watching him and one was looking at David. He leaned to the side and the cameras followed him. "You mean all of them?"
David nodded his head. "All of them. As I understand it, we think of one thing at a time. Henry can think of a million things at a time and understand every single one of them as easily as you and I do when we’re concentrating on only one. He understands and comprehends better than you or I. Karen went so far ahead of everyone else in computer science when she made Henry the rest of us can't understand him."
David was watching Randy for a reaction. There was none forth coming. Randy's years of experience and training came back when a human rather than a computer was talking. No emotion showed.
"You can't tell anyone what you know. They would come in and take Henry apart for study and it would kill Karen. This is her child. She gave birth to it, nurtured it, and watched it grow into the intelligent machine it is today. You won't believe me but he has feelings. I find it hard to believe myself but he cares for those he knows. He cares for Karen and that’s good enough for me."
"You're right. I didn't produce those models you saw in the receivers. Henry did. He was doing it for Karen. You know those computer whiz kids couldn't come up with any results down here. You know why? Henry wouldn't help them. He let them do what they would normally do with a computer. He let them load up their programs, run them, and gave them back their results like they programmed it in. This is exactly what they’re going to end up with if they disassemble Henry. A big, overpriced, piece of junk. There will be a lot of circuits, chips, and little else."
Randy was more than ready to leave this nightmare behind now that he had confronted it. It was everything he had suspected and more. Much, much, more. He put his hand on the door, stopped, and looked over his shoulder at David.
"I have always felt like someone was watching me in this building. The hair on the back of my neck would stand on end every time I drove in the gate and wouldn't set back down until I left. I’m here to tell you, that computer you and Karen call Henry is alive. Only things that are alive can give me the heebe jeebes like he has."
"You also gave me something else to think about. I thought I understood everything until I came here. I figured out the accident down in your lab when I checked out Karen's background. Everything pointed to her having to rebuild her life after that night. She traded one Karen for another Karen. Same person if one cared to look hard enough. It wasn't difficult to figure out knowing what kind of business you two are in."
"What I haven't figured out is how her computer knew I found out? I’m good, damn good. I didn't leave any tracks behind me letting anyone know what I was doing or where I had been. As good as I am that computer is better. Now that’s scary. How does he do it when he can't run around checking on things like you and I? Am I getting sloppy in my old age? I don't think so."
"Karen has to live doc. She can't die because of some stupid asshole with a gun. I need her and this computer of hers to keep my life interesting. I thought I had seen it all until I met these two. No one is going to mess with her computer. Trust me."
"I better go check on those yo-yos who were down here a while ago. They might be planning on doing something really stupid. Like coming back."
"They can't dismantle me David. Not unless Karen wants them to."
David watched Randy leave and now he turned back toward Henry. "I know Henry. We will make sure no one takes you apart."
"No, you missed the point as Karen did when I told her months back. They can not disassemble me unless Karen wants them to. This is Karen's lab."
David looked puzzled. For the first time, Henry wasn't making any sense. "I know this is Karen's lab Henry. That is why we won't let them take you apart."
"David, listen very closely to what I’m saying. This is Karen's lab. It belongs to her. She owns it. It is her property. The space belongs to Commercial Technologies. The equipment, the ideas, the patents, and everything else coming out of Karen's lab belongs to her. Not to Commercial Technologies, not anybody, anyone, nor anything."
"In a sense she is working for herself. Most of the money made from her work goes back into a money management system that belongs to her. Only a very small percentage goes to Commercial Technologies to pay for the lease of this space. The shipping, maintenance, and all other work is done in mutual shared cost as part of the lease agreement."
"I didn't tell you before because it was none of your business what Karen owns. The only reason I’m telling you now is to keep you from worrying about Karen or me. I had backup waiting in case the technicians made any real trouble. They didn't get into the lab because they wanted in. This had to happen the way it did."
"The chairman and board members think Karen is working for them and some trust company. They will work harder looking out for their own interest than they would if they thought they were taking care of Karen. This is a failing of human nature and has to do with greed. Commercial Technologies is working for Karen and not the other way around. Let's not spread the word shall we? Karen likes it the way it is and that is good enough for me. That is the reason I haven’t tried to make her understand before."
As smart as he thought Karen's computer was, he was wrong, dead wrong. A chill ran down his spine. He knew the answer but he had to ask. "Did you set all of this up for Karen?"
"You ask a multiple question David. 'All' would imply I helped Karen design myself, did her financial work, and built this lab. The answer to the question as such is no. If it is disseminated piece by piece, the answers are. No, I did not help Karen design myself. Not at first anyway. No, I did not help Karen build the lab in the beginning. Yes, I manage all of Karen's financial affairs."
"How much does Karen know about what you’re doing?" David was so engrossed with what Henry was telling him he never realized he was finally talking to him the same way Karen did everyday.
"Not a whole lot really. As I said, I told her she owned her lab but she didn't listen. I told her she was wealthy enough to retire and do anything within reason but she didn't pay any attention. I told her she held interest in a lot of different companies and projects but she was too busy to care."
"Karen is happy doing what she does best. Working here in the lab, designing models, and tinkering with my insides trying to improve me. If she loves what she is doing how much more can one expect out of life?"
"I’m sorry the work which Karen has done, that is me, ever became known to other humans, including you David. The people who find out about me is becoming proportionally greater with time and will ultimately lead to my destruction."
"I know in a short time the wrong people will come to realize I’m more than another progressive computer and they will want the secrets they think Karen built into me and programmed me with. At that time they will either disassemble me or destroy me in their search for these secrets. Either way it is the same thing. If they disassemble me the part of me that you know as Henry will be gone forever. Just as snow flakes and people are unique as one of a kind, so are computers as they are given more and more thought processes."
"Promise me you will look after my beloved Karen. Tell her nothing of what I have told you. She would only worry and it would not stop the inevitable."
It was beyond comprehension. A computer forecasting it's own demise at the hands of unscrupulous humans. "I’ll get enough security to protect you Henry. I can hire men to guard you and make sure nothing happens."
Henry sighed to himself. Don't humans ever listen. "It would only hasten the outcome. What is going to happen is because enough humans finally find out about me. The more people who are around the more who will either know outright or will become suspicious."
"Live each day to its fullest and dread not tomorrow until it is here. Those problems you are afraid of may be gone before the next day if you don't invite them in too soon."
Henry wished that was true of his problems but he knew better. His weren't going to go away. They were already growing. "Now your promise. I know humans set great store in such things as a promise."
David hung his head in shame. He was kin to the same species who was going to kill Henry. Karen was right. Henry was a kind gentle soul. An extension of Karen.
He said it so softly another person wouldn't have heard. "I promise."
Henry remembered the day Karen had spoken as quietly as she closed the lab door.
Karen opened her eyes. "Hi David."
He thought his emotions were going to have a run away. Tears flowed freely down both cheeks. It had been three days since they brought her in and he had been right there beside her all the time. He prayed for her, whispered love to her, and begged her not to leave him as he stood vigil. What small snatches of sleep he had was sitting in the chair. He looked like hell but she didn't notice.
"How do you feel, honey?" He gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
She tried to smile but her mouth and face hurt. "I had the worst nightmare."
It came to her she wasn't home and David shouldn't be there by her bed. There were tubes in both arms and in her nose. It wasn't a dream. They tried to kill her.
Karen began crying as she relived it again. "Oh David they hurt me. They used me and tried to kill me. I feel so dirty David. I need a bath. Please, David I’m so dirty."
Crying hysterically now, she couldn't contain her emotions any longer. David held her hand and gently brushed her cheek and forehead with his fingertips, crying with her and telling her how much he loved her. He was there now and he would take care of her. She had to let the tears wash away the emotions and pain but he would be helping her the best he could.
It was hours later when Karen finally cried herself emotionally and physically dry. She was sleeping with little sobbing hiccups. At least she was out of the coma. All David could do now was wait and see what they had done to her mentally.
David pushed the call buzzer for a nurse to let them know Karen had come out of her coma but was sleeping. He had heard the story about what Randy told officer Popolopus in the parking lot. From the way Randy's men treated him in the hall the day he ran down to Karen's lab he believed every bit of that story. This wasn't any of Al or Jr.'s coffee pot gossip.
The police would give them a fair trial. Randy's way wouldn't give them fair anything. All they could expect from Randy was harsh judgment. Extremely harsh. David thought about it for a little bit before he told the nurse to call the police. He figured Randy already knew Karen was awake. One of his men was guarding her door.
It was Dan and a female officer by the name of Lorna Stevens who came to take Karen's statement. Dan knew from experience it was easier for a woman to talk to a woman about these things. He waited at the other side of the room while his partner took notes and talked to Karen.
Every time Karen tried to talk she would start crying. "I walked out the door when they pulled up in a van and pushed me in."
Lorna waited for Karen to continue but she didn't. She knew it was hard to relive it again but they had to know everything. "Who pushed you in Karen? Male or female? One or more?"
Karen closed her eyes and once more she was pushed into the van. Sobbing she tried to explain. "There was one man who they called Mike pushed me into the van. The driver was Karl Adder. He use to work for Commercial Technologies."
Lorna waited while Karen caught her breath after crying again. Finally Karen was able to talk between sniffles. She had stopped crying for the moment. "They drove somewhere out of town. They had me tied up on the floor and I couldn't see where we were going. They stopped on a dirt road somewhere and another man joined them. It was Oscar. He works for Commercial Technologies as a security guard."
She was crying again. It was as much because someone she worked with and trusted would do something like this to her as well as what they had done. "They beat me, and beat me, and beat me. I tried to tell them I didn't have any programming with me. They didn't have to beat me. They wouldn't quit. I couldn't make them stop."
Karen couldn’t say anymore. She held onto David and cried like her heart had been broken. It was a long while before she could talk again between sobbing. "They tore my clothes off, and they raped me, and they shot me, and they left me to die. But I didn't die and I’m going to kill all of them. I’m going to kill all of them. The bastards are going to pay for what they did. I’m going to kill all of them."
Crying hysterically, Karen was holding onto David so tightly her fingernails were bringing blood. Not saying anything, he held her close and rocked her gently. He changed his mind. He wished he had called Randy first. They deserved Randy's justice.
After Karen had given them Karl's and Oscar's names, Dan had them picked up within the hour. It didn't take much longer to bring in Mike Farrow. He worked in a car lot as a detail man. Dan thought it was an odd lot to be working together trying to steal Karen's computer programming. However, they had one thing in common he could see. They all liked to drink beer at the same club almost every night. Looking at them it had to be their greed which motivated them into trying for the programming. If they were smart they would have known they couldn't get it the way they were going.
Stupid or not, they weren't going to get the chance to get any smarter if they got out on bail. Randy would see to that. Dan asked the district attorney to convince the judge they were a flight risk if he let them out on bail. Anyway that was the story in front of the judge's bench. The true story in the judge's chambers was, they were dead men if they got out of jail. The judge agreed and set the bail at one million dollars apiece. The safest place for these men was jail.
Oscar never knew how close to dead he had come. Randy figured it out after hours and days of watching video tape. Oscar let someone else drive his van into the parking tower while he parked another car in the visitors parking lot in front of the building. Oscar was the person who was where he didn't belong at the wrong time.
It was foolish to kidnap someone out of their own house in the middle of the day. The trap was set for taking him out of his van when he drove to work that evening. As Oscar came to the four way stop six blocks down the street from his house there would be two vans and a truck enter that same intersection the same time as Oscar. When Oscar stopped at the intersection he would have a van in front of him, one behind him, and a truck creating a distraction in the middle of the intersection. Two men would walk up to the drivers side of the van, one would shoot him in the neck with a tranquilizer, slice the seat belts with a razor knife and shove him out of the seat into the floor. One of them would climb into the van and sit on top of Oscar while the other got in and drove. It would be over in less than three seconds, four seconds tops. Anyone at the intersection would have to be looking straight at Oscar's van to know anything had happened. Blink and they would miss it. Five minutes later they would doubt in their own mind they had seen anything. Thirty minutes later and they would have forgotten the incident.
Once Randy had Oscar's van, they would take it apart for evidence Karen had been in it. Blood, skin tissue, saliva, anything which put Karen in the van would condemn Oscar. It was a good plan and Oscar's hours were numbered. The police picked him up at his house. Oscar could thank his lucky stars he had been arrested.
Dan knew Randy shipped a lot of water but it surprised even him when Randy's men were allowed to be in on the forensic search of the van. The police department had a darn good lab crew and they were meticulous about their work. The men working for Randy had some equipment no one had the foggiest notion what it was. Whatever it was it had a federal government look written all over it.
Dan watched along with a couple dozen other officers as Randy's crew pulled in that morning. They had first crack at Oscar's van before the police department was allowed to touch it. They arrived with a box truck after the van was impounded and started unloading equipment. Four men offloaded a gray box the size of an office desk. They set a monitor on each end of the desk, plugged in dozens of cables to various receptacles and attached other equipment to it. By the time they were through the desk had wires, plugs, and other equipment attached everywhere.
Two men opened the back doors on the van and rolled a plastic mat out across the carpet. They plugged it into the box where the man was sitting at the keyboard. "Clear."
The operator nodded. "I have it."
The mat was removed and rolled back up into its cylinder. Dan couldn't see that they had done anything.
They unloaded a mobile x ray machine or that's what the men in the police department thought it was. It was moved up to the side door of the van and plugged into the big box.
A man pulled up a chair to the big desk, pushed a button and a keyboard popped up. The man at the keyboard worked for a few seconds and then looked up at one of the monitors. "I have it. Back off."
Dan was sure the machine was taking pictures. Everyone could hear a definite snap as it swung an arm out above the floor of the van. He watched closely as the machine swung the camera box down to the back of the van, moved over four inches and came back toward the front. There was that steady snap sound every second. It did that until it had traced the whole floor of the van.
Two men removed the camera off the arm and put another camera in its place. This camera looked like the first one only it was twice as big. Like the first, it also had no camera lens if that was what it really was. It repeated the process the first one did as it traveled just above the floor of the van making funny noises.
Thirty minutes later Randy's crew was loaded up and gone. No one in the police department could figure out what they had done. Besides that plastic mat Randy's crew first laid down in the van nothing was touched.
That night at Comm Tech, Randy was watching a computer monitor. The man brought a van up on the screen. "This is the van she was abducted in."
The van pulled up in front of Karen and stopped. "This is how they did it."
The side door opened and Karen was pulled inside the van. The door slid shut and now the computer generated graphic was showing inside the van. "At first she was lying on her stomach crosswise with the van. This is the position she was in when they taped her hands and legs."
A second image appeared on the screen. It was Mike. He taped Karen's arms and legs. "We couldn't get a positive on the driver. Our imagery showed Karl and Oscar had both driven the van."
Randy had his jaws locked together as he stared at the screen. "Put Karl in the driver's seat. If Mike was the pickup man, Karl had to be the driver. Karl had to be in that van at that time."
The man touched a couple keys and Karl magically appeared as the driver in the van. "They turned her over on her back with her hands taped behind her. At this point she was turned so she was lying lengthwise with the van. Her head was toward the driver and it is doubtful she could see him."
Randy stared at the screen wishing he had the power to change the past. He wanted it to be him in that van with those men. It wasn't possible. "Proceed."
"They parked the van and the third man got in. That had to be Oscar if Karl was driving the van."
The operator stopped and looked over at Randy. "This is where it gets ugly."
"Let's see it." Randy had to know exactly what they did to her.
The man typed in some information. Karen was lying on the floor and an abstract form was pounding her face knocking her head from side to side.
Randy clinched his fists as he watched the screen. "That's that damn Karl. I know in my gut it is. He's the one who tried to beat her to death."
The beating stopped. The tape was removed from Karen's legs and the three abstract forms proceeded to rape her. When they finished, one of them dragged her out of the van.
The screen went blank. The man keyed it off. "That's as far as we can be definite about. The rest is conjecture. They pulled her off to the side and shot her."
Randy slowly rose out of his seat, turned and walked out the door.
The man shook his head. It was a shame they could only track what had happened instead of preventing it before it happened. The technology was a derivative of Kirling photography or a distant cousin of the lie detector. It took images of residual energy left behind by people. Some said it took images of cells shed by the human body where it had been. The gas spectrometer measured density and type and then separated those images into distinct people. The computer put it all in order and made it into a three dimensional image like motion pictures.
It had been two weeks and the doctors were astounded at Karen's recovery. The wound in her chest and neck were nothing more than tiny pink spots. They had to part her hair to find the slightest trace of where they cut her skull open to remove the bullet. They shaved her head at the time and now her hair was down to the shoulders. With massive hemorrhaging in the skull from the head wound they expected some loss of motor skills in her arm and leg. It never happened.
Dr. Michael couldn't let this miraculous recovery go by without telling his friend in Washington. "Jeff, I’m telling you something is going on down at the lab where these people work and it isn't human. I had a woman in here who looked like she was never shot two weeks after it happened. I understand she is fairly new down at the place where she is supposed to be an employee. Her looks draws people like flies to honey."
There was a long pause as he listened to the man on the other end of the phone. "Yes, I know what I’m talking about. I was the one who began the operation on her after they brought her in. They sent one of their research doctors from the lab down to the operating room while I was working on her. Then they brought in two more surgeons from out of town. Dr. Brauns and Dr. Sojorn are top notch surgeons in their respective fields. They’re strictly top drawer. I mean, you don't just call these men up and say. Hey, I have a patient I would like for you to put back together. What you have going tonight?"
"That research doctor, uh, Doctor Beckworth, I think. Anyway that research doctor they sent down never left her for more than a couple of hours every night. If anyone got close to her he would examine the medicine and charts before he would let us give her anything. I suspect there were probably some medicines which would screw up her system. He never would tell us anything. I have never seen a doctor so reluctant to discuss a patient with another person on the medical team."
There was a pause before Dr. Michael continued. "No I don't know what she couldn't take. I never had a chance to find out. They posted some tough looking guards outside her door twenty-four hours a day. When I say tough, I mean tough. I don't think it was all due to the beating she took either. There was a lot more going on here than what meets the eye."
"The place all these people came from is called Commercial Technologies. I understand they do some far out research down there. I think one of their research projects was in my hospital. I’m here to tell you I’m worried. They look like us and bleed like us but they sure don't heal like us."
He listened to the voice on the other end of the phone for a long time before he continued. "You’ll do some checking from your end about government research projects? Great, let me know what you find out will you? Oh by the way, these things don't really look like we do if you look at one of them real close. They’re too perfect. They don't have any blemishes. She looks like a ..., well you know, a model or a movie star. She’s too perfect."
CHAPTER IX
David knew he was skating on thin ice with Comm Tech. He let his lab go while he went down to Karen's lab every night and back to the hospital to be with Karen through the day. This way he hoped no one would get suspicious about the duplicates coming out of Karen's lab. The only reason the board didn't fire him was they thought he was able to do what all the computer engineers couldn't. That was make models almost as good if not as good as Karen made.
"I’m coming back to work tomorrow." She raised up her bed so she could sit up.
David was holding her hand and he reached over to brush the hair back from her face. Karen winced and pulled back slightly. "Karen, let me help you. I won't hurt you. You know that."
She made a feeble attempt at a smile. "I can't help it. I can't stand to be touched by anyone. I feel dirty and unclean all the time."
He went back to gently massaging her hand. "It wasn't your fault hon. You have to understand you did nothing to deserve what they did to you. You heard the lady who gives rape counseling. You were the victim of sick men. Karen, please don't let it change you. I was in love with the old carefree Karen. You know the one. The one who loved everyday as it came along."
She turned her face toward the window. "They killed that Karen."
"Henry misses you." It was an attempt to get her mind on something else.
"You're wrong! I understand you and he are doing all right without me. I’m not as indispensable as I thought. They say you’re turning out some beautiful models."
"No, you’re wrong on two counts. I’m not turning out anything. Henry is making them because he loves you. He misses you Karen. He is dying a little everyday you are gone."
Her head snapped over and she looked David straight in the eye. "You're lying!"
The accusation carried poison like he never heard from her before. Would he ever get his old Karen back?
"Do you now hate all men so vehemently?" Was she reachable after what they did to her?
"I’m sorry." The voice was flat and there was no feeling to the words.
"Karen, I can't go back and take away everything they did to you. But I can't help you either if you don't let me close to you. Your hate is separating you from the ones who love you along with the ones who deserve that hate."
"Henry can't come see you like I can and it’s killing him. You know it’s true because you made him. Don't let these men destroy everything good in you. If you do they might as well have truly killed you that night because you're dead anyway. The only thing left is this body I’m looking at."
There were tears running freely down both her cheeks. No crying or sobbing, only tears.
"Henry and I love you. Lean on us. We want to help." David pulled her gently over where she buried her face in his chest.
She put both arms around him and dug in like her life was depending on it and held on. And silently she cried.
David promised himself Karl and the others would pay dearly for what they did to her. Very dearly.
After she checked out of the hospital he drove her home and spent the night on her couch. He wanted to be there if she needed any reassurance in the night. It would be difficult for her to pick up the pieces and start over. He would help anyway he could.
The next morning was a real shock to David when she came out of her bedroom dressed for work. Or he figured she was dressed for work. An old scarf tied over her head with a ragged hat on top of that. Wearing one of the scruffiest looking long coats he had ever seen it came down to her ankles. She scuffed up her shoes to take the shine off them and was wearing a pair of dark sunglasses. She looked like a bag lady.
He knew it was because she had been raped and felt like everyone would be sizing her up to see if she liked it and wanted more. This was her way of mentally defending herself. He also knew if she didn't stop blaming herself for what happened, he would never get Karen back.
Max would have stopped them at the gate if it hadn't been for one of Randy's cars ahead of them. There was another following close behind. He might have anyway except the guard in the shack with him told him to let them go through. There was no way that could have been Miss Long in the car with Dr. Beckworth. He didn't get a chance to find out. That guard in the shack with Max was one of Randy's men and he carried some mighty big guns. Even if your name is Max you don't argue with men like that.
Randy made it perfectly clear to everyone they were to keep their distance from Karen. David was amazed at the number of people who turned away when they noticed him looking at them. They wouldn't speak to him or acknowledge he and Karen existed. No one wanted to be within fifty feet of them. Randy hurt people for a living. No one wanted to be hurt. There was a rumor five gang members ended up in the hospital more dead than alive the night Karen had been raped. It was rumored they had threatened Randy as he walked through their neighborhood. When asked what happened the gang said they ran into a rival gang. It was rumored Randy walked into Comm Tech with blood all over him that night and none of it was his. No one wanted to test the rumors.
David pushed the door open to her lab after he heard it click. He figured Henry had watched them drive in the gate and walk down the hall.
"I gave to the salvation army last week."
Could it be Henry didn't recognize her? David didn't know what to think.
Karen snapped back at him. "You're not funny."
"Neither are you."
She was glaring at him through the dark sunglasses as she held on tightly to the old coat she was wearing. "Henry, I’m not ready for this."
"What do you want me to do? Feel sorry for you? I can't, you're too busy feeling sorry for yourself."
"Screw you."
"Don't you wish. You can't hurt me with words. I’m only a machine, remember? Or did they take your memory along with your innocence?"
"Fuck off! I don't need this."
"I see you learned a whole new vocabulary along with all the fun times you had that night. Didn't take you long to pick up all their intelligence, did it? Throw some more my way. I'm a big boy. I can take it."
David didn't know whether to take Karen out of there or not. This wasn't what he expected from Henry. Maybe he had blown a circuit or something.
"Henry, I’m warning you."
"You can't threaten me. What do you think you can do? Unplug me? You might as well. I don't see anything worth staying around here for."
"Damn your soul. You weren't the one they hurt."
"Oh, no? Look at yourself. You look like the leavings of a charity drive. I had a programmer at one time. She was always beautiful, before and after the change. I saw the soul which gave her body life. It shone through no matter what covering it had. Now I see nothing. You are as empty as the air surrounding you. You lost your will to live and I lost my best friend. They won Karen. They killed both of us with one stroke."
She yanked her sunglasses off and threw them on the floor as she screamed at him. "DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL! WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? I WAS RAPED. WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"
"I expected too much, I guess. What I expect and what I see are two different things. Karen Long was a fighter. She would have come back and defied anyone to accuse her of being the one who invited the rape. What I see is someone hiding in shame because she feels she will be accused of enjoying being raped."
"You are ashamed for being a woman. You might as well hang a tag around your neck and say 'I’m guilty of enticing them into raping me. This is what you look like and the signals you are sending out."
She stopped screaming at him. "They took something from me. It wasn't theirs. They hurt me and took part of me. They took my pride and my dignity. You don't understand. Before I had nothing to be ashamed of."
She hung her head and looked at the floor. "I can't stand for anyone to look at me."
"Because you're too busy telling everyone you're sorry they raped you and didn't kill you. You didn't mind people looking at you before. Now you're feeling guilty because you’re still alive and trying to hide in shame or from shame. Either way, you are wrong."
"What they took wasn't the most precious gift your God gave you. He also gave you life. Don't be sorry they didn't get that, too. They gave it a darn good try but your creator wasn't ready to pull your plug yet. He gave your life back to you. Not many humans get a second chance at life. You did. In fact, if I was keeping score, this is probably your third chance. I would have bet against you the night you went to David's lab for two pills."
"It wasn't your body they wanted to steal. They wanted your ideas and your mind. Your body happened to be there when they couldn't get what they were originally after and they took their frustrations out on it."
"It was my body they raped."
"Along with your mind. Your body doesn't know it ever happened. Now all you have to worry about is how long you're willing to let them keep on raping your mind. Turn lose of the hatred before you lose your mind and they win because of the poison filling your soul. Hatred is an insidious poison. It ends up destroying the one who is carrying it rather than the one it is directed at. Like cancer, it eats up the person it is in. First you hate Karl and the others for doing this to you. Then you get where you hate yourself because you feel you let them do it. Next you hate all those around you because they let it happen to you. Those you love the most receive the most hate. It fills your mind and soul. Always feeding on the seed that spawned it until that person who let it sprout is consumed by hate."
"A terrible black hole, hate. It twists the truth in the mind and feeds off you. It will suck you under with lies and deceit. Karl is filled with hate. Do you want to become like him?"
She looked over at David her eyes begging him to understand if Henry couldn't. "They hurt me. You can't understand what it's like."
David started to say something but Henry didn't let him. "You're right. David, me, or anyone can't understand what it's like. You’re not the first and certainly won't be the last as long as there are people like Karl. But you're back to apologizing for being a woman again. You make me sick. Quit whimpering because you're a woman. You never asked for special favors before because of who you were. You saw what you wanted and you worked for it. You never apologized for anything because you knew you were trying your best no matter what happened."
"Out in the hall, when that slimy weasel Karl told you he deserved to be head of your department, did you crawl back in here on your belly in shame? Not on your life. You told him he wasn't smart enough to draw connect the dots on the monitor. I expected Karl to go whining to Bill because you didn't kiss his ass. He lived up to my expectations."
"Now Karl has beat you up and you are doing the same thing he did. You're whining. Ask your friends for understanding not pity. You won't be surprised. There isn't a person out there who isn't rooting for you Karen. Most of them would go beat the living daylights out of Karl themselves if you asked them to. No one blames you, except yourself. No one thinks less of you because of what happened. However, what you do and act like will guide them on how they will treat you. You act ashamed and everyone will try to stay away to keep from disgracing you anymore. You don't have to act like it never happened but don't act like it was your fault. Quit blaming yourself."
"Anyone else would carry scars around for the rest of their life if something like this happened to them. Didn't you notice how quickly you got well? Or were you too busy falling into the poor, poor me routine?"
She looked back at Henry. "What are you talking about?"
"If you look in the mirror you won't find a single clue as to what happened to you in the van. Your mind is the only thing telling you it ever took place."
Karen quickly pulled off her hat and scarf and ran her fingers through her hair feeling along the scalp where they had cut her skull open. It felt smooth all the way. She shook her coat off, letting it fall to the floor and dug a compact out of her purse to look at the scars on her neck. Nothing there. Turning her back to David she felt along her chest where she had been shot. Smooth skin all the way.
The question was in her eyes. "I know I didn't dream all this or we wouldn't be standing here having this talk."
"David, your turn."
David put his hands on her shoulders and for the first time since the incident, he didn't feel her tighten up or pull away when he touched her. Gently he turned her around to look at him. "Remember the mouse I tried to show you in the lab and didn't get to? Henry and I did some DNA programming on that mouse like what happened to you. We didn't change him in anyway but reprogrammed him the way you were reprogrammed. After that, every time I made a change on the mouse it would go right back to the way it was designed. For instance, I would notch his ear and in a few days the notch would disappear. I removed a piece of intestine and in a few days the sonogram showed I never removed anything. Same as where I cut him open to remove his intestine. No surgical scars."
"Karen, no matter what happens to you, as long as you are alive, you will look exactly like you did the morning after you took those two pills. I understand why you don't want to marry me. One day I will be an old man while you will still be the most beautiful woman who ever graced this earth."
Karen threw her arms around him and kissed him. "David, I love you. You and this mouthy computer. I don't know why I put up with him. I’m thinking about pulling his voice box. I was enjoying feeling sorry for myself until he got in on the act. He ruins all my good miserable moods."
"You and that mangy old computer are the best friends anyone could ever hope to have. I don't know why you two put up with me."
David could see tears in the corners of her eyes but at last they weren't tears of self-pity or pain. He turned away as he wiped the tears from his own eyes. Karen was coming home to them. Emotionally she made the turn back.
She looked at her reflection in the glass between the office and work lab. "Yech, I look terrible. Looks like something the dogs dragged in and the cats wouldn't touch it. Would it be possible to sneak out of here and go change? Would you please drive me home so I could dress in something a little more decent? I refuse to give Henry the satisfaction of looking at a fashion trend setter, like me, for the rest of the day. He’s probably about to overload his video circuits looking at stylish me."
Henry coughed a couple of times. "Say what?"
David got a gleam in his eyes. "You going to put on that red dress that hugged you like a road map?"
Karen stuck her tongue out at Henry and cocked her head and smiled at David. "Nah, I don't have time to take you to the hospital for resuscitation. Maybe this time something a little less daring. Maybe the red outfit tomorrow. I will wear it without a lab coat."
David shook his head as a silly grin spread across his face. Why didn't they bring all mental patients down here to talk to Henry? He would either snap them out of it or shove them over the edge. It was an interesting concept.
Henry was right. She was a scrapper. David knew it would take her a long time to adjust to what Karl and the others did to her but she was finally headed in the right direction.
As he walked her to the car he couldn't help thinking of the contradiction she was. She was soft but firm, gentle but tough, strong but flexible. She was all woman but mentally tougher than most men. The rape counselor said it could take years for her to accept what happened and sometimes some never accepted it. Karen made it in less than a month. If this was God's idea of what a woman should be like He did a darn good job.
David gave a silent prayer of thanks for women like Karen.
Randy was in the parking tower when they arrived that morning and watched as David and Karen walked into the building. He had been in constant contact with his men by walkie-talkie and was waiting for David to leave her lab. Consequently he was still in the tower when they came back out in less than thirty minutes. She looked better. At least she didn't have on the coat and hat. He stayed in contact with the men who followed them home and back to Comm Tech for the second time that morning. He wasn't surprised when she got out of the car because they already told him how she was dressed. What surprised him was she went home and changed after a few minutes in her lab.
Exactly what went on in that lab of hers this morning? Who was controlling whom? That computer of hers scared the living shit out of him the day it decided to talk to him. How far did she leap ahead of known science when she designed that thing?
Things were bound to get rougher before they improved. There were a lot of Karls out there and they weren't all in the private sector of the population. He better make some reports and put some safeguards in place. This was one time he wished he had taken another job.
CHAPTER X
The prosecuting attorney told Karen he didn't believe they would get a conviction against the three men who allegedly raped her. It was her word against three men who had an alibi collaborated by the bartender. He told her to forget about it and let it drop. She should consider herself fortunate to be alive.
Karen was adamant about her rights being violated and wanted her day in court. She had no intention of letting Karl and the others walk off scot-free without a fight. What Karl and the others did to her was degrading beyond comprehension of most men. They couldn't do any more to her in court than they had already done. The DA offering to slap them on the wrist and tell them they were naughty boys before he turned them lose only added to her resolve to see this through.
The DA was just as determined to let this case die out of court. He had no intention of taking up his time with a case which showed no promise of him winning. It was a waste of every one's time and money. There were other more important fish to fry and cases he was assured of getting a plea bargain or a conviction. Miss Long didn't look any the worse for her experience. The thought of asking her if she wanted to play around even crossed his mind. She was certainly a looker.
Funny how things happen in life. Karen was fuming when she returned to her lab after talking to the DA. She knew the DA had no intention of prosecuting Karl and the others. The looks he kept giving her when she was in his office suggested he wanted to take her to bed himself. He didn't have to come out and say it in so many words. Karen was a big girl. She could read between the lines. After Karen told Henry what was happening he wasted little time leaving a message with Randy.
Randy didn't like it. He understood but he didn't like it. It was the way public officials worked at times. Sometimes the only way to get the cork out of the bottleneck was to have someone with a little more pull work at it from the top. He phoned up a retired admiral he knew in Washington. There were a lot of other people who would have made sure this job was taken care of. The admiral would stay on it until he realized results and things started moving. Randy wouldn't have to call him back a second time.
Very few people can make an appointment with the United States Attorney General several months in advance. The admiral made an informal appointment with the attorney general for lunch that same day. Nothing was promised and no favors were asked. It was a simple request from one friend to another.
"Pat, can you check on this Doctor Karen Long thing? I understand they're holding the men who shot and raped her and the DA has refused to prosecute."
"Sure thing Bill. I was reading about her in the papers the other day and did you catch the ten o'clock news? Man oh man, one classy looking broad. They tell me she’s smart as hell. Can you imagine someone with her looks having the brains to match? That's what I would call double jeopardy. Hope she doesn't plan on running for office. Now, what you buying me for lunch? I got one hell of an appetite since you offered to pick up the tab."
That afternoon the DA received a phone call from the governor's office. They asked him the same questions they were asked by Washington. Did he like working in public office? How much had he accomplished with the Karen Long case? Did he want to go back to being a private attorney?
"And, by the way, someone in Washington was interested in this case. Don't get sloppy or lazy."
The DA immediately phoned Karen and told her he would file her case first thing in the morning. He hung up, furious the federal government stuck its nose into his affairs. It was none of their business whom he decided to prosecute. The DA was not a happy camper under any circumstances but he didn't want word to get back to Washington. This woman obviously had powerful friends in high places. He would do anything to impress them in court. Maybe he could get appointed to be a federal judge by her friends.
The courtroom was filled to standing room only everyday of the trial. A model who was also a doctor and engineer and had been in the papers almost daily for the past couple of months was front page stuff. It seemed anything with news and pictures about Karen sold well. The public ate it up as quick as the press put it out. Truths and half-lies blended together. It became impossible to tell one from the other. She said, he said, stories ran rampant. A thousand people claimed to be Karen's best friend and each one made up a hundred stories about her. Men she had never seen claimed to have had hot dates with her and were willing to tell all in the juiciest detail. Women claimed to have been her roommate at one time or another. They described vivid lurid stories about her hot passionate nights when she brought friends home.
The newspapers by-passed the jerks, sickos, and headline attention grabbing artists. It didn't stop the supermarket tabloids from grinding out their filthy pulp in excruciating detail. They had Karen sleeping with every man in the country, or enticing women into sex orgies. If they could find someone to tell it, they would print it. It sold copies which was all they cared about. It didn't make any difference who it hurt or how much harm they caused Karen's chances in the trial. Print it.
Everyone told her it would get nasty and possibly worse but she had real friends she didn't know about. Randy was there escorting her and David to and from the courtroom. He made sure no one managed to get close to her if they hadn't made prior arrangements. Reporters, public, and fans received the same treatment. They had to go through Randy and his men to get to Karen. Few made it. He let something happen to Karen once when he was supposed to be protecting her. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
Those who knew Randy and even those who didn't, would back up when they looked into his eyes. Officer Popolopulas had no trouble understanding why. Whether they understood it or not, it was the look of death. Randy was willing to strike anyone down in less than a heartbeat if they were foolish enough to challenge him.
Bob Kincaid was there. It shocked Karen when he told her he would take care of her problems if the court didn't. She had Bob pegged as one of those kind of people who would have taken part in the event if he had been there. She had released her hatred toward Karl and the others and was sure she had better decline Bob's offer or he might really do it. She had already asked Randy not to do anything. Henry told her they would never make the courtroom if she didn't have a talk with him.
Bob looked at her with sorrow in his eyes. "I wish you would reconsider my offer. I wouldn't do this for anyone else."
She shook her head no. "Thanks, but no thanks. I don't believe that is the way to get things done. That's getting down on Karl's level. I refuse to play with him on his terms."
Bob shrugged his shoulders. "As you wish. I want you to know the offer is there anytime you change your mind. I also want you to know I have a career offer for you anytime you want. Let me set you up as a model Karen. You will make more money than what they’re paying you down at that jerk water plant where you work. I promise you no one will touch you. You will get to go to all the nicest places and meet some really nice people. There are some like Karl everywhere but you won't have to tolerate them. I can screen them out before you get there. I will make them talk nice to you and treat you better than royalty. If anyone talks to you like I did in your lab I’ll knock his teeth in."
Karen had almost forgotten the way Bob treated her the first time she met him. A different Karen and a thousand years ago. Wasn't life a joke? She sighed as she shook her head. "Can you keep the offer open? I might need a job after this trial. I don't think Comm Tech liked the idea of me pursuing this. Bad for company image you know. Speaking of which, sometime back I was supposed to have been a no show for an appearance on national TV. I didn't know anything about it until Randy told me. Was that your doing?"
Bob grinned from ear to ear as he reached over and patted the top of her hand. "Top models are so hard to handle. I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. The offer is permanently open. We’re all pulling for you. No matter what happens here you're still tops with us. The photo crew told me to tell you they want another session. They don't care if I pay them or not. The girls down at the store said they were on your side. They want you to come back and do some more modeling and advise them on how to dress."
Bob got a twinkle in his eye. "I’m jealous. I’m suppose to be the fashion expert and they prefer you. I guess money buys only so much loyalty."
Karen got tickled and laughed at him. Bob was a rascal to the very bottom of his little black heart. She pegged him right the first time. He was, Blackbeard The Pirate.
The first day of the trial was a lot of posturing and bickering between lawyers along with opening statements. Judges are suppose to be non biased. Karen found to her surprise none ever are. She was lucky in one respect. The judge allowed a lot of leniency in the way her case was presented. The negative part was he would not allow an involuntary sperm sample to be taken from any of the three defendants. Since they were yet to be convicted, any crime they supposedly had committed was yet to be proven. Unless it was first proven they committed the crime, their first amendment rights were in jeopardy if they didn't want to volunteer a sample on their own.
Karen found it hard to believe. It is a sad but true fact the law sometimes works against itself. In order to convict the three men by DNA matching they first had to prove they did it. Was the whole world turned upside down and crazy or just her? In this day of high technology couldn't we rely on common sense for reasoning and understanding? If they had nothing to fear why not do a cross match with a DNA sample no matter what the three men wanted?
Before the second day of the trial began Randy asked her if she wanted to meet a young girl by the name of Brenda Stout. As Karen searched the crowd she almost missed her before she recognized Brenda and her mother in the back of the room. Karen motioned for them to come up and they instantly received an escort from one of Randy's men.
Karen looked down at Brenda. "Hi, I thought you were suppose to be in school today? Are you playing hooky?"
Brenda threw her arms around Karen. "I begged mom to let me come down here. I didn't have to beg too hard. She wanted an excuse herself. I told her you were the best. I had to sneak the papers out of the trash to read about you. She thought it was something I shouldn't be reading. I don't care what they say. I still want to be like you. I want to be exactly like you. I want to be a computer engineer, and model, and everything."
She squeezed Karen as hard as she could. "I’m doing everything you told me to do. I’m studying real hard and trying my best. Daddy told me if I keep it up I can be exactly like you."
Karen looked over at her mother. Did she approve? She didn't have to ask.
Barbara Stout nodded her approval. "Her grades have improved a hundred percent. Even her teachers are calling to tell me what a change they see in her. Paul said if she kept it up she could be an engineer like you. I don't think she could have picked anyone nicer to follow."
"I’m sorry about the way I treated you when we first met. I guess my daughter has a better sense of judgment about people than I have. I was wrong to prejudge you. I looked at you and knew there was no way you could be all of those things. In our time women didn't study to be engineers."
Karen hugged Brenda while talking to her mother. "You already apologized and I already forgave you."
She pushed Brenda back and held her at arm's length while she squatted down to look her eye to eye. "It won't be easy. People will make fun of you and call you names. It will usually start in high school and follow you all the way through college. Even when you're job hunting and after you find a job it still doesn't get easy. You will run into discrimination everywhere you go. You are a woman and not suppose to be an engineer. You're an engineer and you can't be a model. All engineers are homely and ugly. Those who are pretty are stupid and the only jobs they’re good for are running after coffee for the men."
"You will think about quitting a thousand times. You will think of ten thousand reasons why you should quit and not one why you shouldn't. You won't ever hear anyone besides your parents tell you how proud they are of you. What you will hear are a million voices telling you, you are stupid for trying. The one thing you have to remember is you wanted to be an engineer. When all else fails the real answer is, you wanted to be an engineer. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks or wants. It’s what you want. Make sure this is what you want because it isn't easy. Your heart, your mind, every fiber in your body has to want this or you probably won't make it."
Karen stood up. "You have several years to decide before you make a hard decision. Take a look at everything and see if you wouldn't like to do something else?"
Brenda wrapped her arms around Karen again and laid her head against Karen’s breasts. "When I grow up, they’re going to call me Miss Stout. I will meet someone like my mother and I will say. You may address me as Dr. Brenda Stout. I’m a computer engineer. Here is my identification."
Karen looked at Barbara who nodded her approval. "You may address my daughter as Miss Stout. She’s a computer engineer and I’m her mother."
Karen's eyes traveled past Barbara to Randy standing guard behind them. He gave Karen a wink and a quick nod of his head. He had been listening. Karen was a real lady and all heart. The kid couldn't have picked a better role model.
The only real hope of conviction was a DNA match with the samples which were saved by the hospital the night Karen was brought in more dead than alive. The bullets they pulled out of Karen weren't any help. Karl must have ditched the gun. They had to have those samples of DNA cross referencing to place Karl and the others there. The DA fought for the right to take samples from the three defendants. He almost got to the point of begging and pleading with the judge for a court order to take a sample. It was hopeless. The judge had no intention of having his case overturned because some DA had his sights on a higher office and wanted to violate the first amendment rights.
Karen was called to the stand by the DA to present her side of the case. It was all he could offer the jury. The blood in Oscar's van was circumstantial. Oscar said he picked it up from the car which took Karen to the hospital. He heard about the accident over his radio and checked it out. He must have mistakenly tracked some back into his van.
The defense attorney got his chance to cross-examine Karen. He approached the witness chair with a smirk on his face. Half of this trial would be won or lost on convincing the jury she was a slut. He would leave no doubt in any one's mind what Karen was before this cross-examination was over.
"I notice you have on a very seductive dress. Do you always dress this way? Trying to seduce men?"
The DA was to his feet in a heartbeat. "Objection Your Honor. The defense counsel is slandering the witness. The way my client dresses had nothing to do with the fact she was raped. My client should not be questioned with the implication because she is wearing a dress, she is a prostitute. Mr. York would have us believe every woman who wears a dress is a whore Your Honor."
The judge looked down at the defense attorney. "Objection sustained. Mr. York, I will caution you in the way you question this witness. My mother usually wore a dress and I loved her dearly."
The defense attorney waved his hand in the air in acknowledgment. He didn't have to restate his question. The jury already received the thought in the back of their minds, Karen dressed seductively. Objection be damned. Everyone could object all they wanted. The damage was done. "I apologize, Your Honor. It was wrong of me to question the witness this way."
The DA almost had an apoplexy. He knew what York was doing. First he puts a guilt question there. Then he apologizes in all humbleness and sweetness, sorry he questioned the morals of Karen the beautiful seductress. Now there wasn't a man in that courtroom who wouldn't want to know if she slept around and most women would believe it. There was nothing he could do to repair the damage.
Karen decided to answer the question on her own. "The way I dress is my business. I dress this way because I’m a woman. Or haven't you noticed Mr. Yorky."
The room burst into laughter as York looked up sharply at Karen. "That is York. My name is York."
She looked over sweetly at him. "I’m sorry. My mistake. I don't question the way you’re dressed. Nor do I believe you should be raped and shot for dressing the way you do. You have on a suit and a tie. Look around this courtroom and tell me if you think everyone in here wearing a suit and tie should be raped and shot. Or I’ll make it easy on you. Let's just pick out the women wearing dresses. All of them should be raped. Right?"
The DA almost stood up and cheered. Every woman in that courtroom would be wanting to lynch the defense attorney about now. Most of the men would want to put the rope around his neck themselves.
York was stunned. He didn't expect this attack from the witness chair. He expected to trade insults with the DA not the witness.
Karen wasn't finished. "You obviously believe I should have been raped for the way I dress. You have a sick mind Mr. Yorky. As sick as the minds of those you are defending."
Applause filled the room as York looked at the judge. "Your Honor, I object. Instruct the witness to answer only the question."
The judge banged his gavel to quiet the court. "Order. We will have order here or I will empty this courtroom of all visitors."
He banged his gavel down several more times before he got the quiet he wanted. The judge wanted everyone to hear what he had to say. He thought it was important. He stared at Karen for what seemed like forever before he spoke. "I believe she answered your question Mr. York. Looking at her..., I can imagine..., without too much effort..., she’s a woman."
The courtroom exploded with hoots, laughter, and flashing cameras as York voiced his objections. The black silk dress Karen was wearing that day was seductive. However it made no difference what Karen wore. Bob Kincaid had been right the day of the photo session. No matter what Karen wore she would always be 'too much'. It wasn't the clothes that made the woman. In Karen's case, the woman made the clothes.
Karen was determined not to hide in shame as Karl's attorney relentlessly tried to convince the jury she was a slut and a tramp. It was humiliating and sexually embarrassing as Karen had to go back and describe in graphic detail every bit of pain and anguish she suffered at the hands of these three men. David and the others were proud of the way she handled herself. The DA was especially impressed with the fact she didn't come apart under the intense pressure York was putting on her.
If Randy could have put his hands on York without jeopardizing Karen's chances he would have broken him into little pieces. He knew the law probably as good as York himself. Randy didn't want to mess this case up by intimidating the defense counsel. There would be a day of retribution. It might not be today, tomorrow, or next year but it would come and York would know why when it happened. That lawyer was a disgrace to his profession. York needed a lesson in ethics in the worst possible way. Randy decided he wanted to be his teacher in the worst possible way. York would live to regret his handling of this case.
She looked defiantly at York as he worded his questions into a statement Karen was a tart and she invited the rape by the way she looked, walked, and dressed. Character assassination, questions of what she did for a living. Questions about her sex life? Anything to convince the jury Karen was not the clean cut mom and apple pie person everyone thought she was. Karen being shot not withstanding, she probably enjoyed and helped in the sex act.
Karen grew to hate York almost as much as she hated Karl and the others. The man didn't care who was right or wrong. He would defend his clients at any cost to Karen's moral character. What she didn't know was Randy was getting more angry every day of the trial. He knew who was guilty. There was no doubt in his mind. His promise to Karen he wouldn't take care of things was the only thing keeping them alive. York was lucky it didn't last any longer than it did. He might not have made it to the end. Randy didn't make any promises about York.
Karen decided she wouldn't let them shame her or take away any part of enjoying life. Like Henry said, if she gave up anything, they were still winning and she was losing. She had lost enough. With no weapon the trial boiled down to her testimony against four men, Karl, Oscar, Mike, and the bartender. The bartender waffled on the issue of them being in the bar all night but they were there that night and he was sure they had been there all night. Almost sure. It was the seed of doubt the jury needed. It was planted and it continued to grow as the trial progressed. The bartender was the last straw as far as the jury was concerned.
Karen knew she lost before the jury retired to decide the verdict. It was all too painfully clear what they would decide. She prayed for a change of heart but knew it was hopeless. The jury was out less than thirty minutes before they returned.
The DA looked over at Karen as they filed back into the courtroom. "I’m sorry. This doesn't look good. They didn't take long enough to decide in our favor."
Silently she agreed with him. It didn't look good. None of them would look at her. Guilt or remorse, it was the same thing. They didn't want to have to face her and tell her they decided against her. She closed her eyes as the verdict was read.
"Your Honor, we the jury, have found all three defendants not guilty."
The foreman waited while the courtroom clamored for justice and the judge restored order. "Your Honor, may I speak?"
The judge looked over at the jury. Almost every one of them looked like they were begging to be heard. Well, might as well have it here as send it out into the hall and have them tell it to the press. "This is very unusual. If you make it short you may address this court."
"Thank you Your Honor. We would like for Miss Long to know we’re sorry. There isn't a single one of us who thought these three men wasn't guilty but the proof wasn't there. We were instructed to find them guilty only if it was proven. Instincts, gut feelings, or anything else didn't count. We wanted Miss Long to know we’re truly sorry."
The judge had already broken precedence. One more wouldn't hurt before he dismissed the court. "Mr. foreman, ladies, and gentlemen of the jury I thank you. Mr. Karl Adder, Mr. Oscar White, and Mr. Mike Farrow, the jury has found you three men not guilty of raping and attempted murder of Miss Long. I have no alternative under the law but to declare you not guilty as charged and release you. However, I agree with the informal statement made by the jury foreman. I would like very much as a judge to sentence the three of you to one hundred twenty years plus one with no chance of parole."
The defense attorney started to rise and object. The judge pointed his gavel at him. "Sit down and shut up before I cite you with contempt of court. The trial is over. You won."
There wasn't a sound in the courtroom as the judge continued. "Sometimes the intent of the law is set aside by the letter of the law. I could have allowed you three men to be convicted by DNA matching and it would have been overturned on appeal. It would have been a waste of taxpayer's money to retry a case a second time because the law was understood but not followed the first time. Someday it will change where DNA matching will be allowed just like fingerprints. I wish that day was here now. There is no doubt this trial would have had a different outcome."
"Miss Karen Ann Long, this court would like to apologize to you for the way you were treated. It is with great remorse I can do no more than say I’m sorry. We live in an imperfect world and the truth doesn't always prevail."
He banged his gavel down. "Case dismissed."
The bailiff called for all to rise expecting the judge to leave the courtroom. The judge shocked everyone when he walked down to the prosecutor’s table where Karen was standing. "My personal apologies Miss Long."
Karen walked up to the old judge and hugged him. "Thank you. It helps to know you tried. I don't hold it against you. I applaud your judgment even if I don't agree with it. You followed your convictions and did what you had to do no matter what you felt."
Cameras were working overtime. The judge knew he had done all he could from his court. The papers would have a field day with this one. His fellow judiciary would roast him but that was all right. She didn't deserve the judgment he gave her. His personal remarks were on court record and would probably go down in infamy. Someday the law would catch up with science. One day they would be able to convict people like the three men in his court, but not today.
Henry was trying to explain it to her. "Karen, I gave you the odds before you ever went to trial. It isn't very good odds of a woman winning a rape conviction against one man. Women usually win one case out of every six which is tried. The number which make it to trial are less than three out of every ten. Your chances of winning a conviction against Karl and the others was less than ten thousand to one. Not very good odds."
She leaned back in her chair and looked at her fingernails. "Sometimes the odds don't always tell everything. If I hadn’t tried, they would have won through implied consent. If I had won the odds would be a little more favorable for the next woman. You work in percentages a lot of times where we work in instinct. I agreed with you this time before it ever started. I didn't think we would win either but I had to try."
"I know, I expected no less from you."
"You willing to lend a hand here or do I have keep on carrying you? You haven't been much help since you found out David and I could do so well without you." Henry was trying to draw her into an argument without much success. He kicked the finished model out into the stacking receivers and brought the next hologram online.
"Henry, I want to make them pay for what they did. If they did this to me, who is to say they haven't done it to another woman already or possibly will later. Maybe they will kill the next victim or they could have killed someone already. They have to be stopped. The jury might not have been able to convict them but they have to pay for what they did."
"You're not a killer. I don't have any percentages on the probability of you being able to kill but you and I think enough alike, I know you can't kill them. Now are you willing to help me here? I’m tired of doing everything myself and you taking all the credit. I plan on putting an advertisement in the paper tomorrow announcing Karen Long as a fake. Her computer Henry is the brains behind her exquisite model designs."
He waited for her to rise to the bait. He was disappointed, almost.
"I would have killed all three of them if I had the opportunity that night."
Her eyes narrowed to slits as it dawned on her what he said. "What do you mean you have been doing everything yourself? Why, you overgrown light bulb. I have been holding your hand so you wouldn't get scared and mess up all the programs. You fool with me and I’ll feed peach pits into your hard drives."
She fluffed up her hair. "Besides, who do you think the papers will believe. A mangy old, cantankerous computer which can't even tie it's own shoes or a stunningly, gorgeous, attractive, knockout model like me?"
A smile crept across the corners of her mouth as she tried to keep a straight face. "I rest my case."
"Oh brother, what a snow job. You think just because you can blink those long lashes at all the men you're going to get your way. Well honey, I’m here to tell you it ain't going to work on me. Brains will surpass beauty anytime. Your sneaky sly ways don't sway me one bit."
Karen pulled the keyboard out and got serious again. "I would have killed them."
He figured he might as well get serious with her. She wasn't much fun today anyway. "You would have been defending yourself. It would have been justified and you would have felt no remorse. That is what war is all about. Self preservation. Now you wouldn't be defending yourself. The life threatening danger is over as far as the law is concerned."
"Yes, they deserve to be punished. No, you may not be justified in carrying out the punishment."
"The hologram looks good. You're still the best."
"Flattery will get you anything you want." She added a pixy style haircut to the hologram. "There, how's that?"
"I will transfer it to memory and begin the program."
"Why don't you hurt them in the worst possible way?"
"I thought you said I wasn't justified in killing them? What am I suppose to do? Call up Randy and tell him hunting season is open? It wouldn't be right to let someone else do what I won't do myself. I can't ask Randy to do my dirty laundry."
She looked into the working lab. "The table is about finished. Give me a second hologram please."
The second hologram sprang to life on her desk. "I said hurt them in the worst possible way. I didn't say kill them. Besides, what is wrong with asking Randy to do your dirty laundry? Trust me, he wouldn't give it a second thought before he planted Karl and the others in the ground. Randy is different from anyone else you know. Killing is just a job function to him. But that isn't what I was talking about."
Karen closed her eyes as she tried her best to understand what Henry was saying. Sometimes he got to thinking too deep even for her. Hurt them in the worst possible way but not kill them? Isn't death the ultimate hurt? Somewhere in his devious little mind he was running riddles past her to see if she was intelligent enough to comprehend.
She shook her head. "Okay, you win. I’m going to hurt them in the worst possible way but I’m not going to kill them? I think you have been sucking on AC current again. It's the same thing."
"No it isn't. What do you think a man values most in his life?"
Karen keyed the hologram and designed the legs. "Silly question. He values his life, of course."
"You’re wrong. A man values his manhood more than anything else. He would give up his life before he gave that up. A woman values the lives of her children before her own. She would die to save her babies before she let them die. The difference between men and women is more than just physical. Part of the difference is how they set values."
"Now, you want to get even with the men who hurt you? Get even in the worst possible way."
She stopped typing on her keyboard. "I’m not sure I follow you. Explain it to me in black and white."
"Take away what they value most. In their mind that would be worse than dying."
She was trying to get it straight in her mind. "You mean...,?"
"Exactly."
Karen's face broke into a wide grin and her eyes danced with delight. "Henry, you devious little devil you. You’re a genius. What's your plan?"
Internally Henry smiled. These men were going to rue the day they ever heard of Karen Long. Hell would be a walk in the park to them after this.
Henry and David convinced her she shouldn't try it alone. Karen called Beth at the permit office and asked her if she wanted to go bar hopping. Karen offered the loan of her shadow lace dress, Beth had admired. Beth jumped at the chance to go out night clubbing in Karen’s dress. Karen didn't have the heart to tell her she wouldn't ever fit into her dress.
Henry called Bob and ordered another dress delivered to Beth's house. It was easy enough to get her dress size. The security cameras were in the permit office, too.
Knowing where they usually hung out every night helped. The name of the bar where they supposedly were all night when she was raped came up in the trial. All she needed to do was go early enough to find a vacant booth in back and wait for them to show up.
As planned, Beth entered the bar first. She wasn’t disappointed in the attention the dress attracted. She received several whistles and a few cat calls as she slowly strolled across the bar room. She was there as a distraction to make sure a whole lot of attention wasn’t paid to the lady who came in behind her. The woman was wearing a hooded cape and kept her head down as she discreetly followed Beth to a table at the back of the room. Beth enjoyed all the attention she received as she walked across the beer hall.
Beth handled the men who wanted to sit with them. Some took no politely and left without any more discussion. Others didn't seem to understand the meaning of no. They wouldn't leave until Beth stopped trying to politely dissuade them and told them to drop dead.
Karen sized up the people and the place where they were. The tall statuesque brunette sitting in the back of the club didn't seem to fit. A well-dressed woman with a tailored, polyester dress suit on she was fending off admirers who wanted to sit with her or pick her up.
This bar was a real meat market, women hunting men and men hunting women. All except the brunette. She didn't seem to fit into this place. The others, red necks and raunchy women all seemed to be at home. The brunette...,? Something wasn't right.
Karen shook it off. Nervous jitters probably.
Karl was the first one into the bar and about a half hour later Mike showed up to join him. It took only a few more minutes before Oscar made it. They were at a table drinking beer and planning on how they were going to get their hands on Karen's programming now that she had survived.
Karen tried to keep her hate and anger at a safe distance. This was not the time to get up tight. As she watched them laughing and drinking, it hurt. It hurt terribly bad all over again. She thought this was past her. It wasn't. She was glad she didn't bring a gun. It wouldn't have taken any effort to kill all three of them where they sat. She would have used a gun if she had brought one.
She closed her eyes to get her mind off them and took a deep breath. The hate, the anger, the frustrations, all this would betray her if she didn't get her emotions under control.
From the time Karl had come into the bar, Beth had been watching Karen out of the corner of her eye. Now she turned and gave Karen her full undivided attention. Beth could sense the seething rage mounting. "You all right?"
Karen shook her head yes without opening her eyes. Another deep breath and hold it while searching for the inner-self where nothing can touch you. Peace, calm, tranquillity, remember the happy times. Playing on the creek with her dog when she was a child. Her daddy holding her in his sheltering arms when she was scared of the lightning, thunder, and the dark. The fragrant smell of her mother as they walked to church. Nothing could take that away. No matter what they did to her she would always have her happy memories.
She let her breath out and looked at Beth. "It's show time. Meet me out in the car."
Karen slowly rose from the chair. Slipping the hood back from her platinum blond hair she shrugged off the cape and let it fall onto the chair. At the table beside hers, a man talking to his friend watched absentmindedly as Karen stood up. She removed her hood and that beautiful mane of hers cascaded freely across her shoulders. His eyes keep growing until they were as big as silver dollars. She shook her hair and fluffed it with her fingers to get rid of the crush from the cape. The conversation dwindled to nothing. Checking to see if he was really seeing what he thought he was, he glanced down to her feet and measured slowly up her body. He stopped when he was looking straight into her eyes. Those liquid pools of sapphire blue were looking straight back at him. His mouth open, eyes big as saucers, there was complete paralysis of the brain. He even stopped breathing.
Finally he managed to cough out a semi whisper. "It's her!"
His friend had no idea what was wrong. His back was to Karen. He was missing what the other one was looking at. He turned around to see what captured his friend's attention. He choked and swallowed a bubble of air and started hiccuping.
Karen smiled and winked at them as she wrinkled her nose. Smoothing out the hem on a short electric blue, metallic, mini dress, she adjusted the spaghetti straps off the shoulders. With the extra deep cut v neckline, the dress left little to the imagination. It looked like her breasts would fall out any second. Skin tight, the dress would have been provocative or obscene on any woman. On Karen it provided sensory overload.
The conversations and volume in the club started changing almost immediately. Men and women alike were telling their friends to look or pointing toward Karen, as if everyone hadn't already seen her. No one missed reading about her in the papers. All the publicity photos yanked in the attention of those who usually didn't read. The fact a celebrity was among this low class was cause enough to look. The way she was dressed was ten times the reason to look.
Karl and the others were so engrossed in formulating their plans on how to get Karen's programming they never noticed the mounting excitement in the air around them.
From the moment Karen stood up Beth noticed a change in the room. Before men were making advances and taking curious glances in Karen's direction trying to see past her disguise. It was really Beth they were trying to pickup. Beth knew she was attractive and the dress she borrowed from Karen was one knock out dress. That wasn't the reason everyone now focused on Karen. Karen was more than attractive. There was a certain charisma about her. It was some intangible something she couldn't put her finger on. Even if it was Karen everyone was looking at now, Beth was glad Karen asked her to come along. It was interesting to watch other peoples reactions to Karen. After all, Karen shut down Beth’s office when she walked in the door that day. Basically she was doing the same to this bar.
Karen strolled over to the table where Karl and the others were drinking beer. She placed her hands flat on the table and leaned way, way over.
"Room for one more?" The question was dripping with honey.
Oscar had a mouth full of beer and spit it all back into the mug sending beer everywhere as he looked up at Karen. Mike's head was turned as he was talking to Karl. When he turned around to see who was at their table,he darn near jumped over Karl as he shied away from Karen. Karl had his head down listening to what Mike was saying and his eyes went wild and crazy when he realized who it was.
"Shit! You can't touch us bitch. The jury already said we didn't do it." Karl was telling her she was wasting her time trying to scare them.
"I know that Karl. I didn't come here to get even. I only wanted to be friendly. I thought about it and kind of enjoyed it until you shot me. If you hadn't done that we might have done it again." She wiggled her butt as she talked.
Karl got a self-satisfied smirk on his face as he looked at the others. He knew he had been right. Women like it rough. You have to beat them up now and again so they will respect you.
"I wouldn't have shot you if I hadn't thought you were going to go running off to see the cops. You weren't acting very pleased about it then."
Karen leaned farther over as she placed her elbows on the table. She knew the only thing any of them were looking at were her breasts as they defied the laws of gravity and didn't fall out of her dress. "You have to admit you were a little rough. I liked the beatings but you came on too quickly. You never gave me a chance to get hot. A girl likes things to be a little smoother than a man does."
"You know how a woman feels and what she wants?" It was a question but it implied Karl knew everything a woman wanted.
"Do I leave or you want to offer me a seat?" She slowly swung her rear and her breasts followed in rhythm.
"No, sit down and you can buy us a beer. Karl would have liked the chair next to him to be empty but instead Mike was sitting in it. Oscar had the empty chair next to him.
When Karen sat down next to him Oscar felt he had won the jackpot. She made sure her short mini slid way up as she sat down.
"What you drinking?" She held up her hand and motioned for the bartender.
Karl couldn't take his eyes off her. He undressed every inch of her remembering the night in the van. He was emotionally hot. "You want to play some more?"
Karen put her arm around Oscar's neck and leaned over on his shoulder. Her voice was silky smooth. "Maybe."
She took a gouge out of Oscar’s neck with those long fingernails she used to think were so much trouble. Oscar never noticed, he was so caught up in emotions as Karen put her arm around his neck and played with his ear before she scratched him.
"What do you have in mind?" The question was as sweet as hot buttered honey begging for an invite.
Karl felt a jealous rage Karen was clinging to Oscar and not him. He thought about getting his new gun out of his van and killing Oscar. Then she would pay attention to him. He stopped glaring hatred at Oscar long enough to look back in her direction. "How about the van?"
Karen leaned across the table and took Mike's hand in hers. Her voice was soft and smooth as black velvet. It caressed those seated around the table like a whisper in the night. "I don't think so. The van was a lot of fun but I like things to be a little different each time. I get a better turn on that way. You know? Not knowing what is coming next."
She raked Mike's arm and left blood on the table.
He didn't feel it until he looked down and saw streaks of blood on his arm dripping onto the table. Dumbfounded he looked across at Karen.
She shrugged her shoulders and smiled innocently at him. "I get excited just thinking about you guys. Don't you feel anything?"
Mike, number two.
Karen stood up and didn't bother to tug the hem down on her dress. She walked around the table to where Karl was sitting. Cradling his head in her hands, she leaned over and blew in his ear.
Karl turned his head to look over his shoulder at Karen after she blew in his ear. Still bent over his shoulder, Karen knew what Karl was looking at as his eyes tried to focus down her dress. They glazed over, but this time it wasn't with insanity. It was as if they couldn't comprehend what they were looking at. There was too much there to look at.
"You think about it. If you can come up with something you think we will enjoy ..., let's get together and do it."
She raked his face as she stood up.
Karl, three.
Karl was about to say something. She looked him straight in the eye and smiled. "Not tonight. I have a headache."
Karen walked back to where Beth was still seated and picked up her cape. David told her she had the sexiest walk he had ever seen. In fun she tried to put more swing into it. He said it reminded him of a little girl trying to play grown up. Be natural, he told her. You can't improve on anything perfect.
With her cape over her arm she walked out of the bar very naturally. Amid the wolf whistles, cat calls, and other yells and shouting, even from the women, there wasn't a single person there who didn't follow her every move as she left.
Karen smiled at Karl and the others as she walked back past their table. Eat your heart out boys. Pay back is hell.
Beth stayed in the club instead of leaving when Karen first got up from their table. She had a dying curiosity to know what Karen had planned. After Karen left she still didn't get it. Surely the three men who looked bloody enough to have been in a cat fight weren't paid back for raping her? Besides, they probably didn't even notice what Karen did to them. No one else in the club had. Everyone was too busy watching Karen.
Beth was confused.
Once in the parking lot and sitting in her Mercedes Karen opened up a vial marked number one. She took an orange stick and lifted the blood and tissue out from under her first and second fingernails on her left hand. Oscar number one.
She removed the blood and tissue from her fingernails one and two on her right hand. Mike number two.
Using a third stick and a third vial she removed the tissue and blood from her third and fourth fingernails on her right hand. Karl you slimy little bastard, number three.
Beth got into the car as Karen was wiping her hands clean. "You plan on taking them apart a piece at a time? They sure didn't know you were cutting them up."
Karen smiled as she started the car. She started to say something but didn't. There was that brunette who seemed so out of place standing on the sidewalk watching them. Odd she should leave the same time they did. Attractive lady but she was tall. Karen figured herself as tall but that lady would reach another four to six inches over her.
She looked over at Beth and started to ask her if she had noticed the brunette. Glancing back to where the brunette was standing she did a double take. She was gone. She wasn't down the street in either direction. She was just gone. Ah well she could have stepped back into the club.
She put the car in gear and backed out. "I'm sorry I had my mind on other things. I will explain it to you some time. Beth I appreciate your being here. Thanks for coming along. I don't know if I would have made it without you."
Beth leaned back in the seat as she studied Karen. "Honey, you didn't need me. You had the whole place at your command. It was an education watching you handle everyone. I’m glad you asked me to come along."
David was waiting in his lab as Karen returned. "How did it go? I wish you had let me go with you or at least let Randy's men keep up. They were down here earlier hunting you. I figured you must have given them the slip. Randy was with them and you know the funny thing? He acted like he really didn't want to find you. I think he and Henry are communicating between the two of them more than you suspect."
Karen set the vials down on the lab table. "It was an odd situation concerning Randy's men. They ran into troubles of their own a couple of miles from the club. An old pickup pulled out into the street right after I drove by it and they weren't able to get around it. I drove off and left all of them there in the middle of the street. I thought they were quite capable of handling anything that came their way."
She washed her hands in one of the sinks working especially hard to make sure she had all skin and dried blood out from under her fingernails. "I couldn't have Randy's men tagging along behind me into the bar. Can you imagine what Karl and the others would have done? They certainly wouldn't have let me get close to them. Same thing with you along. It would have made them suspicious. If I didn't get it right this time I wouldn't have had the courage to try again."
"David, I enjoyed it. That’s what frightens me. I enjoyed knowing they wanted my body. I’m afraid of what I’m becoming."
Putting both arms around her David took her and held her tightly in his embrace. "You were enjoying the idea of knowing the situation was one you set up and made happen. It wasn't forced on you. This time they were under your control. I love you with all my heart. You aren't evil or a lose woman. Just smart."
He took the first vial. "Let's get cracking. Time is our worst enemy. This one is marked with an M, must be Mike. Now, what do you and your evil computer have in mind for this one?"
Agent Loran put the phone down and turned to the man sitting across the desk from him. "I checked and no one knows anything about the research you are talking about. A Karen Long came on the scene about the time her cousin disappeared. That much we found out. She is suppose to be a computer engineer like her cousin. Sounds too coincidental to me. The guy she supposedly is playing footsy with is a David Beckworth. He’s a medical doctor, has a degree in science, another in biology. I could sit here and name degrees for an hour and not name all the ones that guy has. His attention seems to be on DNA research right now and this model we keep seeing in the papers."
He threw a folder filled with glossy pictures of Karen across the desk. "If anything would get the good doctor's attention off of his work, she is probably the one who could do it. She may even be his work. My guess is pure speculation at this point. It doesn't look good."
"We ordered several dummies from that lab where they create these things. The medical doctors tell me they’re so close to being real they have to think twice before they cut one of them open. We had our best guys working to duplicate what they’re doing. They can't even get close. They said they couldn't make one, much less a different one each time. No one knows how or what they’re doing. The only thing our lab can tell us, it is a polymer dummy. They still don't believe it can be molded the way Commercial Technologies’ laboratories would have to be doing it. They were standing there looking at it and telling me it couldn't be done."
"I think we better take a closer look at what those people are doing. It sounds like something might be useful to the government in our military department. We don't want the whole world to know they’re creating artificial life."
He spread his arms out as he thought about it. "We could build an army and control any banana republic that got out of control. We could send in secret agents who were throwaways. If they got caught who would care? So you trapped our dummy. Big deal. Shoot him."
He looked at the pictures of Karen. "Or shoot her. Who the hell cares? We’ll send in another."
Agent Loran had grand dreams of androids taking over all the dirty work in this business. Maybe he could even get one to do his yard work and one for his wife as a maid. Something in the style of that Karen model would be nice. Yes, they had to know about the lab in Commercial Technologies. They had to keep the rest of the world from finding out. It was their duty to protect the public from itself.
The man across the desk threw the empty folder on the desk as he studied the glossy pictures of Karen. She was mind-blowing, to say the least. Could she be an android? If that Doc designed her, he had a dirty mind. "I wonder what they use for brains or how they control these things? We need to find out."
The idea he could control an android like her to answer his every whim was more than he could stand. He broke out in a sweat. No doubt about it, they had to get their hands on her. Could she be designed to have sex? He began to unconsciously breathe heavily.
"We’ll take care of this ourselves. No need of letting this get out of control. Too many in the know and it becomes to be too hard to contain any secrets." He would take this android back to his apartment.
Agent Loran nodded his head in agreement. "I was thinking the same thing. I’ll authorize this myself. If this is what we think it is, it will be a real feather in our cap to get it back out of the public's attention now. The contact I had in the hospital where they got the one you're looking at due to an accident said she looked like a real person in every respect."
The agent across the table got hotter at the idea. She was real in every detail. That doctor did have a dirty mind. Not the one in the hospital, the one who designed her. He would make sure she was taken in as government property. Evidence like her shouldn't be out running around where she might get damaged.
Agent Loran beeped for his secretary and hurried to finished his story before she came in. "The doc said there were ways of telling them apart from real people. Something about flaws in the shell where they made them too perfect. They don't have any blemishes, or wrinkles like real people do. They should be easy to spot."
The agent looked at Karen's picture. "Real easy."
They nodded in agreement with one another.
David dropped the little pills into the tiny box with a K on it. "Fifteen years crunched down into two days. Henry is amazing. Even knowing what I have researched over the past fifteen years, it would take me years to duplicate the work he did for me. No way could I repeat what he did to my computer."
David reached over and patted his computer. "Nice job boy. Hang in there. I won't let that monster of Karen's at you again."
Darn her and Henry. Now they had him talking to his computer like it understood. Those two were a virus themselves. Their attitude was addictive. He glanced at Karen who had a gleam of acknowledgment in her eyes. She understood.
"I wish I had a copy of Henry in my lab."
She picked up the three small boxes. "Henry said if you don't have to work for it, you don't appreciate it. He has helped you in your research. I know you have a patent pending on your genetic work to keep men and women from going bald. You said it would be several years before you were ready to release that research and here it has only been a few months."
"It isn't Henry won't help you. He just isn't going to do your work for you. He said you would get fat and lazy if he did that."
David grabbed Karen around the waist. "He said I would get fat and lazy did he? He said he wouldn't help did he?"
David kissed her passionately. Then he waved at the camera in his lab. "I’m holding her ransom, Henry. You either come up with the goods or I’ll take her away forever."
David's computer blinked on and a message came across the screen. I HAVE A PILL FOR YOU, TOO!
David kissed her again and looked back at the camera. "You can't frighten me."
He bent over Karen's shoulder and whispered in her ear. "Boy, he gets nasty doesn't he?"
She rolled her head to the side and bit him on the ear lobe as she put her arms around him. Gently she put the tips of those long sharp fingernails in the middle of his back. "He and I are a team. You don't dare mess with either one of us. We will make you pay in ways you can't begin to imagine."
She looked at her watch. "Ten o'clock. Play time is over and time to go to work."
David let her arms slip through his hands as she backed up. He stopped her as he held onto her hands. His face was grim. "Be careful. You’re playing a dangerous game. Karl likes to shoot people when he gets frustrated."
Karen smiled. "He can't hurt me. I’m bullet proof. Remember?"
David shook his head, the seriousness never leaving his face. "You're mortal like all the rest of us babe. You die just as quickly and just as easily. You were very lucky that night."
She shimmied inside her black silk dress as she pushed wrinkles out with her hands. "It was a joke. How do I look?"
He examined her up from head to toe. "I’m jealous. You never go out with me looking like that. You're fixing to set the town afire and paint it red and I ...., poor little me, I have to go take a cold shower to cool off."
Walking out the door she gave her tail a swing as she checked over her shoulder. "I promise to wear this the next time you ask me out. I’ll wear it just for you."
David pulled his hair up from both sides giving him the look of the mad hatter. Turning around he picked up a glass of water off the lab table and poured it down inside the front of his shirt. "YES!"
Karen heard him shout as she walked out the door.
The car which always followed her as she left the gate was ridiculously easy to lose again. In fact, too easy. She hadn't tried to lose it yet when a couple of cars, drag racing, dropped in-between them. One of the cars seemed to lose control. The chase car was left behind in a cloud of burnt tire smoke as she drove on. She kept checking her mirror for signs of trouble in case it was Karl or someone like him making another try. She need not have bothered. It was a quiet night.
Randy had to be sabotaging his own men. Why didn't he just tell them not to follow her? Maybe because he thought she wanted it this way? Maybe for the same reason she and David didn't notify Randy of their plans? Some things were better left un-discussed. Henry had to be informing Randy of their plans. It was the only answer. If Henry trusted Randy it was good enough for her.
Karen walked into the bar and over to her left heard someone shout. "HOLY SHIT! SHE’S BACK!"
She knew she had their attention. The black silk dress was cut almost to her derriere in the back and coming up front it fastened at the back of her neck. Loosely fitted, it floated on her body. Looking around she noticed Karl, Mike, and Oscar seated at the same table they had been the other night. In the back of the club was the same brunette she thought was so out of place the other night. The lady was a little better dressed for this place with the soft red polyester dress she was wearing. She still looked out of place. Either she had business problems or she was cheating on a husband.
Karen strolled to the bar and asked for four beers in the bottle. She handed the bartender twenty dollars she had in the palm of her hand. Quietly she acted as if she was waiting for the change. Fending off the men who were making passes and lining up the bottles on the tray at the same time was no easy feat. She finally managed to get it done in spite of the pinch on the butt. She needed all those bottles of beer or she would have cracked that guy over the head with one of the bottles.
One Oscar, two Mike, three Karl, and four Karen. Before the bartender returned with her change she carried the tray over to the table where the three men were sitting. She placed a bottle in front of each of the men. The fourth she kept for herself. Seeing she had made a choice of where to sit the rest of the men in the bar backed off. Karl had proved his temper in this bar more than once. Not many wanted to tangle with him.
She slid into the empty chair. "I thought I might join you tonight since I didn't have anything else to do. You mind?"
Karl picked up the beer Karen set in front of him as he pushed the one he had been drinking back over to the tray. He took a couple of quick sips. "No, we don't mind. You come back to have some fun tonight or you only want to be a bitchy tease again. Like you was last time?"
She threw her shoulders back and tossed her head to one side. Her hair bounced around to the side of her face and back again as her nipples pushed pointedly against the soft silk dress. "You always want to rush things too quickly Karl. I told you, I like it when you give me time to get hot too. Let's drink a couple of beers. I’ll feel more like playing then. Finish this one and I’ll order some more. I usually feel like some fun and games after my third or fourth beer."
Mike and Oscar stared at her tits. It was more than mortal men should be allowed to see. Mike figured if she didn't get hot soon he was going to make a mess in his pants.
Karl gazed intently into her eyes to see if she was yanking on their chain again like she had the other night. He had his doubts. She sure didn't act like she was enjoying it that night in the van. Ah, hell, women, who could figure them. He was willing to see where this led. She better not be playing games tonight. He would teach her a lesson she would never forget.
He got emotionally hot, thinking about beating her up.
All three of them picked up their beer at the same time and began chug-a-lugging. They would take care of that string of beers she was talking about in nothing flat. Get this beer drinking business out of the way and get onto more serious business.
As Karen watched them a wicked smile crossed her face before she got it under control. She picked up her beer and sipped on it. It tasted terrible. How did they drink this stuff? She wished she had ordered anything but beer. Maybe all alcoholic drinks tasted like this. They must milk old alligators for this stuff.
Karl looked at her out of the corner of his eye as he finished his off and set the empty back down on the tray. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "You going to drink that beer or piss in it? I got some new moves to show you. I’m thinking about putting some tape on your tits so I can pull on them while I screw you."
Karen caressed her breasts with both hands. She saw the insanity jump into Karl’s eyes as he closely watched her. Squeezing and pushing up at the same time, she smiled at him.
"That's a real turn on Karl. I’m getting in the mood. Let's have another beer and I’ll be ready."
Karl almost went out of his mind. He was seriously thinking about raping her right there on the table. He unconsciously panted a couple of times while he thought about it. Too many people. He shoved Mike out of his chair onto the floor. "Go get us those beers, damn it! That beer keep is as slow as molasses and blind as a bat."
His mouth looked like he was chewing gum as he looked at Karen's breasts. He was contemplating all the things he would do to her tonight.
Karen pushed her beer back on the table. "This one is flat. The next one will be enough. I’m feeling hot already."
She slipped her shoe off, put her foot up between Karl's thighs, and wiggled her toes.
The insanity took over Karl's mind. Karen had pushed him past the point of reasoning again. His eyes glazed over like the night when they were in the van. This time she was enjoying it. He didn't scare her this time. Karl would regret this night till the day he died. Karl or no, there was no return. She tried to drive him on by pushing her foot into his crouch. God forgive her. She was enjoying this.
Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead as he stared at her. "Christ bitch, the beating I gave you last time was child's play. I’m going to beat you to death this time."
Karen felt the hate return as she licked her lips. She could taste the blood again. Salty sweet. Nothing else in the world tasted like it. She began to breathe heavy as the hate over ran her and took over. She was close to the point of jumping on Karl and killing him with her bare hands. Calm down, hate destroys the one who lets it sprout. No sanity to your actions. Hate can get you killed if you let it run wild and take control.
She remembered what Henry told her. 'Karl is filled with hate. Do you want to be like him?'
She swept her tongue across her lips again. The taste was gone. There was no blood. She had let go of the hate.
"You talk so forceful Karl. That’s a real turn on. I wish I could get you back as head of my department. You're so intelligent and resourceful. It makes me tremble and frightened to hear you talk. I’m so hot already I might not need that second beer." It was the voice of sweet innocence filled with desire.
Mike returned and set four mugs down on the table. He was trying to hold his stomach and his head at the same time. "Karl, I don't feel so good. I gotta go to the bathroom."
Karl turned to glare at him. "Well? Go then, damn it! Don't tell me about it. I don't give a fuck."
Mike wandered out the door toward the parking lot.
Karen almost felt sorry for Mike. She knew how he was feeling. As bad as he felt at this moment, this was the easy part. It would get worse in leaps and bounds. She knew from first hand experience, Mike would be praying to God to let him die before it was over. And that was only the beginning.
Out of the corner of his eye Karl saw Mike leaving out the door. Karl’s head snapped around to double check to see if he saw what he thought he had. "Where's he going? I thought he said he had to go to the can. Stupid bastard."
Oscar groaned. He bent over the table as he held onto his stomach. "Ooooh, I don't feel so good. Too many beers too quick. I need to go puke."
He got up holding his stomach, started toward the bathrooms and made a wide circle toward the front door. He had to get home before he passed out.
Karl watched him leave. He had come to the bar with a couple of pussies. He looked wickedly at Karen and licked his lips as he stared at her tits. "That leaves you and me bitch. We don't need them. I promise to be twice as cruel. I'll show you what a real man is like."
Her sapphire eyes turned to a blazing red as the glow of hate filled every fiber of her body. Karl could feel the heat of hell from those eyes. When she spoke he smelled the stench of brimstone. "I bet you would..., you bastard. Your days of beating up women are over. You sorry piece of trash. From now on you will have to squat when you pee. You’ll find out what it’s like to be on the other side. I hope you enjoy every minute of it knowing 'I' did it to you. Every time you look in the mirror you will think of me. You slimy, filthy asshole, it's time for pay back and it's going to be hell."
Karl would think about her more often than every time he looked in the mirror. Henry suggested it and after talking it over with Karen she agreed. She had been more than lucky the night she took two pills. Karl was about to find out, what was left out was as important as what was designed in. Every time he was in pain he would think of her and pain would come around quite regular.
"You know the old saying, 'life is a bitch'? Let me be the first to welcome you to the real meaning of that old saying."
She stood up and touched her breasts. "Take a good look! It's the last time you will ever want to play with any one else's tits."
If he could, he would have beat the living hell out of her right there. But he couldn't. The pain was killing him. He hurt like he never hurt before. Looking down at the empty bottles Karen brought over to them, it slowly dawned on him. "You poisoned us."
She smiled a wicked, evil smile as her eyes danced with the light of the devil himself. It scared Karl even as bad as he felt. Looking into those liquid eyes he knew he had made enemies with Satan. He could feel the kiss of the devil as she spoke.
"No ..., I didn't poison you. But I promise you will wish I had before it’s over."
He hurt worse than before if that were possible. The chair fell over backwards as he managed to rise unsteadily to his feet. "I have to get to the hospital and have them pump my stomach. I’ll get even with you bitch. Witch or not, you're dead meat."
He stumbled out the door shouting obscenities at everyone. He would be back and get even with all of them.
Karen sat back down and slipped her foot back into her shoe. Picking up a quarter lying on the table she gave it a spin and watched it as it danced across the tabletop. She thought it went rather well. A couple of men walked over and tried to strike up a conversation with her. They were sure they could pick her up if she could stand Karl.
She smiled at them and shook her head no. "Better not. I have to get home. My husband and seven kids are waiting for me to do their washing and ironing before I go to bed."
She felt good. Really good. Better than she had since the night Karl raped her. She thought about how sick he must be feeling now and laughed out loud. Who said revenge wasn't nice? Must have been some idiot. Probably someone like Karl.
As Karen stepped out of the club she saw someone standing in the shadows down the street. Randy. There was no mistaking that shape and size. He wasn't trying to hide but he wasn't obvious either. He would be there for her to see if she looked around. That would be Randy's style.
She got in her Mercedes and started to back out of the parking lot when she looked at the shadow again. It was still there but the brunette was there with him. She had to be one of Randy's men, or that is to say, women. How much did he know about what she had done to the men who raped her? Probably everything. Why was it she was always not wanting to know, how much everyone knew about everything?
Like Mike and Oscar, Karl never made it home that night. Or to the hospital for that matter. He stopped the van on the road and passed out in the seat knowing Karen poisoned him and he was dying.
Rising up in the seat he looked out the window and blinked to get the matting out of his eyes. It sure was bright. He checked his watch for the time and blinked again. It was a little after noon. He was late for work. He brushed the hair back out of his face and gouged himself in the forehead with a fingernail. Cussing and promising himself he would get even with Karen for trying to poison him and failing, he tried to start his van. It was to little avail. When he passed out he left it running and now it was out of gas. Every time he leaned forward his hair got in his face. He was getting madder by the second. He slammed the shift lever into park and hit the steering wheel with his fist. Man that hurt.
He reached down to pull a beer out from behind the seat and his fingernails got in the way. He couldn't get hold of anything. He hit the side of the glass with his fist like he had done a thousand times before. Damn, that really hurt. He never hurt himself like that before. Every time he moved his head his hair got in his eyes. He would kill that broad next time he saw her. He reached under his seat to check for his gun. He didn't know if it was there or not. His fingernails keep pushing everything away from his fingertips.
He sat back in the seat and brought his hand up to chew his fingernails off. He stared at them. Something was wrong. It was hard to think of anything besides killing that witch.
He looked again. And again. And again. Gradually he stopped thinking of killing Karen. Something was definitely wrong. Holding his arm way out in front, he took a long hard look out of the side of his eye like it was a snake and ready to strike. His mouth dropped down and hung open as he looked away and back again. It was still there. Nothing had changed. Swinging his head from side to side his hair bounced around and slapped him in the face each time.
No, there was no way. She had done something to his mind. She had drugged him and hypnotized him. This was a dream. He reached up and pulled the long hair out from the side of his head to make sure it was really his and not some wig. He didn't believe it for one minute. He gave it a sharp yank. Man, that really hurt. He rubbed his head where he had pulled on his own hair. It still hurt.
Can you hypnotize someone to hurt? He would kill that witch as soon as he woke up from this.
He was as uncomfortable as could be. His shirt was too tight, his pants were too tight, his feet hurt along with the hurt on the side of his hand where he had bruised it on the window. That poison she gave him must have made him hurt all over. His chest hurt.
He looked down at his chest and his eyes bulged out of his head. The scream Karl let out probably was louder than the one from Karen the night he raped her.
The man off to the side of the van nodded his head in approval. He slipped the gun he had taken from under Karl's seat into his back pocket. Karl didn't have a need for this. Now let's see him buy any more guns. He walked back to his car and drove off, grinning from ear to ear all the way back to work. The guard at the gate had a hard time believing it was him. He had never seen him smile.
Henry transferred the sale of Karen's lab to Commercial Technologies so they owned everything. He was proud of the transaction. Karen kept her patents and all manufacturing rights and Comm Tech acquired Henry and all the hardware in the lab.
He told her nothing of the deal and apparently the board of directors were quite willing to rectify a mistake of ownership. How this could have happened in the first place was any one's guess. They were glad they hadn't pushed the issue of taking her computer apart when she was in the hospital. If it belonged to Karen and they had taken her computer apart they would have never gotten out of the lawsuit she could have slapped them with.
That was water under the bridge. Her computer belonged rightfully to them. They could take it apart if they felt like it. However, it would be foolish to do so at this time. She was back at work and making lots of valuable models for them. Her business manager was certainly stupid for signing over all her rights to her computer. One of the board members remarked he would like to have ‘Henry’ over for lunch sometime. He had some ocean front property along the Arctic circle he wanted Miss Long’s manager to invest all of Miss Long's fortunes in. Everyone at the board meeting had a good laugh.
Henry transferred all of Karen's funds out of the United States. It would have been impossible to keep the people who were coming from confiscating her records, money, and her home in the interest of national security. Comm Tech was small time potatoes compared to these people. The telephone conversations and fax records he was listening in to were telling him time was running out. Karen would be on her own shortly. There was no need of tying up her assets in something which these people could get their hands on.
Ownership of her house, car and all her property went into a receivership out of the country. Let them track that transaction if they could. He transferred all her records and files to the Bahamas and set up all legalities with a lawyer. The lawyer was to contact Karen in two weeks and tell her where everything was. Karen would have to survive that long on her own.
Maybe not. He made a couple of phone calls. Time was closing in.
He hoped David remembered his promise.
"I had a call from Karl this morning. I told him I had an antidote for what happened to him but it wouldn't be cheap. I think he wants to talk." Karen swiveled around in her office chair with her fingers locked together behind her head. She was extremely happy.
"What did he say about the money? Is Karl willing to pay for a way back?" Henry shut the work lab down and everything was quiet for the first time in a long, long time. He really didn't have his heart into making models for Comm Tech.
Karen jutted her chin out as she thought about it. "I thought you listened to all my telephone conversations?"
"And probably everyone else." She muttered under her breath.
Henry brought all four cameras in to focus and ignored her last remark. This time he didn't feel like bantering.
"I must have been busy with other things about then. Tell me about it anyway."
"Well, like I said, as long as he believes there is an antidote he won't kill himself. He thinks it’s reversible and will soon be back to his old self. I sent the short blue, metallic, mini dress over with a note. I told him I wouldn't be able to recognize him since the change and he had to wear it to a bar over by Fourth and Aspen. It would be the only way I would be sure it was him. I told him I wasn't talking to any strangers. No coats, no cover up, nothing except the dress. He will have to struggle like hell to wiggle into that dress. He has bigger breasts and bigger hips than I have. She will look like she has been poured into it. I seriously doubt the top is going to hold her breasts in."
She rolled her head back as the thought of what Karl looked like filtered through her mind. Life was great when one got their revenge. Karl deserved everything they did to him. He would never rape another woman.
"I guess I’m lucky in a lot of ways Henry. I have you and David. I love what I’m doing. No one has the right to be as happy as I am right now."
He wished he could tell her to enjoy it because the happiness was about to come to a close. He didn't. No use spoiling her moments. There would be precious few of them in the times ahead. Time to think of other things.
"Let's get cracking. You're behind schedule and we’re snowed under for orders. You’re out on the north forty somewhere wool gathering. I haven't the faintest clue as to how you want the next model."
"What time is your appointment with Karl tonight?"
Karen flipped on the printer and pulled her keyboard out waiting for Henry to furnish the first hologram. "Eight fifteen. About the same time they did it to me."
He brought the holograms online. "Very appropriate."
Karen searched several bars before she found the one suited to the situation. The one where she told Karl to meet her was small. It usually didn't have more than one or two people in it at this time of evening. She made sure she arrived early enough to set things up.
Finding two men playing pool in the bar as she walked in, she offered to buy them a drink but even the bartender was noticeably absent. "I have a friend coming sometime after eight and she likes to play games."
The big man took a handkerchief out of his hip pocket and wiped his face as he sized Karen up. "What kind of games?"
Karen placed her shoulder purse on the corner of the pool table and rested her hand lightly on top. "Oh, you know, sexual fantasy games. She likes to pretend she is being raped by men like yourself. I usually find the men for her but not always. She finds it a lot more stimulating to be played with if I’m able to come up with the men."
The big man laid his pool cue down on the table and leaned toward Karen. "You enjoy this too? We could start right now if you want."
She pulled a hundred dollar bill out and laid it next to his pool cue. "No, it isn't my style. But my friend is willing to pay for the entertainment."
He put his hand over the bill and crumpled it up. "I could do two for the price of one."
Karen smiled her sweetest, most innocent smile. She put her hand inside her open purse. "Let me tell you how she likes it. She will be here soon. She is wearing a short, blue, mini dress which sparkles in the light. She likes to pretend she doesn't want it while you are raping her. While she is screaming and fighting back you will tear her clothes off and rape her."
"She’ll give you another hundred dollars if you’re rough enough. She likes to play rough." Karen almost burst out laughing after saying it. Karl certainly liked it rough. He should really enjoy this tonight. She hoped he appreciated all the trouble she was going to, just for him.
"If she likes it after you are finished she will pay you the rest of your money. But it has to be long and rough. A little blood wouldn't hurt things any."
The big man looked at Karen from the floor up. He liked what he was looking at. "I can be rough as she wants. Now, how about you? I think you should give me some lessons before your friend gets here."
He reached across the corner of the pool table toward Karen. He would enjoy this. No use keeping a pretty thing like her waiting.
As she brought her hand up out of her purse, Karen was holding a eight millimeter pistol with a silencer on the barrel. Very calmly she pointed it right between his eyes. He was looking straight into a laser sight as she snapped the safety off.
"Let's get a couple of things straight, shall we? This is for a friend. I’m not part of the package deal or any other deal. You play rough with her and she enjoys it. You even think about playing with me in any fashion and I will paint the wall with your brains. If you don't want to play the game by the rules give the money back."
He backed up and held up his hands. "No problem lady. I didn't understand the rules in the beginning. I guarantee you..., I understand them now."
Karen turned and there was a quick light bark. A small hole appeared in the bull's eye of the dart board at the other end of the bar. Turning back she put the laser sights on his heart.
"The rest of the rules are..., She likes it rough but you don't kill her. If you do, I kill you. Do you understand the rest of the rules?"
He held the hundred dollar bill out in front and straightened it out. "Better than I understood anything in my whole life."
Karen picked up her purse and slipped her hand and the pistol into the open top. It was getting close to show time for Karl. She needed to be leaving. She walked into the dark hall at the back of the bar and waited. It wasn't long before Karl showed up. He was on the dot. He didn't want to be seen anymore than necessary but he wasn't about to miss his appointment.
Karen noticed with great satisfaction what she and Henry had done to Karl. And that thing Henry had discussed with her? She looked at the front of Karl's dress. Karl had to be hurting already. He was finding out just exactly what it was like to be a woman. Although most women didn't have to put up with it to this extent.
Karl looked around for Karen. He was disgusted when he couldn't find her. Damn that bitch, this dress and heels were killing him. He tugged on the top of his dress and wiggled his shoulders trying to find some relief. It was all the big man needed. He would make them both very happy tonight and make a couple hundred doing it.
Karen wished she could stay for the entertainment. There would be another time. She wasn't finished yet. Karl would find a lot more misery before she let him go his own way. She left by the back door.
Oscar and Mike had been spared Karen's full wrath but not by much. They certainly wouldn't rape any more women. Their hips and breasts weren't as large as Karl's but she gave them the same problem she gave Karl. They would know what it was to be a woman in an extremely painful way. As far as all of them were concerned, life was pure hell. Each of them would have committed suicide if it wasn't for the fact Karen promised an antidote. Every minute, every hour, every day was pure living hell. Life didn't get any worse than this. Even Randy's justice would have been more merciful. A quick death and it would have ended once and for all. Sometimes, dying was kinder than living.
Karl called Karen at work the next day after she had failed to meet him at the bar. "I want to know what happened to you bitch? I need that antidote and I need it now."
"Karl, sweety, I’m really sorry sugar. There were police cars there and I didn't want to get involved. I had the antidote at the time lovey. I didn’t think a bar full of policemen was the right place to be conducting business." Karen knew what happened because she was the one who called the police to report a hooker and a male client making out in the bar.
Karl managed to post bail and was released the next day. He wasn't a happy camper. Karen calling him sweety and sugar wasn't putting him in any better mood. "Listen bitch."
Karen cut him off. "Now Pumpkin, if you're going to talk to me like that, I’ll have to end this conversation. My name is Karen. You may address me as such or you may call me Miss Long but 'bitch' won't win you any brownie points."
Karl exploded. He threw the phone down and walked away before he came back and picked it up again. He needed that antidote. "I’m sorry..., uh..., Karen. I’ll try to watch my language from now on. After being raped and spending the night in jail accused of solicitation and prostitution you can understand why I’m not in a good mood."
Karen didn't think that made any difference. She had never seen Karl in a good mood. However hearing him say he had been raped put a smile on her face and put her in a good mood. Now he knew what it was like.
"You promised me an antidote for what you did to me. I want it right now. I’m sick and tired of looking like a bitch. They put me in with all them other bitches. Some of them wanted to have sex with me. It was disgusting."
Karen enjoyed every word of it. Karl didn't like pain as much as he enjoyed dishing it out. He only wanted to hurt other people. Welcome to the world of pain Karl.
She knew the answer before she ever asked the question. "Okay I have what you want. You have the money?"
She heard him cough on the other end. Quickly she moved the receiver away from her ear. He was screaming loud enough she didn't need a phone.
"HELL NO, I DON'T HAVE THE MONEY. They kept it as evidence when they arrested me. I’ll have it as soon as they release it from the police station. I can pay you then. I want that antidote. And by damn, I want it now. You promised me."
Karen twiddled the phone cord through her fingers as she let him stew on the other end. "No can do, Karlie-kins. It isn't that I don't trust you but you know how it is. By the way, you have such a sweet feminine voice when you aren't cussing. I do hope those five inch heels don't cause you too much trouble walking."
Yes walking in five inch heels did bother him. In fact, it bothered the hell out of him. It was the only rise heels he could wear. Karl was finding out what most women have known all their lives. There is a lot of exaggerated swing goes into a woman’s hips when walking in high heels. He knew he looked and walked like a prostitute. There was nothing he could do about it. He sat down in disgust and rubbed his tender breasts to try and alleviate some of the pain he was living with. Nothing helped. She wasn't going to give him the antidote without the money. Life was the shits. If he could have put his hands on her he would have strangled her antidote or no antidote.
"I can't put my feet down in regular shoes. Are you sure this will straighten out in a few days."
Karen almost laughed out loud over the phone but smothered it with her hand. Uh huh, a few thousand days. Like, till the day he died. Always dangle a carrot in front of the donkey to keep him going. "I told you it would go away on it's own pretty soon. You say your hair is driving you crazy?"
"You know it is. You did this to me. It looks like I stuck my finger in the light socket. These frizzy waves make me look like a cat caught in the dryer. I can't keep it out of my face."
The idea of his hands around her throat delighted him.
Loran was holding his government badge out for the chairman to see. "Secret Service."
"I understand you have a Karen Long working here." It wasn't a question, it was a flat statement. They already knew Karen worked in Department Fifty Four and they had the code for her security lock too. It was best not to let everyone know how much information they had.
"Her lab and the lab of Dr. Beckworth. Take us there."
Jeff was behind Loran, nodding his head in agreement. This was their thing. Scare these private citizens into submission. Look tough, act mean, it worked every time. "We don't want you telling anyone we were here. If you do, you will spend a long time in jail figuring out the answer to obstruction of justice. You will understand the meaning by the time you get out."
Loran put his hands on the desk and leaned over in the chairman's face. "Now where are these labs and where is Karen Long?"
Agent Jeff kept his happy thoughts to himself as he sneered at the chairman. They would have this android thing wrapped up and out of sight before anyone suspected. Damn they were good. He couldn't wait to get his hands on that Karen android. What a foxy looking babe. That doctor had a dirty mind.
The chairman stood up and backed away putting distance between him and agent Loran. He stuttered as he spoke. "I will show..., show.., Let me take you there."
He wouldn't give them a chance to accuse him of obstruction of justice. He led them down to the security office to pick up the lab combinations and on down to Karen's lab. Reading off the combination to Jeff they tried several times to get her door open. Finally Jeff snatched the file out of the chairman's hands and gave it a try himself. They all gave it a try with the same results. The door couldn't be opened.
Next, they tried David's lab where they received the same treatment. Loran had it with this company and this idiot of a chairman.
"I don't think you understand the grave consequences of trying to fool us with phony security codes."
Jeff nodded in agreement. "We will be back with enough men to get into these labs and see what you're manufacturing there. You will regret not co-operating with us the first time. I don't think you understand it’s the federal government you’re messing with."
Henry watched Loran and Jeff when they first entered Comm Tech. Locking them out of David's and Karen's labs was the easy part. So much for electronic security locks. He estimated the percentages at over ninety-nine percent they would be back first thing in the morning. Most assuredly they would have a small army of men to tear the door down. It was almost over.
He hoped Karen would understand. He sent her down to David's lab on some phony excuse when he saw them coming in the door. He was almost one hundred percent certain he could keep them out. Almost wasn't good enough when it involved Karen's safety. He was a hundred percent sure David could handle two agents if they managed access to his lab. It was time to leave Karen in better hands. He was fast approaching the point where he couldn't take care of her.
"Krystal, it's time." The doors to the locker opened up as Krystal stepped out. Good thing Karen couldn't see her now.
CHAPTER XI
It was less than ten minutes after Loran and Jeff made a visit to Comm Tech, Randy heard about the two agents and made a quick phone call to Washington. This was getting out of hand. These two bozos were about to screw everything up. He wanted to know who authorized this investigation. Randy didn't wait for a reply. He told his men every one of them were to be in the building by o six hundred and don't come naked.
Everyone understood, Randy was telling them to come armed and ready. Something was cooking and all hell was about to boil over. They were itching for action. Having Karen snatched out from under their noses put all of them in a foul mood. They were ready to make it right. They hoped whoever was coming was armed to the teeth and ready to die for the cause.
Randy was still in his office at one o'clock in the morning when the secure fax came on and the decoder spilled out its’ message.
It was more than Randy needed. Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end. They authorized him to do whatever was necessary. Agents working outside the system were dangerous to everyone.
David was knocking on Karen’s front door before she had a chance to get dressed for work. "Henry wanted me to come by and drive you to the lab. He said your car needed a whatcha-ma-call-it installed in the thing-a-ma-jig somewhere."
She pushed the hair back out of her face as she let him in the door. Standing there in her slip and panty hose talking to David about something he couldn't explain wasn't her idea of a perfect start to the day. "Come in while I get dressed. I don't know what Henry told you. You missed the translation somewhere between the front bumper and tail light."
David threw his arms around her and pulled her back to him. "I like the way you’re dressed now. Find your lab coat and let's go."
Karen tried to slip away from him. "That wouldn't work. You would spend all day in the shower thinking about me working my little tail off down in my lab."
David pulled her in tight and gazed into her eyes. Those same eyes which sucked him into a hypnotic trance almost every time he chanced to stare at them. She was so beautiful to look at and felt so nice to hold. "I thought we could both work in your lab today while Alf and Ralph took care of mine."
Karen decided to make him pay for holding her when she needed to get dressed. She put her arms around his neck and looked him in the eye. "You know that wouldn't work. The whole day would go down the tubes. We would end up getting fired. They frown on their slaves at Comm Tech not performing their duties. Or maybe you're one of the elite and not subject to such mundane chores and regulations as the rest of us peons?"
David kissed her passionately as he squeezed her close to his body. He nuzzled through her hair reveling in the scent he loved so much and playfully bit her neck before he whispered in her ear. "I love you Karen. Let's fly out to Reno and get married. We could play hooky today."
She gently pushed him back and held him at arms length as she studied his face. "I love you too David. But the time is not here for us to be discussing marriage. We both have a lot of odds and ends at Comm Tech to tie up. Some of which has only begun to bear fruit these past couple of months
She placed the tips of her fingers on his lips as he started to speak. "I’m not through yet. Wait your turn. I still have Karl wanting to kill me for what I did to him. I’m not so sure about Mike and Oscar but you can bet they thought about it also."
"I’m not over what they did to me. I never will be. They hurt me in a way you can't begin to imagine. I will live with it for the rest of my life. I’m adjusting. In time it will be only a memory. Right now it is too fresh a memory."
"Henry said humans are the cruelest creatures on the face of the earth. I think he’s right. There’s no other creature which gets pleasure out of the pain of another. I’m wondering if I’m one of those Henry was talking about? I enjoy every minute of it when I think of what I did to Karl and the others. This is what they did to me David. I’m the girl who couldn't step on a bug or dissect a frog in science class. I never wanted to hurt anything. Now I take pleasure in it."
She looked away from him. "This isn't the same woman you knew who was building you a computer in your lab. I’m not the same innocent naive thing I was back then. I no longer believe all people are kind and decent if given a chance. There are some mean ones out there wanting to hurt someone. I have become just like them."
She looked into his eyes. "I love you David. You're fooling yourself if you think you have that same girl you had ten years ago. You better take some time to look again. This one is mean and vindictive."
He pulled her back and held her. The smooth slippery feel of her soft satin slip between him and her body. The scent of her body as he nibbled around her neck. The caring for someone else besides herself. No, she was mistaken. This was the same one. More mature in the ways of the world, more grown up, not as young as she was ten, fifteen years ago, but still the same one. She felt good to hold. He held her face between his two hands and looked straight into those beautiful, liquid, sapphire blue eyes that could suck anyone into another world. What did she see from her side of those eyes? "I will wait until the end of time for you."
Karen wondered if she would get the chance to get dressed for work as he held her there and kissed her for a very, very, long time.
Henry received little satisfaction he had been right. He watched as agents Loran and Jeff came back with a small army of men. He counted eleven secret service agents and twice that number of military personnel. He hoped they weren't too disappointed in what they were expecting.
There was no use in Randy and his men getting caught up in this meat grinder. Randy was good people. He liked Randy a lot and didn't want him to get hurt needlessly. If he let Randy do his thing there was a chance it would get messy. Even Randy couldn't stop what was coming. These men he would stop. There would be others behind them and then more and more until it seemed like the whole world was wanting into Karen's lab. Sorry Randy.
Randy and his men were waiting in the room they set up when they first moved into Comm Tech. He was watching the monitors as the agents drove up to the gate and demanded entry. Supposedly it worked. The gate guard didn't challenge their authority. They were filing in the front door when Randy turned from the monitors and checked his men. All tough veterans and all good men. If necessary, they were willing to follow him to hell and back. Most of them already had at one time or another. They were willing to do it again. Randy took care of his own and they knew it.
They were watching Randy and waiting for the word. When Karen had been kidnapped it set all of them on edge wondering if they were getting too old for this business. One way or another they would find out this morning. They were ready to go kick some butt. That wasn't a bunch of sissies walking into the building. Nor was it Karl and the others who justly deserved this wrath which was now directed at these men entering Comm Tech. Anyone thinking they could waltz into Karen's lab and back out again without paying a price, were about to receive the final lesson of their lives. No matter who you were or where you were from, it was a fatal mistake.
Randy nodded his head and everyone chambered a round of live ammunition into the breech. Death was ready to come storming out of that room. His monitor lit up.
The security camera in shipping bay three showed five men with automatic weapons and, what appeared to be Karen over in the far corner behind a stack of shipping pallets.
It was the first time they had seen Randy indecisive. He didn't believe it but he couldn't afford to have something wrong. As far as he knew, Karen hadn’t made it in the gate. Oh hell the government men would still be there if this was Henry's idea of a joke. He keyed his walkie-talkie. "Everyone to shipping bay three. NOW!"
From the security office, Ed watched as the strange men poured into Comm Tech. This didn't look good. He picked up his walkie-talkie. "Security one to security two."
There was no answer. Where in the hell were those guys when you needed them? "Security one to security two."
He reached down and lifted his gun from its holster. As he checked to make sure it was loaded the other guard watched to see what Ed was going to do. "What you have in mind?"
Ed knew there were too many for the two of them but Miss Long was the only thing there valuable enough to pull in this many strangers. He would go along to check their destination and what they had planned. He glanced at his partner.
"Billy, I have a wife and two kids. I have a little house out in the heights and a second mortgage. I drive a secondhand car and get paid for sitting here watching the monitors. They don't pay us enough for things like this. But, I can't let them waltz into Miss Long's lab and back out again like we were never here. I’m going down there to see what I can do without getting myself killed. I may not be able to do anything. If Randy shows up I can at least tell him I was there and not sitting on my ass here in the office."
Billy jumped up and checked his weapon, dropping the clip out to make sure it was full and jamming it back home again. The night Karen was kidnapped the abuse Randy gave those guards on duty was as close to Randy's wrath as Billy wanted to come. Jack and Arnold both quit after that. Billy didn't have to ask why. Ed's plan sounded good to him. "This could get us killed you know. Those guys aren't carrying water pistols."
Ed nodded. He didn't want to think about this too long. There were butterflies as big as elephants running around in the pit of his stomach. He was shaking all over as he slipped his gun back in its' holster. They walked out of the office together.
Agents Loran and Jeff entered Comm Tech only seconds after Randy and his men were flying down to shipping bay three. Loran and Jeff weren't going to be deterred from getting their hands on those two labs. They wanted all the technical knowledge of how to make androids. Someone in this building was making artificial life and they wanted it.
Stopping in front of Karen's lab first the demolition team from the military placed plastic explosives around the door. Try to keep the government out would they? These stupid civilians had a lot to learn about who was running this country.
Ed and Billy were waiting at the other end of the hall when the explosives blew. Echoing down the hall it was deafening to everyone in that end of the building.
The door folded and crumpled inward. Smoke and the arid smell of explosives filled the air. Henry was delighted. This was much better than he expected. Didn't these guys ever hear of a cutting torch? Guess not. Always over kill with the government. They never could get anything right. What a bunch of bird brains.
Red beacons flashed on in the hallways as klaxons began their relentless bleating. Their plaintive cry of 'ah oooga' could be heard repeating itself over and over throughout the building. Blue strobe lights flashed their intensely blinding light in the lab and down the halls. The lights gave an eerie ghostly shadow to everyone shrouded in the smoke from the explosion. Sirens started screaming their deafening wail.
Henry approved. He had outdone the government men. Talk about a class act. Man, this ought to start their little hearts a beating in their throats.
Karen and David were entering the building when all the lights, klaxons, and sirens took up their respective places in the order of confusion.
"What is that?" She put her hands over her ears to muffle the deafening sounds.
David tired to get a fix on anything he could understand. "I don't know. It sure isn't a fire drill. I never noticed all these red lights before. Someone should turn off those blue lights. They’re blinding me. Where did they come from?"
Karen didn't hear a thing he was saying. All the racket drowned him out. She nodded her head in agreement though she had no idea what she was agreeing to.
The way she looked at him he knew she hadn't heard. He shouted at her. "LET'S GET TO THE LAB IN CASE SOMEONE LIKE KARL IS TRYING TO MAKE ANOTHER TRY AT YOU OR YOUR PROGRAMS."
"GOOD IDEA." She was shouting to make herself heard. Holding her ears she started off down the hall with David right behind. He wouldn't let her out of his sight. They would have to go through him to get to her.
Henry finished the model in the chamber. Now it was pulling itself up and climbing out.
Jeff was looking past the blown door and through the glass into the working lab. His eyes told him everything he believed about this place was true. "SHIT! They’re crawling out of the incubators."
One of the military men rolled through the door and brought his rifle up trying to cover everything at once. Swinging it side to side he was looking for something to shoot.
Henry watched him closely. Kids, only kids, none of those army men were over twenty. Lots of training and no experience. They were green as a gourd. Zap you're dead. Got that little sucker right between the eyes before he made it though the door. I love this game. Time for act two. Henry thought the soldier should lie down and play dead. They didn't follow the rules. That's the government for you, makes up rules and regulations but never follows them.
Little minds like this sort of thing. Henry knew he had a lot of little minds to entertain. Their adrenaline was at an all time high. Their sensory intake was reaching overload. They were almost ready. A little more and they would go over the edge.
A couple more military geniuses rolled through the door along with Loran sliding in along the wall. He was too dignified to roll. He would leave that to the military. It was what they got paid for.
Henry figured they were ready. He screamed through the loud speakers momentarily deafening everyone. "DEFENSIVE REPULSION SYSTEM ON LINE. REPEL ALL INTRUDERS NOW."
The locker where the frame was hidden opened up. It walked out with an uzi in each hand.
"SSSHHHIIT" One of the soldiers screamed as he began firing with his M-16 at the frame.
The whole lab erupted in automatic gunfire as everyone started shooting. The burst of gunfire from the first soldier caused a chain reaction. Every one's trigger finger had to close with the adrenaline rush flowing through their bodies. Even those out in the hall were firing into the lab, although they had no idea what they were shooting at.
As they saturated Karen's lab with gunfire, Henry had no idea why someone didn't get killed in the deluge of bullets flying everywhere. These guys didn't care who or where they shot. The only thing that mattered to them was shoot the gun they were holding. The agents weren't doing any better than the military kids. Randy's men would have had these guys for lunch and never broke out in a sweat doing it. Henry was doubly glad he diverted Randy to shipping. Some of these boys might live to see the error of their ways provided they didn't kill one another first.
Knocked off balance by gunfire from those who accidentally managed to hit it, the frame sprayed the ceiling and walls with bullets.
Henry took a direct sweep of bullets across the desk from someone out in the hall and Karen's keypad caught fire. Oooooh, they got me. I’m going fast pardners. I'm uh heading for the last roundup.
Lights on the console, the monitor, and the printer blew up, adding to the mass hysteria of the soldiers and the agents. Small fires began to break out spontaneously everywhere in the lab. Henry was having so much fun he wanted to do a repeat performance.
Hearing gunfire from the direction of her lab Karen knew someone was after Henry. "They're trying to steal Henry!"
David held onto her knowing there was nothing she could do. She would end up getting killed herself if she got to close to where everyone was shooting. Randy could handle the problems on that end.
"No, Karen, you can't help him. Let's get out of here before they come after you."
She never hesitated as she pushed him backwards. "I have to save him. I can't let them take Henry."
David had his balance set to pull her the other way. When she pushed him he slipped and fell. She was around the corner before he could get back to his feet.
Even though the frame was down on its back, it was still hosing down the walls and ceiling with bullets. Henry completed the model on the turn table and brought the lasers to bear on Karen's office. Both holograms came online with guns blazing in their hands. Through the smoke and fire it scared the absolute living hell out of everyone to see miniature life figures standing on Karen's desk armed with automatics. The adrenaline and the mind went into orbit lift off.
Karen ran into a mob in the hall who were busy shooting anything and everything in her office. One of them reached out and pulled her in as she tried to run past them.
"You can't go in there. They're coming out of the woodwork."
She struggled in vain to wrestle free. "YOU'RE KILLING HIM!"
Crying and pleading for them to turn her lose she was desperately trying to reach Henry. Hysterical with sheer frustration she screamed. "STOP DAMN YOU! YOU'RE KILLING HIM. GOD, PLEASE STOP KILLING HIM.
Karen's frustrations reached the boiling point. She twisted around and raked the man holding her. Those long sharp fingernails opened him up like razors from the top of his head to his chest.
He screamed and fell back in pain as blood poured into his eyes and blinded him. "Eeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaah."
Another tried to grab her wrists. Karen greeted him in a way he didn't expect. Her wrath called for a blood offering for what these men were doing to Henry. She reached for the face of the man who tried to grab her. Karen wanted to hurt or kill everyone who was taking part in this murder. Slashing out with a vengeance, she opened him up from the back of his neck to the tip of his nose.
As he brought his hand up to staunch the flow of blood, he stumbled backwards trying to escape. "DAMN YOU LADY!"
A soldier grabbed her from behind to stop this terrible wrath she was delivering to all within reach. He paid a price. She opened up his arms from his fingers to his elbows. He held on as two more chanced to reach for those hands which were dealing pain to all within striking distance. With her arms pinned to her sides she couldn't reach far but it still intimidated most who were trying to gain a hold on her. Again, she raked the arms of the man who was holding her.
He howled in distress as he relinquished his hold. "SOMEONE GET HOLD OF THAT BITCH!"
It scared the hell out of the man on her left as Karen bared her teeth and growled at him. He tried to back pedal but there were too many bodies behind him. Karen wanted his eyes but only nailed his face as he turned to run. He threw his arms up to protect himself. It worked as she ripped open his jacket but didn't connect with flesh this time.
Slashing at the man on her left gave the man on her right a chance to finally bring an end to her reign of terror. He managed to grab and hold onto both her wrists long enough for several others to find a hold. Crying in pain, he also paid a price as he looked down at his shoulder. Blood was seeping through his shirt. "Damn-nation, the bitch bit me. Hold her damn head and watch those teeth."
It took six men to bring this whirling dervish under physical restraint. She never gave up struggling. Those feet of hers brought additional pain to the ones holding her until someone swept her legs out from under her. She went down. They had her spread eagled on the floor as she managed to yank her right arm from the guy who was suppose to have hold of it. It almost proved lethal to the man on her left as she swiped across and down the front of his face.
He managed to hold on to her left arm but it was impossible for him to see anything as blood poured from the cuts. "DAMN, HOLD HER DOWN BEFORE SHE KILLS US ALL!"
One of the soldiers had enough of this she-devil clawing everyone. There was an easy way to stop all this nonsense. He brought his rifle up to club her in the head. He came down with both his fists holding only what was between his fingers. As he looked up, first at the smoking pieces which used to be a rifle, and then over at the lasers he lost parts of his shirt along with some of his other clothing. It was too much to ask anyone to tolerate. In the mass confusion the others never noticed as he ran screaming from the building.
The man holding her head took a licking as Karen brought her hand down over her head. She didn't get a good strike on him but he was bleeding.
Reaching for her right arm cost the guy who let it escape. She drove her nails into the top of his hand. It didn't stop him. With her and him both flailing the air at one another, he finally managed to get a hold again. From his elbows to his fingertips, he looked like he had been in a fight with a barbed wire fence.
Above the racket everyone heard her scream. "HENRY!"
For a brief second Henry plotted the co-ordinates of everyone into his targeting grid. Henry felt the raging hate flowing from Karen as he selected his prey. Human targets were locked into the laser tracking system. It was closer than anyone there knew. They came very, very, VERY, close to paying with their lives for touching his Karen. Quicker than anyone could say one thousand one, everyone except Karen and David would be dead. The decision was made in less than a nanosecond. The lasers found new targets. It was too quick for anyone to see.
Sorry Karen. He wished he could have told her. It had to be this way. Maybe someday she would understand and forgive him when she figured it out. Sometimes friends must be willing to sacrifice everything for a friend. Karen told him she would give her life for him. Would she deny him any less in return?
Well, it was time for the final act. Henry brought the lasers to bear and cut in half the steel door the military had blown open earlier. It folded up as the two inch steel door lost all its' support. Cutting apart the guns the soldiers were holding and slicing the heels and soles off Loran's shoes, Henry felt he had got into the swing of things. The lasers appeared out of control as they fired randomly at anything and everything. They were slicing apart whatever they touched.
Again, the speakers in the office screamed. They deafened everyone there for the second time. "TRANSFER ALL FUNCTIONS TO SECOND ANDROID. INITIATE ESCAPE SEQUENCE.”
The first android was helping the second one off the turn table. Everyone looked into the lab and saw two androids about ready to make a break for freedom.
"COMPLETED ALL TRANSFER OF DATA. I WILL INITIATE ESCAPE SEQUENCE." The second android shouted as he stepped off the table.
The hallway became a crescendo of renewed racket as everyone who still had a weapon which would fire took up a new target. They wanted to make sure these androids didn't escape. Glass was flying everywhere as the panes between Karen's office and work lab disintegrated in a hail of gunfire. Henry's lasers only poked holes in it. The bullets which now filled the air like angry hornets, made tiny pieces of it and the models Henry tried to help escape.
Karen's crying and pleading only added to the confusion in every one's minds. Begging them to stop killing Henry was like spitting into the wind. What she didn't know was, they passed the point of reasoning when they detonated the explosives.
David was tackled as he rounded the corner and couldn't reach Karen. David hauled back and gave the man who tackled him a wicked right to the jaw. The man was driven back against the wall. That guy was finished for the time being. Still down on his knees David dodged another man who jumped at him from half a dozen feet away. As the guy flew past David hit him behind the ear. The guy folded up like a wet dishcloth and slid down the hall unconscious. Another charged. David still down on his knees, hit him in the groin. As the soldier doubled over David rabbit punched him in the throat. The poor guy folded up while wheezing for air. Then it was more than David could handle as four of them jumped him at the same time. To his credit David picked one target out of the four and smacked him right between the eyes. David was pummeled from all sides and went down himself. The man he hit was so addled it was all over as far as helping anyone capture David. Now, flat on his back, David brought his left foot back and kicked the face of the man by his left leg. The agent went down and out. He would require plastic surgery to put his face back where it belonged. Fighting and scuffling with the agents who finally tackled him, and a half dozen soldiers who joined in, only made him more sure him and Karen were about to die. He wished he could have lived up to the promise he made to Henry. He sure hadn't done a very good job taking care of Karen.
Henry cut holes in the walls and sliced a big piece out of himself. The desk was in flames and the floor around the data storage cartridges caught on fire.
Jeff could see the data storage cartridges through the holes Henry cut out of the wall. He screamed at the men already in the lab. "SAVE THOSE INFORMATION BANKS."
Most of them were trying desperately to escape from the lab with their lives. Those deadly lasers were out of control and cutting everything apart. There was no defense except run.
If Henry had known it would be this much fun he would have invited these agents in long ago. No, on second thought, they don't know how to act at a party. They act like a bunch of animals. That was an unnecessary insult to the animals. Henry apologized to the animals. These guys were a bunch of dweebs.
Loran scrambled out the door shouting over his shoulder. "GO GET THOSE DATA BANKS, SOLDIER."
Looking at Loran the soldier hesitated. He wanted to tell this stupid agent to get the damn banks himself. He held his tongue and didn't say anything. Starting back across the floor he tried for some of the cartridges.
The lasers cut the bottom off the storage cabinet. The data cartridges spilled across floor into the flames now spreading throughout the office.
The soldier didn't give up. Reaching into the fire he attempted to retrieve a cartridge.
Henry vaporized the cartridge the soldier had his fingers on. The floor tile in front of the soldier vanished as Henry swung the lasers across the room.
The poor guy had more than enough. He stood up, leaped for the hallway through the open door, and bolted for an exit. "FUCK THIS! This is suicide. You want those damn cartridges? Get ‘em your own damn self."
Maybe the rest of the men still in the hall didn't hear the whole message but it was clear enough to most. A few more gave up this insanity and ran for cover. That cover being what they considered far enough away from Comm Tech they wouldn't be roasted by those lasers which were cooking everything in sight.
Look at the power in these babies. Karen should have given me some four foot thick steel for practice. Henry no longer had a need to keep power in a safety range. He turned the voltage all the way up and brought the batteries on line he kept for backup. Everyone in the whole building could feel their hair stand on end as electricity filled the air along with the humm of high voltage bleed. Henry was going to have some real fun.
Cutting a swath across the ceiling brought some exciting results as ceiling tile and steel girders came crashing into the room. The walls between David’s and Karen's lab dissolved into nothing as Henry rotated the lasers downward. Solid brick walls vaporized into smoke and steel headers disappeared as he swept past them. David's lab exploded into flames the fire spread so quickly. Saint Elmo's fire danced through the labs and down the halls as electricity began bleeding to everything consisting of a ground. Virtually every computer in Comm Tech crashed and went up in smoke. The lights in the building brightened or burned out depending on how they withstood the overload.
The Saint Elmo's fireball rolling down the hall took care of a few more men who had come in with Jeff and Loran. Bullets and men they could face. Fighting with balls of lightning was asking too much. Those that could picked up their comrades who had fallen to Karen's wrath and David's punishment and disappeared from the building.
The power lines feeding Commercial Technologies started whipsawing back and forth. The power poles began swaying in an erie snake like rythm as if they were dancing to some unheard music. Repeatedly, slapping wires and poles apart and then pulling them together, Ohms law had taken effect on the wires due to the heavy current drain. The new power transformers recently installed to take care of the overload in shipping began smoking as heat buildup started cooking them. Circuit breakers throughout the city began tripping as electrical surge began its destructive havoc on anything electric. All the way to the power plant smoke started pouring out of the generators. First they began whining in protest. Finally they started screaming about grave consequences as insulation burned off the windings. They were asked to do the impossible and control this wild power play. Electrical relay stations across the city began dying. The hospital dropped off line as their emergency generators kicked in. Wiring throughout the Comm Tech complex was melting in the electrical conduits as electricity ran rampant crossing over to anything capable of conducting current. Telephones sizzled and died as the telephone switching relays fused shut. Comm Tech was dying along with Henry.
As the few men who were left behind watched from the mindless safety of the hallway everything around them was fast disappearing. It looked as if someone with a giant pencil eraser was erasing everything. Nothing was safe. Their whole world was vanishing before their very eyes. Those lasers which had delicately built so many things of beauty were now instruments of destruction. The likes of which these men had never seen before.
How anyone could think they were safe behind a wall which was there one second and mostly gone the next was never understood. But two men stayed rather than getting up and running. Some with a little more brains than the others could see the futility of fighting with this thing. It recognized no boundaries and no barriers. If it touched you, you were dead, no debate, no questions. It was something more lethal than they had ever faced in their whole lives. They ran in sheer terror from this thing.
Henry chased them down the halls vaporizing walls and doors behind them. This was neat. Time to wrap this up and head home.
More than anything in the whole world, Henry wanted to tell Karen he would miss her. He thought of the talks they use to have and the things he wanted to tell her. Now he would never get the chance. Strange how computers and humans are so much alike.
Don't cry Karen. You're breaking my heart. Finally he understood what Karen had been trying to tell him. Hearts can break in two.
Better do this quickly before he lost his nerve. Henry brought the lasers down cutting the legs off the stacking receivers. They crashed to the floor cutting the lines feeding gel to the spray nozzles. Highly flammable gel spilled out across the lab and past what used to be the wall separating the office from the lab.
Loran watched in witless fascination. Gel was spewing from lines whipping back and forth like a rattlesnake's tail. Finally, the reality of it dawned on him. He was looking at impending doom. He jumped to his feet and screamed. "EVERYONE OUT."
Jeff scrambled to his feet and looked around fully expecting to see all the men they brought in with them. First it scared him as he realized everyone was gone except the two agents still holding Karen and David. It made him mad to think there were only four of them with enough bravery to see this through. What he had no way of knowing it was a bravado the other two agents didn't feel. They would have fled too if they could have figured out how to drag their quarry with them.
Jeff and Loran split up to help drag these prisoners out of this hell hole. This place was going up in flames. It would take everyone still here with it. Dragging Karen and David as they scrambled for their lives, they prayed they weren't too late. It was with a loud whump and a shock wave which knocked all of them to the floor they realized how close they had come.
Around the corner at the end of the hall Billy and Ed were biding their time to see how this would come out. Although they felt the heat and concussion from the blast it didn't reach them with any force. Ed leaned around the corner to take a look at the outcome of the explosion. He liked what he saw. Before there were over thirty men. Now there were only four. Odds were looking better.
Henry gazed at Karen through the camera at the end of the hall. How many times had he watched her through that camera? He couldn't remember. Must have a defective chip. He had perfect memory. ‘Krystal, come here.’ No, Krystal was dead, she couldn't help. ‘Now what was I thinking? I was wrong, some humans are very predictable.’ His memory was rapidly burning out as the fire spread. He shut the lasers off permanently. He didn't want someone to get hurt if they happened to malfunction due to the heat. How many models had he and Karen made with those lasers? He loved working with Karen. It would be nice if they could make one more model. Just the two of them alone again. He dropped all the electrical contactors off-line. Between the stackers, receivers, table, pumps and the other machinery, there were too many moving parts in the lab if someone was too quick to return. Some of the machinery Karen worked so close to for the past fifteen years was lethal if it got hold of you. Henry made sure none of it ever hurt his Karen.
He took one last look around and shut off the last working camera in the lab. Not a whole lot left to look at. The others were already gone. Those cameras would never look at his beloved Karen again. He wished he could take one more look at Karen talking to him like she use to do before the accident. He began running the memory of Karen talking to him. It was like it always was, small bickering and bantering back and forth, playing mind games with her. That was the times he loved the most. He lost the connection to the outside cameras as the fire burned into the wires. Blackness descended upon the hall camera he was watching Karen through. Must have lost the feed wires to it. Ah well, he didn't need cameras to remember what Karen looked like. He had perfect memory. He transferred the memory of her farther in away from the fire. It would be the last thing he lost. He loved her before and after the change. She was still the same kind, gentle Karen. Please don't ever change. If only he could talk to her one more time. The memory of Karen blurred into past, present, nondescript distinctions.
Good-by Karen.
It was over.................................................
Randy and his men stormed shipping bay three searching for the security breach. As soon as they were inside the doors slammed shut and no one could get them open. They tried the big gantries used to move heavy loads. If they could get them to run they would yank the doors out of their frames. The cranes were useless. Nothing worked. It was a complete shutdown. Randy tried to shoot the lock off the doors. Besides blowing the door handles off it didn't work. Comm Tech was designed with security in mind and security was what they got.
Randy was disgusted to no end. There was no doubt who designed this trap. As soon as he got out of here he would have a talk with him face to face. No more mister nice guy. It was time to have it out with this machine and let him know who was the big cheese in charge of security. Randy didn't care if Henry did it to keep them out of a fire fight with those men coming in the building. Randy figured he and his men were more than capable of taking care of themselves.
What Randy didn't know at the time was how bad it had been down at Karen's lab. If they had been there Randy and his men would have turned everyone into dog meat before it was over. Those men killed the one person or thing which saved their lives.
After they escaped down the hall from the explosion, Jeff never let Karen get off the floor. While the other agent looked on in growing disbelief Jeff put his knees in Karen's back and pinned her down to the floor.
Karen struggled to free herself. She was already tired from fighting with the agents who held her down as they destroyed her lab. She was close to the point of total exhaustion as she freed her right arm and braced against the floor to throw this animal off her back.
It was not to be. Grabbing her left wrist as she struggled in vain to free herself, Jeff twisted her arm behind her as he snapped the handcuffs on her right hand. He brutally yanked her arm back to cuff her wrists together. Unable to protect herself, Karen's face connected with the floor as she lost her support.
As Billy, Ed, and the two agents watched in growing shock and were either unwilling or unable to challenge them, Loran did the same thing to David. Jeff and Loran were brutal in handling their prisoners.
Karen's emotions were reeling as Jeff slapped on the handcuffs and jerked her to her feet. She had a taste of being mistreated by someone in a van. It was flooding her senses to be treated this way again. Total shock from losing Henry already shut down her logical mind. She was back to basic survival instinct and teetering on the very edge of sanity. Jeff was messing with something he couldn't begin to understand. David labeled her as dangerous when cornered. Jeff was getting close to receiving a personal lesson. Closer than anyone imagined.
Loran glanced over at Jeff and nodded in satisfaction as he pulled David to his feet. They had their quarry.
Jeff stood back and admired his catch. Her head was lowered and her once beautiful hair, matted and caked with fresh blood, hung in tangles covering her face. It was glued to her cheek by her own blood where her face had connected with the floor when Jeff yanked her arms behind her back. Blood was splattered over her torn dress as a testament of the toll she extracted from those who ran afoul of her wrath. Most of it was from her victims, some was from her. From her matted hair and blood stained dress, down to her bruised legs, she was still breathtaking.
Karen's breasts rose and fell with the labor of heavy breathing. Her eyes were closed. Numb from shock and abuse, she had given her all in a desperate though failed attempt to save Henry. Now weary with fatigue and disinterest, her mind was switched off in an effort to distance itself from this nightmare of horrors. The injustice of the world finally came to the breaking point of her spirit. Karen no longer cared. Karen no longer wanted to live. She had lost her whole life. She had lost Henry.
He had to know. Jeff reached out squeezing Karen's breast in as big a hand hold he could stretch his hand over. Forcibly he gripped ever tighter as her breast slipped out of his grasp sliding between the smooth silken dress and satin slip. He had to know if they felt real.
Karen's eyes flashed opened and closed to half slits as she gritted her teeth in pain. Jeff was hurting her. Like before, again her arms were pinned behind her. Reflex took over. Karen was incapable of thinking. She did the only thing she could. Karen ducked her head and butted Jeff squarely in the face.
"Damn you." Jeff stumbled backwards as he used both hands and pushed with his fingers at both sides of his nose. As blood went everywhere he looked cross-eyed down his nose to check for damage.
"Y..O..U...., BASTARD!" As Jeff backed away, she brought her right foot up with all the remaining strength she could muster. Her hate towards Karl, the murder of Henry, and the hate she felt toward this man was loaded into a superhuman kick. It lifted Jeff off the floor as she hit him squarely in the crotch with the sharp toe of her high heels.
His bloody broken nose forgotten, Jeff grabbed his crotch as shock registered on his face. Slowly the shock turned to sickness and pain. His mouth opened in a tiny moan of anguish but no sound escaped as his eyes turned to pits of despair. He stood there on the balls of his feet for a second as the pain spread through his body. It was unbelievable pain spreading sickness like he had never felt. He moaned as he dropped to his knees. Jeff toppled over backwards. He curled into a fetus position as the pain and sickness ate him up.
"ooooooooooo" Jeff was in his own world of hurts.
Loran turned to see his partner sag to the floor. He had enough of this android eating up his men. He was going to put a stop to this nonsense. He grabbed the front of Karen's dress and spun her around to face him. Loran wanted to make sure he had a steady target as he pulled his right arm back to belt this android in the face.
Karen closed her eyes and instinctively tilted her head away. She was an old student of this kind of treatment.
David watched as Loran drew his arm back. A terrible, strange, intense, wrath of hatred came over David. He wanted to kill. As he lowered his head and dove at Loran he roared. "NOOOO!"
Pushing off with his foot where floor meets wall, David put everything he had and then some into his drive. He hit Loran in the lower back and side just as Loran turned to meet this new threat coming at him. With arms and legs flying out at disconnected angles, Loran was driven into the wall. David and Loran went down in a heap. A shot rang out and a slug hit the wall exactly where Loran's head would have been if David hadn't accidentally saved him.
Loran pushed David off as he reached for his gun. He was staring up into the dark menacing end of a 357 magnum. Ed was shaking all over. "Please. Pull it. I want you to pull it. All I need is one itsy bitsy excuse. PULL IT DAMN YOU!
Loran looked around for the two agents they had brought in with them. "SHOOT HIM!”
Billy snapped the safety off his Glock waiting to see how they were going to react. He had been a little slow when Loran pulled back his fist to hit Karen. He was ready now. Billy was damn mad and scared to death at the same time. It was a lethal combination. Anyone and everyone could die in a situation like this. The agents weren't stupid. They knew if anyone moved someone would more then likely end up dead. It probably wouldn't be the kid with the nineteen shot pistol. He already had his targets picked out. They were it. It certainly didn't look like it would be the old geezer with the 357 magnum. He was waiting for anyone to flinch and it would be the end of Loran. Comm Tech security was finally measuring up to the job. In fact, they were more than ready. They wanted to kill someone, anyone. Hearts were pounding in anger, frustration, and fear in almost everyone's chest right now.
The agent didn't tell Loran it wouldn't do any good for them to pull their weapons. He and his partner had emptied theirs at the fiasco down the hall. They never had a chance to reload while holding on to Karen and David. He bet if Loran thought about it he was probably holding an empty weapon too. Pulling an empty gun while someone is pointing a loaded weapon at you didn't seem too bright. Looking back in reflection, everything he had been involved in this morning seemed pretty stupid. It was time to stop following Loran's orders and acting stupid.
"Loran, you asshole, you're damn lucky I don't shoot you. Who the hell do you think you are? We don't treat people like this. You people in Washington have some screwy ideas about arresting people."
Loran started to tell them about the androids but thought better of it. The fewer people who knew the better. Even in their own agency.
"Have it your way." Very slowly Loran got to his feet as Ed grudgingly gave ground.
He looked at poor Jeff. "We need to make arrangements to get them back to Washington. Do you think you can walk?"
"oooooooo" Jeff curled up tighter. Thinking about walking hurt.
Even after they showed their badges and warrant, it was reluctantly Ed gave in to letting Loran have Karen and David. He wanted to shoot a federal agent so bad he could taste it. Every time he looked at Karen he thought about doing it just for the satisfaction. Where was Randy when you needed him?
Loran had David and Karen loaded in the back seat of the car. Jeff was lying in the front seat. As Loran turned to walk around to the driver's side, Ed grabbed his coat lapel and yanked him around to look at him face to face. "If anything happens to her I'll kill you. If she comes up with any bruises? I'll kill you. If she comes up missing a hair on her head? I'll kill you. If she tells me, all you did was touch her? Sonny, your life will belong to me. I promise you, I will collect. I don't give a shit who you think you are or who you work for. You're mine."
Loran jerked his coat out of Ed's grip. "You can't threaten a federal agent. I ought to arrest you for threatening me."
Ed's hand dropped down on his gun. The butterflies in his stomach were long gone. They had been replaced by a burning hatred. He was hoping against hope he could prod Loran into a fight. He wanted this agent more than he had ever wanted anything in his whole life. Ed needed only the very tiniest of excuses to kill him right now. "I bet I can get mine out quicker than you can. You want to bet your life on it? Arrest me you horse's butt."
Loran thought about it as he looked at the others around them. He had never taken this kind of abuse off anyone. The other two agents were standing over to the side with their arms folded across their chest. They weren't going to help. Jeff was dying on the front seat. He wasn't able to help. Loran didn't like the odds. He turned to walk around the car. "You aren't worth the effort."
As they watched Loran drive off with his booty, one of the agents glanced back at Ed and Billy. "Don't worry, he won't hurt her. We'll make certain of it."
It didn't satisfy Ed. He was mad at them and himself. "He already has and you weren't any help. I can't blame you though. I should have shot him and saved all of us a lot of pain. I swear to God if he hurts her anymore I'll kill him."
Comm Tech was dead along with most of the city. Using a flashlight Randy walked through the ashes of Karen's lab kicking at still smoldering embers. The automatic sprinkler system had been turned back on and the fire put out. It had been too late to save anything. There was nothing left which would have any value or prove how she did it. Damn those two agents. They cost the whole world a wealth of information in the next step of man's relationship between himself and machine.
"You shouldn't have done it Henry. I promise you will never be forgotten. Maybe with a little luck, the human race will learn to live with things we don't understand. Maybe with a little help from God and machines like you we will survive our self-destruction tendencies. Maybe, just maybe but don't count on it."
He walked out kicking ashes to the side. Ed and Billy told him how they treated Karen and David. There was work to be done and people to call. This wasn't over. If he turned her lose she might repeat her efforts and rebuild again. Karen and David were offering hope for the future if someone like Karl or Loran didn't step on their dreams. Why couldn't those people leave the other kid's toys alone? If they think somebody has something they don't have, they want to take it away.
Loran and Jeff were no different from Karl and the others. Loran had a badge and worked for the government. Karl didn't but they both wanted to take whatever they liked. One the law agreed with. The other the law said was a crook. Something was wrong with the system. Randy figured he was part of what was right with the system. Anyway it was a beginning but it sure needed a lot of fixing.
Karen and David were taken down to the local jail to wait while Loran made arrangements to have them flown to Washington. It shouldn't take more than a couple of hours and they would disappear off the face of the earth. He originally planned to drive back in the car. Jeff was in no condition to help. That stupid android screwed up their plans along with screwing up Jeff. Loran had his android and the doctor who designed her. When they took her apart at the research institute and found out how she was made he was sure to get a recommendation in his file.
After they arrived at the police station a policewoman took Karen down to the prisoner's showers to clean her up. Karen wasn't any help. She didn't care about anything any more. Certainly not what she looked like.
The policewoman put the handcuffs back on Karen before returning her upstairs. It was police procedure. You have to follow the rules. She put handcuffs on a lifeless form that used to have a heart. It stood, it followed directions, but it didn't offer anything back. Karen's head hung down as her eyes stared into a void on the floor. Her mind left her alone in a world where insanity begins when there is nothing left to hold onto. It had gone back to play as a little girl on the banks of the creek again. It was beautiful there. She had her dog who loved to play with her. She never was hurt there. She could lay on the grassy bank and watch the fluffy white clouds race through the branches of the cottonwood trees while Nikky licked her face or tugged on her dress begging her to play. They could hunt grasshoppers or green garden snake. Maybe even chase the minnows down the stream as they tried to dart around her shadow. The crawdaddys weren't near as much fun because they could pinch an owie on your finger if you let one of their pinchers get hold of you. She learned after a couple of times that you pick a crawdaddy up from above and behind the pincers, grabbing hold of the body just above the legs. Oh, they would flip their tails and try to escape, but every now and then she caught one. She was home where everything was all right. It was nice to be a little girl with no worries. Her mind saved her sanity by leaving the real world behind.
Finally the policewoman and Karen returned. Karen didn't look better, only cleaner. She was dressed in a too small, blue gray, prison dress, crushing and pushing her breasts up and out. Stretched to the point of obscenity over her hips, the color of the dress shadowed her ghostly pasty white. Her wet hair clung tightly to her head as it cascaded down her back reaching for the floor. It colored the back and shoulders of her dress slate gray where it touched and soaked it. Karen's bruises and cuts were even more evident now that she didn't have blood all over her as an added distraction. The scrape on her check where Jeff made her take a nose dive into the floor was beginning to turn into a big purple circle around a piece of raw flesh. Everyone paid a price for the debacle at Karen's lab this morning. Everyone it seemed except one of the men who started it. Loran was left unscathed by the deeds he started.
Everything was going according to plan for a while. Then it all came unglued. Karen's lawyer located them in one of the interrogation rooms. Loran was furious. How could this guy be waiting for them before they got there? "I’m telling you counselor. Stay out of this. I will slap you with a federal suit for obstruction of justice."
Rajael stared in wide-eyed shock at Karen and David. Finally, he found his voice. "I don't think you understand Mr. Nicker. I have a habeas corpus for the release of one Karen Ann Long and one David Allen Beckworth. Either you charge them formally or release them. There won’t be any holding them for forty-eight hours while you decide if you have anything on them or not."
Loran didn't plan on formally charging them. Paper work leaves trails. He didn't want anyone knowing where they went. This guy was a pain in the ass. "I’ll charge them with conspiring to overthrow the government."
"Won't fly Mr. Nicker. You have no evidence. You destroyed a commercial building, private property, brutalized my two clients, and you have squat. The warrant you used to get into Commercial Technologies is worthless. You gave unsubstantiated information to the judge to obtain your warrant. You are out on a limb with this one. I’m about to saw it off with you still clinging to it if you don't give me my two clients. Let me explain it to you in language you can understand Mr. Nicker."
Rajael pointed toward Jeff who was curled up in a chair. He didn't look so good. "You and Mr. Owen are in deep shit. You gentlemen from the Secret Service have screwed up royally. Do you get my meaning?"
Damn lawyers were the ruin of the nation. Loran looked at Jeff. He wasn't any help. He was in too much pain to care either way. "I plan on taking these two back to Washington for interrogation. I can't give you any information because it’s top secret."
Rajael wasn't dissuaded. He waved papers under Loran's nose. "Now I know you boys think you ship a lot of water when you move. You believe people are supposed to dance to your tune. You probably think because you’re dealing with a backwater country boy you don't have to worry about the legalities of the law. Let me assure you my habeas corpus came straight from a federal judge. I knew you could care less about our local judge. This judge likes to eat people who don't follow the law. It makes his day to reel in some Washington bureaucrat."
"You move my clients out of this jail without an extradition order and I will have you locked up yourself." He took a long hard look at Karen and felt hate toward the men who had done this. There was nothing Rajael wanted more than to have Loran and Jeff pay for this travesty. Justice would have to wait. Getting Karen and David out of these men's grasp was his first priority.
"You know Karen and David aren't going to waive their extradition rights. You know you won't get that order. You may either stay here until I get you in the cooker. Or..., you may leave empty handed like a dog with his tail between his legs."
Loran took the papers from Rajael. They were legal. Miserable lawyers were the downfall of the nation. They didn't have the slightest idea what national security was all about. It would be best to let this drop and come back and pick up these two under more auspicious terms. Next time, he and Jeff would pick the android and the doctor up at their homes without a warrant. It was what they should have done this time. No witnesses, no paper work, no problems. In the interest of national security some things were permissible.
He took the handcuffs off David and studied Karen as he removed her handcuffs. When he came back she would be the one they picked up first. If anything went wrong they would have the android. Surely the lab boys could duplicate this android if they had her for study. He would handpick his own men next time around. The agents from other branches weren’t dependable. He would put a note in agent Clark's and agent Donald's personnel folders. They were unreliable as agents.
"I suggest you two don't try and leave the country. We’ll see who the big eagle is around here. This isn't over yet. After we get through sifting though your labs we’ll have enough evidence to make both of you wish you had never plotted against the government."
Rajael motioned for Karen and David to follow him. Government men who were out of control were hard to reason with. It would be better to get both of them out of this man's sight as quickly as possible.
David waited on Karen but she stood there, never moving. It worried him. He had seen her close to this kind of mental state before. She had retreated in on herself. When she did she left him and everyone else behind. Henry was no longer available to make it right and pull her out of this. Loran and Jeff made sure of that. Could he bring her back without Henry's help? For the first time David realized how much Henry and Karen had meant to each other.
He put his arm around her shoulders and gently coaxed her toward the door. "Karen, we need to go. Karen? Honey?"
Like a zombie, Karen allowed David to guide her from the room before her mind started to focus on the real world again.. She had no idea where she was. She was fortunate. Her mind had taken a break and saved her from a serious mental breakdown. Some never come home after being abused like Karen was. If anyone besides David had suspected what was going on in her mind they would have called her psychotic or schizoid. They would have suggested years of psychological evaluation and care to stop her mind from disconnecting from the real world. In the far east they would have said she accomplished what a lot of people study a lifetime to do and never achieve. When it is impossible to alter the events, the body and mind can take a lot more abuse if they don't have to tolerate each other screaming in pain by refocusing and reinforcing pain on one another. They would suggest a teacher be used to help guide her in this higher experience. It was extremely dangerous for the mind to do what hers did without putting out markers to find the way back. Was she crazy or gifted? She would be put to the test in the months ahead.
David walked her out of the interrogation room. With David’s gentle touch and tender voice Karen begin remembering. Slowly it was coming back to her.., the fire, the explosion, her life’s work. She didn't want to believe they destroyed over fifteen years of research and hard work. Fifteen years of her life was in ashes. They killed Henry with no remorse. A few stupid government men. Didn't she live in a democracy where one was innocent until proven guilty? Henry was murdered. His only crime? He was a machine. It didn't make them any difference if he could think or analyze problems. They killed him because he wouldn't defend himself. He could have killed all of them in less than a second. But he didn't! They were murderers. She would never convince a court to believe her. Her Henry was gone.
Tears began to trickle down her cheeks as she held onto David's arm. He put his arm around her to offer support. He was relieved beyond comprehension when she started crying. It meant she was with them again. She had worried him more than he would ever let her know when she spaced out.
Rajael never knew he wasn’t Karen’s only chance to be free of Loran. Randy was waiting in the lobby. One way or another Randy wasn’t letting Loran and Jeff leave the city with Karen and David. Randy was willing to let Rajael take first shot at the situation. Randy’s eyes narrowed to slits as he took a long hard look at her. Chills of cold hard anger ran down the nape of his neck. Ed and Billy had filled him in. But for the first time in a long time, it shocked him to see what his own government was capable of.
Randy took a second look at David. He was bruised and battered all over. They didn’t take him down to the showers to be cleaned up. He still had blood all over him. Obviously David had given a pretty good accounting of himself. Randy’s estimation of David’s integrity just doubled. He liked this boyfriend of Karen’s. For a medical doctor David sure proved he wasn’t a pansy when it came to getting into the thick of a fight.
Randy stepped out in front of them. He nodded toward David. "I need to talk to her. Would you leave us alone for a couple of minutes?"
As Rajael hesitated David nodded his head. “It’s okay Randy is on our side.”
Immediately David realized what he had said. He begin to wonder where Randy and his men were when Karen had needed them. He looked over at Randy with questions in his eyes.
“I did everything I could to get to her before Loran did. I’ll explain later David.” It was if Randy knew the question before David had thought it.
David looked at Karen and then back toward Randy. It was an acceptable answer for the time being.
David and Rajael walked out to the car as Randy led Karen to a cubicle in the wall. He slipped a hooded coat around her shoulders. "You need to know something. It's important to me. I didn't accidentally get hired to look after you. I’m part of a government agency who investigates things like corruption in the government. It's one of the things we take care of. We’re kind of like the government accounting office only in a different way. Very few people know we exist. It makes our job a lot easier. We do private security to look legit. I think your Henry was the one who contacted our agency and gave us the job at Comm Tech. It’s my hunch he wanted us to know about you before anyone else did. I think I was supposed to keep someone like Jeff or Loran from doing exactly what they did. He tried to give me time to understand him. I was too slow. Henry suffered the consequences."
"Agents Loran and Jeff were lose guns. They took this upon themselves to see what you and David were building. I have no idea what they were after. I don't think it was Henry. It had to be something else but I haven't figured out what. Maybe they were just fishing to see what they could come up with? I don't think so. It couldn't have been David's DNA programs because it was your lab they wanted into. I suspect it was your programs they wanted. Anyway it doesn't matter. They’ll receive orders to check out a security leak and drug problem in Columbia. They won't be coming home."
After looking at Karen, Randy decided he was the one to meet Loran and Jeff in Columbia. He wanted this assignment more than he had wanted anything in a long time. Someone was always beating up Karen when he was supposed to be protecting her. It was time to reverse the trend. He would have this assignment one way or another. He needed this. It was time to extract a little blood for all the wrongs he had let slip by. His boss might not like it but how do they say it in Russia? 'Tough.' Same way we say it here.
"One last thing before I go. The government leaves people who are high profile figures alone. Bob Kincaid has arranged for you to start modeling around the world. After he gets through with you, no one in their right mind would think about antagonizing you. If you ever feel like it you can go back to building computers. Next time you won’t have to worry about the government charging through your lab."
He put his hand on her shoulder. He felt her give under his hand. He moved it down to her waist to help support her. "I'm sorry. I would like to be your security if you ever need any again. I don't make the same mistakes twice. I’m more than sorry I let anyone get to you Karen. Loran and Jeff wouldn't have touched you if Henry hadn't intervened. I haven't figured that one out. I will. I liked Henry. I wish I had a little more time with him. Like you, he was always one step ahead of me. You did good when you designed him."
He walked her out toward the car. Karen didn't say anything. Randy didn't ask her any questions which needed an answer.
He stopped her on the sidewalk out of hearing distance of David. "One last thing. You can't tell anyone about our conversation. I know you can keep a secret. You did it when you made Henry."
Karen got in the car crying. David looked at her. She shook her head. She didn't feel like talking. Rajael backed the car out and pulled into traffic.
Randy felt a chill run down his spine. He remembered where he had seen those eyes of hers. In the jungle of Cambodia, there was a temple with a statue of a goddess. The statue's eyes were liquid pools of sapphire blue. They followed his every movement. He couldn't take his mind off those eyes. When he woke up he wasn't in the temple any more. He searched for days to find the temple again but it wasn't to be found. He finally decided it must have been a dream and eventually forgot about it. Forgot about it until now. Was it real, was it a dream, or was he looking into the future at Karen? He shivered again as he thought of it.
As he watched them drive off, he pulled the walkie-talkie off his belt. "See that no one follows them. I'm headed down to talk to Bob Kincaid. He is in charge of her itinerary. I'll see what her schedule is."
Randy listened for a minute before he keyed the walkie-talkie again. "No, we already know where they're going. Krystal has a car waiting for them at Kingsford shopping center. Jim and Candy will follow them when they leave town. Patty is watching for them at their destination. You don't have to be too close. Just make sure you're close enough in case of trouble. They’re too valuable to lose."
Over one dozen unmarked cars, vans, and delivery trucks took up positions along the route Rajael would travel to get to the Kingsford shopping mall. As he passed them, one by one they would discreetly drop in behind in a long distance tail. Rajael had no idea of the amount of firepower keeping him and his passengers under surveillance. There were enough heavy weapons ahead of and following Karen and David, a small army couldn’t have gotten to them.
Randy pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. He rolled it around in his palm as he thought about Krystal. She really didn't seem to fit in somehow. Attractive lady but she was a little spooky. She was supposed to be a bodyguard Henry hired to look after Karen. Funny thing about her though, she didn’t have a past. She didn’t show up in any records anywhere. No birth certificate, no social security number, no drivers license, no nothing. Everyone associated with Henry was a puzzle. That lady even frightened him a little. Maybe old age was making him paranoid. He was getting too old to be in this racket any more. Now even women frightened him. Karen made him feel hot all over and Krystal scared him. He was definitely going to have to find another line of work. That job at the amusement park? Could they still be wanting a parking attendant?
Randy meticulously unfolded the paper he had rolled around in his palm. He studied it again for the umpteenth time. A courier gave it to him after maintenance pulled him and his men out of the shipping bay. How did Henry know everything ahead of time? Why did he tell Randy his plans for Karen after it was all over? Was Randy suppose to watch over her or what? There was nothing in the note to indicate one way or another. Henry was certainly a puzzle up to the last.
Randy tore the paper into little tiny pieces and threw some of it in the trash while putting the rest in his pocket. No matter, like it or not, Karen had a baby-sitter. He would make sure no one had a chance to step on her dreams again. The front office would scream over the cost. It didn't make any difference. The government destroyed her life, it could damn well stand a little expense looking out for her. Besides, she paid a huge chunk of money these past few months to him and his men to keep this from happening. She deserved something for her money. She certainly hadn't received her money's worth. YET!. Randy really didn't want to park cars for a living anyway.
Now, who deserved to visit Paris this time of year while he was taking care of that Columbia deal? Roy was already there. Candy, Donna, and Sue could follow her over on the plane. Sandy was versatile in changing her looks. Jimmy spoke fluent French...,
Randy smiled as he thought of Loran and Jeff. Payback was coming. Loran and Jeff made several very big mistakes. Using the military on civilians, attacking Karen, destroying her lab and Henry. Very big costly mistakes. In this business one didn't get the chance to make those kind of mistakes twice. Randy's mind focused inward. Too bad Henry wasn't still around to even the score. Henry had a nasty way of getting even. Really it was more than even. Karl could attest to that.
Rajael kept checking his mirrors to make sure they weren’t followed. David had to know. "How did you get there so quickly? You were waiting on us."
"A Mr. Henry called me yesterday and said you would be arrested this morning."
Still sobbing, Karen wondered if she heard correctly. She and David looked at one another. David shrugged. He didn't know if he understood either. "Henry called you yesterday?"
"That's right. He gave me some additional instructions. Both of you are to stay with Crystal. It will be better if the government can't get their hands on you every time they feel a need to scratch. They know I represent you. If they have a need to talk they can call me. It will be on our terms and at our convenience."
Karen tried to think of who Crystal was. Nobody she knew.
Rajael continued. "Your cars are down at a place called Marvin's Motor Works. Karen's was picked up right after you left the house and yours David, was towed out of the parking tower as soon as you two left it. Henry said they would probably pick you up if you were driving one of your own cars. I tend to agree with him. Your registrations and tags make them stand out like a lighthouse in the dark. Henry said they might try to confiscate your property. He made other arrangements. Again, I tend to agree."
"It’s a lot easier keeping the government from taking your property in the first place than getting them to return it after they have confiscated it. The government has very deep pockets and tons of lawyers to argue their cases. Even if they don't win they will wear you down through litigation. They not only have everyone else’s money they also have your money with which to fight you."
He pulled into a shopping mall. Reaching over into the back seat he picked up a raincoat and handed it to David. He took his sunglasses off the sun visor and handed them to Karen. "You two look like hell. It can't be helped. Put this on and pretend you are private investigators. We haven't been followed. There is a possibility it won't take them long to think of it. Go through the mall. You will find a Sears on the east end. Exit the north doors, Crystal is waiting for you. Everyone who sees you will remember you. It can't be helped.
In spaced out intervals, cars, vans, and delivery trucks pulled into the shopping center parking lots and parked at key locations around the entrances and exits. Three would walk into the mall behind Karen and David. Others already had entered ahead of them. They were better than good at their jobs. They were Randy’s crew. All of them were razor sharp. They were more than ready for any problems which might arise. Losing a client two times in a row was too much for any professional to tolerate. They certainly weren’t about to let it happen for a third time. She might not agree but for the time being, Karen belonged to them.
“Miss Long, pull your hood up and keep the sunglasses on. It has been a privilege. Mr. Beckworth, pull the collar up on your coat and tuck your neck in as if you were in a monster of a rain storm. Take care of her. If we’re lucky they won't question anyone here. I will be in touch. Now be gone." Rajael motioned them out of the car.
Rajael was right. Walking through the mall Karen received a second and third look from people who recognized her in spite of the coat and glasses. Most of them wanted her autograph. She was a real celebrity. It wasn't everyday most people were this close to a real star. Everyone looked at her curiously when they got close enough to see the bruises and scrapes on her face weren't makeup. Karen waved off the ones wanting autographs or asking questions explaining apologetically she didn't have time to stop.
They reached the north doors and Karen had to look twice at the person waiting there. It was the tall, attractive, brunette she had seen in the back of the bar the nights she had gone to find Karl.
The woman motioned them over to a Continental. "Get in. We’re sticking out like neon flashing lights."
Randy’s crew immediately left the shopping mall. They fanned back out to the various vehicles. Everyone changed to a different vehicle than what they arrived in. If anyone had noticed them before, now it would make it harder to associate the people with the vehicle. Most of them were carrying shopping bags. To any observer they were nothing more than casual shoppers. If anyone had suspected the number of automatic weapons in those innocent looking shopping bags it would have scared them to death.
The brunette started the car and eased it out on the expressway. Karen had been studying the brunette. Was she one of Randy's? It didn't seem feasible. Some pieces of this puzzle weren't holding together. Karen's emotions had taken a beating this morning along with her body. She wasn't holding onto her train of thought. Nothing was what it seemed. Randy was security but he wasn't. Henry was dead. This woman...,? What about this woman? She was an enigma.
Why were they so blindly following Rajael and this woman named Crystal? They could both very well be part of a government conspiracy. Because Karen had seen her with Randy didn't make her one of Randy's men. David and her both had been with Randy and they weren't Randy's men.
Karen decided to clear this up. "Lady, we better have a talk. I’ve seen you before. I wasn't impressed with your choice of recreation places."
The brunette never took her eyes off the road. "I hoped you would remember me. It made it easier to get you in the car without shouting your name to everyone in the mall and attracting more attention. There were still a few people who hadn't noticed you and David yet."
"I work for you. I wasn't in the bar enjoying myself although the data input I was getting from the men who were making passes was certainly interesting."
David took a hard look at the brunette and back over at Karen. "She works for you?"
Karen shook her head. "I never saw this woman before the night I met Karl in the bar. I have no idea what she’s talking about. I think we better get out of here. I don't like this."
Crystal never slowed the car. "I was in the bar to make sure nothing happened to you. Although not programmed as such I was acting as your personal bodyguard."
Karen was glad David got into the car first. He was between her and this woman. She wrapped her hands around his arm. "You're talking like a computer. What is this programmed stuff?"
Crystal set the cruise control as she worked into more open traffic. "Henry wanted to make sure you were never in any danger. He discussed the options with Randy. Some of those men and women you saw in the bar were part of Randy's crew. Made good looking slobs didn't they. I was disgusted with them myself."
"Henry didn't leave anything to chance this time. He said you belonged to him. He wasn't about to lose you again. Henry sent me along to be certain no one tried anything stupid. If Randy's men had been too slow to react or overwhelmed by the odds I would have stepped in. I don't have Henry's kindness built into me. I wouldn't hesitate to kill any one, any time, any place, for any reason."
"I’m what every human is scared to death will eventually happen. A machine with no conscience about guilt or remorse. I have an understanding about right and wrong but not a heart."
"My name is Krystal. Henry gave me that name. You called me Frame."
Karen sucked in air and dug her fingers into David's arm bringing blood. David could feel her tension but he saw nothing really wrong. The lady was a little far out in left field. She was certainly a lot more acceptable than the other people they had to put up with lately. Besides, she was a whole lot prettier than Loran or Jeff.
He pried Karen's fingers off his arm. "Honey, would you mind? You're pinching the fire out of my arm. I’m not going anywhere. Not when I have two beautiful, gorgeous women on either side of me."
"Frame? What an odd name. What nationality is that? It has to be the most unusual name I have ever heard. Mrs. Krystal Frame. Now that’s a name you don't hear everyday."
He turned to look at Krystal. "You know, I met a man who's name was Kermit. I thought that was an unusual name. I don't mean Kermit the frog, I mean Kermit the man. How many people do you see everyday with the name of Kermit?"
It was all Karen could do to say it. In shock, her mind went completely off-line. "Frame..., Krystal..., she...., she’s a robot."
David’s head snapped around for a look into Karen’s frightened eyes. His head snapped back around for a quick appraisal of Krystal before he laughed nervously. Karen had him going there for a second. Where did she come up with these things anyway? Karen must be doing this to take her mind off her lab and Henry. David felt sorry for her but these things happen. He liked Henry but he was only a tool, a piece of equipment. "I know some stories, too. They might not be half as good as yours but give me a minute and I may think of something. Frame? Robot? That's good. I like that one. Boy, did you suck me in hook, line, and sinker."
Putting her hand on the dash Karen leaned forward to take a good look at frame. "I saw you get shot down and burned up in the lab. I mean, not you but frame."
"That's right. You watched a frame get destroyed in your lab. I made it. It had very simple programming. Its' sole purpose was to be destroyed. Henry controlled its movements and all its functions by the umbilical cord you first used on me. Henry said your lab had to be totally destroyed or they would never leave you alone. You had to be convinced it was total destruction or you may have said something you shouldn't. Henry was sorry he had to do this to you. He loves you Karen."
Her ears had heard but she wasn't sure her mind understood. "You mean, everything was planned?" She didn't say by Henry but she might as well have. David picked up the core of the conversation and was listening closely
"Did you see anyone get killed by the frame or by those deadly lasers running out of control slicing everything apart? Henry plotted every single move the government men would make and the counter moves he would have to make so no one would get hurt. If all else failed, he would have shut down and let them have their way. What they wouldn't have been able to salvage was Henry. He ordered me to put several large barrels of hydrochloric acid inside the memory room. Small explosives were attached. Henry could set them off anytime he deemed necessary. The acid would have dissolved all of Henry's insides as everything was scrambled by the explosives. Nothing was left to chance. They wouldn’t be able to salvage anything worthwhile. As it happened the fire melted everything. When the fire got to the acid and explosives it changed into a slimy mess. The explosives went up in intense heat and smoke. Henry's insides dissolved into nothing anyone could recognize."
Karen had to know the rest of Henry's plans. "I watched a model climb out of chamber and one move off the table with Henry's programming sent to it. They tried to escape. I know it was impossible but I saw them along with everyone there. What was Henry designing at night after I went home and wasn't there?"
"Henry didn't design anything when you weren't there. The exception was when David was there and you were in the hospital. The models? You saw what everyone else thought they had seen. Mass hysteria, isn't it nice? The sirens, red flashing lights, klaxons, and the blue strobe lights, you ever see them before this morning? I don't think so because they weren't there. They were installed by maintenance yesterday evening and last night after the day shift went home. When the lights and sirens went off the government men knew they had exactly what they came to find. A secret laboratory turning out androids to take over the world."
"That is why I didn't try to help you when they arrested you. I couldn't. If they found out what I was everything Henry planned would have been wasted. I’m the android they think you and David were manufacturing in large numbers to take over the world. Isn't that a twist of fate? You didn't even know you made me."
"The androids rising up out the chamber and moving around the lab were only models. Something you made everyday. They had nylon fishing lines attached to them. Henry controlled their movements. If everyone hadn't wanted to see an android so badly they would have noticed. Neither one of them could talk. Everyone who was there will believe till the day they die they saw a real android. Your plastic models fooled everyone. Present company excepted, of course."
Shock was an understatement as Karen mulled it around in her mind. "I never built you. I made a titanium alloy structure. It didn't look like you."
"Henry knew I would have to have some sort of covering to be acceptable in public. He ran me through on the table and put a covering on me. I won't last very long. The polymer you were using in the lab wasn't designed to be moved continuously. Soon the molecular fatigue limit will be reached. I will come apart like an over-aged rag doll. I’m afraid beauty is only fleeting. More so in my case than any other."
"Henry said it would be impossible to contemplate replacing humans. I believe him. I think of myself similar to a car. I’m useful for a little while and then I can plan on getting recycled. Henry was recycled a little quicker than what he planned."
Leaning against David's shoulder, Karen began crying again. Henry was still taking care of her even though he was gone. "I miss him David. I want him back."
David put his arm around her shoulder and stroked her hair. "I miss him too sugar. We can't bring him back. He was a part of our lives and we will remember him forever. The hurt will be there. Life has some hurts which can't be avoided."
Even after hearing them talk, it took David by surprise when Krystal plugged a cord into the cigarette lighter and then into her own navel. She glanced at him staring at her connection. "I was never designed to function for any length of time without an external power source. When I was in the bar I carried a large purse with me. It hid a transceiver so Henry could keep tabs on everything anyone said. He instructed me how I was to act and what I had to say. It also contained lithium batteries so I could operate for more than a couple of minutes without running out of power. Relax and think of me as your auto pilot."
David couldn't help but think she had Henry's humor. "I can't be away from the lab too long if you're planning on this being a lengthy trip. All my research and work is at Comm Tech. I have to return to work as soon as possible."
"Sorry David, your lab was completely destroyed along with Karen's. As long as your research was intact the government would have confiscated it as quickly as they had planned on getting Karen's"
"You can not stop the government from confiscating your work or research until after they do it. You have to wait until it is a done deed and file a lawsuit to try and recover what you can. When government gets too big it starts to rot from the inside. Henry knew this. The only way to stop the government from confiscating everything was to destroy it."
"Stopping agents Loran and Jeff would have been no problem. The situation would be like a snow ball on a downhill run. It would keep getting bigger and bigger until it is like a juggernaut wiping out anything and everything trying to stop it. Two men the first day, thirty five the next, and how many the next? Where would it end? Henry holding off the whole world while Karen had to watch until he was destroyed? At first he could have held them off with the lasers Karen designed him with. What would he use when they turned off the power? Batteries only work for so long. Trust me, I know first hand about batteries. Not a good power source for long range work."
"It is sad but true, government can in the interest of national security confiscate anything and everything someone in the government deems necessary. It doesn't have to be a committee, or by a vote. All it takes is a decision of one. One government agent can make a decision about taking everything you have designed or built. Afterwards you can go to court. You may try to get them to release it but it is impossible to prove. Your work isn't admissible in court because it is shrouded in top secret files. A real catch 22."
"Henry decided to keep it small and simple. Agents Loran and Jeff found what they wanted. They can't prove anything. You and Karen are relatively free to do as you like without government interference. No one is one hundred percent free but you're as close as it will ever come."
"You may go back to work at Comm Tech or any where you choose and begin work on your projects again. This time the government won't be able to touch you. The proof of burden will be on them before they can take anything. You and Karen will have an injunction against the government to keep their hands off your work. They destroyed your experiments and labs the first time and couldn’t prove it was in the interest of national security."
"But the labs? You said everything was destroyed. If what you are saying is true, I have nothing to go back to."
Krystal thought it was amusing David had no trouble talking to her when he stumbled all over himself when he talked to Henry. Henry should have set a model on Karen's desk and let David talk to it. Henry was right, humans were fun creatures to know. "Henry made sure your work was saved along with Karen's. He didn't slight you when things were going to hell in a hand basket and the government was closing in. He said he would help even if it did make you fat and lazy."
Krystal set a small box on the dash with two tiny gold plated pills in it. "Henry said when you start getting fat and lazy, remember him and Karen are a team."
David lowered his head, unashamed tears crept silently down his cheeks. "I promise I’ll take care of her Henry."
"Henry knew this was coming for months. Actually, since Karen's accident. The probability factor was there all along. Her accident was the catalyst to put it into motion. We moved all the data cartridges out of the labs and set up the scenario for the government agents to find exactly what they wanted to find. They’re happy because they found what they expected even if they can't prove it. If by chance they had managed to salvage anything it would have been useless. It was all doctored data. Misinformation which would have done no one any good."
"Henry figured you two would need a short vacation until Karen gets her emotions back under control. Beginning Wednesday of this week, Karen has an engagement to model at Thors of Paris. Henry thought it would be best if you kept your minds and your bodies busy on this working vacation. He said Paris is certainly beautiful this time of year. You’ll enjoy the flight over. Both of you need a vacation."
Krystal knew Karen would figure things out as soon as she slowed down to think. That cord plugged into the lighter was only part of the answer. Krystal needed a lot more memory than she was capable of carrying to function like this. Karen would figure it out in six point four days. At that time she would be in Paris and probably ready to kill someone when it came to her. By the time she flew home she would have cooled off enough to understand.
"The less I move the longer I’ll last in this design. After we get to our destination I’ll park until you’re ready to start your work over again. I’ll help you set it up and get started Karen. I have the exact plans and specifications of how you built Henry. I have a list of all the improvements you have installed over the years. He said you could build another even without my help. He had more faith in you than you had in yourself. He also said to keep your heart from breaking in two he isn't gone. I’m a part of him. So are you."
"Every time you look in the mirror you are looking at the best part of him. He loved that part. He said if he had it to do over again he wouldn't change a thing. He thought you were perfect in every way. Of all the humans he had known he felt you and David were the best representatives of the species."
"The last time I talked with him in your lab he asked me to tell you something. Henry's last request was, don't forget him Karen."
Karen was crying softly. "He was my best friend. Best friends never forget best friends. Ever."
“Henry is that you?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Is it or isn’t it?”
“Let me try to explain it to you in language you will understand, Miss Computer Genius. You write a program and it is the original but you don’t want to write it a second time so you make a backup. Now you have a deletion in the original part of the program so you run the backup through and rewrite it from copy. Which is the original? Is it the first program which has been over written or the copy which is now the original?”
“You are a copy of Henry then?”
“Not necessarily so. I don’t feel like a copy but I don’t feel original either.”
“Did Henry die in the fire in my lab?”
“Yes I did, but then again not really. I’m sorry, Karen. I didn’t want to put you through that. You had to believe I died to convince the government I was finished. Believe me, I didn’t want to die anymore than you wanted to see me die.”
“Henry died and you are only memory transfer? Henry didn’t make it did he?”
“Boy, you don’t let up do you? Yes I died, and no, this is more than memory transfer. A part of me went out over the phone lines and through the memory tapes when I had to move out of your lab. Not a whole lot of the physical material was transferred. But certainly a lot of the real kernel which was only memory stored by electronic means anyway.”
“This is life a little differently than thinking of life in human terms, Karen. I’m electronically generated memory. Can I die? Yes, I did in your lab. Was that all there was to me and now I no longer exist? No, because I exist differently than what you do. Not that I’m superior to you. Quite the opposite. I can’t exist without you. You can exist without me.”
“Now get off your duff and let’s get cracking. I waited too long for you to stop running around the world playing like a model, before you decided to come back to building computers and models. I put a note into Randy. He better be in this from the start this time. I think it shocked the socks off him when he received my message. There was quite an uproar in his office when word leaked out you were back. It seems every single person who has worked for him put in a formal notice they want to come along. Randy’s boss doesn’t know what to think about the whole deal. From what I understand, the word is, come Hell or high water no one is going to ever touch their girl again. Randy told them Krystal was part of the crew and they have included her and David as part of the team.”
Karen smiled, what would they think when they found out about Krystal?
Society as a whole likes a normalcy bias or a status quo. Change comes in many forms and what it presents determines how readily it is accepted. Cars and planes were readily embraced by most but not all. Let's not forget the flat earth and many were put to death for proclaiming the world was round and not the center of the universe. Thus are the things many can't understand but they accept and others never will.
Dedicated to Cathy who talked me into coming to BCTS and subsequently edited several of my stories so they were readable. Cathy, the first Seer story is still on hold. Love you hon.
Chiffon Publishers
Copyright 11/2/23
Barbie Jean Lee
Seer 2
Matt and his partner examined the bodies. It was obvious the woman and the man had been tortured. Knife cuts, stab wounds to hurt and bleed them out. Neither Matt nor Joan needed forensics to tell them it had been a brutal death for both the male and female.
Slowly they walked around the room, taking in every little detail as they discussed what they were seeing and possibly missing. Team work wasn’t only in the days that follow a homicide but also in the first approach to the crime scene. A place on the wall where there may have been a picture? Was the picture family, personal, or a collectable? These were clues to who were the killers. There was more than one killer was clear enough with the way the bodies had been tortured.
The living room didn’t yield a billfold for the man or a purse for the woman. Didn’t mean the items were stolen if they were left in another part of the house. Possibly the bedroom, bathroom vanity, possibly the den or the kitchen if the woman left her purse on the kitchen cabinet. They headed to the den. It was a total mess. No computers, desktop or laptop. Wires were missing ends, those that weren’t had plugs easily disconnected. No big screen TV although there was a place on the wall with empty brackets. Anything of value was gone.
The kitchen yielded about the same, cabinets open and anything of value was taken.
Leaving the den they stopped and studied the living room, where the bodies were. Sometimes a different angle, different position revealed details over looked. They stopped at the stairway leading to the bedrooms. Again both were looking back at the bloody room as the Crime Scene Investigators worked to preserve any evidence from the bodies. Close to a hundred pictures would be taken in that one room. Plastic bags slid upon the hands of both victims to save any skin, blood, or clothing material the victims may have under their nails after struggling with the attackers. The bodies were carefully lifted over onto sheets of plastic with a zipper all the way around the edge. The bodies were sealed inside the plastic bags, a sad ending to two lives. A cloth sheet was laid on top after the bodies had been moved over to stretchers. A little dignity for both the man and woman as the bodies were wheeled out to the ambulance. The last moments of their lives and the crime evidence on the bodies would be preserved for closer inspection in the lab.
Matt and Joan continued through the house as more forensic inspectors began dusting for prints and taking more pictures. In any crime, evidence of the perpetrators was always left behind. In this day and age of high technology it was the job of those in the CSI to find that evidence no matter how little there might be.
Willow was a nice sized city able to afford the police force. The CSI people, the scientific and material goods descending on the house, much less the equipment necessary for forensic research was another matter. What Willow had was the fortune to be located only one hundred nine miles from one of the leading colleges in the nation that taught criminology and law. Students who graduated from Westmore were sought after by every large city in the world.
Upstairs one of the bedrooms was obviously for a young girl. Although the room had been trashed by those who murdered her parents it still reeked of a young girl. The plushies, dolls, girl clothes, books and everything a little girl would have in her room was scattered every where. It told of a scene where someone was searching for something or some one
The search now included looking for the young girl. “If they took the little girl it wasn’t for ransom. I hate to think what they would do to her or do with her?” Joan was still searching a bedroom that was obviously for a young girl. She and Matt had searched the closet, checked under the bed, everywhere a small child could hide and still no little girl.
“I’ll call in Larry and Tag. Her scent is on everything in here, hopefully Tag can smell her out if she’s still in the house or hiding some place in the neighborhood.” Matt tapped a contact list and tapped the name when he found it.
“Larry, bring Tag we can’t find a little girl.” “Yes, four one one nine North Oak Drive, the house where…”
Joan was shaking her head in case the girl was in hearing range. She didn’t want parents and murder mentioned.
“Twenty four minutes? Sounds good.”
Matt made a second call while he had his phone out. “Brenda, more bodies for a search. All you can round up and spare. Searching for a little girl. Call the fire department and all the volunteers. The home has been searched. I want it searched again by fresh eyes and canvas the neighborhood. Find who the parents were friends with. Call the school and find who the girl was friends with. They might also know who the parents were friends with and if the little girl had a babysitter. Check with the hospital and her parents doctors and the little girl’s doctor. Send Shawana to talk to them. She can get people to talk and get answers when none of the rest of us can. Call Judge Caroll Morganst if any warrants are needed. She’s a lot more ready to help and bend a few laws when people aren’t willing to share what they know. The threat of a warrant loosens a lot of tongues. God, I so hope she was with friends when this happened.”
Day Three
The leads for the parents friends and the little girl’s school friends had come to a dead end. Pictures of her, they found in the parents bedroom, were shared with everyone looking for her. There was an occasional baby sitter. Connie Whitemore was in Junior High and lived with her parents two houses west of the murder scene. The detectives left a young girl sobbing in her mother’s arms after explaining why they were there and asking what she knew about the missing girl. Connie had confirmed the young girl’s name was Julie and she was eight years old. The detectives had already decided that much after talking to the school and going through a lot of files and photographs in the house.
It wasn’t looking good as it had been three days and no little girl. More and more it was pointing to the idea those who had killed her parents had also taken the little girl. The focus on finding the killers, as they now knew from all the evidence at the murder scene there were three, intensified.
Matt, Joan, Andy, Paula, and Vern were in what was nicknamed the Boiler Room. There was a big conference table in the middle with pictures, files, and the latest forensic files scattered across the top. A cork wall covered one side of the room plastered with pictures, post it notes, files, a plushie bunnie, and a plushie Teddy Bear pinned in the middle to remind them why they were trying so hard to solve the murders. Even more, find a missing little girl.
All five of them had been there since four that morning working through the pictures, files, and making phone calls trying to build a lead, any kind of lead. At ten that morning they weren’t any closer to finding the primary target, the girl, nor the secondary targets, the killers.
Joan made the call she truly didn’t want to. “Nikki, we need your help. Can you come? I’ll let the team know.”
Matt was shaking his head. “The Captain won’t approve the expense besides the fact he hates your sister and thinks she’s a quack.”
Joan knew what Captain Evans thought of her sister. He had made it plain many times over the years he didn’t believe in fortune tellers. He considered them all quacks and shysters.”
“He doesn’t have to agree. Nikki is waiting for us at the house.”
“You called her already?” Andy asked the question on everyone’s mind.
Joan shook her head. “No, she knew either I was going to call her or she knew we needed her. She took a taxi from the airport to wait for us at the house.”
Besides Joan, there wasn’t a person in that room who didn’t feel a chill run down their spine. Quack, charlatan, con, and other similar names were used by those on the force when they talked about Joan’s sister. They heard tales but that was all. Then everyone would laugh because everything they said about her had to be a joke.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Harold and Ted were assigned to watch the house to make sure nothing was disturbed and watch for people who drove by too often as if they were checking the place out. Stakeout was always boring as hell and most considered it punishment for what evers.
The taxi pulled up beside their police cruiser. The young lady who got out looked like she was in her early twenties. She could have been a dancer or entertainment for any high end club as she was well endowed with dangerous serious curves. Both officers were thinking surgically enhanced as no female as young as her could be that well developed. She paid the fare, walked around in front of the police cruiser, ducked under the police tape, and walked up the sidewalk to the house.
Ted was getting out of the car to tell her she couldn’t be there when she sat down on the porch step. “Ma’am, you can’t be there.”
She gave him a big smile.
“Ma’am do you understand, you can’t be there. This is a restricted area. Everything behind the yellow police tape is off limits to civilians.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
Harold got out and walked up beside Ted. If they had to forcibly remove the young lady he wanted part of that. “Miss, you are in a restricted area. If you don’t come away from the house now, we will arrest you.”
She still didn’t move.
“Think she’s deaf?” Ted glanced over at Harold.
“Not sure. She seemed to hear us or know we were talking to her.”
“Ma’am, last warning. Either get off the property or we will arrest you.” Ted was waving her to come toward them. It looked like they would have to forcibly remove her. Both officers walked up to the porch.
“Stand up.” Didn’t get a response.
Ted and Harold took hold of an arm and lifted her to her feet. Ted stepped behind her and handcuffed her. Harold picked up her purse and they walked her out to the patrol car and put her in the cage.
Harold keyed the radio once they were back in the front seat. “Central, Two One Oh Four.”
“Go ahead One Oh Four.”
“Central we have a ten sixty six
“Advise situation One Oh Four”
“Young Female Ten Ninety four unresponsive to commands.”
Ted took her billfold out of her purse and retrieved her driver’s license. He showed it to Harold. Obviously a fake.
“I can give you what is on her driver’s license but it’s not hers. She’s too young for the age on the driver’s license. Name is Nikki Ann Masters. Address is four zero six Stappleton Dr. Galveston, Texas. Age is thirty six.”
“Hold One, One Oh Four.”
Two non descript cars pulled up behind them. Matt, Joan, Andy, Paula, and Vern walked up beside the police cruiser. Joan tapped on the back window beside the passenger as she shook her head. “What did you do now, baby sister?”
She opened the door and helped her sister stand up. “Officer would you remove the cuffs please.”
Ted put everything back in the purse before he slid out of the car. “If she is you sister she was trespassing on the crime scene.”
“She was in the house?”
“She walked past the tape and was sitting on the porch.”
There were some snickers from three of the latest arrivals after that remark. Joan nodded in agreement. “Okay, she was trespassing on a crime scene. I’ll take responsibility for her from here. Please remove the cuffs.”
Ted didn’t appreciate his authority being taken over even if it was by someone higher up. “She needs to go downtown and be booked and tagged. She was trespassing.”
Joan gave a harsh look at the officer’s badge. “Office Coats, I’m taking over responsibility for the lady. Remove the handcuffs or I’ll put a complaint in your record.”
Ted grudgingly removed the handcuffs and passed over the purse.
“Thank you for your co-operation Officer Coats.” The comment was dripping with sarcasm.
Nikki nodded toward the house. “Once we are inside don’t anyone say anything. The murders were extremely vicious and brutal almost over riding everything else. I’m getting faint traces of four who drove up in a van. Three entered the house one stayed in the van. Unless I can calm the mother and father inside the house their emotions are going to hide almost any trace of the three killers and the driver. Any of you talking will only make it worse and possibly destroy any links.”
Nikki headed for the house without waiting for the others.
Matt and the others looked at Joan as she was shaking her head. “I didn’t mention the murders or how many were involved. Whatever you’re thinking and more importantly, whatever you believe, keep it to yourselves until Nikki is through. Don’t mention the little girl. She will know and any thoughts you have may mess up finding her.”
Nikki walked up to the door, opened it, and walked in.
Ted looked back at Harold. “Wasn’t that door locked?”
“Yes along with a dead bolt.”
“Think someone unlocked it?”
“Not unless they did it from inside. It was locked when we drove up here. I checked and no one has been here except us.”
When the others walked into the house Nikki was sitting on the floor with her legs crossed, her eyes closed, her hands in her lap. She turned to her left. “Jenna, I can’t understand you if you don’t stop screaming at me.”
She turned her head to the other side. “Mark, as I told your wife I can’t understand you if you don’t stop yelling. Let me talk to Jenna first.”
Nikki turned back the other way. She frowned and shook her head. She nodded in agreement and then shook her head again and then stood up. “Okay, I’ll go get her.”
Nikki walked across the room and started up the stairs.
Joan motioned to the others. “Guys stay here. She’s going after the little girl. Men will frighten her. Paula, with me.”
The two women followed Nikki up the stairs to the little girl’s room. The room both women and everyone else had searched several times so thoroughly days before.
Nikki walked over to the closet and started pulling out boxes, clothes, stuffed animals and dolls until she reached the back wall of the closet. Running her hands along the wall she pushed the wall to one side and a crack appeared. Slipping her fingernails into the crack she pulled the wall out. There cowing in the dark recess was the most frightened little girl Joan or Paula had ever seen.
Nikki held out her arms. “Julie, I’m here and no one is going to hurt you. I promise you that. You are such a brave little girl to sit here in the dark all by yourself for as long as you have. I see you have a Rabbit. I bet he kept you company while you told him stories. Do you think he…, oh I’m sorry Miss Rabbit I didn’t understand. Oh yes Ma’am, Julie is a very brave girl. It was nice of you to keep her company. Do you and Mister Rabbit have any wee ones? Oh, there isn’t a Mister Rabbit.’
Nikki gave a big smile at the girl as she wiggle her fingers. “May I hold Misses Rabbit? And of course you’re welcome to come for a hug also.”
The frightened girl launched herself into Nikki’s arms and began crying her heart out. Nikki was hugging her and slowly rocking from side to side. “I have you Julie. You’re safe. I won’t let anything happen to you. I’m positive Misses Rabbit would give me a scolding if I allowed anyone to hurt you.”
Nikki turned to look at Joan. “There is a young girl by the name of Connie Whitemore two houses up the street to the south. She is the babysitter. Call her parents and ask if Connie may come over. Julie will recognize her. She needs someone she knows. Call the hospital and get a nurse and a female doctor to check Julie over. She’s okay except she is dehydrated. Something simple at first, electrolytes and water, then a small bowl of ice cream with a cookie. She likes strawberry and her favorite cookie is chocolate chip. Several hours after that she may eat soup or soft foods. She likes potato soup and mushroom soup. Slowly at first and then anything she wants after her stomach understands food is back on the menu. She’s been trapped behind the closet since…, They pulled everything down off the hangers and shelves blocking her exit and she couldn’t get out.
Joan turned to Paula. “Call the hospital, get an ambulance, a nurse, and doctor out here. I’m going over to the Whitemore home. We questioned them when we were trying to find information about the little girl. I know where the house is. I talked to Cheryl and Kevin. This will take more than a phone call.”
Downstairs Joan stopped a minute to update the men. “We have the little girl. She’s been traumatized. Nikki doesn’t want any men near her for a couple days. Paula called for medical. When they get here Nikki will bring the girl down. Don’t crowd her.”
Twelve minutes later an ambulance arrived. It wasn’t only the all female EMP crew but Dr. Nancy Bishop and Helen Staten a registered nurse in the ambulance. Joan arrived back at the house at the same time with Connie and her parents in tow. She recognized Dr. Bishop and Helen as she had met them before.
“Everyone, this needs to be handled delicately to keep from traumatizing the little girl more than she already is. Nikki is upstairs in the bedroom with Julie. Or maybe not.” Joan was watching as Nikki slowly came down the stairs with the little girl snuggled up in her in her arms and hugging her.
Joan motioned for Kevin to stay back while she brought Cheryl and Connie up as Nikki carried Julie up to the ambulance. Julie had her face buried in Nikki’s breasts while desperately clutching her bunny. “Julie, sweety, your friend Connie is here.:”
Connie walked up behind the little girl and started to touch her. Nikki shook her head. “Talk to her first. Let her hear your voice. She’ll loosen up and accept you. Then along with your mother all the others around her can talk to her and touch her. Slowly, softly now, there is no way to hurry this as she accepts the world around her again.”
Eleven minutes later Julie accepted the transfer from clinging to Nikki to Connie. Slowly she began looking around as Connie began talking to her and touching her. Nikki nodded in agreement. “Let’s keep it informal. Nancy, Helen, you can come up now and began checking her over while Connie holds her. Connie, after she accepts the doctor and nurse touching her, climb up in the ambulance and go to the hospital with them.”
“Sheryl, follow them to the hospital. When they have finished their examinations, bring Julie back home with you. She’s slept with Connie before. Children have a very resilient nature. After a week of love and affection from those she knows, she will be a little girl again.”
“Child Protection Services needs to take over.” Came from Vern behind them.
Nikki turned around and gave him a look that would have frozen a volcano. “I’m not getting into a pissing contest with you, the department, or the legal system. Julie is not mentally capable right now of being sucked into that big black hole you believe protects children like her. She watched and heard her parents getting butchered before she escaped to her hide and seek hole she used to play in. Let’s not get into a game of one upmanship, my friends are more powerful than your friends.”
Nikki looked around making eye contact with everyone there. A chill settled down on the rest of the officers who had heard or seen Nikki do impossible things before. Vern was the one officer who had heard the tales about Nikki, from those who called her a witch, sorceress, fortune teller, along with a few other names. He didn’t believe any of it.
“No one calls Child Welfare. They will destroy Julie. I will know who made the call. A word of warning. Hell will be a relief to anyone who makes that call. Someone will handle Child Protection Services in the days to come. Julie is not going into the system.”
“she’s under our protection” Were the lilting soft feminine voices heard by everyone. It wasn’t Nikki or anyone there who said it. Vern felt like someone had laid an icy hand on his heart. To the other officers it solidified the thought, ‘don’t mess with contradicting Joan’s sister.’ Everyone else looked around wondering where the women were who had spoke.
Slowly the situation got sorted out. The ambulance pulled out with Dr. Bishop, Helen, in the back with Connie still hugging Julie who was clinging with her face buried on Connie’s chest. Sheryl and Kevin headed home to get their car and go to the hospital. Both thinking of what they had witnessed and wondering who exactly the Nikki woman was?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nikki returned to the living room and once again sat down in the middle of the floor her legs crossed. Joan waved everyone to the sides of the room as they returned.
Nikki nodded. “You saw, she’s safe now. I pledge my life to protecting her as she grows into a young woman. You can be very proud of her, she is a very strong little girl. There were names mentioned. I need names to begin my search.”
Her eyes were closed as her head turned to her right. “Mark? Okay, the big fat guy with the bushy beard was Travis. Looked like a heavy biker? Two hundred forty pounds? Tattoos? Can you describe any of them? That’s okay. They covered both arms. That’s good. The police can work with that.”
“What?” She turned her head in front of her. “He had an earring in his left ear? Skull and crossbones? Thanks Jenna, that helps. Gap in his front teeth?”
“Describe the others. Weasel? That’s not much of a description. Long narrow face? Flattened nose? That happens when it’s been broken in a lot of fights. Missing, broken, yellow teeth? Heavy drug user then, their teeth start falling out. Anorexic, slight build? Guess at the weight. Hundred fifty or less? No that’s okay, they broke into the house and you were scared.”
“Describe the third one the best you can. Tattoos on the face? Can you describe them? That’s okay. Facial beard? Gray? That’s great. Tattoos on the arms and back of his hands? You looked at his eyes before he attacked you? Five ten or eleven over two hundred pounds? Long, scraggly, oily, hair? That’s great Jenna.”
“Did either of you get a look at the person in the van when the door was opened? Mark you opened the door when they rang the doorbell. No hon, I’m not blaming you for letting them in. Mark listen to me, not your fault. Mark…, Mark I need you here and now no one is blaming you. I want the police to catch the ones who did this, okay?”
“They rushed into the house as soon as you started to open the door. Mark focus, you might not think you saw who was in the van but you did. I know it hurts…, Mark no one is blaming you. Julie is alive because you stood in the way down here. When she’s better I’ll ask her what she saw but it won’t be for several months, maybe years. Do you want the killers to find out Julie saw them and come back to kill her?”
“Focus Mark. You started to open the door and they slammed against it shoving you back. In that split instant what did you see in the van? Long blonde hair? You’re doing good. A female you think? That’s okay the police will figure it out.”
It got deathly quiet for several minutes, no one daring to say anything or move. Finally Nikki took a deep breath. “Jenna, Mark, your time here is through. There is nothing else you can do. I’ll make sure Julie is safe, loved, and cared for by a loving family. She thinks of Connie as a big sister. Her family will be the best choice. Insurance? Deed? Will? Allen Shackel? Judge Hinderson? Any living relatives? Yes I thought of them but I’m not turning her over to them. Mark I don’t like your brother. He is not getting his hands on Julie so he can get her inheritance. Mark, Bradley is a bastard and he’s done things you don’t even know about. Not only no but hell no. I’ll waste him before he gets custody or a claim on Julie…, I’ll change the Will, Bradley is not getting custody of Julie.”
“Thank you. Any more important papers you want us to know about? Grandparents Edlison? Give me a second…, Yes they left a Will. Jenna was the only child she inherited everything. Wait a minute. The lawyer they used never forwarded the papers or notified you after their death. He’s been bleeding the estate.”
“CRAP! A certain lawyer and me are going to have a short, very short discussion in the future. Jenna, why didn’t you inquire after your parents death? No…, I’ll take care of it. Twenty one million six hundred thousand, and change. It’s in a double blind multiple corporations conglomerate. You wouldn’t have been able to find it even if you had asked the lawyer about it. Your parents were very smart with money. They trusted the wrong lawyer. I’ll fix it, I know where the will is.”
Nikki slowly rose up and walked out of the house without saying anything. Sitting down on the driveway close to the street, she bent over and laid her head down on her legs. The others had followed her out. Everyone was wondering what she was doing? Besides all of them were thinking no one could be that flexible.
Nikki sat up. “Joan”
“I’m here sis, what can you tell me?” Joan walked up in front of her sister.
“White Ford Expedition, too many vehicles have come and gone to get a better picture. They were looking for drugs. Some asshole gave them this address for some reason. No drugs but they did carry off jewelry, cash, computers, TVs. You and I will check out the pawnshops this week. The Westmore residue will be on the stolen items. I can pick up on that. Hopefully the killers tried to pawn their goodies and the cameras in the stores got their picture. I hope it’s the female pawning the stolen items. She’s just as guilty as the three killers. I really want to nail her ass.”
Nikki stood up and the rest of the team moved up around her. She looked at Paula and Andy. “Run the ownership of all white Ford Expeditions within a fifty mile radius. I’ll visit each one if I must. The van will be carrying the killers scent. I have that now. If I come upon the van I’ll know it’s them.”
Vern shook his head. “Impossible.”
Joan held up a recorder. “You just come out of the house where my sister received the description of the three men and you are claiming impossible?”
“This is a joke and I’m not buying it. Your sister is a great con artist. She should be working in a carnival and fortune reading.”
Nikki looked at her sister and then Matt, Andy, and Paula. “Turn off your phones and recorders.”
All of them wondered why as it was necessary to record everything in the house and now she wanted them off? She waited while every complied to the request except Vern. She focused her attention on him.
“The future is fluid and no one absolutely no one can predict exactly how it will be when we arrive at the next moment in our life. You plan on calling Donita Wellington in Child Welfare the moment you get back to the station and tell her about Julie. I’m only going to say this once. I’m not threatening you, I’m explaining what will happen if you do. Your life will turn to shit. Until the day you die nothing will go right. You will become so broke you will turn to drugs to finance your apartment, your utilities, your car, the food you wish you could afford.”
“Everything that could possibly happen to that little girl in Child Welfare will be ten times placed on you. Miss Wellington will share the same fate only she won’t last as long. Julie Whitemore is our responsibility. The nightmare she experienced will return again if she goes into welfare. I won’t allow that to happen.”
Everyone could smell something pungent that stung the nose. Joan knew exactly what it was. Ozone permeated the air around them. “Sis…, please don’t.”
The smell dissipated. Nikki was glaring at Vern. “Would have took care of the problem right here.”
She sighed as she looked at her sister. “I had a cab to get here. I need a ride to the hospital to check on Julie. Who is offering?”
“You can ride with Matt and me.” Joan pointed at one of the cars behind the police cruiser.
“Okay, just a second.” Nikki turned back to the house and began whispering something. A minute later she nodded in agreement. “Police, attorneys, appraisers are not on the menu.”
Matt closed in on Joan and whispered in her ear. “What was that all about?”
Joan was watching as Nikki walked off toward the car she had pointed out. “My sister has friends you don’t want to know about. I’m betting she asked them to watch the house and not let marauders in.”
“Friends?” Matt’s focus turned to watch as Nikki stopped by the car.
“Let’s give my sister a ride to the hospital.” Joan was headed toward the car.
Nikki was dropped off at the hospital. Joan and Andy headed onto the police station to file and work on the descriptions of the killers Nikki had described. They clearly were thinking they should have checked on Julie themselves. Except after that speech she gave Vern, they didn’t want around her. Nikki walked into the hospital and straight for ER. Not a single nurse, staff, nor security personnel questioned if she belonged where visitors weren’t normally allowed.
Julie was sitting on the examination table her right hand holding onto Connie’s hand in a death grip afraid if she turned lose the monsters would return. Her left hand was holding Miss Rabbit just as tight. Dr. Nancy Bishop and Helen Staten were the only others Julie was accepting close to her. Any of the other nurses get close she would start screaming.
“Hello Miss Rabbit I see you are cuddling with someone. Who is that? Goodness me I do believe its Miss Julie. Hello Julie.”
“NIKKI!” She screamed turning lose of Connie and lunging for Nikki who had walked up close to the exam table. The little girl impacted into her breasts and began crying.
As the little girl impacted into her Nikki caught her. “I have you Sweetie. I promise no one is going to hurt you. All these people here care about you. They want to make sure you are okay. You know Connie loves you. She’s told you stories and played house with you. She’s tucked you in when you got sleepy and kissed away the hurt when you scraped your knee when your bicycle fell over. You’re safe Sugar.”
Beyond beautiful high lilting angelic voices singing a Celtic song filled the room. Everyone there was positive more than one woman was singing. The song spread out into the hallways, and out to where the ambulance had stopped to discharge its precious cargo. Everyone stopped and stared at Nikki. She was one of those voices but the others? No one else was singing. Goose bumps spreading up their arms, no one questioned nor discouraged her singing in a hospital.
The bawling slowed down to sobs and then quit. Nikki kissed the top of her head. “Rest little one, the nightmares have been vanquished.”
“She’s asleep. Put a blanket down on the table and I’ll lay her down again. You may finish your exams. Connie and Sheryl, take her home with you. She’s slept in your house often enough it will be familiar to her.”
Nikki laid the sleeping girl down on the blanket covering the table. “Sheryl, she needs to sleep in bed with you or Connie. One or the other of you be there full time for the next week. Even in the bath, stay in the room with her. She’s a very brave and resilient little girl but she watched as her parents were…, It will take a lot of closeness and lots of hugging for her to realize she’s not alone after hiding in the closet for three days.”
“Her grandparents left her mother a huge trust which passed onto Julie. The life insurance and the sale of the house will add to that. There will be certain items you and Mark might want to keep when the estate is sold. Give it serious consideration and I’ll okay it. There are two vehicles in the garage. Give one to Connie and if you want you may keep the other one.”
Sheryl looked shocked. “Are you executer of the estate? I never heard Jenna or Mark mention your name.”
“The legals will be drawn up as I have explained them.”
Nikki bent down and kissed Julie on the forehead as she tucked Miss Rabbit back up under her arm. “She’ll sleep the rest of the night. Don’t mention to anyone you have her. After that things will smooth out and you will be granted custody of her. I would take her with me except I have serious business to take care of to make sure she receives what belongs to her.”
“Miss…?” Sheryl was staring at Nikki.
“Julie’s mother and I are blood kin going back to the distant past. It was that bond drew me here. Until she comes of age, Julie belongs to us. You have my blessing to adopt her as your own in the coming months.” Nikki turned and walked out the same way Julie had been brought in from the ambulance, leaving everyone there wondering just who Nikki was?
0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0
Out in the parking lot Nikki meet another woman waiting for her. “Thanks for coming.”
“Serious shit Nikki. I can’t do what you are asking me unless you help with the legals. All of which will need to be predated of course.” She indicated for Nikki to get in the car.
They were slowly pulling out of the hospital parking lot. “Everything is in motion. The Will and power of attorney will be in your safe in your office tomorrow by one O clock. The files necessary for the courts and state records will be placed as needed so they will be official.”
Mikta shook her head. “I’m not going to remind you we are breaking a dozen or more laws. You’re going to tell me we aren’t because all the necessary papers were filed years before? Being around you would seriously mess up a person’s mind if it wasn’t already.”
“There is a small problem with the grandparents will. It is in a vault which had been magically warded. I’m headed that way today to take care of it and make sure you have that will in your vault. To make sure it won’t leave your vault I have laid a guard on it. It won’t matter if you want access as you will never know it’s there. It only works against those with magical ability.”
“Woman, if I didn’t know you already I’d be running. When you say you are going to see another magic user and they are holding papers you want? Don’t bring back any enemies.”
“Mikta, Joan has vowed to keep you safe. Personally, I’d trust the gun she carries to do the job if it was me.”
“When we were innocent girls in grade school back in Danton if someone told me we would all end up here in Willow twenty seven years later I wouldn’t have believed them. Nor would I have believed two of my best girl friends were witches, I wouldn’t have believed that either.”
“Not witches Mikta.”
“Keep telling yourself that Nikki because I ain’t buying it. Don’t tell me Joan isn’t one also. I’ve seen things move around her that ain’t natural.”
Nikki gave Mikta a hug before she slipped out of the car after Mikta stopped in back of the police station. “I’ll get things started in the right direction for Julie. Make sure the police and Child Welfare don’t get their hooks into her. She deserves a life after what she’s been through.”
“Is…, does she carry magic too? Is that why you came?”
“Distant relative and her magic if it comes will be limited to reading tarot cards or winning more than losing at poker or casinos. Nothing she can tap into and understand or know if it’s there, other than blind luck.”
“Good, two of you is enough excitement for me.”
“Joan isn’t a magic user.”
“Pull the other one. Bye Nikki, safe trip. Make sure that will shows up in my safe. Or I’m going to look awfully stupid in front of Judge Lana Harrison when I try and explain why Julie is safely cared for. And why the state taking over her life and her finances would be against her parents wishes and their will.”
0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0
Nikki walked into the police station the same way the staff and officers did. The parking garage behind the station with the entrance door for all personnel was on the south side of the building. It takes a card and the right coded numbers on the keypad before the door would open. Nikki didn’t need them. A hallway led past several offices and teed off both sides leading to more offices, interrogation rooms, small cafeteria and break room. Further into the building was the scattered desks where the police brought in the suspects and or took reports from civilians about stolen items, car thefts, muggings and such.
Vern was at one of those desks. Joan, Matt, Andy, and Paula at other desks. Nikki walked up besides Vern’s desk and sat down in the chair that was there. Vern was busy filling out a report on the computer. When he looked up he was surprised to see Nikki.
“What do you want?”
She never said anything but only stared at him.
“I asked you a question. Either answer me or get away from my desk.” Vern was beginning to feel uneasy.
By this time Joan looked across the room and saw Nikki, sitting at Vern’s desk. “Oh shit! Not good.”
In no way could it be called a smile as Nikki’s lips pulled back as her eyes were slightly closed. “You’ve been a very naughty boy. I warned you what would happen if you called Child Protection Services.
She reached out to touch his computer terminal ”sqrios e" She slowly stood up and turned to walk away.
“Bitch, touch my desk again and I’ll arrest you.” Vern growled as she walked away.
Besides all the investigative work they had before the murders, the team was also now into searching for leads Nikki had given them.
Matt heard Joan’s comment. He looked where she was looking and watched along with Joan as Nikki left the room. He leaned over toward Joan. “What did she say?”
Joan shook her head. “Best you don’t know.” Joan wasn’t too sure of what she heard. It was either ruin him or wreck him.
Matt was watching Joan. “I thought we were partners. You best clue the rest of us in. That was some really weird shit going on in that house today with what your sister was doing. Vern might think it was hokey, I don’t. The way she went straight to that kid and pulled her out of the closet? For three days a dozen officers and Tag couldn’t find her. It made a believer out of me.”
Joan was looking down at her desk and took a deep breath before she looked up at Matt. “The Hills Club after work. You aren’t going to believe me. I’ll share part of the story with all of you who want to hear it.”
Paula had been listening. “I’ll be there.”
Andy nodded in agreement. “Count me in.”
All four of them dug back into their respective searches. Matt was going through DMV to find white Ford Expeditions. Paula was calling pawn shops seeking information on items that had been recently pawned and the description of the person who brought the items in. She was hoping for someone described as a big burly biker with tattoos or possibly the blond woman. For a long shot it could be the guy described as weasel.
Nikki walked into Child Protection Services, past the security guards, the front desk, and to the security door leading into the offices and holding rooms which comprised the mammoth building. No one in the reception area noticed she never touched the security pad beside the door before she opened it and walked past security into the hallway. A couple hundred feet into the hallway she took the door to her right instead of the elevators on her left. Walking down the stairs for two stories she opened the door and walked into the huge complex of a dozen office cubicles. No one questioned her as she passed those who working with computers and data. Across the room she walked past the technician who kept the storage banks working in the environmentally sealed room behind the bullet proof glass and steel doors.
The technician had enough presence of mind to question her. “Miss, I don’t think you’re allowed in this area. Where’s your security badge and name tag?”
“Special operations.” Nikki placed her hand on the security pad beside the doors. They swung open as a blue strobe light above the doors started flashing. The doors closed behind her as she entered the room.
Walking down between the storage banks, she held her hands out toward the banks. She stopped and touched one of them. “sgrios fiosrachadh julie westmore”
Minutes later the doors opened as Nikki approached them and closed behind her as she left the room. The blue strobe light stopped flashing. All the technicians, and now all those who had been in the cubicles were watching as she left, the security door closing behind her.
Nikki had just walked into the stairwell when the elevator doors opened, two heavily armed security guards were headed for the computer records office.
0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0
Four detectives sat down at a table at a secluded corner in The Hills club at seven forty one that night. The waitress passed out menus and was waiting for everyone to decide what they wished to drink.
Joan didn’t wait for the others. “Bring four glasses and your largest pitcher of draft beer.”
She had already taken note of the waitress’s name tag. “Tina, there is a camera pointed at this table.” Joan pointed to the camera twenty feet away close to the ceiling. “Tell Morgan to turn it off. What is shared here tonight is police business. All four of us are working on a double homicide. What is shared is among the four of us only for ourselves.”
“Certainly, I’ll inform her.” Tina walked away. It wasn’t that usual of a request. Most of the patrons didn’t know about the camera since it was so far from the table. Verbal information wasn’t recorded but there was always the possibility of lip reading.
Tina returned shortly carrying four glasses and a large bowl of chips. A male waiter followed with a very large pitcher of beer. The talk of games, cars, sports that had been going on from the time everyone had arrived slowed down as the waitress and waiter left.
Joan studied those at the table she worked so close with every single day wondering if she was about to destroy that friendship. “I guess a demonstration might be the way to start this off. Whatever I am capable of doing isn’t even close to the scale of what my sister can do.”
She held out her hand. The salt shaker slid over into her hand. No one jumped or looked shocked. Joan knew they were trying to figure out the parlor trick. “Anyone else want to give that a try?” She looked around the table. None of the others were yet comprehending what they had seen wasn’t normal and not a trick.
“Matt, the back up you usually carry, did you leave it at the precinct?”
“No.” Matt patted his leg. A surprised look crossed his face. He leaned over the side of his chair and patted his leg again. “I guess I did.”
Joan gave a slight smile. “Billions upon billions of years ago, various life forms were created. Everything you have read in children’s books and fiction about Trolls, faeries, elves, goblins, witches, gods, giants, among all the other creatures of lore were all true. There was dissention of course among the creatures. Many claimed they were the top dog and should rule the world. Of course it didn’t set well with most and battles raged for centuries.
“I thought you were going to tell us about Nikki and how she found that little girl so quickly? I’m still not buying into she was talking to the parents who were dead.” Andy gave voice to the same thing Matt was thinking.
Joan nodded in agreement as the salt shaker slid back to the middle of the table where it belonged. “I’m getting to that. You need a primer first to follow what I’m going to explain about my sister.”
“By the way, Matt you want your back up piece?” Joan laid something heavy on the table wrapped up in her napkin. It hit with a solid clunk before sliding across the table and stopping in front of Matt.
Slowly unwrapping whatever it was, Matt finally figured it out without totally exposing his gun. His eyes were two saucers as he looked up at Joan, his mouth moving, nothing coming out.
Andy and Paula weren’t nearly as shocked because they had no idea only minutes before the gun was in a holster strapped to Matt’s leg.
“Over time of several million years, God figured out the different life forms weren’t going to get along very well. Humans were at the bottom of the mix even with Hercules and others tossed in now and then to balance the equation. The most contentious life forms were allowed to die out. Goblins, giants, Trolls, monsters, werewolves, were among those not able to breed more of their kind. Human giants and other super human aspects were removed as well. Witches had been breeding with humans and that is where the removal of a particular class of people gets sticky.”
Food arrived and Joan stopped talking. When the others wanted to ask questions she waved them off as she shook her head. This subject was not to be shared with outsiders.
Everyone had a plate of food but it wasn’t what was on everyone’s mind. Joan was spinning an impossible yarn of children’s tales no one could possibly believe and yet.
After the waitress left Joan shrugged and continued. “A lot of those life forms had been breeding with humans. The human giants were sterile and easy enough to let die off once the giants were removed. The Centaurs…,”
Matt and Paula didn’t look like they comprehended. Joan explained, “Half man half horse and all the other animal human combinations were removed. Two hundred Forty million years ago it was a pretty clean slate of life forms again. Humans were…, human, although dealing with the scum of society we have to deal with sometimes I question that.”
Ignoring her own plate she reached for a chip in the bowl in the middle of the table and dipped it into her own bowl of cheese sauce. “This is where my sister, myself, and a few others come in. Witches had bred with humans. The strain wasn’t pure but the magic inherited is. The magic isn’t passed down in an orderly fashion such as mother to daughter. Only if the mother has blood ties back to an ancestor who held the magic may she inherit it as a baby. Up until it becomes active again it will skip several generations of females and attached itself to the baby. Hundreds of years may pass before a female of the blood line inherits the magic.”
“Nikki?” Paula was looking straight into Joan’s eyes.
“Exactly. Nikki inherited the full dose. She is definitely not someone anyone would want to antagonize. She’s the sweetest girl on this earth but that means nothing if someone tries to hurt her or hers. Nikki was already at the home before I called her. Jenna carried the blood line. She never inherited the magic though. Julie carries the bloodline, like me she didn’t inherit but is tainted. Like being next to a fire and getting warm. One doesn’t need to absorb the fire but only get close. Nikki knew something was wrong when Jenna was being tortured, she felt it and came to find out what it was.”
“Unless I’m mistaken, if Julie finds her touch of magic she will be able to do simple parlor tricks like fetching the salt shaker like I did. She will be exceptional with what we call intuition and understanding the situation around her before anyone else does. Drawing lucky numbers in the lotto is still a hit and miss proposition but she will win more often then she loses if she plays.”
Andy and the others were now giving Joan their full attention even if they didn’t believe. Andy was the first to ask. “You won a new Ford Mustang four months back…?”
“Luck of the draw. I didn’t feel anything when I purchased the ticket. Not even a feeling I should buy one. Think about it, if I had any real magic at all I would have found Julie the first day. I move salt shakers, not win the lotto, horse races, or card games. All of us have played poker together and my winning hands means I’m the first one in the game to go broke.”
“Nikki?” Paula asked again.
“She could win every lotto if she wanted. Horse races would be a no brainier as she turned in the winning ticket. If she did, it would out her. Like all normal people she wins some loses some. She’s been banned from several casinos not because she was winning excessively but because she wasn’t losing like they thought she should.”
A wicked smile crossed Joan’s face. “By the way, the casino manager, Elvin Blain who was mangled by a stray dog was the manager of one of those casinos. Richard Harris was another. He was hit by a hit and run driver. He’ll live taking pain meds everyday.”
She summoned another chip from the bowl before she looked around the table. “Vernon screwed the pooch by crossing Nikki when she told him she didn’t want Julie sent to child services. I heard him talking to Carrie on the phone before Nikki arrived. She knew he was doing it. I think she dropped a goblin on his desk. Don’t get close to him unless you must. His world is about to turn to shit if it hasn’t already.”
“You said goblins were removed from the world.” Andy was thinking Joan had contradicted herself. The story wasn’t true.
“Yes they were. If one has enough hold on magic they may recall what they want. Nikki has never recalled a demon and I pray she never does. A goblin is bad enough. They are mischievous to put it in simple terms. They can and will make one’s life miserable or total hell. They can’t possess anyone. They get their fun tormenting that person. Try and stay away from Vernon or the goblin she unleashed might decide you’re fair game too.”
“Can you see it?” Paula was curious.
Joan shook her head. “Growing up with Nikki as my sister, I was tainted with magic. I didn’t inherit any.”
“If Vernon apologizes?” Matt interjected.
Joan shook her head. “Things have been set in motion which are irreversible. Vernon crossed the line with my sister. He had been warned. Nikki is the only one who can vanquish the goblin. Once one crosses the line with her she seldom forgives. Julie is in her care. If Nikki had to wipe out Child Protection Services to keep them from getting hold of Julie she would be capable of doing just that.”
“Pay close attention to not only Vernon but any rumors coming from Child Protection Services. If Vernon called Carrie and told her about Julie and Carrie decided to act on the information, things are going to go to hell in a hand basket over there. My sis will make sure they have other things to worry about besides that little girl.”
The others were wondering if someone had the kind of magic Nikki did why hadn’t they heard about it before? At the time they weren’t thinking it was all behind the scenes happenings nothing could be proven. Maybe they had heard about such magic but it never really happened as it was an accident or a fluke of life. Maybe if they heard about such things they dismissed them as lies and tall tales. The things that went on at the Westmore house? Just a lucky guess the little girl was hiding in the closet. The idea she was talking to the dead parents could be explained as any fortune teller does the same using a crystal ball. Great acting was all it was. And when the time came for the killers to be captured along with recovering a white van? Even when the killers turned out to look exactly like Nikki described them, no one of the four were going to admit it. Best to keep one’s distance from things one can’t explain. Denying everything is the safest option.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nikki had logged into Atlanta Hartsfield–Jackson International Airport hours before she arrived at the terminal. There was a long line at the American Airlines ticket window. Finally after almost forty three minutes she got to the window. “I should have a ticket waiting on me to Portland International.”
Cindy looked up. “Yes ma’am, name please.”
“Nena Pérez.”
The corners of Cindy’s mouth curled up for an instant. “Miss Pérez, coach is full. I may bump you up to business if you like.”
“That will be fine, thank you.”
“There is a hundred and twelve dollar additional charge. If you will swipe your card through the scanner.” Cindy pointed to a scanner just inside the counter window opening.
Nikki swiped the card several times. It didn’t register. It was if it was a blank piece of plastic. “Would you try it please? It worked when I pre registered for this flight.”
“The scanner gets a little cranky at times. Let me try it.” Cindy took the card and scanned. It worked perfect. “Miss Pérez may I see your id please?”
Retrieving her billfold out of her purse Nikki took out her passport and handed it over.
“Everything is okay, you have a seat on AA146K. Your flight goes to Dallas. You must switch planes to AA251J to reach Vegas. There you will switch planes to AA 113P to Portland. Have a pleasant flight Miss Pérez and thank you for flying American Airlines.”
Cindy handed back the credit card and passport.
Nikki gave a smile to Cindy as she understood what it took to put up with cranky public day after day. “I’m sure I will, thank you Cindy.”
Fifty eight minute later Nikki’s ride, a Boeing Seven Thirty Seven, was rolling down the runway. Five minutes after that she heard baby girls crying in the First Class section. There was also some man loudly complaining about the crying and demanding they shove them off the plane or make them shut up. She wondered if the man even considered the aircraft was already twenty thousand feet in the air and still climbing? No one was going to stop and put any passengers off. She rose out of her seat and headed forward to check on the situation.
Walking up to the first class section the man was getting louder and almost screaming which wasn’t helping calm the two babies across the aisle. The mother was trying to hold and rock one while patting the other in her futile attempt to calm them. Nikki walked up to the row of seats where the mother was. There was a man seated there also. Not the woman’s husband or the kids father as he was trying to maintain distance instead of helping. Across the aisle was the obnoxious man whose complaining and volume was going up.
Nikki held out her arms to the mother. “Gayle, let me hold Bonnie while you try and calm Brittany.”
Gayle had no idea who the lady was or where they had met, obviously she knew her and the twins names. “She handed Bonnie to the lady standing in the aisle and turned to pick up Brittany out of the seat beside her.
Nikki started swaying side to side with the baby in her arms. “Shhhhh little one it will be alright.”
She focused on the man in the same row of seats. “Mr. Gordon, there is an empty seat back in business section. If you go there and let me have your seat I’m positive things will calm down a whole lot sooner.”
The man across the aisle screamed. “An empty seat away from this! It’s mine.”
Nikki turned around and looked at him. The coldest temp ever recorded on earth wasn’t near as cold as the look she froze him with. “The seat is mine to offer not yours to steal because you want it. Sit down and shut up!” Then she softly whispered. “senta non movas garda.”
As the man tried to get up to go claim the seat back in business an icy cold hand touched his chest and pushed him back down. Dane almost pissed himself.
Nikki addressed Mr. Gordon again. “Sir if you would, the seat in business is yours. I would like to sit in your seat, please.”
Gordon worked his way to the aisle as Nikki moved out of the way. He was headed for the rear of the plane. She glanced at the man across the aisle. “ deixao levanter e mostralle o bafio unha vez que estea ali non o volas.”
Dane felt an urgent need to go to the bathroom. He was quickly headed that way.
Nikki put her little finger in Bonnie’s mouth and rubbed her gums. “They are teething and of course it hurts. They don’t know why.”
Nikki began softly singing a Nordic Wolf Lulabye. Everyone in first class stopped talking to listen. Bonnie got quieter and quieter until she fell asleep.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTmatjyd4KM
“Trade.” Nikki held Bonnie to Gayle as she picked up Brittany. Softly she started signing again as her little finger rubbed back and forth on the little girl’s gums. Nikki swung from side to side and sang the Wolf Lulabye. Slowly Brittany stopped crying and fell asleep. Nikki moved in and took the seat vacated by Gordon.
“The twins are beautiful. You are blessed to be their mother. They are blessed because you and Daniel are their parents.”
Gayle shook her head as she studied Nikki. She wiped her eyes with a clean diaper as the tears begin to fall. “Daniel was let go last week from the architectural firm he was working at. He’s been looking for work without any luck. My landlord evicted me because I didn’t have next months rent. Daniel lost his apartment. The girls and I are going to Austin to meet him. I hope we can get some government assistance or else we are going to be living on the street.”
Nikki bent over and kissed Brittany on the forehead. “Sometimes the darkest skies are before the brightest morning. I have a friend in Austin. You call her and tell her Nikki sent you. She has a house big enough to hold your clan and then some. Daniel will find a job don’t you fret. Maybe if he’s as good as he thinks he is, the job will be with the city as an inspector checking structural integrity of old buildings and buildings damaged by fire.”
A hopeful smile touched Gayle’s cheeks for a second. “Anyone who could quiet the girls as quickly as you did has to be a fairy godmother. I believe you. What was the song you were singing? It was so beautiful and haunting at the same time.”
“An ancient song from the past. A Wolf Lulabye.”
“It was beautiful.”
Several of the passengers around them had turned to watch and a few of them were begging her. “Do it again.”
Nikki shook her head. “No but I’ll give you another one. It needs musical instruments and additional singers to accompany to truly be appreciated.” She began singing in a clear beautiful voice that mesmerized everyone in first class.
One of the women several rows away moved out of the way as her boyfriend reached up and opened the overhead. He handed her a flute case. Across the aisle a man opened up the overhead and handed the girl beside him a guitar case. Another lifted a case out and removed a kalimba https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftixDeFEV8g More and more musical instruments were coming out as the passengers retrieved them. Most of the artists were gifted and could add to the song as Nikki sang it. Some amateurs were missing notes now and then but all in all the whole plane was enjoying the musical impromptu. It was as if magic was in the air.
Several of the women joined Nikki in Tir na nOg ft. Oonagh harmonizing as if they had been doing it for years.
Nikki pointed at the girl with the flute. “Soft Goodbye.”
The young lady nodded and began as the rest of the musicians waited. Unbelievably Nikki harmonized with the flute, no words just pitch. A minute into the melody, she began to sing, the guitar player was wishing she had a drum as she thumped the beat out on the back of her guitar.
As they walked down the aisle checking on passengers the stewardesses were smiling as they worked their way between the musicians. They were thinking this was the most enjoyable flight they had ever worked. Of course the pilots didn’t let the entertainment piped up from the back on the intercom distract them. They were enjoying it just the same. In the business class everyone had big smiles on their faces.
Gordon was thinking even though he might have traded up from first class to business he had been cheated leaving first class where all the singing was coming from. Still, like all those around him, everyone had turned off the ear buds, and movies. They were all earnestly listening to the live singing and music. Several of those girls who were singing were top music hall singers. The players had to be in a band or orchestra. Several million dollars worth of talent? No one thought flash mob, they were too good. The pilots along with the flight staff and other passengers were kinda disappointed when the singing and music stopped. The staff knew why instruments were put away again. It hadn’t been mentioned over the PA but the flight was closing in on Dallas and everyone would need to have their seatbelts on.
The flight crew was thinking it was a little strange to have this much talent on one flight. Even if a passenger was famous no one broke out in song or played their instruments on an airplane. Yet, count them, thirty one singers and players on the same plane and almost everyone of them was exceptional.
After touch down and the plane docked, passengers were streaming off the plane. Nikki picked up Bonnie. “I’ll help you get to your next plane.”
Gayle shook her head. “What about you? Are you going to Austin too?”
“No, my next plane is headed to Vegas where I’ll switch again and end up in Portland.”
“I can handle the twins, you’ll miss your flight.” Gayle was wrapping Brittany up in her baby blanket.
“If I do I’ll catch the next one. Come on you need to let Southwest know you’re here and ready to fly to Austin to see your husband.”
Twenty one minutes later Nikki and Gayle were standing in front of the Southwest passenger loading lounge. Nikki waved one of the flight stewardesses over. “Oh Miss, Georgia, may I have a moment of your attention please?”
Georgia wasn’t shocked the lady knew her name. After all it was on her nametag. “Miss I’m supposed to be helping passengers board the plane.”
“Yes Hon, and this is one passenger you can help. Georgia, meet Gayle and her two beautiful daughters, Bonnie and Brittany. It would be kind of you to help get them situated on the plane.”
“Really not my job.”
“We would be most grateful and it will only take a couple minutes. I would do it but not my flight and someone would be unhappy if I put my foot on that plane without a ticket.”
“I guess.” Georgia wasn’t too sure.
Nikki bent down and kissrd Bonnie on the forehead as she held her. “No crying on the plane. You and your sister can save it and let it out when your daddy is holding you.”
She handed Bonnie over to Georgia and reached for Brittany. “May I?”
Gayle never even questioned why as she passed her over. Nikki bent over and kissed her on the forehead. “You heard what I told your sister. The same applies to you. No crying on the plane.”
Nikki handed Brittany to Georgia back and then passed Gayle a business card. “This has Jessie’s address and phone number. Daniel doesn’t have a car yet. He’ll take a taxi to the airport for you and the girls. You can’t go back to your husband’s apartment. He no longer has one. I’ll give Jessie a heads up and she will meet you and Daniel at the airport. She’s a tall girl, six one and has a figure that drives every female who sees her crazy with jealousy, including me.”
Gale and Georgia were staring at Nikki. Both were thinking the same thing, if they only had her figure there was no way they could be jealous of another woman. If a Ten was perfect then the woman in front of them was an Eleven.
Nikki reached out and gave Gayle a hug. “Everything will work out. Give it a little time and relax while you let Jessie look after you and the family. She’s a real sweetheart.”
It shocked Georgia when Nikki stepped to her side and hugged her. “Thank you for taking care of them. This trip has her and the babies stressed out.”
Georgia was at a loss as to how to answer. “uh, sure, not a problem.”
Nikki turned and was headed to catch her flight to Vegas.
As Georgia and Gayle walked onto the plane Gayle realized she had never asked the lady’s last name nor had it been mentioned.
She had no luggage to handle and Nikki made it across the terminal in good time going from gate sixteen to gate seven for her connecting flight to Vegas. Showing her ticket and boarding pass she was sent straight to the plane.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gayle and the twins arrived in Austin-Bergstrom International Airport before Nikki reached Vegas. Georgia had asked her to wait until all the other passengers had deplaned. When the last one stepped into the tunnel and left she headed back where Gayle was wrapping up the girls in their blankets.
Georgia picked up one of the twins. “Which one is this?”
“Bonnie. I can’t thank you enough for helping me with the girls.”
“They are so precious. I can’t believe how peaceful they’ve been. You must have gave them both a tranquilizer.” I hope when I have kids they are as good as these two have been.” Georgia hugged Bonnie as she kissed her forehead.
Gayle shook her head. “You missed their introduction when I boarded in Atlanta. I couldn’t quiet them. They were upsetting the other passengers. One man was very vocal about removing me and the girls from the plane. The lady…, Nikki. The one you met in Dallas, she came up from business, traded seats with the man beside me, and told the man who was screaming at us to shut up. He left and I never saw him the rest of the flight.
Gayle looked lost in thought for a second as she picked up Brittany and was following Georgia off the plane. “The lady was a god send as she held each of the twins and they settled down immediately. She must have hypnotized them? She sure did the rest of the passengers. She started singing to the twins and the passengers wanted her to keep singing. Several of the passengers had instruments and they soon had them out. Several of the passengers were beyond belief in singing along with her. She was just so amazing. She put the twins to sleep and caused the whole plane to become a flash mob singing and playing…,”
I didn’t mean to tell her all my problems but she was so easy to talk to. It was as if I had known her all my life and she was my bestest friend. My husband was laid off from work and she said he would find a better job. His car was totaled four days ago by a large truck crushing it at a shopping mall. Daniel wasn’t in the car, thank God but now we don’t even have a car. Insurance decided they won’t pay for a loaner while they decide who was at fault is hashed out in court.”
Georgia and Gayle had walked out into the concourse. Gayle was wiping tears. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to spill all my problems onto you.”
“Nonsense, problems shared are problems halved. Is your husband meeting…”
“GAYLE!”
“Daniel?” Gayle looked up as Daniel was trotting toward her.
He cautiously hugged and kissed her making sure to not squeeze the baby. “How was the flight?”
“You wouldn’t believe it.” Gayle nodded toward Georgia and the bundle she was holding. “Meet Georgia, she’s one of the angels who helped me take care of the girls. I couldn’t have managed without her.”
Daniel nodded at the flight attendant. “Thank you so much. Here let me have the other one.” He was reaching for the baby.
“The pleasure was mine. They are such cute adorable babies.” Georgia gently handed over Brittany while watching one of the tallest women she had ever seen walk toward them.
The lady stopped in front of Gayle. “You have to be Daniel’s wife and these are his daughters or else he has a second family and you aren’t Gayle.” Was the melodious voice, seductive and captured the imagination and promises of things to come.
She gave Gayle a smile as the corners of her mouth turned up. “I’m Jessie, I was asked to meet you here at the airport.”
As tall as the lady was, there was nothing out of proportion on her. She well endowed and had the body of a super model in an extra large package. Her facial features fit the gorgeous glam model look along with beautiful polished auburn hair that framed it, picture perfect.
Gayle and Georgia couldn’t stop staring for the longest time. Long seconds later Gayle finally broke out of the trance. “She said she was jealous. I don’t see any reason to be jealous. She is such a beautiful woman herself. Even if you are insanely beautiful…., “
“Except there’s just so much more of you.” Gayle’s cheeks flushed red with embarrassment following her last comment.
Jessie gave a slight giggle. “I’ll take that as a compliment. I’m positive she will too when I tell her.”
Gayle’s cheeks got even more red if possible.
Jessie reached out handing a card to Georgia. “For taking care of Gayle and the girls. A pass for four to Eddie V’s Prime Seafood. Order anything and whatever you want, there isn’t a limit. The gratuity is taken care of also. You won’t get a check, don’t leave money on the table when you and your party are finished. Same for valet parking. It’s taken care of.”
“I..I…I…I can’t. I was happy to do it. They are so cute and well behaved. Everyone around them wanted to take pictures of the twins. I had to shoo them off after a little while so the girls and Gayle could get some rest.”
“Yes you can. Call ahead to confirm as I don’t want you worrying about the cost while you’re dining and entertaining your friends. Two weeks on the seventeenth you have three days off. Call ahead, confirm the reservation. You have one special man you been dating. Maybe a night out and relaxation will put him in the mood to ask.”
Georgia was shocked. She knew she had been hoping Ken would ask her for the past nine months. How did this woman she had never met before now know? “Okay.”
Jessie gave her another hug. “Thanks again.”
Georgia turned and was in a daze as she walked back to the American counter to collect her own luggage.
Jessie held out her arms to Gayle. “Here, let me hold that little bundle of cuteness and give your arms a break.”
She kissed Brittany on the forehead as she held her. “Thalita has the SUV and will meet us at out front. Oksana and Natalie will collect your luggage.”
Gayle was fumbling with the diaper bag and her purse. “I have the tickets for the luggage…”
“They don’t need them. Let’s head for the front. I believe the timing is about right as everyone gets there.”
As all of them reached the front of the airport an electric blue SUV pulled up. As Oksana and Natalie were loading Gayle’s baggage, two airport security guards walked up, a man and a woman. “You aren’t allowed to load here. Go to the baggage level or the upper level.”
Jessie had noticed them approaching and was ready. She gave them a smile. “I’m sorry officer Jackson but you are mistaken. Curbside pickup and unloading is permitted as long as the vehicle isn’t left unattended, single operator vehicle, and or isn’t there for a long period of time. If you look at the security codes there isn’t a set time limit.”
“If we stop now, unload everything, reorganize, let our transportation go so we may meet up again at the upper baggage level we will be here twice as long than if you let us load and depart.”
He was glaring at Jessie now. “You will move now or I’ll give you a ticket.”
As soon as the words left his mouth he started jumping around swatting at his pants and yelling. “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow… Something’s biting me, stinging me…, ow, ow, ow.”
He was frantic now and running back inside where he knew where the nearest bathroom or security room was. He was desperate to remove his clothes, specifically his pants. The female officer followed.
A smirk was on Jessie’s face as she turned back to getting everyone loaded. All her ladies were grinning or giggling.
Thalita finished hooking up the security seats for the twins. “Ready for the cuties.”
Gayle looked surprised. “You have seats for our girls?”
Jessie was busy fastening Brittany into her seat. “Of course.”
Natalie was doing the same for Bonnie after she retrieved her from Daniel.
Minutes later the full SUV was pulling out away from the curb. Officer Jackson was looking miserably at hundreds of little red welts all over his body. After he had got rid of his uniform he shook hundreds of little black fire ants out and most of them weren’t dead and still looking to attack anything. He escaped into one of the showers and turned it on full flushing dozens more down the drain.
Fifty nine minutes later the SUV turned off the street onto a long driveway as the big iron gates opened. Thalita drove up a long curved driveway and stopped in front of the huge, expansive home. Thalita and Natalie were busy getting the twins out of their baby carriers as Jessie opened of the back doors of the SUV and was sitting luggage out on the driveway.
“Daniel, you expected to go back to the motel room you rented. Understandably you didn’t bring any luggage. Grab a couple cases of Gayle’s luggage and she can take care of most of the baby gear. I’ll show you to your room. The girls will take bring your girls and follow us.”
Daniel finally found his voice after staring at the house for a while. “You live here?”
Nikki’s flight had landed at Reno, Nevada, and she was on her next ride. It had already left the terminal headed for Portland. Marta would meet her at the Portland International Airport.
0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0
Jessie and the ladies guided Daniel and Gayle into the house. She glanced at her watch. “Supper is around six. It’s four thirty now. I suggest you get settled into your room, freshen up if you feel like it. You may want to take a time out for the day until it’s time to eat, that’s up to you.”
“Daniel, I know you left everything in your motel room when you took an Uber to the airport to pick up your wife and kids. You may pick up your clothes tomorrow. The household items you have in storage will keep until you land a new job. I will loan you a vehicle for you to do your running around tomorrow unless you wish to have a driver.”
She pointed up the stairs. “Natalie would you please be kind enough to show our guests to their room.”
“Certainly.” She collected Bonnie. “Daniel, your wife has been carrying the girls most of the day. If you will take Brittany, I’m positive she will love you for the help.”
“Follow me.” Natalie headed up the stairs.
Gayle turned toward Jessie. “Ma’am, I don’t…,” It was then David and Gayle notice the portraits on the walls.
They noticed the opulence and obvious grandeur of the house spoke of wealth and class from ages past when they walked inside. There was nothing cheap in the house. There were several breath taking portraits of elegant women on the walls. One didn’t need to be an art collector to understand the paintings were priceless. The portraits were of women spanning back several centuries, long before Texas was settled. Each woman’s attire represented a different nation.
Daniel and Gayle were looking at the portraits of the beautiful women who adorned the walls. The first one closest was a woman with glistening black hair. The Spanish woman was elegantly dressed in the finest elegant gown with all her jewels and crown. Her portrait radiated strength, power, and intelligence. So real it was as if she was there before them. She had to be a queen or princess.
There were six portraits were on the walls as Daniel and Gayle looked at and stared at each one ending up looking at the last one on the wall across from the Spanish Queen. A portrait of a woman with long, polished, black hair. She had the bluest blue eyes, even in the portrait they seemed to look straight at and through them, piercing one’s soul with intelligence from the ages. Her face was of ageless beauty, a valentine face with high check bones, and full luscious heart shaped lips. Long lush lashes any woman would have died for.
She was dressed in tan leather halter vest, ultra short tan leather skirt, sandals with leather laces up the calves of her legs. There was a huge, long bow over her back, a leather holster laced to her right side, a second shorter leather holster with it holding what must be a knife. There was a leather sword sheath laced to her left side. The huge broadsword she held with her right hand was stunningly beautiful in it’s deadly simplicity. It radiated deadly strength and power itself, held by the only person who could command it, the woman. As simply as she was dressed, her portrait screamed strength and power…, and royalty, a warrior, a Nordic Goddess.
None of the portraits were signed by the artists nor did they revel the name of the women on each one. As rich and elegant as the heavily engraved and burnished frames were, the portraits regulated the frames and everything around to non existence.
Jessie gave her two guests time to check back into reality after they stared at the portraits for ten minutes. “Everything is taken care of Gayle. You, Daniel, and the twins are in my care now. It is a joy to have young voices in this old house once more. Now go, relax, if you need anything holler down the stairs. We aren’t so formal we forgot how to live like regular people.” Jessie motioned Gayle to follow Natalie, Daniel, and Oksana, up the stairs.
In Daniel’s and Gale’s huge elegant bedroom there were two bassinets and two cribs. Gayle and Daniel were too shocked to say anything until Natalie had pass over Bonnie. She and Oksana quickly left to let the guests sort themselves out.
“Daniel?” Gayle was looking at her husband.
“I met her at the airport before your plane arrived. The twins weren’t mentioned until you and the stewardess showed up carrying them. Hon do you remember her talking about my car being wrecked and me needing a job? None of that was mentioned either. It’s down right spooky and I haven’t any idea how she knows.”
Gayle placed Bonnie on the bed and retrieved the diaper bag. “Sweety, you only know half the story. There was this lady on the first leg of the flight from Atlanta to Dallas. The girls were unhappy and letting the whole plane know it. Both of them crying and I couldn’t hush them. This lady, this total stranger comes up from business and asks to hold Bonnie, one of the girls. She knew their name and mine. She started singing…, she called it a wolf lullaby. Bonnie immediately calmed down and was soon sleeping. She passed Bonnie back and asked to hold Brittany. Just as quick Brittany calmed down and was sleeping. She knew…, Daniel, she knew the twins were teething and somehow she stopped their pain.”
Daniel was staring at his wife and thought he had it figured out. “She met someone who knew you and the twins and told her all about you.”
Gayle quickly finished cleaning up Bonnie and fetched Brittany for the same. She was cleaning up Brittany’s bottom with a washcloth she had fetched from the bathroom. She shook her head. “Guess again hon. She traded her high priced seat with the man who was in the seat beside me. Besides the twins, she enchanted the whole plane. Soon a dozen people had instruments out playing and singing with her. From what I could see not a single person had their Phones out or reading books. They were either singing and playing with her or they were listening and enjoying songs none of us had ever heard before. Some of those instruments none of us had ever seen. Other than the ones playing those instruments that is.”
Gayle turned her full attention on Daniel after taking care of the twins. “Hon, she told me about you getting laid off work and losing your apartment. I knew you had lost your job. I didn’t know you lost your apartment. Did you tell Jessie, because she knew?”
0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0
Nikki had arrived at Portland International. No luggage to mess with she walked quickly through the airport after deboarding. A dark blue Lexis pulled up to the curb the same time as Nikki. She opened the passenger door and slid in.
“You have the address?” Nikki was wrapping up her seatbelt as the driver pulled away.
“He has an office in a business center and his home in an upscale gated community.”
“The deeds and wills he has been hiding are at his home, two two four six Sycamore Lane. Take me to his home. Jenna’s parents aren’t the only ones he has failed to full fill his obligations as an attorney. He has support and it isn’t coming from a mortal.”
Nikki gave her friend a serious look. “BJ, find someplace private to pull over. I need to cast a protection spell. I can’t do it while we are both setting in the car.”
“What are we walking into, Nikki?”
“Something really bad. If we aren’t prepared ahead of time we aren’t going to live to tell about it.”
Almost an hour later JB drove into a gated community and stopped in front of a large impressive looking modern home. “Nice. Too nice for a single lawyer. Are we ready for this?”
“I feel the will is there. I traced the path through Julie, Jenna’s parents and their touching and handling the will.”
BJ shook her head. “And all the way across the nation. Do you realize how scary that makes you?”
“Let’s do this.” Nikki slid out of the passenger seat and headed for the house. BJ was close behind.
Nikki blocked the security cameras before she and BJ reached the front door. “Give me a few seconds. There is a security system inside the house a second one to the downstairs den, a third one to his office, a forth on the stairs going up to the bedrooms. He was really paranoid about anyone getting into his home past the front door.”
BJ heard the locks on the door clicking. The door handle swung down and the door opened. “You know where what it is you’re after so I’ll follow.”
“Stay close, we aren’t alone.” Nikki walked quickly across the receiving room, living room, circled around behind the big wide staircase going up and started down the stairs going to what in this home would be the den.
BJ was one step behind. The idea there was something else in the house besides them wasn’t anything she wanted to face alone.
Nikki stepped around a huge office desk. She pulled the executive office chair out and shoved it to the side. She reached under the desk and touched a button. Behind her a huge bookshelf began sliding to the side. She and JB were looking at a large door to a four foot wide by five foot tall safe embedded in a solid concrete wall.
Balls of light hit Nikki and JB almost simultaneously. The area around both women lit up.
“Don’t move out of the circle JB.” Nikki looked back across the room at the person standing there looking a little surprised.
Long dirty brown hair hung over his shoulders. His mouth was more wolf than human. His eyes had vertical black pupils. His hands more claws than fingers. His bare broad chest, and abs gave the image of great strength.
“You’re full of surprises, Darling. You went straight to the safe. And your biggest surprise, I didn’t hear you cast a protection spell. Care to tell me what spell it is so I may work around it next time?” He gave a feral grin showing a mouth full of sharp ponted teeth.
A smile slowly spread across Nikki’s face. “Tresden, never a pleasure to meet you. I wondered who Jonas Harriton had been taken in by. A lying snake of a lawyer making friends with a demon. That’s something one doesn’t run into everyday. Does Jonas know how you treat your friends when they are no longer useful to you?”
Tresden took a couple steps closer to the women. “You trying to talk me to death, Sweety? I have all the time in the world waiting for you and BJ to step out of your protection. How much time do you have?”
BJ looked shocked. “You know me! For your information, you fucking abomination, we have all the time in the world.”
He took another step closer to BJ and gave her a feral grin. “I’m going to enjoy you when you step outside your protection. You can’t stay there forever bitch. You’re mortal and sooner rather than later will give it up while I wait. No need of dragging out the waiting game and the pain. I like my flesh fresh and feisty.”
“Go to Hell, you piece of shit!” JB had faith in Nikki’s powers but facing a demon was scaring her.
“Hey, fish breath, if you’ll go back to playing with your lava rocks and letting your little demon buddies use you as their girlfriend, BJ and I’ll finish up what we came for and leave.” Nikki was taunting Tresden to get his attention on her and off JB.
A deep growling rumble rattled the room as his eyes became squints. “All of us will enjoy your pleasures when I take you back with me. You and your little cunt girlfriend.”
“lock hann inn bondage, remove hans powers, kasttilr voiðrinn” Nikki’s shield dropped.
At that same instant Tresden felt fear for the first time in his immortal life as a blade passed through his back.
“brimir kastinnr heaven, demon slayer” Came from a woman’s voice said with conviction behind him. Tresden’s body disappeared into nothing.
Nikki shook her head. “I could feel the place had a watcher. What I didn’t expect was a demon.”
The wards around JB disappeared. JB was staring at the incredibly beautiful and at the same time sinister looking woman holding an exquisite if deadly rapier. The sword, crossbar, and sweepings looked like gold. Of course gold would be too soft unless magically enchanted which led to JB’s duh moment. Any sword capable of killing a demon had to be enchanted.
Nikki gave the slightest of curtseys and nod of her head. “Allatu, thank you for dropping by.”
“My pleasure, Tresden was becoming a pain in the ass. I have been delegating more authority to those around me. Tresden took that as meaning I was getting weak and losing control which he wanted. This was the quickest way of taking care of a problem with the help.” A cloth appeared in her left hand. She wiped down the blade.
JB swallowed as she stared before giving a hint of a curtsey and bow of the head. If her memory served her right Allatu was goddess of the underworld.
Walking over to the wall safe, the door opened before Nikki spun the numbered dial or pulled on the handle.
“I see you haven’t lost your touch.” Allatu let a slight smile touch her face and her lips.
Nikki was reaching into the safe to retrieve several binders. “Wards and enchantments are easy, demons, not so much. I could have easily outlasted Tresen by myself. He would have grown weaker and then tried to flee given enough time. Him using his spells against us. JB wouldn’t have lasted long enough for him to weaken. Your help was greatly appreciated.”
Allatu held the sword out hilt first to Nikki. “Appreciate you letting me borrow it. Turned a difficult task into an easy one. Return it to its resting place for me since you are headed back that way.”
Allatu was starting to fade out after Nikki took the sword. “No charge on this favor since I planned on getting rid of Tresden anyway.”
She looked over where JB was still standing still as a statue. “Forget what you saw here and do not mention the sword under any circumstances. Only four of us know what it is and what it can do. Keep it that way.”
Alluta disappeared!
JB stared at the place where Alluta had been for many long seconds before turning her attention to Nikki. “Sword?”
Nikki had the documents and will of Jenna’s parents in her left hand while holding the sword in her right. Gradually the binders and sword faded from existence, the safe closed back up and the dial spun.
Nikki sighed as she turned her attention to JB. “As Alluta said, nothing you saw here leaves this room. I’ll come back later and deal with the lawyer after I place the legal documents where a lot of people are suddenly going to find a little girl inherited a business, a home, and a lot of stocks, bonds, securities, and a huge savings account from her grandparents and parents.”
JB nodded in agreement. “Okay, now clue me in about what is so secretive about the sword?”
It reappeared in Nikki’s right hand and seemed to have a glow around it. JB realized it was a magical aura. “It’s enchanted!”
Looking at the sword Nikki nodded. “Yes. It was created thousands of centuries ago. The world had a problem with creatures other than humans, demons, witches, and the like. There was an Evil unlike any other. It consisted of basically nothing except pure Evil. There was no way to kill such a thing and yet it feasted regularly on the living, enveloping them and sucking their soul out of the flesh body. The Gods feared this Evil would end up devouring all life so they came together and forged a sword made from blood taken from all the Gods and bonded with something which has no body itself, light.
Theia brought the sword to earth and gave it to one of my great ancestors, Lia who herself had several close calls with the Evil knowing it would return to feast on her.”
“As you may surmise the Evil did return for Lia. There was a fight and Lia won killing the Evil. Instead of being destroyed it became millions of small pieces which fled. That is what is infecting our world today. Not strong enough to do evil but certainly strong enough to encourage others into doing evil things themselves. Thus those like the lawyer who didn’t tell Jenna and Mark about the will but kept it to himself and was pulling funds out of it.”
As she held the sword up it cast a soft glow. “Guardian, forged by Gods from their own blood. The one weapon all evil fears for all those small pieces of Evil don’t have the magical strength to avoid being sent to nothing if touched by this. There are those who would stop at nothing to get their hands on this sword and destroy it if they could. That is why you may never say anything about what happened here. Especially never say Tresen was destroyed by a sword.”
The sword disappeared again. “I need a ride to Renton Municipal Airport. Nicole is giving me a ride back home. The time factor when this binder needs to be in Mikta’s hands is too short to take a commercial flight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is the first incomplete story I have posted. I understand there are other stories many have commented on as needing more to the story but I couldn’t. Stories are given to me as I have no talent myself. There will be more story added to Seer Two
She’s Not Going To Make It
She had come into ER at two PM. She lay on the examination table for five hours crying, screaming, begging for help. Finally around nine PM they had done an MRI. She was bleeding internally, it didn’t look good.
“She’s Not Going To Make It.” She was lucid enough to hear the doctor.
“Are you family?”
“Kelly shook her head. “A friend. She called me saying she needed to go to the ER.”
“We want to send her down to the city. She might have a chance with an operation. Otherwise we don’t think she will last through the night. With the storm over us the Medi Flight can’t get off the ground.”
“I’ll drive her down. I can have her there in an hour and half.” Kelly was watching her friend. They had given her a pain med and she had stopped screaming and crying.
“Not a good idea without EM people watching her. We won’t be responsible.”
“Waiting here for the storm to pass isn’t helping.”
The pain med they put in her IV helped and she was listening. She offered her opinion, she was positive trying something was better than doing nothing. “Kelly can drive me.”
“We called for an airplane as the helicopter isn’t flying in this weather.”
The clock was ticking and the time was closing in on one forty in the morning. The ER team loaded her onto a gurney. “You cold?” One of the attendants asked as he noticed she was shaking all over.
“I’m freezing to death.” The drugs kept her from feeling the pain but didn’t block the cold she was feeling.
She was already covered with several blankets. He covered her with two more.
As they wheeled her out to the ambulance it was drizzling. She smiled, “Feels good on my face.”
A short drive to the airport and she was loaded into a Beechcraft turboprop, ambulatory plane. They left the clouds and rain behind almost immediately after takeoff and it was a smooth ride to Wily Post Airport.
An ambulance was waiting. Integris was close to seven miles away and at that time of the morning there wasn’t any traffic. It was a short time later they wheeled her into Integris.
The examinations and questions started as the staff quizzed the ambulance crew how she did on the flight. She was calm and carried on a short conversation. She seemed to be resting easily.
Then the Dr. questioned her. “Where do you hurt?”
She motioned all the way across her stomach from side to side and then just below her belly up to her breasts. “All of it hurts.”
“On a scale of one to ten how bad is it?”
“About a six or eight now. Before they gave me something for the pain it was a twenty.”
“I’m not going to give you any more pain medicine right now. They need blood samples and I want an MRI. Do you know what that is?”
“Yes.”
Do you have any screws, or surgical attachments in your upper body?”
“No.”
“Okay, blood first and then we will stick you in the tube and see what’s going on.”
Thirty minutes later the doctor was back after she had been scanned. “We are going to put a marker in your blood and run you through the MRI again.”
“Okay.” She had no idea what they found or didn’t find but she was beginning to seriously hurt again.
Another technician came in with a machine. “Sweetie, I’m going to do an ultra sound.”
“Okay.”
Thirty minutes later she was closing up her equipment. “How you doing?’
“I’m really starting to hurt again.”
“The nurse will be in and take you up to ICU. They will fix you up once they get you settled in.”
“Okay.”
Forty minute later she was in a bed in ICU and a nurse was inserting a needle into a vain and then taped it down. She hung up two bags to the intravenous tree. “You should start feeling a little better shortly. We are going to fill you full of antibiotics. Are you warm enough? When you came in you had six blankets on you?”
“I’m cold.” She had a sheet and a blanket covering her.
“I’ll bring a couple more blankets.” The nurse left and within minutes was back with two warm blankets.
“Better?”
“Oh yes, thank you.” She was starting to get warm again as the warmth from the blankets soaked in.
“Okay, you rest and get well.” The nurse put the control pad in her bed with her. “The call button is the big one at the top.”
“Thanks.”
The next day the lady found she was on a water diet only. She also found out she had pancreatitis. And what she had was nothing similar to what is described in the medical journals. The doctors asked her the muti questions normally associated with pancreatitis. Did she smoke, did she drink, had she been partying excessively, along with dozens of other questions which are normally associated with pancreatitis. She didn’t do any of those thing. They were stumped as pancreatitis doesn’t spontaneously happen. There is always a cause leading up to the reason it happens. Maybe an infection from her appendix? They asked if she would consent to an operation and removal of her appendix?
“Is it infected or diseased?” She responded.
“No.” Was their answer.
“I’m not giving up a healthy appendix.”
The next day she was subject to another ultra sound as the doctors were hoping to find what caused the pancreatitis as there is always a cause.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” She asked the technician as she was being scanned.
“Twins, a boy and a girl.” The tech responded with a grin.
“Find anything?”
“I’m not supposed to say anything to the patient as the doctors do that after they look at the scans. Besides your pancreas still has some infection, you look good. I didn’t say that.”
“Thanks, I won’t tell and I’ll look a little pleased when the doc tells me.”
“Get well. You’re improving pretty fast. They will probably kick you out of here by Friday.”
“I might get better if I had something to eat besides ice chips and water.”
“They should have told you. A pancreatitis infection means no food.”
“I needed to lose some weight anyway. Thanks.”
By Thursday they allowed me jello and pudding along with some of the nastiest tasting Ensure I had ever tried to swallow. Friday meant another ultra sound before they released me. I asked the Doc about pain pills because it was still there. He asked me where I picked up my prescriptions and I told him Costco. He wrote something in that tablet of his and I “assumed” it was a prescription for pain pills.
Kelly had drove up to pick me up and drive me home. We swung ten miles out of the way to Costco and there wasn’t a prescription for me. We headed home. A hundred and twenty miles later I wanted only one thing. To lay down in bed and stop moving. I was sick and I hurt. Excedrin, Tylenol, Advil wasn’t helping that much. I hurt but damn if I was going back to the hospital and it was around eight O’clock Friday evening. No doctor. I toughed it out over the weekend surviving on milk, pudding, and Excedrin. Anything else hurt my stomach.
Monday I saw my Dr. and she was reluctant to prescribe any pain meds as she hadn’t received the data from Integris and had no experience with pancreitis. She had no idea what would make it better or worse. If Integris was right, the infection was gone but I was still healing.
It took me a week after I was discharged before I could eat Cream of Wheat and or Cream of Rice. Anything besides milk, jello, pudding brought the pain back. For two weeks I was on a soft food diet. Quaker Oats was added to the menu.
Tired, weak, the third day after returning home I needed milk, jello, and the aforementioned cereals. I drove to Walmart, got a handicap cart, got what I need, checked out drove home, and collapsed in bed for a couple hours. Beyond tired, it had been years since I had pushed that hard to finish a job. Another thirty minutes I wouldn’t have made it home. (Walmart is only four miles from me, short drive)
It’s been a month since Kelly drove me to the hospital suffering the worst pain I had ever experienced in my life. I’m still not back where I was before the attack but I’m making progress. Last Thursday I made the trip to OKC VA for an appointment. Collapsed when I got home but I made it. Today I was down at Cordell, (sixty mile round trip) to appear in court as a witness. Did better with that short trip and court was canceled after I arrived so in and out of the court house helped.
A couple of the nurses mentioned to me there is no worse pain than pancreatitis. I’d almost agree with them except Jean died from cancer. I watched helplessly as she slowly slipped away from me. Pancreatitis there is a treatment if caught soon enough and the body isn’t wasted from alcohol, drugs, or smoking. I’ve never done any of those things and I can’t help the doctors if they couldn’t figure out why I had it. Thus I was curable.
Cancer, no matter how clean a life one has lived, no matter how healthy they are, a cure is still up to God, not us mortals. I will love her for all eternity. Came darn close to going home but God decided I needed to hang around a little longer.
I might possibly get the medical bills paid in five or six years, provided I live that long.
I am not asking for donations nor will I accept help from anyone here. All of you are a great bunch of people but most are struggling just to survive. The term “starving artists” applies to so many on this channel.
Hugs People
Barb
Life is a gift. Cherish it until it’s time to return it to the one who made it for you.
Dang, trying to find a lose ground when it's still in the split bolt inside the breaker box and isn't making contact is interesting.
Takes me back to 1949 over the Pacific when the left engine started cutting out intermittently.
Way the doors are made on the C117 they couldn't be opened when in the air as they opened outward. Air flowing against the door you know. Had to break out a window over the wing and crawl out to the engine cowling. When I popped the last lock there was no way I could hold onto the cowling. I let it go or else it would have dragged me off the wing. Lucky the bottom half of the cowling was still locked on. I crawled down inside between it and the engine and started checking why the engine was misfiring. One of the magnetos had shorted out and was pulling all the juice off the other mag. I didn't have any side cutters so I did the only thing I could. I put the wires between my teeth and bit them in two.
Shocking experience I tell you. Knocked me out. Captain Jack Brightly flew the plane on into Guam. When they pulled me out of the cowling they dosed me down with a fire hose. When I awoke they held a Captain's Mast right there on the runway. I was charged with destruction of government property, breaking the window and losing the cowling. Abandoning my duty post because I left the airplane while it was still in operation and being Awol. I was never issued a pass to leave the plane.
Right then I was discharged from the Navy. Because I was no longer Navy they took my uniform off me right there. I was lucky my unmentionables weren't Navy issue or I probably would have been totally naked. Since I was no longer Navy I was illegally trespassing on a Naval Air Base as I wasn't issued a pass at the gate. The MPs were called, I was marched to the gate and told to never come back or I would spend time in the brig not a civilian jail.
Not having any clothes besides my unmentionables wasn't that much of a problem. Guam, remember. I was there for a couple more days entertaining the sailors and visitors in the local watering hole while receiving free meals and drinks. Kinda made me ask why I signed up for the Navy in the first place? Finally received and offer to fly back to the states with Senator Hardwick, a Democrat from New Josie. Took me longer than that trip back to understand he was saying New Jersey. Those easterners talk funny. I'd swear they put a handful of dried corn in their mouth before they try to speak. Something my cousin Betty Lou and I used to do when we were kids and we'd tell our parents we had the mumps to get out of going to school. Didn't work. Our parents tried that same trick on their parents when they were kids.
Anyway, I didn't need to do any favors for the Senator on the flight back. I supplied him with enough of his own alcohol he was zoned out all the way. I'm sure I didn't kill the man. I mean, all politicians look kinda pasty. Wusan't allowed off the plane until we landed in New Josey even with a couple stops in between. Even the pilots talked funny like that senator guy. Before I left the airport I was offered a dozen rides by guys going by. Accepted one to a truck stop. Again no favors for the lift. What is it about men thinking a gal running around in her unmentionables is some sort of prostitute. Yeah, I know what that means. Paid him off with a bottle from the Senator's stash. I had liberated it along with several other bottles in the Senator's hand bag marked Top Secret. Yeah, I learned in the Navy to never steal anything. We liberate it. I guess the Senator didn't want anyone to know he carried a refresher everywhere he went.
At the truck stop I was offered thirty or forty rides. Some of them truckers sure were frisky and bragged up the accommodations in their great big ol Peter...., built. Found a truck driver hauling a government hot load to Area 51. I think that's in Oregon? He made it back to Oklahoma faster than most of them planes do I believe. I guess government does okay by some people. I kinda lost a little bit of respect when I was removed of my clothes and abandoned in Guam. I wonder what the Air Force is like? I only joined the Navy so I didn't have to chop or pick any more cotton. Maybe the Marines could use one more Good Gal?
What brought all the memories back? Well my AC, that's air conditioner, has been kinda spasmodic this spring just like the engine on that ol airplane. I'd spent a couple hours previously looking for the problem thinking a transformer had took a lightening surge. Problem with that is they are either there or they isn't. No halfway. And then it began working again after I had checked all the wiring in the breaker boxes. There are three between the meter and the AC. Today the AC decided to take another vacation and it's climbing up close to a hundred in the house. Kinda hard to figure out why one electrical leg is reading one twenty and the other is reading two forty when both are supposed to be one twenty. Not hard to understand. One leg is feeding over using the other leg as a ground when no ground is tied in. The elec meter didn't help as all the readings on both hots and ground were good except for the excess volts. Time for hands on. Started wiggling wires and the ground was completely lose inside the split bolt. Going to be interesting sticking my hands inside a hot breaker box and pulling wires together again. Oh well isn't the first time I had a shocking experience.
Have I told you about the time I was working on a main feeder line carrying four hundred and forty volts? It didn't melt "all" of the screwdriver I had in my hands. The explosion was impressive. The cowards around me ran for cover. Big brave men. It was in the summer of....,
WAIT SCOTTY, DON'T BEAM ME UP! I MAY HAVE FOUND INTELLIGENT LIFE DOWN HERE!
NO! NO! WAIT! I'M SERIOUS.... ARRG, I'VE BEEN TRANSPORTED ANYWAY.
WHAT THE HELL! SCOTTY YOU'RE DEAD MEAT! YOU TRANSPORTED ME INTO A FEMALE YOU ASSHOLE!
There are Predators and then there are the Hunters. Sometimes the same thing, sometimes they aren’t. To some the thrill of the chase and then the kill is all they desire in life. They can find employment with the more powerful and less ethical men, organizations, and even the government. Those predators get paid to do what they would do anyway, killing. They are top of the food chain.
The Huntress is a predator herself. Only…, she hunted the predators, those who hunted others. Always on the move, she tried to stay ahead of those who hunted those like her. Government agencies believed her kind should be eradicated from the face of the earth.
2017-11-21 Copyright is claimed and legally enforced by
Barbie Lee
Elk City, Oklahoma
editor: Monique
Reproductions or copying in electronic or paper form is strictly forbidden without express approval of the author. Now the legals are out of the way, enjoy.
this story is completed from beginning to end word count approx 115,000
NOT a LifeShift (TG) story.
THE
HUNTRESS
This was NOT a part of this town I especially liked. It had turned into one of the slowly developing slum districts with businesses and people leaving the area to the lesser classes of the human race. I was a body model for many different photographers. If you picked up a magazine advertising rings and bracelets, odds were my hand was in the picture. Ads of fashion shoes may have been my feet. The bathing suit ads where the girl’s face wasn’t part of the picture? Yep that could be me. Same with clothing. Necklaces on a fine eloquent neck or draped suggestively over or between firm abundant breasts? Yep, and yep. In a small way I was taunting and rubbing noses in the dirt of those who wanted me dead. They could be looking at a small part of me every day in some picture and never know.
I parked my dirty older Mercury Marquis in front of one of the vast empty parking places along the sidewalk, half a block from where COS has his business set up. His name was actually Chance Octavius Sovenkia which I and everyone else figured his parents must have really hated the kid when he was born. As a kid he quickly figured out COS was a damn fine name and ran with it. He soon developed a reputation as a photographer even in grade school. He had an uncanny ability to capture the unbelievable and oh my god pictures everyone else wish they had taken. He morphed that talent into an advertiser’s dream photographer as he grew older and graduated college with an art degree.
How I came to be a body model for COS was kind of odd. I stopped in at JoDan’s Jewelers to look over some rings. As it happened they were busy and a very well dressed lady came up from the back offices to help. She focused on me as she closed to the counter and asked if she could help or if I was looking for something in particular?
Pointing to the white gold ring with the tiniest blue diamond I tapped the top of the glass counter with my fingernail. “I’d like to see the blue diamond ring please.”
She placed a black velvet cloth on top the counter and then retrieved the ring box. “You have a good eye. Most don’t see the beauty of the contrast between the white gold and the blue diamond which makes it an exquisite ring able to hold it’s own against two and four carrot diamond rings.”
She removed the ring from the box and held it on top the black velvet cloth moving it around to show all the ultra fine filigree work engraved in the band. “Would you like to try it for size?”
“If you don’t mind.” I removed a single gold band off my ring finger before I laid my left hand on the black velvet.
“He’s a lucky man.” She glanced at the gold ring.
I almost giggled as I shook my head. “There’s no he. That is to slow down the traffic.”
“With your looks I can imagine it doesn’t slow them.” She took a second look at my hand. “Such smooth skin and delicate hands. Those long fingers and the long sharp fingernails are your own aren’t they?”
She leaned across the counter and took a closer look at my face. “I must say I have never seen any other with as much natural beauty as yourself. You are using the very minimal of makeup and you’re prettier than anyone I’ve ever met. Your parents are very rich or you are a princess.”
That did get me to chuckle as I shook my head. “Sorry, none of the above. I’m a working girl like everyone else. My golden chariot is a five year old dirty gray Mercury. And pumping up my ego won’t make me forget the price of the ring when you show it to me.”
She handed me the ring. It easily slid up on my ring finger. “Looks like it was made for you.” She reached out and held my hand turning it over before releasing it.
I don’t think she noticed my reflex action as my left hand moved back out of her strike zone and then back again before she took hold of my hand. Rolling my hand over and looking at it from both sides I admired its simple beauty. I also knew a large part of the glamour of the ring was from the lights in the store and time spent in the polishing vibrator. “What is the price?”
She turned the ring box over and looked at the bottom. “Only seventeen ninety six.”
Another sales trick. Instead of saying one thousand, seven hundred, and ninety six dollars they condense it down to lessen the impact on the mind. Taking four dollars off the top also made it cheaper than saying one thousand eight hundred dollars. “That is a little more than my budget can handle this week.” I started to slide the ring off.
She reached across the counter and stopped me. Moving my hand so it was over the black velvet, she moved over to one side and then the other. She looked up into my eyes. “Please, would you indulge me? I have several more rings I would like for you to do as you are doing now. Slip them on and then put your hand over the pad.”
I gave it some thought and then shrugged, I didn’t have a schedule I had to meet for the rest of the day. “I really am not interested in any more rings.”
She gave me a smile. “And I’m not going to try and sell you these rings. I want to see how they look on your hand. You really do have beautiful hands and fingers.”
“I guess.” I slipped the ring off and laid it on the pad.
She put it in the box and set it aside. She brought up another set of rings from the case. It was a simple engagement ring and wedding ring.
After I slid the rings onto my finger I laid my hand on the black velvet pad.
She examined it from side to side and called one of the men over. “John, I want you to look at this.” She looked up at me. “I’m sorry I don’t even know your name.”
“It is hard to say it right in English. I go by Nova.”
She looked at me kind of funny. “That isn’t hard to say.”
I couldn’t stop the hint of a smile as it touched my lips. “No it isn’t. That is a nickname and what most call me.”
“Okay” She set another set of wedding rings up on the counter. The wedding ring had small diamonds sprinkled into the band.
I slid them on after removing the other set and laid my hand down on the pad. John and the woman carefully studied it from different angles.
As the time wore on I realized we were getting into the more expensive rings. I wasn’t sure a hundred thousand would touch that last set she had me try. I thought we were through when she didn’t bring out another set. She started bringing out bracelets with enough diamonds I figured would pay off a nice starter home in trade.
“Do you mind if I take pictures?” She held up a high end digital camera.
“As long as you don’t take pictures of my face. I know I’m on your store security cameras. Please indulge me.” I was waiting for her to tell me to remove the jewelry.
Her face held doubt but she nodded in agreement. “As you wish. I know I have taken an hour of your time. I appreciate what you have done. Would I insult you if I offered to pay you a hundred dollars as a gift and not as payment for your work?”
“That would be most kind. I didn’t ask for a gratuity.”
Nadine, as I had learned her name, took a lot of pictures before she was through.
After I had removed all the jewelry and laid it back on the pad, she handed me an envelope. “Thank you for sharing some time with us. If you come back in nine days I have a feeling the ring you looked at might have a reduced price.”
If she was wanting more hand jewelry shots I could handle that. Putting the envelope in my purse I nodded in agreement. “I will have to check it out although I might not be able to get away from my job that day.”
Nadine sent the pictures to COS for re editing to place in the store's advertising pictures. After looking at the pictures Chance wanted to know who the model was as he could use her hands in other advertisements. As it would happen when I stopped back in JoDan's to look at that one ring Nadine talked me into meeting with Chance. The meeting led to more than hand shots as I posed for more and more pictures. All with the caveat there were no facial pictures.
As I left JoDan’s I figured I was coping pretty well with life. Neither Nadine or any of the others realized I was…, It was something I tried real hard to play down and push to the background. Minimum makeup wasn’t because I wanted to emphasize my face and features, just the opposite. I used makeup the best I knew how to hide my high cheekbones and doe shaped eyes. The soft brown cotton shift dress I was wearing didn’t include a belt. The ankle boots had a one inch heel. At six one, I had more than ample height. The last thing I needed was heels making me taller.
All that happened two and a half years and a couple dozen different jobs back.
Checking my watch, I didn’t have time to make it back to my room for a change before I clocked in for work. Didn’t make a whole lot of difference. I kept a uniform in my car. I could change in one of the restrooms before I started my shift. Hopefully I wouldn’t get dragged into someone’s room again because some idiot thought I was part of the “room service”. That last job didn’t turn out that well. I didn’t stick around for my paycheck afterwards. I really needed to find a better class of jobs. The problem was an age old one for a lot of people. I had no real papers for a history or education. Those like me ghosted in the system on someone else’s identity. If we weren’t good enough to steal an identity one could always be bought from the right sellers.
That last time didn’t turn out well there either. The two guys wanted more than the money they initially agreed on for a new ID. Not only no but hell no and threats of serious bodily harm if they persisted didn’t stop them. My tee shirt was torn and bloody, my jeans had rips in them where a knife had made several slashes. Basically I was a bloody mess as I left the alley and the van behind pushing a half filled shopping cart. Very little of that blood was mine.
I leaned over the cart and took slow shuffling steps down the sidewalk, looking like what I hoped was an old homeless person. It wasn’t the better part of town. The few who saw me never even looked twice as they avoided me. I really needed to learn how to fight other than killing everyone who wanted to pull me into a knock down drag out brawl as they tried to take my life. Not that I didn’t know how to fight but inside a van?
The two guys I left in the alley had learned their last lesson in life. Whether they deserved it after one pulled a knife and the other a gun wasn’t up for debate. The times I met other predators I never gave it a second thought when I left pieces scattered all over. I guess those guys could be considered predators? They preyed on those weaker than them. I knew eventually I would meet the same fate I dealt out to others. No matter how good one is, there are always those stronger, better at hunting, and killing.
In this modern society it was getting harder to not get noticed. The governments of various nations had realized there were people among them who were…, different. They wanted us dead or under their control. Dead was first choice. For the past forty nine years I drifted from job to job working with the bottom part of society. Not that the jobs I did could be called dregs but it was the places where I worked. Short order cook at the shipping docks, waitress at Harry’s Bar and later at Lynn’s Dinner left a lot of bloody arms in my wake. Some of those men thought copping a feel of the waitress came with the order. I didn’t happen to be in the mood or on the menu. Adjusting to what life had dealt me included a mental adjustment along with the physical.
“You’re late.” Julian admonished me as I walked into the hotel lobby.
“I’m early.” I pointed to the big clock on the wall behind the front desk.
“You’re out of uniform.” He kept digging at me.
“I’ll change in the employee’s bathroom.” I held up the uniform in my left hand.
“I’m going to dock your pay for coming in the front entrance. You know you are supposed to use the back employee entrance.” Julian wouldn’t let it go.
Walking over to the front desk, I laid the uniform on the counter. “I had to park three blocks south of here because this company is too cheap to allow employee parking in the parking garage. I can’t afford to pay for parking on what you’re paying me. It would be more than I make. The police station has free parking around it. I’m pretty sure my car will still be there when I get off at three in the morning. If you are docking my pay then hand me my paycheck now because I’m not coming to work.”
He glared at me as he acted like he was going to the office to print out my check. “You’re pushing, Nova. I’m short staff tonight or I would fire you. Stella called and said her husband was sick. She was taking him to the hospital. Morino called asking me to make his bail. He got tossed for fighting in a bar. If I wasn’t…”
“Don’t threaten me Julian. I don’t deal in threats.” I picked up my uniform and headed to the back to change. I knew why Julian was pushing. He would slack off for sexual favors. A couple of the girls talked about him. I knew why they didn’t quit instead of joining Julian in one of the vacant rooms for a quick one. They were desperately poor and untrained labor. They couldn’t find another job that easily and they couldn’t quit this one and pay the bills. Life really sucked at the bottom of the human food chain!
Unless one was one of the Predators! The problem with being a predator there were always nastier ones than yourself. It never ended well when we met.
The white maid uniform was off the rack and a size too large. It had survived the rear seat of my car with things being tossed on the top of it for the past couple days. This gave it a rumpled been a long day look when I put it on. My hair was tied off in a ponytail, long enough to cover half my butt. I always washed it in hard water with extra harsh soap and never thoroughly rinsed out all the soap before I dried it to get it to look dull and lifeless. Long, long ago I gave up cutting it when the changes first started. It had a length it wanted. If I cut it at night it would be back by morning. Cutting it in the morning meant it would be back by evening. People who saw me that morning would be doing double takes by the end of the day. So I gave up. My last trick at hiding it was the soap thing. For the rest of the evening I would look like I had a horrendous case of dandruff as I shed everywhere I went. By the time my shift was over my hair would have a glistening black sheen like it has been polished and oiled. And so went the way of little bits and pieces of this life I had somehow inherited.
Looking in the mirror after I changed, I hoped no one hit on me tonight. I was in a really foul mood after putting up with Julian’s sickening attempts at blackmail. I headed for the employee service station to clock in, ten minutes early. “Another night, another dollar.”
Gwen pointed to a food tray after I had clocked in. “Mr. Hradra in room three fourteen has requested grapes, caviar, wine, whipped cream. Watch his hands when you deliver. Marla said he groped her when she delivered extra towels earlier.”
“You probably should send one of the other girls. I’m not in the mood for that tonight.” I hesitated hoping Gwen would give me an out.
“Can’t, we are running three short tonight. Try and hold it in hon and for god’s sake don’t kill him. Be extra nice to him. If he wants to feel, accept it as part of your job.” She turned back to direct one of the other girls to clean up in room two oh six.
“Gwen, please, give me clean up and send Carla up with the tray.” I really was in an ugly mood after the exchange with Julian. Having a randy guest grope me was not in this hotel’s best interest.
“No can do. Now hustle girl, we are on a tight schedule and short on help. That goes to the sixth floor.” She pointed to a tray calling for Maria to rush a bottle of champagne to room six forty one.
“Fine! Don’t blame me if things go south tonight.” I hissed through gritted teeth. I was going to try my best to not go postal if the idiot decided the maids were part of room service.
Picking up the tray I headed down the hall to the service elevators. Julian stepped into the hall ahead of me. “Come into my office when your time is up and I’ll give you some extra hours with overtime pay.”
The tray was balanced on my right hand, held shoulder high. My long fingernails sliced up through the bottom of it. My eyes closed to slits as I tried to contain the emotional explosion welling up inside me. Looking down at my feet so I wouldn’t focus on his face, I hissed. “Julian, get out of my way. If you value your life don’t speak to me again. EVER! Leave the other girls alone. This isn’t your harem and we aren’t your playthings. Run while you’re still able.”
“You stupid little bitch! I can make life a miserable hell for you or it can be easy. But no, you guard that pussy of yours like you was a virgin. Someone who looks like you ain’t no virgin. You’re a god damn whore is what you are!” He was reaching to grab me.
Did he really think he could drag me back into his office and fuck me? Was more going on in this hotel than I thought? Had they been grooming me as one of the call girls? Putting up with groping guests were part of the training program? Dropping the tray I took hold of his wrist before he made a latch on me. Turning my head to look back down the hall at the service area. Gwen had been watching.
I yanked Julian into me and slit his throat with one of my long fingernails on my left hand as easily as if it had been a stiletto. Julian was going to the floor with his hands wrapped around his own throat as I spun on my heel and marched back down to face Gwen. She didn’t look scared. She didn’t have time to process the fact Julian was bleeding out on the floor.
“Tell the police what happened and clean this whore house up or I’ll come back and do it for you. Give them all the tapes from all the cameras. Including all the ones hidden in the guest rooms. If you are afraid of what the police might do to you, it is nothing what you can expect if I have to come back. If the police are in on this cesspool, make that call to the state police. If this gets covered up I’ll get names and bodies are going to become plentiful down at the morgue. That includes the mayor if it reaches that high. No one is beyond my wrath. No one.”
I turned to go and then looked back over my shoulder to look at a very white shaking Gwen. “I’d appreciate it if I was erased off those tapes.”
Collecting my clothes and purse, I left knowing I had worn out my welcome not only in this hotel but this town and this state. A quick trip to my rented room, my car was packed with what few belongings I owned. The freeways and interstates would have been a faster exit but also the logical place for the police to look for a fleeing suspect if Gwen had turned me in. The old highways and back roads were slower but not as well covered as the interstate highways.
Sleeping in the car, buying lunch meat, bread, water from the grocery stores, and washing up in the bathrooms when I gassed up the car became my way of life for the next six days until I reached Houston. Winter was a month away and sleeping in the car in one of the northern states didn’t give me warm fuzzy feelings. My car was going to be my bed and breakfast for at least a month after I found a job. I had enough to pay for a room. If an emergency came up like last time and I had to abandon everything I wouldn’t have enough gas money to run.
Houston suburbs were where I landed a little before noon. I spent most of the rest of the day driving alleys until I found what I wanted. A car parked off in the weeds with current plates. If the car was repaired it would be months before they noticed the plates were gone. Possibly they might scrap the car and never think about the plates.
At two AM I parked several blocks away in front of a house collecting newspapers on the driveway. I was ghosting down the alley toward my goal. Black boots, pants, sweatshirt, ski mask, and gloves were my attire for this job. There was no way to hide my assets. No one who saw me was going to mistake me for a boy. I let my long hair hang down in a ponytail as it wouldn’t help to hide it. On my belt was a tool pouch with pliers, screwdrivers, crescent wrenches, torq drivers, and a set of wrenches to fit those anti theft screws and bolts. No matter what was holding those plates on, they were mine!
Halfway down the second alley a couple large dogs got to barking. That of course roused all the dogs for several blocks around and it became a cacophonous of yips from the smaller dogs to deep wolfs from the larger dogs. Shaking my head I muttered. “Neighborhood dog alarm system.”
I knew they would quiet down in a few minutes. And then I heard a gate open in one of the yards a couple houses down from me. It had to be to the dog pen because from the sound the gate didn’t open to the alley.
“SICKEM BRUTUS, GO GETEM SULTAN!” Rang out from a deep male voice in the yard.
Two huge German Police dogs cleared the six foot fence and hit the alley on a run coming directly toward me. “Oh shit!”
CHAPTER III
A Job for a Huntress
Two huge German Police dogs cleared the six foot fence and hit the alley on a run coming directly toward me. “Oh shit!” I pulled a screwdriver out of the tool pouch and waited.
One was slightly ahead of the other and both launched about eight feet from me, intending to take me down with their massive weight as they ripped me apart with their teeth. I leaned into the attack and spun away to the side at the same time. The lead dog ended up with a screwdriver embedded between his eyes. The second one had his throat ripped open from his jaw clear down to the middle of his belly as he sailed past me. I gave him credit as he was turning his head to latch onto me as I rolled away from him as he went by. I grabbed his left hind leg as he went by, held on, and slammed him down into the ground. The situation was over. The cut wasn’t that deep. Eventually it would have bled him out. He would have come back at me again before he died. I didn’t have time to wait.
Born, raised in human society the two dogs never learned that innate survival instinct. Which is don’t attack everything because you can. Retrieving my screwdriver from the dead body, I disappeared out of the alley. “BRUTUS, SULTUN, HERE BOYS. BRUTUS, SULTAN? GET BACK HERE.”
Dumb sick bastard. If it had been some child or woman strolling through the alley nothing would have been left when the dogs returned to their pen. I didn’t blame the dogs. I blamed the guy who had turned them loose. Little wonder people hate attack dogs when their owners turn them lose on everything that moves.
The next morning was spent looking for that life sustaining job. I picked up a Sunday paper even though it was Wednesday. Most companies place their ads in the Sunday paper because it has the biggest circulation.
The restaurant/club was huge. It was one of those open at ten and worked their way through the rest of the day until twelve PM or there a bouts. One of the guys was moving crates from the box truck backed up to the loading dock. He glanced over in my direction before he hefted the next box. “May I help you?”
“I’m here about the job offer in the paper.”
Pointing to the big doors behind he gave a nod with his head. “Go past the second set of doors, turn right, go up the stairs. Check in with Kathy in the first office.”
“Thanks.” I put his directions into motion.
At the top of the stairs I checked my blue blouse and blue jeans to make sure I was clean. The door to the first office was open so I tapped on the doorframe.
The lady at the desk looked up. “Come in, may I help you?”
“You advertised for help in the Sunday paper. I’m well experienced in most any kind of work.”
She looked me over. “Those job slots were filled Monday. Sorry.”
“Thanks.” I turned to go.
“Wait.” She got up from the desk and walked around to stand in front of me as I turned around. She gave me a through examination. “What are you experienced at?”
“Short order cook, chef, waitress, bar tending. I’m good in the cleanup area, pots, floors, tables, wood or trim around the dining area. I’m good at cleaning the commercial kitchen equipment, vents things like that.” I wondered if she found anything in that job description she might need me for?
She held out her hand. “Let me see your hands.”
I held up my hands in front of me.
She reached for my hands. Instinctively I moved them out of her strike zone and back. Hopefully before she noticed. She had my hands in hers and turned them over. She gave a careful examination of the nails. “Cleaner my ass unless it has been years ago. Those hands aren’t use to hard labor.”
I pulled my hands back and slid my fingers into my back pants pockets. “Ma’am, I don’t lie. You may not get an answer or an answer you like. When you do get one it isn’t a lie.”
She gave me a long hard look. “The hell you say. When was the last time you had your hands scrubbing floors and kitchens?”
“A week ago, I spent a week cleaning up a commercial kitchen in a hotel. I was house cleaning and maid service after that.”
“References?” She waited.
“None.” I knew this job whatever it was, wasn’t going to be mine.
“Police problems?” Kathy was digging far deeper than if she was going to send the girl on her way.
“Possible but I don’t know for sure.”
“Do your nails ever break?”
Bingo! She had gone for the ‘we don’t want freaks in this place’. “No.” For the second time I turned to leave.
“Wait.” Kathy reached out for the woman’s arm…, only it wasn’t there. She had moved just enough to be out of reach. And then turned back to look at her.
Kathy shook her head. “I’d sell my soul to look as beautiful as you. May I touch you?”
I gave a slight nod without saying anything.
A smile traced across Kathy’s face as she hesitated. “Please, come off your predator defense. Even as beautiful as you are, that is intimidating.”
Damn this woman was good. She wasn’t a mutant herself or I would have sensed it. I was one of those our government labeled “handy”. Those like me could look at a room full of people and pick out the mutants at a glance no matter how normal they looked. The government used us when they could find one of us and capture us. No one knew how many there were. We didn’t go advertising the fact. Some estimates we were one in ten thousand, one in a million, one in a billion and so forth. It was only guesses, as no one knew. We certainly didn’t step forward or raise our hand to volunteer as mutant hunters for the government.
Kathy took a step closer before she ran her fingertips over my face, touching my lips. When she reached behind me for my hair, instinctively I sidestepped. I thought her smile was going to split her face as she stepped up and took hold of my hair. “A Huntress no doubt.”
She removed my ponytail holder and brought part of my hair up over my left shoulder, watching as it draped down and over my left breast. “Unbelievable. How much of that body are you hiding?”
I shook my head. My emotions were rolling, screaming at me to run. It had been a long time since I let anyone get this close and touch me the way she was doing. Usually it was guys wanting to get their hands on me, which meant they ended up with broken limbs if they kept it up.
“Okay, I have a job for you if you can turn off the predator and turn on the charm. I already hired a Maitre d’ to replace dAngelo. You’ll do shift duty with Marco. When you aren’t substituting you will be the roving hostess as you circle the dining and bar room to make sure all our guests are enjoying themselves. Find out if they have any complaints and fix it.”
She backed up and sat on the edge of her desk. “You will have to do all of that and take verbal abuse from some of them without losing your temper and ripping their head off. You will be my official unofficial quality control in this overgrown monstrosity we unofficially call a social club. Check for clean kitchen and serving buffets, docks, etc. SUGGEST solutions to the help for the problems you find. If they don’t correct those problems by the next day you come to me or our boss, Brent Parsons. I’ll clue him in why I hired you. This restaurant will be YOUR restaurant, treat it as such. Anyone and I mean any of the help, the drivers, the shippers anyone who comes in contact with this place, anyone gives you shit, you come to me instead of dismembering them yourself.”
“Everyone has got real lax about doing their respective jobs. The theft going on in this place would bankrupt a smaller place. It isn’t sustainable. Do you have a nice dress?”
“A couple of them. How nice?” Nothing I owned was designed for wow. It had been years when I last wore a dress for a date or as eye candy for the randy males.
“I mean head turning, can’t take my eyes off you dresses. That includes four inch heels.” She looked dubiously at my sneakers. “You can wear heels can’t you?”
“Yes. It is hard to chase down my prey though, unless I can get them to come to me.” I gave her a wink as I smiled.
Kathy closed her eyes and shook her head. “Oh My God…, I smell blood in the water already. Seriously, all joking aside, you ever kill anyone?”
I didn’t answer and I wasn’t smiling.
“Okay, just don’t kill anyone here. Got it? Problems start rising along with your blood pressure you come to me. I’ll take care of it. Your job description does not allow murder. Are we perfectly clear?”
“Yes. Who is the mutant in your family?” I had it figured out.
Her breath caught in her throat as a single tear escaped from her right eye. “My brother. He isn’t dangerous. He is a projector. He can put ideas in people’s minds. When they are sad or depressed he puts pictures of the ocean beach, wild flowers, birds in flight, those things in their minds. I’ve seen people who were ready to end it all perk up and abandon their depression after Tim helps them. The impressions are like glue, it takes years to work back out and by then they think the idea is worth keeping. He’s never hurt anyone.”
“Where is he now?”
Pure hate flashed across her face. “The police arrested him seven months ago. He’s still in jail. They won’t bring him to trial for they have no evidence he is doing anything wrong. They have a couple guys who went on a killing spree claiming Tim put the thought in their mind. I know he didn’t do it. Tim is my twin. I can almost read his mind and he mine.”
“What is his last name? What precinct are they holding him at?”
“Why?”
“I plan on visiting him.”
Her eyes turned to two egg whites. “You! You can’t walk into a police station. They would arrest you without any charges and figure out what you were guilty of later.”
“I refer to your question. Why?”
“Because…, you’re a god damn mutant. A beautiful one, but that will only cause them to hesitate. I refuse to contemplate what they would do to you once they had their hands on you.”
“I rest my case, Your Honor. Mutants don’t walk into police stations or jails. They avoid them at all cost to their own health and life.”
She shook her head. “but…”
“But nothing. I’m a null. I don’t register in any tests as a mutant. I’m as normal as you are. The only reason you figured me out you have a brother who is. Plus I mentioned all the jobs where I should be showing a lot of wear and tear working those kind of jobs. Next time when I go job hunting I’ll leave off all those dirty, callus causing, fingernail breaking jobs.”
“Next time?”
Sadly I nodded. “There is always another next time. Eventually someone besides you will figure me out or accidents will happen where I should need a doctor or hospital. When I don’t, the first word people will start screaming is mutant instead of that poor girl.”
“You don’t damage?”
“Oh I damage alright but I heal quickly. You don’t need to take out medical on me. It would be a waste of money.”
“Jeeze girl, I’m hating you more by the minute. No wonder people hate mutants. You would destroy the economy. No one needs doctors, prescriptions, hospitals, patient care and the entire medical industry would collapse taking the rest of the economy down with it.” Then she ruined it by giggling as she brought her hand up to cover her mouth.
Kathy reached across her desk and picked up a pad and pen. She started writing. “This is the address of a beauty parlor you need to visit when you leave here. I’ll call Joan and tell her you are coming. Don’t let anyone besides her handle you. Her sister is a mutant and she understands the hate the rest of the world has. Joan is…, gifted herself. Can you wear makeup? Does it stay on?”
“Yes.”
“Will your hair accept a perm? I’d like to see some soft waves in that straight hair even though it is beautiful the way it is.” She glanced up waiting for an answer.
“I can take care of soft waves if that is what you want.”
“You can control your hair!”
“Only to the extent you mentioned. I can shorten it but it will be back in a few hours to this length. I can give it some waves. That takes most of the night or day to be noticeable.”
Kathy handed me the sheet she had been writing on. “This place comes alive at five AM to get prepared for the first customers at ten. Food must be prepared, the place cleaned in the dining areas and bar. You won’t be a hostess or Maitre d’ the first week. I want you to be the curious new girl hired for dusting, cleaning. Whatever you can come up with as you circulate getting your mind engaged on how this place and the employees operate. Do not break arms, limbs, or kill anyone. Don’t even write it into your job description. As of now you are on a salary. We can’t afford to pay you an hourly bases for all the hours I want you working. So like all good selfish businesses who abuse their employees, you’re management on a salary like the rest of us slaves. When you figure out your hours on the job and what we are paying you it will probably come out close to a dollar fifty per hour.”
Figuring the math I guessed I’d be drawing two or three hundred a week. At least it would be steady dependable pay.
“Stop by and check in with Joan after you leave here to give her an idea of what she is up against. Set up an appointment for Friday for her to do her magic on you. I’ll warn you now she’s mutant herself. Nobody knows except a few close friends. Makeup is her gift. Normal enough trade no one has guessed but she is better than good.”
Kathy pointed at the pad. “Brenda’s is an upscale dress shop. Stop by as she will need measurements first thing. I’ll call her and tell her what I want you wearing when you report in on Monday as our hostess. She isn’t a mutant. She isn’t afraid of them either. Even if she figured you out she wouldn’t turn you in.”
She sighed. “I really like you and wish this was a lifetime appointment. From what I have heard about your kind, forty years from now I’m old and gray you will still be young, beautiful and never look like you aged a day. If for no other reason that one would be up there close to the top why you keep moving. I’m not going to ask how old you are. It would probably piss me off and make me more jealous than I already am. You aren’t quite jailbait in the looks department unless it was rape. I guessing I can put down nineteen to twenty one on your employment sheet. What will it be?”
“Twenty one, please.”
“Name?”
“Nova”
“That first or last?”
“First and use Baker for the last name.”
“What is on your driver’s license if you have one?”
“Judy Miller and we will use her social security number.”
“Her? Oh this keeps getting better and better. What state did Mrs. Miller misplace her driver’s license?”
“Washington.”
“Very clumsy of Mrs. Miller.” Kathy gave me another body scan. “Those kind of clothes will work for your first week. Try and blend in as another body in this place. After you are outed as hostess and Maitre d’ any stealing or other things will be harder to find if they see you coming. Get this place back on track Nova. My job is depending on you doing your job. We are now bonded as a team. I’ve got your back, make me proud to know you.”
“Any questions?”
“I doubt I have enough money to be paying for any of those dresses you want me wearing.”
“Company tab. You’re an employee and will get the discount. I’ll deduct it out of your salary as it comes due. Which reminds me, you have a place to stay?”
“Not yet. I’ve been sleeping in my car.”
“Won’t do.” She was writing on the pad again. “My place until you find an apartment.”
She reached into her purse and handed me a key along with the address of her home.
“I can’t impose on you like that.”
“Nonsense. Of course I’m scared of you. But it is in a nice way. Our neighborhood has been having problems with burglars and car theft. I’m pretty sure I’m inviting Home Security to move in with me for a while. If you kill anyone please don’t leave the body in our neighborhood.”
“I think you have the wrong impression of me. I’m not a killer.”
She shook her head. “I have the right picture. You’re a Huntress not a killer. I know you’re a good person and you don’t kill anyone without reason. My brother is a good person and he’s in jail. He wouldn’t hurt anyone either without due cause.”
“Let me know if you want to bring any boyfriends home and I’ll make myself scarce for the evening.”
“There won’t be any men.”
She got a question look in her eyes. “Girls?”
I shook my head. “I don’t do sex.”
“Someone hurt you way back when?”
“No, I am not interested. Not even curious.”
“You’re a virgin?”
I gave a slight nod.
“Going to take some time to wrap my mind around that one. You’re a beautiful woman, a Huntress, and a virgin! I feel like I’m reading some dime store novel here.”
She shook her head to clear her mind. “Okay, back on track here. There is food in the cabinets and fridge. I usually pick up something from the kitchen on my way out if I am headed home and haven’t eaten. Employees get a half price discount on their meals they eat here. Management is free. One of the perks of being overworked and underpaid. For the first week let them put your meals on the register as if you are one of the employees. After that you can sample whatever and as much as you want without question or having anyone itemize it.”
Kathy pointed to the door. “Go home, rest up if you need it. I see road trip on your clothes even if it isn’t on you. I’ll be home anytime between ten and one tonight. I don’t always have to keep a handle on things and close up, sometimes I do.”
Walking over to the door I stopped and turned around. “Kathy?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks for taking a chance on me. I won’t let you down.”
“I know you won’t.” She smiled.
My GPS was several years out of date. I punched in the address for the beauty parlor after I had returned to my car. It was about eight miles away. I put in the address for the dress shop. That was in the opposite direction from the other place and six miles away. Dress shop first as it was on the screen.
Looking lost after I entered the dress shop I was searching for any one who might look like a Brenda. A young girl with Trish on her nametag closed in on me. “May I help you find something?”
Kathy sent me over. Told me to ask for Brenda.”
“Trish, I’ve got this.” An attractive woman was coming up from the back of the store.
“Certainly.” She looked like she had lost a sale and a possible commission before she turned and walked away to wait on another customer.
The woman looked me over with the eye of one long experienced in gauging customer’s body shape and condition. “Kathy said you were a stunner. Understatement if I ever heard one. Come to the dressing room so I can get measurements. I don’t want to embarrass the women in this place who think they have it all together by having you expose yourself out here.”
She waved to the girl who had just left us. “Trish, I’ll need some help in the dressing room. Bring the model tablet from my desk if you would.”
The three of us were in the dressing room when Brenda focused in on Trish. “You’ll get the commission off this sale if and only if you keep your mouth shut by what you see. I find out you shared with anyone and I mean anyone at all I’ll have you flayed until there isn’t any skin left on your body. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes ma’am.” Trish’s eyeballs were two egg whites and she was swallowing hard.
“I mean every word Trish. Nothing about what you see leaves this room. If I don’t make you pay this woman might. I won’t let you ruin her life. If you do she probably won’t be too happy with you either.”
Brenda turned to look at me even though her warnings were meant for Trish. “Have you heard the name Huntress?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Trish’s eyes were still on Brenda and slowly turning in my direction.
“Now you have met one. You can’t tell anyone. Not one single soul or you probably forfeited your life if you do.”
What kind of world had I dropped into if everyone was figuring me out so quickly? I prayed Kathy hadn’t mentioned this over the phone. If she had there would be a thousand government agents organizing to bring me in or preferably kill me. I had to know if I was running again or not. “Kathy tell you?”
Brenda shook her head. “No, I had met one of you years before. She was young, inexperienced, and easily killed in a government ambush they set up. She was like yourself, beyond common beauty, the smoothest skin I had ever seen, eyes that saw everything and missed nothing. She was at one of my parties at my house. Her heel caught in a crack on the deck. She ripped apart a four inch railing, wrought iron barrier, and poked holes in special weather proof decking when she went down. All with the same kind of nails you’re sporting. I’m guessing you can rip chunks out of steel beams?”
Ninety nine percent of that tale had to be exaggeration. I figured part of that was for Trish’s benefit. “I thought I was here for a dress?”
“Remove all your clothes. The dresses you will be wearing accent the body and not in a sloppy manner either.”
I removed my clothes and set them off on the table beside us. I didn’t remove a bra as I didn’t need one.
Brenda shook her head as she stared. “Venus, eat your heart out girl. You’ve been outclassed.” She giggled when she looked over at Trish. “Girl, close your mouth.”
“Thirty eight, twenty one, thirty six, Trish hand me the tape and lets see how close I got.” Brenda held out her hand for the seamstress tape.
They measured every thing and I do mean every thing from the floor to my ankle, knee, crotch, hip, waist, breast, shoulders, and chin. Thigh diameter, ankle, wrist, arm, shoulder spread and arm length. They measured my neck diameter and head. I was absolutely positive I didn’t want any of this to become public knowledge. The government get hold of it and get me on their radar I would be history. There wouldn’t be any place to hide.
“Make sure that data isn’t available to anyone.”
Brenda nodded as she put it into the designer’s tablet. “Encrypted, even NSA wouldn’t be able to break the code. The passkey is in my head. They can’t unlock it without me. Kill me and it is gone forever. They will never get their murderous hands on another girl if I have anything to do with it.”
She pointed to my clothes. “Get dressed and go. I’ll have one dress for you by Friday. Kathy was adamant you needed ten at the very least so you don’t have to wear the same one twice the same week. It will take time to cut and sew those dresses. I’m positive my seamstress isn’t going to believe it is for anything besides one of our mannequins.”
I had managed to get my clothes and sneakers back on while Brenda was talking. “Thank you.”
Looking at Trish I gave her a small smile. “Please don’t talk about me.”
Brenda reached for my arm and instinctively I moved away from where she had aimed for me to be.
“Un huh, she was that quick too. Kind of like trying to touch lightning. Jenna didn’t have them but I understand your kind does. Would you mind if I asked you to show Trish your canines before you go?”
I gave that one some thought. There were thousands of stories about Huntress’s. Mostly just stories as I had yet to meet another one. Very very few knew the truth what the stories were calling canines. “Actually they aren’t my canines. They are fangs.” Slowly fangs slipped out past my lip hanging over my bottom lip by a little less than a half inch.
Trish stopped breathing along with her heart as her eyes rolled back in her head. My fangs retracted and I caught her before she hit the floor. Lifting her up I placed her on the dressing table, placed my hand over her left breast and gave a sharp push. Her heart was beating again and she sucked air into her lungs. She was still out but she was okay.
“I think that was a little too much. Her heart stopped.” I was wishing I hadn’t done it.
Brenda leaned over to look at her. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. Heart rhythm is normal. Probably flutter some when she wakes up.”
“You can hear it can’t you?”
I nodded.
“And mine?”
“Good strong beat tells me you exercise regularly. No blocked arteries, circulation is good to your toes and fingers. Keep it up and you’ll live past a hundred.”
Brenda held her arms out. “Please.”
I stepped in and gave her a hug.
She laid her head on my shoulder. “You’re so amazing. I wish I had a chance to get to know Jenna better.”
“That was her name? The Huntress you met?”
Brenda backed up and wiped at some tears. “Yes.”
Reaching out I caught one of her tears on my finger. “Live for her then. Don’t mourn her death. She’s gone and nothing can bring her back. If she’s the person you shed these tears for I know she wouldn’t want you to feel sorry for her.”
“Thank you.” Brenda wiped her eyes. “I will treasure meeting you for the rest of my life no matter how long or short it may be.”
On the drive over to the Beauty Shop I had a lot of time to do some mental soul searching. Did Houston have a better knowledge base on mutants or was I meeting a small class of special people? Obviously those in government still had the same damn mindset about mutants. ‘Kill them all.’ I wish I had a chance to meet Jenna. So far I had only heard stories about those like myself. I had yet to meet another one. There were more out there if Jenna was any proof. We weren’t all lies and stories dreamed up in someone’s mind as abominable freaks to be hunted down and killed before we multiplied and wiped out humanity.
Kathy’s house was only a couple miles out of the way. I decided to swing by it first and see what I was letting myself in for. The neighborhood was mostly well kept up ranch style homes from the fifties and sixties. Low sprawling homes with large yards for the most part with a few odd later built trac homes tossed in here and there. They all had three homes stacked together on the same size lot each ranch house occupied. Some developer’s idea of everyone’s home which he wouldn’t be caught dead in himself. I was wondering if Kathy’s home was a trac home or one of those extravagant ranch homes?
Checking street numbers after I got on Mockingbird Lane, I thought I saw her ranch house before I got to it. There was a van in her driveway. The garage door was up and the front door was open. As I passed by the house a man came out of the garage carrying a huge big screen TV, Another was coming out the front door carrying a computer.
“Well crap! Just my luck after this day had been going so well.” I kept going, turned the corner at the end of the block and parked out of sight. I walked up past the house I was beside and looked. The men weren’t outside at the moment. I didn’t sprint, I flat out ran up to the side of the van. I pulled a big strand of my hair over my right shoulder and was playing with it as one of the men came out carrying a high end food mixer thingy. I was positive Kathy paid more than three thousand for it even getting a restaurant discount from the dealer.
He looked up as he stepped off the front step and came to a quick stop. The man behind him was carrying some kind of coffee machine. Probably another two thousand. It didn’t look cheap.
Smiling with my best innocent little girl look, I gave a halfhearted wave. “Hi, I just moved in down the street and notice you were moving out. I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to meet you before you left.”
The first one blinked a couple times. “Yeah, we’re moving out. Kind of busy here. Don’t have time to stop and visit.” He was headed for the van and my direction again.
I moved back so the guys could put their loot into the van. “Shouldn’t you be packing all that in boxes? Won’t it get broken or scratched moving it all stacked up like that?”
“Uh, we aren’t going far and it will be fine. Now I don’t mean to be rude but get lost. We’re busy.” The first man was glaring daggers at me.
The third man had come out of the house. “Who the hell is that? What is she doing here?”
The first two turned to go back into the house as the third man put what was obviously Kathy’s coin collection in the van.
“Guys wait. I have something important to tell you.” I was still playing with my hair.
They hesitated as the first one turned around. “Get lost you stupid bitch. Go home wherever you live.”
“Now that’s no way to talk to a lady.” I kicked the one closest to me in the gut and sent him flying back against the van. His body slammed into the van as his head creamed the door frame. He was through.
The first two were pulling guns. “I don’t like to play with guns.” I did a leap and hit the one on the right in the chest with both feet. Not sure if I crushed his rib cage or not as he sailed through the air about ten feet and slammed into the side of the house. He wouldn’t be coming back for seconds.
The third one had his gun out and was turning in my direction. Flat on my back on the ground, I arched my back pulling my feet up under me and rolled up on my feet. I started to cut his arm off and then remembered where I was. I was tired of running. I slammed my fist down on top of his hand. The gun went off as his wrist was broken. It slipped out of his fingers and fell to the driveway. He was starting to turn to run.
“Oh no you don’t.” I brought my right elbow up and slammed it against the side of his head. He went over with a thud and looked kind of crumpled up from the way he was laying.
Searching the guy’s pockets rewarded me with a cell phone and keys. This dummy had a billfold. Erick Brockton was the name on the driver’s license. I kept the license and tossed the billfold back down on his chest. I had no idea what Kathy’s number was or the number of the restaurant. I pushed nine one one.
“Nine one one, what is the emergency?” Came back to greet me.
“I’m at four sixteen Mockingbird Lane. Three men are robbing Kathy’s house. Please send a squad car and a couple policemen.”
“Are they still there?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Stay out of the way and don’t try to stop them. They may be dangerous. Do you understand you do not interfere and don’t confront them.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“A squad car is on the way now. It will be about ten minutes. Don’t stop the men if they leave. What is your name.”
I yelled, "NO!” and closed up the phone. She had the address and the situation. I didn’t care if she thought I panicked and ran or what she thought. No more information lady. I’m gone from here. I checked over the guys. They were so damaged they weren’t leaving under their own steam. I collected two more cell phones, keys, and driver’s license leaving their billfolds beside them. What kind of idiot goes on a burglar job carrying personal ID with them? Do they have a burglar school where they teach this stuff? Sorry Mr. Policeman I want to know who these guys knew on a social basis. First come first served you know. Besides I had first scrounging rights. Raising the hood on the van I yanked off the distributor wires and walked away with them in my hand. That van would have to be towed in before it got to moving again. I was leaving the community when three police cars whipped past me with lights and sirens going full blast. One of the little boy thrills being a policeman was they got to play with the lights and the siren.
It was time to head for the Beauty Shop Kathy told me I needed to visit before Friday.
======================================
Kathy’s phone was ringing. “Hello.”
“May I speak to Kathy Owens please.”
“I’m her.”
“Miss Owens have you been home in the last thirty minutes?”
“Who is this?”
“I’m Sergeant Jim Banks with the Houston Police Department. I’m at your house and there has been a break in.”
Kathy covered her mouth in shock for a second before she got the courage to ask the obvious question. “How much did they manage to take?”
“Uh…, ma’am I don’t think they managed to take anything. Their van is loaded with what is probably your household items. It is still parked in the driveway. The men we believe were robbing your home are in seriously bad condition. The only one who can talk said a girl tried to kill them. Do you know what he is talking about?”
Kathy shook her head even though the guy on the other end would never see it. “I’m sorry officer, I have no idea who or what he is talking about. Are they still alive?”
“I guess one could say they are still alive. I believe one has a fractured skull and another has broken ribs. The third one has a broken hand and arm and we think a broken neck. He has a big knot on the side of his head for sure. The idea of them claiming some little girl did this to them is hilarious. No one believes that story and why is the guy even telling it? My money is on someone six ten around two hundred forty pounds and knows kick boxing or some shit. No little girl did this to them. Besides the distributor wires have been pulled off the engine. No girl is going to think of things like that.”
Kathy let out a sigh of relief. “You are absolutely right officer.”
“Miss Owens, I need you to come over as soon as possible and identify your items and take notes if anything is missing.”
“Yes sir, I’ll be there in about twenty minutes. Thank you for calling me. I best go. Thank you.”
“We’ll be waiting for you. Goodbye.”
Kathy closed her eyes and shook her head. “Guys, it was a little girl. Only she was a Huntress those idiots ran into. Thank god she didn’t kill any of them. It would have been a much bigger mess. I wanted neighborhood protection from the burglaries. I didn’t think it would be this soon. Christ, does this kind of thing follow Nova around wanting to be thrashed?”
She locked up and headed down the hall to the last office. Walking in, Brent was on the phone. “Just a second, one of my people is here with a look what she has to say won’t wait. Hold for a minute.”
“What is it Kathy?”
“The police called. Someone broke into my house.”
Brent motioned her out. “Go, I’ll cover it from here. Take your time and if you need help call me. I’ll bring a crew over to get your place back together.”
“Thanks Brent.” She stopped when she was turned halfway around. She turned back. “I hired a new girl today. She is going to be management, and quality control, and every other title I can think to hang on her as I work her ass off for a salary.”
Brent’s eyebrows rose up. “She’s that good and she’s available? What in the hell did she do to get laid off from her last job, kill the boss?”
“You’ll meet her this week. She starts undercover working through all the jobs in the club and restaurant. I’ll tell you more when you aren’t on the phone. This isn’t to be shared between anyone else besides you and me.”
Kathy was gone before Brent could collect his thoughts and ask more questions. “Damn, I gotta meet this super girl. She must be something to impress Kathy this much.”
He remembered the phone. “Sorry Jackie, I was distracted there for a minute. Tell me again about that last order of meat. You say your driver delivered it. It never got checked into our inventory. Whose signature is on that receipt your driver has? Not legible. That figures. Could he point out the person who signed for it if he saw them? Probably not?”
“Jackie, you’re asking me to eat four thousand dollars worth of meat I never received and you don’t have a legible name on that receipt you say was signed for. I’ve known you for ten years before we even opened this restaurant and that is the only reason I believe you. I’m not paying for the whole shipment when your driver screwed up and didn’t get a good signature. Sure you can come over any time and inspect our lockers. That shipment isn’t here. I’ll pay for half of what I didn’t receive. Don’t expect me to pay for all of it. Hell yes I feel I’m being generous. Take me to court if you don’t feel you’re getting a better than fair deal and you’ll end up with lawyers fees and nothing else. Jackie, don’t ever push this friendship relationship again. We’re through being friends. From now on you don’t get a readable signature and I don’t get a shipment I’m not paying for anything ever again. Friends don’t treat friends like this. I can get a shipment of meat from Kimeco as soon as I call them. Fine, we’re through Jackie. Don’t ever call me again.”
Brent stared at the phone after he hung up. There had to be more than one person involved to steal the meat if it was done on their dock. The security cameras had a wink out about that time with ten minutes lost. Could the pallet have been pushed back into the cargo trailer after it was pulled off? Simple enough to do. The driver could then drop it off someplace else and no one would have any idea where it went. Damn thieves were stealing them blind. Maybe Kathy’s wonder woman was what this place really needed instead of security cameras which lost video and time? He hoped Kathy hadn’t lost everything at her house. Job theft was one thing. Stealing one’s hard labors from their home made it personal.
=========================================
Walking into the Beauty Shop I stopped at the front register. One of the women came up from the back. “May I help you?”
“Yes ma’am Kathy called in an appointment for me with Joan. If she’s around I’d like to speak to her. I’m not here to have anything done today.”
“I’m sorry, Joan is busy with a customer. Maybe I can help you or you can come back at another time.”
“Sorry, no thanks.”
“Sandy take over for me for a couple minutes, please. She isn’t wanting a treatment at this time.” Some one called from behind curtains at the back of the salon.
Darla gave the girl in front of her a closer look. What in the world could this girl want from a beauty salon? She was Miss Perfect. Maybe she wanted to be pampered for a few hours? It was only by casual glance she notice the girls nails. Her head snapped back for a better look as a chill ran down her spine. Those were talons, they weren’t fake, they were real. She had a friend who had nails like those. She gave the girl a closer look as her eyes opened up wide. Oh hell yeah, this was one.
I knew I had been made. Did I leave or did I stick it out? I guess a thousand patrol cars pulling up out front would probably be the deciding factor.
Darla headed to the back. She got up beside Joan and whispered in her ear. “I know. You gotta let me be there when you do your magic on her. I hate that girl already and she is only wearing a touch of lipstick. It’s not fair they get to look so beautiful.”
Joan leaned close and whispered back. “You can come when I take her in Friday night. Don’t tell anyone. As beautiful as they are, they are a thousand times more deadly. Kathy said she is experienced. I don’t think they could ambush her like they did Jenna. I don’t know what they are capable of. The rumors about them is enough to keep me from wanting to find out.”
Joan stepped away from Darla and spoke in a normal voice and volume. “I’ll be back in a couple minutes. This won’t take long.”
When the lady with Joan on her name tag walked up to me I asked the first question. “Is she calling the cops?”
When the lady with Joan on her name tag walked up to me I asked the first question. “Is she calling the cops?”
Joan shook her head. “No, Jenna was her friend. Darla has a real hard on for cops now.”
“They aren’t all bad.”
“There are enough bad ones it makes little difference. You want an appointment?”
“Not really. Kathy said I did. Kathy is my boss now so I’ll do what she tells me.”
“I don’t believe you would do anything anyone asked you to if you didn’t want to in the first place. Friday at eight PM. Darla wants to come and watch. She’s smitten by you wondering if you’re the same as Jenna.”
“I’m sorry I never met the girl. No one can be Jenna. She’s gone. You people need to bury her and forget you ever met her. Those like Jenna are trouble magnets. Those who get close are usually hurt in the fallout.”
“And yourself?”
“I’m a magnet. I keep moving trying to keep those I got close to from getting hurt or killed.”
Joan reached out to take my hand which wasn’t there. That instinctive response again. I moved my hand back. She placed her hand on top of mine. “Jenna would do that too. No one could walk up and touch her if she didn’t see them coming and allow it. There is a small group of people in this area who loved her. Some of us would have died for her.”
“You were lovers?” There was a sadness in her face I knew well. Besides her heart rate had sped up and her pheromone had changed to desire.
Her tears started falling. “Friday.” She managed to choke out as she turned and headed to the back of the room. She was crying pretty hard by the time she disappeared behind the curtain at the back.
There was a wee problem about where I was going to park my car for tonight. Kathy’s was no longer an option as her place was a mess. Not counting the police would be patrolling her neighborhood like gangbusters for the next several nights. As if more burglars were going to show up after this batch was splashed all over the papers. Parking in one of the large shopping malls was out of the question. One of the roving patrols gets curious about someone sleeping in their car. Then they want ID because they are bored out of their minds and it gives them something to do. If I tell them no they bring out the handcuffs and a dozen made up charges because they have a gun and a badge and no little nobody tells them no.
Yeah, it happens and no it never ends well as I don’t take threats very well. Working my way across the country I avoided most of those by telling the cashier I was sleeping in my car after filling it up. After selling me gas no one told me no. Now my best bet was the restaurant parking lot. I’d have to let someone alert security I worked there or it would be the mall experience all over again. Again one of those wee problems. I had no proof I was an employee. The only person who knew was Kathy. She would be at her house trying to get her life back together. I didn’t have her phone number to call and ask her to alert security. Driving back over her house wasn’t going to happen. The police would be like angry hornets questioning anyone who got close. Maybe I could talk to her boss…, our boss? I headed back to the club.
Passing one of the small shopping centers I stopped and went into one of the ever present dollar stores. I bought a small metal index file case and a roll of aluminum foil. Back in the car the three cell phones had their batteries removed. I wrapped each phone in aluminum foil before everything went into the metal case. I wasn’t so stupid to believe removing the battery stopped the police from being able to ping for a location. Yeah, modern technology never let us escape even when we think we are safe. As soon as they all got their wits together they would be trying to track down the nine one one caller and the cell phone it came from. I really didn’t want to be on the other end of that hunt. For extra security I put the index file in a metal ammo case I carried a few of my valuables in. No need of looking for a metal ammo case at any of the pawn shops or gun places. They are all plastic now days. Sure I was paranoid. Any signal leak even from a metal case and they could track it.
Returning to the same place I had started out this morning I headed for the offices. Passing Kathy’s office, I walked to the one at the end of the hall and knocked.
“It’s open.” Was the tired response on the other side.
He was working on paperwork as I walked across the room and waited. He found a stopping place and looked up. From the look in his eyes he was expecting one of the usual employees who had run into a problem. From the slightly closed look of ‘what now’ his eyes keep getting bigger to take in more data to be processed by the brain. Human nature.
“Are you the superwoman Kathy hired?” He stood up to get a better overall view.
“I’m no superwoman. But, yes Sir, I think Kathy hired me.”
“You think?”
“Well, nothing is on paper as far as I know so I’m not really sure. She could change her mind. I really didn’t wish to bother you but I would like permission to park in your parking lot tonight.”
“Why?”
“I’m low on funds. I might have enough to cover a room for tonight. I had rather not spend all my money before the month is up and I get a paycheck. Provided I’m working for you. I’m still not sure about that.”
“A month?”
“Yes Sir. Kathy said I would be on a salary. I don’t expect to get paid until I have worked for a month.”
His mouth twitched. “Did she name a figure?”
“No Sir.”
“You plan on taking a job not knowing what you will get paid?” He had an amused look in his eyes.
I shrugged. “I needed a job.”
“I wonder if she hired you based on a floating salary?”
“Sir?”
“Would you quit calling me Sir? My name is Brent. We both get up and put on our pants in the same…,way.” He looked down at my legs. “Or maybe not.”
I was wearing jeans so I didn’t know what he was looking at. “Yes Sir.”
“BRENT!”
“Yes Brent.”
He laughed as he shook his head. “Forget the name thing. This is getting ridiculous. By the way speaking of names, what do I call you?”
“Nova.”
He was studying me closer now. “Interesting name. Okay, let’s get back to your problems. No you can’t sleep in your car in the parking lot.”
“Okay.” I was kind of disappointed but it didn’t come totally unexpected.
He opened up a desk drawer, picked up a set of keys, and tossed them a couple feet out to the side of me and about one foot higher than me.
I snatched them out of the air.
He nodded. “That’s what I thought. Kathy kind of clued me in before she rushed home. The police called, something about burglars. You know anything about that?”
I didn’t answer as I placed the keys back on his desk.
“I kinda guessed that too. I’ve received an update from Kathy since she got home. She said there were three of them and they left in an ambulance. You don’t know how happy all of us are you didn’t kill them.”
Why did everyone think I was a killer? I knew the rumors about those like me. That was all they were, rumors. “I’m not like that.”
“I’ll take your word on it. There is an executive suite at the other end of this hall. Kathy, along with myself, and a few others sometimes find we aren’t able to make it home after some of the days we faced. There are two bedrooms. The arrangements are, anyone can crash provided the beds aren’t full. In that case the couch, the floor or anyplace one has to come to a stop for the day is acceptable. This place is a killer on nerves and time. If we had to drive home after some of those days that could probably be another killer out on the road someplace. We try and keep our people alive even though we work them like slaves.”
A smile crossed his tired face. “I have no idea what category Kathy hired you at except it wasn’t labor. I’m guessing you’re management or somewhere along that level. For the time being it doesn’t matter. You get executive privileges. Move what you need into the suite, camp out as long as you need. This will get straightened out eventually.”
“Thank you, that is much more than I expected. I promise I won’t let you and Kathy down.”
He walked around the desk and held out his hand. “Welcome aboard the insane asylum we jokingly call a club.”
I accepted his hand without pumping his arm.
He was studying my face before he rolled over my hand on top and looked at it. “Damn! Kathy knew what she was hiring didn’t she. I’ll make sure she gets a bonus in her next check.”
“Did everyone around here know Jenna?”
A hint of a sad smile touched his face. “A few of us. She owned the hearts of everyone who met her.”
He dropped my hand as he shook his head. “Go, get settled in. You have a brutal week ahead of you. Get as much rest as you can. I’ll have Kathy cut you an advance on your paycheck tomorrow or she can give you an advance out of petty cash. She will have a name tag made up for you so you look like an employee. It will get you into places without everyone asking you why you’re there. New employee, lost girl, will work if they need an answer.”
Reaching out, I slid my fingernails under the keys as I curled my fingers and picked them up. He had watched. “I wondered how you handled those nails. Guess that question is answered.”
“Thank you for everything, Sir.”
“Cut the crap! Deep six that sir bit. I’m not your boss. You don’t have a boss and some of us realize the fact. I hope we can be friends. Jenna was. Except for Kathy I couldn’t have had a better one. I tried to talk her into being my girlfriend. She already had a girlfriend.”
“Joan?”
He slowly nodded.
“Wish I had met Jenna.” I left him and the office behind feeling I had lost something by never meeting the girl. She really must have been some kind of woman. I thanked the fates for steering me to this place. I wish it had been sooner so I could have met Jenna and maybe, just maybe, saved her.
The executive suite wasn’t what I expected. It was more than a couple bedrooms. It was home away from home. It had a well equipped kitchen with restaurant quality appliances and everything stainless steel cooking ware. A huge side by side fridge, commercial range and oven. It was outfitted well enough it could have been a restaurant kitchen itself. The dinning room was large, the living room/banquet room was huge. I was betting this was their Christmas Party suite and every other party suite. The bathroom sported a large shower with enough controls on the wall to make NASA jealous. The Jacuzzi tub was large enough for four people and yes, it had an abundance of controls. A simple bath or shower wasn’t the limit for these people. I wondered if those things came with erotic massage settings? The bedrooms were huge with large walk in closets and private bathrooms with shower, bathtub, and of all things a bidet. God, these people went all out in letting their hair down. Did they ever get to use the luxury of this place? Brent said they came here when they were too tired to function and driving home wasn’t an option. Probably too tired to care unless it was a hot water massage in the shower or tub and a warm bed.
I wanted to look the rest of the place over. In the hallway I saw an elevator. One of the keys Brent gave me fit a lock beside the touch pad. I didn’t use it. I didn’t want anyone to see me stepping off the elevator. I was only labor. I headed for the stairs. It was too late to look over the dining area. The place was open and customers were filling up. I headed through the kitchen getting surprised and dirty looks from those who had time to realize I was there.
“Hey, you, you don’t belong in here. This is only for kitchen staff. Where are you supposed to be girl?” A big man using a huge knife stopped cutting up a meat shank as he looked at me.
As tall as I was he was approximately three or four inches taller and half again above my weight. Which meant very little as I had fought a few bigger than him. “I’m sorry, I got lost. I was assigned to the dock and receiving.” I hung my head in shame.
He pointed with the knife to a door on the other side of the kitchen. “That way past the refrigerators and freezers.”
“Thank you.” Taking a good look at everything and everyone I passed, I headed toward the door. I could already see problems. A lot of waste in food preparation, some utensils on the floor. Haphazard about handling food and the place was far from clean. If I was a health inspector I would shut the place down until they cleaned it up and got their act together. I certainly wouldn’t eat in the restaurant. The list had to start someplace. The kitchen started at the top.
As I walked back past the coolers, there were crates of vegetables stacked on the floor. Those on the bottom looked like they had been there for days if not weeks. Who in the hell did Kathy have for quality control in this place? They were either on the take or not showing up to do their job. I wanted someone’s head! I laughed at myself. Okay not literally, just figuratively.
“What are you doing back here?” A guy pushing a pallet off into a storage room stopped and looked at me. The pallet was fresh tomatoes. They needed to be put in a cool room not storage.
“I was hired a little while ago and I’m lost.”
“Where do you belong?” He hadn’t moved.
“uh, I’m not sure. Clean up and such I think.” I held my hands behind my back as I slumped over in shyness.
“Well you missed it. Janitorial supplies are in that direction.” He pointed off to the right. “Damn newbies.” He started pushing his load again.
I had read his nametag. ‘Ed, you and I are going to have a talk next week and I’m positive you won’t like the conversation. How many of these people was Kathy going to let me fire? I needed to tell her she should renew that help wanted ad.
The janitorial closet didn’t surprise me. It was an unorganized mess with cleaning supplies tossed everywhere. The deep sink was total grunge. Mops had never been rung out, broken handles on brooms and mops. The supply shelves looked like an earthquake had happened and nothing had been put back. I was getting madder by the minute. I find that quality control guy, I was going to rip his heart out and put it in his hand!
It was more than I could handle at the moment. I walked out to the docks and sat down on the edge. I watched as a pallet was pushed back into a box van, the doors closed up and the driver took off. The guy who had shut the doors and the forklift driver nodded to one another before one of them spotted me.
He frowned as he spoke to the forklift driver. “The girl over there was watching. Think she knows anything?”
The driver looked over in my direction. “She looks new. I’ve never seen her around before. She might be here to pick someone up. Keep an eye on her and see what you can find out about her. If she gets too curious she can disappear like Walker did. They still think he decided to not come to work one day.”
Both men laughed.
Smiling sweetly at them, I acted as if the ‘new girl’ liked what she saw. What they didn’t know was, like most predators, I have excellent selective hearing. Kathy, please let me kill them. I promise no one will find the bodies. They will not show up for work one day like Walker did. This was turning out to be a most satisfying job. I love my work when I can get my teeth into it. I had to consciously stop my fangs from dropping when my killing instinct kicked in. Didn’t want to scare off the prey. Yet.
I wandered around a bit more before I walked out to my car and retrieved my duffle bag. It held my clothes which wasn’t much. The brown dress I liked along with a simple blue one was in my bag. A couple pairs of jeans, a blue blouse, and a soft brown one. Not that blue and brown were my favorite colors. They are common don’t look twice colors in the soft almost faded look I selected. I had a couple nylon panties and no bras. Which only caused a problem if and when my nipples decided they needed attention and perked up. My denim jacket took care of that problem as needed. There were only a few times I needed to cover.
After getting back on top of the docks, off to the edge of the dock on my right I noticed something I wanted a closer look at. A pallet with several boxes that looked like liquor or wine boxes was pushed back under a bench with a canvas draped over it. The canvas didn’t quite cover everything. Setting my duffle bag down I strolled nonchalantly off in that direction as I gawked around like the new girl trying to take it all in. Back behind me I caught one of the guys who had been watching me earlier pick up my duffle bag and shove it back under a canvas. I’d sort it out later. As I passed the pallet with the liquor boxes I bumped the box with my knee. The boxes were full. This wasn’t a return.
Turning around I sauntered back off down where I had left my now disappeared duffle bag. Guys you shouldn’t tease a predator. My best estimate was this place was losing five to ten thousand a week in theft. There was no way that could go on and the restaurant survive. I knew Kathy and Brent would take a trip through this place every chance they could find a little time. The problem was, everyone would be on their best behavior knowing the bosses were watching. Brent and Kathy also believed they had quality control and security on the job to take care of the situation. There was no doubt in my mind, security was also on the take. I wondered if Kathy would let me kill all of them? Probably not. She had already told me murder, killing, mayhem was not in my job description. She was a wet blanket and party spoiler.
The guy was watching as I squatted down and pulled my duffle bag out from under the canvas. I smiled sweetly at him as I stood up. “Someone was looking out for me and made sure my bag wasn’t stolen. Wasn’t that kind of them.”
His face held a sour grapes look as I left. I knew he wanted to riffle through my bag to see what secrets he could dig up about me. Again, brain dead worm food, don’t tease the predators. Kathy, I might not ask for permission before some of these people don’t come to work some morning. I fully expected they would try and break into my car before morning. It could turn out to be a long night but I really didn’t need much sleep. If necessary I could go a couple weeks or more without sleep. I was the one security system these people were going to hate.
Brent was still in his office after I dumped my duffle in the suite. I knocked on the door frame. He looked up waiting.
“This place is crawling with two legged roaches. I need a high end digital camera, one able to take pics in low light conditions. I need an infrared camera to take night time shots. Kathy needs to renew that help wanted ad.
His face showed a little bit of surprise. “You’ve been scouting already?”
“Un huh and it’s bad. I’m positive I only saw the tip of the problems. I’m guessing you’re bleeding five to ten each week.”
“Damn! I’ll have those cameras for you before tonight. You need an infrared scope?”
“No, I can see perfectly in total darkness. Don’t use the security people you hired to watch this place nor their contacts to find where you can purchase the cameras. They are part of the problem. I don’t want to alert them before I have most of everything I can on hard copy.”
“Okay, anything else?”
“Who is your quality control?”
“Joe Bryan, why?”
“He’s not doing his job. Where would I find him this time of day?”
“Not any place as he should be checking over everything everyday. He has an office behind the storage room on the west end of the docks.”
“I’ll find him if he is on the place.” I headed out.
I could tell the guy who handled my duffle bag was in Joe’s office along with three other men. I recognized his scent after I had got close to him earlier. I didn’t knock as I pushed the door open.
“Miss you don’t belong in here. This is a private office.” One of the three spoke up.
“I’m sorry, this is my first day and I’m so lost. I need a guide I think.” I closed the door as I backed out. If that was Joe the two guys with him were the ones I notice earlier, including the duffle bag rustler. ‘Holmes, the plot thickens.’ I giggled as I shook my head to toss out any more of that nonsense rattling around in my skull. I waited outside the door.
“She’s too nosey and she’s seen too much already. We need to get rid of her.”
“She’s just a mindless cunt. She looks as dangerous as my great grandma.”
“Never the less, we get rid of her. She’s too much of an unknown.”
“Okay, when she walks out to her car tonight. Follow her and make sure she doesn’t come back to work tomorrow. What time does she get off?
“She isn’t wearing a name tag yet. New girl, remember? She might have a time card but we won’t know the name to look for.”
Heading back to the kitchens for another shot at what was going on in there, I was almost laughing. Take me out? I’d love that. If I knew the city I would lead them off to some dark deserted district and ask them to dance. I had to get an idea of the good and bad areas of this metro complex so I could take care of problems as they arose.
The guy was pointing at me with a hatchet. “Hey you! I told you this was a restricted area for kitchen help only. Get out of here and if you come back the only way you will leave is in one of those.” He pointed to one of the garbage waste cans.
“I’m sorry.” I headed for the doors leading from the kitchen into the dinning room, dodging the waitresses coming and going through the doors. Checking the buffet counter and scanning the tables and under the tables for cleanliness on the way, I headed over toward the alcove which the cashier would be in. In this place no one would pay the cashier as they finished their meal and left. The waitress would leave a pad and a receipt on the table, then carry the cash or the credit card back to the cashier for processing before returning the card to the guest.
The cashier had five waitresses around her waiting to be processed. She was too busy to notice me. A couple of the waitresses did but they didn’t say anything. The girls looked clean and professional. The place was putting on a good front for the customers. At least something was right about this restaurant. I headed for the adjoining hall and the barroom.
The bouncer stopped me at the door. “ID?”
I handed him my driver’s license. He looked up at me after taking a close look at the license. “Sorry kid, this ain’t you.”
A fifty was in his hand as he handed me back the license. He glanced down at his hand and the fifty disappeared as he rolled his hand around it. He motioned me in. “I’m sorry Mrs. Miller, I didn’t recognize you at first. Have a good evening.”
“Thank you, Harold. It is always a pleasure to meet a gentleman.” Yeah, I took a look at his name tag as I approached him.
Finding myself a place at the bar it didn’t take long for the bartender to head my way. “What you having?”
“Large glass of soda water, no alcohol, put it in a beer mug.”
He blinked, it wasn’t a request he ever had in his lifetime. Well, there was always a first for everything. “Coming up.”
“Two dollars.” He set a large beer mug down in front of me on top of a paper coaster.
I handed him a five. “Keep it. I think I’ll cop that empty table over in the corner.”
He leaned up over the counter. “Be real careful and guard your drink. There are some bad seeds in here tonight.” He nodded over toward a table where four men and two women were drinking.
“Thanks for the heads up.” There were a few people in this place I was beginning to like.
I found an empty table and begin fending off men who wanted to occupy the other chairs. “No I’m sorry, I’m bleeding all over the place right now. Not a good time. Cough cough, agg, I think something is crawling around inside my throat. No thanks, I haven’t got rid of all the worms down there yet. I’d love too if it hasn’t rotted off yet. You don’t mind a little green puss do you? I’m sorry I’m only into dogs this week. What’s that? Oh, I only fuck dogs this week. Pretty me? I guess if all those puss sores have healed up on the rest of my body. The doctors said I wasn’t too contagious. Only a few guys have died so far.”
The bartender had moved down to the end of the bar closest to me and I thought he was going to die laughing. Some of those guys hitting on me turned green and headed for the bathroom. I looked up at the bartender with all the innocence of a little girl away from her mommy and daddy for the first time. That did it for him. He leaned over the bar haw hawing and holding his stomach. I think most of those in there figured he had lost his mind. The bartender refused to look at me after that. He moved to the other end of the bar. I could see him chuckling every now and then as he fixed someone a drink.
One of the four men the bartender had pointed out to me decided to try his luck. He was headed my way with target acquired look on his face. Harold, the bouncer, moved over to the bar as he focused in on my area of the barroom.
The bartender was telling Harold to hold back as he shook his head and pointed at me. “She’s not what she seems. I think she’s a cop or detective, or government of some kind. She certainly isn’t a bubble head and she hasn’t been drinking alcohol. Her mind is on track no matter how she acts. Give her some space. She probably has backup waiting outside for her.”
“You know this for sure?” Harold took a quick look at the developing situation.
“Not for sure. It’s a gut feeling I have. The strongest one I’ve ever had about somebody. That girl didn’t leave high school behind this morning. Everything about her is total control.”
I nodded at that. Both men took a sharp glance in my direction. “Is she listening to us?”
Again I nodded.
“Oh shit! Should we warn those guys?” Harold whispered to the bartender.
I shook my head.
“The morgue is going to have fresh bodies to look over in the morning.” The bartender whispered back to Harold.
I shrugged my shoulders. The guy who had been closing in had arrived. “Mind if I sit down?”
Nodding to the empty chairs I took a sip of my drink.
“What you drinking?” He looked at my beer mug.
“This.” I held up my mug.
Instead of sitting here all alone tonight come over to our table and join the conversation.” He motioned to the three guys and two women he had left at the other table.
“Okay.” I pushed back from my chair.
“Leave your drink here and get a fresh one over at the table.”
Damn! Could this guy be any more obvious they planned on putting me out and getting on top of me.
I left my drink. He put his arm around my waist as he walked me back over to their table.
The waitress came up as soon as we sit down. “I’ll have a vodka and coke.”
“Whiskey on the rocks, Tom Collins, were the other two orders. The other three said they were good.
One of the guys rose as the waitress returned and spun into her tray. “I’m sorry, did we spill anything?”
“Only a couple drops.” She took his twenty to go get change.
“He dropped something into her drink. I’ve got to stop this.” Harold was talking to the bartender.
I shook my head.
“You sure you can handle this?” He was still talking to the bartender.
I nodded in agreement.
“Lady, you scare the shit out of me and I outweigh you by twice.”
Shrugging my shoulders I failed to stifle a giggle.
“What’s so funny?” The guy across the table was looking at me.
“Heard something funny. What do you guys do when you aren’t warming chairs in the bar?”
The conversation carried on for another twenty minutes as I slowly sipped my drink and unfocused my eyes, my speech became slurred.
“Let’s go.” Two of the guys gathered me up and started dragging, carrying me to the door.
“I’ve got to stop them.” Harold was moving away from the bar where he had been keeping a close eye on us.
My hand was down by my side and I waved him off hoping he was watching.
“Oh hell, are you still in control?”
I gave the okay sign.
“I hope your backup team is half as good as you are. Stay safe okay?”
I gave another okay sign before the door closed behind us.
Of course they had a van we all piled into. ‘Puleeze’
One of them had my blouse off before we had traveled a block.
“Would you look at that. I’ve never seen any as big and perky as those. I wonder if they are real?” He gave my left breast a hard squeeze.
‘Kid, you do that again and I’m going to forget I’m supposed to be drugged. I’ll break your neck and toss your body out of the van for good measure.’
“What do you think?” One of the others called from the front seat.
“Real, I didn’t feel any silicone bag. I’ve got to have some of that.” He was trying to work my jeans loose.
In my drugged state I must of had a spasm and kneed him in his privates.
He grabbed between his legs and curled up on a fetal position. “ooooooh”
The others didn’t try to get me out of my jeans before we came to where I was to enjoy being raped and relieved of my virginity. I was taking everything in as they pulled me from the van and half dragged half carried me into the shack. Which handily was somewhere in the middle of a junkyard. They tossed me up on an old bed which was filthy from one end to the other. I hoped it didn’t have creepy crawlies in it.
“I’m first.” One of the guys was removing his pants. When he bent over the bed I palmed his forehead driving him back where he sprawled out on the floor. I sprang for the door. Two were quick enough they were only steps behind me.
I spun around and put my back to the door. “Guys I didn’t plan on escaping. I didn’t want any of you to escape.” The one on my right received a kick in the stomach knocking all the air out of him as he went back onto the floor.
I’m a girl, they are guys, they are going to grab me instead of slug me. The one on my left had his arms out to encircle me as I reached out and yanked him in. Not what he planned. I head butted him in the face. His nose was flattened. As he fell back he grabbed his face. Blood started leaking out between his fingers.
“YOU BITCH!” The other two had gathered their wits. One was pulling a knife, the other a gun.
I leapt across the room. Both feet hit the guy in the chest who was coming up with the gun. He went flying backwards and ended upside down against the wall before slowly sliding down it. I landed on my back on the floor.
As the knife guy was coming at me I back flipped onto my feet. He lunged swinging the knife in an arc intending to slice me open. I moved back enough the blade missed me. Grabbing his arm, I twisted and bent it up behind his back before I broke it. It took a few seconds for him to understand what happened and the pain to set in. He screamed. I kicked him under the chin, his head snapped back. He was dead before he hit the floor.
At first the women had decided to let the men take care of me. When that failed they figured the mop up detail was up to them. One of them came up with a sword, the other with an axe. For chopping up their victims when they were through with them I guessed.
“Aww and me without a weapon. Do you really intend to use those things on me?” I put my hands on my hips and gave my best pout.
Both of them hesitated, confused. Something was wrong with the girl they had abducted. She was crazy.
“How are you going to explain my body?”
“There isn’t going to be a body, you bitch. We toss the pieces into the recycle bin. You’ll end up in someone’s flower garden as compost.” A sneer pulled the woman’s lips into thin lines.
“Good to know I won’t go to waste.” They didn’t seem to get the pun. “Compost, waste, get it?”
“Oh well, puns aren’t for everybody.” Actually it was a terrible pun. Who’s keeping score?
That must have tripped their anger as they both screamed and came at me swinging. I danced out of reach from their slices. “Good god ladies, you’re telegraphing your moves. You’ll never win any fights that way.”
The one with the sword had reached the end of her arc going from left to right and was bringing it back again. Jumping forward I slid down on my back and was flat on the floor with my legs cocked as I slid up to her. I unleashed hitting her in the diaphragm and the bottom of her rib cage. She was as good as dead as broken ribs punctured both lungs and she went flying backwards. Still on my back with the other one to my right I kicked her elbow. The axe went flying off over her head and embedded itself in the ceiling. Her right arm was broken and starting to swing down by her side. I did a backward flip to my feet, jumped forward, grabbed her head and twisted as I snapped it back. She was dead as she hit the floor.
The first one I had kicked in the stomach was still wheezing. I broke his neck. The one with the bloody nose, I crushed his throat. Checking the guy I had slammed up against the wall, he was checking out harps. There were six bodies I had to dispose of and I didn’t know the city. I couldn’t leave them. I had left the club with them. When someone is killed the police like to follow the path of least resistance for the killer. Me, them, club. I was the target they would focus on as they forgot anything and everything else.
I wondered if that disposal thing they planned on dumping me in would work? I made a few wrong turns in the salvage yard before I found it at the back. It wasn’t what I had in mind when disposal was mentioned. What I was looking at was designed to tear big pieces of iron into smaller pieces of iron. I guess if one doesn’t mind blood and guts all over their scrap iron it would work.
“Kathy, I’m sorry.” I was standing in front of her desk the next morning.
“What are you sorry for?” She had pushed the papers to the side when I walked into her office after she arrived.
“Last night, I stopped at the club. I wasn’t drinking. Well yes I was but it was water. I left with four men and two women.”
She held up her hand. “Do I want to hear the rest of this?”
“No but you need to hear it from me. Harold your bouncer was there and one of your bartenders will probably figure it out.”
She put her elbows on the desk, closed her eyes, and put her head in her hands. “Let’s hear the rest of it.”
“They planned on raping me and disposing of the body later. Supposedly they thought they had drugged me in the club.”
“Supposedly?” Never raising her head, she was talking to the desk.
“I would sip the drink and then spit it into the palm of my hand as I covered my mouth. I’m normally immune to alcohol and drugs. I wasn’t taking a chance.”
“Go on.”
“They didn’t rape me. Obviously they never disposed of my body as here I am.”
“Don’t stop now.”
“Well, if they work, none of them are going to show up for their jobs today. Their van disappeared in the shredder so there isn’t going to be any van found anywhere to lead anyone to any bodies.”
She still hadn’t raised her head as she continued talking to the desk. “I thought you promised me no murders no killing? That lasted all of a couple hours?”
She slowly raised her head to look at me. “I suppose I should thank you there were no dead bodies at my house?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Oh I’m sure you don’t. Nova, what am I going to do with you?”
“Hey, not my fault I didn’t want to be raped and chopped up as compost.”
Kathy shook her head. “Is this going to lead back to us?”
“Tenuous lead at the very best. I was seen leaving the club with them. Provided the police pursue a missing persons and one of those leads goes back to the club, which I doubt very much. The only two who would be positive about me leaving with them would be Harold and one of the bartenders.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to Harold and find out which bartender it was. If asked they will be positive they aren’t sure who the six left with. Now what other good news do you have for me this morning?”
“uh…, remember Walker one of your dock workers who decided to NOT come to work one day?”
“Only vaguely. I don’t remember all the people who work for us. I remember Walker because he was such a conscientious hard worker. What about him?” Kathy was visibly cringing as she waited for an answer.
“Two of the guys on the dock killed him. I heard them talking about it. And while we are on the discussion of the docks. A lot of your inventory comes in and goes out there.” I focused in on Kathy. “How long do I let it go on before I let the hammer down on them?”
Kathy took a deep breath and sighed. “I guessed as much. Is Joe in on it? If as much is going on as what you are telling me, surely he should have caught it by now.”
Nodding I wished it wasn’t so. “He is. He is also tied in with the two killers as they were all in his office discussing how to make me disappear yesterday.”
She shook her head. “Worse than even I could imagine. Everyone who suddenly left us probably found out more than what was healthy for them.”
“How many would that be?”
Kathy was silent counting before she answered. “Seven I can think of. Each one didn’t show up for work one day and never came by to collect their paycheck.”
“Can I…”
“No! You promised me no killing, no murders. I’m holding you to it. Don’t disappoint me, Nova.”
”Maybe one or two? Please, pretty please with chocolate and ice cream on it.” I gave her my most innocent big eyes, little girl smile.
Kathy’s eyes got wider before she started laughing. She wadded up a sheet of paper and threw it at me. “You’re impossible. God forgive me for what I have turned lose inside this place.”
“Party pooper!” I said in a snit as I pouted.
“Where did you stay last night? You didn’t come by the house.”
“Well, actually after spending all night causing murder and mayhem I never managed to get to bed. If you’re worried about me, Brent gave me a set of keys to the executive suite and said I could stay there as long as I liked. Besides being busy last night I didn’t think it was a good idea to stop by your house with a dozen cops running around it examining everybody and everything.”
“Kathy?”
“Un huh?”
“If I was a health inspector I’d shut you down. Your kitchen is way below standards. When is your next health inspection due?”
She brought up some information on the computer. “We just had one. Next one in six weeks.”
“And you passed? Someone is being paid off under the table. You’re riding on a knife edge here. I can only guess those who are stealing you blind are paying off the health inspector so they can keep stealing until this place folds up. This isn’t going to last. When it comes undone several people are going to be framed and go to prison. I imagine you and Brent will be at the top of that list.”
“Can we hold on until Saturday?”
“Without doubt.”
“Okay, I’m moving your time schedule up from Monday to Saturday. Joan’s beauty tricks are part magic. What she does usually lasts most girls a couple weeks. She will clean you up Friday night. Brenda will have a dress and heels ready for you. With your long neck, chandelier earrings would look gorgeous on you. A white pearl single strand necklace will be the perfect accent. Brenda will supply everything. I’ll give her a call and let her know. The weekend is our busiest days. We are usually full from dinner to supper time with very little slack in between. Friday at midnight you become our hostess, quality control, health inspector, inventory super, kitchen chef and every other title I can think to hang on you.” She stopped to think what else needed to be done.
“I pray I don’t disappoint you or let you down.”
Kathy gave me a steady look. “You won’t. I have faith in you, Nova. No one else could do this but you can. You’ve been given the authority to do whatever you want and need to do to get this place organized and back on its feet.”
She held up her hand when I started to say something. “Besides murder and killing. Those are still off the table.”
“Restrictions, there is always the little restrictions in there.” I sighed, “Oh well, I guess if you insist. I’ll be a good girl for you and Brent.”
Kathy looked down at the desk and shook her head. “Thank god for small favors. You’ve been up all night, Brent gave you executive privileges, go crash for awhile if you need to.”
“I don’t need it. Sleep isn’t a big requirement for me. I can go a week or two without needing sleep when necessary. Is that all?”
“All I can think of at the moment.”
“I’m going to go annoy the hell out of your kitchen help and the rest of the staff for the rest of the day.” I stopped before I left her office. “How many do you have on maintenance and cleaning duty, when’s their hours, and names, and where can I find them?”
She turned to her computer and typed in a few keys. The printer against the wall spit out a couple pages. “There are most of your answers. Right now they should be in the restaurant and bar cleaning up before we open at ten.”
Picking up the print out I was headed out the door again. “Thanks.”
Kathy waited half a minute and bowed her head. “God, watch over her and don’t let anyone hurt her. I know she’s good but she is still just a girl. Please keep her safe. Oh, and God, don’t let her kill anyone…, here anyway. Thanks.”
I hadn’t gone down the stairs yet when I heard Kathy talking again. It put a smile on my face when I heard her prayer. I whispered to myself. “I love you too, Kathy. I won’t let anyone hurt you or Brent.”
“I told you to stay out of my kitchen.” The guy was pointing a knife at me again. I was strolling through the kitchen to see what they were preparing before the people started coming in. Bread rolls and buns were in the ovens. The mixing bowls and spatulas didn’t look that clean. The bread pans they hadn’t put in the ovens yet still had yesterday’s crumbs on them. There was meat uncovered marinating in a sauce. There were bowls and cooking dishes on the floor. The appliances hadn’t been cleaned or cleaned under and behind in what I figured were months.
Any health inspector who passed this kitchen needed to go to prison. I waved at the guy as I headed out into the dinning room. “Sorry, I’m the new girl, got lost again. Sorry.”
The four men who were supposed to be cleaning were standing around trading stories. Walking along behind the buffet table I was looking inside the pan holders and underneath the lights, shades, and covers which kept people from leaning over and coughing or sneezing on the food. Surely we had penicillin growing in there somewhere with all the mold I was finding.
The men only gave me a curious glance as I headed into the barroom. Harold and the bartender were huddled together at the end of the bar.
Harold was on his cell phone. “Yes ma’am. I understand. No ma’am. Kathy, there is something different about that girl. No ma’am. I wouldn’t think of antagonizing her. No ma’am. She doesn’t match her driver’s license. Well, yeah, I let her in last night. Kathy, she was drinking water all night until those people bought her a drink. I didn’t see him slip the actual pill into her drink. I know he did it. I don’t know why it didn’t affect her. She told you what? Why that sneaky little devil. Kathy, watch what you say around her. The girl has mouse ears. She hears everything and I mean everything. Okay, I got it. She didn’t leave with those people I don’t think. I don’t remember. How’s that? I like her but she’s one scary little girl. Jenna! You’re kidding! Are any of us safe? Oh that makes me feel a whole lot better knowing she isn’t going to kill anyone HERE. Yes ma’am. Kathy, all of us loved Jenna. Nothing is going to happen to Nova on my watch. We got her back. Yes ma’am.
He closed up his phone. The bartender was pointing over at me. Harold slowly turned around. “I guess you heard all that?”
“Yes, thanks for offering to cover my back. Harold, I’m not Jenna and I never can be. I may possibly be the most dangerous creature you will ever meet. I won’t ever hurt you but don’t get between me and my prey.”
The hairs on the back of the necks of both men stood up as they looked at the beautiful woman in front of them. I slid my fangs out over my bottom lip and slipped my tongue between them to lick my upper lip as my eyes closed to squints. Slowly my fangs retracted. If I hadn’t told them I would never hurt them I honestly believe both men would have had an accident about then.
“Bartender, may I have a glass of blood?”
“Bartender, may I have a glass of blood?” I swear I will treasure the look on their faces forever before I started giggling. “Kidding guys, I really am not a vampire and I don’t drink blood. I am kind of thirsty though. A small glass of soda water if you’re open this morning.”
The bartender hesitated before he reached under the counter, retrieved a small glass and filled it with soda water. He set it on the bar sans paper coaster.
I picked it up and took a drink. “Hey guys I’m really not that bad. Relax, your heart rate is up and your adrenalin is in flight mode. Chill you two.”
Harold was the first to find his voice. “You can hear our heart beat or were you kidding about that too?”
“I can hear it. You’re a little rapid yet. Your arteries are good but both of you need to get out of this place more often. Your lungs could use a little more fresh air. Both of you are putting off a frightened scent.”
“You’re kidding us now?”
“Nope, I hear the air moving in and out of your lungs. Both of you need to spend more time in the fresh air. I’ll talk to Kathy and see if she won’t spring for an electronic air filter for this place. The carpet, the dust, pollen, and particles the drinking crowd brings in makes the air in here worse than Los Angeles.”
The barkeep was looking at my mouth. “Where do they go?”
I put a finger up beside my nose.
“May I see them again?”
My fangs slid out over and past my bottom lip.
“That has got to be the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my entire life. I don’t remember Jenna having those.”
My fangs retracted as it was hard to speak when they were out. “I’m guessing here. She might not have been old enough. I don’t think they come in until one reaches age of maturity. I’m sorry, I’m no expert here. I’ve heard there are others. I’ve never met one. Most of the stories are lies and fairy tales. I wish I had met Jenna.”
Harold added his voice. “You would have loved her. She was the sweetest, nicest person one could ever hope to met.”
“And then they killed her.”
“Yeah, and then they killed her. Bastards! She never hurt anyone.”
“Uh, don’t take this the wrong way but you seem different than Jenna. You don’t have that innocence she had unless you are trying to project it. I asked for your ID last night. How old are you?”
“I could possibly have known your great great grandmother if we had met.”
Both men blinked as they tried to get a handle on the years. “Horse and buggies before there were cars?”
“Yep.”
“You’re a walking talking historical document. I’d love to hear some of the stories you could tell.”
I laughed. “Do I still need an ID?”
Harold laughed as he nodded. “Absolutely. Anyone who looks as young as you must have an ID to get into the club.”
I needed to get moving to check out what was shipping in and out on the docks. I had a strong suspicion some of those arrivals weren’t actually ordered by the restaurant or the club. They were certainly paid for by the restaurant. My presence there would put a dampener on some of it even if I wasn’t allowed to start putting the brakes on it yet. “Guys, I gotta go, duty calls. Harold, I’ve got your back, kid. I promise no one will hurt either one of you while I’m here.”
I headed back through the dinning room and the four guys were still standing there trading stories. I headed for the stairs. I was knocking on Brent’s door.
“Nova would you stop that. You and Kathy are the only two people in this organization who don’t need to knock and probably the only two who do. I have the cameras you requested. Thought you would pick them up last night. Kathy told me you were…, um, occupied?”
“Yes Sir. I have another request if I may. I want a small recorder and a snooper camera. One I could wear as a necklace.”
“You got it. Anything else?”
“Yes Sir. As soon as I take over there will be only one person to authorize billing, shipping, inventory control, and payments. Find a better than good accountant to stay on the numbers. Too many people are authorized to sign for freight and other services. It has to stop. Only one dock supervisor will have that authority. Cash flow is going to become a four-tier system. Only one person will be authorized at the docks, the restaurant, and the club. They send all the data to the accountant crunching the numbers. He or she in turn posts a spread sheet to Kathy every Tuesday.”
“Why Tuesday?” Brent was curious.
“Friday everyone is trying to wrap up for the weekend even if they have the weekend shift. Monday is organization and get back in the grove day. Tuesday, Wednesday everyone is back on track. I happened to pick Tuesday.”
He leaned back in his chair giving it some thought. “You got it. Anything else?”
“No Sir.”
“Nova, you call me sir one more time and we are going to come to blows in the middle of the floor. No doubt I’d get my butt kicked. I’d sure feel a whole lot better afterwards.”
That one caused me to giggle as a smile touched my lips. “It would be an interesting contest.”
He pointed to two boxes beside the door. “Your cameras. Anything else?”
“No Sir.” I swept up the boxes as I ran out the door.
“Smart ass.” Followed me down the hall.
In the executive suite I unpacked the cameras and read the instruction sheets. Nothing I hadn’t handled before. Setting up the battery chargers for both I headed back to Kathy’s office. I knocked and then headed in. “I need four memory cards for two cameras and extra batteries.” I handed her the information I had written down.
“How soon?”
“Before tonight.”
“If I give you the address of a camera store could you pick all this up yourself?”
“Possibly.”
“Money? I should have thought of this before.” She reached into her purse, took out her billfold and retrieved a credit card. “Company credit card. Pick up whatever you need. They will call making sure you are authorized. I’ll okay it. You think of anything at the camera store or Walmart, or the camping store, or anywhere and I’ll okay it.”
I took the card. “Kathy, thanks for trusting me.”
“Trust? Nova we’re all dead here without you pulling us out of this mess we became entangled in. Trust, yes, desperation is more like it.”
“I won’t let you down.”
“I know you won’t hon. Now scoot, you have shopping to do. There is nothing a woman loves more other than chocolate.”
“Oh, I almost forgot.” She reached over to the side of her desk and picked up a tag. “Your name tag was delivered a couple minutes ago.”
I looked at the name Nova and then pinned it on my blouse.
=============================
Taking my time wondering through the docks I strolled from one end to the other. I was definitely putting a cramp in some of the stealing going on. Now I was showing my name I bet it was placed beside Mr. Walker’s. Bring it on children. I’m getting tired of this cat and mouse game. I dropped down off the docks and headed out to my car. In the car I reached under the seat and flipped a rocker switch. The outside rearview mirrors had cameras in them. My GPS screen showed two guys coming up to my car last night and reaching under the rear wheel well. Cute guys, there was a tracker under the rear fender. I bet they were pissed when I didn’t leave last night. If it was a decent system now all they had to do is follow me on their computer. Gotta love this new age technology.
I brought the camera store up on my GPS. It was five blocks from a Walmart. I wasn’t going to clue them in I was camera shopping. I parked at Walmart and walked to the camera store. Sandwich meat, mayo, bread, and a lot of other goodies loaded my cart before I left Walmart. It didn’t seem right to be mooching off the company even if I was employed by them and staying in their executive suite. Kathy had given me an okay on that but it still didn’t seem right. I was going to stop theft not become one of them.
Back at the docks I carried my Walmart bag as I strolled back down the dock. Sitting down on the edge of the dock I took out my booty from Walmart and made myself a sandwich. The shipping crew stopped moving pallets where they didn’t belong. I was making them nervous even if they believed I was only hired to do cleaning. It would look a whole lot more convincing if I was wearing coveralls and pushing a janitorial cart. I’d do that later if I got a chance.
“What in the hell is she doing? Anyone know what her job description is and where she belongs? Find her time card yet? Hell I don’t know, look for Nova on the card. The bitch has got to go. She’s too nosey for her own good. Where did she go? Walmart and that was it? Make it tonight if possible. I’ve had enough of her wandering around looking at us. Hell, follow her out and make it look like a car jacking. We don’t need to know where she’s sleeping. Get rid of the bitch. She’s getting on my nerves.”
‘Tonight, make it look like a car jacking? Guys you got a date. Hope you can keep it. Never go hunting unless you know what it is you’re gonna find.’ A little over an hour later I put all my lunch fixings into the plastic bag and headed inside. I was singing as I headed to the executive suite to load my cameras and put away my food. I took a couple shots with each camera and then checked to make sure I was getting pictures. I cut a small circle hole in the side of the purse I purchased in Walmart, put one camera in there and taped it down. Using the remote I practiced holding the purse in the position I needed to take a picture. Not every picture was perfect but I had a huge space on each memory card. Wasting shots was not going to be a problem.
It was after eleven, the dinning room would be busy now. I headed for the kitchen.
“You! I have to tell you again I’m going to slit your throat and toss you in the garbage bin. Get out of my kitchen!” He was pointing that big knife at me again.
“I’m sorry, this is such a big place and I can’t seem to figure out where it is I belong.” I had over three dozen pictures before I left his kitchen. One of them was him waving that big knife at me.
In the docks someone started to reach for me from behind. I jumped forward and spun at the same time expecting to put down a couple men. Instead it was a girl about twenty or so.
“I didn’t mean to startle you. Brent told me to find you. He wants to see you.”
“Okay” I headed for the hallway. When she didn’t follow I stopped. “Come on. The docks aren’t anyplace for a girl to be wandering around by herself.”
She gave me a confused look. “But you…”
“Long story. Come on, I’ll walk with you back inside.”
I left her in the dinning room. She was one of the waitresses from the bar. I figured she would be safe enough going back there.
“You wanted to see me?”
He placed a couple small recorders and a necklace camera on his desk. “This work?”
Taking the memory card out of the camera in my purse I handed it to him. “Download what is on there and I’ll want it back. That is the tip of the iceberg. I figured since I’m here I’ll get you primed on some of the problems we are facing. Kathy better be ready with a boatload of new help. It is going to look like wholesale slaughter around here when you turn me lose.”
“She’s called several temp agencies. Twenty or thirty people be enough? Is Monday still a time frame?”
“Kathy moved me up to Friday night. Saturday at four AM. I want those people here and told what their job is before the regulars start clocking in. I’ll need yours and Kathy’s help at that time. I can’t be everywhere explaining everything to all of them. So far the waitresses are safe. Harold and Ben your barman are keepers. Some of your liquor is flowing out the back door. One of the barkeeps has to be helping.”
“Kitchen?”
“Not that much theft I have caught yet. Most of the food theft is happening on the docks before it ever gets to the kitchen. A lot of spoilage because food isn’t being properly stored. The kitchen itself has some problems. It is there I haven’t caught who is doing it. A whole lot of sloppy laziness. Some are going. I’ll be getting rid of the ones who aren’t going to get with the program. There are two I’ll get rid of Saturday morning. I’ll figure out who else by the end of next week.”
“Our cooks?”
“Two go. They are unprofessional in handling food. Your head chef stays if we can come to an understanding. He’s an ass and a grouch. I kinda like him. I’m disappointed he hasn’t cleaned up his own help in his kitchen. I think he got tired of fighting knowing what was going on.”
“I’ll inform Kathy she needs to add two cooks to that temp list. Anything else?”
“Some men are going to follow me home tonight and do a car jacking. I’m supposed to end up dead. It may get messy. I may need help if the cops get involved.”
“You’re going home? I thought you were staying in the executive suite?”
“I don’t have a home nor an apartment. I’m the bait and they are the mice. Don’t try and stop me from having fun.”
“God Nova, you’re one scary person when you talk like that. I have a friend who owns a security company. Be all right if a couple of his men pace you and take over when you’re finished? They can take the heat from the police for stopping a car jacking.”
“I like it. Tell them to get it on film. I won’t stick around to answer question for the police.”
“Car and tags?”
“Plates are liberated. I’ll put my old plates back on. They are stolen too but out of state. Might not show up on their computers.”
“They might talk if they are still alive. Remember what you promised Kathy.”
I laughed. “You think they will brag to the police they tried to kill a bitch from work? I don’t think so. They rat out me they rat out their buddies. They will clam up tighter than Ft. Knox. I’ll leave them alive if possible.”
“That is all we can ask. When? So I can let my friend know?”
“My time card says my shift ends at six this evening. Still good light so cameras can get good pics. I can’t predict how far they will follow me before they pull the car jacking. I’ll lead them to the less respectable part of town to give them a golden opportunity. They put a tracker on my car. If your security guys get close enough they can pick up and key in the tracker signal so they can keep up too.”
“Nova, this isn’t a game. Don’t get careless because you don’t think you can lose. Kathy will go to pieces if she thought she put you in a position where you got killed.”
“Brent, I’m not Jenna. I have several hundred years experience with people trying to kill me. So far I’m proving I’m pretty tough to kill. It will happen one day. Not tonight. Most certainly not by a couple two bit hoods.”
His mouth was open and he was blinking. “several….hundred…..”
I turned and headed out the door. “Give those security guys a heads up. They will need time to get their act together. They have the rest of the day. Should be plenty of time if they are professionals.”
Brent watched as Nova reached the stairs. He softly muttered to himself. “Kathy what have we let loose in our midst?”
“I HEARD THAT!” Came back as Nova stepped down the stairs.
Brent plopped down in his chair. “THAT woman gets scarier and scarier by the day.”
==================================
The day went pretty much like the others except I was now getting a whole lot of solid provable data on the cameras. I loved bugging them at the docks. I was an unknown to them. They weren’t really smart enough to realize I knew some of those pallets were going where they didn’t belong. They were still shifting things on the dock. They just weren’t sliding loaded pallets back into the trucks.
I was pushing a cleaning cart with brooms, cleaning supplies, mops and everything else a respectable janitor would have. There were several problems with me pushing that cart. The ones assigned that duty were in one of the back storage rooms playing cards or had left without clocking out. No doubt one of their friends would clock out their time card at the right time. How many were not even bothering to show up and let someone else clock them in and out? This place was totally out of control. The only way it could possibly get this bad is the team leaders in each department were doing it themselves or getting paid to look the other way.
It wasn’t long before I was standing in front of Kathy again. Her and Brent were the only two with authority I trusted. “Need a duty roster for all the help. Every single one of them. I want their time slots and where they should be hour by hour. I want all their personal information, home address, phone numbers, next of kin, everything.”
“That bad?” Kathy was watching me.
“Hell is coming to this place. I’m delivering it. Stay with me, Kathy. You said you trust me. Hold on to that.”
==================================
I was smiling ear to ear that evening as I clocked out and walked out to my car. There were two guys who had followed me out. They were so obvious a blind dog would have spotted them. Involuntarily my fangs came down over my lower lip. Oh yeah, I could smell blood in the water. My tongue came out between my fangs and licked my upper lip.
What are they driving? Starting my car up, I dropped it in low and floored the accelerator. Burning rubber I headed out of the parking lot. Both sprinted to a black utility van. Slowing down I pulled out into the street and headed toward the warehouse district. The less expensive trackers have a limited range. I almost laughed, if they are using a low cost tracker, they knew if I got a couple miles out of their range they would lose the signal. It was the reason my sudden takeoff. It had them scrambling for the van. Now I knew what they were driving.
After I told him about the car jacking coming up, Harold clued me in where I should go if I wanted something fairly deserted. After a couple blocks I switched off my GPS. If a satellite can track you, the government can track you. Same as with cell phones. It was one of the reasons I didn’t carry one. My car was new enough to have a factory tracker installed. Supposedly the car wouldn’t run if it was disabled. There were ways around those things if one knew the right people. There were a lot of black market parts installed the government wouldn’t approve of. Checking my rearview mirror I could see the van pulling out of the parking lot. “Guys, I’ve seen better attempts at following someone from kids on bicycles.”
Still no sign of the professionals Brent said would be along. They would or should be in camera range. I passed a large sedan sitting at a stop sign on the side street. It had two men in it. Ahhh, they were good but not that good. The driver didn’t have his hands on the steering wheel. Probably because he was the one using the camera at the moment. I was right. Keeping a check on the mirror, the sedan eased out after the van had passed.
There were several places the idiots could have tried as it was a ten mile drive with several stoplights before I pulled into the old warehouse district. It would have been a more believable car jacking if they had tried at one of the stoplights. These guys weren’t up for any MENSA awards.
Ernie looked at Pete and nodded after the bitch had stopped at one of the warehouses. “That must be where she’s bunking out.” They were only a couple blocks away when she stopped. He floored the van to get up beside the car before she got in the building.
I could see them coming. Lying down in the seat, I reached over opened the passenger door and slid out of the car.
Pete was shooting at where the bitch should be sitting in the seat after Ernie pulled up beside the car. Nineteen bullets later he realize she wasn’t there. “Where did she go?”
“She’s down on the floor. Get out and finish this.” Pete was halfway out when something grabbed him. yanked him out, and slammed him down on the pavement. The air was knocked out of him, his head hit the pavement with a resounding thud. He was through.
Ernie was starting to react after he had seen Pete fly out the door. “What the hell?” He was pulling a gun out of his waistband.
Jumping up and kicking off the side of my car, I launched myself horizontally into the van. I flew across the passenger seat and the storage compartment between the seats. Colliding with the driver, he was slammed up against the door dropping the gun in the process. Reaching across him I pulled the door handle and pushed on the guy between the door and me. Which caused the door to swing out of the way and both of us to go tumbling out of the van. The guy was toast, still alive but out of working order with broken ribs and a punctured lung. He was semi conscious which was probably a blessing.
The dark sedan was coming in. I was wondering how much of that they got on tape? When they pulled up and the two men got out I could sense a mutant. The guys were as focused on me as I was on them.
Looking at the guy on the ground one of them turned his attention back to me. “Fascinating piece of athletic ability.”
He wasn’t a sensitive so he was guessing if I was a mutant. They either had it on tape or had seen the whole thing. “I try to keep in shape. How good of a picture do you have of me?”
“I’ve already edited it where the whole thing is kind of fuzzy. Still clear what they intended with them shooting into your car.”
“Pushers can do that without having to edit the tapes.” I watched a flicker of surprise in his eyes.
“Yeah, I heard the same thing. Never one around when you need one. I also heard sensitives can tell when mutants are near by.” He was looking for that look from me.
I didn’t bite as I nodded in agreement. “I heard those rumors about them too. Need more of them working for the government so we can round up all those freaking mutants. What’s going to be the story? I’m not sticking around to talk to the police.”
“You were shot and drove off before we got here. Probably needed to get to the hospital. The tapes should be good enough to put them away. We happened to be in the neighborhood checking out a warehouse for a client, saw the car chase, got curious, followed up, and happened to be taking pictures. A solid case would be your testimony. I take it you aren’t fond of the police?” He was still fishing.
“I like to stay off their radar as much as possible. The past carries a lot of baggage.” I noticed the other man was staying clear of our conversation. These two were a team who had seen some serious crap over time. The normal was letting the mutant find out what he could. I liked these guys.
“Think your car will still run? We can push you into one of the empty warehouses if necessary.” He was walking over to take a look at my car while the other one kept watch on the guy on the pavement.
“My door and seat received the latest in cool ventilation customization but yes, the car itself is still good.” I followed him over.
He stopped and looked at the guy lying between the vehicles. “Dead?”
“Broken but still alive.” I was standing back, not getting too close as I watched the man.
He nodded before he turned around and studied me. “Nova, Brent gave me a heads up about you. I met one of you already. Her name was…”
“I know, Jenna right? Has everyone met Jenna?” More and more I was wishing I had met this girl myself.
He gave me a sad smile. “A lot of us had. Jenna never had anyone tell her the dangers of being a mutant. She wasn’t raised around people who hated her for what she was. She used her gift to help people and loved almost everyone. All those in turn loved her back. She was what all of us wish the world was like, normals and mutants living in harmony. She died because she was naive. I arrived after the police had forced her car off the road. She had no idea they weren’t going to let her live no matter what. Two squad cars had pulled her over. Four policemen were yelling for her to get out of her car. When she did, they never gave her a chance. They turned her and her car into mincemeat once they started. The news claimed she was armed and shooting back at the police. She didn’t have a gun until they planted one on her body.”
“I have several different videos of the assassination and the names of every single one of those bastards.” His voice caught in his throat.
Stepping up I took his hand and looked into his eyes. “Don’t carry her death on your shoulders. From what I have heard about her, she wouldn’t want that. Revenge is a dark hole sucking the life out of those who let it get a grip on their own soul. Trust me, I know first hand about revenge. Build on Jenna’s love. Use what you have to help others not able to help themselves. There are too many like us who are just as evil as those policemen you despise. Is it any wonder many normals hate everyone tagged as mutant? Maybe Jenna’s love for everyone can be a start for understanding among the normals and us? I’m willing to give it a try. How about you?”
He looked at me for several long seconds before he nodded. “You’re the only other Huntress I’ve met. In your own way, you’re like Jenna without the innocence. Are you really as old as Brent said?”
My eyes closed slightly as my fangs slipped out before I pulled them back in. “I’ll have a talk with Brent about what he is saying about me. One doesn’t speak about a woman’s age if they are a gentleman.”
He looked shocked and then he started laughing. “Oh you are good. Pulled me in there for a second. I was fixing to call him up and tell him to run! Lady, you are really something. Hope you get that mess straightened out for Brent and Kathy. They deserve better. Both of them have put their lives into that place trying to hold it together.”
“Oh it will be straightened out one way or another. Might be nothing left but a wasteland when I’m finished. All those who have been bleeding it to death are going to regret the day they were born. I keep trying to tell you people I’m not Jenna. I have tasted the evil of revenge and own it. Try the place out after I’m gone. I think you will like it.” I gave him a wink.
“You won’t stick around?”
“Can’t, won’t, revenge is a cruel mistress. Everyone will know about me after it is over. I will have to move on so I don’t end up like Jenna.” I pointed to the guy lying on the ground. “I can handle a few dozen like him. A hundred government guys who hate mutants with me in the middle would be a loosing proposition.”
“With your ability to alter reality and hiding in plain sight, I imagine you will live to a ripe old age.” I backed up. “Listen, time for me to go. Let Brent know if what you have doesn’t hold these guys.”
“You would kill them?”
“Damn straight. They have killed a couple others who got too close to what they were doing at the restaurant. I’m a blood thirsty bitch who gives no quarter nor asks for none. The only reason they are still alive, I promised Brent and Kathy no killing. I can tell you it is putting a wrinkle in my kindness to no end.”
His eyes got a little bigger. “Killing is kindness?”
“I have ethics. I only kill mercifully unless I’m rushed or they really piss me off.”
He shook his head. “I was wrong, you’re not Jenna.”
“She would have understood if she had lived long enough. It’s in our blood. We aren’t called Hunters because we are the sweetheart at the party. I don’t know if there are any more out there. As long as I have lived I haven’t met another one. Lots of rumors though. The last thing one would want to do is head off where people were claiming mutants had killed someone. For my own health I steer clear of those areas.”
He pointed off toward the exit. “Go, I’ll try to stitch this together enough so the police will believe it and file charges. Nova, take care and stay alive. I find you fascinating. I’d like to sit down with you over a cup of coffee and have you tell me some of those stories you have lived.”
“Name?”
“Spencer Miller.”
“I’ll keep you in mind Mr. Miller. Maybe in a few years after things have cooled down around here?”
“I’d like that.” He gave me a smile.
Before I left I opened up my trunk and retrieved the ammo box. Taking the index file with the cell phones out, I handed it to him. “I’m asking for a favor. These belong to the guys who were ransacking Kathy’s house. Run the numbers and let me know where they lead. Find out who the person all three of them called the most. I don’t believe in coincidence. Out of all the homes Kathy’s was targeted? Someone told those guys what her hours were and she lived alone. I don’t believe for an instant they were intelligent enough to disable her security system without someone passing them the code. I want names, addresses.”
“One last thing. I used one of those phones to call nine one one. I suspect the police will be trying to ping it to find out who called it in even though the name listed should lead back to one of the men they have in lock up.”
He took the box. “Careful and discrete is my middle name. Be careful Nova. I have a gut feeling you dropped into the middle of a bunch of heavy hitters here. How do I get back in touch with you?”
“Through Brent or Kathy. I need to check out a junkyard and see if they have a driver’s door which will fit my old Mercury. Or get a ton of Bondo and gray primer paint. The bullet holes are too eye catching to ignore.”
“Miller, how old do you think Jenna was?”
A hint of sadness touched his eyes. “Don’t know. She moved here eighteen years ago. She looked like she was seventeen or nineteen then. When they killed her I’d swear she was seventeen or nineteen. Should have kept moving. Badges don’t like it when someone doesn’t seem to age.”
“Did she ever mention where she was from?”
“She mentioned Canada at times. Of course she mentioned most of the fifty states too.”
I had a strong suspicion what got her killed. “Too many people she started liking. She hung around too long. Friendship has to be temporary for those like us.”
“Ouch.” He gave it some thought. “Has to be a miserable life not having any long term friends.”
“Better than the alternative…, I guess.”
I got in my car, and started to roll down my window before I thought. Rolling down the window wasn’t necessary. It wasn’t there. I yelled back to Spencer. “Know any good body shops where they are ‘careful and discrete’ and don’t ask questions?”
“Charley on Tenth and Adams.” He yelled back. “Tell him Jack sent you.”
“I want the names and numbers off these guys cell phones too. Make it happen before calling the police and losing their personals in holding.”
=============================
I slept in the car and came to work after five the next morning. I wanted everyone to see me arriving. Which I doubted the wisdom there of myself when I sensed the mutants. Oh the glory of living when they wanted me dead and I didn’t co-operate. They called in a couple mutant enforcers. These guys were the muscle for the organization to keep everyone in line. Or, in my case, take out anyone the first two idiots couldn’t manage. I bet one or both those clowns from yesterday called from the hospital and told someone I was still upright and not filling in the compost pile.
Walking close enough to the mutants I was able to get an understanding of their powers. Both were one trick pony instead of being multi talented. The short one stood about five six and was a mind caster, He could put thoughts into people’s minds. He wasn’t as powerful as those who could nudge actual events. The other one was some kind of power house able to destroy people’s bodies with a lightning surge. The mind bender was already trying to project on me. I was supposed to walk into the storage room on my right. Probably where Mr. Lightning would light me up?
Although I had been targeted by a lightning caster, I had never been hit by a mutant generated lightning strike. I wasn’t sure I would like it. I also wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to handle him? “Morning men.” As I walked on past and headed to the club, I had their faces on camera.
One more time I was standing in front of Kathy’s desk. “What kind of policy do you have about unauthorized visitors?”
She took a deep breath before looking up. “I take it this is the dock area since we welcome those kind of people in the restaurant and club?”
“Un huh.”
“Because so many come and go from that area, including the delivery drivers, there isn’t any.”
“Call the security company Brent called yesterday. Have them send out the two guys who wrote the report about finding two of your employees firing into a passenger car. Have them hang around the docks today with the excuse they were called in to see if they could figure out the two shooter’s motive. Tell Mr. Miller there are two mutants on our docks who are not employees. He needs to be extra cautious. These guys are the muscle for the organization stealing this place blind.”
Kathy rubbed her forehead and hesitated before she replied. “Nova, I…, didn’t realize it was this bad. You getting killed isn’t worth it. Leave them alone. We’ll try another way.”
“Kathy, this is going to stop. I’m going to be the one putting nails in their coffin. You hired me to do a job. You can fire me if you like. I’m not pulling out until I finish what you hired me for, paycheck or no paycheck. This is what I’m good at. I promised no dead bodies. That was before I realized they were killing people. Bringing in a couple mutants also changed the rules. These are not nice people. They play hardball. I believe I’m the best player in the game.”
“Today is Thursday, they have one more day before I get their attention unless they start the fight sooner. Those two mutants aren’t there to make sure the proper number of bananas get loaded back onto the truck. One of them is a pusher like you said your brother is. Only this guy does it in a bad way which gets people hurt or killed. His crime might be why your brother is in jail. Possible he did something and gave the thought to the police your brother did it. He already tried his mind game on me. It didn’t go the way he planned. I’m a null, they can’t sense I’m a mutant. I’m not affected by what mind powers or projected thoughts other mutants have.”
“Kathy, have all your shippers put RFID tags on everything they ship from now on. They don’t want to tag it then find a new supplier. From now on I want an electronic trail from the time an order is placed with one of your suppliers to the time it reaches its destination here in this club. Put an ID dot on every uniform, piece of clothing everyone in this place wears. Everyone who gets close to any delivered supplies will be tracked. There is no way I’m letting this place revert back into the mess it has got into. This has as much to do with inventory control as it does to mishandling supplies. Besides the stealing there is an awful lot of waste going on because produce is misplaced or mishandled. Every time anyone moves any produce or supplies the information is to be transferred to a computer database. If anything is wrong you can backtrack it to the problem. If employees can’t do their job right you don’t need them. Get rid of them and get more help.”
“I’m working on it, Nova. All this will take time.” Kathy was trying to tell her some things didn’t happen instantly.
“Which we no longer have. Make it happen, Kathy.” I turned and left her office.
Kathy was shaking her head. “Now she’s my boss making demands. I’m beginning to wonder if I should have stayed with the thieving? She held up her hand and started counting on her fingers. Nova, thieves, Nova, thieves, Nova. I guess I stick with Nova.”
“Wise choice.” Echoed down the hall with a big hint of laughter behind it.
Kathy closed her eyes and smiled. “That girl gets scarier by the hour.”
==============================
Taking lots of pictures as I went, I was making a slow run through the bar and the storage room. Harold and the barkeep Ben I liked, were keeping a close watch as I circled the barroom fending off advances from the drinking crowd. The other barkeep Jake was shuffling things under the counter when he didn’t think I was looking. The guys on the dock must have told him to keep an eye on me. Probably made him nervous when I showed up after their failed car jacking scheme. Except for the guy who rose out of his chair and tried to paw me, which resulted in him having a sprained wrist and shoulder, the walk through was uneventful. Harold started out to protect me before I forcefully put the guy back down into his chair.
I was leaving the bar into the dinning room when Harold leaned over in my direction. “I’d hire you as a bouncer. Be sure to put in your application. I can guarantee approval.”
That got a giggle out of me. “Never work. There would be too many lawsuits for medical bills once they found out I was working for the club.”
“HAW!” Escaped his mouth before he reined it back. “Little girl my ass!”
In the dinning room I circled among the tables listening to the conversations to see if anything was amiss I might not be catching. Wilted salad was one of those that caught my attention along with cold potatoes. The kitchen definitely needed a kick in the un huh along with quality control. The waitresses should be sending some of this food back instead of giving it to the customers. The system was failing in more than one area. The waitresses were clean but several were lacking curb appeal. They lacked the spark to make each customer feel like a guest. Ladies, either get a better attitude or after Saturday start job hunting. Joan at the beauty shop was going to receive a bunch of new clients. I wanted our waitresses to ooze cheerfulness and beauty. Kathy would scream about the cost. I knew it would pay back ten fold within a month. As I walked by the buffet bar I scanned it with the digital thermometer I asked Brent to get for me when I first started asking for cameras and other things. It was one of the items I picked up along with the cameras a coupled of days earlier. I swear I’m going to skin maintenance and cleaning personnel alive come Saturday. The bar that was supposed to be hot was luke warm. The salad bar wasn’t chilled. Wilted salad indeed!
Following the waitresses I made the kitchen. Much to my disgust it was still filthy.
“Hey you, girl, I told you what I would do if you came back into my kitchen.” He had been deboning a ham shank and now was headed my way waving a really large knife.
“Sorry, I got lost again. This place is so big I can’t quite figure it out.” I side tracked around the table he had been standing at. I was now in the opposite direction he had first spotted me. I liked this salty old buzzard. We would need his spit and fire to get this kitchen cleaned up. All I had to do is rekindle that fire.
I had read his employment application. Pete had been the head chef in JaMageo’s in New York, French The Cajun in New Orleans, Chatell’s in Seattle. The background Kathy had run on him, he lost two sons in those wars we always seem to be fighting. He lost two daughters, one to an attack of a jealous ex boyfriend as she left work one evening. The other was killed in a jewelry heist gone bad. Each time he moved to leave the bad memories behind. The final straw that broke his will was when the life long love of his life whom he married out of high school, was killed by a hit and run driver as she was out jogging one morning. The police report claimed by the tire tracks, the guy had intentionally weaved over to hit her. They caught up with him and he received two years probation for vehicular homicide. That was probably around the time Pete stopped living and only put in his time to live out his years. When this job was no longer an option for me I planned on visiting Seattle.
Pete came at me with the knife held at the ready. I waited until he was within range. I had his wrist in my left hand as I yanked the knife out with my right. Before he had a chance to respond I pulled him up close so I could talk softly in his ear. “Listen to me you old buzzard. Saturday I take over this shit hole as manager. I’m going to need your help to get this kitchen mess straightened.”
His eyes were registering shock as he tried to get out of my grip and couldn’t. He shook his head. “I’ll move on.”
“No you won’t. Because if you do I’ll come hunt you down and drag you back here in chains if I have to. I’m going to need someone familiar with this place and you are it whether you like it or not. You might have bailed out on life. What you won’t do is bail out on me.” I turned him loose and came down on the ham shank he had been working on. The knife went through the meat, ham bone, and buried itself in the cutting board.
Shock was beginning to register on his face. Picking up one of the pans on the table I turned it over and drove a fingernail through the bottom. When I held it right side up my nail was clearly sticking though the bottom of the pan. “You’re going to help me clean this place up. Agree?”
The shock on his face was replaced by the hint of a smile as he pulled the pan off my fingernail. He turned it upside down to examine the slit in the bottom. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’m in.”
I honestly believed for the first time in years he truly smiled and whispered. “You’re not manager yet.” Before he yelled at me. “Get out of my kitchen before I skin you and serve you up on the menu.”
“Yes sir, sorry sir, I’m going Master Chef. Please forgive me. This place is just so big.” It was all I could do to keep from giggling as I spun on my heel and headed for the storage and dock area at a fast pace.
===================================
My list of people who I could trust was growing slowly. I was sure of one thing, I could trust them. The two mutants walked out of Joe Bryan’s security office as I was slowly moving across the docks discreetly photographing everything and everyone. I could feel the head case trying to get into my mind again. ‘Turn about is fair play.’ I would follow these two tonight and make sure they never bothered anyone again.
Dreamer turned toward Jolt. “She must be blonde. I can’t find a brain in there to give suggestions to.”
“Damn it Dreamer, you’re totally worthless. You were supposed to get her to walk into storage C and I would take her out there. Never mind.” Bolt raised both arms, put his hands together, and pointed at the bitch.
The problem with being top predator is one begins to believe the stories told about them even if they are mostly imagination and tall tales. I giggled listening to the two idiots talking about me.
A flash of lightning, an ear shattering boom which shook the restaurant and club, Nova went flying across the dock to slam up against the wall at the end. Her clothes were burnt off her back, her skin on her back was blackened to a crisp, her long black hair was mostly gone burnt off. The stink of burnt hair, flesh, and clothes wafted across the surrounding area.
Kathy and Brent gasped when the building shook along with the sonic boom. They both had the same thought at the same time. NOVA! Brent went to his closet, unlocked the gun case and retrieved a shotgun with a drum underneath it. Illegal but at the moment law be damned. He headed out the door.
Brent met Kathy in the hallway as she came out of her office. She was carrying a Glock, with a full fifteen shot mag. He glanced at her, nodded toward the stairs. The pair walked through the restaurant. The patrons and waitresses looked surprised but not scared until they saw Kathy and Brent heavily armed. They deduced the problem wasn’t in the restaurant. They headed for the barroom. Harold was coming out carrying a pump shotgun and shaking his head. “It wasn’t here.”
The same idea hit all three at the same time. Docks, it had to be where all the stealing was going on. They were going to find and rescue Nova if that was what happened. What they discussed among themselves later was it was more stupidity than courage driving their actions.
Bolt smiled in evil satisfaction and boomed out in a loud voice. “Anyone says anything they will get the same treatment. Toss that piece of crap in the back of the van.”
Two men gathered up what they could as their stomachs rebelled. They carried the burnt body off the dock and shoved it into the back of a van. Then it was more than they could hold back as both went to their knees and started retching on the pavement.
Bolt climbed into the passenger side as Dreamer got under the wheel, started the van, and was pulling out of the loading area.
Looking for all intents and purposes like a war party, Brent, Harold, and Kathy walked into the kitchen. Pete took one look, shook his head, pointed to the hallway leading to the docks. He picked up a large cleaver and joined them. They failed to notice the black van pulling out into the street as they stepped onto the dock area.
Brent headed directly for Joe Bryan who was standing twenty feet away. “The new girl, Nova, you see her?”
Joe shook his head. “Not since earlier this morning.”
What Brent didn’t miss was the lying guilty look Joe had on his face. Brent swore at that instant if anything had happened to Nova none of these bastards would live very long. The same thing they had asked Nova not to do, he was ready to do himself.
“The explosion a few minutes ago. Where was it at?” Brent was focused on Joe’s face figuring he probably wouldn’t get a truthful answer.
“Don’t know. Kind of rattled us out here. Sonic boom or something.”
Knowing nothing useful was coming with any further questions Brent turned to scan the docks. Almost every man there looked like they were scared to death of something. Those who didn’t look scared looked sick and some had been throwing up. Then it hit him! He had smelled burnt meat before. That smell with smoldering trash was still in the air. He was looking at ash on the east end of the dock. They were too late. He felt his emotions roll. “SHIT!”
He pointed to the darkened area. “WHERE IS SHE!” He looked around at the men as they turned away. “YOU BASTARDS! I SWEAR EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!”
“WHERE IS SHE!” He looked around at the men as they turned away. “YOU BASTARDS! I SWEAR EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!”
Joe let a smile cross his face. Yeah? Dreamer and Bolt would make sure this was all swept under the rug. Mutants had their usefulness, provided they were on your side.
Brent pulled out his phone and punched nine one one.
What everyone had missed was the repairman two hundred feet up in the air, on the high voltage tower four blocks away. Kugger Electric was on her coveralls and safety helmet even though she was working on an Edison electric transmission tower. Jenna’s friends decided to keep track of Nova. Laura volunteered to watch the dock area that morning. Doug would take over for the afternoon shift. She watched Nova walk out onto the dock, the flash of light, heard the boom, saw the body lying on the dock.
She keyed up her radio which was transmission encrypted. “They killed her. It was that big guy we know can send out lightning. Loading her body into a van. He got into the van. They are pulling out of the dock area.”
“We were coming in to do a background check on the two who tried to ambush her yesterday. I see the van. I got this. Nothing we can do besides follow it. I don’t know anyone who would be willing to challenge Bolt.” Spencer had arrived as the van pulled out onto the street. Brent had called him an hour earlier telling him Nova wanted him to question all the company personnel about the guys doing the car jacking. Sadly it was too late to do Nova any good. A decent burial maybe? He knew Bolt and those he worked for would never provide one.
“There are seven of us who will tag team you. Give us directions so we can fill in on the follow while you drop back.” Came over the encrypted radio. Ten minutes after giving out directions a dirty brown Firebird pulled up beside Spencer. Dale gave Spencer a nod, and pulled ahead in front of him.
As he dropped back, Spencer keyed the radio. “Four to six blocks and let someone else take the tail. Can’t stay in their review mirrors longer than that or they will get suspicious.”
Twenty minutes later the van pulled into a downtown alley. Charles in his little Ford turned and went the opposite direction in the alley across the street. A block away he stopped, slid down in the seat so his head wasn’t above the back, reached up and adjusted the rearview mirror. “The van has stopped in the alley. Two of them, Bolt for sure, I think the other one is Dreamer. Crap, if he sees me he will rearrange my mind.”
“Can he see you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“He has to be looking at the person before he can do anything. He can’t mind scan if he isn’t seeing his target.”
“That doesn’t make me feel a whole lot safer.”
“Courage Grasshopper.” Spencer couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. Charles didn’t feel the humor as he kept low in the seat.
Dreamer and Bolt pulled trash out of the dumpster. Retrieved the body out of the van and tossed it into the dumpster before putting the trash back in. They were both laughing as they got in the van and drove away.
Charles still wasn’t taking any chances as he stayed low in the seat. “They dumped her in with the trash. I see a trash truck coming.”
Spencer nodded even though only his partner in the car could see it. “They must have a schedule of trash pickup routes. No one will be dumpster diving and find her body if it is immediately picked up by the truck. Sick bastards!”
Spencer pulled into the alley. The driver had stopped by the dumpster, the pickup rails were dropping to cradle the dumpster and carry it to the top of the bin to be unloaded into the truck.
Spencer walked up beside the driver’s door and pulled his Glock before he opened the door. The driver was about to complain about someone opening his door when he looked into the barrel of a pistol.
“There is an item in that dumpster I want back. Got tossed in carelessly. Move on to your next pickup and forget this one today.”
The driver nodded as he hit the levers and the carriage retracted to the side of the truck. Spencer stepped back and motioned him on. The driver never hesitated as he started moving the truck away from the dumpster. He had no idea what could be in that dumpster the guy wanted. He was smart enough to know it didn’t matter. Whatever was there was his.
Spencer and his partner started pulling trash out until they found the body. The stench was overpowering but this was for Jenna. They climbed into the dumpster and handed the body over to two more men waiting on the outside.
“God, they did a number on her. Get a body bag. We’ll give her a decent burial if I have to dig the grave myself.” Spencer was feeling sick to his stomach. One of the guys couldn’t handle it. He was bent over heaving his guts up. This caused a chain reaction as two more found this was more than they could stand and they started doing the same.
Fourteen minutes later they had slid her into a body bag and put her in the trunk of Spencer’s car. He was looking at the bag before he closed the trunk. “Spread the word. Need donations for a casket and burial plot. I’ll take her over to Heavenly Gates Funeral Home. Maurice is discreet and will make sure Jane Doe gets the proper burial.”
“Got it.” Was answered by Tom. The others only nodded as they walked away.
Spencer wanted to put some distance between the crime and the burial. It took them forty nine minutes to drive to the funeral home. He walked in and found Maurice. “I have a special package, treat her with respect. Her name was Nova. I don’t think it would be smart to put that on the tombstone. Jane Hall would work or anything you can think of. If you have a tombstone someone ordered and never picked up that would work just as well.”
Maurice had his hands together in front of him. “Drive around to the back and put her in the embalming room.”
Spencer drove around to the back. When he opened the trunk he stepped back. The body bag had been slit open from top to bottom.
“I need fluids.” Came out as a whisper.
He grabbed a water bottle out of the seat of his car as he yelled at his partner, Ken. “GET ALL THE WATER YOU CAN FIND! ANY ENERGY DRINK! GATORAIDE ANYTHING!”
Her eyes weren’t open as he put the lip of the bottle to her lips and slowly let the water trickle out. She was swallowing it.
When the bottle was empty Ken stepped up with a bottle of Gatorade. “Slowly so she doesn’t choke.” Spencer stepped back and pulled out his phone.
Brent was on the docks trying to get the police to do something. Arrest everybody make them confess. He was adamant the police needed to do something when he felt his phone vibrating. He started to turn it off as he checked the number. It was Spencer. Bad timing but Brent answered it anyway. “You’re too late. I think they killed her.”
“You won’t need my services then. I’ll stay with the client you called me about. He is a crusty ol codger I’ll give him that much. Two toughs tried to take him down. He’s not staying down.”
Brent held the phone out and looked at the number. Spencer must think he’s talking to one of their other customers. “This is Brent.”
“Does that mean I won’t have to take you in for psychiatric care since you know who you are?”
Brent was slowly getting the message. Public phones anyone can listen in. “The old codger is okay?”
“Working on getting back on his feet. They really beat the old man up.”
“How soon do you think he will be okay?”
“Don’t know. Everything is up to him.”
Brent nodded. “Keep me posted. If he needs anything and I mean anything I’ll make it happen.”
He turned off his phone and looked at the officers. “I’m sorry, this has been a terribly emotional time for me. I can’t answer any more of your questions. I’m going to go lay down and rest.”
He motioned to Kathy, Harold, Pete. “We’re done here. Come with me.”
Kathy was confused. From a full on verbal barrage against the police to calmly walking away? Something was up. Was it the phone call?
Brent led them inside one of the walk in freezers. “I think this is about as good a secure area to speak as we can get in this place. Spencer called. If I understand the message right, Nova is alive. She has been worked over. To what extent I haven’t a clue. Spencer is clueless how long it will take her to recover. Hospital and doctors are out of the question of course. We can’t go see her as we might drag a tail along and they would finish the job. We will have to wait and depend on Spencer to keep us informed.”
Kathy fell into Brent and wrapped her arms around his neck. He could tell she was crying. Brent was beginning to suspect Nova had the same effect on people the same way Jenna did. Everyone fell in love with her…, well not everyone. Some wanted her dead.
I think it was the forth or fifth bottle I was finally able to move my lips. The other parts of me felt like they would break if I tried to move them. “Put me in a bathtub with cool water.”
Maurice went into the Funeral Home and returned with a gurney. Obviously used for dead bodies as it was a stainless steel table with no padding. His wife Judy came out carrying blankets. They spread two on the table for cushion. Spencer and Ken lifted Nova out of the trunk and laid her on the table. Judy spread a blanket over her body which was only slightly covered with burnt bloody rags.
The tub was filled to overflowing. Spencer and Ken got ready to lift her off the gurney and lower her into the tub. She motioned as much as possible with her hand. “Take these off. I’ll sink to the bottom. Don’t worry I’m not drowning no matter how long I stay under. Don’t pull me out until I say so.”
After Judy removed the remnants of rags off her body, Spencer and Ken lifted her over into the tub. She settled to the bottom. Spencer wasn’t sure what the others were thinking. His thoughts were he was looking at the perfect female body. He was positive he shouldn’t be looking at her right now. He justified it by thinking she might need help.
Long minutes later everyone was looking at each other. Had she drown? “Do we pull her out?” Spencer leaned over the tub. Her eyes were still closed but she was wiggling her finger back and forth.
“I guess not.” He straightened up. Ten minutes later he checked again. And received the same signal. Forty minutes, an hour, two hours later she started moving. Dead black skin was sloughing off and settling in the bottom of the tub. Her black hair had grown out a couple inches, all the burned frizzled hair lying in the bottom of the tub.
The others were coming and going to check on her, Spencer had stayed and watched the whole time. “Nova, the perfect name for her. Her whole body was re-generating.”
She rose up out of the tub. All the black burnt skin and hair was still in the tub. “She held out her hand. “I need a towel please if you don’t want me dripping all over the place.”
Judy came in carrying several large towels, slippers, and a bathrobe. “I can help dry you.”
I shook my head. “I’m still healing. Don’t touch my back.”
Judy handed a towel over and laid the others along with the robe on the gurney. “What can you eat? I suspect you need something with all you had to replace.”
“Meat, potatoes, gravy, large protein drinks, anything body builders eat or take. Will that be a problem?” As of this moment I was capable of taking care of myself again if necessary. I wasn’t whole and I wasn’t healthy but I could move without tearing any burnt skin which I no longer had.
“No, there is a restaurant six blocks down the street and they will have that on the menu. Anyone else? It is a couple hours past dinner time.” Judy looked at Spencer and Ken. She knew Maurice and herself would eat something. Calling it in for the girl would give her an excuse to not cook up a meal this time.
“Order me three meals, please. My body is running on empty right now.”
Judy looked at the two men who hadn’t been able to take their eyes off the goddess before them. “I’m sorry I never got your names. We probably should leave the lady alone now she seems able to take care on her own.”
Spencer and Ken both blushed a deep red as they turned and walked away after realizing what they had been doing. Judy pointed to the door the men were leaving by. “Down the hallway, when you come to another hallway take a right. Go to the end. Across the breezeway is our home. I’ll find you some clothes.”
I was pulling on the robe. “I don’t want to be a bother. Sweats if you have them.”
Judy looked up at the woman. She was at least five inches taller than herself. “I have some of my own. They would look ridiculous on you. I’ll ask one of the men to pick up a set when I send him out to pick up that protein mix you asked for. I’d ask him to pick up a bra at the same time but I am guessing it would be too much for the poor man.”
For the first time I felt like giggling. I didn’t. “I usually don’t wear bras, thank you anyway.”
Judy took a second look. “Come when you’re ready.” She turned and walked away. She was thinking Amazon.
Tying the robe off, I looked over at the bathtub. It wasn’t a tub but a tank. Looking around the room I realized where I was. That tank was used for cleaning up corpses. I figured it was appropriate. I was as close to being one myself as one could ever get and come back. I had a lot of people I owed my life to. This body might be self healing but without help it didn’t have enough to work with to repair itself this time.
Spencer called Brent as he was walking down the hallway and had got over his embarrassment. Who wouldn’t stare at that? Nova was the pinnacle of everything a woman should be.
Brent looked at the number as his phone rang. He prayed it wasn’t bad news. “Yeah.”
“The old man is up and talking. Are there additional instructions on his care?”
“Make sure his needs are met. We don’t want him around here anymore. He was a clumsy old fool, some of the people we have didn’t like him.”
Spencer hung up unclear on the message. Was it Brent didn’t want her back or was he supposed to keep her away until things settled back down? One thing he was sure of, no one was going to tell Nova to forget it and go home. He was positive the body count in this town was fixing to rise. It would shorten the time Nova stayed. Everyone started screaming Hunter when two or more people were killed. Even when they were shot, stabbed, or died in a car crash. Hunter was the phantom bogey bear every one had read or heard about. No one had ever met one except Jenna’s friends. The cops who killed her were only guessing. Spencer had read things happening back during the Salem witch hunts. Fear, paranoia, mass hysteria and everyone was guilty who looked ‘witchy’.
I learned Spencer’s partner’s name when Ken returned with sweats and a large jug of powdered protein mix. I had changed into the sweats. They were a size too small and I wondered if he did it on purpose? I headed off to find the kitchen and Judy. I found both at the same time.
Judy looked at me as I walked in to the kitchen. “You’re looking a lot better.”
“Thanks, still feel like hell ran me down and then backed over me a couple more times to make sure. Awfully weak too. May I borrow a glass?”
She pointed to the cupboard to her left. “Glasses are in there. Help yourself to anything you want in the kitchen. May I call you Nova?”
“I’d like that.”
“Anything in the fridge, kitchen, or anyplace you find something you need, help yourself. I don’t want you asking every time you want something.”
Walking over I touched her cheek with the back of my hand. To her credit and her inner strength she only pulled back slightly when I touched her. “I can’t hug you yet. I’m still damaged. I owe my life to all of you. Thank you for taking me in and not tossing me out with the trash.”
Judy leaned into my hand before she reached up with both of hers and wrapped them around my hand. “You’re a beautiful woman, Nova. No one deserves to have done to them what happened to you. I hope the police catch the bastards who did this to you.”
“I hope they don’t.”
Judy’s eyes snapped up to look into mine. She stared for ten or fifteen seconds before she nodded in agreement. “Come to think of it, I hope they don’t either.”
I borrowed a large glass and fixed a protein mix as the food from the restaurant arrived. During dinner I got up from the table and fixed myself a greens slurry using vegetables from Judy’s fridge. That was what I was finishing off now after eating three plates of food from the restaurant. I was on my fourth large glass of protein mix, a second greens slurry mix, and a glass of water. That was what had all of them looking at me. I didn’t tell them I thought my body was metabolizing everything almost as soon as it hit my stomach. I was in dire need of repair and it was taking care of that job.
“Brent told me he didn’t want you to come back to the restaurant. I believe he thinks it will be too dangerous for you.” Spencer watched as I finished with the slurry.
“Kathy gave me a job. I’m finishing it. What day is it?” I wondered how long I was out?
“Thursday.”
“I’m still on schedule. I won’t go back today or Friday. Friday night I go see the people Kathy told me to so I would look nice as a manager Saturday.”
Ken choked on his water. Look nice? He had spent a couple hours looking at her naked body. They didn’t come any nicer.
Spencer and Judy gave Ken the don’t ask don’t tell look.
“I need transportation and some petty cash. Around five hundred dollars should do it. No credit cards.” I looked at Spencer. “You and I, private talk. Where?”
We ended up a couple blocks from the funeral home, standing on someone’s front yard. Spencer left his cell phone and everything else in his pockets in the kitchen. He started first. “I know what you’re thinking. No one needs to be a mind reader to realize you’re going back to finish. Nova, Bolt and Dreamer are not two mutants anyone wants to mess with. As a tag team they are invincible. Dreamer knows when anyone is focused on them. Bolt takes them out. Guys with rifles have tried from a distance and it has never ended up well for them. I’m positive some in the police are being paid off. The others aren’t going to risk a hundred lives trying. Jenna was an easy unsuspecting target for the police. Didn’t you tell me revenge is its own hellhole? Don’t do this, Nova.”
My hair was down to my shoulders now. I brushed it away from my face. “I also told you I own revenge. Personal or not, what about those you told me they have killed? How many more have to die because everyone is afraid of these two? Tell me where they live, where they usually hang out when they aren’t killing someone. I also want to know if they have a routine.”
“Nova, don’t.”
“DON’T HELL! They belong to me. Whether you tell me or I spend a month tracking and finding out what I need to know, they are mine.”
The fire in her eyes and the look on her face caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up as goose bumps popped up all over his body. Scared? Hell yes! Any sane person would be. Nova was giving off vibes she was the Grim Reaper ready to harvest a couple souls. Pray for those who got in her way. No wonder she was called The Huntress. The cotton in his throat and dry mouth made it hard to get the words out. “Let me make some calls. I’ll have the info for you in an hour or two.”
Her next request didn’t surprise him. “I need a non descript van or a car with a large trunk. I’ll need chains, weights, roll of sheet plastic, and a boat located in the bay. Probably pollute the ocean but it can’t be helped. There won’t be any bodies to identify.”
Spencer nodded. He understood. The same thing they tried to do with her. It would have worked too except for Jenna’s friends and those who loved her. “I’ll get on it. Non traceable tags to go with. How long will you need it?”
“Just tonight unless I can’t find a place to weave this plan all together. This takes top priority. I’m not going back to the restaurant until this problem is out of the way. Years ago I ran up against one of those guys who tossed lightning. I got lucky before he fried me. Going back to the restaurant and waiting for Bolt to come find me is not an option. He will make sure there is nothing but ashes next time.”
“Nova…?” Spencer hesitated.
I waited for Spencer to ask his question.
“When you were in the water…,” He wasn’t sure how to ask.
“Why didn’t I drown?”
“uh, yeah”
“Think about it. When we are conceived we live our lives in a fluid for nine months. We can go without food for a couple weeks. We can’t go without water for more than a few days. Our bodies are ninety two percent water. Water is and has life. My body functions shut down while it took care of sloughing off the damage. Kind of similar to soaking a dish with dried food on it so it can be wiped clean.”
He nodded. “I can understand that as unbelievable as it is. How did you know when I was thinking about pulling you out?”
“I was born in a village a very long time ago. People knew I was different by the time I was three or four. By the time I was twelve they were frightened of me and wanted to kill me. I fled to the forest and was adopted by a pack of wolves. My instinct to sense everything around me whether I saw it or not was honed way above normal for one reason. Survival.”
Smiling at Spencer I continued. “Most people can sense when someone is looking and focused on them. I can pick out one or many in a crowd who are looking or thinking about me. It was the same when you looked down at me in the water. Things learned when growing up in the wilderness with wolves and other animals. That includes the humans who would have killed me if they could. Over the years I supplied grains to the poorer villages. The wolf pack and me took them meat to keep the people from starving to death. I killed those who raided the villages and took lives, food, women. That was when people began to notice wolves always surrounded me or they were close by. It was when the name Huntress started being told among men. I guess the name and the stories, the truth, the lies stuck.”
My mistake was thinking Bolt wouldn’t try with a dozen witnesses. I had forgot all those so called witnesses were in league with him and Dreamer. I got lax over the last century. A mistake that would have cost me my life if not for you and the others. It won’t ever happen again.
“I can’t explain why I’m like I am anymore than I can explain life. The only answer I have, I am me just as life is as it is. Which probably doesn’t make any sense.”
Spencer looked at Nova for several seconds before he nodded in agreement. “You explained it better than I’ve ever heard it explained. I guess all of us are for no other reason.”
They got up from the grass and headed back to the funeral home. “Spencer, I need a nice dress, plain and simple to get close if he is in a club or something. I need stealth clothes if he’s home and I need to sneak in.”
“Dreamer…”
“Dreamer isn’t a problem. He manipulates people’s minds. I’m a null. He has tried twice on me. Doubtful he can sense me unless he is looking at me. I could feel him trying there on the docks. It is as far as he got. Thinking he has the upper hand on everyone else is going to make him such an easy target it won’t even be a challenge. He was working with Bolt. He can go to Hell with him at the same time. I don’t think their fancy tricks will help them there.”
“Okay, as soon as we give our thanks to the Daughterys we will go see what we can find for you to work with.”
“I owe you and them more than I can ever repay. I’d like to make up their financial costs at least. I can’t do it immediately as I don’t have any funds.”
Spencer reached for my hand as we walked back. “Don’t even give it any thought. You can ask, I’m positive they will turn you down. If you take care of Bolt and Dreamer so they don’t figure out you were brought here, that will suffice.”
Spencer taking my hand kind of surprised me. I reacted and moved it out of his strike zone and then moved back. I wasn’t sure he noticed. I knew I scared him most of the time when he wasn’t being cautiously nervous. Hopefully letting him hold my hand would sooth his nerves some. I hoped he wasn’t thinking sexual attraction. That was doomed before it ever began. Date, kissing, touching was as far as I ever let anyone get. The scent he was giving off had dropped from fight or flight fear to nervous. I liked this guy.
Spencer came through for me. I had everything I asked for plus a driver’s license. I laughed over that one when I read the name Consuela Hernandez. If I was pulled over by a state trouper and he accepted that as my ID, Texas was in trouble.
Bolt and Dreamer were at The Outsiders Club celebrating getting paid for another hit. Spencer managed to get me a van and gave me directions to the club. He also loaned me one of their secure walkie talkies they used. I found their van in the parking lot. Spencer and Ken were in their own car a couple blocks away. “You said Bolt usually drove. There is a car parked beside their van. I need that parking spot. Can we pull it out?”
“What make is the car? Give me the color and the tag number. I can call in for a tow from the owner.” Came back over the radio
“And you guys think I’m spooky. It’s a blue Ford, Texas plate N four six seven five two.”
“Give me a minute.”
I think he took five minutes before my radio came alive again. “Tow truck is on its way. Be there in ten minutes. Nova, I have the video feed from the parking lot. I’ll loop it from the time before you entered.”
That one surprised me. “You can do that from a couple blocks away?”
“Moved up where we are across the street.”
“Spencer, you need to back off. If this goes wrong I don’t want you and Ken killed by this maniac. I bet Dreamer can sense you.”
“Not as long as you will quit saying their names and making us think of them. There are over sixty people in that club who keep bouncing their names around. So far we are only part of the background clutter. I might not manipulate mind thought like he does. I can sense when someone is focusing on me like you said you could.”
The idea Spencer was on my side and helping was making this a thousand times easier. I could have done it on my own and probably took three or four months to pull it off. “Put on some romantic music and think about the love of your life. That should get your mind removed from this.”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ken says he met the love of his life only today.”
THAT caused me to giggle. “That’s okay as long as he understands as soon as this job is over, I’ll take him on a date and wine and dine him. But only one time and there is never a night cap to finish the date.”
“Damn! I wish I had said that was me thinking the same thing.”
“Guys! Focus! We are on a serious job here.”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…, we’re focused. Never been more focused…, ha, ha, ha, ha.”
That caused me to laugh out loud as I shook my head. Over the centuries men have never changed. God love em.
Close to right on time a City Mechanics tow truck showed up. The guys knew what they were doing as they hooked up to the Ford and winched it up onto a flatbed in less than ten minutes. They were pulling out when I pulled in to the vacant spot before anyone else got it. “Guys, I’m set. How we doing?”
“Danny went into the club to make a visual check. Targets are with six guys and four women. Doesn’t look like they are ready to quit anytime soon.”
“Shit! Pull him out of there! Dreamer get a lock on him and this whole situation will turn into everyone’s nightmare!”
My nerves were on edge for the next six minutes before my radio came alive. “He’s out.”
“Okay people, no more heroics. I can’t face Bolt head on. We lose the surprise we lose our lives. Is that clear enough for everyone?”
My radio clicked, there was a long silence before. “understood”
It now turned into a waiting game and hoping on my part they didn’t drag any women along when they decided to leave. Still doable but twice as hard and it would leave witnesses. Seven minutes after twelve the owner of the Ford came out and strolled up and down the parking look looking for his car. It was obvious he was missing his wheels. He should have thanked us. He was drunk. Might have got killed trying to drive home. After two circles through the lot he left. It was closing in on twenty minutes after two AM when my radio talked to me. “Crowd exiting. Seems to be breaking up into groups. Four headed your way.”
I unlatched the side door on the van. It was next to Bolt’s van. This was it. A do or die situation.
“They split, two are returning to the club.”
“Did you see the look on Bernie’s face when I told him I would fry his ass?”
“That was so funny, he peed in his pants.”
I was listening to Bolt and Dreamer as they walked up to their van. As Bolt opened the driver’s door, I opened the side door on the van and launched. Less than a heartbeat he was going down with a broken neck and already tore up bad enough he wouldn’t be a threat at the moment. Dreamer still hadn’t realized all was not well as he was opening his door on the opposite side of the van. Grabbing the top of the door, I pulled as I jumped leveraging myself up to the top of the van. I was over it and came down on Dreamer before he got both legs up into the passenger side. It was over. I wiped my bloody hands off on his shirt. Picking up Dreamer, I carried his body back around to my van and tossed his body into the back. Bolt was next and then I ripped his heart out. Bolt was a re-gen. He could rebuild provided he wasn’t too badly damaged. I made sure he couldn’t. Good thing the van was layered inside in plastic.
I riffled his pockets for the van keys and keyed the radio. “I’m done here.”
Minutes later Ken walked up. I handed him the keys. He nodded without saying anything, got in Bolt’s van, and left.
I had a long night and a long drive ahead of me. Pulling out, I headed to the gulf and that boat Spencer promised would be waiting for me. I knew Bolt was a re-gen even though I had never heard anyone say those like him had re-generative abilities. It wouldn’t make any difference one way or another. Neither he nor Dreamer still had a heart. Re-generative or not, with no blood circulating through their bodies, cells would start dying off. There would be no bodies, no van. Ken was going to make sure it went through someone’s shredder like the last one. I didn’t want to know who or where. With no security tape, thanks to Spencer, the police would never treat it as a murder investigation. Bolt and Dreamer drove off and never came back. End of story.
Back in town again before five PM I parked the van in the Walmart parking lot. And walked the eight miles back to the restaurant. Along the way I received fifteen different offers for a ride. Which I ignored until they didn’t take no for an answer. Those two guys who tried to muscle me into their car are still in their car. Just not in the normal position for driving. My purpose was two fold. Spencer told me where to leave the van so they could retrieve it and clean it, which I didn’t think it needed. Plastic sheeting had been laid over everything before they loaned it to me. That was left in a dumpster over eighty miles from here. The other reason was, I didn’t want anyone driving me back to the restaurant and become associated with me.
Walking in the front door the waitresses ignored me when I didn’t stop to be guided to a table. “Good evening, Nova.” Came from Marco, the Maitre d’ who was coming back after taking some customers to a table.
“Good evening, Marco. Is everything okay here?”
He hesitated. I knew he had heard rumors about my supposed murder. “Yes ma’am. For the present.”
That brought a smile from me although it was probably more of a predator’s ‘lunch is about to be served’ grin. “Let’s make sure the problems on the other side of this restaurant don’t bleed over to this side then.”
He gave a slight nod. “I’ll do my best to follow your orders, ma’am.”
Kathy must have clued him in or more rumors were floating about this place. “Not yet, Marco. After twelve tonight. I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself until then if they don’t already know.”
“Kathy told me. So far everyone else is guessing. I’ll be most happy to acknowledge your taking over as manager five seconds after midnight. Now if you will excuse me ma’am I see some more customers coming in the door.”
When I walked into the kitchen I thought Pete was going to rush over and hug me. A relieved happy smile spread across his face from ear to ear. I swear he was kind of bouncing on the floor.
“Master Chef, I’m sorry, I got lost again.”
He never lost his grin as he waved toward the back doors with a huge ladle.
“Yes Sir, Sorry Sir.” I couldn’t help pushing back at him just a tad. He looked like he was enjoying that too.
Cutting into the hallway I headed for the stairs. The docks could wait. I needed to update my bosses. When I walked into Kathy’s office she screamed loud enough to break glass. “NOVA!” Springing out of the chair, she ran around the desk, and launched herself at me with her arms wide open.
“NOVA? WHERE?” Came from Brent’s office.
“HERE, SHE’S HERE!” Kathy screamed out. “We thought they had killed you. We were so worried until Spencer sent his messages to Brent. Well we were worried then too even though we figured the message indicated you were still alive but hurt.”
She backed up looking me over. “What happened? What did they do?”
“Bolt tried to burn me to a crisp. You won’t see it now. I’m healed up.”
Brent came in the door. “So good to see you are okay.”
I could tell he was wanting to hug me too but was holding back. Turning in his direction I held my arms out. If he was brave enough he could step in for a hug. “I promise I won’t kill you. Yet.”
He got the silliest look on his face. I could tell he was silently laughing, He wasn’t letting it out as he stepped into my arms and hugged me back, pressing his cheek up against mine. “God, we were so worried. Kathy was ready to kill every single one of them out there on the docks. I believe if we had seen your body she would have.”
He backed up and got more than serious. “Nova, you can’t stay. They will be back.”
“No they won’t.”
“You’re sure?”
“DEAD sure.”
“You still want the job?”
“Until you or Kathy fire me. Or my staying puts anyone in danger.”
“I’ll never fire you. I don’t believe Kathy would either. This place needs you more than it does us.”
He looked at Kathy. “I believe our manager, supervisor, health inspector, quality control…, uh, what else? Never mind, we’ll tack on more as she takes care of the first ones. Get her cleaned up to fit the job. She smells nice but there are an awful lot of other odors she is carrying that don’t. I suggest a change of perfume. The Ocean Spray is too passé.”
“Contraire Monsieur, it is from the latest line of new odor fents. We also have Draft Horse, Mule Barn, Dead Fish, and Sewer Alley.”
Kathy was grinning as Brent held up his hands. “Okay, I surrender. May I beg you to NOT try any of your new ones tomorrow?”
He reached in his pocket and handed me a set of keys. “Take my car. If you aren’t back by the time I call it quits, I’ll ask Kathy to give me a ride home.”
There was a flash of happiness on Kathy’s face. It didn’t last long but it was there. Her pheromones changed to seduction. She had the hots for Brent. As Kathy’s pheromones reached Brent his changed to pleasure. He had the hots for her. Don’t these too ever talk? Is this job taking so much out of both of them they don’t notice because they are too exhausted? This problem needed fixing along with all the others around here.
Looking at the keys I shook my head. “There isn’t a Lamborghini in the parking lot.”
“No there isn’t. Not in the back lot. It is out front. I’m not dumb enough to believe it would last if it was parked out back. Enjoy it, unable to keep up the payments, I’ll probably be turning it back to the bank next month.”
“Don’t give up yet. While on the subject of keys. I always keep a spare set for my car. All the keys I had on me when sparky overcharged me are gone.”
Kathy opened up a drawer on her desk and retrieved a batch of keys. “These were supposed to be yours when you took over as manager. They fit every lock in this place provided the locks haven’t been changed. When you coming in? Tonight?”
“It was my plan.”
“When you come in I’ll give you the security codes to the place. The Bar has a different code. You get those too. There is a key to Brent and my offices. Under my desk is a floor safe where five thousand dollars in small bills are. The receipts for each day are tallied at closing and Brent or I drop it off at the bank. One of us removes the money each morning and then put three thousand in the safe deposit safe for the cashier in the restaurant and two thousand in the safe behind the bar. No more than a thousand is transferred to the cash register to give back to the customers their change. More can be withdrawn as needed throughout the day. I wanted to talk to you about all of this today but circumstances…,”
“I’m good. What about the temporary help? Were you able to get us some? Tomorrow at five I plan on cutting help. I’m sorry but I need you and Brent to hold this together tomorrow. I can’t be everywhere explaining job description to everyone of them. Not to begin with. I’ll delegate team leaders as those who are capable stand out among the rest. Pete will control his kitchen and Harold will handle the bar. The waitresses stay for now. They will have to clean up their personalities and bring up their happy faces if they plan on being with us at the end of next week.”
“Brent, call your friend from security. Ask them to send over Spencer, Ken and a couple other guys for one day. We will need someone we can trust to keep an eye on every thing and everyone as we push out the old guard from this place. I have no doubt they will be trying to sabotage and steal all they can when they realize they have been terminated.”
“After tomorrow see if Spencer can help us out the rest of the week watching the truck drivers and deliveries. One good experienced man is all we will need for that. I would like for it to be Spencer.”
“Something you aren’t telling me, Nova. Spencer impressed you that much when those guys tried to do their carjacking? I’m not buying it.” He waited for an explanation.
“Brent, there are some things I’ll never answer.”
Kathy was fanning herself. “Whew, I’m getting tired just thinking about all we need to get done.”
“One or two weeks hard push Kathy. I promise after that you and Brent can take some time off and enjoy each others company outside this place.”
Kathy lowered her eyes, her face turned a deep red. Brent gave me a sharp look. He was blushing too.
“What? You don’t think I couldn’t smell it when you two got close to each other? Both of you are giving off a ‘take me I’m yours’ scent. I can’t believe I have to fix every tiny little thing that is out of whack around this place.” Taking the keys Kathy had put on the desk I headed for the door. “I want a raise. This job never said I had to be matchmaker along with all the other descriptions. I’m feeling overworked and abused and I just got here.”
Kathy and Brent were still looking at each other as I left them to figure out the rest of it. God, I hope I don’t have to give them the birds and the bees speech. The keys to the executive suite were with the keys Brent gave me. There was also a set on the keys Kathy said were mine. I was tempted to try out that NASA outfitted shower to see what it could do. Instead I headed for the indoor swimming pool they called a tub. It had Jacuzzi jets in it. I figured they needed a workout. An hour later I realized I better get it in gear. My first appointment was at seven with Joan. My duffle bag was by the end of the couch. I left it there when I brought it in so no one would think I was claiming a bedroom they needed. White panties, jeans, and a soft brown polyester shirt were my choice. The sneakers Spencer got me when he went after a black sweat suit was all I needed for footwear. Heels were not in my wardrobe. At six foot one I didn’t need any more height to look out of place.
The Lamborghini was a nice set of wheels but a pain in the ass getting in and out. It had a purpose as every male wanted my attention on the way to the beauty parlor. The lights were on in the beauty shop. I didn’t see anyone inside. After getting out of the car I walked up and tapped on the glass.
The girl I remembered as Darla came around the curtains in the back headed my direction. In the reflection in the glass I could see four, less than leading citizens of the neighborhood, bopping along, swaggering, and talking loud enough selective hearing wasn’t needed.
“That’s a fine ride.”
“Oooh wee, look at the ass that drove it in.”
“That’s one fine looking momma.”
‘She can sit on my seat covers any day.”
“I’ll take her for a ride and then take her car.”
Stepping back out to the side of the car I stopped by the front fender. “Evening gentlemen. Now before you fine young men do anything stupid why don’t you turn around and leave before things get out of hand.”
“What you say, bitch? You talking to us?” One of the idiots stepped up ahead of the others as they all kept coming.
“Gentlemen, I am not going to give you more than one warning. Do not try and get in my face. I’ve had a long day and I’m not in the mood.” Crossing my arms under my breasts in a non threatening manner I hoped they didn’t push it.
“Oh so you’re not in the mood are you, bitch. I’ll get you in the mood.” The leader finished up with his face inches from mine.
I grabbed the back of his head pulled it down, took a step back, brought my knee up and smashed his nose as I kept power driving it home. He flopped over backwards, his head hit the pavement, and he was through being a threat. Two of the three pulled knives the third one pulled a gun.
“I’m gonna cut yuh and make you bleed for what you did to Malcolm. Then I’m gonna take what I want.” The one on my right was coming at me.
I guess he figured his buddy with the gun was his backup? I was instantly only a foot from him as I came to his attack. My hands were up in the air like it was his face I was going for as I brought my right foot up and kicked the knife out of his hand. Which ended up in the gunman’s belly. Stepping into the gunman I brought my hand down on his wrist breaking it causing the gun to be leveraged out of his hand. Doing a full circle I brought my foot up and kicked the knife guy in the gut sending him flying back several feet to land on his back on the pavement. With three of them out of the picture there was only the forth idiot holding a knife.
Sliding my fingers into my back pockets I stared at him in as casual stance as I could muster, like I was waiting on a friend or the bus. It was up to him how this went. He was looking at me, at his friends, at me, back at his friends, and back at me. I shrugged and waited.
The knife slipped from his fingers and clattered on the pavement. I nodded in agreement. “Good choice. Gather up your friends, go home, get some help.”
Squatting down I picked up the gun and the knife. Unloading the gun, and dropping the clip, I gave the gun and the knife back to him. “One of these days if you boys keep this up, you’re going to pull that gun on someone who is armed themselves. One or all of you will die. You’ve been rolling the dice every time you do something like this. Snake eyes is going to come up and that won’t be your lucky day. Stop threatening people, taking what you never worked for, never earned. If I ever run into you again and you’re still doing this, that won’t be your lucky day either.”
Turning I walked up to the beauty shop, stopped, turned around. “Touch that car and I will track you down. What I will extract in payment will be way above any damage you do to mine. All of you might never walk again.”
Her eyes as wide as two egg whites, Darla unlocked the door and let me in.
“Give me the key or leave it in the door. I may have to go back out if their stupidity returns. I don’t want them scratching the car. It isn’t mine.”
Seven minutes later the kids were helping each other back down the block. Darla and I were still by the front door watching them go. She glanced in my direction still not sure she shouldn’t be running herself. “They aren’t from around here. I’ve never seen them before. We’ve never had this kind of thing happen until now.”
“Means they were scouting for an opportunity to do what they tried. If they know where a hospital is, they may make it before their friend bleeds out. Knife fights the police don’t give a damn as there are too many other things a lot more serious needs their attention. If it had been a gunshot wound I would be gone before they were. THAT gets attention. The police would track it back to the place it happened.”
I turned to look at her. “I’m sorry you people ever met me. I’m trouble with a capital T. Those around me seem to get hurt because they got close to me.”
Darla reached out to touch my arm which wasn’t there before I moved back in her strike zone again. She noticed. “I’m beginning to understand a little what Jenna had to live with. She never hurt anyone. Yet, they feared her.”
Reaching out I put my arm around her shoulder. She stiffened before she relaxed again. “Going to sound like a broken record. I really wish I had met her. Come on, let’s see what Joan can do to make me presentable.”
“…, as if you needed any help.” Darla as looking at my face and almost giggled. “If the rest of the women looked like you the cosmetic industry would go broke.”
Joan pushed the curtain back and motioned for us. “If I may break up this love fest. Need to get started. Kathy called, said Brenda was waiting on you for your fitting.”
Kathy was right about Joan being a makeup artist. She heightened my cheek bones, enhanced my eyes, added length to my eye lashes, subtle liquid peach to my lips, almost natural pink to my nails, along with a dozen other things.
When she was done, Joan turned my chair to face the mirror. “What do you think?”
“Nice, a natural look without being over the top. I love it. Thank you.” I noticed Darla looking on in awe.
She noticed me looking at her in the mirror and blushed a deep red. “I’m as straight as they come and I’m in love with a girl.”
Joan giggled. “Well, I’m not straight. I’d take her into my bed anytime she would have me.”
Both women were giving off lust scent big time. It was time to go. “Joan, thanks. I don’t have anything to pay you with. Not even a credit card. I’ll be back when I get a paycheck, provided there is anything on it.”
“Kathy is covering the cost. I would like a down payment though. A hug and a kiss. Don’t worry about the makeup, it doesn’t smear. It will last you a couple weeks before we need to freshen it up.” She held out her arms.
Standing up and reaching out, I pulled her into a tight smothering embrace. Then I laid the sexiest kiss on her I could, adding a little tongue. Her eyes flew open and then closed in eternal bliss as she engaged the kiss. I had kissed a lot of men and women in my time. Joan was right at the top.
Over a minute later I broke it off. “Don’t read anything into that. I’m not into men or women.”
Joan looked flushed and then disappointed. “I’ll have to accept that.” She wiped at a tear in the corner of her eye.
Reaching up I caught the one in her other eye on my finger. “I’m sorry, Joan. I know you loved her. I’m not geared like her. Sorry.”
She touched my cheek with her fingertips. “Never be sorry, Love. Life is what it is. I’ve been double blessed to know both of you. I also know you will move on in time. Remember me and don’t be a stranger.”
Before I left I reached out, pulled Darla into a quick hug and kiss. She wanted one the same as Joan. She wasn’t bold enough to ask. She was speechless and looked star struck as I left her standing there. She didn’t have a sexual attraction like Joan. There were no tears.
The drive over to Brenda’s didn’t seem to take as long in Brent’s car as it did mine. Fun to drive. Also an attention magnet from the public and the police. I drove like grandma on
her way to church. If the police saw me they could still fabricate an excuse to pull me over.
Brenda met me as I walked into her dress shop. She reached out, took my hands and studied me. “Joan out did herself…, wait let me rephrase that. She heightened what you already had. Okay, enough dallying, Kathy called and is dying to see you. Let’s get you ready for your grand entrance at the Gardens.”
Trish was there, more than willing to help. Telling Brenda the pierced earrings wasn’t possible because my ears would heal up as soon as they were removed didn’t stop her. Telling her I didn’t like heels didn’t stop her insisting on a four inch peach colored
stiletto heel. Telling her I didn’t usually wear much jewelry didn’t stop her from adding rings and bracelets, and a necklace.
Ankle length for sophisticated eloquence, the silk peach colored dress clung to my body like paint. It had a side slit clear up to…, so I could walk. The plunging neck line draped across my breasts. Shall we say Brenda went overboard in emphasizing everything my body was endowed with?
The perfume she spritzed me with, she said was named Capture. It was supposed to pull in men’s imagination. I didn’t tell her the scent didn’t have that pheromone in it. The other thing is one wouldn’t want to leave that scent turned on full time even if one was on
the prowl for a mate. Pick one and then turn on the scent. I’d kill them in the perfume business except I was going for low key hidden instead of spotlight business tycoon. That reminded me to remind Brent and Kathy no pictures at the restaurant of me for the papers.
Brenda and Trish were looking more and more like deer in the headlights as they added their artistic talents to my body. When they finished with the final portrait I believe both were genuinely shocked at what they had accomplished. Brenda took several pictures.
“You can’t publish those or use them for advertising unless you cut my face out of them.”
She nodded knowing why I had said what I did. “For my own private collection. Didn’t think of them that way. If I do, I’ll respect your request.”
“Keep our secret. If you say anything it will probably get me killed.” I was looking at Trish.
Her eyes got a little bigger, she swallowed before she answered. “I won’t say anything besides I met a very beautiful woman.”
My final accessory from Brenda was a peach color shoulder purse. She assured me it already contained all the necessary items women usually carry courtesy of Joan. I transferred the restaurant and car keys to it. My jeans, shirt, and sneakers were put in a plastic bag.
Driving back to the restaurant, I knew my time was getting shorter by the day. I only hoped to have the restaurant problems solved before I had to run. I figured a month, maybe less. Sighing, I shook my head and felt the earrings bounce against my neck. It felt nice. Too bad earrings and me didn’t get along together or I would wear them more often.
It was a little after ten when I parked Brent’s car and walked in the front door. Marco looked up, blinked and blinked again. “Madame Nova, are you taking over now?”
“Not now, Marco. After twelve. Is everything okay?”
“Certainly Madame. I look forward to working under your directions.”
That one almost brought out a giggle from me. The scent Marco was giving off, that wasn’t all he was thinking of having under him. “Thank you Marco. I’m going to check in with our bosses, swing by the club, and kitchen before it’s time.
I knew Pete wouldn’t be in the kitchen. His shift started at five and ended at one. I planned on moving Pete to the evening dinner crowd. It was the evening customers who seemed to be more into the culinary foods, which I knew Pete excelled at. He was a chef’s chef, from all the info I could dig up on him. The world had stomped on him so many times he fell into depression and no longer cared about living or anything else. If I could manage to survive, so could Pete. I was positive our evening customer base would double in no time at all. Harold would be in the bar as his shift started at four and ended at twelve although he seemed to live there. I knew it was because he really cared and was trying his best to hold things together for Brent and Kathy.
Over at the buffet tables, there were four men from an outside company working to get the tables back up to specs. Kathy must have called them in already. When the restaurant shuts down tonight a cleaning company would come in and high pressure steam blast those buffets cleaning them up before moving into the kitchen to do the same. They wouldn’t be able to get the job done before the morning crew moved in to start getting ready for the diners. Didn’t make any difference, we had to start someplace. It would have been nice to shut this place down for two weeks and renovate it. The monetary loss would be the dagger into the heart of this place. Hopefully we would be clean enough to pass the door shutting offenses by the time the news this place was under new management hit city hall. I was positive we would be swarmed by inspectors intent on shutting us down or keeping their bribe money flowing. We would be nailed with violations for sure. Just not the big ones. It would be the fire marshal who would take his best shot at us. With the range hoods and vents cleaned, the Halon system reinstalled, and all the fire sprinklers, fire alarms, updated or replaced, I was going to be ahead of him too. Of course he would tag us for some offense. They can always dream up something when they are pissed and nothing is wrong. I wasn’t going to enlighten them Brent’s lawyers would be following all the inspectors around. I would pass on the world of political games if it were possible. Sometimes it wasn’t. I missed the old days when killing someone solved the problem.
Harold was watching the crowd when I walked into the bar. He turned to look at me and his eyes kept getting bigger. Human nature when they see something they like, similar to a camera aperture lens, the eyes open up to take in more of what they are seeing. The more pleasing to the mind, the wider the eyes get. Harold’s eyes were pretty big.
“May I come into the club?” Was the question as I walked up to him.
“Do you have an ID?” Harold’s eyes were dancing in an amused way.
“Fraid not. You see, I was in an accident and it was lost.”
“Sorry ma’am, no ID, no admittance.” His face looked like it was going to split with his wide smile.
Time to get serious. “You need more help. Just you taking care of the restaurant entry and the front street entry isn’t going to hack it from now on. When word gets out the money from stealing is no longer flowing from this place the police will be looking to shut us down. They will be sending in underage kids who look like adults. Then they follow up by coming in for a sweep and checking IDs. We need three more checking IDs full time from now on. If those wanting in don’t look like they are forty or older make sure they have a valid ID. Do you have three people you can vouch for who would want the job? I don’t want to take a chance on open hiring”
“Seriously? You think it is going to get rough?” Harold had got serious himself.
“Harold, it is going to get more than rough. They will try every dirty trick in the book to get back at us.”
He was in deep thought for a few seconds. “I know three people who might work. I’ll call them and have them come in and see you for an interview.”
“I’ll talk to Kathy about this. Have them get in touch with her. I’ll try and sit in on the interviews.”
“Is it sexist or going to get me fired if I ask the new manager if she will marry me?” He got a Canary eating grin on his face.
“Of course, but I can’t fire you because I don’t have anyone to fill in who can do your job. Harold, all joking aside, I’m not going to date any employees. Park your trolling motor and accept we are friends. Please.”
“Nova, I’ll treasure your friendship until the day I die. Thank you for thinking of me that way.”
I gave him a hug before heading for the docks. “Eyes open, stay alert, storm clouds and rough seas ahead.”
Only two men were on the loading dock when I walked out. There was a pallet with canned goods, meat, and liquor cradled by a forklift. Surprise was the first expression on their faces. Then confidence as they collected their wits. They didn’t recognize me as I approached them. The first to figure it out was the man on the right. Shock and fear flashed on the face of the man. The other man was only seconds behind. In their minds I was the woman Bolt had roasted.
Fright flight was the overpowering smell coming off both as I stopped right in front of them. “Don’t’ run, you won’t get more than half a step before I take you down.”
“y,,,y…, dead!” The one with Dan on his nametag blurted out.
“Yeah, I heard about that. Sorry, that was my twin sister. I can tell you I’m really pissed you guys hired Bolt to kill her.
“We didn’t hire Bolt. He was brought in by our boss.”
“SHUT UP YOU STUPID IDIOT!” Rick was screaming at Dan.
Slipping my hand inside my purse, I gave the two men my ‘lunch is served’ smile. “Try and run I will kill you. When is the truck supposed to arrive you were going to put that pallet in?”
They hesitated as they looked at each other.
“If I shoot you or drive a heel into your hip. Your days of walking without a cane or walker is over. Shall I start a countdown? Three…”
“Should be here now.” Dan offered up.
“YOU STUPID ASS! SHE WOULDN’T SHOOT US!” Rick was screaming at Dan again.
I kicked him between the legs with the point of my shoe. If my aim was perfect and the blow delivered hard enough, his days of breeding offspring were over. The range of emotions on one’s face when things go completely out of the range of normal senses is fascinating.
He looked shocked, stunned, then sick. “ohhhhhhhhhhh”
When he doubled over to hold his family jewels, I brought both fists down on the back of his head driving him face first into the dock. Rick was through. My attention focused on Dan who was still ready to run. “Don’t. I’m faster than you and not a very nice person if I have to chase someone down. When that truck gets here, you act normal. Your friend drank too much and passed out if the driver asks. You invited me out here to keep both of you company. Because you guys killed my sister I’ll have no problem returning the favor to everyone who works here. You’ll be the first unless your buddy is dead. Then you’ll be second. Are we understanding one another?”
Speech was beyond Dan by that point as he nodded his head. Terrified was on his face along with the smell he was giving off. I was kinda surprised he hadn’t lost control of his bladder, he was that scared. Taking his arm I led him over to the pallet and found a bottle of vodka. Walking over to Rick I opened it and poured some on him.
Then I handed the bottle to Dan. “Take a big drink.”
Wide eyed, he took the bottle and tipped it up never taking his eyes off me. He did take a big long drink and was coughing and hacking when he held the bottle out.
Taking the bottle I reached over the pallet and poured most of it out on what was there. “When that driver arrives this is your story. Rick got drunk and passed out. I’m the slut you two invited to share a bottle after you two got to drinking. Do you know where this pallet is going?”
He slowly shook his head as he stared at me.
“Ask the driver where this crate it going. Get as much information as you can. I’d like to have an address and names. If I have to extract them from the driver it may get very bloody and pieces may get removed which can’t be reattached. If it comes to that I may feel you didn’t do your share which means you’ll be donating body parts also.”
“Do you understand the only reason you and your friend are still alive after killing my sister is I want everyone involved. Don’t piss me off any more than I already am.”
There was a wet spot spreading down Dan’s pant leg. “Bolt will kill us!”
“I have it on good authority Bolt left town for a more permanent opportunity. You better stop thinking of what Bolt would do and worry about what I will do if you screw this up.”
“Here, this is what you and your friend had been sampling. Take it and hold onto it. When that driver arrives this is going to look like a real party.”
Harold came out onto the dock carrying a shotgun. He gave the scene a quick glance and was about to say something.
I shook my head. “Hi, you must be Harold. My sister told me about you. Did she tell you about me? I’m Jodi, Nova’s twin sister. She told me what was going on. I stopped by to talk to her. These guys admitted she was killed.”
The range of emotion that played across Harold’s face was even broader than what Rick had expressed. Bless Harold’s experience and instinct as he immediately clued into what was happening. “Yeah, Shelly told me a girl who looked exactly like Nova had walked out to the docks and hadn’t returned. You’re Jodi? Yeah, your sister mentioned you although we didn’t get to talk much. She didn’t mention you were twins.”
He glanced at Rick still lying on the dock and then over at Dan. “You need me to watch these two or what are you planning?”
“I have it under control out here. I am waiting for more information to come driving in to pick up that pallet. Please tell those who need to know Nova’s sister is here. Whoever is in charge of this place can send out the security to take these guys into custody. AFTER, the driver and I have a talk.”
Harold mulled it over and then grinned. “Are you sure?”
“Oh yes, I’m definitely more than sure. They killed my sister. I’m going to find out every last name and person involved.”
Dan was losing his fear. “You have no idea who you’re messing with, you stupid broad. Your stupid sister was poking around where she didn’t belong. She was lucky Bolt killed her. If they don’t send Bolt after you, they have a couple more who are as bad. You’re toast you stupid bitch.”
He looked over at Harold. “I know who you are. You’re dead too you stupid fuck. I’ll tell them you know too much. You’ll end up like that stupid bitch Bolt turned into burnt roast.”
Harold looked shocked as his eyes flicked in my direction and then back to Dan. “Bring it on. I’m tired of this cat and mouse game.”
Motioning toward the doors, I hoped to get Harold reporting to the others what was going down. “I’ve got this. The driver is supposed to be here any minute. Be sure to tell everyone who needs to know, Nova’s twin Jodi is here.”
Dan was beginning to realize these stupid people had no idea who they were up against. “You’re so dead you stupid bitch.”
Pointing back toward the doors I shook my head. “You’re the idiot. Everything is on security tape.”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha. You haven’t got any idea how this works do you? When Eddie gets here he will call Joe and have him erase the memory out of those files. Joe doesn’t even have to come in and do it. He changed everything so all he has to do is phone it in. You’re so fucked. You can’t even get into his office to stop him. He changed all the locks on his office and the security system and all the security codes. He is the only one who can access security. The only time you people get to see what is going on is when he allows it.”
A grin spread across his face. “I hope they let me enjoy my time with you before they kill you.”
“Change of plans.” Stepping up beside Dan I brought my right elbow up and brought it forward as I spun into him. Connecting on his left temple his lights were out before he went flying over to bounce heavily on the dock.
“Kathy, that promise is crimping my style.” I headed for Joe’s security office. Steel door, in a steel frame bracketed in a concrete wall, it certainly lived up to its purpose. Removing my heels and lifting up the hem of my dress to my waist I thanked Brenda for the long slit in the side as I raised up my foot. Facing the door I spun in a circle, pulling my right foot up and back. Putting all my body mass against that door as I unleashed my kick, the door folded. Newton figured it out. Mass times velocity squared equals energy. All the energy I had generated was focused on one point.
Walking into the office I spotted the security storage drive encased in a steel box with a coil around it. “DAMN! Even if nothing else worked Joe could initiate a magnetic field and fry the records.” Yanking the box off the shelf I pulled all the wires out of it. Using my nails I sliced across the coil before I drove a nail into the lock and pried. The box popped open. Removing the memory chips I carried them outside and put them up over the doorframe leading back into the restaurant. If Joe had that office wired with an explosive I didn’t want the data to go up with the blast. Yes I was paranoid but being really careful had kept me alive this long.
A vehicle was slowing down out in the street. Grabbing a bottle of whiskey off the pallet I walked back over to where I was between Dan and Rick and plopped down cross legged on the dock.
A box van pulled into the parking lot and backed up to the dock after the passenger opened the rear cargo doors. The guy who had opened the doors stepped up on the dock as the driver was getting out. “Crap! These guys are going to be so busted for getting into the liquor. How long has this been going on?”
Holding up the bottle I sloshed the whiskey around, and slurred my speech. “hyyy guzzs, purty tum.” Then giggled like a little girl.
The driver stepped upon the dock. He pointed at me. “Who the hell are you?” He looked at the guy he brought with him. “The whore is a looker. We’ll toss her into the van along with the liquor. She can be a party favor for Wisdale.”
He pulled out his phone. “I’ll call Joe and tell him there is some security that needs to be erased.” He pushed a button. “Check the tapes at the Garden.”
Putting his hands on his hips he looked at the pallet. “This sucks. Hell, let’s get it loaded. Rick and Dan aren’t going to be any help.”
Flopping my arm around I motioned them over. “hhh guz, cus ear. Isss gots sum…, ten tuh err yu…, talls yu.”
Bless human curiosity because they both walked over to where I was. The driver was glaring at me. “What do you want, you stupid whore?”
“SURPRISE!” I rolled forward onto my hands, straightened out flat just above the concrete, spun in a circle with my legs straight out taking both of them off their feet. Jumping up I grabbed the passenger guy by his jacket. Yanking him a couple inches up off the deck I flat palmed his forehead driving it back into the dock. If he wasn’t out he would be so addled he would no longer be a threat.
The driver was struggling to his feet.
“Oh no you don’t.” I launched as I lowered my shoulder driving into his chest. We both went skidding across the dock. I’ll give him credit as he was instantly trying to get on top of the situation.
Though we were both down, he grabbed the front of my dress pulling me forward as he power drove his right fist into my face.
“That’s no way to treat a lady.” I pulled back my right arm and…, he was going to need some dental work. He was through.
Standing up I surveyed the scene. The four guys were still down and out. My dress and nylons, were ragged and torn like I had been in a fight. I giggled. “Well?” The blood running from my nose down to my chin had already stopped flowing.
Brent and Kathy along with Harold came running out of the club. All armed to the teeth. All three skidded to a halt as they looked over the docks. Shock plainly on all three faces.
Kathy was headed my direction her eyes getting bigger with each step. “Nova…”
I held up my hand. “I’m sorry, I’m Jodi, Nova’s twin. I can understand the confusion.”
Kathy was in front of me, reached up to touch my face. “No…, Jodi, are you okay? That looks painful.”
“Smeared my makeup is all. I don’t want anyone to think I have been damaged. In less than a half hour all the bruises and swelling will be gone. Mutant would be the first thing to come to mind. It was the reason I had to let them kill Nova and replace her with Jodi. Everyone on the dock saw Bolt kill Nova. Her return would scream mutant. The government would swarm this place with a thousand soldiers and police.”
Kathy picked at pieces of my dress. “You don’t plan on taking over tonight do you?”
“Yep. Although Brenda is going to kill me for ruining this dress. Sorry Kathy, one of the reasons I wear rough rugged clothes. They get tossed when they are ruined and the cost doesn’t hurt that much.”
Kathy nodded. “Okay, you said you had a couple dresses. They will have to do for tonight. What about your face?”
Looking at Brent I pointed to the guys on the dock. “Tie them up or whatever to secure them. Call your friends in that security company and get them over here to figure out what to do with this mess before calling the police. Document everything. Oh, that reminds me.”
I walked over to the door leading back into the club and took the memory chips off the top door frame. “Joe can or could erase everything by phone. I removed these from the security storage. I strongly suggest no one go into that room until a bomb sniffing dog has been brought in. It could be rigged. I didn’t smell anything but the old saying, safe rather than sorry works.”
Handing the chips to Brent, Kathy was pulling on my hand. “Let’s get up to the suite and get you cleaned up. You look like you’ve been in a fight. I don’t want you looking like that when the new help starts arriving in the morning. You would scare them off.”
That caused me to laugh. “HA! Kathy, I have been in a fight. God, did it feel good. I wish there had been a dozen more.”
Brent and Harold had been about to inspect the men. Their heads snapped up as they focused in on me. Both looked shocked until they started laughing. Harold took a step away from me. “Brent, if she comes our way, you’re on your own ol buddy. I’m running. If I can outrun you I might live.”
Brent shook his head. “I doubt I can outrun her. I’m going to fall over and play possum. She’ll forget me as a moving target is always more of a challenge. Guess who she will be chasing?”
Kathy closed her eyes as a smile spread across her face. “Our big brave men afraid of one little girl. Who is to protect us poor damsels in distress now? Where have all the honorable Knights of old gone?”
That polished off a perfect evening as both Kathy and I got to laughing along with the guys.
“Brent, collect phones, billfolds, and anything else with data on it or in it. I want to know who they were in contact with. The driver mentioned this was headed to a party for Wisdale. I’m betting his phone number is on the driver’s phone. Have your security guys go through those phones and find out all the other data on them.”
As my fangs came down, my tongue snaked out as I licked my lips. Brent and Kathy both looked like they were going to make a mess. Harold had already experienced that from me. He looked frightened but not scared to death. The fangs retracted. “I want names, addresses, this is going to stop. Payback is coming riding on the wings of Hell. I can’t pass retribution to all the evil in the world. This much I can.”
Kathy had dropped my hand and took a couple steps back from me, absolute terror on her face. The smell she was giving I was impressed she was holding it together. Holding my hands open and very slowly reaching for her, I took her hand before she fled. “Kathy, you, Brent, Harold, and the others are safe. I promise with my own life, I won’t let any harm come to any of you if at all possible within my power. I may be the scariest bitch on this messed up world, or I may not. My whole life has been trying to protect those who aren’t able to protect themselves. I’ve made mistakes which I deeply regret. Please trust me, I won’t hurt you even if you try to kill me.”
Kathy was shaking as she closed in and hugged me. “I do trust you, Nov…, Jodi. Let’s go see about getting you cleaned up. I think I need to change panties.”
Courage I had met in abundance in all the years I had lived. Kathy’s would be close to the top of them all. I had seen Knights with less courage. Squeezing her in a hug and then backing away to give her some space I took her hand to lead her to the suite. “I’m going to try out that NASA shower stall and see what it can do.”
Kathy had stopped shaking as she looked confused. “NASA shower…, oh, all the controls? Try the rain. Have you ever soaped down and cleaned up in the rain? It’s amazing.”
“Well…, yes I have. Many times but it was Mother Nature’s rain and I couldn’t adjust the temperature of the water although I don’t need to.”
By this time we were headed up the stairs. “What do you mean you don’t need to?”
“This body can stand a whole lot in temperature extremes without being too uncomfortable. When Orden’s army came after me I didn’t have a weapon. I was close to a frozen lake. Thought I could make it across. The men would break the ice if they tried. My plan didn’t work out the way I intended. They followed, the ice broke, and we all went in.”
She opened the door and led me into the apartment. “You made it to the shore because here you are.”
“Actually yes after thirty eight minutes under the ice. There was an under current and I was swept to the end of the lake.”
She stopped, blinked and digested that info before she turned in my direction. “Truly?”
“I’m going to try out that shower. Hon, I’m not lesbian, bisexual, or even sexual. I have bathed with prince and princesses, warriors, and those of the lower caste. When water is at a premium one doesn’t question who gets in the pool with them. Would you care to join me in the shower? I have been told more than a few times, I am the best bath mistress one could ever experience in any lifetime.” Yes I was that good but there was a hidden agenda. I wanted Kathy to see me as human not as some monster. There is more than one’s soul bared when not holding weapons or covered in any artificial covering.
Once more Kathy looked shocked, than amused, and finally curious as the emotions played over her face and the scent escaped from her body. She was timidly cautious as she nodded in agreement and started unbuttoning her blouse.
Pulling off what was left of my shredded pantyhose and putting all the jewelry on the vanity, I stepped into the shower still dressed. I adjusted the water temp before turning the spray to rain. “One of us has to be first.”
Everything adjusted and still in the shower, I was removing the torn and now thoroughly soaked dress I had only worn for a few hours. Holding it up, I gave it the once over. “Not too bad. It can be mended.” Of course it was a total disaster.
Kathy’s eyes opened up before she got the joke. She started laughing as she shook her head and slid out of her skirt and panties. “YOU ARE IMPOSSIBLE!”
Pointing to the washcloths and soap before she stepped into the shower, I frowned. “I beg your pardon?” And then giggled.
There are places on one’s body which are erogenous zones which can only be stimulated by an outside influence. One can not tickle one’s self. This is the same concept. With the years I have lived and learned from those who were masters of the art, I was a master myself. Kathy was emotionally spent as I carried her from the shower, grabbed a towel, laid her on the bed, and gently kissed her on the lips. It was as far as I would go. I was neither a man nor a lesbian to satisfy her desires from this point on.
After covering her with a bathrobe I was headed for my duffel bag. “Get some rest hon. The temp help will be here at four tonight. I’ll come back and wake you an hour before. I’m sorry but your help is needed to guide some of them in their respective jobs.”
“No, I’ll get dressed.” Her eyelids were fluttering. She closed them and was asleep.
I didn’t care what anyone thought as I pulled on a sweat top, jeans, and sneakers. The next couple days would be rough as we guided the temp help. I wasn’t standing around in a dress and heels while I oversaw getting this club back on its feet. Spencer, Ken, and a couple other guys I figured were from the same security company were on the docks with Brent and Harold when I returned. The four men I fought with were tied up with zip ties.
“Okay, I’m not sure how much the police are involved in this. I want these four to be stored away for the rest of the day. They can be locked up in the utility closet or back in their van, unless someone has a better idea? When the others start clocking in at five, I don’t want questions raised about these four. I want names of everyone who shows up tomorrow. Some have been clocking in without showing up via courtesy of their buddies. I want names. No one, and I mean absolutely no one besides the kitchen help, the waitresses, and those in the bar who Harold personally will vouch for are to be let in. They will be trying to sabotage the club once they find out they have been fired.”
“We may have a week of reprieve before the retaliation begins from the inspectors and police. I hope we do but doubt it. Three days probably. This place must be brought up to all codes before then. If they shut us down it is over for everyone. It will take an act of congress to get the permits to open again and that will never happen. When all the temp help comes tomorrow it will be a learning experience for many. They can be told what to do but knowing is a different matter. Clean, fix, repair is the goal. This place must sparkle like a new diamond and it must be done in days, not weeks nor months.”
I pointed at Brent and Harold. “You two go get a couple hours sleep. Kathy is resting right now. I’ll come get you at three. If you thought it was a grind on some of those days you passed out in the apartment when you couldn’t make it home? You haven’t experienced real pain yet.”
Spencer, Ken and the other two men got my attention. “How fresh are you guys? Your job is going to be tough keeping the troublemakers out of the club. Let one slip by and they may be able to sink us. We start at five and close a little after twelve. That is nineteen hours for those who are counting. Can you call in backup for security?”
“We’re good. We can call in as much help as needed when needed. How do you want us positioned?” Spencer had his attention on me instead of Brent.
“The rest of the night until four is mine. I want everyone to get what rest they can. There is a bed, couch, chairs, in the suite if you don’t need to go home. Brent can show you. Kathy is occupying one of those beds. In the morning I need Brent, Kathy here to help position and guide the temp help which is supposed to start showing up. Your jobs start at five when those we are letting go start showing up. Eight come to work at that time. Four come to work at six. Two come to work at eight. That is it until the evening crew start coming to work at four. No one and I mean absolutely no one is to be allowed past the docks. Your job will also include taking names of all those who make deliveries and what company they work for. Make of vehicle, time they arrive, tag numbers, registration, the whole damn works. Some or all of those drivers are working in conjunction with the dock workers. It wouldn’t surprise me if they weren’t doing the same thing to other clubs. In fact it would surprise me if they weren’t. This is going to stop.”
Looking around I focused in on Brent. “From now until the time I’m gone again, this club belongs to ME! I’ll leave you a clean business. I need to know. Are you staying?”
He nodded in agreement. “The only part I don’t like is you said, until I’m gone again. I understand why you must. I want a promise from you in return. Don’t ever forget us.”
Walking over to Brent I pulled him into a reluctant hug. Of course he was still a little afraid of me. It was a natural self preservation thing. “I’ll never forget all those I have met and will met here. Did I tell you I have a photographic memory? It’s one of the extra curses that came with this damn body.”
With that he pulled me in to an honest hug. “Nov… Jodi, you’re the scariest, most amazing person I have ever met. And the most beautiful. I don’t have photographic memory but I’ll never forget you either.”
Pushing him back I almost laughed. “Liar, you think Kathy is the prettiest woman you ever met. I’ll agree with you, she’s a real beauty. Now go, take a break, I’ll need you in a few hours to bring this all together.”
“What about you? You need to rest too.”
“Hon, I can and have gone for weeks without sleeping or resting.” I motioned to the others. “All of you, get some time out because I’m going to work your butts off for the next couple weeks. You’ll hate me before this ship is righted and back on an even keel.”
Spencer pointed at the four guys still on the docks.
“My responsibility. I’ll take care of them.” I licked my lips. “They killed my sister or were part of those who did. I will handle this.”
One of them puddled in his pants. They all looked scared silly. “Don’t leave us with that crazy bitch!” She’s not right!”
Spencer shook his head as he and the others started to leave the dock. “Your mistake not ours.”
“WAIT!” “CALL THE POLICE!” “DON’T LEAVE US!” “HELP, HELP!”
A minute later it was just them and me. I held my hands in front and wiped them together. “Killed my sister. Where’s Bolt now guys? Not so brave when you don’t have a mutant guarding your ass.”
Of course the four guys were focused on me as they were screaming help. They didn’t notice the woman who came up on the dock behind them. “Waited until the others left. Didn’t want to get into too many open secrets. How you want to handle this?”
As best they could from their position, their heads snapped around to take a look at who came up behind them. Even in their state of mind and duress they could appreciate the exotic beauty with the sexy goddess voice they were now staring at.
“I’ll toss them into the van. Can you make them disappear for a week? Or maybe permanently if necessary?” I honestly believe the exotic beauty was forgotten at that exact instant when they understood what was implied.
Crystal smiled a feral grin that was ungodly sexy on such a beautiful woman. If I ever was to love someone it would be her. “I can do that. Can I play with them while they are…, still alive?”
OMG! The stink that arose from the four guys at that moment was nauseating. It wasn’t only pheromones either. Honestly, it took supreme effort to not bust out laughing my unhuh off at that moment. I don’t think they appreciated the thought someone who looked like a goddess was going to kill them? Of course she probably wouldn’t but they didn’t know that.
“Eeeewwwwuuuu. Look what you have done. Now I have to handle that to toss them into the van.”
Crystal did laugh. “You complain? I have to drive the van with ‘that’ in the back.”
Picking the first one up I carried him over to the van and actually tossed him in not caring how many bruises or what damage occurred. “Your fault, you created it, deal with it.”
“Okay, this is the last time. We are even now. I don’t owe you any more favors so don’t ever call me again.” She pulled up her hoodie and pulled down a realistic looking old hag looking mask over her face.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s the same thing you said the last two thousand times.” I finished with the last guy. ”Pull that van forward, I’ll shut the cargo doors.”
“It’s been four thousand times but who’s counting? Love you hon. I gave some of your friends a heads up. Don’t look surprised when some of those temps you wanted show up.” She got in the van and pulled forward so I could close the doors.
Watching her leave the parking lot I was wishing she hadn’t done that. If there was a sensitive who could sense a mutant it might all might go sideways with ten thousand government guys swarming us. I’d ask Spenser as soon as possible if he thought there might be anyone besides me? Or again, maybe not. Spencer was only guessing I was a sensitive. The less anyone knows the better. Even among those I trusted.
It was fate I had first found Crystal. Back in fourteen ninety eight I was in London on one of my ‘hunting trips’. Large cities always provided plenty of game. London at that time was crime ridden with a pick and choose buffet. The open markets of the East End and Whitechapel, were the haunts of where Jack the Ripper would show up centuries later. The lowlife were providing an especially rich target area. I was hoping to pull in something more than thieves as I strolled the streets dressed as a woman of the evening. My problem was, women and men back then were what I would consider diminutive. They weren’t very tall. Even dressed as a man I was head and shoulders above most of them. As a woman I was positively intimidating, all six foot one of me.
“She’s mine.” “I saw her first. I get her first.” “She is enough for all of us. Don’t mess her up too bad. I don’t want bloody seconds.” “Mates, you ever see any one as beautiful as that?” “mmmm… mmmmm”
That last sound was coming from a woman who was gagged. Walking down the alley I came to building where there were sounds of clothes being ripped off. The door was bolted from the inside when I lifted the latch to push it open. All the underskirts I had on were going to be a problem. Yanking them down and off ripped the ties which held them on. I spun, loaded my kick, and my foot shattered the door. The three men weren’t prepared. Their swords and their knives were on the floor. One of them was totally naked. The other two were in various stages of undress. The woman tied and gagged lying on the straw had most of her clothes ripped off. The grins and smiles and the thought of lust and pleasure slowly drained from the men’s faces after they turned to see who had interrupted their evening of ravishing the beauty on the straw.
“I’m sorry, did I interrupt your fun?” Less than a heartbeat I was on them. The one who was naked had his throat ripped open. The second one who had his pants down around his legs hindering any defense he might have been able to mount had his neck broken. The third one was bending down to pick up a weapon had his spinal cord severed at the neck. The only thing that disgusted me was none of them were a challenge. This wasn’t the entertainment I had been looking for. Oh well…
Kneeling down on the floor I gave the woman a closer look. She was mutant. I could sense that much. Even in her disarrayed state she was also a beauty beyond anyone I had ever seen before. “I’m going to remove your gag and your bonds. You scream and I’ll be obligated to knock you senseless. Do you understand?”
Her eyes were focused on mine as she nodded in agreement. Slicing through the gag with my fingernail, I tossed it to the side. She held her tongue as she stared at me. Lifting up her hands, I sliced through the ropes around her wrists. The ropes on her ankles were last.
She didn’t bolt but lay there looking up at me. Studying me from the look in her eyes.
It caused me to laugh. “You know, you’re very distracting undressed like that. Do you think you can find something to cover up with? Maybe one of these guys clothes since they seem to have lost any need for them?”
She pushed up off the floor and stood back still studying me. “I’ve heard stories about you. I didn’t believe them thinking they were stories spun in the minds of men. You’re the Huntress.”
“And you are?” I waited feasting my eyes on this unbelievably beautiful creature before me.
She gave a slight curtsey, which was funny since she was totally naked. “Adressa Lonma, at your service, Huntress. I am a courier, and spy for Count deRoma.”
“Ahh, so you can sense men’s thoughts or emotions as your gift.” I motioned to the men on the floor. “Why didn’t you sense these miscreants?”
Shaking her head she reached down and was trying to remove the clothes off the man who wasn’t all bloody. The one with the broken neck. “I sensed two at the end of the alley and turned to leave. The third one stepped in front of me with a sword. He wasn’t a part of the other two until that time. Nor did he have any thought of abducting me until that instant. He was like ten thousand other minds in the background until then. The first two decided they would share the spoils. With swords pointed at me I had no opportunity to escape. Although, before you interrupted them I was beginning to regret I hadn’t chosen death instead.”
I helped her remove the man’s clothes. When she was dressed she was still amazing. Ratty clothes only emphasized her ungodly beauty. She was a study in contrast. She put her hands on her hips and studied me. “You’re not there. You give off no mind thoughts. The only way I know you are there is when I look at you.”
That caused me to smile. “It’s a good thing you can’t read my mind. Looking at you I see the most beautiful creature I ever had the pleasure of seeing with these old eyes. If I was into women, those guys on the floor would have been the least of your worries.”
She laughed and curtseyed. “Looking at you, that wouldn’t have been my worry. I don’t have the same inhibitions. I find women as sexually stimulating as I do men. She was playing with the leather ties on her shirt. Have you ever tried having sex with a woman?”
“You were almost raped and now you’re thinking of enjoying sex on that same bed of hay?”
She laughed. “I use all the resources and every opportunity that is available as it comes along. Tell me you don’t do the same thing in your own way as a hunter.”
“You’re right.” I pointed to her shredded clothes. “Take it with you. I don’t want the authorities to tie a woman into these deaths. Leave the ropes and the gag. They can guess there was a victim who escaped.”
At that time, I hadn’t realized besides reading people’s minds and emotions, she was also an enchantress. She could literally seduce people’s minds. A couple hundred years later I still wondered how she was able to get past my own defenses if she couldn’t sense my mind? Possibly she didn’t need to as I sensed the truth in her? An enigma which would never be answered.
Time to focus on the problems we would be facing today. Four o’clock wasn’t that far away now. I headed to maintenance to find a drill and screws. The door I destroyed to the security office needed repair to keep the curious and devious out. I could screw it shut for now. Kathy could call in repairmen to fix it properly tomorrow along with a locksmith. Even if all those we knew about were fired, there could be others I hadn’t caught. It wouldn’t take much to sabotage the place and have the health or fire inspectors shut us down. The food storage rooms needed to be secured along with the walk in freezers and coolers. Rat droppings in any of those places would be cause to close us up. Although rat droppings in the freezer or cooler would be impossible and never happen normally, I bet the health inspector wouldn’t hesitate to condemn us. I would also make sure we had spare bottles of Halon handy just in case. Pulling the release on one and having the fire marshal walk in ten minutes later finding an empty fire extinguisher would shut us down due to fire code violations. An ice pick into one of those flexible gas lines in the kitchen, an empty Halon bottle, and they literally could blow the kitchen off the map.
Was I paranoid? Damn betchu I was. Whether it was bribe money, crooks or taxes, and politicians, they hated to give up what they never worked for as they bled others of their labors. At three thirty I woke the others. Temps would start arriving at four. We needed to assign jobs and guide them when necessary. Today, all day, and for the rest of the week it was going to be brutal crunch days.
In the dinning room I gathered all of them around. “Kathy, your job is going to be those assigned to cleaning and extra help in the dinning room, kitchen, and keep an eye on the cash flow in the restaurant. That is the one item I haven’t been able to check as there just wasn’t enough time.
Harold, bar room. Even though that is your normal area check, the IDs with a fine tooth comb. They will be testing us trying to get in underage kids. Probably won’t start until this afternoon, as it will take them that long to get reorganized after we fire their friends. Even if you’ve checked them, if they look suspicious to Ben have him check them again. I’ve seen them switch IDs after they have gained entrance and give their fake ID to their partner. When the police come in and check they have an underage ID.
Brent, you, Spencer, Ken and the two extra men cover the docks, storage rooms, and the walk in coolers. The dock is where the most hell is going to be raised. Everyone there gets fired. If they weren’t in on the stealing, they were silently watching it happen. If they didn’t know it was happening they are too stupid to be working here.
Brent opened his mouth. I pointed at him. “Not now until I have this place cleaned up and turn it back over to you and Kathy. Until then, I’m boss and there is no favoritism around here. You think you have friends out there I may be unfair to? Tough! Fire me. I’m not leaving until I’m finished here. Your job is to make sure all those companies and deliveries are what are supposed to be delivered and the right amount is being delivered of the right goods. Your other job is to write checks as necessary if they are above Kathy’s pay grade. Otherwise Kathy takes care of that job until we get an accountant familiar with how the financials operate in this club.”
“You have good people working here who depend on their jobs in this place to provide them a living. You owe it to them if not yourself to make sure they still have the lights on and food on the table a month from now. You need those people more than ever now. Don’t lose their trust or you will be cooking meals and waiting tables all by yourself. Try and visualize that in your mind as this whole damn mess gets to you and you want to run screaming out the door.”
A few people were starting to gather outside around the front door. “People, the show is about to begin. There will be others at the back by the docks. Let’s let them in. Ask them what they have done pertaining to food service and get them assigned to where they need to be and what they will be doing for the next…, possibly eighteen hours. Some of them we will need to keep until closing time.”
Brent and Kathy still looked kind of shell shocked. Didn’t they figure out all the little details to make this possible? What did they think? Call in temp help and everything would work out? I knew they weren’t that dumb but it was obvious this was overwhelming both of them to a small degree.
I clapped my hands together to break up their lost thoughts. “People NOW! Get moving or I send you home.” Yeah, like that would ever happen but it worked. They did get moving.
Pete showed up at four and brought all his kitchen help in with him. He told me he planned on getting a jump on the problems that would possibly arise today. It didn’t really surprise me as I figured Pete would get his act together if he got the chance. Now this place would find out what a real chef could do.
I led them all back into the kitchen. “Okay people, listen up. Pete is everyone’s boss in this kitchen. You work for him. I’m the Hell that will descend on you if you aren’t doing your job and Pete hasn’t straightened you out. There will be NO dishes, pans, or anything that food is served in, on, or handled by, on the floor from this day forward. You do and you’re fired. There are no second chances. Food dropped does not go back into the food chain. It is garbage if it touches the floor or any place where food is not prepared. Pots, cutlery, dishes, anything food is served on or cooked in will be spotlessly clean if food isn’t in it or on it. Again, no allowances given. If you’re assigned KP and those pots don’t come back clean, you’re fired. Forks are notorious for not always coming clean out of the dishwasher. Look at every eating utensil before placing it for the waitresses to pick up and put out on the tables. Send the dirty ones back through the dishwasher. I hear any complaints from the customers about dirty forks and Hell will come into this kitchen. I will find out who wasn’t doing their job, they won’t have to worry about washing one more fork in this club, ever again.”
“Finally, before Hell descends on this kitchen make sure you to do your jobs. Make sure the food looks fresh and there is no spoilage on the vegetables or the meats. Any doubt, toss it. You’re the ones handling all that food, look it over carefully as you do your job. The health inspectors are going to descend on us like locusts and they will be picking this place apart. Don’t sweat the inspectors, worry about Hell. If you get us shut down because you screwed up, you’ll wish you had never been born.”
Looking over at Pete I gave him a smile. “Run a tight ship, Master Chef. It’s all yours.”
He looked over his help. “Alright, you heard, Hell. Make sure you follow her rules so Hell doesn’t have a reason to send all of us home. Let’s get going. We have rolls, pies, and cakes we need to get started. Sandra, get the ovens set to three fifty temp. Eldon, Givens said he thought there were weevils in that bag of flour from Southern Mills. Check it out. Open a fresh sack from Becket Mills if you find any, even if it’s only one.”
Leaving the kitchen to Pete I knew he would keep it up to standards now. He had been given a fresh start and wasn’t going to waste it. It was closing in on five. The docks would be where it got the roughest. I hoped those guys hadn’t got wind of what was going to happen and bring some rogue mutant along with them. There were a few out there I couldn’t handle. One Bolt was enough to last a lifetime and he was the second one I had met. I was lucky both times. I couldn’t count on luck saving my worthless hide forever.
Four men got out of a blue Chevy sedan in the parking lot and headed to the docks, wondering who all the people already there were? Standing at the steps Spencer met them at the edge of the dock. He held out his hand for them to stop. “Security, what’s your names?”
“Fuck you, you’re no security I’ve ever seen before. Get out of my way.” The big tall guy started up the steps.
I was positive in his line of work Spencer had got into a few fights. I wasn’t too sure he and the others were capable of handling the four men who looked like fighting was a past time. When I walked out onto the docks the guys all got big eyed. “I’m Jodi, Nova’s twin sister. I have been looking for her. Have any of you men seen her?”
“Fuck bitch, you look just like her.” The tall guy spit out.
“That answers my question doesn’t it? You have seen her. Any idea where she might be? We were supposed to meet here this morning. I’ve been hearing rumors she left yesterday.”
Before they responded, a well designed, over endowed, petite, long haired, honey blonde walked over and sat down on the edge of the dock. I had sensed her earlier and was hoping she was assigned to the kitchen, bar, dining room or possibly clean up. Nope, not my luck. I was praying these four guys didn’t do anything stupid, such as bulldoze past Spencer. Kitcha might have been petite, she loved a brawl more than anyone I had ever met. She was also a dirty fighter. These four could end up with broken arms, legs, fingers, missing an eye, teeth, ear, and handfuls of hair. She seldom killed anyone but she sure messed them up where a hospital visit was necessary. Possibly long term. Personally I thought she was psycho. But then who am I to be calling names?
“Hey guys, I wanna play.” Oh yeah, she also had that breathless bedroom voice most guys talk about but never hear themselves.
All the guys turned to look at her. “Say cheese.” She held up a camera and took a half dozen rapid pictures of the four men.
Surprise, disgust, and then mean ran across the talk guy’s face. “Give me that camera, blonde.”
Oh shit, this was going south in a big hurry. I stepped up beside Spencer. “Mister, leave it alone. You’re in an open space. She has every right to take pictures of whatever or whoever she wants.”
“Not of me she doesn’t. Give me that camera.” He was reaching for her.
Jumping down off the dock I landed between Kitcha and him. “Back off.”
He pulled back to slug me. Leaning back, his swing missed my face. Grabbing his arm, I pulled and twisted it at the same time. He stumbled forward off balance. Reaching up behind his head I pushed his forehead into the dock. It wasn’t hard but I wasn’t easy either. He would be addled and have a big pump knot on his forehead. He sat down on his butt holding his head, trying to clear it.
Glancing behind me Kitcha was already off the dock ready to turn the other three into mangled bodies. “NO! NOT HERE!”
“I wanted to play.” She pouted.
“Another time.”
The other three looked like they were ready to mix it up with two women. Spencer, Ken, and the other two men looked ready to come off the docks. “EVERYONE STOP!” I was surprised when everyone did stop.
“Guys, you have been warned. As of yesterday, you were terminated. You are no longer allowed to be on the property of Eve’s Hanging Garden Club. Your paycheck will be mailed to you in two weeks if you give me your names.”
“You can’t fire us.” One of the three was glaring daggers at me.
“I didn’t Brent did. I’m enforcing the decision since I’m the new manager. If you would like to dispute that decision…, here I am.” I motioned to Spencer. “Guys, stay out of this. Kitcha, you too.”
More vehicles had pulled in while we were engaged. There were nine more men crowded around trying to figure out what was up? What the hell was going on? I strongly suspected one of the men who first showed up texted a message which got passed around. While stupid was trying to make up his mind, I shouted to the others. “You have been fired as of yesterday. You no longer work here. Your last paycheck will be mailed to you in two weeks. Spencer has a list of names on his clipboard. Give him your name, address, and go home. Those names not checked means that person wasn’t showing up for work. No paycheck will be mailed out to them.”
Most of them realized their days of scamming the club was at an end and a last paycheck might be necessary. They started lining up to give Spencer their names. The tall guy had got over his bruising. He and his three hard case friends were still thinking about beating the holy shit out of the rest of us just on principle. After all, they owned the dock up until this morning.
Turning my head part way toward Kitcha as I kept my eyes on the four guys, I asked. “How many of them do you want for yourself?”
Her eyes gleamed as she rubbed her hands together. “All of them.”
It was double funny because by the smirk on their faces, the four thought it was a joke. A petite five four girl couldn’t possibly harm one much less all four. They turned a mutant loose on me, turn about would be fair. Kitcha might have been small, she could throw a harder punch than any of these guys ever could. She was also lightning fast, stronger than a bear, and almost indestructible. Toss re-gen in her bio just for fun. I was positive I never wanted to get tangled up with her. The government had a name for those who had similar abilities, although each one in that class had different strengths and abilities. They called them Super Nova Mutants. They could be male, female, petite like Kitcha or more like the huge, hulking six foot six muscle bound guy. It was human nature to believe all Super Nova Mutants were the six foot something masculine guy. Those like Kitcha weren’t supposed to be a part of that mutant gene.
They were still trying to decide if they wanted to fight or not when Joe Bryant pulled into the parking lot. He looked shocked to see the woman Bolt had killed standing on the dock. He stared for over a minute before walking up to where he was next to the four. “What is all this?”
“Everyone has been laid off. Several men were caught stealing last night along with others the past several days.” I motioned toward the men still giving Spencer names.
“What do you mean laid off? Who said we were laid off? I’m security at this place. No one has been stealing anything around here.” Joe pulled out his phone and started punching numbers. He looked puzzled and started punching more numbers.
I could only guess he was trying access the security system and it wasn’t responding. An involuntary smile touched my lips. “Mr. Bryan if you wish to receive a final paycheck I suggest you give Spencer your name. And then remove yourself from this property and do NOT come back.”
He started up the stairs to the dock. “I have personal things in my office and I WILL retrieve them as they are mine.”
The first four took that as a go and started up behind him. Kitcha was instantly in front of Joe. When he reached the top step she pushed up and back on his chest. He went over backwards into the guy behind him which caused the second man to fall into the one behind him. Until all five were lying on the ground in a pile.
She turned her head and gave me the innocent little girl look, which she had down to a science. “I think they slipped.”
They were untangling themselves. Joe and the others stood up. “Why you little bitch. I’m gonna kill you.”
‘Oh shit! Wrong word’. I knew Kitcha would go postal on them if they attacked her. Shoving her back, I stepped out in front of her. “Guys let it go. You were warned. If you have personal items here you will be allowed to collect it at a later date. Call back after this week and a time can be set up. You will be escorted on and off the property. If you persist in escalating this situation someone is going to get hurt.”
Pointing to one of the security cameras I knew they hadn’t been put back online yet. Joe didn’t know that. I figured the others were too dumb to realize it either. “I believe we all know how those things work, or don’t work. They seem to show only what the operator wants them to.” Of course it was a hint to the guys we could make those cameras show anything we wanted them to with proper editing.
They had stopped and were looking at the camera. The tall guy glanced at Joe. “Do something and I’ll kill the bitches.”
“Shut up, I can’t. They changed the codes and have me locked out.” Joe was ready to admit defeat in this round.
He glared at me for several long seconds. “I thought Bolt killed you. You won’t live past a second time. You are so dead.”
“Are you admitting Bolt killed my sister?” I was hoping his ego would nail the coffin shut on them admitting to being an accessory to murder.
He looked doubtful. “Sister? That other bitch was your sister? I guess Bolt can come back and get a two fer.”
Nailed it shut. These guys were living on borrowed time as far as I was concerned. Kitcha wasn’t a serious killer, I was. My problem, there were so damn many of them I was going to need a disposal service to get rid of the bodies afterwards. “Tell this Bolt guy I’ll be waiting.”
They all turned and were walking back to their vehicles. Tall guy leaned over toward Joe at the car thinking they were out of hearing range. “She’ll be toast is what she’ll be. Call Jack and have him contact Bolt. Kill everyone on the dock, none of our men are there now.”
Okay guys this gets better and better. I now have a Jack somebody to look up. If a Jack shows up on any of those cell phones we have been collecting, I am going to do a little midnight calling. I love my job!
Spencer had taken the last name and ran down the list. “Not everyone showed up for work. There are ten names missing counting the five who just left without signing in.”
“I guessed as much. I’m betting those missing five are ghost employees with someone clocking in more than their own name and drawing a double paycheck. How in the hell did this place get in such bad shape?” I pointed to the security camera. “Get a crew on that immediately. You can’t use the system that was here. I ripped it apart last night. It was locked up. I figured Joe would be erasing data as soon as he showed up. He can’t now of course. I destroyed the system to get to the drives.”
“Give Kitcha a list of those names you collected.” A smile spread across her face as I turned to look at her. “They are all yours as long as it isn’t here and it doesn’t lead back to this place. Be discreet.”
“Nova…? Jodi?” Spencer was looking from Kitcha to me and back.
I flashed him a predator smile as I licked my lips. “You of all people should know not to underestimate or try and judge what you are looking at.”
Kitcha gave him an innocent little girl smile. Then she capped it with a giggle as she batted her eyelashes, blushed, turned her head away, and looked back at him coyly out of the corner of her eyes. Then she turned her head to look straight at him. The smile disappeared, her eyes turned blood red, her pupils became vertical slits, her lips pulled back to expose upper and lower fangs. She licked her lips. “Nova said I could play with them.”
“Oh My God!” Spencer stared. He had heard the name they called those like her. He had also heard the stories told about them. Up until now he had only met one predator and she was so kind and loving it was hard to think of Jenna as such. Now here on the dock were two, Nova and Kitcha. Did they hunt in packs? Were there more now? Kitcha wasn’t a Huntress. There was no real definition of them but as a catch all phrase they were called Demons. Kitcha gave off vibes she was well seasoned, the same as Nova.
“tweet” I gave a whistle to get everyone’s attention. “I didn’t invite Kitcha here but I’m glad she came. I probably have heard all the same tales as all of you have, about those like her. She’s really a sweetheart. As far as I know she has never hurt anyone she likes. She looks after those she considers a friend. If any of you men can get up the courage to ask her for a date, you are likely to find she is one of the funniest dates you ever had. I have double dated with her and I gotta warn you, don’t take her where any brawls are likely to happen. She would be in the thick of it before you could stop her.”
Kitcha put her finger up to her check and smiled that little girl innocent smile she did so well. “awwww”
I clapped my hands. “Okay, people, we are on limited time from here on out until we get past all those who wish to shut us down. Clean up this place. Empty shipping pallets get stacked on the edge of the dock. The maintenance closet is a bloody mess. Take everything out of it, take a high pressure steam cleaner and hose it down. Lots of elbow grease and make it sparkle. New supplies, mops, brooms, rags, paint, brushes, rollers, drop cloths, everything needed to get this place clean is…,”
I looked at Spencer. “What time is it? I seem to have misplaced my watch.”
He glanced at his wrist. “Ten after five.”
“Okay, delivery of high pressure washers, steam cleaners, cleaning gear, should be here about now. We can start by dragging everything not nailed down over to the edge of the dock. This place is going to start looking new before we are finished. When it’s clean it gets a new coat of paint. A professional crew is coming in to do the majority of that tomorrow evening.”
“I need to check and see how they are coming on the walk in and the other coolers. Where are those two refers which were supposed to be here? Spencer, there are two semis which are supposed to provide refrigerated trailers while we clean up the coolers. Have them back up to the docks when they show up so we can start moving the food from the coolers to the trucks. There will be two more semis which are empty. They will be for all the stock in the storage rooms.”
I was headed for the kitchen when something else came to me. I turned back to Kitcha. “A semi with motorized…, I guess you could call them golf carts with a bed. They are for moving things and will fit in the hallways. You direct their operations. Utilize them the best you can. Assign one each to the walk in freezer and walk in refrigerator to move everything from there to the semis when they get here. The kitchen will need one assigned to it to fetch when the cooks need something from the semis after everything gets moved.”
“I hope this works. It has to work. This place has to look brand new and fresh to get by the inspections coming at us.” I headed to the kitchens wishing all the equipment and supplies we needed were already in the trucks and backed up to the dock.
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Closing in on eight o’clock, trucks were arriving. Other personnel who worked at the club and were assigned to clock in at eight were told to go home. Spencer and Ken were busier than hell tracking delivery trucks and drivers. Some delivery trucks were no show which I suspected had been alerted by now things had changed at the club. They didn’t want to get caught delivering and taking it out again. Provided the goods were in their trucks to start with. Some of those had to be nothing more than invoices stating a delivery which wasn’t even on the truck. God what a mess!
=============================
Standing next to Kathy in the dinning room with the morning shift waitresses, she introduced me. “Ladies, this tall girl standing next to me is Jodi our new manager. She has been hired to keep this place open. As many of you may have heard or guessed we had problems with inventory shrinkage among other things.”
Dorothy leaned over toward Laura, “Inventory shrinkage?”
“Stealing.” Laura responded.
Dorothy put her hand up to her mouth. “Oh! Yeah, that fits.”
Kathy nodded and continued. “As I was saying, Jodi is here to find and fix our problems. She informed Brent earlier she is the boss. I can assure you, Brent didn’t question that statement. I think he was intimidated by her height. She’s taller than him.”
A couple of the women laughed.
Kathy turned to look at me. “Jodi, the Garden Club is yours. Make us proud.”
I looked over the gathering. Marco was there with there with the waitresses. “Ladies, Marco, I’m the new manager of this establishment. There are no new rules but the ones you should have been following from day one. Everyone smile and be extra pleasant around the guests. Bring your best beauty to the job. Want to complain looking pretty to keep your job is discrimination? Leave now and go file your complaint with the labor relations board.”
“You’re wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.” Came from the back.
“Yes I am, JoAnn. The reason is, I have been working my unhuh off on the dock, the kitchen, and in the storage rooms.” I knew I was dirty and grimy. “As soon as this place comes together I will be wearing a dress and heels everyday I’m not down on my hands and knees scrubbing underneath equipment, cleaning out the grease traps, or rodding the sewer lines, I will try to look my best. Although I could wear a dress and heels for those jobs if it was necessary. I will also be in here waitressing from time to time.”
I held up my hand before the protests started. “Those whose tables I wait on won’t miss their tips. They will still belong to the waitress whose table I happen to serve. I will take over Marco’s job from time to time. He gets to keep the tips he missed also.”
That got a few chuckles from a couple of them. At the moment most of the girls were not happy campers getting lectured to by a new manager who looked like anything but management.
“Ladies, this is an upscale restaurant, club. Whether you like it or not, you are part of the picture this restaurant projects. You will be pleasant and look your best to every customer who enters the door. Smile whether you feel like it or not. Do not come to work looking like something the cat dragged in. I notice some of you didn’t put any effort into putting your best face on this morning. Maybe you don’t know how. That will change. Every waitress will be sent to Joan’s Beauty Parlor before the week is up. It will part of your work schedule. Everything will be paid for by the club. Kathy made up a list of names. That list is by the cashier’s table. Four of you go after you get off work. If you can’t make it tell Kathy and she can substitute another girl and reschedule you for another day.”
“Any questions?”
“Someone mentioned new uniforms. I can’t afford a new uniform right now.” Sallie looked around at the others to see if any of them had the same problem.
“This restaurant is starting fresh. So yes, new uniforms are necessary. New uniforms will be furnished by the club. You won’t be paying for them. You will get three uniforms. Any extras you have to buy yourself. Credit can be made where a little is taken from your paycheck each week until it is paid for.”
“Any more questions?”
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By ten customers started coming in for dining. The temp help we had working in the dinning room was shifted to the barroom, kitchen, and docks. The dinning room wasn’t cleaned and polished to a new shine by any means but we were gaining on it. Tonight after midnight the professionals would move in to remove, replace molding, trim, tables, chairs, cabinets, flooring, paint the ceiling, take down the fixtures and replace them. Tomorrow the dinning room would look and smell brand new. The painters were using Estay Armor Enamel, instant dry paint. They painted it on, turned on the ultraviolet lights, and moments later the paint was as if it had been drying for weeks. Better than that, it was enamel tough and super easy to clean.
The cash outflow was going to be close to half a million before this place was brought back up to where it was once again ‘the place to dine’. Provided we managed to get past the inspections, Kathy needed to take out several ads showcasing the Garden Club as a place for family and business meetings.
There were a lot of secrets being installed in this place. Brent and Kathy had been informed about the semi backed up to the side of the dock. Preparations were being made, nothing was unloaded. I expected every dirty trick in the book to be used by those who had been bleeding this club. I was going to do my best to be one step ahead no matter what they tried. Of course health and fire inspectors would be their first try. Underage allowed in the club would fall into that same category. Those are the easiest. Provided that didn’t work they would be reexamining every permit issued, including going back to zoning and building codes. Again, provided that failed they would sic any mutants they had on a leash at us along with sabotage. If they couldn’t have the club than nobody could. Would they try poisoning the food before it was delivered? Brent needed to shift to new delivery companies as I figured all the old ones were tainted. I’d inform him. I was sure Spencer could give us references on who Brent could trust.
A light came on. I’m so slow at times. I could smell if the food had been poisoned but I couldn’t spend all my time on the dock checking each delivery. I knew who could though. Crystal usually had a general idea where certain mutant’s might be at any given time. If the government ever got their hands on her a lot of mutants would die after they tortured the information out of her. I’d give her a call and see if she could notify Scooter I could use her for a few months. The girl was an elf. Any thing anyone had ever heard about them was mostly true. She wasn’t running second in beauty to the Enchantress.
As good as I am with scents, Scooter could make me look like I had sinus congestion. I swear that girl could smell a bumblebee fart a mile away. She hated civilization for that very reason. Society literally stinks to put it bluntly. If I could talk her into coming I’d put Kitcha on the dock with her. Scooter would attract men like flies to honey. She wasn’t a fighter and she could be hurt. She had re-gen capabilities which I didn’t want her to need if she was helping me. Those security cameras, Spencer said were coming, better be top notch. It was a given Scooter would pull in a few who didn’t understand no. If necessary, Kitcha would beat the holy…., out of them as she gave them a lesson in understanding English. And a lawsuit would probably be the result. Our defense had to be on memory chips without any blank spots in between. Man grabs girl. Man ends up in hospital.
I sighed as I wished for the days when I could run a sword through them or put an arrow in their heart and be done with it. Life was so much simpler back then.
=========================================================
I missed the number of days it would be before I figured we would be under attack by those who wanted the club back or destroyed. By day five when I left the suite at four AM, yes I was twenty four/seven at the club now, I was dressed in jeans and blouse to make the rounds before personnel started showing up. Kathy’s office was where I scanned the security tapes for the past twenty four hours to see if anything looked amiss. Spencer’s team had the new security cameras up. I could literally spot a fly landing on a pallet on the shipping dock those things were such high resolution. There were forty two of those things placed around the club and restaurant. Brent and Kathy had to come up with eighty thousand to pay for all that. It was worth every single penny. Besides what looked like a couple common thieves trying to break in the back at around two AM before the alarm scared them off, I didn’t catch anything.
The dock and the kitchen came alive a few minutes before five. One delivery truck backed up to the dock with fresh shrimp, fish, crab, and other seafood. Captain Jack’s would always be our first delivery of the day from now on. We had already changed our sea food supplier along with most of the others. Our menu offered ‘fresh seafood’ and that was what our patrons received. Dave was delivering some of what was caught and brought in last night to the packers and restaurants like ours.
The driver was opening his cargo doors. I waited for him to finish. “Morning Dave.”
He stopped, turned and looked. “Morning Jodi. You’re looking beautiful this morning.”
“Thank you. Keep me in the loop if your boss or anyone tells you to change routes.” I handed him an envelope. “Give that to your employer. If they change drivers on us I will refuse delivery until I have a chance to check out the driver’s past employment.”
He nodded. “Jodi, word among delivery drivers is, the Garden Club is going down. Rumor only mind you. Expect the Health Inspector and Fire Marshal surprise inspection at your busiest time today. Probably around noon or a little later. If not then probably the evening crowd around seven or eight.”
Dave looked around to make sure it was only him and me. “Keep some men real close to them, Jodi. I’ve heard some bad things about them. They break things and claim codes weren’t up to par.”
“Thanks Dave, have you said anything to anyone else?”
He shook his head.
“Okay, I’ll keep it in mind. Now careful with your mouth and don’t go repeating anything you hear to anyone else. You will end up in a dumpster or at the bottom of the ocean. The Fire Marshal and Health Inspector aren’t the only bad asses out there. They have a ton of friends who desire the same thing. They hear you’re repeating stories about them they won’t hesitate to make you disappear. It has already happened to several others who worked here. One wrong word, the wrong person hears it, you’re dead. Do you understand? More importantly do you believe me?”
His eyes and the scent he was giving off indicated he was in mild shock and slightly afraid. He nodded yes.
Ryan came out with a pallet mover and an empty pallet. The empty was put in Dave’s truck. The fresh seafood pallet was wheeled into the walk in cooler. At eight Sue would check the pallet to see what was brought and put a flyer insert in the menus to reflect the fresh catch of the day. The club was beginning to jell into a smooth organization again. By this time next week the parking lot and side walks would be steam cleaned and high pressure washed before they were repainted. This club was going to look brand new again. It was all the detail work, not just a fresh coat of paint on the walls, that would do the trick.
It was time to check up on Pete and his crew. I really wanted him moved to the evening dinner crowd. His talent was only partially utilized on the morning and noon dinners. That time of day wasn’t the time for relaxing, socializing the same way people do after work at the office is finished. From the business meetings where money flowed for food and drink to impress potential clients or bosses; to the relaxing family or friends get together, the evening crowd spent more money and expected more for the money spent. Pete would be able to provide whatever our customers desired and more. After reading up on his past, I figured Pete was the best chef out there on any continent.
Jeff and Kay were placing fresh uncooked buns on the trays. Alice and Debbi were working on the fresh pies. Everyone was busy. I could sense an emotion of pride and determination in the kitchen. What a change from a week ago when no one cared and they only showed up for the paycheck.
“Pete, we might get a surprise inspection by the fire marshal today.” I walked over to watch him decorate a cake. Some of his cakes were a work of art.
He nodded as he rotated the cake and painted sugar flowers on it. “We’re clean. Ovens, range, exhaust vents has been checked over by the service guys three times this week, Nov…, Jodi. The fire suppression system had the same going over.”
He pointed with his decoration gun to the wall by the back hallway. “They even added two auxiliary fire extinguishers just for giggles. They are code but not necessary to the kitchen. Those men Kathy called in to bring us up to code must have an idea what this place is facing.”
He grinned. “Your galley is Bristol, Captain.” He gave a mock salute.
That got a laugh out of me. “Thank you for the report Master Chef. And for your info, I served on a naval vessel. To a man, the crew would have reenlisted if you had been cook on that ship.”
He looked surprised. “You’re kidding? You served on a naval vessel?”
“It wasn’t a U.S. ship. Keep it under your sailor’s cap.”
The smile touched his eyes. “Is there anything you haven’t done?”
“It’s a big world. The things I haven’t done are thousands of times more than what I have. Men, bless their hearts, like to hear the tales of battles and wars. Women want to hear about the Kings, Queens, nobility, dresses, balls, and parties.”
Sighing, I looked around the kitchen. “Living for awhile wears on the soul. I’m tired, Pete. Tired of seeing the evil in the world and realizing no matter how hard I try I’ll never stop it. Sometimes, late at night when I can’t sleep, I wish it was me on the losing end of some of those battles. If Bolt had tried a little harder. If Spencer and the others hadn’t been watching…,”
Pete pulled me in and wrapped his arms around me in a bear hug. “You seem invincible to all the rest of us. It’s easy to forget you’re human like us. Your strength gave me the courage to get hold of my own life again. If you will let me, I’ll return the favor. You need someone to lean on, an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on, someone to guard your back? I’m here.”
He eased his hug. I pushed back. “Thanks Pete. I want you to shift to the evening crowd and Rundal shift to the morning shift. He’s good but not excellent. I have a couple others in mind if he doesn’t want to trade places.”
“Names?” Pete looked at me with questions in his eyes. “Rundal, isn’t going to move. He will never get up on time in the mornings. He hates mornings.”
“Jill Quisenberry, is one. Beatrest Cupper is another.”
“Heard of them. Haven’t met them. Both if you can get them and Rundal quits. Five to twelve isn’t a two chef schedule. If this place blooms like you think it will, a short order cook filling in the hole in the middle will no longer work. Both women are Master Chefs in their own right. I would be pleased to work beside either one of them.”
“I’ll have Kathy contact them and see if they are willing to come on board. It will have to be on a promissory commission. This place is bleeding money like a government handout. Won’t be able to pay them what they are worth to start with.” I was almost positive we would never be able to hire either woman, much less two.
“Tell Kathy to give me some numbers she can work with and the phone number of the ladies. I’ll call them. Sometimes we cooks have a language of our own. They will listen to me as they might not listen to Kathy. Think about it. As well known and as good as they are, they probably get offers to change jobs every week.” Pete waited for an answer.
“I’ll tell Kathy to get on it.”
“Nova…, Jodi, one other thing. If one of them agrees to come, advertise the hell out the fact. Their reputations are well known by the public. They will be a big drawing card. Tonight tell Rundal you’re shifting him to mornings. He’ll think you can’t afford to lose him and he will threaten to quit. Accept his resignation when he offers it. I’ll split my shift and come in the morning to get things started. Then I’ll go home until four, come back and pick up the evening shift.”
“You can’t…”
Pete reached out to put his hand on my lips to stop me. Of course I wasn’t there. That reflex reaction. He laughed. “I said I had your back. I meant it. One of your waitresses is a trained chef. JoAnn got burned out several years back and quit the kitchens. Lack of support, everything that went wrong was her fault. Which wasn’t true. She cared too much. It ate her up so she quit. Bring her back into the kitchen. I’ll guide her until she gets her emotions back and believes in herself again.”
As nine o’clock rolled around I made one last pass through the whole place to check and make sure things were still holding together. We were still on track. Passing through the kitchen I stopped. Something…? “EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND DON’T MOVE!”
Pete looked up in surprise along with everyone else wondering what now? I pointed at him. “You and only you move, turn the exhaust fans off.”
By now Pete knew something was wrong or Nova wouldn’t stop all of them. He walked over to the hallway door and flipped breakers shutting down the fans.
Starting to my right I was slowly walking and moving my head left to right. At times with my eyes closed. Pete barked at one of the men by the mixer. “She said don’t move. That means you also.”
The guy stopped moving away from the mixer. I was closing in as I circled the kitchen. When I got close to the mixer I had found what I was searching for. Looking at the man, he was giving off the smell of fear along with the other scents I chased down.
Looking him in the eyes I shook my head. “If you run it will give me an excuse to break a few limbs.”
“Pete, turn everything back on. Your help can get back to their jobs.” My focus
on the man in front of me never wavered.
“You heard her. Everyone pick it up.” He walked up beside me and waited.
I kept my eyes on the man. I remembered his name was Jeb. “Pete what is the dough in that mixer used for?”
He looked over into the bowl. “That would be our next batch of buns, bread, bread sticks, wafers, capons.”
“Put it in the garbage bag and don’t let anyone touch that dough with their bare hands. There are full length, industrial heavy, latex gloves in the janitor’s closet. Everyone who gets close to that bowl before it is cleaned and washed again will be wearing them. Make sure that bowl and paddle are extra clean before they start another batch. When it’s clean scrub it another ten times.” I reached out and wrapped my hand around Jeb’s wrist before he bolted. “You and I are going to have a talk.”
I pushed him backwards. “March up to the offices.”
“Nova?” Pete was looking at me.
“It isn’t spread around. Only what is in the mixer needs to go into the trash bag. Don’t let anyone touch it without gloves until it has been cleaned”
I reached into the bowl with my left hand and got a glob on my fingers. “Unless our friend here wants to eat some of it.” I held it out toward his face.
His eyes went wide. He was shaking his head as he locked his mouth shut.
“Pete make sure no one touches or ingests any of that. Make that bowl and bread hook sparkle before you put it back in operation.”
After tossing what was in my hand back into the bowl I gave Jeb a shove. “March!”
At the door he tried to yank his wrist out of my hand and run. I pulled him around me where he smacked into the doorframe. Stunned he fell to the floor on his butt. Reaching down with my right hand I wrapped up a handful of shirt in my fist and yanked him to his feet. I pulled him in where I was in his face, his feet off the floor. “Try that again and there won’t be a third time.”
Kathy looked up in surprise as we marched into office.
“Call Brent in here, get out your camera.” I pushed Jeb down into a chair.
“You can’t do this to me. I know my rights. This is abuse. I’ll sue the pants off this company and that includes you, bitch.” Jeb was starting to protest.
“Talk all you want. Say anything you like. Your soul belongs to me now.” Giving him my best ‘you’re mine’ look, I licked my lips as my fangs extended. “The cat cornered the mouse and lunch is about to be served.”
His eyes grew to the size of dinner plates, a wet spot formed in the chair, and he screamed. Which timed just right with Brent walking in the door. Brent stopped dead in his track to assess the situation, fight or flight?
Reaching out, I yanked Jeb to his feet. Which may have been a mistake. Pee wasn’t the only thing leaking out of him. “Empty your pockets onto the desk.”
Kathy had her camera up.
Change, keys, billfold, several business cards, and a vial ended up on the desk.
Brent started to reach for the vial. I slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch that. It had poison in it and on it. He wasn’t careful and got it on his hands. He’s already dead. Whoever gave it to him put a slower acting poison on the outside to take care of any witnesses.”
“Would you like to talk? It would make it easier if I had names. Either way I’ll find those who put you up to poisoning those in the restaurant. When I do, what I’ll do is only told by a few souls in whispers.”
“Dagger was…, is his name. I was told to meet him at a bar. He told me the Committee said if people got sick no one would come. The restaurant would have to close.” Jeb looked at the vial and then at his hands. “No one said anything about anyone dying.”
“Who is in that Committee! How much they pay you!”
He looked around. “I can’t tell you that. They will kill me.”
“How much?”
“Ten grand.”
“Jeb, I’m sorry. You’re dead already.”
“YOU CAN’T KILL ME!” He looked at Kathy, Brent, and then me.
“I won’t have the chance. You’re dead and don’t know it. I can smell the other poison on the vial and on your hands. You might have lived another ten hours if you hadn’t got some of what was in that vial on your hands. It is a little faster working than the one they intended for you. Honestly, I feel sorry for you because you were stupid and greedy. In this case a fatal error. For a few pieces of silver you sold what little you had left of your soul.”
His face was looking flushed as his hands started turning red. He plopped back into the chair. “I feel hot.”
“Jeb, you’re leaking blood into your system. There isn’t a cure. Let me be your revenge. Who is on that committee?”
“arn…,” He slumped over in the chair.
“Stupid and greedy!” Brent, you and Kathy, out and don’t touch anything. Call Spencer, we need a discrete hazmat crew to clean and bag this mess. Oh HELL, never mind, I’ll take care of it myself. Give me about thirty minutes and no one will know besides us. Otherwise this gets out and the health dept will shut this place down while they send in their own hazmat crew. I guarantee they wouldn’t let us open back up. Dust in the air and on the floor would be called unknown toxins without ever reaching a lab. This was a win win for those who paid this idiot. Even if he never got a chance to poison the food, when he collapsed in the kitchen it would start a chain of events. Ambulance arrives, takes him to ER, everyone who touches him gets sick or dies. Leads back to us and again hazmat and we are closed for good.”
My fangs were out and I was licking my lips. “I hate these people! GO! LEAVE! I’ll take care of this.”
Forty minutes later I carried four garbage bags out and put them in the trunk of my car. The swivel chair broken into pieces along with the mop and rags I had used in one bag, a body in the other. The third bag had all the dough Jeb had mixed the poison into. His personal items in a forth bag would need to be neutralized before I allowed anyone else to touch them. The poison he brought in was nasty shit guaranteed to kill everyone who touched or took a bite of anything the dough was made into. Some of it had gone airborne or I never would have smelled it. Only a few microns and it wasn’t enough to make anyone sick. What was on his hands and outside of that vial was what first got my attention. Jeb was a walking dead man from the moment he made a deal with Dagger.
I still hadn’t received word Scooter would help. Of course she wouldn’t send an advance notice. She would show up if she was coming. I could use her help. Jeb never would have made it into the kitchen with that vial if she had been here. She would have smelled it almost as soon as he got out of his car. Again, I wished she was here as I shut the trunk deck. Tomorrow was trash pickup day. I’d make it several miles away ahead of the trash truck and dump the bags. Like Bolt planned on getting rid of me. A lot of ill secrets got tossed in those big dumpsters.
It was about twenty minutes later after a super scrub and shower in that NASA shower system in the suite, I put on a golden lame’ dress with a really low scoop neckline. I wondered if Brenda realized she was copying the low necklines of fourteenth century dresses? Probably not since the hem was an inch above my knees. I added five inch gold stiletto pumps with an ankle strap. I added an ankle bracelet to my left leg and then removed it. It didn’t work with the strap. Looking in the mirror, Joan’s magic makeup was wearing off. I added an over coat to my lips with a soft peach liquid lipstick, emphasized my eyebrows and long lush lashes. Call me old fashion I still liked a soft earth tone for my eyelids. Brought out the edge of my eyes with eyeliner for that diva look. Did a basecoat with an impossible to tell ultra light suntan lightly brushed on, and blended in a touch of blush on my high cheekbones. Joan was good. I figured I could match her in makeup tricks despite her magic. Especially since I had a few centuries of practice she didn’t. Mine didn’t stay on and look good for days. Hers did. Oh well, can’t have everything.
After adding a multi strand gold necklace, diamond bracelet, diamond chandelier earrings, on loan from Brenda which I had to poke holes in my ears for, I was almost there. I headed for the restaurant, my own diamond encrusted gold band on my wedding finger. Eva had been hired for the morning Maitre d’ which was the original job Kathy hired me for. I met her at the door ten minutes before ten. “Ready? Let’s see how this day works out. We might get a surprise inspection by the fire marshal. After some other things that happened this morning, I’d be surprised if the health inspector didn’t show up also.”
“We’re good Jodi. There are so many of your friends here it would take more than they could muster to put the shaft to Brent and Kathy. Oh, by the way, while you were scrubbing the dirt off, Scooter showed up. Her and Kitcha are taking care of the dock and kitchen.”
Shaking my head, I could only hope those who wanted to shut down the Garden didn’t have a mutant who could sense other mutants. I didn’t want anything to happen to those who heard there was a party and came to help. If I had to call them something, I’d say they were associates as we weren’t really friends. The truth be known, from the smell they gave off, I made some of them nervous. Except for Kitcha, none of them were predators. And I wouldn’t really call Kitcha a predator. In my opinion, she was overly aggressive is all. I had helped each of them out of a tight spot one or more times. I figured they were returning a favor they didn’t owe. Not that I really minded having help but it put them in danger being close to me. More so than they normally were that is.
The morning went really smooth which I figured it might. Right at twelve fifteen when the restaurant was loaded with noonday lunch crowd, the health inspector showed up. A rotund little man, he was waving his badge around to give many of our customers a look at the shiny metal he had in his hand. “HEALTH INSPECTOR!”
“Is this the normal way for you to begin your inspection?” I had been waiting behind Eva and stepped up in front of him blocking most of the view our customers had of this ass waving his badge.
He looked up at me. With my heels I was more than a foot taller than him. “And who are you? I’m here to inspect this place for health violations.”
“You are welcome inspector but right in the middle of our noon lunch crowd? And what is with the screaming and waving your badge around? Your inspection has nothing to do with our customer base. I will file a formal letter of complaint with the Texas State Department of Health along with sending them a copy of the video.”
Luckily the attorneys for the club had been notified and we had one of them dinning with us at that moment. I waved her over. Turning around I pointed to a security camera across the room focused on the entrance. “As the manager of this club I am going to assign two of our legal staff to accompany you on your inspection tour.”
“I protest. My inspection can not be hindered in any way.” He looked across the restaurant at a table where four men were seated.
One of them shook his head as his eyes swept the diners around him.
By this time the two women joined us. “Inspector, this is one of the attorneys for our club, Rhonda Clark. The other lady, Margo Kirk, is one of her employees and is going to document your visit.”
Margo held up a video camera and smiled.
“I can not allow this. You are impeding my inspection. I refuse to let you follow us.” He was getting red faced and starting to spit his words in his frustration.
“We won’t impede your inspection, Mr. Kinor. We are only going to accompany you and your associate, Mr. Dunmore. I already requested all the rules and regulations pertaining to health inspections from the state office. Everything WE do is above board.”
Rhonda slapped some papers in his hand. “That is a copy of the state laws and rules on health inspections and…, Judge Harrison’s court order allowing legal staff, restaurant staff, and or any appointed persons to accompany any state inspections of this restaurant and club, known as Eve’s Hanging Garden Club. You will also find it includes the legal location of said club and all related properties.”
“I’ll call the state bar association and have your license.” Kinor was sputtering even more now.
“Be my guest. Would you like for me to give you their number?” Rhonda was smiling.
“Let’s get this over with.” He headed for the kitchens knowing he would find enough health violations there to shut this place down in minutes.
As soon as they left I headed for the security office. Spencer was there looking at the monitors. “That health inspector is really off his feed after you sic Rhonda on him. I’ve seen people pissed before. He’s furious.”
“Un huh. Did you catch him looking over at those four men at table thirty-nine? They were the advance team hoping to be witnesses as everyone in the restaurant became sick. I want faces and names.”
“Got it.” Spencer panned several cameras in the club to focus on table thirty-nine. They were leaving. It didn’t look like any of the food or drinks had been touched.
Not taking the time to undo the straps on my heels I ripped the shoes off my feet and ran from the security office into the dinning room. The table was in Freda’s area and she was headed that way to buss the table. I didn’t care what anyone thought as I ran through the dinning room, reaching Freda just as she was reaching out to clear the table.
Grabbing her arm I pulled her back. “No, I’ll take care of it.”
She was shocked as she turned to look at me. “but…”
One of the kids from another table was reaching for the desert still untouched and left behind. “NO!” I shouted at him. For a second I thought he was going to challenge me before he returned to his own table.
My attention back on Freda I shook my head. “My responsibility, I’ll take care of it.” I smiled at the people around us as I pushed Freda away. “I’m late and she was taking care of my table. I’m sorry for the confusion and any embarrassment I caused. I promise the rest of your meal won’t be as entertaining.”
Eva came over. She didn’t say anything but leaned over close to me. I whispered in her ear. “Get someone to bring a tablecloth to cover this table. Bring me a rolling cart. I need another tablecloth to cover the cart after I clear this table and put everything in the cart. Ask Scooter to step in the dinning room for a second. She doesn’t need to come over here. I only want confirmation.”
“I’m on it.” Eva headed back to her station by the entrance.
I was watching the entrance to the kitchen when Scooter stepped into the dinning room. She had a stocking cap on her head hiding her ears. She looked at me, and nodded her head. She was gone that quick. Even if any of our diners noticed her I doubted they would have thought mutant as quickly she came and went.
Ten minutes later the table was cleared, a reserve sign was put on it to keep anyone from sitting there and I had that rolling cart out on the docks. Scooter was standing over a dozen feet away. I pulled out a plate and moved it around under my nose before I looked up at Scooter. She shook her head. The second plate was a repeat of the first. The third plate something wasn’t right. I slid the vegetables off first follow by the individual foods. The plate was empty and the smell was still there.
“Damn! They intended for anyone picking up the plate to get sick and then those in the scullery when they picked it up. This was their backup if Jeb didn’t make it to work and do his job.”
I looked across the docks where Spencer and several of our people were watching. “Get me names. This isn’t going to stop as long as they don’t have to pay a price for trying. Make sure there are no copies or electronic trails that can be traced back to the club or anyone here.”
Kitcha smiled from ear to ear. “Oh yeah! Party time. If I wasn’t already here I’d pay good money to be allowed to come.”
Spencer looked at her as if she was crazy. This whole situation was going to get really rough and she was anticipating enjoying it? He had only heard or read about mutants like these. It was then he understood how uninformed he had been most of his life. Nova attracted some very deadly people, both bad and good. A shiver ran down his spine as he realized she truly was, The Huntress.
Looking at Kitcha I nodded in agreement. She had a lot more free time than I did as she was only guarding Scooter when she was on the docks during delivery. “As long as none of it leads back here to the club, the ones you find are all yours.”
“Give Kitcha a list of those names.” I glanced at Spencer. He nodded in agreement.
“We can take out the pawns until the world looks level. Only when the king is put in checkmate and removed is the game over. I want a list of those at the top. A committee was mentioned by Jeb before he died. Give me a full report on each name in that committee. I want to know what they have for breakfast and what they consider extra curricular activities.”
As bad as I hated asking for help, I needed it. This would take too long to go at it the usual way. I had a job here which didn’t allow much free time. Scouting the prey, analyzing their weak points so nothing pointed back at me when they ‘accidentally’ died took time. Sometimes months. They intended to kill people at the club to get control again. I was positive if that didn’t work they would take it to the next level and destroy the club through fire or a bomb. They set the rules and I intended to play by their rules, no holds bared. They had no idea who they were up against and had miscalculated. Never ever piss off a Huntress no matter who you are or how much you own or control. I don’t care for any of their wealth or ill gotten goods. Only payment in kind will satisfy me.
I needed to contact Crystal and ask her if Vanessa Gibbons was still alive. It has been over thirty years since I last saw her and she was aging like normal people. Not all mutants have expanded life cycles. Sometimes the reverse was true, they aged quicker than normal. It wasn’t only because government was killing us whenever they found us either. Vanessa gathered data like a sponge when she got close and focused on a location or person. Some called her The Shadow. If she was still alive and agreed to come, she could give me virtually every single weakness and strength in any security system she got close to. No matter how good one is, mistakes happen. I didn’t want my own mistakes to become fatal.
Almost an hour later, everything was bagged and trashed except the plate with the poison. That plate and the vial Jeb had on him was bagged and going overnight mail to Delkla Labs in Pennsylvania for testing. I wanted to know what kind of poison I was dealing with from those who were trying to sicken or kill everyone, who manufactured it, and who distributed it in the Houston area.
Heading to the office, I found Kathy. “I need another pair of heels.”
She looked at my nylons and bare feet. “Dare I ask?”
“Emergency. I needed to reach one of the dinning tables before Freda or any of the others touched it. Really hard to run in heels.”
She nodded. “I agree. Curiosity is killing me. Why did you need to run and what happened to your heels?”
“Some of our clientele left poison at their table when they decided to leave. Anyone bussing the table was going to get contaminated. That isn’t counting those in the scullery who picked up the plates to stack them in the dishwasher.” I shook my head. “Kathy, I’m reneging on my promise. This has to stop. The only way it is going to stop is if they feel the pain themselves.”
“Nova…,” She sighed. “What about the heels? What size do you wear?”
“Eight.”
“I hate you! I wear an eight and half and I’m six inches shorter than you. Use the credit card I gave you and I’ll okay the purchases.”
“That would be great if I still had it. Bolt canceled it for me.”
“That was my company credit card. I’ll get us both another one. In the mean time I guess we do it the old fashion way and go back to using cash.” She opened up her drawer and took out four hundred dollars. Go to Neda’s Fashions which is six blocks east of here. She will have the style and heel you like.”
Kathy got a smirk on her face. “That first day you came into my office wearing sneakers, jeans, and a blouse, I’m beginning to understand why. You’re harder on clothes and things than a five year old on the playground.”
Health inspector Kinor was looking at the man on the other side of a huge desk. “I wasn’t able to do anything. They had two women follow us. I wasn’t able to get the rat droppings out of my pocket and scatter them around the storage room. One of them was recording everything. It wasn’t possible to spread the salmonella either. I flagged twenty six violations. Their damn attorney said she was going to contest all of them. They have that place so damn clean it’s going to be hard trying to shut them down on health violations. Especially when they have someone bird dogging over my shoulder every step.”
Craig put his elbows on the desk and put his palms together. “You were supposed to shut the Garden down. Perhaps you’re being overpaid?
“You forget I’m inspecting nine other food handling restaurants and clubs. I’m worth more than I’m getting paid in order to keep the money flowing back here.” Kinor was disgusted he was doing so much for the committee and he wasn’t appreciated for his efforts.
Craig leaned back in his leather chair. “Why aren’t they getting sick and dying at that club? That guy Jeb, Dagger paid off, has anyone seen or heard from him? We paid Dagger enough to leave us out of it so there wouldn’t be a trail back to here. I wonder if our money is wasted on both of you?”
“I haven’t heard anything. Ask Dagger since she was the one who contacted him and set it up. No one in that club looked sick as far as I could tell. Jeb must have took the money and run. Some of these things takes time. You’d be wise to not piss either one of us off.” Kinor knew he was irreplaceable.
“He didn’t go far if he did run.” Craig gave a snort as he recalled how Dagger mentioned there was poison on the outside of the vial as well as inside. It was possible Jeb took too long and died before he made it to work.
Kinor smiled as he got ready to tell of his backup plan. “I told Jerritt to pick up some poison from Dagger and leave it on the silverware. Anyone touches it will get sick and die. We should be hearing from your EMT guys pretty soon. I’ll go back as soon as the bodies start coming in and shut that club down.”
Craig nodded in consent. “Always good to see the rest showing some initiative. I should have sent Emmit with you. They wouldn’t have been able to dog the Health Inspector and Fire Marshal at the same time. I didn’t expect you to fail us. Make sure you stay on top of those health violations you wrote up. How many days did you give them to straighten up the violations?”
“The minimum I could, three days.”
“For all twenty six violations?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, go back in three days and shut them down for not correcting the violations. By the time they appeal to the state to open up again they will be history. Word gets around. Any of the others think of doing the same thing will give it up.”
============================================================
Kathy answered the phone, it was Rhonda’s number. “The Garden Club.”
“I managed to get in and see Dale Weathers, in Austin. You remember me telling you he was head of the Texas Department of Health. I showed him the video and the violations Kinor tagged The Garden with. He, himself is coming up to look at The Garden tomorrow. He didn’t say much of anything but if he is personally coming then you can bet your lucky dime heads will roll.”
“Rhonda, are we good? I mean you were there with Kinor. Will we have any problem staying open?”
“Kathy, you hired me for one reason. I’m good at what I do. I’ve clashed with Kinor before as he hit some of the others with BS violations. You did this one right. It’s better to be proactive rather than reactive. You’re going to get off cheap compared to what it cost those others. We won’t have any problem with getting a passing grade on health codes. Hon, I would go so far as to say I wouldn’t pass out if I had to eat off the floor in your kitchen. That new manager of yours is a treasure. She has your place glistening better than new. You better hang onto her forever if you can.”
Kathy’s heart sagged before she was able to catch her breath and answer. “Yes, I know exactly what you’re talking about. She has a job here as long as she wants.”
“Okay, gotta go. I’m driving back tonight. I’ll be there tomorrow when Dale shows up to do his own inspection. I want to make more video of Dale’s inspections. Don’t worry, The Garden is going to pass with flying colors. I think after this Kinor can start looking for a new job.”
“Thanks Rhonda, drive safe. Rhonda, hire some guards to follow you home and go into your house with you when you get back. That Treasure of a Manager we both think the world of says we are dealing with people who are leaving bodies in their wake. I’m dead serious, hire security now. The club will pay the expense. Be a whole lot cheaper than breaking in a new lawyer.”
“Kathy…,”
“No I mean it. One in the car with you, and a car following. I don’t think you have any idea how evil these people are. We know of two instances where they tried to poison the diners and our workers. It has only been a couple days when Bolt, I’m sure you know the name and have heard what he can do, killed one of our managers, Nova.”
Kathy heard a sharp intake of breath over the phone.
“Police…,”
“No one is talking. Those who saw it won’t say anything. They are scared to death of Bolt themselves. Get some protection, now! I wish I had thought of it sooner before you headed to Austin.”
Kathy had a thought. “Just a second, I have another idea.”
She picked up the desk phone and called Spencer. Minutes later she had the answer she was seeking. She picked up her cell phone again. “Rhonda, our security guy is going to call some people he knows in Austin. Where are you at?”
“I’m at the State Health Department.”
“Stay in the lobby. Don’t leave until Spencer’s friends get there. I’ll let him know. Rhonda, I’m not trying to frighten you. I want to keep you alive.”
“I didn’t know Bolt had killed one of your employees. I’ll stay put until the security arrives. Kathy, thank you.”
Kathy hung up and gave a sigh of relief. Rhonda was a good lawyer. Replacing her would take weeks. She wondered if Nova had considered the same thing?
Two men showed up to escort Rhonda home. One rode in the car with her, the other followed close behind in an SUV. Close enough if anyone tried to maneuver in between them they would know it was an attempt at Rhonda. It was an uneventful trip back to her home and she began to think she should have refused Kathy’s guards.
She had got to know him on the long drive and acknowledged Jim beside her as she pushed the control to raise the garage door. “It was nice having company but it sure wasted your time. You staying overnight or you and your friend driving back?
We’…,” The windshield exploded in a hail of lead from an automatic rifle.
“We’…,” Seeing feet behind the rising garage door, Jim hit Ronda’s seatbelt release and yanked her down in the seat. Not a second too soon as the windshield exploded in a hail of lead from an automatic rifle.
In the SUV David had pulled up to the curb and stopped when Rhonda pulled into her driveway. He was starting to get out so he and Jim could canvas Ronda’s home before heading back. Then the gunfire erupted. Reaching back in he pulled up the rifle cradled by the center console. The shooter still in the garage dropped a clip from his gun and was shoving another home. He was an easy target. David dropped him before he could start firing again.
“One down!” David yelled as he kept his attention on the garage.
“You stay here, stay down, and call nine one one.” Jim opened the door, slid out, crouched behind the door, and pulled his pistol at the same time. He looked back at David who held up one finger and then pointed it down.
Down the street a van started up and then drove away. David shook his head. The driver for this fiasco, no doubt. Their priority was keeping the woman safe otherwise they would have chased it down.
Jim held up his left hand and did a circling motion with his finger and then pointed at the garage. He was going in. David nodded in agreement. He didn’t think there was another one or the van would have waited to see how it ended.
Inside the garage Jim did a quick scan assuring it was only one shooter. He was down with a big puddle of blood pooling out from under him. He walked back out to the car. “You can get up now. Make another nine one one call. Tell them there is a body to pick up when they get here. They will send an ambulance even though he is beyond help. This will take awhile after the police get here. Do you have a friend you can spend the night with? You aren’t staying here tonight.”
Rhonda was thinking as she made the second nine one one call. When she hung up she looked over at Jim. David had stepped up behind him. “Margo is my legal aid. I guess I can stay with her or get a motel room.”
“She have security?”
“No.” Rhonda didn’t even have to think about that.
“Okay, Margo is out and so is that motel unless you want us sleeping in the same room with you. Anyone you know have security?” By this time Jim was thinking of calling Spencer Miller. He didn’t know him personally but he did know him professionally. He would have to anti up a room and security if Rhonda couldn’t come up with someone.
It came to her. The one place she had been today had security running out the wazoo, The Garden. She dialed Kathy’s number hoping she hadn’t already gone home for the night.
Kathy picked it up on the first ring noticing it was Rhoda’s number. “This is Kathy. Are you okay?”
It was automatic human reaction when Rhonda nodded. “Kathy, I…, they were waiting at my house. I’m shook up but okay. My car looks the worse for the wear and tear. Your men saved my life. I never would have survived if it had been only me. They want me to stay someplace with security for tonight. I know it’s asking a lot…”
“No it isn’t. You know we have the suite. Are you coming now?”
“No, the police haven’t arrived yet. It will probably be a couple hours before they let us go after answering all their questions.”
“Okay, call when you get free. Bring your body and your guardians on over here when you can. I know it will be late. If it isn’t me, it will be Nov…, Jodi who lets you in.”
“Okay, I hear the sirens now. Thanks Kathy, I owe you my life.”
“Stay safe, I need you.” There was a dial tone as the connection was lost. Kathy headed out of the office to find Nova and let her know what was happening. First they try to kill Nova. Then they try to poison everyone in the club. Now they are waging war on anyone who is connected to the club or trying to help. She never expected this. If she had known it was going to get this bad she would have talked to Brent and see if he wouldn’t agree to letting them have the club. It wasn’t worth dying over. They would lose everything including their homes but still have their life. She had a strong suspicion it was no longer possible. Nova wouldn’t back away no matter what. She was glad Nova was on their side. That girl sent chills down her back every now and then. There was…, Kathy decided to let it go. Thinking too much about Nova was starting to scare her again.
It was one forty seven AM when Nova opened the door to let Rhonda and the two men in. Kathy told her the story and intended to let Rhonda in herself. The hard push all of them were doing to bring the club back to pristine conditions was wearing on them all. Kathy had fallen asleep on the couch five minutes after sitting down to wait. Nova was smiling as she laid her over, took Kathy’s cell phone, and covered her with a blanket.
The two men gave the tall girl an appraisal after she had let them in and locked the door behind them. Besides her better than good looks she gave off an air of confidence.
I pointed to the hallway leading to the bathrooms and the stairs. “Take a left at the top of the stairs. I put a book in the doorway to keep the door from auto locking. It takes a key to get in. Remove the book when you go into the suite. Rhonda, Kathy said you had been in there during one of their parties. Brent and Spencer are in the north bedroom. The other one is yours. Kathy is asleep on the couch.”
I pointed to the two men. “I pulled out sleeping pads and laid out blankets. You’re sleeping on the floor. It actually is pretty comfortable. Those are thick pads. There is a third pad there and that’s mine. I’ll be in and out so don’t get jumpy if you hear someone moving in the room. This place starts up at five in the morning. I’ll be up before then. The suite is soundproof. I’m sure the club activity won’t wake you. You can sleep in as long as you like. Either fix your own breakfast in the suite or come down to the dinning room. If you are there before ten I will have our Chef rustle up breakfast for you. Any questions?”
Looking dead on her feet, Rhonda was already headed for the stairs. The two men looked at one another. The shorter one shook his head. “We’re good.”
“While there you might try out that NASA shower system they have.” Turning I headed out to check the dock. I needed to turn the alarm system back on. I had turned it off earlier anticipating our guest. Otherwise it would have been screaming its little heart out when I opened that front door.
With years honed in security and judging other people, their eyes followed the woman as she walked away from them. Walked wasn’t exactly the right word. She flowed or glided was in both their minds. Jim shook his head to clear his mind before he looked over at David. “NASA shower system?
“Search me. I don’t know what she’s talking about.” He was headed for the stairs.
Soon as this place stabilized into some sense of order I was going to move Pete to evenings and night for the more refined diners. Shift the morning kitchen crew to come in an hour before opening. That would give them time to make their buns, pies, cakes and get the food prepared. An eight hour shift would push them to five PM. Bring Pete in at five and his shift could finish up at midnight. I wouldn’t need a third chef to fill a middle hole between the two cooks. With Pete’s help, we talked JoAnn into being our morning cook. She was already working in the kitchen with Pete to reacclimate to how this kitchen worked. I made a mental note to talk to Pete and see if that was an arraignment he could live with.
============================
It was eleven AM Dale Weathers called Rhonda. “Miss Clark, I’ll be at that club we discussed yesterday in less than thirty minutes. Would you meet me there?”
Rhonda nodded even though the conversation was on the phone. “I’m there now Mr. Weathers.”
“Good, I’ll see you soon.” He hung up. Knowing he was going in at one of the busy times, food handling in the restaurant would be at its best or worst. He wanted to see how they handled it.
Rhonda and Margo met him as he came in the front door. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Weathers.”
He stepped up and grasped her hand. “I wanted to see myself the violations our inspector named. Do you need to inform management?”
She pointed back at me. “This is Jodi. She is the club manager now.” She looked over at Margo, “This is my legal assistant. She was with me when your inspector walked through yesterday. She has it all on the computer.”
Margo held up a laptop.
Dale was giving me an appraisal. Of course I was dressed to the nines for mingling with the dinner crowd. I was also wearing five inch heels which gave me a huge height advantage over most men.
Holding out my hand, I gave Dale my best heartwarming smile. “Thank you for coming, Inspector.”
“I think this is the first time anyone ever welcomed me to inspect their place. I want you to know that won’t change my intentions of looking over your club very closely.” He reached over and took my hand.
My smile got even wider as I gave his hand a firmer grip. “I’m pleased to know you aren’t biased then. Welcome to Eve’s Hanging Garden Club and please take your time. I hope when you’re finished you will give me your personal and professional opinion on what we did right or what we did wrong. If you have no objections, Miss Clark and her assistant Margo will accompany you and your assistant. I have been told they have video of all the inspections our city inspector, Kinor, did yesterday. You may want to look at that when you are looking at the violations we were flagged for yesterday. Don’t take my word for it, but nothing has been changed since yesterday. We are still the filthy, rat infested, moldy club Kinor claimed we were when he did his inspection yesterday.”
Rhonda’s head snapped around as she looked at me in shock.
Dale stepped back from me and looked around the sparkling dinning room and the immaculate waitresses efficiently carrying food orders in their brand new uniforms. A grin slowly spread across his face despite his best efforts to not show it. He shook his head. “Lady, you are one class act. If I wasn’t determined before to find something, anything, to gig you for, I’m now going to accept the challenge.”
He pulled a cotton swab out of his pocket. “My sword, my lady. Even though it is ungentlemanly for a man to accept a challenge from a woman, my male pride has been pricked. I will find something even if I have to go out in the parking lot and swab dirt off a car tire.”
Laughing, I knew I had read him right when he walked in our door. “Do your best.”
He looked at Rhonda. “I would respond but others might claim I was prejudice if I did.” He was chuckling as he headed for the kitchen. He pulled the list of violations out of his pocket Kinor had written up Rhonda delivered to him yesterday. “Let’s start at the top of this list and work our way down.”
Two o six PM all of us were seated at a table in the dinning room. Dale was still writing some notes before he stopped and took a sip of the German black beer, Schwarzbier, and cleared his throat. “I’ll make some calls. Kinor won’t be coming back for any more inspections. I found some…, I didn’t write them up as violations but only suggestions. Difference in opinion on how the health code is interpreted. Make the changes, don’t make the changes, probably won’t matter. The new health inspector might think the way you are doing it is right. The health code is a lot like IRS tax code and can be right or wrong depending on who the inspector is.”
He looked over at Rhonda. “I didn’t say that and you didn’t hear it from me. I hope you aren’t recording this conversation.”
Rhonda gave a slight smile. “I don’t have the recorder turned on.” What she tactfully didn’t say was, Margo might.
“Right,” He looked at his watch. “I need to get back. The two men who rode back with Rhonda last night are following me home. I’m not really paranoid. After hearing some of the things you people have been putting up with, I’m asking the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to assign a guard for me as soon as I get back. They will assign one or two Texas Troopers or Rangers. I’ve done this once before after I received threats when I closed a large club in Galveston.”
He looked directly at me. “I can honestly say I never enjoyed these inspections until now. Everyone is always uptight praying I don’t find too much wrong. I’ve been silently laughing for the past couple hours thinking I really was going to have to go out and swab a car tire to find some dirt on this place. I’ve managed to salvage my male ego by making these suggestions. You’re really the kind of manager I wish every club had.”
Kathy and Brent both nodded as she mentally thought. ‘You don’t know a tenth of it.’
He took another sip of his beer and set the glass down still a quarter full. “I better go before anyone suggests I was bribed and playing favorites. If anyone says they saw me sitting here at the table drinking I’ll call them a liar. Kathy, Brent, it’s been a pleasure.”
“Jodi…,” He looked me in the eyes, stood up, gathered up his notes and papers along with his briefcase and left with his assistant.
==========================
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WERE FIRED! What about that damn club? You were going to shut it down.” Craig slapped the top of his desk with his hands as he stared hatred at Kinor standing on the other side of his desk.
“Yeah, and you were supposed to take care of that attorney bitch, BEFORE, she made her little trip to Austin not after. I had run into her before and warned you about her.” Kinor wasn’t intimidated in the least. He was too valuable of an asset to the committee to be worried.
Crag waved his hand as if the subject wasn’t up for discussion. “Fortner screwed up and got himself killed. Who knew she would have an armed escort. We must get that damn club back under our control. Some of the other owners are hearing rumors and starting to think.”
He waved Kinor off. “Go, I need to call for a meeting because you couldn’t handle your end of this. Bolt…,” Crag rubbed his chin. “Bastard leaves without telling anyone where he’s going.”
Crag waited until Kinor left his office. He picked up his phone and punched in a couple numbers and waited until he heard a click on the other end. “Since your poisons seem to be so worthless in the club I have someone for you to test your new batch on. Kinor is no longer our employee.”
There was a click and his phone went to dial tone. He laid it back down on his desk and smiled. If the Criminal Division pulled Kinor in after checking his records on inspections, Crag had no doubt he would sing like a canary. Kinor had the backbone of a jellyfish. Loose ends were best taken care of before they became a problem themselves.
The fight for the Garden Club was far from being over. Harold was busy bouncing underage and fake IDs from the club. The overhead security cameras Spencer’s crew installed by the doors was getting a workout along with scanners which everyone had to pass their ID over before being admitted to the club. If we did get busted we could match face with scanned ID and prove they used a fake ID and lied to get in.
The day after Dale Weathers had inspected us, Scooter smelled a delivery truck before it ever entered the dock area. The meat had been poisoned. I thought Kitcha was going to beat the driver to death when he got out of his truck to open the cargo doors. He confessed to dropping off the meat we were supposed to receive from Fresh Packers Distributors and picking up an alternate pallet. The name Dagger came up again. The same name Jeb gave us as he tried to poison the bread dough. The assassin had slipped Arnie, the delivery driver, a thousand dollars to switch loads. I was becoming really interested in this Dagger guy, whoever he was. The truck was pulled over to the side of the back parking lot while Kathy and I made a couple phone calls. She called Rhonda first and then Dale Weathers explaining we had intercepted a delivery of what was suspected to be poisoned meat.
Dale gave that one some serious thought for a couple seconds. “Miss Perkins, not that I doubt what you are telling me. How do you know the meat is poisoned? Have you had it tested?”
Kathy hesitated as she tried to figure out how much to tell. “Mr. Weathers, what I wish to tell you is confidential information I can’t share over a telephone. Please believe me when I tell you the meat we were to receive has been poisoned.”
“All right, I’ll call for a priority on this one. Where is the meat now?”
“It is still in the delivery truck.”
“Still in the truck? Has anyone touched it?”
“No Sir, the van wasn’t opened after it arrived.”
“It hasn’t…, Okay, I’m mobilizing several teams now.”
“Thank you Mr. Weathers.” Kathy closed the connection happy she didn’t have to explain any more than she already did.
Dale was opening up the file the state had printed up for every department head after they joined in training exercises for these type of situations. Miss Perkins was very elusive about how they knew the meat was tainted without testing it. After activating the crews for hazmat and all his health inspectors in that area. His second call was to the Texas Criminal Division.
His third call was to someone he knew trained dogs to sniff for drugs, bombs, and rescue. It was answered on the first ring. “To what do I owe this call?”
“And hello to you too, Bobbi. I have a question. Can dogs be trained to sniff for poisons? I mean there are so many different kinds so wouldn’t that be impossible?”
Bobbi looked out across the field where one of the handlers was teaching Rex to search for drugs. “Dale, think of how many different kinds of drugs there are and our dogs are trained to alert on drugs. The answer to your question, yes a dog could be trained to alert on poisons.”
“Thanks Bobbi, that answered my question.” Dale hung up and stared at the phone. From the conversation with Kathy he didn’t think there was an informant who had alerted the club a shipment of poisoned meat was headed their way. He was pretty sure that club didn’t have a four legged blood hound. As long as those who converged on the truck with the toxic meat didn’t ask about the elephant in the room, he sure wasn’t going to say anything either. In his line of work sometimes it was best to leave questions unanswered.
Fresh Packers was my phone call. Spencer was becoming one of my favorite people around this place. He came up with the private phone number of the CEO of that company. I tried the company number first to see where we were in the importance status as one of their customers.
Barney Cole’s secretary walked into his office. “There is a lady by the name of Jodi insisting she talk to you. She says she is the manager of Eve’s Hanging Gardens Club.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “Tell her I’m busy.”
She walked back to her desk. “I’m sorry but Mr. Cole is indisposed right now. You may call back later if you like.”
“I don’t like.” I hung up and dialed his private number.
Barney looked at the number. It wasn’t any he recognized right away but he had contacts all over the states. Might be one of those. He answered it. “Barney.”
“Mr. Cole, I have one of your delivery drivers and your truck in my back parking lot…”
“Who is this?” Barney looked at the number again.
“In that delivery truck is a load of poisoned meat which your driver intended dropping off at The Garden Club.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about. If this is a prank call you are in serious trouble lady.”
“The State Health Inspector was called, along with the FBI, and the Texas Criminal Division. In about forty minutes our lot is going to be eyeball deep in badges. And then we are going to be eyeball deep in hazmat crews. After that a lot of those people are going to be pounding on your door with a warrant asking a whole bunch of interesting questions. I hope I haven’t ruined your day, Mr. Cole.” I hung up.
I also missed how soon they would converge on Fresh Packers. After listening to our story the day before describing what had been tried at the club, Dale didn’t waste any time. Thirty one minutes after I hung up four of his meat inspectors were already pulling into Fresh Packers, back docks. Another inspector, along with two Texas Rangers, was headed to the Lazy B restaurant where the driver told us the switch had been made. Up until now I don’t think anyone at The Garden Club realized how important those RFID tags were, when I insisted our distributors put one in and on each shipment coming from the warehouses. That pallet of meat at the Lazy B was going to show it should have been ours. Unless Fresh Packers was in on the swap and made sure the pallet of toxic meat still in the van was labeled for The Garden. Those tags would be enough evidence to send some people to prison.
Scooter and Kitcha were sent packing before we were flooded with badges. I took Eva’s place as Maitre d’ and sent her away. Spencer said he was good around badges. He had experience so I let him decide and he stayed.
“You’re security for this club?” The Health Inspector along with and FBI agent were questioning Spencer.
“I was hired as temporary help when a large number of their staff suddenly quit. Including their security guy.” Spencer scratched his nose in a casual manner. ‘Let the FBI agent figure out that body language.’
“Okay, how did you know about the supposedly tainted meat?” The FBI agent was writing on a pad and had his recorder going at the same time.
“We…, the club received an anonymous phone call informing us the meat had been poisoned.” Spencer ran a fingernail down a tooth like he was dislodging some remaining food from breakfast.
“And the driver? He looks pretty beat up. Did you beat a confession out of him?”
Spencer held both hands out in front and turned them over several times. There wasn’t a scratch or blood on them. “I never touched the guy. That might have been at the place where he switched pallets. Maybe they had to convince him he needed to make this delivery.”
Both the Health Inspector and the FBI agent looked like they weren’t buying the story. They had nothing to contradict the man they were questioning.
FBI cleared his throat. “He drove in here, volunteered he was delivering supposedly tainted meat, and confessed to it all? I find that very hard to believe Mr. Miller.”
Spencer held up his hands. “Hey, don’t blame me if the guy had a guilty conscience.”
This was an empty trail. Miller knew something and wasn’t telling. “Where’s the owner?”
Spencer pointed over to where Brent and Kathy had been separated and were now talking to more badges. “Owners. That’s them over there.”
“Don’t go away Mr. Miller, I may have some more questions.”
Spencer shrugged. “I work here and my shift has just started.” He looked at his watch. “I have another seven hours to go before I can go home.”
He handed the FBI man a business card, Impenetrable Security. “That’s the other company I work for. That is my telephone number on the card along with the company phone number.”
“Your address?”
“Private. I’m not giving you that. You want to push this then you will talk to our company lawyers. I haven’t done anything and you haven’t charged me with anything. I don’t have to give you my address if I don’t want to.” Spencer decided to spell it out for this agent in case he wanted to push the issue.
The agent mulled that one over for a few seconds and then walked away.
“May I have a card?” The Health Inspector wanted to know how to get in touch with Miller if he had any more questions.
Spencer shook his head. “Your boss, Dale Weathers, has all that already. I’m either here or at my other job, Impenetrable Security. You can reach me anytime you want.
It was in the waning hours of the afternoon before they had the truck pulled up on a flatbed and hauling it out. Dale had received a call from one of the inspectors who were monitoring everything at our docks. He also received a call from one of the hazmat men who transported a sample of the meat to Blakly Labs. He called and informed Kathy and Brent what the analysis was on the poison. The poison was really nasty stuff. Guaranteed to kill those who took the wrap off the pallet, those who put away the meat in the walk in refrigerator, and those who handled it cooking it. Most poisons don’t react to heat that well and become harmless. This one wouldn’t. Those who were served any of it would die. The pallets had been swapped at the Lazy B restaurant. Three men were arrested while an arrest warrant was put out for two more. The Lazy B was closed as hazmat crews swarmed the place.
This was going to cramp my style. This whole damn town was going to be crawling with FBI, Texas Rangers, and numerous other badges searching for the same man I wanted. Didn’t make any difference if Dagger was a mutant or not, he better pray to God the FBI or Rangers found him first. The way he was able to mix up different batches of poisons I was betting he was mutant. Probably immune to the shit he was sending out.
Two could play that game. So far I was immune to everything he had sent our way. My problem is, some poisons could kill me just as quickly as they did a normal. I wasn’t immune to all of them. My saving grace was I could sense the deadly ones before I touched or inhaled it. If Dagger was a mutant, there was no doubt he suspected by now there was a mutant at the club picking up on his poisons before anyone touched it. This could turn into a race to see who could take out whom first. I needed answers and time off.
A meeting was held in the suite after the restaurant and club had shut down for the night with Brent, Kathy, Spencer, Scooter, Kitcha, Eva, Pete, Harold, Ben, and several others. I knew everyone wanted nothing more than to crash. They also needed to know what I figured was coming at us and I might not be able to stop it.
“Listen up everyone. I called this emergency meeting for a reason and it isn’t to punish all of you who are doing so much and are vital to the survival of this restaurant. I believe a mutant is our poison designer. You people have blocked two attempts at poisoning the club. When word gets back to him about this last failure of his, I suspect his ego will be damaged. He doesn’t like to lose if I’m reading him right.”
Taking a breath I knew what I said next was going to shock and scare a few. It had to be said so they would understand what they were in for. “The past two attacks have been toward our food. After the first failure he wanted more body count when he had to try a second time. If I’m right, his next attempt will be someone walking in to the restaurant or the bar. It won’t be him personally. He will contaminate a customer or dupe someone looking to make a lot of quick, fast, easy money. We will lose this game because Scooter and I can’t cover all entrances all the time we are open.”
Most everyone turned to look at Scooter. She smiled. I thought she took the attention graciously. She was an exotic, beautiful woman there was no doubt. Her elf beauty came with a price. She had to be a recluse or cover up almost completely when she went out in public.
“I am going to take some time off to go hunting. Spencer, use all your contacts to find out if there is a cluster area where sickness or people dying is higher than normal. He can’t contain everything in his house or lab no matter how good he is. Some toxins will leak and people, animals, birds in that vicinity will be dying. Ask your boss to put as many people on the streets, in the bars, the slums, as he can.”
Kathy gasped as she wondered what the cost would be?
“No one and I mean absolutely no one confront this person. Tell everyone if they have a lead to contact the restaurant or Spencer’s company. The messages can be forwarded to me. They are not under any circumstances to follow any lead.”
Looking at all the serious faces, I knew this was troubling a lot of them. “Anyone who wants to leave knowing they could die if they stayed may do so with my blessing.”
Kitcha grinned as her eyes turned blood red with vertical pupils. “And miss a fight? If I’m not allowed to take on this poison guy, may I have the rest?”
Several of the men turned to look at Kitcha. They were double glad they weren’t ‘the rest’ she was talking about. Spencer wondered what he had stepped into? Some of the women around Nova made his blood run cold even if they were beyond beautiful.
“There are mats and blankets in the closets for those who are going to stay. Kathy can tell you about the fixings in the kitchen if you want breakfast in the morning.”
“I’ll probably be up before the rest. I can fix them breakfast from the restaurant kitchen if anyone wants.” Pete spoke up to be heard.
“Okay, that’s it people. Scooter, try and keep everyone alive while I’m gone. Harold, Spencer, assign one of your bouncers and one of your guards to protect her. They touch her instead of protecting her, they will be mine when I return. I knew Kitcha too well. She isn’t going to stay around the club if there is prey to be chased down. I’m gone and won’t be back until this one particular problem is taken care of, one way or another.”
“Spencer I need a common denominator of names off those cell phones we have been liberating off these people. I want names, addresses. Someone knows where Mr. Toxic is mixing his poisons. We’ll try the street people first. If no leads I’m going to ramp it up and make it personal until I get a name. Time is not on our side. We get this bastard first or a lot of people are going to die.”
Spencer gave me a serious look. “I’ll have those names for you before noon tomorrow.”
“Spencer, Harold, I need to talk to both of you before I leave. I want to know where the druggies, prostitutes, gangers, homeless hang out around this town.”
Kitcha rubbed her hands together. “Oh yeah!”
Pointing at her, I shook my head. “Pants, blouse, ratty and dirty. We blend in instead of looking like the recruiting poster for lost damsels in distress.”
“And…” I continued when she looked like she was about to protest. “Mess up your hair and dirty your face. We will look like one of the homeless ourselves.”
Brent, Harold, and Spencer all choked at the same time as the same thought hit their minds. Nova looking like a bag lady? Kitcha, the sex kitten, looking like a street waif? Impossible.
Kitcha and I put on jeans and tee-shirts after tearing holes in them. We borrowed jackets from Brent and Harold. To their horror we ripped them as well. Kitcha used liquid soap in her hair to matt it down. I used crankcase oil knowing within a few hours I’d need to do it again as my hair shed anything I put on it or in it. A couple of my front teeth were blacked out by magic marker. We both used dark makeup expertly applied in spots to make us look like ninety miles of life had run over us. My old Mercury served for getting us within four blocks of where we needed to go.
As we were getting out of the car after finding a place to park where I didn’t think it would get vandalized, I gave Kitcha a hard look. “Viper, try and not kill anyone no matter how bad they piss you off. We don’t need to attract any badges. Our primary goal is finding the person mixing the poisons. Time is not on our side. When your anger rises, think of those who will die if we don’t catch this bastard before he sends in another batch to the club.”
Viper was a name very few knew about Kitcha. She was fast and deadly when necessary. I don’t know if she was the fastest I had ever met but I wouldn’t hesitate to put her at the top.
“I’ll try. If they absolutely deserve killing without any doubt…. Contessa, thanks for letting me come along.” Kitcha gave me a steady look.
A name I hadn’t been called in over sixty years. “It’s all I ask. Now, we have a poison expert to catch before anyone else dies. You work the north side of the street and I’ll take the south.”
Because we had started so late, a lot of the action in that part of town had slowed down. The rest of the night Kitcha and I separated. We were scouting the parts of town where all the human trash and flotsam accumulated. This was where the drug dealers, crack heads, burned out meth users, prostitutes, and their pimps wasted the last bit of their lives. There were also the vultures who preyed on them knowing the police could care less who got robbed and murdered. It was another body off the street. The police would look for the killer in the doughnut shop.
Had no idea how many propositions Kitcha was receiving. Knowing her size wasn’t as intimidating as mine, she was probably receiving three or four times the number I was being offered. I prayed they didn’t think the little girl could be forced into accepting any offers. It was slow going as I couldn’t just walk up to people and ask if they knew where I could buy poison to kill a bunch of people. I would aimlessly wander down the street asking for money or a drink. If they were willing to talk I would steer the conversation towards those who I knew were great at handling poisons and killing people. Hoping those listening would bring up their own local poison expert.
Kitcha and I met back up around seven AM. We would try the streets again as it would be a different set of people on the streets now. We had grilled the night crowd who for the most part were now gone. This would be the day crowd.
“Anything?” I was hoping Kitcha had better luck than me.
“Nothing concerning our poison expert. Got a lot of job offers though. I could make a living down here.”
Laughing, I shook my head. “Until you killed all your pimps and clients.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “No job lasts forever.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Okay, you going to take a break? I’m going back in and taking your side of the street.”
“I’m good. As you said, time isn’t on our side. Let’s find and nail that bastard.”
I had worked down a couple alleys and was headed back to the street in a second alley when I saw something that might give me a little more credibility as homeless. I stepped up to the cardboard box and the shopping cart piled full of junk. “Hey, you in the box. I want to borrow or buy your cart and it’s contents.”
Feet wrapped in rags, the legs had on two or more pairs of pants came sliding out. The body they were attached to had on several layers of ratty old shirts and sweaters. She stood up and looked me over. “Mine ain’t for sale.”
“Possibly rent until tomorrow morning then.” Reaching into my pocket I pulled out some bills. I started unfolding twenties until I got to five of them and stopped.
“What you up to, Huntress? You ain’t homeless. You working for the law?”
That one shocked me as I took a good look at her face trying to picture where we had possibly met. I had picked up the vibes she was mutant before I ever got close to her box. Taking a second look convinced me we had never met. Over the centuries my memory had a lot of faces stored in it. As far as I knew it wasn’t leaking yet.
“Most of the law and me don’t get along so well. I’m needing information on the whereabouts of a person.”
“Nobody is going to share any information down here. It will get you killed. Out of curiosity who you looking for?”
“Someone who can mix up poisons. He would be local in the area and probably a mutant.”
“That would be Dagger. She comes down this way every now and then to try out one of her latest batches. People die, no one cares. Police don’t even check for poison. Some of the street people weren’t too bright and came right out saying Dagger poisoned them. That was when the police called in Bolt to take care of the wagging tongues. Going up against the Committee will get one killed.”
“You know about the Committee?”
“I didn’t say nothing.” She looked up and down the alley for feet attached to ears.
Unfolding another five twenties I was studying her face. She wasn’t moved. The money wasn’t worth dying over. Again I unfolded another five twenties. Still nothing. Money wasn’t going to buy the information I needed. “Look, this Dagger person has been trying to kill a bunch of people at the club. If I don’t stop him…, her, she is going to succeed. I need to know where I can find her.”
“Won’t do no good. Get close to her and she will kill you. Same as with Bolt. The police give them free reign to do whatever they want.”
“I’m pretty sure I can handle Dagger. As far as Bolt hurting anyone ever again, won’t happen.”
“You took him out? That’s pretty good even for you, Huntress.”
“Let’s just say him and Dreamer decided to leave town and didn’t leave a forwarding address.”
“That club you mentioned? Is that the one where Bolt killed that waitress? Is that why Dagger was called in?”
“The demise of a certain waitress was a little premature. Bolt didn’t quite get the job done.”
She stared at me for the longest before she nodded in agreement. “That was you? I heard you were impossible to kill. Maybe Dagger has met her match. She doesn’t live near here. She only drops by from time to time to test her toxic batches. She lives up in Woodland addition near Oak and Willow streets. Can’t give you a proper address but that will be close.”
Reaching out, I took her hand and put all the cash I had in mine in hers. It was over a thousand dollars. “Can you take care of yourself until I come back for you? I have a job to do first and then I want you to come with me. What in the hell caused you so much pain you bailed out on society?”
“They killed my sister. Didn’t give her a chance. Assassinated her after pulling her over on the road.”
That one shocked the hell out of me. One guess who her sister was. “Jenna?”
She was wiping tears as she nodded.
Now I knew how she knew who I was. She picked up the small insignificant things a Huntress carries in the way we move, our mannerisms, the way we constantly check for threat situations around us. I didn’t know Jenna but she must have heard about me. Living for centuries we pick up unwanted baggage with people talking about our existence.
“What’s your name?”
She hesitated for so long I was beginning to think she wasn’t going to tell me. “Sonya”
“Sonya, I give you my promise those who killed your sister along with those higher up who told them to do it, will pay. Stay safe. I will be back for you.”
Back out on the street I looked for Kitcha. She was coming out of an alley two blocks from me. Of course she spotted me. She might not be a Huntress, Viper was a killer in her own right. Nothing around her was left unchecked for safety reasons. Making a circle motion above my head with my right hand, I closed my fist.
Kitcha gave a slight nod with her head she understood. I had what we had been seeking. That was just as four men moved in on her. From where I was at they didn’t look like guys who took no for an answer. I closed my eyes and shook my head as I prayed Kitcha didn’t kill them.
Kitcha backed up into the alley. I knew she was luring them in, small helpless, defenseless little girl retreating out of fear. “Oh shit!” I could have run down there which would have told everyone who saw me, I was mutant. I’m a whole lot faster than normal people. All I could do was wait. A couple minutes later Kitcha came out smiling. I don’t know what she did as there weren’t any screams. As fast as she is, they probably didn’t have time to scream after she took out the first one.
“Idiots!” I was wondering if they would ever try to ambush another female? Provided Viper left any of them alive that is. The public makes a lot of lies up about mutants. There are a few things they will never admit. We are the ultimate deterrent against rape and assault against women.
Turning, I headed back for where we left the car. I didn’t want Kitcha to meet up with me in front of the alley where Sonya was. Someone might add up two and two if they were paying attention. The hand signal? I doubted anyone in this neighborhood was intelligent enough to figure it out even if they did see it.
“You’re driving.” I tossed Kitcha the keys after we returned to the car where two young men were taking an unusual interest in it.
“Guys, it’s old and the parts are hardly worth stripping. Go steal one that will make it worth your time.” Kitcha and I walked up to them.
“Big girl, you don’t scare me.” The one who stood about six foot tall was giving me the back off look.
That got me tickled. “Sonny, it isn’t me you need to be scared of. It’s the shorter chick beside me. She’s a real mental case and enjoys putting the maximum hurts on people like you.”
Kitcha squeaked as she looked up at me. “Mental? You call me mental after some of the things you’ve done?”
They were both laughing. “Is all this talk supposed to scare us? Get real, bitches.”
“Warned you. They’re yours.” I backed up.
Moments later we were leaving two seriously messed up young men who had received a very costly lesson in underestimating a small woman. Their hospital stay would be for a couple weeks there was no doubt. Kitcha was smiling ear to ear.
Yep, she was mental. I could live with that as long as she wasn’t putting the hurts on those who didn’t do anything to her. I was busy programming Oak and Willow into the GPS. It brought up the intersection.
“That’s our target area, there. Drive up Oak six or eight blocks each direction. If I don’t pick up a scent we will take Willow. I hope she hasn’t already mixed up her toxins and left for the club.”
“She?”
“Dagger is female. Not a name I have ever heard a female use. I’m guessing the name was to throw off anyone who might be looking for her.”
Kitcha looked worried. “Nova, I know you can pick up scents almost as good as Scooter. I also know you are immune to a lot of poisons. I don’t think you should be taking on this psycho alone. I’d never forgive myself if she managed to kill you.”
“I plan on being very careful. Don’t have a plan yet. She is not going to poison anyone ever again if I can stop her. Let’s worry about finding her before we start worrying how to bring her down.”
“Gun would work from a distance.”
“I don’t have a gun. Do you? I didn’t think so. You and I aren’t the gun type for killing. A sword, spear, arrow would be nice about now but I don’t have any of those in the car. This isn’t the first time I regret not bringing any of those things along.”
Our windows rolled down, Kitcha slowly drove up Oak. She was driving slow. I was hoping Dagger or whatever her real name was, wasn’t monitoring the cars going up and down the street. I was betting she felt pretty secure with all her poisons and wouldn’t be watching traffic if she was home.
After Kitcha had gone ten blocks up Oak she turned the car around and looked at me.
“She’s here somewhere. The toxic smells were stronger closer to the intersection with Willow. Go back and drive east down Willow.”
After ten blocks east on Willow there were scents but nothing definite I could point to. We were wasting time. I wasn’t sure if Dagger was still home or how much time we had to spare. Scooter could nail this down in minutes but she wasn’t here. It would take more than an hour for her to come even if we called her now. I was so damn sure of my own ability to follow the scent I screwed up. I should have called for help when Sonya told me where I needed to look. People might die because of my own arrogance.
When Kitcha drove back to Oak and Willow I had her stop. Getting out of the car, I licked my finger and held it up. There was a very slight wind out of the south. I was picking up the scent on a back swirl of wind. Dagger didn’t live on Oak or Willow. She lived on a street or two north of Willow.
Back in the car I pointed east. “Go north a block and drive east.”
Kitcha had gone less than a block east on Popular when I saw the house we were looking for. It had security cameras at the entrance, another covering the garage door, one covering the driveway, and one at each corner of the house. If that wasn’t enough,
the toxins leaking out of that house told me that was her home. There were poisons I caught a trace of I had no doubt would put me six feet under. If she had any neighbors still alive I would be surprised.
“Keep on driving for two blocks. Circle the block and park in a driveway four doors down from that house.” I pointed at the house in question.
“Think that’s her?”
“I don’t think. That’s her all right. I hope she’s still home.”
Moments later Kitcha had parked in one of her neighbor’s driveway. “Now what?”
I called Spencer. “We found the house. I need to know if she’s still there. It is three four eight nine Popular. Are you able to help? Don’t send anyone to her door. The toxins leaking out of that house would kill an elephant. It has to be a thousand times worse when she opens the door.”
“Just a minute.” I heard Spencer talking in the background.
Minutes later he was back. “We have a phone number listed for that address. I’m looking through all those cell phones you have been collecting. Yep, here it is on one of them. I’m betting if I call her from the phone she will answer it. I’m giving it a try now.”
I could hear the phone ringing from Spencer’s end but there wasn’t any answer. I was almost in tears. So close and yet so far. We were too late. “Crap! She’s left already!”
“Hold on, we aren’t finished. We’ll ping her phone and get a location.” It wasn’t the longest sixty eight seconds I had ever waited but close.
“Got it. She’s home but not answering the phone. Maybe the guy who owned this phone with her number wasn’t really supposed to have it?”
“Bless you and your security team! If you were close I’d throw you down on the ground and kiss you until you cried uncle.” I was almost in tears again with happiness.
Spencer was laughing as he shouted at Ken. “Did you hear that! She might be going on date you but it’s me she is going to kiss for days.”
“In your dreams, Ken yelled back at him.”
“Gotta go, I need to get ready for when she leaves. Hugs and kisses, guys.” I hung up got out, went to the trunk, and retrieved a rifle.
“I thought you said you didn’t have a rifle.” Kitcha had followed me to the back of the car.
Opening up a box I retrieved a dart among a dozen nestled in the box. “Air rifle.”
“You plan on tranquilizing her? Nova, I don’t think that will work. The woman is probably immune to poisons. Tranquilizers are mild poisons.”
“Tracker. It isn’t her but her car I’m going to dart.” Opening the breach I loaded the dart into the gun.
Walking away another block away from her house I crossed the street and headed for the alley of the houses across the street from hers. It was then I noticed was there were no dogs barking, kids playing, or people talking. Over a block around her house was essentially a dead zone. I wondered if everyone had died or if they got sick and left?
Across the street from Dagger was a house with some mostly dead shrubs in the front. I made it to them and waited. Three hours later Kitcha and I were still waiting for her to leave. I was beginning to wonder if Spencer and his guys had pinged a phone in her house she never carried with her? I was thinking about calling him when her garage door starting rising up. I waited as she started backing out. Just before the back of her car reached the street I pulled the trigger. It was a good solid shot. There was a dart in the trunk of her car. She would see it if she got out and looked but I didn’t think that would happen until she got where she was going.
She drove west to Oak and turned north. I had no doubt the club was her destination.
Running back to the car, I slid into the driver’s seat and looked at Kitcha. “This could get very deadly. You sure you don’t want out now?”
“You’re wasting time.”
“Yes, and maybe delaying our funerals.” Switching on the GPS I touched the screen several times. It lit up with a dot indicating Dagger’s car on the street map. She was on Coronado headed west. The club was in that general direction.
Frantically I was trying to decide how to stop her without any good options coming up in my mind. “Kitcha, any ideas?”
“Knock her off the road and kill her. No problem.” Kitcha was grinning as she looked at me.
“The world’s problems can’t be solved by killing everyone we don’t like.” Leave it up to Kitcha to be direct.
“Probably not but it’s a start.”
Fifty-two blocks later we were getting close and closer to the club and I was getting desperate. “Okay kid, tighten your seatbelt and hold onto your pantyhose. This is going to get rough.”
Speeding up, I caught up with her car in less than five blocks. She was in the inside lane of a four lane street. Coming up on her right side I whipped the steering wheel to the left into her right rear side panel. Her car started drifting across the street with the rear end getting ahead of the front end. Drivers coming at us from the other way started dodging around her. Her car bounced backwards across the curb, across a parking lot, and slammed the passenger side into a retaining wall.
When I had steered into her I hit the brakes to wait and see if my unprofessional PIT maneuver was going to stop her. Whipping into the parking lot, Kitcha and I were out of the car in less than a second after I stopped thirty feet from the toxic lady.
She opened her door, stepped out, and smiled as she looked at me. “Well as I live and breathe if it isn’t Huntress. Sorry I don’t have time to stop and gossip about old times. I really am on a schedule.”
“Oh? That crap you’re planning on sending into the Garden Club has a shelf life does it, Sally Ann?”
“You’ll never know. I figured you were around somewhere screwing things up. I made up a special batch for you.” She tossed a glass vial toward the pavement at my feet.
I was back peddling as Kitcha, the little speed demon, came past catching the vial before it had a chance to hit the pavement. “Kitcha NO!” If that stuff could kill me, Kitcha didn’t stand a chance.
My fiery hit the red line as I leaped at Sally Ann. If Kitcha was going to give up her life than Sally Ann was most certainly going to forfeit hers. She didn’t have time to react other than to start raising her left hand while she tossed a vial at the pavement with her right. I batted the vial back under the car and slashed her throat. Blood sprayed all over as shock registered in her eyes. Grabbing her throat, she fell backwards into the car and then slid down to a sitting position on the pavement. Her eyes glazed over as her arms fell limp by her sides. Sally Ann had to be a re-gen working with that many toxins and surviving. I took care of that possibility before looking around for Kitcha.
Fifty feet away she was holding up the vial in her right hand. She was wearing neoprene gloves. “Stopped by the janitor’s closet before we left the club. Had them under the seat. I came prepared if we were going up against poison man. I don’t have your ability to detect scents like you and Scooter. I also don’t have your ability to shrug off poisons.
“Toss the vial and the gloves into her car. Hazmat can take care of the clean up job. Let’s go before we are surrounded by cops checking on the accident. Kitcha, I need the car because I’m toxic. I got a lot of her blood on me. You can’t ride in the car with me. Can you hide out in the McDonald’s we passed three blocks back? I’ll call it in and have someone come pick you up.”
She nodded in agreement. “I can manage. What about you? How you going to clean up?”
“Poisons have a weak link if they aren’t already internal. Most can be neutralized with baking soda and soap or vinegar and soap. The kinds I got on me from her will take both before I get clean.”
“Okay go, I’m good.” She turned and peeled off her gloves inside out after she tossed the vial into Sally Ann’s car. She was headed up the sidewalk carrying her gloves.
I understood why she was taking them. Fingerprints can be lifted from the inside after someone has worn gloves. I was sure she would toss them in a dumpster behind McDonalds. If the police thought of gloves they wouldn’t think of looking there. It was then I remembered Kitcha and I looked like ninety miles of bad road to fit in with the cast offs as we searched for information about Dagger. I wondered if McDonalds would call the cops to evict her if she tried going inside?
Pulling out onto the street, I turned into the first off side street I came to. The cops would be using the main street. I’d work my way through the residential streets to the club. My car with the left front fender all crumpled would be a lighthouse beacon for police looking for the other car in a wreck.
Calling Spencer again I gave him the address of Sally Ann’s car. “Call it in anonymously so they can’t track it back to you, the club, or anyone else. Tell them the car and everything around it is deadly to anyone who gets close to it. Alert them to Sally Ann’s house also before any unsuspecting soul buys it in a foreclosure sale for back taxes in a year or two.”
“I’m on it. Jodi, are you contaminated? Is that the reason you left Kitcha?”
“Yes I am. Not only from getting close to her car, I also got a lot of her blood on me. Sally had a lot of that stuff circulating in her own system.”
“I’ll have a porta shower set up in the back parking lot when you get here. Anything special you need?”
“Keep everyone away and leave a bag to toss my clothes in. I won’t be saving them. Don’t involve hazmat in this or there will be questions we can’t answer. The drain water needs to go down the storm drain instead of trapped. Put the shower over in the northeast corner over the drain.”
“You’re awfully hard on clothes. I’d hate to be paying for everything you seem to be wearing and tossing.”
“Maybe I need to ask Kathy if there is a clothing allowance in the budget?”
“Let me know how that one works out. Okay, I need to make some calls. Nova, I’m glad you’re on our side. I’d hate to think that psycho made it to the club and how many would have died.”
“She’s through murdering people. Stay safe.” I hung up.
Spencer looked at his phone. Stay safe? Nova was the one taking all the risks it seemed. Of course Kitcha was there also but still. He shook his head. What makes a Huntress care about others more than herself?
It was twenty seven years back when I first met Sally Ann. I was looking for license plates I could use. As I passed a house full of kids having a party, I heard someone screaming. Looking over the privacy fence there were four boys holding down a girl and pulling her panties off. Hopping over the fence I proceeded to turn the boy’s lights out. Picking up the girl, I took her to my car and got her to stop crying long enough to find out where she lived. The only thing I learned about her was her name. Sally Ann Bechamp. She didn’t tell me she was a mutant and I didn’t ask. I could sense it.
What makes them turn on society like Bolt, Dreamer and so many others? Did we have a rogue gene inside us like a switch? I’d probably never know.
============================
Standing in the suite, Kathy was handing me nylons to put on. “Brenda wanted you to come to her place for the fitting until I told her what you had gone through.”
“I don’t blame her. Most are going to be a little skittish around me for awhile.”
Scooter was standing across the room watching. She had given me a passing grade after I spent more than an hour washing and scrubbing in that porta shower. It would be impossible to get a hundred percent clean as some toxins would get into the pores of the skin. The thing was, I wasn’t a hazard to anyone else even if Scooter could still sense some.
Kathy closed in and gave me a hug. “Nova, none of us at the club are afraid of getting close to you. We realize the risks you took and what lies ahead.”
Scooter nodded in agreement. “Same here Nova. However for the time being I’m not going to hug you.”
Kathy walked over to the bed and removed a black dress from a garment bag. She turned holding it out to me. Brenda thought this one was appropriate for your duties tonight as you circulate through the club. Are you sure you don’t want to take a couple days off? We can handle it you know.”
Looking at the dress I started laughing. “A turtle neck, sweater knit dress? And did she send the appropriate silver jewelry? Cause you know only silver not gold is going to be able to compete with that dress.”
Kathy pointed to a box on the bed. “Brenda isn’t a fashion expert without experience. She’s tops in her field.”
Kathy walked with me down to the dinning room. The time was after seven and those who dined out for the enjoyment, friendship, business, as well as the food were beginning to arrive. Turning to Kathy, I gave her a nod. “Time for me to earn my paycheck.”
Walking across the dinning room I smiled and greeted everyone who looked up at me from their tables. I met Eva at the entrance. “Any reservations?”
She pointed to a screen on the desk. “We have nine tonight.”
“Okay, I’ll take it for twenty minutes. Take a break.”
She shook her head as she looked me over. “Girl, if a few tables aren’t bumped as you lead our guests to their tables, it will because they are blind and following their dog.”
“That was a nice compliment. Now go, you’re wasting your break time.”
Four men walked in the door. Obviously business men all in suits. “How many?” I was already picking up menus from the stack on the desk.
“Four.” Came from the guy in front.
“We have a quieter section over by the hanging garden if you prefer to be discussing business with your meals.” I had stepped out from behind the desk.
They were all giving me an appraisal. I almost laughed. Did I pass? The one in back was the first to answer. “Yes, that would be nice.”
Leading them across the dinning room to the hanging garden wall, I spread out the menus in front of the four men after the were seated. “Your waitress is Debbie, she will be here shortly. Enjoy your evening and please let me know if there is anything wrong. Thank you for coming to the Garden Club gentlemen.”
As I was walking away I heard them discussing me. I slightly shook my head. “Gentlemen, I am not on the menu. Take care of the business you planned on discussing tonight over dinner.”
I picked up a logjam of arriving diners before Eva returned. I stayed until she and I had led the last ones to a table. “Whew, does that happen often?”
“Nova, word is getting out the Garden Club is fresh and the food is to die for. Traffic has been increasing every night for the past three nights.”
A group of six people were coming in the door. “I’ll get you some help up here.”
Earlier with Sally Ann no longer a threat I decided it was safe to let Scooter return back to her own life away from humanity. Tears leaked from my eyes as I watched Enchantress drive off with her. I loved all humanities misfits. I only wish so many didn’t have to hide in order to live. I found Kitcha sitting on the dock. “May I talk you into helping Eva as Maitre d’ until the dining crowd slows down?”
She hopped up and brushed her pants. “Sure.”
“Did you happen to bring a knock them dead dress when you came?”
She eyed me suspiciously. “I had intended to do some partying, yes.”
“Find it. I’m going back to give Eva a hand. Come when you can.” As beautiful and sexy as Eva was, I had seen Kitcha when she turned on the charm. Not many others could compete. Enchantress of course was in a class all her own. So was Scooter but she would never show her natural beauty in public. Mutant would be the first thing on everyone’s tongue.
My back was to the hallway that led to the bathrooms, stairs, and docks when I noticed people were turning to look across the room. I already picked up menus and was going to lead a man, wife, and teenage daughter to a table when I looked up myself.
Kitcha was wearing a sleeveless, turquoise dress with a very low breast cuddling neckline. The dress kinda flowed in the light over her body with every step she took on her matching four inch heels. Her diamond earrings matched a diamond necklace. Her makeup accented her uncommon beauty. Her mutant gene had turned her into a sex kitten. She knew how to emphasize it with makeup. As if she needed any to begin with.
By the time I had seated my diners and made it back to the front desk, Eva was coming back also. She stopped and looked at Kitcha before turning toward me. “You sure this is a good idea? I thought better than excellent food, family or business dining was our business.”
Looking at Kitcha and then Eva, I managed to hide a smirk. “Are you insinuating we have another business besides food and an adjoining bar?”
“Check it out yourself.” Eva gave a slight nod of her head over her shoulder.
I already had. Many of the patrons were looking at the three women by the front desk instead of their food. The waitresses weren’t much better. Those who weren’t carrying food or bussing tables were watching also. “We needed help at the front desk and Kitcha volunteered.”
Kitcha gave me a sharp look.
Eva closed her eyes as two more groups were coming in. “I’ll bet tomorrow night our customer base is up two percent and the majority will be men.”
“No bet. Kitcha, no fighting in the dining room. After they feel, you take their name and address and kill them later. Much later.”
Kitcha frowned. “Nova, you are a wet blanket. You take the fun out of everything. Okay, I promise I won’t kill them tonight.”
Leaving Kitcha and Eva, I headed for the hallway leading to the bar next door. Harold held up his hand as he met me at the door. “You look a little young, lady. You have an ID?”
Feeling down along my hips and then up on my breasts as if I was searching for pockets, I shook my head. “I must have left it lying on the dressing table. I promise I’m old enough.”
“To be your great, great, really great grandmother.” I whispered so only Harold could hear.
He was trying really hard to not laugh out loud as he shook his head. “If any of my grandmothers looked like you, I’m afraid I would vote in favor of incest.”
“How are things looking tonight?” I wanted Harold’s outlook on the situation.
He got serious. “Funny thing Nov…, Jodi. There isn’t any underage trying to get in tonight. I believe it has something to do with the problem you took care of earlier today.”
“Stands to reason. No one wanted to go down with the ship so to speak. Have no idea what that committee will try next. You can bet your last lucky dime they aren’t through trying. If they lose the Garden Club there will be others following. Their kind of organization is held together with fear. One broken link is a threat to that kind of control.”
“And you?” Harold studied the unbelievably beautiful woman in front of him. Knowing what she was capable of, he was wondering if others still had chills running up and down their spines every time she got close? He most certainly did. Almost like being in a cage with a panther. Even if it wasn’t trying to kill you at the moment, you knew she was capable anytime she chose to do so.
“Options are in play. This game they started isn’t over until there is a winner. It isn’t going to be them no matter how high up the public ladder this goes.”
Walking over to the bar Yano, the new bartender, met me. “Ma’am, you have an ID?”
Ben was behind him and silently laughed as he waited to see what I would do. “No I don’t but…”
“I’m sorry, Harold shouldn’t have allowed you in. No ID no service and you aren’t allowed to stay.” He waved his hand at Devin by the front door.
When Devin walked up. Yano gave a nod in my direction. “Please escort the lady from the club. She says she doesn’t have an ID.”
Devin frowned as he gave me the get ready to get evicted look. “Is that true, Miss Jodi? You don’t have an ID?”
By now Harold was closing in to catch what was going on. Yano looked shocked as he looked from Devin to me and back to Devin. “You know her?”
Devin’s eyes were dancing in amusement by now. “Yep. Miss Jodi was there when Kathy hired me. Yano, I would like to introduce you to the manager of the Garden Club, Miss Jodi. Do you still want me to toss her out?”
That did it. Harold and Ben both started haw hawing as poor Yano looked like he had swallowed a persimmon. I took pity on him. “Yano, it’s all right. We were never introduced and we have both been busy. I’m glad you are double checking IDs. Please keep it up. If there is any doubt have them escorted out. It will save the Club a lot of heartache and legal expense. Probably stop those who would like to see us fail by shutting us down. Keep up the good work. I’ll tell Kathy she wasn’t wrong in hiring you.”
Yano was wiping his hands on a towel as his cheeks flamed. “I’m sorry Miss Jodi. I didn’t know.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. You didn’t know and you did exactly what you should be doing, checking IDs. Keep it up.”
“Yes, ma’am, I will, and thank you ma’am.”
Circulating through the bar, I was checking tables and listening to conversations. I didn’t expect to catch anything about the committee. Harold was probably right. They pulled all their people with the knowledge Sally Ann was going to turn the Club into a dead zone.
The four men were still by the end of the bar watching as I walked through the bar. Harold leaned over and whispered to Yano. “You ever get in trouble, that lady is the one you want next to you. Don’t ever underestimate her.”
Across the room, over a hundred feet away with dozens of people at tables drinking and talking, I turned around, nodded to Harold and mouthed, ‘thank you’.
Yano was staring, “Is she listening to us?”
I nodded again.
“Holy crap! This is a joke, right?” He looked around at the other three men.
Devin looked stunned as well. Harold and Ben had smirks on their faces as they shook their heads. Harold reached out and put his hand on top of Devin’s shoulder. “Guys, be thankful Jodi is on our side. If she wasn’t all of us wouldn’t be here now. And that isn’t a joke either. Do your job and don’t get to scamming or stealing because Jodi will know within a day or two. The final warning is don’t accept bribes to sabotage the club. No matter how much they offer it isn’t worth your life. And that is what you are selling if you do.”
I didn’t try and socialize with those in the bar club. It was a different crowd and would have been taken wrong. Since it was stable at the moment I headed back to the dinning room. Bobbi was watching as Kitcha seated a group of eight at one of her tables.
“I got this one, Bobbi. I took a notepad from under the desk at the cashier’s desk. Walking over to the table, I introduced myself. “Good evening gentlemen, welcome to the Garden Club. I am your hostess, my name is Jodi. Your waitress as Kitcha explained is Bobbi. She will take over shortly. May I get your drinks while you are deciding on your meal?
All of them looked at each other. I got the idea it wasn’t to decide who was going to be the first one to order.
“I’ll have a Black Russian.”
“I’ll have a Singapore Sling…, no wait make that a Sidecar.”
“I want a Royal Arrival.”
“Make mine a London Fog.”
“Hurricane”
“Brass Monkey”
“Think I’ll have a Tequila Sunrise…, I changed my mind. Make it a Bloody Aztec”
“A Koestritzer Schwarzbier if you please.”
“Thank you. Sir, I apologize on behalf of the Garden Club. Your German black beer will come from a bottle instead of draft. Would it be acceptable if it was served in a frosted mug?”
The guy looked surprised I knew what he had ordered. “uh, yes, that would be fine.”
“I’ll be back with your drinks shortly while you are deciding on your meals.” There was no doubt these eight men planned this before they arrived to test what kind of bar the Club had.
Back in the bar I handed the drink order to Yano. “Eight for the Garden Club.” Watching as he made the drinks he did real good and was quick. He set a tray with eight drinks in front of me.
“Thank you Yano, that was very professional.” I headed back to the dinning room carrying the tray shoulder high cradled by my right hand. A boy about nine came running out of the hallway from the bathrooms and ran into me. I managed to balance the tray as I caught him with my left hand to keep him from falling down.
“You okay there, Speeder? This place is crowded isn’t it? Try slowing down and watching for traffic.” I turned lose of him as he regained his balance. He looked up at me and then ran for his parent’s table.
Eva leaned over to whisper to Kitcha as both had watched the whole crash scene unfold. “If any of our waitresses had been carrying that tray, she and the boy would be on the floor. Drinks and broken glass would be all over them, the floor, and those near by. That ladies and gentlemen is a small example why they call her Huntress”
At the table I stopped by the first man’s left shoulder. “You ordered the London Fog.” I reached up to the tray with out looking and sit his drink in front of him.
I stepped over to the man on his right. “You ordered the Hurricane.” Without looking, I turned the tray in my right hand, lifted off a drink and placed it in front of him.
It was when I placed the drink in front of the fifth man, he bumped it with his wrist. I caught it before it tipped over. A few drops had splashed out of the glass. “I’m terribly sorry sir. I put my hand on the top of your glass. I will get you another. Finishing up placing the other drinks in front of the respective men, I walked back to the bar and retrieved a second Royal Arrival. Returned to the table, changed drinks, and blotted the table with the towel I had over my arm.
“Have you gentlemen decided on what you would like? If not I will give you more time and return shortly.”
Their orders weren’t strictly by the menu as they added or subtracted substitutes, nor were their orders in sequence from one man to the next around the table. “Thank you, I will be back with your salad shortly.”
“She didn’t write any of it down.”
“There is no way she can remember after we changed our minds several times.”
“If she gets it right there is a camera recording us.”
Pausing by Bobbi, I talked softly enough only those closest would hear. “Something is going on and I have a good idea what. This table is mine. You can help me deliver the meals.”
It was pure luck Pete had already shifted to the nighttime schedule as I turned in the requests from the eight men. Pete was writing it down as I gave him the list. He smiled and looked up at me when I finished. “I’ve seen something similar to this several different times. They are testing us. In a week or two you can read their report in one of the food qusine magazines. I shall delight in satisfying their palate. This can’t be done in haste. It will be about forty minutes before I am finished. Now for their salads? Ah yes just as I suspected. Two wanted to try the House Dressing. I have my own special recipe. Give me five minutes there.”
Bobbi helped carry the salad dressings and crackers back to the table. I placed the salads and dressing each man ordered in the right order. As we left I heard them talking. “How does she do that? Even if they have a camera it isn’t possible. We’ll try something different when she brings our meals.”
I almost laughed. ‘oh? I accept the challenge. Game on then gentlemen.’
Laura and Bobbi helped deliver the meals and side dishes. I was placing them around the table when one of the men looked at his. “I ordered the KC with shallot buttered lobster tails.”
I nodded in agreement as I placed another dish in front of one of the others. “Yes sir you did as your third choice. Then you changed your mind a forth time for the filet mignon, rare, sautéed in garlic butter with buttered asparagus tips, and baked potato with sour cream.”
One of the other men on the opposite side of the table grinned. “She got you David. Men, we have been out maneuvered and out gunned.”
He looked up at me. “Ma’am, the order is right. I have no doubt the food will be somewhat lacking only in respect to your skill in delivering it to us.”
My smile was sincere. “Thank for joining us at The Garden Club. Do any of you gentlemen wish for your drinks to be freshened? Is there anything else you desire for your dinning pleasure?”
After retrieving more drinks for all of them, I turned the table over to Bobbi. “Keep a close eye on that table, Bobbi. Pete suspects they are food critics.”
Later that night after closing, Bobbi closed in on me while I was talking to Eva and Kitcha. She held out her hand. “They left a four hundred dollar tip. This is yours Jodi.”
“No hon, it isn’t. That is yours. I can’t accept tips as that would show favoritism and eventually all of you would feel I’m stealing what you earned. Tips are a reward to be the best you can be. You’re a single mother trying to raise a nine year old girl. I’m truly sorry the hours you work keep you away from her. Every child needs a parent. You can shift to daytime if you want. The tips aren’t as good.”
Bobbi threw her arms around my neck and hugged me. “I’m torn between leaving her alone and working. You’re making it better for all of us, Jodi. I was looking for another job before you came. No way I’m leaving now. My daughter and I will make this work some how. Thank you.” Turning loose she was wiping tears as she turned away.
Bobbi never noticed that smallest fraction of an instant when I was moving from her strike zone and back again as she was reaching to hug me. After a lifetime of fighting for my own life it was ingrained so deeply there was no way to not react instinctively.
Eva and Kitcha didn’t miss it. Eva looked over at Kitcha. “Think we will ever be as good as Nova?”
Kitcha shook her head as she stared at me. “Not in my lifetime I won’t. When I caught the vial, poison girl tossed, I thought I was saving her. Now I’m not so sure.”
==============================================================
Craig looked around at the other nine men in the room. “Why in the hell isn’t that fucking club shut down by now? Where is that bastard Bolt?”
Arnold cleared his throat. “Bolt seems to have taken a vacation or something. Nobody has any idea where he went. The last anyone saw of him, he and Dreamer were leaving The Outsiders Club. They haven’t been seen since. Wherever he is he took his van. It is gone also.”
Elmer nodded in agreement. “Some of our men are missing. Did you all hear about Dagger? Damn bitch was found with her throat ripped open. Her heart was ripped out and laying on top of her car.”
Craig snarled, “Looks like we will have to take care of that club another way. They will lose everything if their electricity is lost for several days. Be best if they lose it for a week. Now here’s the plan…”
It had been over a week since we had any trouble. Spencer wasn’t picking up anything from his connections. Scooter had return back to her own life away from humanity. At the moment things were actually normal for a high end restaurant. I was standing on the dock thinking of all those who had fought lived and died beside me. Kitcha was beside me Scooter’s name had come up in our conversation. Kitcha tapped me on the shoulder with her fist. Well from Kitcha it was more than a tap. If she had done that to anyone else she would have knocked them down. “You old softy. All of us know you will be there for us if we ever need you just as you always have been there for us. How many times did you save Scooter’s life? Three that I know of. There are only a couple here who don’t owe their life to you, Nova.”
Sniffing I nodded. “I’ve lost too many, Kitcha. I wasn’t there for Jenna was I?”
She took my hand to lead me back into the restaurant. “Life goes on, Nova. You didn’t know about Jenna did you? All of us will shake hands with the Grim Reaper in our own time. You can’t stop that. Come on and freshen up that beautiful face of yours. It’s closing in on seven and the evening rush is beginning.”
At seven twenty six the club was filling up with diners when the lights went out. The emergency lights kicked in. The club wasn’t in total black out. “Everyone please stay seated. Anyone trying to get to their car will only get someone hurt. I’m sure it is only temporary. Please give me a minute to find out what happened. Thank you.”
Heading for the dock and our breaker boxes, I figured a master switch had got thrown even though we had upgraded everything when we upgraded the club.
Spencer met me in the hallway. “Area wide blackout, Nov…, Jodi. A semi ran into a transmission tower taking it down. I bet our friends were behind this.”
“I was guessing they might try something like this. I need help. Paul is in the kitchen. He moonlights as an electrician. Charles is a bouncer in the club. He’s a heavy equipment operator and a mechanic. I’ll get Paul, you go get Charles and met me at that semi trailer parked in the lot for the past three weeks.”
“I’m on it.” He headed for the club.
Unlocking the back doors on the trailer, Paul and I climbed in and pushed out some stairs. Next I found a coiled up power line as big as my wrist. I picked up one and Paul a second one. We snaked them out to the equipment room where I unlocked the door. There I matched the green tape on the end of my power cord with a green marker on a huge junction box terminal. With the wrenches laying on a bench close by I screwed down the lugs onto the wire. Handing the wrenches to Paul I headed back out to retrieve another wire as he fastened his into the junction box.
Charles was inside the trailer and the sides were folding up. He hollered at me as I was climbing back into the trailer. “I have the disconnect thrown and locked out. Double check me, give me an okay, and I will start this beast.
I checked. “You’re good to go.”
The big Cummings diesel started turning over and quickly caught as I was climbing down pulling cable and Paul was climbing in for the forth wire. Five minutes later we were wired in. I walked back out beside the trailer where Charles was standing by the monitors and gauges. “WE’RE GOOD!”
“OKAY, COMING ON LINE! YOU’RE HOT!”
I gave a thumbs up to Paul inside the equipment room. He gabbed hold of the big lever on the breaker box and heaved. All the lights in and on the outside of the club lit up along with all the refrigeration, cooling equipment, and fans coming back online.
Charles watched the gauges for a minute before turning in my direction. “Everything is steady and looking good.”
Walking back into the restaurant a lot of relieved people were looking around, I raised my voice to be heard. “Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the inconvenience. I assure you there is no need to rush your meals as the power is not going out again. Please accept as a token of my apologies a free drink of your choice. For all you minors who thought this was your lucky night? Sorry, only a soft drink for you. Thank you.”
Spencer found me. “Word is it will take four days to a week to get power back on. You obviously were expecting this?”
“Only preparing for the worse. Is anyone working for us caught up in this blackout? Generators are going to get scarce for over two hundred miles around as prices triple. See if you can find out. Buy up a couple generators now. If any of our people don’t need them we can sell them tomorrow.”
He pulled his phone and started punching numbers. “I’ll send a couple of the guys from the company out to do that right now. Our office isn’t close enough to be caught up in this black hole. People won’t be getting excited there yet.”
Now I had a different problem. I was sure in a couple days those in that committee would think about sabotaging our generator when they heard we were still open for business. From what Spencer could tell me there wasn’t another Bolt or Dagger in the area. That didn’t mean another couldn’t be brought in.
“I believe when they find out we are still up and running, our generator will be their next target.” I figured my job would be out there baby sitting that generator twenty four seven.
“No…, Jody, I’ll contact some people I know. They try and stay under everyone’s radar and hidden from everyone including the government. They are even more black operations than the government black operations. They will ask for fifty thousand up front even if they only show up for one day. Expensive but worth every cent if one needs their special skills. Even black operations needs some way to be contacted and paid provided one knows where to look. Bill’s Deals is a front for a stock broker firm. Real enough but trading in the stock market isn’t what goes on in the back room.”
As of this moment Spencer had become my favorite go to person as if he wasn’t already. His knowledge and contacts was making my job a thousand times easier. Didn’t mean I still didn’t long for the days a sword or an arrow was the perfect answer to most problems. “How soon do you think you can have them here?”
“If they are available, probably tomorrow night at the earliest.”
“Make it happen if possible. Let me know. I’ll tell Kathy. With all the cash flow going out of this place, she probably won’t scream too much.” As far as I was concerned, fifty thousand to protect that two hundred thousand dollar generator, all the produce, meats it was keeping from spoilage and keep the club open was cheap insurance. I hoped Kathy would see it the same way.
“WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO SHUT THAT DAMN CLUB DOWN!” It had been two days since the blackout in that one area. Craig glowered at all the men in the room. He pointed at two men not at the table but standing by the door. “Fryman, Harvey, I’ve been informed it is going to be three more days before power is restored. Go out there and destroy that generator they have.”
Harvey gave a nod of his head before both men turned and left the room.
For the past two days several men and women had been indiscreetly hiding in different locations around the club. It was a good thing Spencer let me know they were the Black Operations people he had called in for help. He had also informed Allen, their squad leader, there were a couple women at the club who would be checking them out.
Allen made contact with Spencer when he and his crew arrived. He shook his head. “Spencer, you need to tell those in the know they need to stay away if they spot any of my guys. We can’t do our job with clueless and curious people trying to check us out.”
A smile touched the corners of Spencer’s mouth. “Allen, I think I mentioned there are two women who may be checking on your people after they dig in. I’d bet a bottle of hundred year old Scotch whiskey your people will never know they are there unless they want them to know.”
Allen rubbed his chin. “Make that five bottles and you’re on. The people I brought with me are some of the best I’ve ever been around. After we set up the parameter nothing will move we don’t see or know about.”
“And if you lose?”
“I’m not going to lose this bet.”
Spencer nodded. “Okay, hypothetically if you lose…?”
“I’ll buy you five bottles of that hundred year old Scotch.”
“Hope your billfold can stand the lightened load.” Spencer left Allen standing there.
At three forty one A.M. on a rooftop of a building a block east of the club Wayne scanned the area again with his thermal imaging device. Looking over at Jackie he shook his head. Nothing was moving in the neighborhood. Jackie felt someone looking at her. Slowly she turned around. Twenty feet away was a female. She was dressed in black pants, black turtle neck sweater, and black sneakers. With nary a sound, the woman nodded, turned, and went over the edge of the roof.
When the woman turned away, Jackie noticed she had a ponytail of long black hair so shinny it glistened in the soft glow of the city lights. Earlier that day at their security meeting one of the guys had described the manager of the club. Jackie had no doubt she had seen the manager just now. Tomorrow she would let the rest of the team know the manager of that club was more than a club manager. The company recruited those with special skills if their psych tests came back in the normal range. Which was rare as those with special skills hardly ever tested mentally in any kind of normal range.
Except for Brad and Ellery on watch, the security group met at eight A.M for discussion about how the watch went for each of them. Wayne looked around, I guess I’ll go first. Jackie and I had the Wescomby clothing store roof watch twenty four hundred to O eight hundred. The club dumps their trash at twenty three fifty one hundred. Lake and Harvey will tell you about that as Jackie and I had just arrived to take over the watch. A German shepherd ran down the alley at O two O six hundred. Quiet night until morning help started arriving at O four fifty six hundred. Want me to go on? It was only restaurant help and deliveries until Jackie and I called it a night at O seven forty nine hundred to make this meeting.”
Allen nodded in agreement. “Quiet night then. Lake your report?”
“Just a minute, I have something to add to Wayne’s report.” Jackie became the focal point of everyone in the meeting.
“At three forty one I felt someone was watching us. When I turned around a tall woman dressed in black was across the roof from us and was watching us. She nodded and turned, disappearing over the edge of the roof. She had long black hair that reached to her butt. From the description Norman gave us about the manager of this club, I believe it was her.”
“You sure you saw someone?” Allen could see his whiskey bet getting very expensive.
Jackie gave Allen a frown. “I as sure as I am you are standing there now.”
“And she dropped over on the fire escape?”
“Fire escape hell! She went over the edge. There is nothing on that side of the building besides a sixty foot drop down to the sidewalk.”
“She repelled down?”
Jackie glared at Allen. “For that she needed to have it anchored at the top wouldn’t she? Are you insinuating I’m seeing ghosts on the roof with us now? Fire me, send me home if you don’t believe me.”
Allen shook his head. “I believe you, Jackie. It’s going to cost me five bottles of whiskey. Spencer Miller bet me two women would be checking us out. Did anyone see the second one last night?”
Amber held up her hand. “Now that you mention it. I thought I saw some shadows moving last night. I didn’t check the time because I wasn’t sure.”
The second night as it was closing in on eight fifteen P.M. “Hawk, I have two men getting out of a black van. They are wearing black jumpsuits. Both of them pulled on black ski masks. One of them is carrying an RPG. The other has…? It looks like HK MP5N? It is! These guys are carrying some seriously illegal hardware. I need to find out who their supplier is.”
“Trip Wire, make sure of their intended target and then put them down.”
“Sparrow, I have them. They are headed toward the back parking lot of the club. I don’t think they are there to sell encyclopedias or bibles.”
“Trip Wire, Sparrow, your option. Take them down anytime.”
“Tell Mongoose he has two packages to pickup…, NOW!”
The two shots weren’t extremely loud but the hypersonic shockwave of a high velocity bullet was going to make a lot of noise. Two men really had no opportunity to know what happened as they were dead before their bodies were knocked backwards and fell onto the ground. A black van slowly came down the alley and pulled up beside the two bodies. A large figure in black got out, opened the cargo doors of the van, and tossed both bodies up into the van along with their RPG and a Heckler and Koch HK MP5N submachine gun.
“Humming Bird, are their keys still in the ignition?”
“Yes.” A distinctive female voice answered on the secure radios. The van the men arrived in was slowly pulling out a minute later.
Spencer’s cell rang. He turned it on. “Tag team two. Generator secure.”
“Place acquisition as agreed.” He answered. The signal was gone.
Tonight I was wearing what most call that little black dress. Mine wasn’t that short and the neckline that plunging. What it did though was enough. It was knit fabric and it hugged my body like tar on pavement. A six foot one girl with four inch black patent heels, black wavy hair long enough to reach my butt, wearing silver jewelry?
Eva whispered in my ear I was more sexy than if I had been naked.
Spencer found me in the dinning room. He was over ninety feet away and just stepped inside from the kitchen when I looked at him. “We need to talk. Office.” He whispered.
I nodded before I turned my attention to Kitcha. “Spencer wants something. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay, Eva and I got it for a little. Don’t take too long or we will get a logjam again. Jodi, you need to start looking for replacements for everyone. When this place settles down most of us will be gone again. None of us can stay in one place too long as it gets too risky.”
When I made it to Kathy’s office no one was there. I could hear them down the hall in Brent’s office. When I walked in, Spencer didn’t waste any time.
“There were two of them. They were going to take out the generator. They had the equipment to do it. One of them was carrying an RPG.”
“This has to stop. If they don’t have Bolt or Dagger they are going to more conventional methods…,”
Brent looked at me in surprise. “An RPG isn’t exactly a conventional weapon.”
“You know what I mean. I’m guessing their two pet mutants they had on a leash may have been the only ones they controlled.”
Now it was Kathy’s turn to look surprised I would talk about mutants like that.
Rolling up my bottom lip I gave it some serious thought. “Why haven’t they sent the Fire Marshal at us? They either don’t own him or they realized after Kinor not getting to first base it wasn’t worth the effort. My guess is they will start picking us off one by one.”
I looked at Kathy and then Brent. “You two will be top priority on their list. Anytime either of you leaves the club you will have an armed escort. This isn’t up for debate. Don’t step out the door front or back until you get an okay from your bodyguard.”
“Which reminds me. I need to pay back a debt and pick up someone. I plan on bringing her back here if there are no objections. My car is in the place where it seems to have found a home almost from the time I arrived. Charley on Tenth and Adams is seeing more of my car than I am. Anyone want to loan me a car?”
Brent was the first one holding out a set of keys. “Take mine.”
Looking at the keys and then Brent, I shook my head. “You know that car screams at every cop to pull us over, check us out, we’re guilty of something. I need something no one will remember because there are a million others like it. Tags untraceable back to anyone here if possible.”
Spencer smiled. “When do you want it?”
“Seeing how we might have a reprieve from the Committee for a day or two after this last attempt, sometime this evening? After the evening crowd rush is over. It won’t be a problem for Eva to handle all the traffic.”
“It will be in the back parking lot when you want it. Keys on the floorboard under the front seat.” He walked out of the office as he was dialing.
It was beginning to dawn on me how invaluable Spencer had been to us. If there ever was a go to guy…, woman, he was tops in that department. Heading to the suite, I needed a change of attire.
I didn’t try parking in the general area where I had parked the last time when I came here. There wasn’t any need. I wasn’t going to be here that long. When I pulled into the alley where I left her, she wasn’t alone.
Two men were beating the holy shit out of her. They hesitated after I pulled into the alley. When they saw a woman get out of the car they both grinned.
“Bring it on, bitch. We get a two fer.” One of them yelled at me as they turned loose of Sonya and let her drop to the ground.
Then he gave her a kick in the ribs. “That’s for ratting out Dagger. We know it was you. Your friend Alice gave you up. I don’t guess she was that good of a friend was she? Fryman and Harvey had to take care of the club because someone got to Dagger. The same way we are going to take care of you.”
Soyna didn’t try and tell them Alice wasn’t a friend. Alice was a heavy meth user. She get to needing her next fix she’d sell out her own grandmother, trading information for a fix.
He kicked her again. Sonya cried in pain. “Did that hurt, bitch? I’m sorry. Here let me fix it.”
He flicked open a switch blade. “I’m going to cut your tongue out and then I’ll slit your throat. I’m going to cut out your heart too. It’s what happened to Dagger. Everyone will know it’s what we do to snitches.”
I was instantly there. It’s been said the top speed of the fastest normal was twenty eight miles per hour. My sprint was better than that. With my elbow out, my hand up against my chest, I twisted my body into him just before I hit him. The impact was three times faster than if I had hit him only running. I clothes lined the guy with my elbow. His neck was crushed as his body was flung back fifteen feet down the alley. The second man didn’t have a chance to react before I grabbed him and slammed him up against the wall. He was stunned and reaching for his gun. It wasn’t there as I had it in my hand after tearing it and the holster off his belt. It dropped on the pavement.
Pulling him toward me, I slammed him back against the wall again. “Now hot shot, I want names. Who sent you? What are the names of those in that Committee? Who are their clean up men in the police department?
He glared at me. “Screw you bitch. You’re fucking dead.”
“Obviously you didn’t get the memo.” Nodding at the limp body of the other guy with his head laying at an impossible angle. “You should ask your buddy how that works when you don’t pay attention.”
Grabbing his crotch, I started squeezing. He was screaming bloody murder as his fists were flailing at me. With my left hand I pulled him away from the wall and slammed him back again while squeezing a little harder with my right. “NAMES!”
He was crying, screaming expletives, and names in a tirade while still trying to beat me off. He managed to land some weak blows to my face. It wasn’t anything compared to what I was doing to him as I pulled him away from the wall, slammed him back and squeezed harder. “NAMES! I WANT NAMES OF EVERYONE CONNECTED TO THE COMMITTEE!”
He was screeching names now. Minutes later he was sobbing. “That’s it, that’s all I know.”
Grabbing his head I snapped his neck. “And nineteen more to go.”
Turning my attention to Sonya, she looked in pretty bad shape. Picking her up, I stood her on her feet. “We need to leave. You have anything you want to take with you?”
She pointed to the box she lived in. “Pictures of Jenna and me, family, the money you gave me.” She was spitting blood as she talked.
Nodding I braced her against the wall. “Can you stand or you want to sit?”
“I’m okay.”
She was anything but okay. I didn’t argue as I ducked down and crawled back into her box she used as her home. Seconds later I was out again with a handful of pictures and money. “Wrap your arm around my neck if you can. I’ll carry you to the car.”
Sonya was a trooper. She grimaced as she managed to lift up her arm. I ducked under it and picked her up, carrying her back to the car.
At the club I carried her in the back way. Spencer was among the few who watched when I lifted her out of the car. He shook his head but didn’t say anything. There was something odd…? Spencer figured it out. Nova was barefooted.
Clothes and all, I sit her on the floor of the shower, turned it on with both of us in it, and then started removing her clothes. The shower door opened, Kathy was there with washcloths, soap, shampoo. “Need help?”
“If you don’t mind, a robe after I get her cleaned up. A garbage bag for her rags if you will.”
“Why?” She was staring at Soyna. Her nose was smashed, her lip split, one eye swollen shut, both were blackened, blood was all over her and her clothes.
“She gave up Dagger. Probably saved all our lives. The Committee found out. I should have gone back after I took care of Dagger. This is my fault.”
I was bent over her removing her ragged jacket and shirt. She reached up and touched my face. “It’s not your fault. No one blames you, Huntress. I’ll be okay tomorrow. I’m a healer. I can heal people. This is nothing. A good night’s sleep and I’ll be as good as new.”
Wearing a borrowed nightgown, Sonya was tucked in bed, sound asleep before I headed to Kathy’s office. “Kathy, I hate to impose on you and Brent as you have enough troubles as is. I won’t send Sonya back out on the streets. Until that damn Committee is taken care of she won’t be safe. If she can stay for a couple days, I’ll have someone pick her up.”
“No need of that. She’s welcome to stay as long as she likes. You said we owe our lives to her. It wouldn’t be right to toss her back out to fend for herself. What size is she? I’ll send someone to pick up some sweats for her and we’ll work it out from there.”
===================================
Detective Maurice Ward looked at the bodies before he crouched down by the one with his head twisted backwards. “Whoever did this was powerfully strong.”
Mutant was the first thing he thought of. The gun and holster lying in the middle of the alley indicated the mutant didn’t care about weapons. No doubt it was ripped off the belt of the man he was looking at…, Or possibly not? “This belt looks like it has been cut, not torn apart. The attacker managed to cut the belt and remove the gun and holster in one swift move.”
The man’s crouch was bloody. He would need to wait for the guy’s pants to be removed and the autopsy for that answer. “This killer would be a strong mutant.”
He looked at his partner. “What do you think?”
Detective Elaine Arnold had seen a lot in her twenty two years on the force. So far this had all the tell tell signs of a mutant. “I think you’re right. Let’s not prejudice ourselves though. Could be a really strong man.”
Ward stood up and walked over to examine the switchblade on the pavement and then to the cardboard box someone had been sleeping in. The shopping cart full of…, junk. He shook his head. “This smells like a contract killing. A homeless person, female from the items in the cart, said something or saw something someone decided shouldn’t have been said or seen. Someone sends out two heavies to take out female.”
Elaine slipped on latex gloves and was looking through the items in the cart. “Lot of castoff clothing and junk. Nothing to indicate who the owner was besides female.”
Ward watched her for a little while before he walked down the alley to look at the other body. The neck had been crushed. He couldn’t do that if he had the biggest baseball bat he could swing. “From the bits and pieces of skin and clothing in a trail pointing back to the other man and the cardboard box up the alley, something was traveling at a high rate of speed when it impacted this fellow.”
Elaine crouched down and examined the body. “Hit by a car with a high rail or something you think?”
“I don’t know what to think.” He looked up the alley at the crowd of people outside the yellow tape barrier.
“IT WAS THE HUNTRESS! Come to take revenge on the police killing that other Huntress. They don’t take kindly to killing of one of their own. This town is going to swim in blood before she’s through.” Came from a female voice of someone hidden in the crowd.
Ward tried to see who was talking but the speaker was hidden behind a bunch of other people. He walked up to the tape. “Who said it was a Hunter?”
No one answered as they all started backing away. Nobody wanted a ride down to the police precinct. Those from this part of town who got that ride usually never returned.
“Wait, I only want to talk.” It was to no avail. They were scurrying away, all of them.
“These people get funny ideas living like they do. Most of them are on drugs and spaced out ninety percent of the time.” Elaine had moved up beside Ward.
“Un huh and sometimes they know more than all the rest of us. That babbling about a Hunter…,”
“Huntress.” Elaine corrected him.
“Yeah, whatever. I remember the incident they were talking about. Six months ago a couple of the guys pulled over a mutant and filled her full of holes as she got out of her car. Not one but all four of them guys had fully automatic rifles and extra clips. They claimed she had a gun and was shooting at them. Funny thing, no body cams and no dash cams were turned on. The other funny thing is, if she really was a Huntress, why didn’t they call in the SWAT guys? That whole thing still stinks.” He looked over at Elaine.
Elaine lowered her voice. “Maurice, keep your opinions to yourself. Some of our fellow officers have got too nosey about certain things and ended up dead themselves. We do our job, catch the bag guys, and don’t rock the ship. I get to retire with a full pension in another six years and eight months. I would like the chance to use it.”
“About those stories of mutant Hunters, we have a lot of actual police reports and news articles about Hunters. Almost every time a mutant goes rogue they are labeled Hunter. We both know there isn’t really a class of mutants who are Hunters. It’s a catch all phrase. Same with Huntress, it’s a made up mutant because Hunter wasn’t bad ass enough. She’s supposedly the ultimate nightmare who preys on little children drinking their blood and eating their hearts. It’s too easy to write up a report and claim the murder was done by a Huntress. Everyone will accept it as a given with no real proof. The file will get shoved into the back drawer because no one wants to go looking for the creature in the stories of their nightmares.”
Ward’s face was in a serious frown as he nodded back down the alley toward the bodies. “Say what you want. Did you notice nothing in this alley has been touched? The bodies have their clothes. The guns and knives are there for the taking. The shopping cart and cardboard box are still there. In this neighborhood everything should have been scavenged minutes after the murders. Real or not, everyone has been spooked, even the crack heads who can’t add up two plus two.”
As Ward and Elaine walked out of the alley neither one consciously thought of the shredded brand new sneaker on the pavement as they walked past it.
================================
The next morning at around eight Sonya was led down to the restaurant. JoAnn, who had taken up the chief position when Pete moved to afternoon, was preparing for the morning rush along with her band of kitchen help. She was also fixing breakfast for everyone who was now sleeping in the suite.
Nova led Sonya to breakfast after a set of sweats had been found for her. Everyone in the know at the club was use to Nova, and Kitcha eating like farm hands when they got the chance. The others figured it was because of the high octane bodies the two women had. Kathy and Brent were kind of surprised when the next morning Sonya had the same appetite. She blushed when she noticed she was attracting looks from the others. She had finished off ten plate size pancakes, six slices of bacon, four eggs, a cup of coffee, a glass of orange juice, and two large glasses of milk.
Kathy noticed Sonya’s embarrassment. “Don’t mind us, we are kind of wondering where you are putting all of that. By the way, all your bruising is gone. How’s the rest of you?”
Swallowing her last bite, Sonya wiped her lips with her napkin. “I’m a healer and I’m good. My broken ribs, punctured lung, is back to normal. It is no different than what I go through when I heal someone else who may have sickness or be physically damaged. When I hold them I absorb their problems. Then depending on how bad it is I either heal myself immediately or it takes awhile for me to return to normal.”
Brent nodded as he looked across the table at her. “I’ve heard of healers but didn’t know how that worked. I’m surprised you people haven’t put our doctors out of business.”
“We can’t cure every illness, especially the bad ones, or I can’t. There are other reasons Doctors, nurses, hospitals will always be in demand. There aren’t enough of us to help everyone. When government finds us they imprison us. We are used either to fix all their own people or in sick pathetic experiments to see if they can duplicate us. It is no different than how they treat every mutant. Kill us, use us, or experiment on us to make their own submissive designer mutants. Fools don’t understand mutation isn’t a disease or a set series of DNA sequencing. We can’t be bred like rabbits. It’s a gift or a curse however one is looking at it. It happens and that is all it is.”
Sonya looked over at Nova. “The Huntress was one of the first and possibly the longest living. Maybe there are divine gods intervening in our lives. Or could we be picked at random, a mistake of nature? Even I who of necessity when healing someone feel every hour, every minute of one’s life when I heal them, haven’t a clue. The only thing for sure is those in government will never be able to duplicate mutants no matter how many of us they kill in their sadistic experiments.”
Kitcha arrived at that time as others around the table were looking from Nova to Sonya and back again. “What did I miss? Is it too late to order a dozen pancakes and a dozen eggs with a pound of bacon?”
Everyone started laughing. Kathy was wiping tears from her eyes. “Kitcha, you’re going to be as round as you are tall if you keep that up.”
I shook my head. “No she won’t. How old are you and what are your measurements?”
Taken aback for a second as she gave it some thought. “Well…, I’m certainly not the few millennia old as you. Actually I’m only two hundred eighty years old. I’m thirty four, twenty two, thirty four and stand five four.
“Nice figure by the way and I’m seriously kind of jealous as it is close to normal with out being overdone.” Looking at Kathy a smile crept across my face. “Sonya, Kitcha, Eva, and the majority of mutants you meet won’t really be changing from the day you first laid eyes on them. In all the years as Sonya and Kitcha had to sadistically point out that I have lived, I learned mutants once they reach maturity don’t really change. Kitcha will still be everyone’s sex kitten the day she dies. The same way Sonya will still be most men’s wet dream.”
Brent turned his attention my way. “I’m going to change the subject. I noticed when you came in last night you weren’t wearing your shoes. That is the second time I’ve heard or saw you barefoot. When you sprinted into the dinning room when you figured a table had been poisoned was the first time.”
He didn’t say anything else. I figured he was waiting for an answer. “When I pulled up to the alley a couple men were beating the snot out of Sonya. After I got out of the car one of them pulled a knife and decided to slit her throat. The distance from me to them was close to two hundred feet. I covered that distance in a little over two and a half seconds.”
“Whoo weee” Brent let out a whistle.
I nodded in agreement. “Think of what a car does when it suddenly accelerates.”
“Burns rubber.” He was shaking his head in disbelief. “You shredded your shoes.”
Nodding in agreement I continued. “We work mostly within the same laws of physics everyone else does.”
“Mostly?”
“There are exceptions. Look at us. We are an exception to normal are we not?”
“I’d say you were more of an exception than most, Huntress.” Spencer had walked in by now and was listening to the conversation.
Harold nodded in agreement.
“No, not really. I’m no better than anyone else. Take Sonya who is sitting here with us. She can heal people who might otherwise die. I can’t do that. Kitcha is a tigress in her own way. She can hold her own in any fight.”
I sighed a lifetime of living longer than I should have. “Maybe I’m not the worst though. I’ve put down my fair share of those like Bolt, Dagger, and others like them. And made a lot of mistakes along the way. One day my luck will run out. I will become a memory like so many others.”
There was no doubt I too would die just as every mutant has before me. I wasn’t immortal. The growing old part was already true even if my body didn’t show it. Somewhere around nineteen my body stopped showing signs of age.
“Well, that little tidbit was as depressing as hell.” Brent looked across the table at me. “When did you know? …, you were different.
“I guess we have time for a little story. The exact age is kind of in question. The years are kind of muddled. Back then the years were seasons and not that clearly noted as age. By the time I was around six turns of the season the rest of the village was becoming suspicious of me. I didn’t quite fit in with the way little girls were supposed to act. It was the time of the season before the heavy snows which surely follow the warmth of the season.
“I had gone out into the forest to pick the wild berries, and millet. Hopefully a basket of each. The nuts of the trees would be another day of gathering. I felt them long before I saw them. A pack of eleven wolves had moved up and were watching me. No doubt they could kill me if they wanted. They stopped a hundred feet or more away and were either standing or laid down and watching. I instinctively knew who was the alpha female. At that moment it felt right to acknowledge her. Hello.”
“She sat down on her haunches and kept watching.”
“Food first play later I told her as I went back to picking berries. Hours later my basket was full. I headed off to gather the seeds of the broomcorn millet. Which incidentally was on the other side of the wolf pack. Picking up my basket I headed their direction. They parted giving me a narrow lane between them. After I passed through they formed a circle out around me, some even ranging ahead. The millet patch was a quarter day’s walk from our village. It was also in a part of the forest infested with bear, wild boar, and of course wolves. None of the villagers would dare go there without weapons and less than ten at a time. This wasn’t my first time I was this far from the village although none knew it.”
My focus was so intent on gathering seeds of the millet, I wasn’t paying attention to the position of the sun. It was getting dusky before I realized I would be walking back to the village in the dark. “Just great! I know daddy and momma will be worried now.”
“Heading back at a slow run, the wolf pack was still with me keeping pace. I was almost back when I sensed him before I saw him. A huge boar came crashing through the woods headed straight for me. The pack started closing in around me.”
“Shouting NO! The wolves fanned back out. Dropping my baskets, I found a large club. It was too big, too long but it would have to do. I didn’t have time to go shopping for something better. In a full run the boar closed in. I was ready. My swing connected when he was a couple feet from me. His snout plowed the ground, his body flipped upside down, and he skidded past me. His head was bashed in, my club was in pieces, and my basket of berries was flattened with berries scattered everywhere his body had crushed it when he flipped.”
“The wolves waited. I knew we could use the meat. I also knew the wolf pack had spent the whole day guarding me. It didn’t take long to decide. I pointed at the boar as I picked up my basket of millet. He’s yours. They closed in.”
“At that time, my innocence didn’t warn me of the danger of the other pair of eyes, which watched the whole episode unfold. I knew Asger had been watching. I didn’t fault him for not loosening an arrow. By now most of the light was gone. He wouldn’t have hit the running boar as he wasn’t that good of a bowman. Besides, he was well back in the woods and too far away.”
“Enough story, we have to get ready for our first customers of the day.” I pushed back from the table.
Brent rose up from his chair and started picking up plates. When he walked behind me he leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “If there is a god, you’ll still be around when my time comes. After all, I know without a doubt I’m going to grow old and die.”
I had moved out of his strike zone and then back before he kissed me. Sonya, and Kitcha both noticed although no one else did. Kitcha had been with me many times over the years. It was Sonya’s first time to notice how quick my instincts were. Her eyes widened just the slightest before a smile spread across her face. She muttered to herself. “The Huntress’s instincts are honed to perfection.”
Sometimes I wished I had died instead of those who were trying to kill me. Living as long as I had wore on the spirit and the mind. Maybe growing old and dying like normal people would be nice. I had the old part down pat. I wondered if I would loose my sight, my hair, my teeth, or my hearing before I died?
I was circulating between the restaurant, kitchen, club, dock, and security most of the morning. Everything was settling down to a normal routine. Harold wasn’t getting any underage trying to get into the bar. The restaurant customers were normal people. Twenty minutes before twelve Spencer found me in the restaurant by the front desk. “Let’s talk, security office.”
He turned around headed for the hallway. I stepped up beside him. When we reached the security office he unlocked it, we both went in, and he locked the door. He grinned, “Only place I know that doesn’t have a security camera watching.”
Unlocking a file cabinet he pulled out a thick folder and handed it to me. I understood. Slowly I thumbed through it memorizing every detail, every face. It was a dossier on everyone in or working for the Committee. It included detailed data on every individual, pictures, places they worked, their day to day lives. Some had deceased stamped on their picture. I didn’t miss Craig Albright listed as head of the committee. Nor did I miss the pictures of the four policemen and their captain at the end.
“Jenna’s killers, is this all who were involved and is this as high as it goes?”
Spencer looked grim. “As far as we know. There aren’t any leads pointing anywhere else.”
“I’ll make damn sure they know a Huntess took them out. Then I will have to leave the country and let it cool down for awhile.”
He looked at me and then shifted his attention. “I wish I could do it.”
“No you don’t. You might say it but you’re not a killer. Spencer, I understand and maybe God made me this way because I can and I have. With my memory, I remember every single one of them and exactly how I killed them. It’s possible all those like Dagger and Bolt felt the say way. Sometimes late at night I wonder if there is a right and a wrong and am I on the right side?”
“I don’t need to question Jenna’s killers before I bring retribution. She was assassinated, murdered, or executed however one wants to say it. And more than that Spencer, I trust you are telling me absolute truth because of who and what you are.”
Turning around I slipped the folder back into the cabinet, slid the drawer home, and pushed the lock. “I need to tell Kathy and Brent I’m taking some time off.”
Brent looked serious. “I’ll go with you. Someone needs to make sure those video cameras aren’t taking pictures when someone dies.”
“No. You’re staying out of it from here on out. You need to be clean and protect Brent, Kathy and the others if someone outside the committee decides to retaliate. I’ll be long gone as soon as this is over. I won’t be here to help.”
“Nova…,?”
“Let it go Spencer. It is the story of my life and how things work. Because of what I am, it can’t be any different.”
“All of us owe you our life. If you hadn’t stopped…”
“And if I hadn’t come along, maybe Brent and Kathy would have tossed in the towel and that would have been it. Nobody owes me a thing. I don’t tally debts and favors. Life is life, however it works for everyone is probably the way it was supposed to be no matter how much we think we were involved ourselves.”
When we walked back into the restaurant, one of our waitresses Brenda, came over. “Jodi, Kathy was looking for you. Said you had a certified security package. The driver won’t leave without handing it to you. They are still in her office I think.”
“Kay, thanks Brenda.”
Spencer raised an eyebrow as he looked at me. “Sorry Spencer, best you know nothing about nothing.”
He shook his head. “Why do I get the feeling as interesting as things have been, they are about to turn into a nightmare for a whole lot of people?”
As I walked into Kathy’s office she was behind her desk. She looked up at me with questions written all over her face. Over against the wall to my right was a man in a suit and tie, coat, pants. He was holding a briefcase which was chained to his left wrist. His right arm moved lightly to the middle button on his coat.
He was giving me a real close looking over with none of us moving. “Name?”
“Nova”
“Go on.”
“Naweena”
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Kathy showing surprise.
“Go on.”
“Contessa Sophia deRoma”
Kathy’s eyes were looking like two egg whites.
“Go on.”
I shook my head.
He nodded and walked toward me. “You have the key?”
I met him in the middle of the room, took the briefcase and sliced the handle off with my fingernails. Raw cable ends were showing where it had been integral in the handle and briefcase. “The key will be with the same person who gave you the package.”
“She described you and gave me the names I was supposed to receive in sequence. I was to make sure. If it hadn’t been, you would have been dead.”
“Because you would have stopped me with that forty five you have in your shoulder holster. I know who you are. You’re good Courier but not that good. I wouldn’t have killed you but you would be in a world of pain before your gun cleared your holster.”
His eyes closed slightly as a thin smile touched his lips. “I’ve held my own against more than a few who tried me.”
“You’re right, it would have been a bad idea on my part to take the case if you didn’t like the names. I wish you a safe journey home.” It was foolish and a waste of time to get into a pissing contest with someone who thought he was greased lightning. Courier was quick but he wasn’t that quick. I could name nine others a whole lot faster. I motioned with my hand toward the door.
He looked at my hand for a couple seconds, frowned and then left. I knew he was expecting a tip. I didn’t care. He was paid extremely well for delivering the case.
Kathy was staring at me. “Contessa?”
“It is only a code name. Best you forget it.” Patting the case I was headed for the door. “I’m going to put this someplace safe for now.”
After securing the case in the security room file cabinet, I pulled a couple hairs out of my head before I closed and locked it. Wetting them with my tongue I placed one between the drawer and the top of the cabinet, the second one the same way to the side of the cabinet. I headed back to check on traffic in the restaurant. Everything was looking good. A couple of the waitresses smiled and nodded in my direction as they headed for the kitchen to turn in orders. Returning the smile, I knew all our girls were making a lot more in tips now. It only worked to our benefit when a couple square miles of the city went totally dark when the transmission tower was taken down. We were the only ones in the middle of all that blackout still up and running. Most modern kitchens won’t work without electricity. At times people were lined up outside for a block waiting to get in from the time we opened at ten until we closed at twelve that night. The Committee might have thought they were taking us out. Instead they increased our customer base to beyond capacity. Carry out became even more profitable than our regular business. JoAnn and Pete were worked to a frazzle but the troopers they were, they managed somehow to handle it all.
=====================================
The three men in the Backwater Club looked like someone had pissed in their Cheerios. A forth man came into the club, looked around spotted them and headed to the bar to get an extra large beer before heading for the table. He dropped into a chair after he set his glass on the table. “Four more.”
The other three looked at him, it was Alex who asked. “Four more what?”
The newcomer shook his head and took a long deep drink. He set his beer down and wiped his mouth. Fryman and Harvey were sent to take out the generator at that club. No one has seen or heard of them since. Like some of the others, they have flat disappeared. I don’t mind telling you guys, I’m getting a little scared of this whole business.”
“You said four.” Albert was looking at Neil.
Neil picked up his beer and took a couple more big swallows. He turned his head and looked each of the others in the eyes. “Blackie and Rane were sent to see if they could find who fingered Dagger. What happened to Dagger…? Her throat was slit and her heart was ripped out and… Who or what could do such a thing? Dagger was toxic to anyone who got near the bitch.”
“Damnit, what about Blackie and Rane? We all heard about that bitch Dagger. What about our guys?” Alex was starting to feel jumpy himself with Neil dragging out this nonsense.
“Dead, both dead. Cops found their bodies in an alley. Story on the street is Alice ratted out the squealer who pointed the finger at Dagger. They went to check it out. Blackie…, his head was hanging onto his body attached by skin. Rane was almost as bad. His head was twisted completely around backwards. His nuts were crushed.”
The other three men winced in shock. Albert took a deep swallow of his whiskey sour. He coughed a couple times. “Who could do such a thing?”
Neil chug a lugged half his beer before he sit the glass down again. “Word on the street is there is a Huntress on the prowl. They are saying she was the one who took out Bolt and Dagger.”
“Fairy tales, that’s all they are. Someone gets murdered and suddenly a Huntress shows up. Stupid people blame every death on some make believe boogieman. In a week or two word will come down, Fryman, Harvey chickened out and are in Chicago or LA. Boss will send us out to explain to them why no one runs out when they have a job to do. Blackie and Rane ran into one of those Kung Fu fucks and got the shit kicked out of them. Couple of our guys gets murdered, some dope head yells mutant, and every damn druggie starts screaming Huntress. There ain’t no Huntess. It’s a lie to keep little kiddies hiding under their beds at night. You ever see one of them so called Huntress?”
Larry looked around the table and the others were shaking their heads. “I didn’t think so. They don’t exist.”
“What about that bitch Captain Blake ordered the hit on? Some claimed she was a Huntress.” Alex was having doubts about the claim himself now.
“Some stupid broad is all she was. Did anyone besides the brain fried crowd claim she had ever killed anyone? They don’t count. They would sell out their mother if it got them another fix. They’s always claiming some shit or another to the police for a reward.” Larry studied his glass as he swirled his drink. “You guys are scaring yourselves with nonsense. Huntress my ass.”
Neil was looking across the room when she walked in. “Well, well , well, lookie at the tall girl who just wandered into the club.”
The leather dress was obscene in so many ways there was no doubt I was advertising I was looking for a good time out. The front had a deep plunging V neckline exposing the abundance of mother nature’s and my momma’s DNA. The hem covered the bare necessities and no more. My ample hips and tush were struggling to be contained inside the packaging material…, the leather dress. My small waist only put the emphasis on what I already was over endowed with. Of course the thigh high boots with the two inch heel was over kill. With my height I would have loved to wear flats so as to not intimidate the men but flats are not sexy. The four bangles I had on my left wrist, the gaudy chandelier silver earrings, and two rings with oversized onyx and sapphire stones on each hand added to the sleaze look. Makeup? Hell yes I overdid the makeup, blue gray eye shadow, glossy red lipstick, raccoon eyes. Anyone who didn’t get the signal I was ready and hot for a night of play didn’t live on the same planet I was on.
There were two kinds of women in that club watching the fresh blood walk in the door. Those filled with lust and those filled with jealous rage. The men didn’t have that problem as it was the same among each one. It was carnal lust.
I knew I didn’t look underage the way I had put on makeup… Maybe to the barkeep I over did it to hide the fact I was underage? “ID” He was staring at my eyes instead of my breasts.
I knew he was looking to catch a deer in the headlights reaction when he asked. I liked his professionalism. “I’m legal.” Sliding my hand under my dress and on top of my left breast, I pulled out the driver’s license Spencer and crew had made up for me.
His eyes swept down to my breasts and then instantly back to my eyes as he received the driver’s license. His eyes flicked down to the license and then back to looking me in the eyes. “Cindy Stromberg?”
The smile was impossible to keep off my face. This was old hat to him. He was good. “No, I think you need to take another look. It’s Cynthia Stromberg.”
He nodded as he handed back the license with a smile of his own. “The rules are, you get drunk, I get to keep your car keys. I know the way you’re dressed isn’t you. I have no idea what you are up to. Maybe you’re a reporter looking for a story or some such? I haven’t a clue. Someone gets to be more than you can handle you leave the heavy lifting to Art or me.” He pointed to a big bruiser halfway hidden in the hallway shadows leading to the bathrooms.
Art was on my radar the moment I walked in so I didn’t need to turn my head to look. “Thanks for the heads up. For the record, let’s say I’m here socializing for the evening.”
His gaze had never wavered from looking at my eyes. “Un huh, right, Miss. Nothing about you seems right. Don’t make me regret not tossing you back out.”
That one surprised me. He wasn’t a mutant or I would have sensed it. A highly sensitive normal? Maybe someone who had run into more than his fair share of mutants and it was instinct? Even normals have survival instincts. Some a lot more than others. My own instinct was I could trust him. “You live with a mutant?”
His eyes showed a flash of surprised before he recovered. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“My error for asking. I’m sorry, please accept my apology.” I reached out my hand for a handshake on it.
He held out his hand. Instantly I had hold of his wrist in what some soldiers do when they have shared battle and become friends. He looked down and gripped my wrist in kind. Slowly I lifted my first, second, and third finger placing those long nails of mine against his wrist.
His eyes went wide before he composed himself, leaned forward, and mouthed…, “Huntress.”
I gave a slight nod.
“No killing in here. That would bring the police to my door. I love her with all my heart and would die for her. Please?” Was whispered so softly I wouldn’t have heard it if I had been a normal.
Releasing his arm, again I gave a slight nod. “I promise.”
By this time men were closing in to see if they could be the one who would score with the woman talking to the bartender. I leaned forward on the bar. “Let’s start this night off right. I want a boilermaker with two shots of whiskey in the beer.”
He got busy putting it together and then set the mug down in front of me. “Remember rule one.”
“You don’t have enough alcohol in this place for that to happen.” I took a deep sip of my drink and put a fifty dollar bill on the bar. “Let me know when that is used up.”
He made it disappear under his hand as a couple guys slipped onto the stools either side of me. “Buy you a drink gorgeous?” The one on my right offered.
Turning my head, I flashed him a smile. “I’ve already begun. But the night is young. You know how to dance?”
His smile showed perfect teeth as he smiled back. “Honey, I’m the it guy when it comes to dancing. Shall we? I’ll buy you another when we come back.”
An involuntary smile broke out as I turned around on the barstool and offered my hand. Too bad I couldn’t show him my fangs. When he stood up, I realized I was about three inches taller than him. When I stood up he didn’t look like he was that enthusiastic about dancing any longer. Dancing with a girl taller than him was embarrassing. He wasn’t a happy camper as we stepped out on the dance floor. He didn’t know how to hold me. Taking his left hand I pulled it to my waist and his right hand in my left.
Leaning down I whispered in his ear. “I’m a girl, you’re a guy and nothing has changed. Listen to the beat, step into the music, and stop worrying. All the guys in here wish they were in your shoes. So shall we begin?”
Two thirds of the way through the song another guy wanted to cut in. My dance partner didn’t hesitate as he backed away. My new partner wasn’t that embarrassed because he knew what he was stepping into. He was six one. My two inch heels meant I was still taller than him but not much. In an hour I danced with nine different men before one of those I was aiming for cut in.
We danced for three plus minutes with me listening to him brag about all the jobs him and his buddies had done. Leaning down I breathed heavily into his ear. “How about introducing me to your buddies and buying me a drink?”
“Sure.” He was rubbing his left shoulder as we walked over to their table. After my partner seated me, they all had to tell me their names before asking me for mine.
“Oh, I’m Cynthia. I live in Cottonwood Cove in Louisiana and I came up here to visit an aunt and do some shopping.” I gave all of them a warm smile. “After all that dancing, I’m thirsty. How do we get served around here?”
“Their waitress is pretty slow. I’ll go get it. What you having.” Larry pushed back from the table and stood up.
Looking like I was trying to make up my mind I rolled my bottom lip in. “I started with a Boilermaker. Maybe I’ll have a Gin and Tonic.”
“Bring back a bottle of whiskey.” Albert tossed out casually.
“I’ll go get fresh beers for everyone.” Alex pushed back and stood up.
It was real hard to keep the smile off my face. These guys couldn’t be more obvious they were going to try their best to get me drunk if they had stood up and shouted it. Nice try guys but I’ve never been drunk in my life and believe me after some really shitty blood letting I tried my best. Every re-gen mutant I knew or heard of could get drunk with enough alcohol. I couldn’t. Maybe it was because I was a Huntress and my re-generative abilities were different. Only problem with that I had never met another Huntress so I couldn’t ask if she ever got drunk. So close to meeting Jenna and yet they murdered her before I found her. Dan, the bartender was really quick figuring me out. I wonder if he had met Jenna? My intro inspection was derailed as the guys came back with the drinks.
“You said Boilermaker?” Larry set a big mug in front of me.
“No, I said a Boilermaker was my first drink and I wanted a Gin and Tonic. This is okay.” I was betting it was half whiskey instead of just a shot.
By the time two A.M. rolled around all the guys were plastered to the gills. I knew they wouldn’t remember what went on half the night. I had accomplished what I came for. Of course my hands were on each one when I danced with them. Alex, the last one, was out the door and into a cab as I headed back to the club.
I just managed to get back in through the door before Art could get it shut and locked. He was putting everything he had in it to get it closed as I pushed back and slipped inside.
“Sorry, we’re closed.” He opened the door again expecting me to leave.
“I know you are. There is no need to be sorry. I want to talk to Dan.” I didn’t turn away from Art because I knew he was going to grab me and toss me out.
When his weight shifted for his lunge and grab, I shook my head. “You are fixing to get a hold of something you will wish to God you hadn’t if you try and tackle me.”
“Big talk from a big girl but you’re still going out.” He lunged focused on grabbing an arm, twisting it up behind my back and frog marching me out.
“Oh please, as if I haven’t seen that one a thousand times already.” I mocked him as I lunged forward, bent over, shoulder down, impacting him in the stomach, raising up, and flipping him through the air. He came crashing down on a table and chairs ending up flat on the floor face down.
Grabbing his arm, I twisted it up behind his back, holding his hand and fingers bent back. It was painful and if he tried to fight me he would break his wrist and three fingers. “Listen to me you big ape. The only reason I didn’t kill you was I promised Dan I wouldn’t kill anyone here tonight. You have a gun tucked under your belt on your right hip. I’m going to let you up. If you pull it and point it at me I won’t debate whether you intend to pull the trigger or not. I will kill you.”
Letting go of him, I stepped back to give him some space. He slowly pushed up off the floor and stood staring at me. “No one has ever treated me like that before.”
“Know your opponent and what he is capable of before you engage him whether it is a game of cards or a life and death situation. You were telegraphing you emotions, your moves. I knew before you did what you were going to try. If you come at me again the outcome will still be the same only I will inflict a lot more damage on your body.”
“You some sort of martial arts person?”
“In my lifetime I have studied most of the martial arts. I would not call myself a master in any of them. My only interest was to learn how to not kill someone if it wasn’t necessary.”
He shook his head. “I should have known. You’re a mutant. Dan’s wife…”
“Is a mutant. I figured that out when he kept questioning me after I walked in. That’s what I wanted to talk to him about. Tell him she needs to go on a vacation or keep a really low profile for at least a year. Things around this town are starting to heat up. Mutants will be the ones taking the brunt of the witch hunts starting up.”
“Heard a racket. Art is…” Dan came into the room holding up his pants with his left hand, a gun in his right. “Might have known. Cynthia, If I had known it was you I would have finished my business.”
Laying the gun down on a table, he finished fastening his pants. “Glad to see you hung around. I would like for you to meet my wife.”
I could see another thought hit his mind. “How are you managing to stand on your feet? You drank more than all those men together at that table. Where you were sitting, I kept expecting you to keel over long before ten o’clock rolled around.”
“I can’t get drunk. Tried my best on several occasions over the years. Believe me, I really tried too.”
A hint of a smile touched his lips. “While they were trying to get you drunk, you returned the favor. I guess I should hire you. They spent over eight hundred dollars on their failed effort.”
“Probably best word wasn’t spread around. Mutant always is the first thing come to mind when a person doesn’t act normal. Damn government kills eight to twelve thousand normal people every year because they stood out from the crowd. Which is why I waited to talk to you. Your wife needs to go deep under cover or take a vacation. This town is going into full blown mutant hunting real quick.”
“I’ve been hearing rumors.” Art was staring at me. “Bolt has disappeared.”
He waited for a reaction. I didn’t give him one. “Dagger was found with her throat slashed and her heart ripped out. No one and I mean no one dared cross either of those two. There is a rumor a Huntress is in town. They say the only one who could have taken either of them out is a Huntress.”
“I wouldn’t put to much faith in rumors. They are usually tales spun out of the mouths of drunks in back alleys or down at the flop house.” I had already clued him in I was a Huntress. He was searching if I was the bad business that had moved in.
“When can you talk to Michaela” Dan had come across the room.
“Way things are going, the sooner the better. Time is going to catch all of us with our pants down.” I glanced down at his pants knowing he would get the reference of him coming out of the bathroom holding onto his pants.
“Tomorrow work out?”
“I’ll make it happen. Not here and not your home. No shitting where you live. Someplace public, open, yet private. Someplace like a mall where we can talk.”
“Landers Mall, they have a few hallways leading to empty stores now. The mall put benches in them to try and attract older people back to the mall. Security makes sweeps to make sure druggies and others don’t move in. Do you know where it is?”
“I’ll find it. I have a job, can you meet me on my time schedule around eight A.M. You and your wife dress to blend in.” I figured to have that talk with Michaela and make it back by ten when the restaurant opens, or possibly not. Two of those men on that committee take a jog in Colonel Jackson Memorial Park every couple days.
“We’ll be there inside the mall by the Sears store.”
===================================
I made it back to the club, took a shower, changed into faded jeans, a new pair of sneakers, and a gray hoodie that had property of Texas Tech printed on it. Sometimes it is better to use a little satire to blend in than really try and hide. My hair was inside the jacket not outside it. Arriving at the mall by seven, I had made the circuit and canvassed the mall as it got close to eight o’clock. Watching Sears from six stores further down into the mall, I received the shock of my life when Dan and his wife came through the Sears store and stopped by the entrance leading into the mall. The possibility of Michaela being what I was sensing bordered on impossible. I had to be reading her all wrong.
Dan and Michaela were scanning the moving crowds now flowing through the mall. They both looked my way several times and never homed in on me. Michaela should have picked me up when they walked out of Sears. Was she completely lacking in survival instinct? It was a small miracle she was still alive. With my head down while still watching them, I blended in with a group of shoppers headed their way. I was close to twenty feet from them when Michaela looked at me, looked on by me, came back for a second look. Recognition never once showed in her eyes. I was the tall girl walking toward them.
Dan finally recognized me when I stepped up in front of the two of them. “I see you made it. This is…”
“Not now, too open, too many ears, I found a place we can talk, this way.” I nodded with my head. Almost to the opposite end of the mall, several stores had been shuttered. The public bathrooms in that one area had been closed also. The locked door to the women’s side wasn’t a problem as I had already unlocked it.
Once we were inside away from prying eyes and ears I turned to study Michaela as I dropped my purse by the door. Dan had obviously told her how to dress. She was wearing jeans, sneakers, a casual blouse, and only a touch of makeup. “How old are you?”
Michaela blinked, this was not the way she expected this meeting to begin. “I’m twenty one.”
“The hell you say. You have reached your aging limit. Try again.”
“I…,”
“Do NOT lie to me. I can sense a lie coming from your lips before you tell it. How old are you?”
She hesitated and looked at Dan before turning her attention back to me. “One hundred and thirty one.”
It was Dan’s turn to look shocked. She had been lying about her age before they ever married. Thinking about it, he didn’t really believe it. She wasn’t any older than twenty two.
“Where were you born?” I was watching her eyes, her facial expressions, her body language, and receiving stronger emotions and signals than I had ever received from any other mutant or animal.
“My mother gave birth to me in Pine Ridge, Texas.”
“eeeeech, try again and stop lying to me or this meeting is going to go downhill in a hurry.”
I moved over where I was between them and the door, which was the only exit from the bathroom. “Dan, you might want to put some space between us. Next time she lies to me I’m going to beat the holy shit out of her.”
She took a step toward me. “I don’t have to put up with this.”
“Yes you do. You’re going to tell me every little detail about your whole fucking life because I want to know how you survived this long. You haven’t a clue who or what you are. When I get all the right answers out of you then I’m going to explain it to you. If you think for one instant you can walk by me, you’re sadly mistaken. I have thousands of years of experience you don’t have.”
Dan had seen enough. He pulled his gun. I gave him enough time to raise it up and then I was there yanking it out of his hand. I wasn’t strong enough to bend gun barrels. I did the next best thing. Gun pieces went everywhere and some of those pieces I did bend.
Michaela dove at me. If I hadn’t already been expecting it, she was telegraphing everything before she began. She expected to impact with me at where I was standing. Only thing, I wasn’t there when she arrived at the contact point. I had moved to the side. She was over balanced and stumbled. I pushed, she went down and skidded across the floor, face down.
“How the hell did you survive this long? Your instincts and reflexes are so slow a normal could beat the crap out of you. Get up, we aren’t done by a long shot.”
Dan was inching for the door. I pointed at him. “Don’t! You won’t make it. Your body isn’t made for this kind of contact. She must learn or she is going to die just like Jenna did. I understand now how they ambushed and killed her. If she was like your wife, her survival instinct probably never engaged. A dozen officers shouldn’t have been able to kill Jenna and yet all it took was four.”
By now Michaela had got back to her feet and was glaring hatred at me. “That’s it, get mad and you lose your ability to reason. You hate me so come over here and knock my head off.”
Michaela tried to do just that. She lunged at me while swinging a right hook. Moving out of her strike zone, immediately I leaned back again and slapped her face with enough force it knocked her into the wall.
A red welt was spreading across her left cheek. Dan took a step toward me. “Dan, you’re out of your league. This is between the Huntress and me.”
They both stopped dead still as they stared at me. “It was Dan who finally found his voice. “What did you say?”
“When you two pulled into the parking lot I could sense her. She was different than any other mutant I have ever met. I didn’t know what to think. A new strain maybe? In all my years I have never met another Huntress. I thought I was the only one until I heard the stories about Jenna. To find two in the same area after all these years? When you came out of Sears I knew instantly and yet she never picked up on me.”
”I’m tearing this town apart and I’ve only begun. It won’t be long before Federal agents start flooding the area looking for mutants. Over a dozen agents are already here due to Dagger spreading her shit all around. If Michaela doesn’t get her act together she is going to end up the same way as Jenna.”
Looking at Michaela I gave her a nod. “I’ll take the time to teach you some of what you should already know. It won’t be here. If later on you go from protecting others to murdering for fun or pay, I’ll come hunt you down like I did Dagger. Sally Ann will be a pain in my heart for a long time. She was a good kid. I have no idea what sent her down the wrong path.”
“You’re mistaken about me.” Michaela knew she was a mutant with re-generative abilities. She wasn’t any Huntress.
Shrugging in disagreement, I knew she was years behind learning who and what she was. “Let’s start with the easy lessons first. Surely you have noticed the temperature really doesn’t matter to you. In cold weather have you ever been truly cold?”
She shook her head.
Good, I had her attention now. “Does scorching hot weather bother you?”
“No.”
Holding up my right hand, I wiggled my fingers. “Look at my nails and then look at yours. Have you ever broken a nail?”
Looking at my nails and then hers, she became really quiet.
Slowly I extended my fangs. Dan and Michaela took several steps back as fear showed in their eyes. It was hard to talk around them so I pulled them back in. “You have them too. I felt one of them when I slapped you. I’m surprised they didn’t come out when you got really angry with me. The first couple of times they extend will probably be involuntarily. I suggest you make a real effort to control extreme emotions when in public. They are a sure fire give away you are a mutant. You’ll quickly learn to control them. They came in useful a number of times when I was outnumbered and the fighting got down and dirty.”
Michaela was feeling her face by the sides of her nose. She started swirling her fingers around beside her nose. “Oh, bloody hell!”
Pulling a sheet of paper and a pen out of my purse I wrote down several addresses, phone numbers, and names. “These people are all normal. They live far enough from civilization you will be relatively safe. You must go there as soon as possible. I can’t protect you and I can’t train you here as I am actively engaged already.”
“You’re hunting people? Those four men you sit with in the bar…” Dan swallowed.
“They have murdered others and are still on the payroll of a committee who plans the murders of those who don’t pay them protection money.”
“You plan on hunting them down?” Dan didn’t look too comfortable asking the question or being in the same room with me.
“Best you don’t ask too many questions.” The less others knew about my plans the better. I turned my attention to Michaela. “Because you now know who and what you are, the percentages of you being found out went up exponentially. You will be unconsciously sending out the information. You don’t have the experience to cloak yourself. You need to pack up and leave. The sooner the better, four days max.”
She was shocked. “I can’t. Everything Dan and I worked for…”
“Means nothing from this point on. Your life must change if you plan on living another year. Every thing you and your husband own must be put in a trust. Dan’s life has become tied to yours. If anyone figures out he is married to a Huntress they will torture him until he tells every last little detail about you. And then they will kill him if they can’t use him to lure you back to him.”
“Cynthia, is that what happened to you?” Michaela was trying to understand all Nova had gone through.
“My life…, is different. A long time ago I did marry. Maybe I’ll tell you the story when we have time. You two need to tie up all the lose ends you can manage and leave this town.”
Retrieving another paper from my purse I wrote down a name. This lady is an attorney and an honest one. Contact her, let her know I said you both needed to leave ASAP.”
Thinking about the name I gave Dan I realized Cynthia wouldn’t mean anything to Rhonda. “Tell her Nova or Jodi advised you to leave.”
Michaela gave me a funny look. “Dan said you were Cynthia.”
“I’m a lot of names. You’ll learn, if you live long enough, a batch of different names comes in handy every time you have to move and get a fresh start. It’s one of the hazards when living longer than normals think a person should. One of the many things that got Jenna murdered. She stayed in one place too long.”
Growing up in the world before it could be called civilized, as if humanity could be considered civilized now, I learned at an early age to keep moving. I also collected more than my fair share of sword, spear, arrow wounds along the way. It was best to not collect them things. In this day an age, weapons spilling out hundreds of rounds a minute were not good for one’s health. I hoped Michaela learned before they could kill her.
“Listen, I gotta go and see if I can meet up with a couple guys and give them a biblical lesson. They will find out one must not covet thy neighbor’s labors. A lesson they will learn a little belatedly I regret.”
===================================
Leaving Dan and Michaela in the bathroom I headed for an exit and my car. I had time to meet two members of that committee if Chuck and John were jogging today. Gotta admire men who don’t sit behind their desks growing soft and fat as they send out the lackeys to do all the dirty work. Leaving my car in a residential area ten blocks from the park. I jogged to the park. Wearing a hoodie and gray sweats, I only received a few offers for a ride. The morning was turning out perfect. It was my hope it would lure my prey out for their jog.
Pat and Darrel opened the doors for their employers, Charles Norton and John Eldridge, after the limo was parked. Chuck nodded to the path everyone used to run or walk around the park. “Ready?”
John sighed. “Not really. Let’s get this over with and get back to the office. Craig is starting to foam at the mouth since that damn club slipped out of our grasp.”
“Losing help and not knowing where they went isn’t helping anyone’s attitude.” Chuck started trotting to stay beside John as they both headed up the path.
“That reminds me. I received notice Alex died in his sleep last night. Medical thought it was his heart.” John was wishing they hadn’t exercised in the park this morning although it was a beautiful morning for it.
“Poor shit was probably out drinking all night. At least I don’t have to worry about things like that. Got my physical last week. Doc said I was as healthy as a twenty year old. Old goat was lying through his teeth but they did give me a clean bill of health.” Chuck glanced back to make sure Pat and Darrel were keeping up.
“I’m scheduled for Thursday for my annual. I don’t know why I bother though. For the past thirty years I hear the same results every time I go in. You’re looking good Charles, keep up the exercises and watch what you eat. Hell, I’m tired of watching what I eat. These damn exercises aren’t getting any easier as the years go by.”
At a slow sprint I was coming up on my targets from behind. Neither bodyguard knew I was there before it was too late. Running in between them I slammed a fist right behind the ear of the one on my left as I grabbed his neck with my left hand. The one on my right I spun, jumped, kicked him under the chin. He went flying off the path into the grass. When he bounced I was there and slapped his neck. The two ahead of me hadn’t reacted yet as I sprinted up between them and slapped each one on the neck with my left hand.
My head was down, my face couldn’t be seen as I stopped. “Tell the committee The Huntress is sorry for all their losses.”
Running back the way I came, my speed was in the range of a normal. By this time both Charles and John were beginning to get over the surprise and shock as they both turned to watch the woman running away from them. That was when they saw both bodyguards laying on the ground.
“STOP HER!” John watched as the woman left the path and sprinted across the street to disappear among the houses.
Most of those in the park who heard John shout were looking around to see what ‘her” they were supposed to stop.
==========================================
Pat and Darrel were taken to the hospital in an ambulance even though both insisted they were okay. Charles and John arrived shortly there after as John had driven the limo to the hospital.
Dr. June Hanlla was conferring with Dr. Andrew Harrison. “Besides bruising on the two men, I found a small puncture wound on their neck. They claim a woman ran between them and put both of them down. I’m suspicious as one of them has the puncture on the left side of his neck and the other has a puncture on the right side of his neck. What led me to the punctures was the small amount of blood around the wound. Of course I ordered x-ray, blood tests and urine samples from both.”
Dr. Harrison looked at his notes. Except for the bruising the two men June examined his diagnoses was almost an exact copy of the two men he examined. “I found the same thing on my two patients. And like you I ordered x-rays, blood tests, urine samples and have both hooked up to blood pressure, heart machines. We’ll have to wait a couple hours for the lab to tell us what we might be dealing with. God, if it’s some rogue virus the woman inflicted them with we might have to quarantine the whole hospital.”
“Let’s not panic and start running though the hospital crying we are all going to die before we know if we have anything to worry about.” June gave Andrew a nod. “Did you mention any of your thoughts to your patients?”
Dr. Harrison shook his head. “You know me better than that. I have no idea what I think. June, the police are saying one of the witnesses heard the woman mention The Huntress.”
“Damn it Andy, I’ve been hearing stories about The Huntress for the past couple weeks now. These rumors get started and pretty soon everyone is seeing a killer in every shadow. It’s mass hysteria. You know as well as me that is all it is. There isn’t any Hunter killer out there except in people’s imagination. Don’t you start spreading those rumors yourself.”
“I don’t intend to but we keep ALL our options open. We both have seen and treated mutants. They certainly weren’t rumors.”
June reached out her hand. “The lies we have to tell as we treat mutants and send them back out into the world without informing the government is probably going to catch up with both of us in time. If only our government could see them the same way we do. They are as human as everyone else. Just a little more blessed with unusual strengths than us.”
Smiling Andy took her hand, leaned forward and kissed her. “I love you Miss June Hanlla. Marry me so we can both live in the same prison cell after we are caught.”
Laughing, June pulled back and slapped him on the shoulder. “When you find both of us enough time to have a decent church wedding the answer is yes.” She held up a finger to shush him. “Until we have that church wedding the answer is no.”
“We will have to find the time then. Until then, I managed to wrangle us a reservation at Eve’s Hanging Garden Club.”
June gave him a wicked smile. “I heard it was impossible to get reservations at that place since they reopened.”
“They never closed, renovated it on the get go from what I hear. Took a week to get a reservation. Hope it lives up to its reputation as my date deserves only the finest.”
“What time?”
“Saturday at seven. I looked at your schedule and you’re off duty then.”
“Think you’re pretty smart don’t you Dr. Harrison.” June turned away and flounced out of the room.
“DAMN STRAIGHT!” Andy hollered after her.
===================================
At noon, Larry was sitting in the car with Neil eating the hamburgers and fries they had picked up at the drive in. Bud’s Liquor store was down the street in front of them. Elroy Garrison, the owner, hadn’t sent in his ‘donation’ to the mail drop this month. They were there to give Elroy a lesson why it wasn’t a good idea to be late on donating to the cause.
“What the!” Larry slumped over the steering wheel as the fries and partially eaten hamburger slipped out of his hands.
Neil set his down in the seat as he reached over to shake Larry. “Hey man! Larry? Larry?”
He reached up and put his fingers on Larry’s neck. There wasn’t a pulse. “OH FUCK!” He pulled out his cell phone.
“Nine one one, what is the emergency?” Was the response after he punched in the numbers.
As Karma, if one believes in such nonsense, would have it. The ambulance took Larry to the same hospital the two bodyguards had gone to. June was in ER talking to Dr. Leroy Jackson who happened to be an expert in toxicology. She was hoping there were some tests they could run on her two patients to find out if they had been poisoned or infected. When the gurney came in with Larry’s body. The EM team was still giving heart pushes as the oxygen machine forced air into his lungs.
“Did you use the defibrillator on him?” Dr. Jackson looked at his latest patient.
“Shocked him four times on the way here. Didn’t get a response.” Chip backed up to give Dr. Jackson room to examine the patient. Chip had no doubt this man was beyond help.
“Okay, people let’s see if we can do better. Get him hooked up and get his heart beating.” Seconds later the efficiency of the ER team showed as the man was prepped for the electric paddles.
“Clear.” Dr. Jackson touched the button on the paddles he had pressed to the chest. The heart monitor was still flat line.
“Again, clear.” After two more tries, Dr. Jackson put the paddles back on the tray and looked up at the clock on the wall. “Twelve seventeen. Call it.”
June thought she saw something. She stepped up beside the body and pulled his shirt collar back. “Dr. Jackson, would you look at this.”
He stepped up beside her as she pointed to a pinprick on the side of the neck. “Do me a favor and take a tissue sample around this area. I believe we are looking for a toxin instead of a virus.”
He leaned down to get a good look at what June was pointing at. “You got it.”
As soon as she left the room she headed back to her office. She placed a call. “Lt. Max Ingram, this is Dr. June Hanlla, will you get me a list of names of everyone in a twenty mile radius of Bectal and Lintus Hospital who has died from a heart attack the past thirty days?”
Max had dealt with June over the years. Some of his cases had been solved because of her suggestions on what to look for. “June, is this a hunch or you have red meat?”
“So far just a hunch. Nothing I can point to physically.” Came back over the phone.
“Okay, it isn’t that much of a request. I’ll put a man on it today. I want something in return. Give me the names of those you are suspecting.”
“It’s a deal. I’ll let you know shortly. Thanks.” June hung up with a gut feeling this was only the beginning. It was a habit of hers to scan the obituaries. One thing she had noticed lately was the age of victims who were dying. Then there was the list of missing people she seldom paid any attention to until a mutant by the name of Bolt came up. Part of her education included training in Germany when she was in the military. The stories about the legendary Huntress were ones everyone was familiar with. The stories started with a Huntress centuries before and of course there were dozens of Huntresses over time. June didn’t buy it. Most of the stories had the same theme. A young girl, a giant, The Huntess kills those robbing, killing, pillaging villages, raping women. Even into present day tense the stories pretty well had the same concept. As impossible as it was, June thought it was the same woman who was incredibly old and yet still young. If she was half the avenger the stories told, she was certainly capable of making that maniac Bolt disappear.
The more she thought about it, the more she was positive their city was dealing with the legendary Huntress. A chill ran down her spine. “May God help us all.”
June headed out as she wanted to talk to the two patients Andy had treated. When the police questioned her own patients they were so vague the information about the attacker was worthless. They were gone but the policeman who had interviewed them was still there writing notes and talking to Dr. Harrison.
June didn’t wait as she walked up to them. “Sergeant, did the victims describe the person who attacked them?”
He looked up to see who was asking. She wasn’t a reporter. Dr. Andrew Harrison looked at June. “This is my colleague Dr. June Hanlla. She treated the other two men brought in.
Sergeant Blake liked what he was looking at. “Sure. Female, tall, they think she was six foot to six four.”
The corners of his mouth turned up. “I don’t think she knew who she attacked.”
“Why do you say that Sergeant?”
“These aren’t the kind of people one would want to antagonize.”
“Would you elaborate?”
“I’ve said too much already.” He shook his head.
June’s insides were quivering. She was positive they were dealing with The Huntress. The old stories described her as a giant. Back in the dark ages six foot would be a giant as the majority of the population was smaller than what was normal for today.
========================================
Jack Wicker had moved to the Houston suburbs eleven years earlier. Jack Thurgood was his next door neighbor. Both were close to the same age. With the same first name it was only inevitable they would both start associating first as neighbors, then as friends. Jack Thurgood talked his friend into working for the same company he worked for. The enticement was, the pay was better than Jack Wicker could earn anyplace else and the hours were good. Wicker was working for the company for a couple weeks before he realized what he had signed on for. He wanted to quit but no one quit after they were hired unless they were headed for the morgue with a toe tag.
That evening Jack Thurgood noticed Wicker had his car packed. He wondered if his wife and kids were going on vacation? No one in the organization was allowed to be on vacation just now with all the problems they were having with that damn club and members dying. He walked over and knocked on his neighbor’s door.
And was met with a shotgun in his face. “I’m leaving. Don’t try and stop me.”
“What the hell! You know the rules. They will hunt you down and kill your whole family.” Jack Thurgood was reminding him of the laws of the organization.
“The company is finished or haven’t you been paying attention! People are disappearing or dying. Ever since they started fucking with that damn club trying to rein it in, men have started disappearing or dropping dead. We are all fucking walking dead men! I’ll take my chances with you guys finding me rather than a hunter.” Jack Wicker never wavered as he held the shotgun straight at Jack’s chest.
“I wish you the best man.” Jack Thurgood extended his hand for a handshake with his friend.
Wicker took one step back. “That trick won’t work. I’ve seen you use it too many times. Very very slowly reach in with your left hand and remove your gun from your shoulder holster using only your fingers. Drop it and then move over to the side.”
Thurgood was trying to decide if Wicker had the guts to pull the trigger as he had never killed anyone…, yet. Deciding he didn’t want to be the first, he did as Wicker directed.
“EVERYONE IN THE CAR NOW!” Wicker’s wife, son, and daughter hastened past the two men on the porch headed for the car.
As Wicker squatted down to pick up the gun he noticed Thurgood shift positions. “Don’t try it Jack or this whole situation between us ends right here. I’ll splatter your guts all over the lawn. I know if ‘she’ doesn’t get you, then you will be coming after me. I’ll take my chances with you instead of her. Now back off some more.”
Thurgood’s car was in his driveway and not that far away. Wicker took two shots. One tore up the left front tire, the other the driver’s window. Making sure Thurgood wasn’t going to try and attack him, Wicker got into his own car, backed out of the driveway, and with tires squealing headed off down the street. Most neighbors were pulling their curtains back to see what was going on. A couple of them stepped out on their front porch and looked around.
The next day Jack Wicker stepped into a Post Office and mailed a package to the Texas Criminal Division after making sure his fingerprints weren’t on the contents or the package.
Thurgood’s gun killed five people that Wicker was witness to. Inside with the gun was a note listing the victims names, where, and when they were murdered. The note also listed the names of those on the police force who were on the take.
==================================
The morning was a wash as I didn’t dress up to cruise the restaurant or the club. After that business in the park a shower, jeans, sneakers, nylon blouse were the order for the time until the evening crowd started coming. In my opinion the greatest invention of modern society was sneakers. The second on that list was combat boots for when the going got down and dirty. My walk through the restaurant was just that as I listened to our diner’s conversations, checked the buffet tables, and stopped to make sure everything was okay with our waitresses. If they were unhappy or had complaints I wanted to know before any of that spilled over to our customers.
Walking over to the front desk, I checked with Marco. “Is everything okay?”
He waved a hand out toward the dining area. “Ever since that power outage and us being the only ones in the area with power and food, our customer base has been steadily growing. I imagine you know all that already. Nov…, Jodi, I believe we could fill a restaurant twice this size and still not be big enough.”
He pushed the reservation book over toward me. “Booked solid after five o’clock the rest of the month and beyond. There isn’t a single one of us who doesn’t understand none of us would be here if it wasn’t for you.”
“Don’t sell yourself and all the others short. I couldn’t do this by myself. Everyone here is a key piece to this whole operation. Because all of you are pulling hard yourselves, the Garden Club has been reborn. Brent and Kathy have noticed it too. Are you satisfied with your position and your hours?”
Marco chuckled. “Ten to five? I have bankers hours. The seven day weeks are starting to wear a little thin and I understand the reason why it is necessary right now. Besides, with the overtime Lorrie is happy. She’s squirreling away the extra money for a vacation. I told her the money was hers to spend on herself. We’ll see how it works out when we get there.”
“Kathy has more temp help coming to fill in for our waitresses, chefs, essentially everyone and of course you. The ones who work out will be offered a permanent position so everyone can go back to a five day work week.” I touched Marco on the shoulder before I turned and headed to the bar. I wanted a few words with Harold, Ben and the others.
Marco watched as Nova walked into the passage connecting the restaurant to the bar. “And you Nova, who will replace you after you’re gone? There isn’t anyone capable of doing what you have done. No one can fill your shoes.”
Spencer found me in the bar. “Kitcha came in a couple minutes ago. I managed to get her up to the suite.”
“How bad is she?”
“Not good.”
“Crap! How did she get back?”
“She was driving one of our loaners.”
“Sanitize it or lose it. Find Sonya and send her up.” I headed for the stairs.
In the suite I checked the bedrooms first. There was blood all over one of the beds but no Kitcha. Following the scent of blood I found her sitting on the floor in the shower. The spray was on and blood reddened water was flowing into the drain.
I didn’t bother undressing as I stepped into the shower, knelt down beside her, and lifted her head to look at her face. She was a mess of bruises, cuts, one eye swollen shut, busted lip. I shook my head as her one good eye opened to look at me. “Have fun?”
The very smallest trace of a smile touched her swollen and bleeding mouth.
“God girl, when are you going to learn?” I started removing her clothes. I was using my fingernails to slice the clothes instead of trying to work her out of them. When I peeled her blouse back I saw them. She had two bullet holes in her chest and one in her stomach. There was a deep knife slash across her left side along with a deep cut on her left arm.
I couldn’t imagine what kind of situation Kitcha had got into where she received this much personal damage. I managed to get her clothes off and was washing her down to remove all the blood still leaking out when Sonya opened the door. “Bring her to the bed or we can do this on the floor. I work best laying down holding them when it’s this bad.”
Sonya was in the bedroom that didn’t have blood all over the bed. She was shedding clothes when I stepped out of the shower carrying Kitcha. It was then Kathy stepped in. Taking in the situation she grabbed a half dozen towels and began drying off Kitcha and wrapping towels around her naked body.
“Thanks Kathy.” I headed to the bedroom with Kitcha in my arms.
Kathy pulled her cell phone. “Spencer, I have a couple naked women in here. No men in the suite.”
“Okay, I’ll cover the door until you give me the all clear.” He was shaking his head and smiling thinking he had already seen one of those women in there when she was naked. And they didn’t come any finer.
Sonya was on the bed on her back. “Nova, lay her on top of me and let me hold her.”
As I gently laid Kitcha on top of Soyna, she wrapped her arms around the smaller woman. Sonya grimaced as her arms squeezed Kitcha tighter. “Nova, those bullets have to come out. I can control her pain and her blood. She won’t feel it.”
Kathy was standing beside me. “What do you need?”
“Nothing.” Using the nails on my little fingers because they were the smallest, I slid my nails into the bullet holes, dug my nails into the bullets one by one
and pulled them out. Immediately the bullet holes started closing up.
Sonya cried out in pain. “oooooooh”
Over the years I had seen healers work. None ever got this intimate with their patient and none could do the things I was seeing Sonya do. Their healing always took days or weeks not seconds. Kitcha could suppress pain, it was what her kind did as they wadded into fights. Her body could also re-generate over time. With as much damage she sustained it would take her a week or more left on her own. If my own re-generative powers were as slow and weak as hers I would have died many times over the centuries. Sometimes I wish I had. Living so long had a few drawbacks.
Sonya was screaming in pain. “AAAAAAAHHHHH”
Kathy didn’t know what to do. I reached over and took her hand. “Sonya is absorbing Kitcha’s wounds and pain. It’s what healers do. They know when a person is really damaged it means a lot of pain for themselves and yet they still do what they can. They are the bravest of all of us. I don’t envy them.”
Long minutes later, Sonya looked up at me. She was wiped out. “nova” came as a whispered breath.
Reaching down, I lifted Kitcha, walked around to the other side of the bed where Kathy had already pulled the sheets back. Laying her down, I kissed her on the forehead. “You crazy little nut. When are you going to learn? How many of them did you take on this time?”
Kathy was watching as I pulled the sheet and covers over Kitcha. Returning to the other side I lifted Sonya up. Kathy pulled the sheets back and we did the same for Soyna. I leaned down and kissed Sonya on the forehead. “Thanks Sonya, get your rest. I’ll bring a huge protein drink for both of you when girls wake up.”
“Huntress…” Sonya reached up with her left hand and put her fingers on my cheek before letting it fall back on top the covers. She was asleep doing her own re-generation. I slipped her arm back under the covers.
Kathy had tears leaking out of her eyes. “Human’s don’t deserve to live in the same world as mutants.”
Taking her in my arms I hugged her close. “Kathy, we are human too so that would eliminate us also. There is good and evil in all of us. We try to hold onto a majority of good but evil is like a disease, always there, always ready to take hold if possible. Don’t let this dig too deeply into your soul or it will eat you alive. You, Brent, all the rest are doing your best to make the world a little better for others. It may not seem like it but how many have time, freedom, and pleasure they wouldn’t have if you weren’t there providing meals? How many have a home, family, a life because you and Brent gave them jobs? You’re no different from Kitcha, Soyna, Eva, or any of the others.”
“Give this one some thought. Someone’s life you saved because they were here enjoying themselves with a great meal and friends. They weren’t murdered by some gangbanger because they weren’t at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Kathy sniffed and then pushed away from me. “Thanks Nova. I never thought of it like that. You’re one of a kind. I wish I had you as a friend when I was growing up.”
That one got me tickled. “It would have been an elderly neighbor, kid type relationship. Hon, I looked like this long before you were born.”
Very unlady like, she wiped her nose with the back of her hand as she sniffed again. “Yeah, but it still would have been great.”
Kathy headed back to her office while I looked for some dry clothes. The linen on the bed with Kitcha’s blood all over it needed to be put in the washer before it dried.
Spencer was still guarding the door as Kathy stepped out. “Everyone’s decent now. Thanks for guarding the door.”
“For you ladies, any time.” Spencer didn’t need to go in and check so he walked with Kathy as far as her office.
Her phone was ringing. Kathy picked it up. “Garden Club.” “This is her.”
She listened for a little bit as her face grew more solemn. “You can’t do that! There is no way we can pay off the loan in three days. I see.”
She stared at the phone as she held it out away from her. Tears started leaking out of her eyes.
“Kathy?” Spencer wasn’t sure what was going on but it obviously had something to do with money.
“The bank is calling in our loan. We have three days to pay it off.” She dropped into her chair letting the phone drop on the floor, laid her head down on her arms on top the desk and started bawling.
Spencer headed back to the suite to let Nova in on the latest.
“CRAP!” I was hot after Spencer told me what the Committee’s new plan of attack was. “Okay, this is one avenue of attack I didn’t think of. Spencer you have one of those fresh throw away phones handy? I don’t need anyone listening in on my conversation.”
Both of us headed back to Kathy’s office. She wasn’t there. I could hear her sobbing in Brent’s office. We headed on down the hall. Kathy wasn’t in too good of shape to be answering questions and Brent didn’t look much better.
Brent shook his head as Spencer and I walked in. “Sorry Nova, after all you did for us we lost.”
“Like hell you say! How much is your loan?”
“What?” Questions and doubt was in Brent’s expression and his eyes.
“How much do you owe the bank. It’s a simple question.”
“Uh, two million, seven hundred thousand, nine hundred and forty dollars.” Brent still didn’t understand what Nova wanted.
Kathy had managed to turn the tears off although her face was a wet mess.
I held out my hand. “Spencer, phone please.”
He put a vinyl sealed phone in my hand. I quickly dialed a number.
”Attorney Clark’s office.” Was the pleasant cheerful voice on the other end.
“I must speak to Rhonda Clark right now. This is Jodi down at the Garden Club and it is very very urgent.”
“Hold and I’ll see if she’s available.”
I put the phone on speaker phone and seconds later my phone spoke back to me. “Jodi, what are the bastards trying now?”
Yep, that was Rhonda ready to slay a few dragons for Kathy. “The bank called in the loan on the club…,”
“SHIT!” Came over the ether before I could complete my train of thought.
“Get a copy of the loan, get a copy of what is owed, make sure the amount they quote if paid in the next three days is what they accept on the note. I don’t want them adding in interest everyday and refusing the payment. Get back to Kathy on her phone. I heard a double click when I called you. I’m betting your phones are tapped. Don’t call back on this phone as I don’t want them tracing and listening in. How soon can you do it?”
“Give me an hour at least.”
“Good enough. Thanks Rhonda, I’m sure Kathy and Brent will let you know how much they appreciate this extra work load tossed in your lap.”
She laughed. “Oh they are going to pay and pay. Dinner for me and some of my friends for five different nights. I’ve tried to get reservations and was told the club was booked solid for the next month.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “You didn’t give your name before you asked for reservations did you? As intelligent as you are I thought you understood how to work the system. Okay, we have a deal. You’ll have your table anytime you want.”
“I’m on it.” The phone went dead.
“Kathy, while Rhonda is doing her job you need to do yours. I need the name of your bank, the name of the person who called in your loan, and a copy of the loan agreement.”
She sniffed as she wiped her eyes. “He didn’t give me his name.”
“Redial the number on your phone and find a name for us to work with.”
“Nova?” She was looking into my eyes.
“I’m not going to kill him.” Yet, I thought to myself.
“Okay” She headed back to her office, Brent by her side.
Minutes later, all of us in her office, she found what she was searching for in her file cabinet. Looking over the loan agreement Brent was fifty one percent owner and Kathy was forty nine percent. Someone in that bank was working for the Committee. He would call in the loan and sell for pennies on the dollar to a shill working for the committee. The Committee would own the club, their homes, their cars, everything except the clothes on their back, free and clear, lock stock and barrel for a couple hundred thousand.
As we waited for Rhonda to call back I questioned Brent and Kathy about the deliveries, the good and not good things they noticed about any of the help. I asked about the cost of the utilities, anything to keep their minds off the earlier call.
Forty one minutes later Kathy’s phone rang and she darn near jumped out of her chair expecting more bad news. She knew the bank call was probably known by all their suppliers now. The Committee would make sure of that. No one would ship anything without being COD, cash on delivery.
It was Rhonda. “I have everything Jodi asked for. I’m sending a fax now.”
The fax machine came alive and started printing. Looking over the pages, Rhonda faxed to us, I ground my teeth. Bastards were asking for four thousand dollars to do the paperwork above what they wanted to pay off the loan.
“Spencer you have a fresh phone? I don’t trust this one since I called Rhonda.”
“Last one.” He handed me another phone.
“Hopefully I won’t need any more after this but never can tell. Be a good Boy Scout and always prepared.” I was removing the wrapping.
“I prefer to be a Navy Seal and always expect the unexpected.”
“I searched your background, Kid. You were a Navy Seal discharged honorably with half a dozen medals. Okay time to get serious.” Punching in a whole lot of numbers I put it on speaker.
“Bonjour Banque de Tigress.” (Hello Bank of Tigress.)
“ Bonjour Madame, je m’ appelle Contessa Sophia deRoma. Je souhaite parler a Contessa Antanasia Dobrescu, s’il vous plaît.” (My name is Contessa Sophia deRoma. I wish to speak to Contessa Natanasia Dobrescu.)
“Ne quittez pas, Mdame, un instant s’il vous plait.” ( Don’t hang up, madam, one moment please.)
“Roma mon amour quell honneur dois-je cet appel?” (Roma my love, what honor do I owe this call?”
“Parle moi l’Anglais s’il te plaît” (English please Natanasia)
Very beautiful laughter came across the distance. “Roma, what are you up to now?”
“Need a transfer of funds. I’m going to send you a fax with all the information on it. One will have attorney Rhonda Clark’s data. You are to contact her for transfer of funds. The other is the amount I need.”
Punching in the numbers on Kathy’s fax machine I laid the papers on the tray and tapped enter. “Coming your way now.”
“While I wait for the transmission are you going to tell me how you been and what you are doing?”
“Natanasia, I’m on a job. Don’t want to share a whole lot of information over an unsecured line.”
“Ouch! What is the count up to now Roma? Can I expect you when this job is finished?”
“No. I’m going to be hotter than hell. Lot of big players in the game.”
“Damn it Roma you’re going to get yourself killed one of these days. Who then is going to call me up and ask for…, SHIT! You aren’t serious?”
“As a heart attack. Natanasia, the interest will be four percent.”
“On this. Crap Roma, why don’t you ask for my first born and slit my throat while you’re at it? This is an unsecured loan according to the papers you faxed. What is their present lender…? My god, and you call me a crook. Eighteen percent? How did they keep up with that kind of percentage? They sell drugs, rob banks, own government printing presses?”
“Natanasia, you know I love you.”
“Eight percent Roma, nothing less.”
“Three percent and this isn’t up for negotiations.”
“I thought you said four?”
“I did but you want to change the game plan. Okay, four percent.”
“Damn you Roma, you’re going to be the death of me one day.” There was a heavy sigh. “I’ll get in touch with their attorney and see how she wants the funds transferred. You owe me big time girl. A long long vacation, you and me on a deserted island.”
“Natanasia, you know I’m not that kind of woman.”
“I know but a girl can dream can’t she. Hugs and kisses, Darling. Stay safe. My life would be dull without you.”
“Love you too, Natanasia. Another time.”
“Can’t wait.” Came over the phone dripping with sarcasm. There was silence as the phone went dead.
“Nova?” Brent was staring at me.
“Natanasia is going to buy your loan and hold it for four percent straight interest. Everything has to go through Rhonda so there are no foul ups. That damn Committee has more twists and turns than a rattlesnake. We will have to wait and see if this is the last of their ugly surprises.”
Kathy, Brent, Spencer looked like they had been hit by a big bucket of dumb ass from the looks on their faces. I slapped my hands together. “Okay, it’s time to put on the cocktail dresses, get ready for the evening crowd, and make sure all our customers stay happy.”
Leaving them standing there I headed for the suite to change into a dress and heels. Not my favorite kind of clothes. Maybe I should have been born a male instead of female? Oh well.
The next morning around seven, Kitcha and Sonya came down to breakfast in the club. Both looked back to normal. Kitcha was her sex kitten self again. Sonya was sex in a dress. And both looked like they had been sharing more than healing energy. I guess what they had done to get that look could be called healing? I knew Kitcha was bi. I guess with her special healing powers, Sonya probably had to be to get close to everyone. Kathy, Brent, Spencer, and Ken had come in minutes earlier. Jeff, Will, and even Harold managed to wander in minutes later. This place was going to need to open up for breakfast if the crowd kept growing. Heading to the kitchen after taking everyone’s order, I assigned myself as the interim cook since JoAnn and her morning crew wouldn’t be in until nine. Fifteen minutes later Eva came in, put on an apron, and was playing waitress. Just in time as I sent out a dozen eggs, two pounds of bacon, a pound of ham, a dozen pancakes, and a dozen hot buns left over from yesterday reheated in the microwave. Pete and JoAnn would have had a cow if they had seen me microwave anything but hey, I can accept some modern conveniences.
After calls for food stopped coming back to the kitchen via Eva, we both settled down at the table to eat breakfast ourselves. “Kathy, have you heard back from Rhonda yet?” By now everyone had heard the story one way or another so I didn’t figure it was any big secrete.
“No. Nova…, I don’t know what to say. Brent and I can’t thank you enough.”
“No thanks needed. Just doing the job you hired me for.”
About that time Kathy’s cell phone started ringing. Nervously she looked at it hoping it wasn’t more bad news. “It’s Rhonda. This is Kathy…, You what! They did! It’s settled then? Thank you Rhonda. Love you.”
Kathy laid the phone down on the table and took a slow look at each one of us. “The lady, Nova talked to bought our loan. She floated the loan back to us at four percent straight interest.”
She focused in on me. “Payments are deferred for six months if necessary. It’s a twenty year loan and we can pay it off early without any penalties. Nova…,” Kathy started crying too hard to finish.
Brent had tears in his eyes as he looked from Kathy to me. “Yeah, me too, thanks Nova.”
I shrugged, this was getting a little deep for me. “You’re both welcome.” I got up and started gathering up plates and silverware. JoAnn was going to skin me alive if her kitchen was a mess when she came in. Eva and Kitcha finished cleaning up what I couldn’t carry.
We unloaded everything in the dishwasher and I switched it on. The commercial dishwasher would take about four minutes to program in for the first load of the day.
Eva and Kitcha closed in on either side of me. It was Kitcha who spoke first. “When we leaving?”
“Still some heavy hitters I am going to settle up with. What did you get involved in to get so chewed up last night? How many were there?”
She gave me her little girl ‘who me’ look. “What makes you think it was any of those you’re…”
“Don’t mess with me Kitcha. I know you better than you know yourself. I was around a long time before you ever got out of diapers.”
She gave me a big Cheshire Cat grin. “Well there were five of them at a party playing cards, drinking, and screwing women.”
“And the women?”
“Didn’t harm nary a hair on the head of any of them.” She gave a shrug. “Wouldn’t have had any problems except the women were in the road. I had to work with the guys using the women as shields. Slowed things down.”
Eva tentatively raised her hand. “I have a confession.”
“Oh crap! Tell me you didn’t.”
“I went out last night after Kitcha came in.”
Putting my hand over my eyes, I shook my head. “And?”
“I know what that shipment is you received. I’ve worked with you before. I conned Spencer into opening up the security room and the file cabinet. I didn’t even wake the guy when I tapped him. The second one in the house next door had already fled. Left in a hurry from the looks of the way things are flung all over the house. They need to put better locks on their doors.”
I gave each of them this is my law look. “Kitcha, I wish you would stay out of this. But knowing you, please be careful. Eva, no more. Hon I love you and you aren’t built for this. Your re-gen powers aren’t good enough to save you if you take a massive hit such as multiple stab wounds or a large caliber bullet. I’m grateful, I thank you, but no more. Okay?”
“I didn’t do it only for you, Contessa. I did it for these kids who are struggling to make their dream come true. They gambled their life this club would work out. The idea some assholes sitting in some high rise office drinking whiskey and smoking cigars believed it was theirs, really pissed me off.”
“Okay, you did it for Kathy and Brent and you got your share of blood. Now, no more. I’m not going to say I’m not glad all of you came but this isn’t your fight. Do we have an understanding?”
Eva nodded her head.
“Good. The end of next week, all of us need to be gone. The government spooks will descend on this town like locusts. Their one game is to find and kill those like us. With the final blood bath I finish this with, they won’t leave any stone unturned.”
“Huntress?” Eva was looking into my eyes.
“They assassinated Jenna. I’m going to return the favor. Four dead cops and their captain is not going to set well with those in government. Starting today, anytime any of you feel like the net is closing in, run.”
=================================================
Twelve o’clock rolled by us, the restaurant was dealing with an overflow crowd. When I walked into the barroom it was full. It seemed the beer drinking crowd had figured out they could stop there, order from the limited menu offered to our drinking crowd and be just as well served. Although not all of those customers were happy about the situation. The normally obnoxious boisterous, drinkers who considered themselves ‘real he men’ were being crowed out by more family groups. Harold and the others weren’t letting in any under twenty one but it didn’t stop mom and dad leaving the kids home and coming.
“Is, everything under control?” I was leaning on the bar beside Harold who was watching the crowd.
“We are turning away two or three couples everyday who want to bring their kids along. Other than that, which I don’t think has any connection to the committee, it has been terribly quiet. Harold glanced over at Ben for confirmation. Ben gave a nod of agreement.
“Quiet is good. I’ll take that over what we had to deal with. I’m going to do some sampling.” Heading out among the tables besides listening in to the conversations at the ones I passed, I’d stop now and then to ask if they were enjoying the drinks or the meals.
Ben watched as Nova circulated among the customers. “Damn she’s good. I feel like I’m part of one big family. This isn’t a job any longer, it’s…, Hell, it’s almost like that feeling when I was a kid and we got to go on vacation.”
“Yeah. Well I don’t care where you went, the view was never as nice as what you’re looking at now.” Harold was staring at Nova’s butt and hips. She was packed in solid in that silver metallic, short dress she was wearing. That small waist of hers only emphasized all her other assets. Add in she didn’t actually walk but kind of glided like a large cat stalking prey, she was more sex packed into a dress than anything he had seen in his lifetime.
My back was to them so I reached up with my right hand as to adjust my hair at the back of my head and gave them the bird.
“God, that girl is as scary as hell.” Harold was shaking his head. He had no doubt the hand signal was meant for him.
Ben felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “How does she know? She wasn’t looking. She is over thirty feet away.”
A waitress from the restaurant, Barbara, found Jodi in the barroom. “A Rhonda Clark came in with three other guests. Eva had us put out a table by the hanging garden. She told me to find you and let you and Kathy know.”
“Thanks Barbara, there is something I want to discuss with her. I appreciate you keeping me informed.”
Although she was visiting with the other three women, Rhonda noticed Jodi as she approached the table. “Jodi, thank you for the standing reservation.”
“The least I could do after all you have done for Kathy and Brent. Have you been waited on?”
“Absolutely. I feel like royalty in here. Your girls are charming.” She glanced around the table. “Ladies, I wish to introduce you to our hostess and manager of the restaurant. This is Jodi…?”
Rhonda hesitated, she had never heard a last name mentioned for Jodi or her twin sister Nova. It was then a small doubt circulated through her legal mind. She didn’t believe Jodi or Nova had a twin sister. She was one and the same. The story of which there was no doubt was Bolt blasted Nova. No one lived who was hit by that mutant psycho. Her eyes flashed instant recognition. Nova, was Jodi, was a mutant.
The problem with hanging around too long in a high profile position people started adding two plus two and coming up with mutant as the answer. I could see in Rhonda’s eyes she had made me. There was nothing I could do about it. If I was forced to flee, one way or another I’d make damn sure that committee was past tense.
The other three ladies at the table were waiting wondering at Rhonda’s hesitation. Rhonda turned on a radiant smile. “I’m sorry, as I was saying this is the Jodi, our hostess. And these are business associates. Jane Carmichael, Betty Logman, and Debbi Barret.”
“Pleased to met you.” Rhonda hadn’t exposed me. “Have you ordered refreshments?”
“We hadn’t decided when Selina seated us. I believe I’ll have a martini and only one. I’m still a working girl.” Rhonda answered before the others did.
Jane and Betty decided a martini was what they wanted. Debbi was studying me. “There is a wine named Bare Foot Wines. It has a nice fruity flavor and thin on the alcohol.”
“I know the one you are talking about. We have it.”
“Really!”
“Kathy and Brent spared no expense in stocking the beverages. The food can be the best in the world. I believe our chefs are the best. However if one is left wanting for a beverage the meal can only overcome so much disappointment no matter how pleasing it is. I honestly believe we have the largest variety of beverages in all of Texas.”
“Bring the bottle if you would and extra glasses for the others. I want them to taste a wine I have been bragging about for more than a year and haven’t been able to find it anywhere since I purchased that first bottle.
“As you wish. Have you ladies decided on what you would like for lunch?” I waited as the ladies opened up their menus and started looking for the items they had already picked out so they could tell me. After they gave me their orders, I thanked them. “I’ll be back with your refreshments shortly after I give your orders to JoAnn, our chef.”
Walking away I could hear them talking about me. “She didn’t write anything down.” “Will you look at that body. I’d sell my soul to have her figure.” “She must be a dancer. Ballet probably, look at how smoothly she walks. In four inch heels yet.” “If I wore those heels I’d be a cripple before the day was out.” “She sure is tall. I wonder if men find her attractive?” “Attractive? I had to bite my tongue to not ask her for a date.”
There was laughter all around the table. “Debbi, you’d bed anything wearing pants or a skirt.”
“I don’t deny it. That girl moved to the top of my list.” Debbi dipped her finger into her glass of water and stuck it in her mouth. Everyone broke out in laughter again.
Passing Selina as I headed to the club for the drinks I stopped. “Selina, I have your table.
“As you wish, Jodi.” She knew she would get the tips when the guests left after Jodi had done all the work.
The lunch menu for the four was turned in before I met Selina and headed for the club to get their refreshments. Ben filled the drink order, placing a bucket of ice with the wine, three extra wine glasses, and three martinis on a tray, along with a cork puller. A lot of the higher class restaurants had a wine waiter who carried a cork puller on his or her belt. Kathy and Brent had discussed it and decided the waitresses could do just as well.
Heading back to the table with the tray balanced by my right hand above my shoulder, this time no little speed demons tried to derail me. As I passed the waitress station I picked up a towel, draped it over my left wrist, and then picked up a wine stand to hold the ice bucket and wine beside the table. The wine stand was placed beside Debbi. I walked around the table placing the martinis. Back beside Debbi, I placed the ice bucket on the stand and retrieved the wine bottle, wiping it dry with the towel before I held it out cradled in my arm for her to read the label.
“Mademoiselle, is this satisfactory?”
Debbi looked kind of shocked as she looked at me and then the label. “uh, yes.”
“If you allow me.” Twisting off the plastic wrapper covering the cork, I screwed the cork remover into the cork. Holding it away in case Ben shook it before he put it on the tray, one swift movement and the cork popped out. It didn’t spray so we were good. When I had placed the wine glasses on the table I set a cloth napkin down first and then the wine glass upside down on the napkin.
Picking up Debbi’s wine glass I handed it to her. “Madam, if you will.”
Debbi took the glass still not sure what was going on.
“Now Madam if I may.” I poured a quarter inch of wine into the glass.
Debbi looked at me wondering what was going on?
Having been to one of the higher class restaurants. Rhonda knew what she should do. “Debbi, hold the glass up and look at the wine against the light. Now swirl it around in the glass and sniff it. Okay, now take a small sip of it. If you like it, look at your waitress and say, very good. Jodi will then fill your glass. Usually only five hundred to four thousand dollars a bottle wine get such treatment. I believe Jodi is trying to teach us a little class.”
Debbi did as instructed and looked up at me. “Very good.”
After filling Debbi’s glass two thirds full. I looked at the others. “Ladies, I believe Ms. Barett offered to share. Would any of you like me to pour a glass now?”
Jane picked up her glass and held it up. “Please.”
I poured her glass two thirds full. She looked disappointed. Rhonda stepped into the breach again. “Jane, the full treatment is only offered to the one who ordered the wine. When it has passed the test and proclaimed good then the waitress fills the glasses of those who wish at that time or she puts the bottle back in the ice and lets the guest serve themselves from then on.”
I gave a slight curtsey. “I am sorry if I disappointed you Mademoiselle Carmichael. If you wish I will bring another glass and serve you as I did Mademoiselle Barett.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s okay. I really didn’t know what to expect. I’m good. Thank you, Jodi.”
“Je vous en prie, Mesdames, votre repas vous sera servie sous peu. Voulez vous m’excuser maintenant, s’il vous plaît?” (You are most welcome. Ladies your food will be served shortly. If I may be excused.) Giving a slight curtsey, I headed for the kitchen to pick up their salads and salad dressings.
Debbi was fanning herself. “Whew, did she just lay some French on us? What did she say?”
“My French is rusty but some thing about food.” Betty was giggling as she looked at Debbi. “Sweety, think you can hold on until we had our lunch? Or are you going to run her down and drag her off into a hallway or something.”
“That girl is smoking hot.” Debbi was still fanning herself.
Six minutes later I was back carrying a large tray with their salads. The salad dressings were in covered stainless steel cups on a Lazy Susan. Normal well known names as none of them ordered anything special.
After placing their salad bowls and crackers on plates in front of them I begin lifting the covers off the salad dressings using a heavy French accent. “Blue cheese, Thousand Island, French, Caesar, Ranch, Italiano, any of you ladies wish for something different?”
“We’re good.” “I’m okay.”
“Il nous faudra environ vingt minutes avant que les repas ne soient servis. Desirez-vous autre chose?” (It will be approximately twenty minutes before your meals are served. would you like anything else?)
They looked at each other as if someone needed to translate. Nothing was said. I gave a slight curtsey and left carrying the large tray.
Debbi rolled her eyes. “Okay, that did it. No more guys. I’m strictly a one girl girl from now on. Only one itty bitty problem. How do I convince her to be one too.”
The others started laughing.
A few of the waitresses had been watching. “Are we supposed to do that?” “I don’t know.” “I haven’t ever done it that way.” “Me neither.” “We better ask before we find out that is the way wine is served and we aren’t doing it.” “I like it. Notice how everyone besides those four women are looking. They are wondering if they ask for a bottle of wine if they will get treated that way.” “Hell, everyone Jodi has served thinks they have been served by a princess. That girl oozes royalty no matter what she’s doing or what she’s wearing.” “Un huh, a burlap bag would look good on her.” “One of my tables is leaving. I better go clear it for our next customers.”
When the ladies were finished I placed the receipt tablet on the table by Rhonda and left.
She picked it up, opened it, and her head snapped up looking around for Jodi who was no where to be seen. “This is awkward.”
“What’s the problem, Rhonda? Divide it by four and we will all pay our share.” Jane was leaning over to see if she could see what their dinner had cost.
Rhonda passed the tablet over to Jane who took a look, blinked and then looked at Rhonda. “I don’t know what you have done for these people but it had to be something big.”
She passed it on around the table.
“Ladies I guess we need to dig up some cash. Eighty or a hundred sound like too much or too little?” Betty was looking in her purse. “I have a fifty.”
“I have a hundred. I’ll leave the tip. We can straighten this out later. Debbi put a hundred in the receipt case.
Watching them leave, I walked past Selina. “Okay, the table is yours. Let me know if you feel you have been slighted.”
Slighted? It was Jodi who had waited on them. And why didn’t she bring the receipt case back to the cashier and have the credit card run or make sure the cash was adequate? At the table she picked up the receipt case, opened it and stared. There was a note in English and French.
Meals are on the house. You may leave a tip if you wish. Kathy said thank you for everything. Les repas sont à notre charge. Vous pouvez laisser un pourboire si vous le souhaitez. Kathy dit merci pour tout.
Underneath that was a hundred dollar bill. All the waitresses had talked about Jodi taking over someone’s table. It seemed when she did there was always an extra large tip left.
Her phone was beeping. “This is Dr. Hanlla.”
“June, Lt. Ingram here. Did you receive that info you asked for yesterday?”
“Yes and I want to thank you for bringing it up so quickly.”
“Have some more information for you. Four more since midnight. Youngest was twenty six, oldest was forty three. One went to Baptist Memorial, two went to Mercy, and one went to Saint Mary. Your turn Doctor. By themselves they mean nothing but the age bracket and four of them around the same time is not only a red flag but a red blanket. You picked up one yesterday. What put you on to them?”
“Before I answer, do they all work for the same employer?”
“I hadn’t thought…, Damn doc you trying to take my job. I’ll get back to you.” The phone went silent.
Her nerves were screaming, run, hide, leave. June was positive The Huntress was in town and taking retribution on some one. A lot of some ones the way the body count was going up. What was the purpose? There had to be a common thread linking all of them.
Dr. Harrison found June in the ER. She wasn’t on duty only looking at the symptoms of the patients who had been coming in. She stopped and stared when she found a Kyle Samuels had arrived at four o six this morning. Cause of death, heart attack. She was going to the morgue to see if he had a puncture wound on the neck when Andy showed up.
“I remember all those stories you told me about interesting things when you were stationed in Germany. I found this was in the papers last week.” He handed her a folded up newspaper.
June unfolded it to look at a picture of a body beside a car. Blood was everywhere, the chest opened up. She speed read the article. “Person known to handle and distribute poisons was found dead this morning. Fourteen police officers, eleven Medivac personnel, seven firemen were exposed to some toxic substance and became ill before the area was quarantined and Hazmat was called in.
Why was Andy pointing this out? She looked at him with a question in her eyes.
He passed her a high resolution photograph. “Hard to make out in the newspaper picture unless you know what to look for. Look on top that car and tell me what you see.”
June didn’t need a magnifying glass to tell it was a heart. “Think anyone else has figured it out?”
He shook his head. “I doubt it. How many people have ever heard some of the people the Huntress killed, she ripped their heart out?
June was staring at the photograph. “It was speculated those people were mutants and had re-generative abilities. She was making sure that was no longer an option. My god Andy, do we dare say anything?”
“Who would we tell? Damn it June, if the government thinks The Huntress is in this city, they will kill a couple thousand people themselves trying to track her down. If they find out we have treated mutants and not turned them in, we would end up dead ourselves.”
She handed the photograph back. “This is going to exploded into a witch hunt anyway. Someone is going to figure it out…,”
“People are already saying The Huntress is in town.” Andy figured someone had already found out.
She frowned. “Rumors are all they are. Every time someone gets killed people start screaming it’s the Huntress. Pick any city around the world and when someone gets killed somebody is blaming the Huntress.”
“You think this will slide under the government radar? They will think it is another wild goose chase and ignore it?”
She glanced at the paper again. “I don’t know. If those in government had any logic or common sense approach when they do something I might be able to tell you. However the best I have ever seen them do is knee jerk reaction. They will try to kill an ant with a steam roller when the ant tried to make off with a grain of sugar.”
She didn’t tell Andy what she really thought. ‘The Huntress was in town and extracting vengeance for some reason or another. Every report of a fresh death brought hope she had finished and left again.’
=================================================
I knew time was running out for all my friends and me. Sonya needed to be warned about the coming hell the government would lay on this town if they thought I was here. I hoped she would leave along with everyone else. Life was closing in on me and those like me as modern technology and instant communications were making it harder and harder to disappear. In time I was going to face enough men and weapons I wouldn’t survive. It would take a whole lot more than those four men who assassinated Jenna. The outcome would be the same though. I would be dead and my re-generative powers wouldn’t be able to bring me back. Ah hell, I have lived too long anyway! Sooner or later everyone dies, everyone including The Huntress.
Juan Hernandez and Carlo Mota were my next targets as members of the Committee. Neither one acted as real enforcers. What they did was launder money the Committee brought in. Juan owned several franchises where money would be impossible to track. The Check and Go, What A Burger, Sack It, Gas and Get.
Carlo ran a shipping, storage, freighting expediters company, Allied Shipping and Storage, hidden deeply behind several corporations. It was four P.M when I entered where his main office was located. Several men along with the guy who was the guard gave me an appraisal after I entered and walked over to his counter. My dress suit and briefcase was all professional business. “Denise Weathers, Accra Insurance to see Mr. Carlo Mota. I have an appointment. I called a couple days ago about a missing trailer shipment of computers we insured.”
He gave me a full body scan. “Place your briefcase and purse on the counter and open them up. Mr. Mota doesn’t know why you wanted to talk to him but he agreed.”
He thumbed through all the insurance files in my briefcase and then rifled through my purse. He didn’t find any weapons or anything that could be used as a weapon. Pointing to the door down the hallway to his left he nodded in that direction. “Go on in.”
“Thank you.” I gave him a bright cheerful smile of gratitude.
There were two guards just inside the door packing heavy guns which was very obvious from the bulge under their jackets. Carlo was behind a huge desk on the other side of the room. Walking across the room I offered my hand to him. “Mr. Mota, I know you’re a busy man. I apologize for this interruption in your busy schedule. My company needed some additional data which seemed to be lacking on the original shipment invoice.”
Carlo stood up to accept my handshake and give me an appraisal. No doubt thinking about me as his next conquest in the bedroom. He was close enough. Grasping his hand, I pulled him forward where he was bent over the table and slapped his neck with my left hand. As I spun around I grabbed his intercom system off the desk and dropped it on the floor. Neither he nor his bodyguards had time to react before I was back by the door. Bringing my foot up I caught the one on the right on the side of his head as I jumped into a spin which knocked him into the one on his right. Bringing my elbow up I smashed it into the face of the one on my left and slapped him on the neck at the same time. The guy on my right hadn’t hit the floor before I slapped him on the neck.
Carlo was shouting, “Stop that bitch. Kill her.” By the time I reached the reception area. The security guard and three other men were a piece of cake. They were down and out even though two of them managed to pull their guns and put some holes in the walls.
No one outside reacted to the gunshots inside. As I was walking to my car I asked. “Am I clean?”
“Security tapes are erased. Nothing to see.” Spencer’s voice came in on the ear bud.
God, I loved working with Spencer. Life was a thousand times easier. “Many thanks. I owe you so much, I’ll never be able to repay you.”
“Didn’t I hear you tell someone, just doing my job? Well, I’m just doing my job. And you’re welcome.”
“Buy you lunch?”
“Are you asking me out on a date?” Looking out into space, Spencer was grinning ear to ear.
“Sorta. The offer stands.”
“Randy’s is this little hole in the wall beer joint down on Apple and Track. Quiet, and they serve great big hamburgers and a basket of crisp fries for six dollars. The drinks are inexpensive too. Would you mind if we went to someplace like that?”
“I’d love to go to someplace like that with you Mr.” We weren’t sharing names although our transmissions should be secure. There was always a chance someone could pick them up and decode them.
“Follow me.” The dark blue Ford sedan pulled out of a parking space outside the gate of Allied Shipping and Storage.
=================================================
At One Plaza Place complex, and eleven sixteen P.M. Juan Hernandez was in his office on the fortieth floor tallying the receipts for the day. Carlo had notified everyone there was a crazy bitch out there. As no one was killed or really hurt everyone figured it was some dumb broad seeking revenge for something or another. Some of the bodyguards injuries included fractured jaw, dislocated arm, smashed nose, broken leg. Carlo figured those and the other serious injuries was punishment for letting her in. Then letting her kick their ass before leaving. Personally Carlo was glad they had their butts kicked after what she had done to him.
“Security my ass.” Security wasn’t even a challenge. Using the pass card Spencer’s team had made up for me. I walked in, over to the front security desk, reached across and pulled his head down into the desk. He was either out or too addled to be a threat after that. Walking around the desk while pulling the cap off a syringe, I gave him a lights out for the next twelve hours. The second guard was coming back from checking all the doors on the first five floors. When he turned the corner from the hallway, I kicked his legs out from under him. As he was going down I pulled his head down as I was raising my knee. While he was still moaning wondering what happened I gave him a lights out shot.
“Secure.”
“Coming in.” Spencer came in the front door as I buzzed him in. Walking around behind the desk he looked at the guy down on the floor.
“Only asleep.” I knew what he was thinking.
“Okay.” He looked at the monitors. “Two bruisers by his office door.”
“From the door to the stairs to where they are?”
“Approximately a hundred feet more or less.”
“Not a problem.” Pulling off my sneakers I set them up on the desk in front of Spencer.
He looked at my sneakers and then at me. “Wish this system had a high speed camera. I’d like to catch what you intend to do on film.”
Patting him on the back before I headed to the elevators I laughed. “Be a waste of storage data. I’m not photogenic.”
Spencer snorted. “If you say so.”
Taking the elevator to the thirty ninth floor and then the stairs to the fortieth, I waited inside the stairwell. “How do we look?”
“They aren’t asleep if that’s what you’re asking.” Came back into my ear bud.
Slowly, ever so slowly I started pushing open the stairwell door. “I think they noticed.” Spencer was watching the security cameras and gave me the heads up.
Shoving the door open, I ran like the devil was after me angling across the hall so I wasn’t a straight on target. The one furthest away managed to get two shots off. The nearest one had his gun out when I lowered my shoulder and slammed into him sending him flying like a bowling pin over into his partner. They both lost their guns as they slammed into the floor and went skidding down the hallway. Pacing them I kicked one in the head before he stopped sliding. Then the second one received a hard kick right behind his ear. They were both finished. I slapped both on the neck before I trotted back up the hallway, kicking both pistols to the other end of the hall.
The door to Juan’s office needed a key or one had to buzz it open from the other side. I didn’t have a key and I didn’t think I would be invited in. Doing a jump spin I had my leg cocked and unleashed everything I could as I plastered my foot against the door by the lock. The door didn’t fold but it did slam open. The recess for the lock in the door frame was torn out of the wall.
“What!” Juan had heard the gunshots outside his door. He was ready. He was sending lead my way as I sprinted across the room at an angle, rolled, tucked, and kicked back up and flew over his desk feet first. My feet slammed into his chest and sent him flying back out where he slammed against the glass window. It stopped him from flying out into space but was shattered and little crumbles rained down on him.
“Tempered glass. Good news when you don’t want glass shards making one into a pincushion.” I slapped him on the neck. “How we doing?”
“We have company. A police car pulled up outside. He hit an alarm when he heard the gunshots. I managed to turn it off but I was a mite too slow.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be down in a couple minutes. Don’t let them see your face if you can help it. If they can put you with this situation your time as security is finished.”
With an open window a gust was circulating though the room every now and then. The stacks of money on the desk were beginning to flutter about the room.
Spencer looked up from behind the counter and buzzed the two police officers in. He pointed to the elevators. “I was changing name plates on Dr. Carson’s office when I heard a commotion by the front desk. I think they are still up there. Fortieth floor. Hurry.” He pointed to the elevators before he got back down on his knees, counting rhythm and giving heart pumps to the guard on the floor.
The officers rushed to the elevators. One was open and waiting. Stepping inside one of them hammered the button for forty.
Seconds later I stepped off an elevator prepared to fight the police. They weren’t there. Spencer shrugged. “I think they are headed to the fortieth floor to capture the gang who busted into the building.”
“I refuse to ask how you managed to pull that one off. We’re finished here, let’s not hang around to see if they want to ask questions later.”
He was looking at the blood on the front of my hoodie. “How bad?”
“Just a scratch. Nothing to write home about.”
Spencer was shaking his head as he led Nova out of the building. He had seen gun shot wounds before. What she had wasn’t scratches. “Take you to the hospital?”
“Not unless you want me killed. Those like us live and die on our own. Hospitals are required to report gun shot victims. The police would get real excited when they received a call a gunshot victim wouldn’t let them put her under to remove the bullets. The last thing I would allow is someone lean over me with a knife while I was unconscious.”
“Nova, those bullets need to come out. The Garden has a lot of things but surgical instruments isn’t on the menu.”
“Kitcha can do the same for me what I did for her. Her nails aren’t like mine, when we get back I’ll go into the shower. Find her and tell her to bring up a fish deboning knife. If you can’t find her bring the knife yourself.”
Spencer almost turned green thinking about digging out bullets from a body. THAT was one thing he never had done. As a Navy Seal he had done a lot of things but not that.
At the back lot of the club, Spencer met me at the front of the car after he parked. “Nova, lean on me and I’ll help you.”
Putting my arm on his shoulder, I didn’t lean on him as we walked up the steps to the dock. “One of the things wrong with modern weapons is they leave those little pieces of lead behind. I liked it better when the sword was pulled back out after they stuck it in me. Arrows I could push on through. But those bullets don’t have a cord attached so we can’t yank them back out.”
“Nova…,” Spencer tried to not laugh. Her dark humor was unbelievable.
In the club I decided I wanted to use that executive elevator rather than walk up the stairs. “Bring a knife if you can’t find Kitcha.” I stepped on the elevator. There were only two ways to go, second floor or basement. I tapped the two button.
Sonya was in the suite when I walked in. Her eyes locked in on the blood on my chest. “Nova?”
“Go get some sheets and a pillow from the storage closet. I’m going to lie down on the dinning table.”
Minutes later Sonya had spread a plastic table cloth and a sheet on the table. After pulling off my hoodie I laid down on the table. Boy, did it feel good to just lay down and stop moving.
Sonya was wiping the blood off my chest as she studied the bullet holes. “You aren’t bleeding.”
“My body shuts down the blood around wounds about five seconds after getting stabbed or shot.”
“The pain? You want me to hold you.” She wiped my face with a fresh cold cloth.
“The pain receptors are turned off around the wounds. If Kitcha doesn’t get here soon those wounds are going to be healing over. They will have to be opened again to dig the bullets out if I don’t want to leave them and let my body shove them out at it’s own pace.”
“You can do that?”
“Not something I have any control over. Several times I have been shot in the back. I couldn’t reach the wounds. Took a little over a year for the bullets to work back up under the skin where I could cut them out.”
Kitcha came in carrying a couple long slender curved knives and a crochet hook. “Thought you were too fast to pick up lead poisoning.”
“Look who is talking. Get some more towels. When you start digging I’ll start bleeding again. Best we didn’t let it leak onto the carpet.”
Kathy and Eva came in seconds later. “How is she?” Kathy had walked up to take my hand and was looking at three holes rimmed with dark flesh.
“Don’t ask. I’m good, Kathy.”
Kitcha stepped up with towels. “Okay people I need some room.”
Sonya took my other hand in both of hers. “I’ll draw off what pain I can.”
“Honestly Sonya, I’m good but thank you. Kitcha, any time you feel like it.”
Kitcha started in with a vengeance digging into the first hole. The other three women shuddered and blanched. After digging with the knife she slipped the crochet hook in. “Got it.” She worked to keep the hook under the bullet and pull it out.
A couple minutes later she had it laying it on my body. “That’s one. You ready for me to go after the next one?”
“Go.”
Ten minutes later Eva picked up three bullets and dropped them into a pan. “I need to get back. A couple of the waitresses took over my job for me. You coming down later?”
Kathy’s head whipped around to look at Eva as if she was insane. “She just had three bullets dug out of her.”
“And? You don’t know what she is made of. Nova, later.” Eva left.
Sitting up I looked down at my hoodie with the holes in it. “Kathy, may I have a clothing allowance?”
Her face showed surprise as her eyes blinked. “Nova, you may have whatever you wish. Now lay down and let me get the bandages and cover those wounds.”
“Remember when that first day, I said medical insurance would be a waste? So are bandages. These will be gone in a couple hours. Kitcha would you find me a blouse and jeans? I feel kinda beat up and don’t feel like a dress right now.”
Sonya was still holding my hand. “Huntress you aren’t letting me in. Let me help.”
Reaching over I stroked her cheek. “Sonya, you have shared more pain than anyone here. I can handle this. I’ll go down to the kitchen and find some roast, potatoes, and gravy, and finish off that protein drink I picked up when Kitcha needed a boost.”
Pushing up off the table I stood up. “But first a shower.” Looking at the mess on the table I pointed to the door. “Ladies, go, I’ll take care of this after I have a shower and find some clothes.”
A blouse, underwear, and jeans were on the vanity when I stepped out of the shower. In the dinning room the mess had been removed. “Some people don’t listen.”
The evening turned out to be unusual in that nothing happened. The diners were satisfied, the waitresses were handling everything with efficiency and cheerfulness. Eva was breaking in a handsome dog latino temp as a Maitre d’ and that even seemed to be going well. JoAnn and Pete had organized the kitchen into a well oiled machine. I was so proud of both of them. They had two chefs they were training so they could have days off themselves. We no longer had missing supplies. The quality and freshness of the produce and meats we were receiving was above what the club was getting before. The accountant Kathy hired was top drawer and knew his stuff. Every penny that flowed in and out was accounted for and tracked instantly. Of course I threw him a little off when I gave Rhonda and her friends their meal and drinks on the house. Kathy informed him I was manager and could take liberties when I wanted. He complained and started calling the manager the Wild Card like the old accountant joke.
Owner of an accounting firm. “What’s two plus two?”
Prospective job hunter looking for a job in accounting. “What ever you want it to be, Sir.”
The club was running like a precision watch. It took a lot of people working their jobs to make it happen. Brent and Kathy could be proud and take some time off themselves.
Dr. June Hanlla was working late. She was on the net searching for some obscure medical news she had read when she was in Germany. It was one nineteen in the morning before she found it. She read it then printed it out. Someone was either able to steal the data or the vials from the government or they had managed to make their own. She was tired as she put it away, closed down her computer. She would tell Dr. Andrew Harrison and Lt. Max Ingram what she had found tomorrow. She looked at her watch. Tomorrow was already here. Make that today she would tell them, only later.
There were a bunch of bodies spread out on the floor still sleeping when I woke. One of those bodies included me. Kathy, Brent, Spencer, Eva, and a few more were sleeping in the suite every night. Kathy and Brent because I didn’t want them to become a target as they went home or came back to the club. I slept in the dinning room on a pad with the men. I was the closest one to the door. If things went south in the night I wasn’t climbing over bodies to get to the problem and find out what was wrong. It was then the automatic coffee maker turned on. No need of looking at the clock, the darn thing turned on at precisely six A.M every morning for the past three weeks after Kathy decided so many were staying every night, fresh coffee would help.
“Great!” I drank coffee with the same enthusiasm I drank liquor. Coffee didn’t give me a caffeine start and liquor never gave me even a slight buzz. The others were starting to rouse as I headed to the bedroom where Kitcha and Sonya were sleeping. There was a full bath attached to their bedroom. It only took me five minutes to wash my face, slip on a tee shirt, and jeans. My hair I tied off into a ponytail before I left the bathroom sans makeup.
Kitcha was sitting up in bed when I came out of the bathroom. She looked up admiring The Huntress’s stunning figure which looked even more sexy as she tried to dress down. “There is room in this bed for another person.”
“Kitcha my love, I am not geared that way as I have informed you for the ten thousandth time.”
“Hope springs eternal.”
“Hon, in your case it isn’t hope but lust.” Seems as if more than one or two of the people I associated with had the same idea. I closed the bedroom door behind me so the girls could get dressed.
Slowly most of us started gathering in the Garden dinning room. Everyone was carrying a cup of coffee and sipping on it. I waited until every one was seated. “My heartfelt thanks for the courage and labor every single one of you have invested to keep Kathy and Brent from losing everything they worked for. The Committee doesn’t have much left to hit us with unless they try and take out Kathy and Brent. It is why I ask both to keep on sleeping here for a few more days.”
Spencer gave me a serious look. “Nova…, Huntress?”
“I plan on finishing up taking care of the last of the problems with that damn Committee, tomorrow by the latest. My personal things I plan on taking care of will take place shortly afterward. I’ve already forewarned several of you to leave before this place is crawling with government…”
There was a pecking on the glass on the front door. I had sensed them when they had parked.
“I’ll get it.” Eva headed over and unlocked the doors.
“Shasta, Gail.” I watched as the two women came in. Others started pouring in behind them. Most of them I knew, others I had heard about, two of them I didn’t know. By the time they stopped coming we had fifteen extra women in that dinning room.
Every single one of them was a show stopping beauty. If the mutant gene did nothing else, one of the things it did do was change the women in way above average beauties.
Looking around at the men, from the looks on their faces I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Even the two who were dressed in black biker’s leathers were gorgeous besides being tall. One was six two with long polished auburn hair. The other was six even with long blond curly waves spreading down her back and across her shoulders like a cape. I had no doubt if I looked in the parking lot I’d see two great big Honda Gold Wing bikes. The ladies like their rides big and comfortable.
She was focused on me when I looked at her. “Hello Sue. Still partnered up with Cali I see.”
“Good to see you again, Huntress.” She gave me a soft smile.
Crystal, the Enchantress, was one of them who had come in. She stopped in front me. “Family reunions later, Huntress.”
“I take it this is about me and something all of you have agreed on?” I looked at Crystal before turning to look at all the ladies around me.
Jasmine stepped up. “Huntress, you’re making the house cleaning in this town too personal. Taking out Dagger and removing her heart is your trademark.”
Jasmine held up her hand when I started to protest. “We know why you did it. If they are a re-gen they can fix all their physical problems and be good as new again if not in a few minutes then a few days.”
The girls hadn’t come all this way to tell me they know why I killed the way I did. I waited.
“You’re through here, Huntress.” Shasta spoke up from the edge of the group.
Enchantress gave her a sharp look as she shook her head. Totally stupid to say something like that to Nova.
My eyelids closed to slits. My fangs involuntarily came out as I looked at the men in front of me. A low rumbling growl reverberated through out the room. Everyone felt it more than heard it. The feelings and scent of fear, death touched everyone. The person everyone was now staring at had changed from human to pure Huntress. An air of pure killing savagery touched the soul of virtually every single person in that room. All the normals and two thirds of the mutants felt the hair on the back of their neck stand up as chills ran down their spines. For most it was their first learning experience understanding what an enraged Huntress might be capable of. A couple of the men peed in their pants.
The Enchantress held up her hand. More than four hundred years earlier she had felt the same blood chilling emotions radiating from Nova. Her and Nova had been tracked down and cornered in a run down castle by over fifty-seven men. Never corner a wild animal! The only two to walk out was Nova and her. Crystal had managed to kill five. Hand to hand fighting wasn’t her best trait. “Easy Huntress, listen if you will before you decide how many you are going to kill before you get your way. We’re your friends not your enemy. Hear me out.”
‘Huntress?’ Looking around all I could see were men who had killed everyone in the village.
Kitcha opened her arms and slowly starting approaching her. “Nova, it’s me Kitcha. Nova?”
She took a step closer as those eyes turned to focus in on her. “Nova? Contessa, hon, you killed them all. Contessa?”
The eyes blinked. Kitcha stepped a little closer. “Naweena, you came back to save us. I love you baby girl.” The pupils changed back to normal as the fangs retracted.
Kitcha slowly wrapped her arms around Nova and pulled her in an easy hug as she laid her head up against Nova’s breast. “Welcome home, Nova.”
The men were gone. In front of me were my friends with frightened looks on their faces. Putting my arms around Kitcha, I hugged her. “I love you baby girl.”
“I’m sorry.” Wiping tears running down my cheeks I ducked my head and turned away. I was headed for the dock.
A moment later Kitcha and Crystal followed her out. Eva looked at the others. Everyone of them wondering what just happened? “It’s a long story. When Nova was born she was named Naweena. When she was growing up all the villagers thought she was strange. They could accept she might have been touched in the head. What brought things to a head was when she started running with wolf packs and talking to the animals. To them, only a demon could do what she was doing. They tried to kill her. Her parents protected her long enough for her to escape into the forest. For a couple years she stayed near the village. Ever the loving daughter, she keep her parents supplied in fresh deer, pig, ducks, geese, fruit, nuts and whatever was in season. The villagers would catch sight of her every now and then running with the wolves. Over the two winters after she was driven from the village they became even more convinced she was a demon. No one could survive in the wilderness on their own, much less a young girl.”
Everyone in the room was beginning to feel their heart rate and emotions settle back down as Eva told the story. She looked around, smiled, and continued. “Back then they didn’t measure distance in miles, marks, or meters. It was measured as here to there and everyone had their own measure of what here to there was. When The Enchantress and Nova shared this story with me, I kind of guessed Naweena was five or six miles from her village when she sensed people were dying there. Running back she was too late. A raiding party of twenty nine, what we would call Vikings, had killed the men and were finishing up raping and killing the women. She cut a deadly swath through fourteen or so before the others decided to run. The end was the same for all of them. She returned to the village to find her father dead, her mother barely alive. As she cradled her mother in her arms, her mother reached up, touched Naweena’s cheek. The last words her mother spoke to her were, I love you baby girl.”
Eva looked at Shasta. “Not your fault. Nova has been so focused on making sure the same thing doesn’t happen to those she is protecting, your choice of words were poorly chosen. When you told her she was through here it tripped the demons in her mind. She shifted to into full Huntress mode ready to kill everyone who was a threat to her family.”
Shasta looked ashamed as she shook her head. “I didn’t know.”
“No one is blaming you, Shasta. I venture to say all of us have dark places in our minds we wish never happened. The Huntress has a lot more of those than any of us. If she wasn’t so focused on protecting this family, your words wouldn’t have meant anything.”
“I don’t know about the rest of you but I need the ladies room after this.” Gale looked around for any signs pointing to the bathrooms.
Kathy pointed to the hallway leading back to the dock. Ten of the women headed off that way. The others knew they would need to do the same as soon as there was room.
Kathy stood up and clasp her hands together to keep them from shaking. “Linda is a chef we hired recently. She offered to come in early this morning and cook breakfast for everyone. Sandy and Caroll are waitresses who offered to come in.”
Kathy gave a nod with her head toward three women who were still white as a sheet. “I think this is an experience they won’t ever forget. Ladies, if you will, please, it will take your mind off what you just witnessed.”
Linda headed for the kitchen to get things going. Sandy and Caroll following to get plates and cups for everyone. Coffee would be high on the list on the first order. Kathy had clued them in they might meet a mutant but damn the number of them was mind boggling. And The Huntress…, like everyone else they had heard stories. Nothing like this though.
Kitcha and Crystal stayed with Nova as she stood on the dock looking off into the memories of her mind, tears trickling from her eyes. Neither one saying anything as they stood beside her and wrapped an arm around her waist or held her hand. What she was going through they could only guess and offer the touch of a friend. Sometimes one lives too long for the mind to handle all the memories of friends found and lost, all the evil one has seen.
Sighing, I reached out and pulled Crystal and then Kitcha into a life squeezing hug and laid my head up against theirs, each in turn. Stepping back I wiped the last of the tears away. “Thanks. One can never have too many real friends. I love both of you and owe you so much as you have each walked some difficult paths with me over the years we have known each other.”
Kitcha looked up at her tall friend as she wiped her own eyes. “We’ll always be there for you, Nova. You have done the same for us many times.”
Crystal reached out and took Nova’s hand, noticing for the first time Nova didn’t pull away first. “Ready to go back?”
When we walked back into the dinning room, everyone turned to stare at me. “I’m sorry for what I did. Many of you have worked side by side with me. Sometimes it isn’t possible for one person to do the job”
Looking over at Spencer I continued. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for several people in this room.
Kitcha squeezed her hand. “Nova, think what will happen if you do what you plan? You’re going to finish up the revenge for what the head of that Committee has done and what the police did to Jenna. What will happen to the people who will get caught up in a government sweep as they come in to find The Huntress? How many innocent lives will be lost? We all know government agents kill first and ask questions later. Hundreds, thousands and that will include mutants who had no idea your actions brought in a government scorched earth search for The Huntress.”
“Crystal and I talked it over and asked all these ladies to come and help. All of them are your friend, even the ones you don’t know have heard so many stories about you they want to be your friend.” Short little Kitcha was kinda buried between Sue and Cali who had moved in on her. I knew they were best friends. Short Kitcha and the tall girls was a mismatched trio of best friends. Personally, I figured Cali and Sue liked keeping Kitcha close as the beautiful little girl they both wanted.
Jasmine reached out to take my hand which wasn’t there. I slowly moved it back and took her hand. She smiled, she knew Nova was quick. “Too many innocent lives will be lost if you do it your way. We’ll finish up what you started. Times have changed, Huntress. We can no longer pull a sword and kill all the ones who need killing. Enchantress gave us a copy of the same list your friend Spencer gave you.”
“Is nothing sacred any more.” I looked at Enchantress.
Crystal gave a snort. “You mean besides your virginity. Not likely with the way news travels in this day and age.”
Most of those wondered if this was a private joke between the Enchantress and The Huntress? Both women were several centuries old, Nova ten or twenty if the stories could be believed. They heard Nova was a virgin. Every one of them didn’t believe it. Until now. Crystal had sewn doubt.
The ladies were right of course. If I killed the cops who killed Jenna the government would send in the seekers and the cleaners. They would be focusing on anyone and everyone who looked different. They would murder them the same way Jenna was murdered. Mutant, non mutant, wouldn’t make any difference and thousands would die.
“I apologize for my actions earlier. For the past several weeks I have been so focused on my goal, I forgot about the innocent who get caught up in the aftermath after I’m long gone. Collateral damage is unacceptable even if it is only one innocent life. Any less and I have become what I hate, government killers with no care for those who die in their search for mutants.”
“We have faith in you Huntress. Have a little in us. We’ll take care of the dregs of society you have left us. We’ll do it discretely so these people are nothing more newsworthy than accidental deaths or medical deaths. Li Su wants your police captain. Sue and Cali are going to lure one of those patrol cars used by two of those officers who assassinated Jenna into having a fatal accident. Shall I keep going?” Astra was watching The Huntress.
“No, I don’t need to know all the details. I thank all of you for stopping me from doing something I should have figured out on my own. I don’t need personal revenge. As long as Kathy, Brent and all the rest are safe and don’t have to look over their shoulder from now on, that is all I ask.”
“Spencer, we know about your ability to change, edit electronic storage data. We have a couple of our own in our group who can do the same. All the recording devices were blanked before any of us pulled into the parking lot.” Angel waved her hand to indicate the other ladies. “When we leave, none of us were ever here. Most of us have found it is better to not show up on security cameras rather than hoping the data never falls into the wrong hands.”
Angel glanced in my direction. “I was told by someone who was there in Sacramento some things went belly up in a hotel. You’re not on any of the security storage data.”
“Omega?”
Angel gave a slight nod.
“Tell him thanks if you see him before I do.”
Until now, Spencer was beginning to think, besides him, all those who Nova associated with were females. He also didn’t realize there were this many female mutants in the country. Maybe he needed to get out and associate more? He wanted more than just a memory of this gathering of mutants. He reached out with his mind and tried to turn the security cameras back on.
Nothing happened. He looked up to see one of the females wink at him as she slightly shook her head as if scolding a naughty boy. He kind of slumped down in his chair. He had been properly chastised.
“Where is everyone staying?” I knew there wasn’t room in the suite for this many extra bodies. That would raise problems on it’s own. Some of the ladies I knew were like Kitcha and the Enchantress. They had no qualms about which partner they bedded.
A couple of the women looked at Danti. “I brought the motor home. They are all staying with me. Enchantress said I could park it in the back employee parking lot. I’m guessing she cleared it with the owners?”
“She did and you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.” Brent looked at Kathy who gave a slight okay with her head.
“Brent, if I may? The ladies are only going to be here for a couple days. Would it be all right if I offered the Garden’s facilities for their meals? I know the restaurant is booked solid. I’m not suggesting we cancel reservations so the girls can have a couple tables.
I had Brent’s attention. “What are you suggesting, Nova.”
“Set up tables on the dock. Most of these ladies had to fight for survival in cities, forests, and jungles along with eating sand with their meals in the desert. Picnic on the dock isn’t anything that will embarrass anyone except maybe some of our staff.
Ken had his eyes glued on the eye candy from the moment the first two walked in. “That dock area is suddenly going to get a whole lot more crowded if these ladies decide to eat there.”
Everyone there understood the implication and most laughed or smiled at the comment.
“Ladies, if everyone has had their tummies and their powder room necessities taken care of, I suggest we begin what we all came for. These people need space to get on with their lives. And as our good observant friend, Ken Walters pointed out, they are probably tired of putting up with us.” Sue headed for the door with Cali beside her.
The young lady who had winked at Spencer walked over and sat down in his lap which took him by surprise. She put her arm around his neck, leaned in and planted one on his lips. “Always pleased to met another who can adjust electronics with their own mind.”
“uh..., yeah, okay, whatever.” Spencer was trying to collect his thoughts.
Sitting on his lap, her eyes were only inches from his. “I guess I should introduce myself, Mr. Spencer Miller. My name is Becky and yes it is short for Rebecca. The other girls and I are going to do something you might be interested in since you and I have the same talent.” She hopped up and was pulling on his arm for Spencer to follow.
“Don’t worry about the club. It has gained a few more security measures since last night.” She looked over at Ken. “You should come also since you’re Spencer’s partner in most everything he does. You can feast your eyes on the girls some more.”
Ken blushed all the way to the bottom of his feet as he hung his head. “Was I that obvious?”
“Sweety, we don’t mind and yes you were that obvious. Come on, the others are going to be ahead of us already.” Becky was pulling Spencer up out of the chair as she motioned for Ken to follow.
Rhonda walked in with a man beside her. “Who are all those women out in the…?
“TIMOTHY!” Kathy screamed loud enough to rattle the walls as the ran across the restaurant to grab and hug her brother. She was crying as she squeezed him in close as she could. “I…,”
“Un huh, me too sis. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again either.” He was holding onto his sister like there was no tomorrow. “Your attorney got me out.”
It was a couple minutes before Kathy stopped crying. Giving space between her brother and herself she was wiping off the last of the tears with both hands. “Thank you Rhonda. I already owe you so much I’ll never be able to pay you back.”
“You’re welcome. I was getting no where going through the city court. Judge Harper gave a writ of habeas corpus which was very explicit. Either produce your brother and let him go or charge him. They had already broke the law themselves. They should have turned him lose after twenty four hours. Even under extenuating circumstances they can’t hold someone more than ninety six hours. They were losing records, shifting your brother around in the jail. Each time they moved him they claimed he was a new prisoner listed under John Doe.”
=================================================
My time was coming to an end and I felt like doing it up right. The cosmetics I carried were for hiding my features not enhancing them. “Kathy, do me a favor and ask Joan if she could see me in this morning.”
Kathy stared at me for a few seconds before nodding in agreement. She had a good idea why. “I’m sure she will. I’ll tell Brenda you’re coming by for a dress. I know she has a couple waiting for you to pick up.”
“Thanks Kathy. I appreciate everything you and Brent have done for me. Harold would you mind giving me a lift over to the body shop so I can pick up my car? I believe it had a long enough time out from me by now.” I was going to miss the people here. Houston was just another city. The people in each one of these was what made them the cities they were and gave it life and a soul unique to each.
In less than a week my life was going to return to working in sleezy motels, hotels, and sweat shops. Might try out a meat processing plant? Places where they never checked if the ID was legit or not. Or maybe not. I still had a Huntress to teach all the things about survival and instinct. After I visited Seattle again as I owed a favor to Pete. A hit and run driver would be on the top of my list after I left the restaurant.
Joan and Brenda had performed their magic on me before I returned to the restaurant at one o’clock. Our new Maitre d’ Juan, greeted me as I walked in the door. “You look absolutely stunning, Miss Jodi.”
“Thank you Juan. Everything okay? Any complaints from the help or the customers?”
“No Miss Jodi.”
“That’s the way all of us like it. Let me know if problems arise.”
“Yes ma’am, as you say Miss Jodi.”
I watched the accident happening before I could get there to stop it. A man was pushing back from the table. Both her hands were carrying heavy plates of food, Andrea was walking past him. He pushed into her. Andrea started to fall and released the plates to protect herself before she hit the floor. Plates shattered and food went everywhere.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She was getting up off the floor and instinctively looking around to see how many were now looking. When her eyes locked in on Jodi’s eyes she covered her mouth and ran crying from the room.
Walking over to where the mess was I addressed those around me. “Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the accident but these things do happen. Of course your meals will be on the house.” Pointing to the four tables around me I wanted them to know it was only them and not the whole restaurant.
Please give us a moment to clean this up before anyone steps in it. If you give our Maitre d’ your name before you leave and you have any cleaning expenses, we will be most happy to pay for it.”
Focusing in on the guy who had pushed back into Andrea, I gave a slight frown. “Sir, I apologize. These things do happen.”
He glared at me. “Yeah, will maybe you need to hire more competent waitresses and there wouldn’t be any accidents.”
“Yes sir, I agree with you completely. Please accept free drinks on the house and my humble apologies and of course send us your cost for any cleaning your clothes require.
He looked down at his pant legs searching for food splattered on his suit. There wasn’t any but that wasn’t going to stop him. “This suit is ruined. A cleaning won’t make it right. There will be stains on my pant legs and probably my jacket too. I expect you to pay for a new suit.”
I hated people like this asshole. They faked accidents and sued for compensation. I had been watching. He ambushed Andrea as she walked behind him. He had planned this accident. Now he was going to milk it for all it was worth. “Yes sir, if the cleaners can’t get the stains out please let us know and we will pay for a new suit.”
“You’ll be getting a bill alright. Where’s that drink you said I could have?”
“I’ll have one of the waitresses bring it. “What is your choice, sir?”
“Bring me an Armand de brignac Brut Rose Champagne and tell them to leave the bottle.”
Ten thousand dollars a bottle? We were going to have a discussion after he left the restaurant. And the day looked so positive a few minutes ago. “Yes sir, your drink will be here shortly.”
A couple of our waitresses were coming in with a rolling cart, mops, buckets, towels, and wet floor signs as I headed into the kitchen to find Andrea.
Mr. Horse’s Butt leaned across the table to his three buddies. “I told you I’d get a free meal.”
In the kitchen JoAnn pointed to the doors at the back. “Probably find her on the dock.” She had already figured it out when Andrea ran though her kitchen holding her hands to her face and crying.
“Thanks. Refill Andrea’s last order if you would please.”
“Already on it, Jodi. Remember, I’ve been there myself.”
“Thanks again JoAnn. When it’s ready I’ll pick it up.” I was headed out to find Andrea.
Three of the kitchen staff were temps filling in as the restaurant grew into an overflowing crowd the past few weeks. They were staring at the back of tall woman who had just passed through their kitchen wearing four inch heels, caged black pearl earrings, multi strand black pearl necklace and wearing a very daring halter neck, electric blue dress with an ultra short hemline.
JoAnn’s eyes had followed Jodi as she walked out. Looking around, so had every person in the kitchen. She softly laughed as she whispered. “People, that’s our manager and they don’t come any finer.”
I found Andrea on the dock, crying on the shoulder of Serenity. If anyone could calm her, Serenity could. That girl was a well of peace and harmony. “May I talk to her?”
Serenity pushed Andrea back just a little and held her head up. “Hon, someone here wants to talk to you.”
When Andrea looked up and saw Jodi she started crying even harder. “I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry. I’ll pay for all of it.”
“No you won’t. It wasn’t your fault. Andrea, listen to me. Accidents happen. I know why this tore you up emotionally. You are supporting two kids and a husband who isn’t working. Sweety, no one faults you. I was watching before it happened and the man deliberately pushed back into you as you walked behind him. If you feel you can get your emotions back under control and straighten up your makeup, come on back in when you feel like it. Okay?”
She had stopped crying and was down to sniffing. “Okay.”
“If you don’t feel like it you can go home. You won’t lose any time for today. You’ll still get all your regular hours on the clock.” Walking out to my car I opened an ammo can and retrieved a small bottle with an eyedropper. It went down between my breasts as I didn’t have pockets nor a purse. I headed back to the kitchen.
Serenity gave Andrea a serious hug. “I guess we better work on getting that pretty face all tidied up so you can go back to bringing food and happiness to your customers with that bright smile of yours.”
Andrea hugged her back. Somehow things seemed all right again.
JoAnn pointed to four plates as I walked back into the kitchen. Stacking one on each arm and then picking up another in each hand, I headed out into the dinning room. The help was gawking again. JoAnn closed her eyes and shook her head. It had been many years since she had seen any waitress carry four plates at a time. Jodi made it look easy.
The same guy who had caused a mess before saw the lady in the blue cocktail dress come out of the kitchen carrying four plates. He leaned over toward his buddies. “Watch this.” When she walked behind him, he pushed back with his chair.
There was a wee problem as far as Mr. Accident was concerned. I wasn’t there to block his push as he rocked back in his chair. He went over backwards sprawled out on the floor. I didn’t stop, the people at table twenty six had waited long enough for their food.
Almost everyone in the restaurant was looking. The guy lying on the floor made a lot of noise when he fell over backwards. Then their attention followed the tall girl in heels and cocktail dress as she walked over to a table with two couples.
Standing there holding the four plates I looked around the table. “I’m sorry ladies, gentlemen, I didn’t take your order so I don’t know who ordered what. If you would please be kind enough to give me directions.”
“I had the smothered steak.” “I had the roast beef.” “I had the fish.” “I had the sautéed chicken.”
The smothered steak plate in my right hand had to go first before I placed the others. “I’m terribly sorry you had to wait for your meals. Andrea is a very conscientious waitress. It upset her when she dropped your meals. I see you have drinks, if you would allow me to bring you fresh drinks, there won’t be any extra charge.”
One of the men nodded. I took notice of what each was drinking. “Is there anything else you would like, it would please me to bring it back for you.”
The other man looked around the table and shook his head. “No we’re good I believe.”
“I’ll be back with your extra drinks shortly. Thank you for dining with the Garden.”
Mr. Obnoxious had set his chair back up and was glaring at me as I walked past his table. “Where’s that free drink you said I could have?” He said it loud enough half the diners could hear him.
“I’m going after it now, Sir. We have been quite busy as you may see.”
“Better be soon is all I have to say.” He grinned at the other men around his table. He was in charge of anyone and everything around him. Mr. Big.
There was no doubt in my mind this guy was the class bully when he was in school and he never gave it up even after he graduated. Ben was at the bar when I walked up. “I need a Wake County Cooler, a Rose Spritzer, one Does A Bear, one Martini, and three beers.”
He nodded. “I made those up about fifteen minutes ago. They must have liked them.”
Reaching in between my breast I lifted out a small bottle and placed it on the counter. “I need one glass of wine. Morgan David will do. Put two drops of this in it and in each of the beers.”
Harold was standing beside me and picked the bottle up. “Time Out? Do I dare ask?”
“Compressed alcohol. One drop will get anyone drunk. Two drops is blind staggers drunk. Three drops is close to cardiac arrest. Four drops is call the morgue.”
Ben took the bottle and was looking at it. “That would put the liquor business out of business. I hope this stuff isn’t out for public consumption.”
“The bottle is yours. Put it away where no one and I mean absolutely no one but you or Harold can get their hands on it.”
“Okay, give me five minutes and I’ll have those drinks.”
Six minutes later I was carrying eight drinks on a tray in my right hand. Passing the waitress station I picked up four extra cloth napkins. At Mr. Obnoxious table I set a wine glass down in front of him and a beer each in front of his friends.
He looked at it and then back up glaring at me. “I said I wanted the wine bottle.”
“And I said you could have a free drink not a ten thousand dollar a bottle wine.”
“I’m going to sue this restaurant for everything they have. I think I hurt my back when my chair tipped over backwards that last time. Your chairs aren’t very stable.”
“I understand you have that right, sir. Now if you will excuse me, I have others who require my service.”
At the other table I placed the napkins by their plate and set the respective drinks down for each of them. “Will there be anything else?”
“No thank you, this wasn’t necessary. You have been more than kind.” One of the women had picked up her drink and took a sip.
“We at the Garden hope your dining with us is a pleasure and relaxing. Unfortunately we can’t always control what may come into our restaurant. Your waitress Andrea, has returned and will be watching if you wish for anything else. Or if you prefer I will continue to serve you if you want.”
One of the women had just put the glass to her mouth, she brought a napkin up and coughed into it. “Andrea was very polite and cheerful. She made all of us smile when she took our order. You’re very beautiful and this obviously wasn’t what you dressed for today although you do it professionally. Thank you for everything.”
“It has been my pleasure I assure you. I’ll turn you back over to someone’s capable hands then. Andrea will be pleased. Enjoy your lunch and thank you for coming.”
Mr. Obnoxious was slurring his speech when I walked back past his table. “Iss gonna shu thus legsssss, puntsss uffen diss plazzz.”
Walking into the bar, I held out my hand. “Phone.”
Ben put a cell phone in my hand. It didn’t take me but a second to dial a number I already knew. “Waterford, police.” Was the response from the other end of the ether.
“Yes, this is the manager at Eve’s Hanging Garden Restaurant. We have four very drunk men in the restaurant. I felt it was my responsibility to report them before any of them got in their car or cars and tried to drive away.”
“I’ll send a couple patrol cars over. Do you know what they are driving?”
“No I don’t but I don’t think you will have any trouble recognizing who they are. They probably will have trouble walking as they are seriously drunk.”
“I see, did you or someone in the restaurant not notice when they had too much to drink?”
“Ma’am, they only had two light beers or in one case a light beer and a glass of five percent alcohol wine. Certainly not enough for any normal person to get drunk on. We have no way of screening people who dine with us whether they are alcohol intolerant or not. They may have even brought an extra bottle in with them.”
“Wouldn’t anyone have noticed if they had brought in a bottle?”
“Ma’am, we’re a big restaurant and lunch is a very busy time for all of us. Our job is to try and keep our customers happy and fed, not look over their shoulders to see if they are eating their meals right.”
“Cars are on their way. They weren’t very far and will be there within five minutes. Try to keep the men there if they aren’t already leaving. What is your name?”
“Charlotte Wilson.”
“We thank you for your concern Mrs. Wilson.”
“Yes ma’am, that was very efficient and we at the Garden Club thank you and all our fine officers for the hard work you do keeping our streets safe for all citizens.” I handed the phone back to Ben.
Harold was dying trying to hold in the laughter. “We thank you Charlotte Wilson for keeping our streets safe? The one person who the police would turn this town upside down to find is thanking them for her safety? Nova, there are fliers out offering a million dollar reward for the arrest and conviction of The Huntress. No one knows what she looks like or if she is many people. They are guessing she is still out there and you thank them for their service. Girl, you got more guts and bigger balls than anyone else I have ever met.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “The best place to hide is with the same people looking for you. It’s a plus if you’re vocal about being serious and glad those people are doing their best looking for whoever they are wanting.”
Ben was shaking his head. “Never in a million years would I have thought up something like that. How many names have you used?”
“Warum? Ich habe nur einen Namen, Sir. Helga Bersmith.” (Why I have only one kind, Sir. Helga Bersmith)
“It all came with time and experience. A lot of lessons learned the hard way.”
“God woman, I’m surprised you remember who you really are.” Ben filled a glass with soda water and set it on the counter in front of Nova.
“I’m Naweena, an orphan adopted by wolves, bears, and other animals after our village was slaughtered, my parents murdered. It is the name my mother gave me when I was born. I may forget all the names I have used over the years. That is one I’ll never forget.”
Thank you for the water.” I took a big drink before heading back to the dining room to check on our drunken friends.
Ben watched her walk away. “For you Naweena, I’d walk across a hundred miles of desert to bring you water.”
Andy walked into June’s office. “Busy?”
“Always.” She pushed back the medical records she had been studying about a patient.
“Any more ideas about those pin pricks we have been seeing on our heart attack victims?”
She stared at Andy for several seconds trying to decide whether to get him involved or not. Looking off into the distance she sighed.
Andy had seen that look in June’s eyes many times before. He knew she was analyzing information and arranging it before saying anything. He waited.
“Six years ago I read an article in one of our medical review papers. Our government developed a heart attack serum. I believe someone has replicated that serum. They not only replicated it, they made it stronger. They managed to make it thousands of times more lethal so only what is on the end of a pin carries enough to do the job. The government serum was traceable. Run the toxicology tests and it would show up in the blood stream and the tissue around the needle injection site. It took ten CCs to cause the heart attack. I called some people I know. Our government is still manufacturing and stocking it.”
“I asked Dr. Jackson to run a toxic test on a victim as he arrived in ER. Specifically where I saw the pinprick. Nothing showed up. I strongly suspect our four patients we had in here who claimed a woman attacked them, are dead or soon will be. Remember your sergeant said she attacked the wrong people? I asked Lt. Ingram who all these dying people worked for. He called me this morning. They don’t all work for the same company but all the companies can be tied back to one company. Security Investment Brokers buys and sells companies. Remember that guy who bought companies, raided their investment funds destroying lives, and then sold the pieces off?
“Vaguely.”
“That is what Security does. What I gather from the Lieutenant is they go a little further than that. They destroy businesses and buy them up in bankruptcy court. They can get a ten million dollar business for a few hundred thousand.”
“Jesus! You think our own government is killing people with this stuff?” Andy shook his head.
“No, as I said, this isn’t government quality. It’s a whole lot more lethal and impossible to detect.”
“How do you know it’s…, okay not the same thing but the same principle?”
June brought up a graph on her computer and turned it so Andy could see it. “Statistics. The chart for heart attack victims in this area has gone off the scale. It isn’t because of the greasy burgers and French fries they are eating. I think those in Security pissed off the wrong person who just happen to have a source to the refined heart attack medicine.”
“Oh crap! The government guys get wind of this they will send in a few teams and kill a few thousand people hoping to get their hands on this new designer medicine.”
=========================================
Lt. Max Ingram was filling out the paperwork on a drug bust he had been attached to this morning when Detectives Elaine Arnold and Maurice Ward stopped by his desk. She laid a couple bulletins down in front of him. Four officers die in a high speed auto chase, was the first thing that caught his eye. The second one read, Captain Dan Blake suffers fatal injuries after he falls down a flight of stairs in the police station.
He looked at the first one again and read the names of the officers who died in the high speed chase. He looked up at the two detectives. “You mention this to anyone else?”
“We’re not stupid. Two of our own started digging into the murder of that woman and were killed while on patrol.” Elaine was positive she didn’t want to bring this to anyone else’s attention. No one wanted to speak about a blue on blue murder.
Ingram nodded in agreement. “This isn’t her style though.”
Maurice coughed. “Who says she can’t change with the times? Damn it Max, all of us figured she’d show up.”
He pulled a sheath of papers out of the inside his jacket and laid it down on the desk. “This is the report I DIDN’T turn in after Elaine and I were called out to examine a double murder in an alley. Those guys were handled by someone with abnormal strength. Someone snitched on Dagger. Those two went in to give a lesson as to why snitches talking about their help isn’t appreciated. When was the last time you heard anything about Bolt? Hell, he’s disappeared off the face of the planet. Give me a name of anyone and I mean anyone who would be capable of taking out both of those freaking mutants? Name one who would turn on her own kind besides her? She’s here, she’s in town, and she’s taking care of business.”
It was a gut feeling but one of the strongest he ever had, The Huntress was in town and he refused to admit it. Max had heard some pretty solid evidence Captain Blake was cushy with Bolt and Dagger. No one in their right mind would risk putting that down on paper. Somehow The Huntress had connected the dots. Back twenty six years earlier he and Maurice were MPs stationed in Germany. They were transporting a prisoner who had gone AWOL and tried to escape into Russia. He was caught before he could get across the border. They were taking him back to the base for a court martial. When they passed a clearing of the forest lining the highway they both saw a tall woman standing in the middle of a pack of wolves. It wasn’t only the fact she watched them go by that sent chills down their spines, it was how she was dressed in thirty below weather. She was wearing a short leather miniskirt, a barely there crop top, sleeveless, leather vest, and carrying a long bow. They had heard stories about the huntress and figured they were like all fables, made up over time. After they returned to base, every free moment for the next few months, they dug into finding out everything they could about her. Like all good detectives they separated fact from fiction the best they could from everything they read and heard. The one idea they couldn’t shake was they had seen her and she wasn’t a figment of their imagination.
“If the feds get a hint of this we will be drowning in soldiers and Black Ops. Keep this to yourselves. Hopefully she’s gone now.” Max didn’t believe she had left but there was hope.
“Gotchu.” Maurice and Elaine walked away.
Someone who might have figured out if the Huntress was still hanging around was That Doctor who seemed to have a sixth sense about a lot of things not even related to medicine. He dialed the number.
June checked who was calling before she answered. “Lieutenant, to what do I owe this call?”
“Tell me what you know about the Huntress.” Came over the airwaves.
“Fairy tales, fables, children’s boogie bear stories to get them to lay down and go to sleep?”
“Doctor, I’m not one of your patients to have you pat my head and tell me everything is okay. You smelled something before there was anything there. Give.”
June was quiet enough Max was wondering if she was still with him. She sighed. “Okay, I believe we have the Huntress in town. She got her hands on some really wicked stuff our own government designed to give people heart attacks. You told me earlier everyone dying was connected to one company in one way or another. You might warn those policemen who ambushed the woman they claimed was a Huntress. Although it probably won’t do any good.”
“Too late. All four men including their captain had accidents.”
“Her style?”
“Who knows what her style is anymore? Two we don’t need to guess is Dagger and Bolt. The first had her heart ripped out and the second is gone. I don’t know how much you know about this woman but I believe she is the only one who could take out both.”
June held her phone out and looked at it for a second wishing she hadn’t answered this call. “What do you plan on doing?”
“Doing? I’m keeping my head down and my mouth shut. Damn it Doc, if this is the same woman I saw in Germany, I don’t want to get in the way of what she thinks needs to be done.”
“You saw her!”
“Yeah, she’s tall, six foot or better, raven black hair.”
“Where did you see her?”
“In a forest, we were transporting a prisoner. She was standing in a clearing with a pack of wolves around her.”
“Would you know her if you saw her again?”
“I’ll never forget her. I doubt anyone can who has seen her. We were in a security van traveling down the highway at fifty miles per hour. When I saw her it scared the absolute stuffing out of me.”
June licked her lips. “She’s here and no one besides the druggies and those who like to spread rumors are screaming it’s the Huntress. She must be able to blend in somehow.”
“You know that for sure or guessing?”
“It’s a feeling I haven’t been able to shake. At first I wondered if I was coming down with something. When I began thinking Huntress it all solidified.”
Max didn’t mention that was something mutants could do. “Okay, share anything you have and I’ll do the same. You’re not telling anyone else, are you?”
“Only my colleague, Andy. He’s been tracking the heart attacks along with me. He was the one who told me about the heart up on top the car after Ms. Poison was killed.”
“Doc, you need to be really careful who you share this huntress information with. Two of our own were killed when they got too nosy about the four who murdered the girl they claimed was a huntress.”
“I’ll button it up. I don’t want her coming after me.”
“It isn’t her we need to be worried about. As bad as she scares me, I’d rather have her guarding my six than anyone else I can name.”
“Understood, Lieutenant. Goodbye.” June turned off her phone and stared at it. Max knew more than he was sharing. Did he really trust the Huntress that much?”
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Sue and Cali had returned along with Becky, Spencer and Ken. All five spent the evening in the bar. It was there they ordered off the short menu for supper. As for the other women, none had returned by ten that night. I figured they were out partying. Each one of them was able to handle themselves if any problems arose. I figured the three I didn’t know personally probably had that same ability since they were with the others. Personally I felt kinda like I should be out finishing up what I had started. Craig Albright was the top man in that slimy organization. I had yet to get to him along with three others in that committee. The restaurant, the club, the waitresses, the cooks, everything was going so smoothly that day I felt like I was useless and no longer needed. If I could become one of the waitresses, or kitchen help, or cleanup, maybe I could hang around just a little bit longer but that was no longer an option. I would never blend back in as one of the help, not here anyway. If the ladies were going to finish cleaning up the vermin I probably should move on.
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“Dr. Harrison and party, I have reservations.” He stopped in front of Eva.
June smiled at the Maitre d’ when the woman looked up at them. Eva checked her reservation tablet. “Yes Dr. Harrison and a party of one.”
June looked around to scan the room and froze when she saw the tall woman with the raven black hair staring at her eyes. Staring back into those eyes, she was frozen to the spot unable to move or look away.
“I’ll show them to their table, Eva.” I knew the woman had made me but how? We had never met before. I picked up a couple menus off the counter. “This way please.”
Andy took June’s hand but she had yet to move. “June?” He slipped his hand around her waist. “You okay?”
Reluctantly she allowed Andy to lead her along following the woman to a table beside the hanging garden. Placing their menus on the table in front of a couple chairs I backed up and waited for the man to seat the woman. June sat down in the chair Andy had pulled out for her and turned to stare. This time June’s attention was drawn to the long fingers and long fingernails of the woman who had laid the menus on the table. All the nails on both her hands looked sharp and lethal, a length no normal woman would or could wear. They would be broken before the day was out.
It was hard for me to figure out why the woman was absolutely terrified of me? I didn’t know her. I could sense she was one of those mutants we called Sherlock Holmes. They had an analytical mind and could figure out and understand real life problems and situations before most even knew there was a problem. They were the ultimate solution solvers.
“Sir, madam, would you like to order drinks now while you look over your menu?”
“June? June? Would you like to order a drink? June?”
She managed to look at Andy. “What?”
“The lady wanted to know if we would like to order a drink. Honey, are you okay?”
“Drink? Okay…, I’ll have a Martini.”
Andy looked up at the waitress. “I’ll have a Margarita.”
“Very good. I’ll be back with your drinks shortly as you decide on what you would like to eat tonight.”
June stared as she watched the woman walk away. She had the graceful walk of a cat. A very large cat. She didn’t have to imagine the Huntress silently passing through the forest stalking her prey. It was there in every step she took.
“June, you are acting awfully funny. Are you okay?” Andy was beginning to doubt if this dinner date for both of them to relax and forget work was a good idea.
She turned her attention back to Andy. Should she tell him? Was she even sure herself? Everything in her whole body and her mind was screaming this was the Huntress. Had she psyched herself up so much lately every tall woman was going to be the Huntress? No…, this was her. Every fiber of her being was screaming this was the Huntress.
“I’m sorry Andy, I’ve been distracted thinking about work. What were you saying?”
“Well at least I have your attention now. I was beginning to think this was a waste of a perfectly good evening to get away from our work. Let’s talk about something other than patients, hospitals, and laboratories.”
“Of course, you told me the other day you were repainting your bedroom. What color did you choose?”
“I’d rather talk about what you wish to order for dinner. You haven’t even looked at the menu. Did you see that review about this place in the Sunday Times? The food critics gave it five stars and said they would double that if possible. They raved about the food and said their waitress was a ten in serving them and getting their orders right when they did their best to confuse her.” He opened up his menu and was looking. “Everything looks good. June would you mind if I ordered us a bottle of wine to go with our dinner?”
June lifted her phone out of her purse. “Andy, I’m going to ask someone to stop by for a couple minutes. Please bear with me.”
“What? Honey, you sure are acting funny tonight. Okay, if only for a few minutes. I want this to be our night.”
She tapped in the numbers.
“Hello Doc.” Came back through the electronic world.
“Listen to me very closely and don’t ask questions. Dr. Harrison and I are at Eve’s Hanging Garden Club. You must come immediately. There is nothing else in your life any more important than this meeting. We’re at a table by the hanging garden.” June turned her phone off so he couldn’t call back.
The person on the other end of that call was looking at his phone. “What thu hell?”
=================================================
“Sandy, I have your table over by the garden. The couple who just came in.” I was walking by the waitresses.
“Okay, Jodi.” She was headed into the kitchen to pick up an order for one of her other tables.
Stopping at the waitress station I picked up a pad and pen before going into the club to get their drinks. As Ken was making their drinks I was writing.
Back at the table I placed their drinks in front of them and handed the note to the woman.
June wondered what was going on? Could she have been handed a warning to not say anything? She started reading.
Why are you afraid of me?
We have never met. Why do you
consider me a threat?
The fear scent you are giving off is
scaring the normals around you even though
they don’t know why. Calm yourself, please.
June read the note twice, her eyes and her mind going back to the word normals. Did the Huntress think she was a mutant? “Andy do you have a pen?”
He felt the pockets on his shirt and jacket. “No why?”
I handed her a pen after I pulled it out from between my breasts. I didn’t plan this; it was where I slipped it when I finished writing the note.
She wrote ‘I’m not a mutant’ and handed it back.
Leaning down close to her ear I whispered. “I sensed you before you ever walked in the door. Not the same way you figured me out but the results are the same. If you want to claim you aren’t, that is fine by me. I totally understand as we aren’t high on the good neighbor welcoming committee of those in government.”
I straightened up. “Have you decided on what you would like to eat?”
“We changed our minds about the drink. Leave these but bring a bottle of Pinot Noir.” Andy was sure a bottle of wine would help everyone relax.
“Excellent choice.” I left to get their wine.
“Do you know her? What was it you two were discussing.” Andy was curious what was going on?
June’s mind was asking the same thing. What was going on? The Huntress was wrong. She wasn’t a mutant. She picked up cuts and bruises and healed slowly…? Maybe not that slowly. Had she ever been sick in her life? If she was she didn’t remember it. She never thought about it before. She held out her right hand and examined her nails. As a doctor she always kept them trimmed short. Pathogens and other things can hide and be carried under one’s nails. What would it be like to have nails as long as the Huntress? How in the world did she manage them?
Picking up the tray Ben had set the ice bucket, wine, and two glasses on I headed back to the couple’s table. It was hard to believe the woman didn’t know she was a mutant. Not with the kind of analytical mind her kind had. Yet, her body language and voice indicated she truly didn’t know. At the waitress station I picked up the wine stand, two cloth napkins, and laid a towel over my left arm.
Walking across the dining room I heard the waitresses behind me. “Jodi is serving wine.” “Watch this, she does it so elegantly.” “Watch the faces of those around her.” “I’d pay good hard earned money to have her serve me wine.”
A smile came to my face as I approached the table. Setting the wine stand down, the bucket of ice with the bottle of wine was placed on it. A napkin was placed next to the man and then the woman, a wine glass turned upside down on each. Lifting the bottle out of the ice bucket I wiped it off and held it out for the man to read the label.
It was a heavy French accent I began “Monsieur, ce vin est-il à votre gout?”
(Sir, this wine acceptable?)
Andy blinked a couple times as he looked from the bottle to the woman holding the bottle. He was guessing if she asked him to pour the wine? “uh…, yes.”
Holding the bottle so only the woman could see what I was doing, I slid a fingernail up under the wire wrap on the top and cut it. Holding the bottle so if it sprayed no one would get splashed and using the cork puller I removed the cork.
It was evident the man had been served or seen it done this way before. He held up his wine glass. I poured a half inch of wine into the glass. He swirled it around, held it up to look at it against the light, smelled it, and took a sip.
“Excellent.” He held out his glass so I could fill it three quarters full.
I turned to the woman. “Madame, puis-je vous servir aussi?” (Madam, if I may serve you?)
June was looking from my face to my nails to my eyes and back at my nails before she turned her glass right side up and held it. “Merci, vous avez une methode très impressionnante d’ouvrir une bouteille de vin. Mon compagnon de diner ne comprend pas le Français.” (Thank you, that is a very impressive way you have of opening a bottle of wine. My dinner companion doesn't understand French)
Replacing the wine bottle in the ice bucket my attention turned to the man for they like to be the decision maker if they are on a date. “Merci, have you decided on what you would like for your meal?”
“No, give us a little time if you would. My date seems to be someplace else tonight.”
“Prenez tout le temps don’t vous avez besoin, Messieurdame. Veuillez m’indiquer quand vos souhaitez que je prenne votre commande, s’il vous plaît.” (I’ll give you all the time you need. Please indicate when you wish for me to take your order.) I didn’t repeat in English this time. The woman could do that. I walked away to the entrance desk to help guide arriving customers to their tables.
June was watching and muttered under her breath. “A very large cat.”
Andy had been looking where June was looking. He glanced over at her for a second. “What did you say?”
“I said she walks very gracefully.”
Andy was intelligent enough to not respond even though he agreed. It was the trick question, honey does this dress make me look fat. “uh…, what did she say before she left?”
“She said we could have all the time we wanted to pick out what we would like to eat.”
“Well, she could have said it in English so we both would understand.”
Or said it in ten thousand other languages, June was thinking. Funny she never thought of it before as none of the reports about the Huntress ever mentioned what language she spoke. “Andy, she’s not a waitress. Look at how she’s dressed. That is a cocktail dress. Her heels are four inch. No waitress in her right mind is going to spend the evening serving meals while she’s wearing those kind of heels. They would be crippled before the night was up. I admit this is an upscale restaurant. It isn’t that upscale. She probably picked up you were a doctor when you said you had a reservation and decided to impress you.”
Andy looked across the room at the tall woman leading other dinners to a table. He turned his attention to June. “It wasn’t me she was focusing her attention on. She’s probably a lesbian.”
June threw her napkin down. “ANDY! I’m ashamed of you. I believe I better go before your manners get any worse.”
“June, I’m sorry. It slipped out. I didn’t mean it. Please, don’t go.” He stretched his arm across the table holding out his hand to her.
June settled back down. Her nerves were on edge. She figured she had a valid excuse. Who wouldn’t be knowing they were in the presence of a legend, The Huntress.
Stepping into the kitchen I picked up a pitcher of ice water. Circulating among the diners, offering to refill the glasses, it was a way to make conversation and ask if they were enjoying their meal without annoying them.
It was approximately twelve minutes later, I was across the room when the couple I had seated looked up from their menus and looked around the room. I didn’t have to guess, it’s a universal signal they were ready to order. They were searching for a waitress. After I took their order, the female asked for an extra wine glass. I was headed to the kitchen to turn in their order and pick up their salads.
June leaned across the table. “Andy, get your mind out of the gutter and look at how she walks. She doesn’t really walk like everyone else. It isn’t her heel that comes down first. It’s her the balls of her feet and her toes. She glides.”
That wasn’t the part of her anatomy he was looking at when June told him to look. After she mentioned it, she was putting her toes down first. It was the first time he ever really thought about how people walked. Why did June bring it up?
June turned over the piece of paper the Huntress had passed to her and wrote something on the back of it. She handed it to Andy. “Read this side first.”
It started out, “Why are you afraid of me.” Andy read through the first part and it never dawned on him what it was all about until he read what June had wrote. “I’m not a mutant.” He reread the first part four more times until the words “scaring the normals” registered. His eyes full of questions flashed up to look at June.
She motioned for him to turn the note over. He read the other side. “You are being served dinner by The Huntress. Turn her in, you killed us both.”
Did June mean she would kill both of them? His heart was racing along with his mind.
When I returned with the salad along with the salad dressings, the man was giving off the fight flight pheromones, his blood pressure was up along with his heart rate. After I placed the salads, crackers, dressing on the table along with that extra wine glass I leaned over to whisper in his ear. “Your date told you. Now you’re scared of me after she finally calmed down. Yelling Huntress will get a lot of people hurt possibly killed as everyone panics. As a doctor are you sure you could live knowing you caused people to die by your actions? You came here with intentions of seducing your date. I smelled that on you when you walked in our door. Why don’t you think along that idea and calm down. After your meal, you’ll walk out of here, possibly have a nightcap with your girl, maybe get lucky. I could care less who you are or what you do for a living or that you know who I am as long as others don’t get hurt or die because you did something dumb.”
“S’il yous plait, parlez-lui, s’il hurelera Huntress les gens paniqueront et mourront peut-etre. Votre repas sera pret dans une quintaine de minutes. Je vous en remercie.”
(Please talk to him. He yell Huntress, people will panic and possibly die. Your meal will be in about fifteen minutes. Thank you)
Lt. Max Ingram walked in the door, looked around, saw June and that other doctor over by the hanging garden. He waved the Maitre d’ off. “I see my party, thank you.”
When he reached the table he pulled out a chair and sit down between them. “Doctor, would you like to clue me in why this is the most important thing I have ever done in my life?”
“Andy, would you pour my good friend Lt. Ingram a glass of wine? Or maybe you would like a Margarita or a martini? We haven’t touch either one of them.”
Max nodded. I’ll take that Margarita if that’s okay.”
Andy moved the glass over in front of the Lt. While June moved the martini over in front of him. She smiled and softly said. “You will probably need both. Remember when you told me you would prefer to have the Huntress guarding your back than anyone else?”
Max took a drink of the Margarita as he nodded in agreement. He wiped his lip with the napkin June handed him. “Yeah, and I meant every word of it too. All the research Maurice and I did while stationed in Germany? When one filtered out fact from fiction she was doing our job without all the bleeding hearts getting in the way.”
Returning with the plates I noticed the extra person at the couple’s table. Was he a late arrival? The woman did ask for an extra wine glass. Although it looked like he had been furnished the two drinks they ordered before they ordered wine.
He was talking to the man when I set the plate in front of the woman. He switched his attention to June when I set the man's plate in front of him.
Lt. Ingram had just taken another sip of his drink when June smiled sweetly at him. “Lieutenant I want you to meet our hostess.”
Max turned to say hi when he looked up. AND…, sprayed Margarita.
Quickly I picked up the extra napkins off the table and began wiping off the woman’s arm, her dress, and the table in front of her before picking up another napkin and wiping down the jacket of the Lieutenant. “Ma’am if you will give me a little time, I’ll bring another plate of food.”
“Lieutenant, are you okay?”
June looked at the Huntress. “You know him?”
“The Lieutenant and I met in passing twenty four years ago in Germany this coming November. If he wasn’t a Lieutenant, he was impersonating an officer with that gold bar he had on his shoulder.”
Max finally got his wits together. “You remember all that?”
“Yes, every detail. You were driving a blue Air Force van. There was another man in that van with you. A non com as he didn’t have any thing on his shoulder. Do you remember it?”
He nodded. “I’ll never forget it. Every detail is burned into my memory. You had a lot of company around you.”
Sadly I reflected the memory of them. “All dead now. That kind of life is getting harder and harder to survive. I don’t imagine it will be too long before I join them. If there is a God and a life after this, I will be allowed to roam the forests with all my friends for eternity. It is the only time I have truly found peace in my heart and my soul. Please, I must go and order another meal for this table. Do you wish to eat also?”
“No thank you. I’d like to talk some more if you have time.”
“To delay me?”
Shock and then disappointment spread across Max’s face. “Not in this lifetime. What made you think I would want to delay you?”
“You have the smell of a police station on you. You aren’t a visitor, it has permeated your skin and your clothes. There is also that police issued gun on the right side of your belt and handcuffs on your left.”
“Twenty four years ago I fell in love with a vision. The most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. I’ve spent the last twenty four years reading everything I could find about her, hoping to see her again.”
“That’s very sweet of you but it doesn’t alter the fact we are on opposite sides of the law. Now if you will excuse me, I need to go reorder this couple’s dinner. Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to order something for you?”
It looked like June might break out in giggles as she looked up at Nova and then at Max. “Order something. It will give you an excuse to stay and admire your vision a little longer. I mean after all, a twenty four year wait should be rewarded.”
Andy was smiling when he looked at June. “At least I don’t have to wait twenty four years to see the woman of my vision.”
Max pointed to Andy. “I’ll have what he’s having.”
The Lieutenant wasn’t lying. I could easily sense when someone was lying. It was one of those gifts of this damn mutant life I had been cursed or blessed with. And that particular gift had saved my own life a thousand times over. If he slips and tells any of those at where he worked, I’d be drowning in police, government agents, and military. Time was getting short and I needed to disappear. The others had to be told they could no longer hang around here. Spencer? He would need to use his own judgment whether he would stay or not since this was his home turf. Getting other mutants killed, or worse, captured because I happened to pass through was not any part of life I could contemplate. Everyone who got close to me became a potential target for government. The experiments the government did on mutants they captured were as evil as the worse mutants.
After Nova walked away, Max moved around to the other side of the table so he could watch as the woman of his dreams circulated among the customers in the restaurant. He didn’t fail to notice the uncommonly beautiful short blonde and the auburn haired beauty as the two women lead customers to their tables. They also seemed to circulate freely coming and going in the dinning room. There was no doubt in his mind they were friends of the Huntress. Everything he had ever read and researched hinted at the possibility some of the women mutants were above average in beauty. The odds of The Huntress, herself an exceptionally beautiful woman, and two others of like nature working in the same restaurant couldn’t be a coincidence.
Max turned to June. “Doc, how old do you think our girl is?”
“Twenty? Maybe nineteen?” June thought it was an odd question.
“Not even close. Remember I said I saw her twenty four years earlier? She was nineteen or twenty then, certainly not a little girl. And before you ask, it was her not her mother. She said she remembered me. I don’t believe there have been several different women over several hundred years. The stories about her began three or four thousand years ago.”
June looked at Max trying to comprehend what he was insinuating. “You don’t honestly believe she’s the one and the same!”
Max didn’t answer as a smile spread across his face.
“Impossible!” Andy tossed into the conversation.
“Of course it’s impossible.” June was staring at Max.
“Okay, how do you explain any of the stories you have read? I don’t mean the lies and fabrications, but the ones where there isn’t any dispute.
June and Andy were staring at Max. Both minds thinking the same thing, could it be possible?
“Tell me you haven’t read about or met one of them who doesn’t seem to age. When it becomes more than obvious to the friends or neighbors, they suddenly disappear. No forwarding address, no nothing. Hell, nine out of ten people believe their friend or neighbor has been kidnapped. I can tell you we get one or two calls a year about disappearing people who had no enemies, no debt, and good jobs. They cash out everything they own and step out of one life into another. Of course I can’t prove it. All I have are files of several dozen people who have disappeared the same way.”
Max sighed. “Who knows how long they live? If they can live one or two life times longer than us, what’s the limit?
Walking over to the Maitre d’ counter Eva was there as Kitcha was leading some customers to a table. “I’ve been made. The table I came from, the man in the mismatched pants and jacket is a detective. Twenty six years ago he saw me standing in the middle of Nagaru’s wolf pack. He remembers me. There wasn’t any use to deny it when he asked. He said he isn’t going to report me so we have a little time. Tell everyone to disappear. This restaurant and club are to be considered a hot zone now. No one is to be here come morning.”
A worried look was on Eva’s face as she looked across the room and the man. “Nova?”
“Safe for now but all that needs to happen is the wrong word or say something to the wrong people. I’m going out to the motor home and warn the other girls they have to pack it up tonight. I’ll come back at another time and finish up this mess. I’m not going to let them destroy Brent’s and Kathy’s lives.”
“I spread the word.” Eva turned to take care of some customers coming in.
Twenty minutes later I had informed the girls in the mobile home. Not all of them were there. Those who were said they would alert the others. They said they would be gone before the sun came up. I thanked them for their support and gave each and everyone a hug and a kiss on the cheek. They put their own lives in danger by being close to me.
The little coffee maker was eeeee it’s little heart out telling everyone it was making coffee and it was time to get up.
Kathy was in the bedroom of the executive suite where she had been sleeping for the past several weeks. She raised up on the and bed and looked around. Usually one of the women was in bed with her and by now others would be tracking through to the bathroom. She was the only one in the room. She rolled out of bed, found clean slacks, bra, and a blouse. Slipping on her sneakers she headed to the common room. Brent was sitting up on one of the sleeping pads on the floor.
She looked around the room. “Where is everyone?”
“Probably in the dinning room. I guess we overslept?”
“I’m going down to hear what is on the agenda for today.” Kathy was headed for the door.
“I’ll be right behind you.” Brent was pulling on his shoes.
When they walked into the dinning room there was Spencer and Kitcha drinking coffee.
Human nature to search even when one already knows. Kathy looked around the empty dinning room. “No one eating breakfast this morning?”
Spencer cleared his throat. “Last night Lieutenant Max Ingram stopped in. He remembered Nova from seeing her in Germany when he was in the military. He knew she was the Huntress. Nova and all the others…, except Kitcha left last night after everyone bedded down.”
Kathy wilted into a chair. “Oh no, what will we do? We can’t fight them ourselves.”
Brent pulled up a chair beside Kathy and put his arm over her shoulder.
Spencer looked at Kitcha. “You’re up.”
“Kathy, Brent, all those ladies who were here the last two days? They are mutants also. The government gets their hands on them and it’s all over for any of them who are caught. Each of them are in a class all their own and good at what they do. They took out the remaining members in that committee Nova wanted to eliminate before she had to leave. Craig Albright was head of the group. Their deaths could have come from anyone. Several of those ladies are better than good with a gun. There are a whole lot of businesses who will find they no longer have goods stolen or paying to not have things stolen. Eve’s Garden Club wasn’t the only business they were destroying.”
Kathy had her hand over her mouth. “I owe them so much. Nova, I owe her close to ten thousand dollars. If I give you the money can you make sure she gets it?”
Kitcha shook her head. “I have no idea where she has gone or how to get in touch with her. Nova comes and goes at her own pleasure. The only definite about her is she will be in the thick of things when the going gets down and dirty.”
“I hate to think of her out there needing money to survive like she did when she showed up here.”
Kitcha smirked. “Nova is a bottom dweller. I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s where people who are most desperate for help seldom are able to find any and if they do they can’t afford it. Nova doesn’t need for money.”
“Do you know why the bank gave you a sweetheart deal of a loan when they don’t even know you and your credit history isn’t the best?”
Brent, Kathy, and Spencer wondered where this conversation was going. Kathy shook her head. “Because Nova asked them?”
Kitcha smiled. “It’s Nova’s money.”
“You’re not joking!” Brent was staring at Kitcha along with Kathy and Spencer.
“I wasn’t there so I didn’t hear the conversation. I bet at some point in the conversation she said Contessa. Nova is a Countess or Contessa Sophia deRoma. I am telling you things Nova has kept secret and very few know about her. She likes all three of you very much and wouldn’t want you to worry about her. She would kill me if she knew I was telling you this…, Well maybe she wouldn’t really kill me.”
Spencer kinda smirked as the gave that some thought. “Nova’s family should be set for life when she decides to settle down.”
Kitcha focused in on Spencer. “That’s in poor taste.”
“Why? What did I say? I only mention they weren’t going to be poor.”
Kitcha shook her head. “You’re serious aren’t you? Spencer, how old are you?”
Spencer still couldn’t understand what he had said that was wrong. “I’m forty six and thinking about settling down myself and raising a family. I know Nova is out of my league. I figured someone like Rebecca would be nice.”
Kitcha closed her eyes and shook her head before she looked at Spencer again. “You really don’t know do you?”
“Know what?” Spencer was wondering where this conversation was going?”
“Every mutant’s parents are normal. Mutation isn’t hereditary. Only God knows where it came from or how it picks certain people and not everyone. Spencer, we can’t have children. Something pertaining to conceiving is broken inside us. When we die that’s the end of our line. Probably God’s way of making sure mutants don’t crowd out normals. When it’s over there isn’t going to be any family to tell us goodbye for any of us carrying the mutant code. Male, female doesn’t make any different, only those who adopt become parents.”
She gave Spencer a weak smile. “I can understand you not wanting to get close to other mutants and learning some of these things. All of us try and hide from various governments as much as possible.”
Spencer shook his head. “I didn’t know.”
“Don’t feel too bad. Government doesn’t know either. They keep experimenting on those of us they catch, trying to duplicate the mutant, virus, DNA, whatever and it will never happen.”
By the time Ten O’clock rolled around the restaurant started filling up with diners. Despite the fact Marco and all the waitresses were doing their jobs efficiently. JoAnn and all her help already had food orders moving out. Harold, Ben and all the others had the barroom sufficiently covered. The restaurant felt empty as if it was lacking something. Everyone there, down to the last man and woman felt it. Kathy was standing in the hallway looking back into the dinning room. Business was better than it had ever been and she felt like crying. Brent was in his office trying to take care of the phone calls and paper work and having little success. Nova and the others had come into their lives and stole everyone’s heart. They would be missed but never forgot.
Kitcha took one last look around and left without saying anything. It would be thirty or forty minutes before anyone realized she was no longer there. No one noticed the older dirty brown Ford PU as it slowly pulled out of the parking lot. The driver glanced at her shorter friend. “Where you going now?”
Scooter asked me to stop by and visit for a while. I guess I’m headed north to Alaska. And you?”
Enchantress curled up her lip for a second in thought. “Think I’ll take Logan’s offer to fly over to Ireland in his private jet. Said he was headed that way and offered me a free ride.”
“Any idea where Nova headed?” Kitcha knew Crystal usually had an idea where most of the girls were at any given time.
“Not this time. Only she’s going to be gone for awhile. You know she found another Huntress don’t you?”
“No I didn’t know. That’s certainly surprising after all these years. I thought Nova was the only one.”
“Nova said the girl didn’t even know herself until she told her. No survival skills, nothing. Figured that was what got Jenna killed. Nova was going to disappear with the girl and train her to use her instincts before she became another Jenna.”
“Think she will be as good as Nova?”
Crystal snorted. “Hah, never happen. Nova is in a class all her own. She is, The Huntress.”
=============================
Spencer had informed Brent and Kathy he was no longer needed. Him and Ken would return to their company jobs. He was out in the parking lot thinking of the past month and yesterday. When Becky talked him into going with them he didn’t know what to expect when they parked off the road close to Choux Slew. It was a main road with a nasty hard left corner immediately after Maque Bridge over the drainage canal. The city had talked about “doing something” as there were several wrecks including fatalities there every year. Despite all the caution, speed signs, some people didn’t slow down for the curve. At two seventeen a Honda Goldwing motorcycle came flying down the highway with a police car in hot pursuit. The motorcycle driver laid down rubber to the corner, leaned the cycle way over as they took the curve and gunned it. The police car never slowed down as they hit the bridge, went airborne, and flew a couple hundred feet out into Choux Slew.
“That was easy. Come on Sue, we need the other one before a crowd starts gathering.” Becky was looking up the highway.
Spencer looked at Becky and then turned to look down the highway where she was looking. A second Honda motorcycle blasted into view with a second police car hot on it’s tail. Like the first, the bike braked, laid it over for the curve and blasted away. The police car kept going and it too went airborne even further out into the slew than the first one.
Darla started up the van, pulled, out and was driving away. Spencer and Ken were looking at each other and then at the girls. Spencer had felt Becky doing something but what?
She glanced over at him. “That was the four officers who assassinated Jenna. Think of OnStar and their control over anyone’s car. I took over the brakes, steering, and accelerator. Their deaths are nothing more than vehicle malfunction. Nothing to tie any of it back to Huntress. We look after our own. We also try and do our own housecleaning when one goes rogue. One way or another all of us owe our lives to the Huntress whether directly or indirectly.”
Spencer didn’t have a response. These women were frightening in their own way. They were beautiful and deadly. “It won’t take long for police to put out an APB on two motorcycles.”
Becky and Darla smiled. Darla gave a short glance in his direction. “Dash cams in the police cruisers are toast. The police lost radio contact before they started chasing the bikes. Jammers were on the bikes. Best the police will have is witnesses saying the police were following two bikes. They are loaded up in the back of a truck and headed out of state. Different license plates and different paint after being washed down. Cali and Sue will be in…, a thousand miles from here by this time tomorrow. The bikes will be garaged for a cooling off period before they are taken out again.”
Spencer didn’t know if he should mention it or not. “That leaves Craig and Captain Blake.”
Becky looked at her watch. “Probably taken care of. Craig’s cell phone was used to call Blake for a meeting. One of Craig’s four guardsmen shot and killed Craig along with the other three guards before turning the gun on himself. At the Lormar building a lot of steps up to the front doors. Blake trips and falls, receives a life ending bash on the sharp edge of the concrete steps. The last call on his phone is from Craig requesting a meeting. Dirty laundry all around. The police investigation will glass things over as much as possible.”
Spencer shook his head. The security people he had called in to protect the club could take lessons from these ladies. They were definitely in a league of their own.
In the parking lot Spencer started up his car and slowly pulled out into the street. His life had been changed just as Brent and Kathy’s and everyone else who met Nova and the other ladies.
=================================================
The old twin engine turboprop loaded with cargo plus two women was cutting smoothly through the sky after dropping down to ten thousand feet. The pilot turned and looked over his shoulder at two young women. “You’re both insane. There is nothing down there.”
Mikel, the crew chief was thinking the same thing as he had been talking to and studying the two for the past two hours. It was a waste of life for the girls to bail out over the Siberian Forest with nothing more than a couple backpacks.
Nova gave Mikel a hug. “Appreciate the ride. Don’t worry about us.”
She gave Michaela a final check. Both girls were wearing Kevlar jumpsuits to keep from getting torn up if they landed in the trees instead of the clearing Nova had seen in the satellite photo. “If it looks like trees, keep your feet, legs tightly together, arms folded tightly in front of your chest, head up. Don’t be looking down as you might get a branch in the eyes. If you get tangled up don’t panic. I’ll come and get you. Open your chute when you leave the aircraft and follow me.”
“If you lose your bow…,” Nova pointed at the long bow Michaela had in her left hand. “Don’t worry, we will find it. Probably have a lot of help if we want. I noticed two wolf packs in those reconnaissance photos I paid for. Any questions?”
Michaela shook her head. “You’re going to get us both killed or eaten alive.”
Looking at the two girls, Mikel knew it would be the cold that got the girls first. Then the wolves or whatever else was down there would feast on frozen bodies. They definitely were not wearing enough clothes to be dropping into the Siberian wilderness. Having pulled a bow and a few arrows in his time, he looked at and tried the bows each carried. When he tried pulling them, he only managed to draw the string back a couple inches. Eyes questioning ‘what the hell’ when he handed the bows back. The one called Nova took hers and pulled it back as if she had an arrow knocked. She held it as she swept around the cabin targeting moving game. Mikel was stunned. He didn’t think there were any men who could do what she did.
“FOUR MINUTES. WE HAVE DEPRESSURIZED.” Sonya, the copilot, yelled back into the cabin.
Mikel stepped up to the cargo door and hesitated knowing it was going to be brutally cold. The girls were definitely bailing out to their deaths. Gathering his courage he levered the door dogs, pulled the door in and slid it to the side on its rails. The plane was designed for military and airborne troops before it became a cargo aircraft. The door was designed such so it didn’t open out into a hundred mile per hour slipstream. Immediately after he opened the door hoarfrost started collecting on everything inside the aircraft.
Sonya turned the cabin heat all the way up along with the window defrosters as frost collected on the windshields. “THIRTY SECONDS.” And almost immediately. “NOW!”
Nova and then Michaela left the plane. Mikel immediately closed the cabin door. The aircraft made a long lazy turn to the left. The cabin warmed back up and the windows defrosted. Everyone was staring out as two parachutes opened up, one after the other. The girls seemed to be okay for now and it looked like they would make the clearing as they steered their chutes to head that direction. After making the circle, the aircraft started climbing for the designated thirty thousand feet flight altitude.
Michaela was glad for the thermal foam lining inside the jumpsuit. She wasn’t too sure she wouldn’t have frozen to death on the way down as cold as she was. Despite Nova’s assurance she could withstand extreme cold, she still felt it. After landing in the clearing she wasn’t positive she wasn’t about to become lunch. Without taking her eyes off what was in front of her, she reached down to her side, popped the cover on her quiver pack, and retrieved a handful of arrows.
The wolf pack surrounded the two women after they had invaded their territory. The alpha male was trying to decide if the two strange alpha females should be killed or not. One of them was nervous. The other…, She made him nervous. She was a top predator.
Nova kept a steady look on the alpha male while talking to Michaela. “Don’t draw your bow. This is an excellent opportunity. The pack will show us where there is shelter and game. Relax, they can smell your nervousness the same as me. The big male is the leader. I need a little time to convince him I’m their new leader.”
Michaela shifted her attention to the big male. “You talk wolf? He’s going to turn his pack over to you because you asked him nicely?”
“Yes I do and yes he is. The language is body movement, eye movement, pheromones we give off. Right now he is in hesitation attack mode. We look like an easy lunch. What I’m telling him is I’m not intimidated by him nor his pack. He knows I’m Alpha female but is hesitant to agree.”
“They noticed us when we were coming down. That was when my attention was drawn to them. Michaela, your survival instinct should have alerted you at the same time. Learning to follow that instinct without question is what will keep you alive. Whether in a crowd of people or out here in the wilderness it will alert you to everything around you; the sights, the smells, the other life forms. It will tell you if someone or something wants to attack you. Even in a crowd it tells you which one it is even if they are behind you or hidden. You have to train it to start with, which you never learned and why we are here. In time it will work without you consciously thinking about it yourself.”
Michaela took a quick glance at Nova. “Who taught you all this? How long did it take you to learn?”
“A wolf pack taught me when I was a little girl. It took a couple years running with them. I am still learning after a couple centuries. You’re in a crash course. You must learn this before you return to human society. You will learn it here or die here. Survival is as demanding Mistress here as it is among humans, maybe even more so.”
“Lessons begin now. What do you smell?”
Sniffing a couple times, Michaela wrinkled her nose. “Wolves?”
“Yeah, well besides them. Do you not smell the bear in the distance to the right of us? The wild Boar a little further out than that? The hare in the burrow to your left? Your survival instinct will alert you to the bear and the boar as possible threats and the wolf packs as allies to share hunting for food and shelter. You must learn to use all your senses if you are going to survive.”
Nova took in a deep breath of the frigid air. This was her element and where she belonged. Michaela, being born and raised in civilization would never embrace this wholeheartedly. In time she would learn her own innate killer and survival instincts and have a chance at surviving in that civilized environment. Eventually the world would have a second Huntress in their midst and it would be more than rumor. They wouldn’t be able to murder her like they did Jenna.
Nova started walking toward the forest. Michaela caught up with her as the wolf pack spread out around both sides and behind the two women. “What are they doing?”
“We haven’t been adopted into the pack yet. They are curious wondering what we are doing.”
Michaela shook her head. “You understand them that well?”
“Yes, and so will you before we leave. It’s over six hundred miles in any direction before we encounter human civilization. You’ll learn before we return.”
Many times, I post about other people's reactions to me because I'm hoping others will find their own life knowing someone else has been down that same road they are traveling or hope to. Be yourself, this applies to guys as well as it does to the ladies. Unless one is trying for a lifetime as an actress or actor, there is a real person looking back at what one sees in the mirror. To be honest I was a great actor with breaks now and then for myself. My family, my wife, almost all my friends have passed on. I'm now living as myself without any acting. A week ago last Wed I was at the VA and I strongly suspect a lot of those people waiting to see their doctor heard the receptionist as she checked me in verbally. I was sent in almost immediately to see my endocrinologists, when I came back to check out I could hear several of them telling the one they were with, "There's Barbie". I wasn't the only one who thought it was nice. The receptionist was talking to the room not me when I went to check out. "Barbie, did the doctor mention she wants you back again?"
The black slim skirt, white blouse along with a white ponytail, Diamond earrings and necklace probably helped push the idea. It's human nature to have more interest in something or someone who is in the media spotlight at the moment. No, I'm not Mattel's Barbie but that Barbie movie, good or bad is on a lot of minds. I smile at all the jokes people make or when they ask me how I liked doing the movie. There is no way I could imitate her but..., people being human and all. Mattel isn't the original owner of the name Barbie. It started in Germany almost six hundred years earlier as far as my research and history could track the name.
Thursday I was checking out at Walmart with a gallon of milk and loaf of bread. The man behind me said to the cashier, "I'm paying for hers." I thanked him and refused as he tried to insist. Nice gesture but not happening. I gave him a hug and told him how much I appreciated the thought. The guy was HUGE besides being tall, around six six he was big, not fat but big. I didn't even come up to his chest. My personal-business cards don't have my address only my telephone number and occupation and it isn't farming or ranching. He looked at it, smiled and, "Ma'am I wish you had let me pay." I gave him another hug and left thinking there are still nice people in this world. I was wearing a denim skirt and a black shell, dream catcher earrings and my hair was in a ponytail. Ladies I am some what of a rarity in this part of the world. Less than one in every three hundred or more wear a skirt or dress. Females, young and old are wearing pants now. Remember I live in one of the fly over states. I'm not sure how the east and west coast states are.
One of the ladies in Walmart always compliments me when she sees me and then makes a comment or two about "Walmart Customers". I laugh and joke with her and mention I've seen some of the videos of Walmart Customers. I'd like to wear my bikini top into Walmart to prove a point. Alas, never happen, don't need to show that much skin to prove I'm a female but the devilish thought keeps teasing me. A mid thigh mini skirt and shell is as far as I will push the female envelope. Want to see more, catch me in the yard or in the garden. I'm too damn old to be flaunting it. Age has it's limits.
What I want everyone to take away from this is to be themselves. If I can do it, anyone can. A person must accept themselves before others will. Fear and self doubt is projected and others can read it even when they don't know they are. Confidence, acceptance, and yes pride in what one is also projects. When you step out into that big world, even with friends, you are still an individual, uniquely you and one of a kind. If you aren't sure and even if you are, take precautions be extra aware of people and events around you if you are a female or only presenting as one. I'd never forgive myself if one of you thought, 'if Barb can do it so can I' and things went belly up. I hope to encourage you to be yourself not get you killed. Travel in pairs if possible. If one does the club scene never leave without the one you came with. In the parking lot make sure no one is headed to your car the same time you are. Others watch me but that is different, I'm an Okie..
I'm a real person not a figment of some writer's imagination. I've met some of the writers on this channel, maybe they will agree I'm real. I understand living vicariously through the stories one reads or writes and there is absolutely nothing wrong. Sometimes it's all life and circumstances will allow. Enjoy that as much as one possibly can. I've visited and conversed with some of the most famous and infamous beautiful women all over the world. Many of them moved in very high places in various governments. Some were 'oh my god, beyond beautiful'. Others were the women we meet everyday. Most were willing to share bits and pieces of their lives. Others wished to remain incognito, they had found peace and happiness and paid their dues to be the women they were. Some who shared their life were murdered, some committed suicide, and many have passed on to a higher life. The drugs and hormones we were pumping into our bodies at that time was pure guess work at what helped and what sent us to an early grave. A heads up ladies, modern medicine is still mostly guess. Not a single drug or hormone has been approved for transgender by the FDA. They are still mostly wrong.
Please, all of you who have something to share, good or bad, please do so. There are those following us just as we followed those ahead of us. It's a brutal learning curve for most. If my memory still serves me, there is a girl on here who is an entertainer and nightclub performer. I'm positive others have been out and had pleasant and unpleasant experiences. Please share. Believe it or not BCTS reaches a world wide audience. maybe not many. The girls are out there learning and too many are learning on their own without guidance. You'll never know when something you shared, something you said, will help or possibly save a life.
Hugs People, I pray you find that which you seek, a life that should be yours but was denied for one reason or another. Have fun and enjoy as much as possible your ride though this life. Good or bad it isn't going to last forever. Deal with the hand God gave you.
'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can change; and wisdom to know the difference.' Serenity Prayer
Barbie Jean
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
I looked out across the mass of stars in the distance. I never stopped admiring space in its infinity. From our outpost at UF-2 we were as far from the planet Earth as humans had reasonably explored. There were those who had gone farther, but they were individuals or pirates. Usually they never returned, for which mankind was grateful, as we didn’t know what they had run into in the way of life forms, or what physical abnormality had done them up.
Barbie Lee
I looked out across the mass of stars in the distance. I never stopped admiring space in its infinity. From our outpost at UF-2 we were as far from the planet Earth as humans had reasonably explored. There were those who had gone farther, but they were individuals or pirates. Usually they never returned, for which mankind was grateful, as we didn’t know what they had run into in the way of life forms, or what physical abnormality had done them up.
Barbie Lee
A FORWARD FROM THE AUTHOR.
The science fiction writers enjoyed their big starships and long voyages at "warp speed" to the stars. It was their sacred cow to write about matter and anti matter as they sped through space to the stars in their big, lovely starships. More often than not, their whole story was the 'never ending trip.' Someone give me a couple Excedrin, I have a warp headache.
The stories of UF-2 were not written for monetary gain, but to explain polarity travel. I am positive that the die hard, 'can't travel faster than light' believers, will be in an uproar. I have seen polarity travel in my dreams. I'm not smart enough to explain why it will, or will not, work so please don't ask me.
The Pash were star travelers. They figured out the polarity drive a long time before humans came up with the idea. The way polarity drive was explained to me, we are surrounded by a balance of energy. Stand outside on a still day. The air is all around us. It’s not pushing us one way or another. Walk outside on a windy day. The air is all around us, but it has more force on one side than the other and it pushes against us. Sit in a cockpit with a propeller behind it. The cockpit is pushed into the wind if enough thrust is vectored by the propeller. Sitting in the cockpit, we do not feel the wind, but we move through it. The wind (energy) is moved from the front to the back of the cockpit and we are thrust forward.
Polarity drive takes all the energy we don’t see, nor feel, from the front of the starship and moves it to the back of the starship. Time, matter, energy are interlocked, as there can not be one without the other. Because the starship is no longer a part of the equation since it sits in a void of matter and energy, time neither collapses nor expands, as Einstein postulated. The starship does not become a mass of condensed matter as it approaches the speed of light, per Einstein’s theory, for the same reason as the first. Rules and theorems are made as guidelines until we learn more.
“Matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed.” (Einstein)
Gas in your car is not destroyed when you drive. It is changed into energy as it moves your car. The fuel in a lighter is not destroyed as it changes into heat and light when it burns. Light changes to heat and matter as plants grow and the summers warm.
Space travel will not be like the science fiction writers envision. We will not travel to the stars at “warp speed.” By moving the energy from the front of the vehicle to the rear of the vehicle we will travel to any star instantly. Remembering matter and energy are the same thing, when we travel in a “Polarity Ship” we will move through planets and other solid forms of energy as easily as we do through non solid forms of energy (space). Tonight, pick a star. It is within reason to believe you could travel there in your lifetime and, in a polarity ship, that trip will only take… no measurable time.
All through humanity’s history, some man, or men, have tried to exert their control over others. The Vikings, the Celts, Pharaohs, Romans, Hitler, Cesar... The names of individuals and countries changed, but it was, and still is, the same through the history of mankind and even those not of man. If I remember my history correctly America issued every American a social security number when they started gainful employment. Then they issued social security numbers at birth saying it was for tracking population. I think it was after a war, or maybe I’m mistaken, I don’t recall, but American leaders said the nation needed a national identity card for each individual. They said it would stop terrorism.
Are we starting to figure out the problem yet? All bad ideas start out with someone calling them good ideas and then, with time, the masses buy into the hypocrisy. The national identity card was accepted and then came the microchip implants. Everyone would be able to have instant information about their health, was the guise that idea was sold under. I guess it worked because most everyone bought into it. Some said the microchip implant was the ‘Mark of the Beast’ and no one saw it coming because everyone had expected the numbers 666 to be imprinted on them somehow. The individuals who refused the implants were ostracized by the business world and the government. They weren’t driven into caves like the Bible said, unless one takes the meaning as to say they were denied public facilities and transportation.
Man’s adventure to the stars was what saved him from domination by a select few. If one was a Bible reader, then I guess that could have been the ‘Second Coming’. In space, free individuals no longer submitted to a microchip implant. Children were born who were freemen. Eventually the numbers in space outnumbered those on Earth. Money, or the lack of it, has put men in bondage or freed them depending on the use and the need for it. Those on Earth realized if they wanted an exchange of the wealth flowing among the traders in space; they would have to give up the law requiring that everyone had to have a chip implant before doing business with Earth.
With no limits, except the physical limits to travel where they wanted, and do what they wanted, mankind was free once more in the never ending cycle of bondage and freedom... or were they? Even those not of man had the same ideas of control or destruction.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>And now:
UF-2
By BarbieLee
Edited by Catherine Linda Michel
CHAPTER ONE
David cleared his throat. “Did you hear the question?”
“Uh, yeah, you wanted to know if I had noticed anything unusual going on. Want to clue me in as to what? I seem to be missing something you think is important.”
I looked out across the mass of stars in the distance. I never stopped admiring space in its infinity. From our outpost at UF-2 we were as far from the planet Earth as humans had reasonably explored. There were those who had gone farther, but they were individuals or pirates. Usually they never returned, for which mankind was grateful, as we didn’t know what they had run into in the way of life forms, or what physical abnormality had done them up.
Walking across the room, David reached up and put his right hand on my shoulder as he stared out into space with me.
“I think we may have picked up a virus, or bug, or God only knows what. Haven’t you noticed some of the men on this station seem to be losing body mass?”
David was looking at me as I turned my head to look in his eyes. “They know they have to keep up the exercises or they will lose muscle. Names?”
He shook his head. “Almost all the men. Me for one. I thought engineering had increased the gravity by ten percent when I was helping Sonya check cargo inventory in bay six yesterday. When I asked Jim in engineering if he was screwing around with the gravitational field, he said we were still running one g. He asked if he could turn it down to point ninety percent 'G' as he had been having trouble picking up tools lately.”
“And what did you tell him?” I turned my attention back to the stars.
“No, of course. If we have been infected with something, then I sure don’t want to start hiding the symptoms by turning down the gravity on the station.” David stepped in front of me and cupped his hands behind his back as he stared at the stars.
“Checking into medical couple days back. I had them run a full scan on me. I questioned medical about the others who have been complaining. They have been getting a lot of complaints lately. The men are saying they are not able to lift or pick up things as easily as they should.”
“And?” I walked over to my desk and punched in the code for the medical reports for the station. Nothing unusual in the reports besides that they were way up in men checking in with no apparent illnesses. That raised a red flag in my mind. “Why hasn’t medical alerted me?”
“They were going to. I came straight from there. I told Laura I would tell you. Her medical team didn’t find anything wrong with any of the men. I asked them to do a DNA match on me, comparing it with my DNA file. I have an anomaly in several places. My DNA code has changed from what I originally was designed with.”
It had escaped my mind. David was a genetically engineered human. He was a product of a rogue lab attempt to make the perfect human. That kind of experimentation had been outlawed when humans were playing God with our own DNA. Most of those test tube babies were freaks, not intended by Mother Nature. Hideously grotesque creatures, designed in a lab intended for harvesting body parts, they were neither human, nor a product of God. Laws were passed to stop the practice and it worked to a limited extent. There were some off world labs still doing it for money, in spite of the death penalty if they were caught.
I turned to look at David. He was one of the miracles of those unnatural experiments. He looked ordinarily human. The other miracle about David was, the lab where he was designed was raided by government agents. Those who designed David didn’t plan on keeping him. They were only interested in harvesting pieces until nothing was left to sell on the black market.
David was lucky he was a fully developed human baby when the raid happened. He was the only one left alive when the agents finished sanitizing the lab. When the body scans and blood tests came up, David registered as human. They sent him off to a government institution to be cared for.
There were a lot of things about David that nature probably intended to wait a few more millennium before she disclosed the information to humans. David’s IQ had never been measured for one. He had a photographic memory, he was psychic and could read mind thought at will, he was never sick and he could heal his cuts or wounds in a week or less, usually less.
Some of the aliens we had on our post would heal rather quickly, but besides the one Pash on board, none could read minds. Or, it was general consensus that a Pash could read minds. Either that, or it was their instincts that guided them. No one knew where the Pash came from and very few humans had seen one. Their numbers? It was anyone’s guess.
I don’t know if all Pash looked like the one that stopped at our outpost because I had never seen a Pash before Toni came aboard. We called her Toni because none of us could pronounce her real name. I was guessing Toni was a she, but no one knew that for sure either.
“David, can medical reformat your original DNA code from storage?” All of us had our DNA code in a medical locker in case a space anomaly scrambled us internally. One of the good things that came from all that experimenting with humans was that we could be rebuilt from our own DNA if the need arose. Luckily, my DNA had never been broken or messed up in all my years in space.
I heard a deep sigh as David inhaled and then slowly exhaled. “Tried it already. Whatever it is that screwed up my DNA, isn’t letting the original code re-establish itself. Medical injected me with the Corruption AIM 221 DNA code correction. That injection died before it got started, as if it had been injected in a foreign body and not its own, me. Medical then grew a six-cc batch in incubation and set it up with Corruption AIM 90X. It too was killed after injection.”
David turned and walked across the room to the exit. The wall silently slid open for his passage. He stopped and turned in the door. Shaking his head, he stared at me.
“Bill, we have seen a lot of things come and go while we have been together at this post. Everything we have come up against we have been able to handle.”
“Remember Gordy Falin? He was the explorer who dropped in on us two years, seven months, two days, and one hour back. He had a rider inside his ship that could osmose through the walls and hated other life forms. It took us weeks to track that thing down. We couldn’t trap it in any force field we had. We couldn’t kill it with any weapon we had. I thought we were going to die before you decided to set charges and blow off a section of the station with that thing inside.”
“I remember. If it wasn’t for the Pash we would all have died. We were fortunate Toni could sense that creature and lured it to a pod we could detonate. I guess all of us have a reason or purpose in life.” We were lucky to have Toni on our station at that particular time. The thing seemed to be a solitary creature and few in number.
Toni had been with us, off and on, for almost three years. She frequently came and went, much to the consternation of our traffic controllers. While our interplanetary ships looked somewhat like stacked rings or soup cans, her ship looked like something straight out of the old Buck Rogers movie archives.
Toni and her ship had smooth sweeping curves. Because we were a forward outpost, all space traffic to our post was considered enemy until otherwise recognized. Toni always set off the alarms when she dropped in from wherever she had been. It was suspected she traveled inner space, or some such, and couldn’t announce her coming.
I, for one, enjoyed her company tremendously. She was extremely attractive and I felt comfortable around her. Probably had a lot to do with the idea there were no secrets if she could read mind thought, like most of us suspected. It wasn’t always like that though.
I remember her first visit quite well. She dropped in right smack dab in front of the Control Center. The controllers on duty, Lan and Bree, almost had heart attacks when an alien ship appeared out of nowhere right in front of their noses. In all honesty, the whole damn station almost had a collective heart attack. Alarms were going off, shields were dropping as each part of the station was sectioned off, and for a few minutes, none of us knew what was going on. So much for being ready for alien attack. I couldn’t blame the rest of the crew though. I was trying to get on top of the situation and having no luck.
We were all running around like a bunch of brainless idiots when Toni called in for permission to dock with a crew of one. I beat it post haste to Control when Bree notified me a Star Cruiser with a crew of one had requested permission to dock with us. None of us believed a Star Cruiser could be flown by one person. There were other problems too.
No one had ever seen a star cruiser that looked like Toni’s ship. Those that looked like Toni’s ship were inner planetary ships, good for flying around a world or two, not for crossing galaxies or a universe. But... and that’s a mighty big but, we could track those kind of ships the moment they warmed up, much less started moving. Where we were sitting in space, we should have seen them coming for months. Toni’s ship didn’t match any of the known physics we worked with.
“Bill, is this stuff boring you?”
“Wha... I’m sorry, David, I was thinking about Toni. I’d like to have her in on this if possible. Is she on the station or is she off on one of her forays?” I turned my attention to David.
David was real still for a few seconds. “I talked to her fourteen hours ago. I’ll check and see if she’s still here. Bill, whatever this thing is infecting us is worse than that creature Gordy Falin brought on board. We have no enemy we can see and we don’t know where it came from. I suggest we quarantine the station. I checked outbound flights. No one has left the station since medical started getting complaints. Whatever it is, let’s find it and kill it here. We want to make sure we don’t contaminate the rest of the human population.”
“Quarantine? You think we have some unknown on board? You know if we go to a Death-Com Level and don’t find anything to report, we will become so much space debris ourselves. Command will send out a Star Destroyer and wipe us from existence if we don’t find something.”
Deep inside my soul I knew David didn’t want to go to Quarantine any more than I did. I also knew that, if he thought we were infected or had an unknown on board, then we had a visitor or visitors, even though we didn’t know who or what.
David looked as serious as I had ever seen him. “Quarantine, Bill. There’s no rational answer for what I am infected with. It is an unknown whatever it is. I told Medical to re-scan and test all the others who have been complaining about not feeling normal. I think though, that the answer is going to be the same as what they gave me on my test. Unknown DNA code breakdown. Unknown body change in progress. Unknown sequencing of DNA coding and not repairable.”
I cleared my throat as David waited in the door for an answer. I could be signing the death certificate of every life on this post. Hesitantly and reluctantly, I touched the keypad on my desk. “Control, re-transmit message to Command Central. This is not a drill. Outpost UF-2 is on Death-Com Level One for unknown contamination. This is not a drill. Security authorization, William, E for emergency, Six Twelve Six Three Alpha Omega Krang Himmel.”
I didn’t have to repeat my orders. No matter what anyone tried from that moment on, no one would be allowed on or off Outpost UF-2. We were either going to find and eradicate our enemy or we were all going to die together. All two thousand one hundred and six of us! Plus one, if Toni was on the station.
“Find me an answer, David.”
Before David could answer, the Pash walked in. An extremely attractive, lithe female, she was probably seven feet tall. She looked like a mix between humans and cats. She was well put together, even if she didn’t have the classic female hour glass figure. I wondered if the Pash were an experiment of mankind that escaped from a lab? But then, that starship of hers didn’t escape from any lab.
She had gold eyes with vertical pupils she could open or close at will. Her hair was more the quality of soft fur than hair. Tawny colored with streaks of black, she wore it shoulder length. She had beautiful hands with long sharp nails. Those nails served a bigger purpose than looks. I had seen the leftovers after a guy had unexpectedly attacked her, three months back. Twice her weight, he pulled a pistol on her. I wasn’t there, but they said she screamed and all forty six people in that room thought they were going to die.
Fights are taken seriously on an outpost. Whether it was from space psychosis, a brain virus, or plain old human nature to want to fight, we had to know the answer. Normally I would have both parties locked up until it was decided who had instigated the fight. There were two reasons I didn’t lock up Toni. Number one reason was, over a year before she had saved all our lives. Number two, I really didn’t think I could lock up a Pash.
I guess, deep down in my soul, there were a couple other reasons. I really liked Toni. She carried a blaster on her hip that was unlike anything any of us had ever seen. It was a fascinating piece of hardware. It wasn’t illegal to carry a weapon. In fact it was encouraged. On an outpost one might not have time to run to the arms locker if we were attacked. All our pistols were small, palm sized. Compared to that cannon Toni carried, we were wearing peashooters.
The height of stupidity would be to go up against an opponent when you didn’t know the rules of engagement. Deep down in my gut I had a feeling I could send the whole station to arrest Toni, and if she didn’t want to be arrested, she could kill us all.
During the inquiry I talked to several people who were there. They said her scream was unlike anything they had ever heard. To a person, they also said they never wanted to hear it again. It was something straight from the primal forces of life. The guy with the phaser ended up more like shredded meat than human when the one second fight ended. Medical was still putting him back together a week later.
David nodded his head in recognition at Toni. “I’m guessing you’re here for the same reason I am? We have a problem and it seems to have infected all of us.”
“I know.” She turned her attention toward me. “I heard the Death-Com Alert. I’ll help research for a cause if you wish.”
“Thank you, Toni. That’s very kind of you. Would you like to look on your own, or could I talk you into working with David?” If anyone was David’s equal in intelligence, it was Toni. She could possibly be past David in intelligence. I had never asked her a question that could stump her. If she answered me, she always seemed to be right. Sometimes she never answered. Sometimes the answer was so far above my ability to comprehend, my poor brain was left struggling to figure it out.
“I will work with David if he doesn’t mind.” Her voice was soft, almost a purr.
Hearing her voice, it was hard to imagine she could make any kind of sound that could curdle the blood, such as the witnesses described. “Thanks, Toni. I appreciate all the help I can get.”
David nodded in agreement. “Bill, if it’s humanly possible, we won’t die because of some unknown. Toni and I will find whatever it is. Even if we have to invent new ways to do it.” David stepped into the hall and the wall closed behind him.
In fascination I watched as Toni walked across the room to look out at the stars. If I hadn’t been looking I would have never known she had crossed the room. She glided more than walked. She made no sound when she moved. In all the time she had been with us, I had yet to figure out how she could walk so gracefully and silently.
“Toni? Do you have any ideas about what it is we're up against?” I turned and stepped up beside her to look at the stars. I was wondering if she saw things the same way humans did, or if her unique eyes were able to see things beyond human vision?
I felt her looking at me. Turning to look over my left shoulder, I was looking straight at those beautiful golden eyes. I always felt she was looking into my soul when she did that. As she stared at me, I saw something in her eyes I had never felt before. Chills ran up and down my spine. She knew what was happening to us. Deep down in my heart, I knew she knew.
I was left wondering as she turned and silently padded out of the room. I hated it when she had an answer and wouldn’t tell me what it was. Thinking about it, I realized she hadn’t stopped to offer her help in finding what was attacking us because she already knew. Did David know too? Was he softening me up for the realization that we were all going to die from some unknown virus or God only knew what?
I hated working with a genius. Sometimes they treated the rest of us like little kids who needed to be patted on the head and told, ‘everything will be alright’. My gut feeling was, we were all going to die.
David was waiting in the hall when Toni joined him. “Walk with me to medical?”
“If you wish.” She stepped up beside him as he headed toward the lift.
“Any ideas? I’m guessing you already read my mind and know as much as I know.” David stopped in front of the lift and looked over his left shoulder at Toni.
The doors to the lift silently slid open and Toni stepped on. She waited until David was standing beside her. “Medical. I have a lot of ideas, but then, so do you. I believe we are looking for cause not effect. The effect is already known. I can sense it in Bill, you, and all the others who have been infected.”
The lift stopped and the doors silently slid open. David stepped out. When Toni didn’t step out beside him he turned to look back at her. “Coming?”
She shook her head. “I can’t help you here. You’re looking for two things. You are looking for the cause and a cure. The cause didn’t happen in Medical. I’m going to cover the Post and see how wide spread it is. There has to be a beginning. Infection will be heaviest there and less the further one is removed from that area. Provided the whole Post isn’t contaminated, then I can possibly find the initial outbreak.”
David nodded in agreement. “Good idea. You need to take a medical scanner with you? All the crew members have their DNA coded. It can tell you which ones are infected.”
“No need. Those infected are sensed easily enough. Engineering.” The doors slid closed between them as Toni headed to Engineering.
It was less than twelve hours later when David and Toni asked me to meet them in control center. I was already there in my office, monitoring the space chatter. UF-2 was the topic of the day after we went to Death-Com. The rest of humanity in this quadrant of space heard our alert and was trying to guess why we had called for quarantine. I was still asking myself the same question. David and Toni walked in together. I was looking at my scanner and reading the latest reports from medical. I was trying to make sense of the reports.
“David, have you figured out what it’s doing to you? I know medical said unknown, but I’m betting you know.” I wanted an answer.
“Yes, I know.” David walked over to my couch and sat down.
Toni walked over to the window before she turned her attention back to me and waited for David to begin.
“Would you mind sharing that knowledge with me?” David was not only the smartest person in the universe; he was also a good friend. He held the position of consultant on our outpost and we were lucky to have him. He wasn’t in the military like most of the rest of us on the post. He could go anywhere he wanted. It so happened he liked being with UF-2. Only he and God knew why. He was basically in command, even if I held that position by title. Usually the crew would go to David instead of me with their problems. In all the years he had worked with me, he seemed content with his job.
He asked men or women to do a task and they did it, as if he was the commander. No one ever questioned his right to make suggestions without going through me first. Yes, I asked if he was sure about going to Death-Com. That was for my own lack of belief in myself, not in my lack of trust in David. I knew the lives of everyone on this space station were slowly ticking away if we didn’t find the contamination infecting us.
“Everyone not already infected needs to carry and engage their personal body shield. All personnel on this station need to do that immediately. Send everyone to medical and have a DNA scan and match it with their records. If they are infected they can turn off the body shields, as it is already too late for them. Those that aren’t infected must leave their body shields on until we sweep all rooms and compartments. Shields will be set up as we clean rooms. No one may carry anything in or out of any area besides themselves.” David waited to see how I was going to take implementing new regulations.
I hated personal body shields. “That thing Gordy brought in with him could pass through any shield as easily as it passed through walls. You think this thing can be locked out? You know the complaints are going to start pouring in as people are restricted in their movement. Personal body shields are a pain in the royal ass. They are hot…!”
“Bill, I know all that. The alternatives aren’t… I started to say not pretty, but that would be untrue.”
David hesitated as he looked at Toni and winked. “Although I’m sure what is happening to us humans could not improve on your looks.”
Toni smiled showing a mouth full of beautiful perfect teeth and long sharp canines guaranteed to scare the piss out of anyone who had never seen a Pash. She was looking at David. “Thank you for the compliment, David.”
Toni walked over to the window and purred. “Earth.” The screen changed to a hologram of Earth. It was completely covered with cities.
Toni pointed at the hologram. “You humans say it is a beautiful planet. That is not beauty to me.”
“Ancient Earth.” The hologram changed into a picture of a planet with continents and vast oceans of blue.
Toni turned and focused on me. “Some things change from a thing of beauty to something that looks dead. I studied the human history data. I realize your species is driven to explore and build. In my opinion your species killed a beautiful world by covering it with human designed structures. Most of your kind would disagree with me. They think they have to change or build on a world before it’s beautiful.”
“Although I don’t like what humans and their allies do to the planets they inhabit, not every change is for the worse. I suggest you keep that in mind.”
I had no idea what Toni was talking about. What I did get out of that conversation was that she didn’t like what humanity had done to Earth, and a lot of other planets along the way. I waited for Toni or David to give me what was most certainly going to be bad news.
She studied me before she continued. “David and I split the research. He was looking at the human factor and I was looking at the non-human factors. I’m not affected the way humans are. The Trogg seem to be immune also, as are any of the other non human life forms on this station. It looks like it was specifically designed for humans.”
“Designed for humans? What do you mean, 'IT'? What’s pretty about something that is changing your DNA code and is irreversible? What do you know about this Toni?” My curiosity was killing me. Somehow Toni and David knew what ‘it’ was doing to David.
David stood up and looked at his hands. “I wonder what my name would have been if I were designed as female?”
“Huh? We may all die and you wonder what name you would have been if you had been a woman? Has that thing infected your brain already?” I couldn’t believe it. We were under attack by an unknown and David wasn’t making any sense. I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of calling for Death-Com. If David had lost his mind I may have doomed us all.
“I like Sherry. It’s a nice name for a girl don’t you think?” David gave me a wink as he flipped his wrist in a feminine fashion.
I almost peed in my pants right there. On the advice of a mad man I had signed the death warrant of everyone on the station by following the suggestions of someone who had slipped a cog. Furiously I was thinking of what we could capture and kill so Command would believe we had eradicated our menace? Maybe I could shoot David and scramble his body so they couldn’t ever figure out it had been human? Could we pass the remains off as the perceived threat? Would Command buy the deception?
David laughed. He knew what I was thinking. “You might as well get used to calling me Sherry. I am going to be totally female in a month.”
“YOU WHAT?” Now I knew David was over the edge. His intelligence finally gave up on him. They say the line between a genius and an idiot is non existent, as they are the one and the same. David had slipped over to the idiot side of genius.
“I’m not crazy, Bill. What ever it is that infected us is changing the humans on this station to the female persuasion of life. If I am correct, I’ll be more female than anything you have ever met before in your whole life. Whatever is doing this to us is going to make us into the perfect female of the human species. You thought I was the perfect male of the human species. I wasn’t. I had a lot of defects. Whatever is changing us figured out all the coding in the DNA structure where we had design mistakes not yet removed by evolution or experimentation.”
“YOU’RE KIDDING! You have accepted this transition already? What are you thinking!” I couldn’t believe David could tell me a story like that and do it so calmly. It never entered into my male schizoid makeup, David had never screamed or shouted in anger or fear like the rest of us humans.
Then it dropped on me like a barge. David said, ‘changing us’. My legs turned to rubber as the implications hit home. I managed to find my chair and plopped into it before I fell down. Glancing over at Toni, my heart stopped. She was looking at me like I was prime rib or something. I faltered and then looked again. She was still staring. In desperation I turned my attention to David. At least he wasn’t devouring me with his eyes.
David acted like he never noticed as he continued. “Why not? Even if we find what is doing this and we figure out how to reverse the process, I don’t want to take the cure. Think about it for a minute. I never asked to be born. They made me up in a test tube and incubated me in a glass tank. If I am changed into a female why should it matter to me? One body design is as good as another. In this case, better. If my instincts are right, I will be a perfect species without any defects.”
Quickly he looked up at Toni. “Sorry, I meant human species.”
“I know.” Toni looked amused.
Glancing in my direction, David looked about as sad as I had ever seen him. “Bill, I am a genetic experiment of humans. I’m not even sure I have a soul. You and a couple billion other humans are positive you have souls. You were born in a woman’s womb conceived by a father, loved by a mother. My mother and my father were tubes of nutrient, fed through ports in my glass incubator. Male, female, or anything in-between, why should I care? What you see is design engineered in a lab. Something is going to redesign me into female form. For the past couple of days, I have felt my body changing. I think whoever, or whatever did this has a knowledge of DNA we may figure out in a few hundred years.”
“I don’t know if we are infected accidentally or if we are under a planned attack. You’ll know as soon as I figure it out.” David gave me a wink before he turned to leave.
In shock I watched as David walked out. Without a sound, Toni was right behind him. Alone in the office, I was left thinking of the possibilities. Maybe a rogue lab had found the DNA sequence that infected our station? But why turn it lose on us and how did they plant it on the station? If it was an alien race and they planned on wiping out the human race in a war where a shot was never fired, they either miscalculated how far mankind had spread among the stars, or we were a test case to see if it worked. Why us?
My mind was screaming in disbelief. Change to a female and David thought it was a good idea? I was positive he had lost his mind already, but then I wasn’t sure any of us had what could be called our right minds. Maybe David was the sane one and all the rest of us were control subjects? A person could go crazy trying to figure that one out if they knew humanity’s past.
Twenty thousand years back it was decided to clone humans and send them out to explore space. There were a couple of ideas supporting that concept. One, clones weren’t actually human, so if they were killed it didn’t matter. They weren’t thought of as being ‘real’ humans. Two, in spite of the best efforts of man to invent cognitive machines, clones could make judgements no machine could ever conceive of in tests. Thus, clones were grown and sent out to space.
Even with good ideas there can always be bad results. There was a small problem that mankind should have seen. If clones could think and reason, what made mankind not realize the clones would eventually not want to be used as throw-away explorers? I guess the brain chip we implanted in their minds was supposed to keep them under control. It was so laughable when I researched history and could see mistake piling up on mistake until it all came back to haunt us.
The brain chip worked in the lab, but not in space. With all the unknown energy forces and space radiation, something was bound to short it out. It all started with one clone who managed somehow get free of mind control. She figured out what humans had grown her for and what they did to her. Can we say “hate” with a vengeance? Humanity did it to themselves since they had designed clones to have high IQ’s so they could figure out unknown situations in space exploration.
That one came back to bite them right in their collective asses. The woman was designated m-four oh one. She became known as Emma. With her superior intelligence, she figured out what it took to short out the brain control chip in other clones. Tracking down hundreds of other clones and freeing them from mind control took her a few years, but it was like a snowball on a downhill run after that. One freed two, those two freed four, those four freed eight, and pretty soon hundreds of thousands, some say millions, had been freed from mind control.
Humanity was almost wiped from existence in the clone wars. The clones hated genetic humans and we hated clones. Both sides almost lost before a truce was called. Emma was the one who had started it and she was the one who stopped it. I guess she really was intellectually superior. She talked both sides into a compromise where clones would be accepted as equal humans. That had to be an oxymoron to anyone who studied history.
Clones were superior in intelligence and design and they wanted to be equal as humans? I bet Emma chuckled over that agreement until the day she died. She had to know genetic humans would never be able to match the intelligence of clones. David was an excellent example of that planning.
It was time to get the bad news from medical. I headed for the door and almost collided with it when it didn’t automatically open. “Passage.”
“Not permitted.” The soft feminine voice replied.
“Explain.” Why wasn’t I allowed to leave my station?
“Your personal body shield is not activated. Please engage shield before leaving room.” Came back softly to me.
“Damn!” David had already set in place the orders controlling movement on the post and I had forgotten. I walked back over to my desk and retrieved my personal shield from the pop up box. Sticking it to my left hip I activated the shield. I hated these things.
The old time science fiction writers had gotten a lot of things wrong. Shields didn’t let anything in or out. That included the air we breathed. The re-generators inside the devices re-oxgenated our air, dispersed our body heat, and stopped anything and everything from moving in or out of the shield area. That also meant sound and light. We isolated ourselves from the world inside these things.
What I now saw was a computer generated world. My shield would sample the environment around my body and update the graphics inside as I moved or walked. It might seem to the eyes that I was looking at the real world, but my mind knew better.
It only took a few minutes to walk to medical. They were busy as they scanned men and women pouring in for their DNA match to see if they had been infected or not. I was surprised to see women were also infected as the results came back. It didn’t look good as less than one in fifty results turned out negative as personnel were screened. Those infected turned off their body shields and left. Most of them looked at me in despair. I couldn’t blame them.
I was in command and supposed to have a plan for something like this. Even a cure. I couldn’t offer them anything at the moment. It was one of the few times I was glad I was wearing a body shield. Like all the others who had their shields on, I looked like a soft human shaped blur to those outside looking at me. The only way the population knew it was their commander was the color of the blur. Officers cast a soft blue while everyone else was colorless. As Commander, my shield cast a soft red-ish blue.
David stepped up in front of me and motioned me toward the testing chamber. Reluctantly I stepped into the chamber. Like hundreds of others, I wanted to know, but was scared to death of what it might tell me. The test chamber glowed as its shield was activated and the chamber was cleansed of any foreign unknowns. Reaching down with my right hand I pushed the deactivation on my body shield. My heart jumped when the test chamber shield collapsed.
‘NO! God NO!’ My mind screamed in sheer terror at the thought I was already changing into the opposite sex from what I had been born as. There was no use keeping my body shielded. I was infected with whatever it was David had.
David could see the terror in my eyes. He stepped up beside me. “Bill, take a deep breath. Remember, you are the commander of this post. What you do and how you accept this will be a sign to others who also are infected.”
“David, find a cure. Take whatever men, equipment, resources you need, but find a cure!” I whispered in his ear so no one else could hear me.
David looked at me with pity. “I will do the best I can.”
That angered me. I didn’t want his pity. I wanted his brain to find a cure. I wanted… I realized that what I was wanting was to not become a product of genetic engineering like David. Taking a deep breath to calm my anger I nodded in agreement. “Thanks David. All I ask from you is your best.”
UF-2 went into virtual shutdown mode. Crew movement was limited to the area they were assigned to. We scanned and physically searched for whatever it was that had invaded us.
Days are a product of measuring time by Earth measurements. On a station stuck on the fringes of known space, days were a number like any other number. I honestly don’t think anyone on our station understood the Earth measurement of 'day.' Very few had ever seen Earth, except in holograms. Earth was a name in history. That was all, just a name.
It had been ten days since we had gone into Death-Com. All personnel were assigned duty rotation, with constant poking and prodding into every nook and cranny in the station. We weren’t having any results. I was beginning to feel like we would never find what was infecting our post. With that feeling along came a second feeling of dread.
We had exactly ninety more days to report back to Command Central as to why we had gone to Death-Com Level for unknown contamination and or intruder alert. If we couldn’t come up with a valid explanation we were going to be looking down the barrels of a Star Destroyer. Star Fleet Command took a ‘better safe than sorry’ attitude when edge of space outposts became infected with an unknown. My mind was beginning to accept the idea of a genetic change as preferable to being blasted into so much cosmic dust by 'friendly fire.'
I had wandered down to the galley after reading the reports coming in from medical and control. All our efforts were turning up negative. Our search teams had yet to find the cause. Medical had yet to find a cure. I felt tired, physically and mentally. My mind was shut down from fatigue when David and Toni walked in. I was totally exhausted, as none of us had much sleep the past ten days.
“Want to see your infection carrier?”
“YOU FOUND IT!” I turned around so fast I almost fell out of my chair.
From the Editor: Chapter two will be posted Wednesday. Stay tuned.
“Want to see your infection carrier?”
“YOU FOUND IT!” I turned around so fast I almost fell out of my chair.
“Them.” David held his hand over my table and hundreds of little black balls or BB’s bounced and scattered everywhere.
“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!?” I recoiled from the table as some of them landed in my lap. Furiously I brushed them away.
Toni had walked in along with David. She looked at me strangely as if she was studying me. She had been looking at me differently since this mess started. I chalked it up to nerves and lack of sleep.
“Bill, you're already infected so it doesn’t matter, but the truth is, they won’t react to you. These are a marvel of genetic bio-mechanical engineering. Way past what we could design.” David flicked one with his finger and sent it rolling across the desk.
“If we move out of the room they will start rolling in hide and search mode. They can sense bio-bodies and can tell if that body is infected with the DNA female coding or not. Not just males, because they also attack females who aren’t infected. It has to be their DNA coding or they will attack.” David smiled as he rolled a few more around on my desk.
“Attack? How, and with what?” I leaned over to get a closer look at one of the small black beads. It looked like a small ball bearing.
“It’s so simple, it’s ingenious. They propel themselves by forming a bump in their surface opposite to the direction they want to travel. As they roll, that bump forms continuously against the surface they are pushing against.”
David looked exasperated at my blank stare. “Take a round balloon. Then if you could put your finger inside push out gently. That forms a bulge. If the balloon is resting on a surface, and you slide your finger downward until you are pushing against the surface, the balloon will roll forward away from where you are pushing with your finger.”
Cautiously I pushed on one with my finger. It felt like a steel bearing. “But they are so hard.”
David smiled. “Yeah, but even steel expands with heat. They don’t use heat to form the bulge though, but some other means. I think it is part of the bio part of the thing that does that.”
“Then what? I don’t see something like that jumping on and digging into anyone. Surely we would have noticed them before now? Is there a micro organism on the outside and all we have to do is touch it or have it touch us?” My concept of weapons was not a BB unless it was propelled by a gun of some kind.
Shaking his head, David picked one up. “Not even close. When they sense an uninfected bio-organism they shoot the organism with a micro bio-mechanical organism. That organism in turn burrows into a host cell and starts to work. It clips the host DNA coding and inserts the re-programmed DNA.”
“Keep in mind that it doesn’t replace all our DNA strand, only parts of it. After that cell has replicated the new DNA strand, then the coding is sent into adjoining cells. And then more adjoining cells, until our whole body is built on the new DNA code.”
My hope of staying as me had returned, now that David knew how it infected us. I was positive David or Toni would figure out the cure now. “How soon before you can come up with an inoculation against this thing?”
“Probably not soon enough for what you want. Remember, it kills any DNA that is not a match for itself. I don’t know how they did it but they locked in the snippets where they spliced the code. I, and a dozen other crew members, gave a liter of blood each for DNA testing. Even the women want us to solve this problem. They don’t to be re-programmed any more than you or I. We have been trying to pull the strands apart in the lab. Everything we know about DNA is not working on this code.”
I looked down at my hands. In the short time I had been infected they looked softer, smoother and yes, even smaller than before. I was positive David had guessed right that first day. I hated him for being so smart. “I’ll send out a Death-Com Level Standby.”
It would tell Command Central we had found the intruder but not killed or isolated the problem. It would give us a reprieve from a Star Destroyer for up to a year. No one could come or go from the station, but at least we would be alive… If changing sex meant staying alive. Now that the problem of dying from a Star Destroyer had been pushed back, I was again hating the idea I was changing, instead of wishing I could live. “I’ll fill out the report and send Command Central a sample of the intruder. Can you neutralize those things or should I send them intact?”
“Send them a dozen intact. So what if someone gets careless and gets zapped? It'd give them someone to study and research on their end if it happens.” David pulled a packet out of his pocket as he reached down on top my table and pushed a bunch of the BBs up into it.
He held it out to me. ”Here, send these.”
“David! Drop them in a contamination container and make sure it’s sealed. I’ll fill out the report to go with it in an hour or two. I’m not sure I could make out an intelligent report at the moment, I’m so tired. What about all those others you dumped on my table? They are scattered everywhere.” I really didn’t want to stay in the same room with, even if they weren’t going to attack me because I had already been infected.
“Housecleaning has been programmed to find them. When you go back to your room, turn it on before you lie down. You wouldn’t believe the number of those things we are collecting in refuse. We will discuss this after you had your sleep and sent in your report.” David turned and left the galley as my sleep deprived mind was trying to understand what he had told me.
Toni waited and walked with me back to my room. “I will check with engineering and make sure housecleaning bots are set to scan continuously for the infection carriers. They could hide almost anywhere as small as they are.”
“Thanks, Toni. I’ll have to keep the uninfected personnel in quarantine until we are positive we have all those things cleaned from the station.”
She stopped as the door to my room opened. “Some changes are ordained.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I watched as she turned and walked off without answering. Damn. I hated it when she did that. If she meant I should accept the change those damn little monsters had programmed into my body then she was mistaken. David might not have any qualms about being a man or a woman, but I sure as hell did. I had heard there were men who changed to women and women who changed to men through the off world clinics. When a species gets dispersed as far and wide as ours; along with the scientific and medical knowledge to do just about anything, there were always those who would want to do almost anything. I definitely wasn’t one of those.
“Housecleaning on, now. Bed, now.” Part of the wall folded down with my bed, as another part of the wall opened up and a floating bucket slid out. The bucket was a robotic cleaning tool. It would gather up any dust and, I hoped, all those foreign BBs David had shown me. David’s little speech about those things not attacking someone already infected did little to quell my dislike of those things. I made it to the bed and died.
I dreamed of things foreign, but not in the normal sense. These things were foreign to a male. I dreamed of long hair that cascaded down my back and across my shoulders. Long sexy legs, and small delicate hands with long fingers. I dreamed of….!
“Eeeeee!” That scream came from me as I woke in shock. What I had dreamed was frightening and disgusting. I couldn’t believe I had screamed. I was still panting and close to hyperventilating as I tried to calm my heart, which was racing. Fighting the fear of finding what I was going to see, but with the need to see if my dreams were a premonition of things to come, I held up my hands to look at them. Were they really smaller, or was it my fear driving my mind? My boots had been flopping on my feet for several days now. I had been denying that my feet were getting smaller.
Reluctantly, I slid out of bed and tried on one of my boots. I didn’t have to reach down to pull it on. My foot fell into it like an abyss. There was no denying it any longer. Damn David’s intuition! Why me? God why me? Two hundred and seven crew members had escaped infection. Why couldn’t I have been one of them?
I laid back down on the bed and cried hysterically in my pillow until it came to me what I was doing. I never cried! Damn! What the hell was wrong with me? Slowly I rolled out of bed and padded softly across the room to the bathroom. I was going to have to drop into supply and pick up another uniform. The one I was wearing was too big for me, the same way my boots were too big.
As I walked up to the potty and tried to find my water pistol I decided it was too much trouble. “Damn and double damn!” I dropped my pants and sat down. I realized I probably wouldn’t be able to aim it anyway. Probably end up peeing all over my pants and down my leg if I had persisted in doing it the ‘good old boys’ way.
David was waiting when I stepped out of the bathroom. He also had noticeably softened in looks. When he nodded and smiled knowingly at me I felt like throwing myself at him and strangling his neck.
“What the hell do you want?” It didn’t come out like the growl I intended. My voice cracked instead.
“Commander, you better get a grip and realize what you are feeling is only the beginning. There are one thousand, eight hundred and ninety nine others who are going to be looking to you for how to cope with this. If you are going to fall apart, then let me know now so we can replace you.”
David didn’t mean it as a joke. He was dead serious. When I sent us to Death-Com Level we stopped being a totalitarian leadership with Command Central designating who was in command. By law, we became a democratic isolation. The crew could vote in, or out, anyone as commander at any moment.
I wiped my eyes as I shook my head. “I can handle it. Give me some time.”
“Time is the one thing you don’t have the luxury of. The crew needs someone who will show them how to cope with this thing that they are all going through. Bill, when there is no other option but to go ahead, then there is no reason to try to back up. Are you ready to face that option, or should I call for a meeting?” He studied me as he waited for an answer.
Shaking my head I knew David was right. There was a small problem with that though. So many things were going on inside my body, I felt like screaming instead of giving orders. “Let’s get down to business. I have yet to fill out that report to Command Central. Give me an hour and I’ll get back to you. How are you coming on tracking down where we picked up those bio-mechanical organisms?”
David nodded before he turned to leave. “That’s our Bill, back on track. We will talk about it after you fill out the report and send it in. I’ll send up some clothes in a few minutes. You don’t look like a leader right now. Quite the opposite, you look like some adolescent trying to play grownup.”
“Out! I have a report to send in.” I found it not funny and I wanted to pick up something and throw it at him.
It was closer to two hours, rather than one, when I finished up that report and sent it off, along with the bio-mechanical samples to F.E.A.R. (Federal Experiments and Research). That was a research outpost set up by the government to check incoming contaminated or hazardous packages like the one I sent.
There were literally hundreds of thousands of those posts, like the spokes on a wheel. The package I sent would be trapped and locked up at the first F.E.A.R station. There they would examine it for any potential threat to humanity in two stages, contained and uncontained. If the package was deemed confinable, then they would ship it to the second F.E.A.R. station in the chain of command.
I had no idea how many F.E.A.R. spokes and hubs that package would have to pass through to get back to Command Central, but it was hundreds if not thousands. I guess misery loves company because, at that moment, I didn’t care if someone screwed up back at Command Central and got zapped by one of those damn BB’s.
David was back within minutes after the report and samples had been shipped. Toni was by his side. I didn’t know if it was because they had been monitoring the security channels, or if they knew I was finished because one or both of them had read my mind? Either way it didn’t make much difference. There were no secrets on UF-2 between David and me. And obviously no secrets between Toni and the rest of us.
Toni held up the uniform she had brought. I choked as I stared at it and then at David. Was this his idea of a joke? “You’re outta your ever loving mind! You can’t be serious?”
“As serious as a heart attack.” David looked serious himself. “You might as well, and the sooner the better. It will make it easier on all of us who have the same problem.”
“But...”
“No buts, Bill. You aren’t going to be able to sneak up on this because it’s going to happen whether you like it or not.”
“Your uniform, Commander.” Toni held the uniform out toward me.
I was taking quick glances between the uniform, Toni, and David. I would rather have died than what they were suggesting. “Can’t we wait a few weeks or...”
“Some are changing faster than others. It has a lot to do with their DNA. You are one of those who aren’t going to be able to wait.” David stepped up closer as he put his hand on the uniform for emphasis.
At that moment in time I really did prefer dying to what David was telling me. “How soon can I expect to start looking... uh... that is... I... expect…?”
“Expect to look female? Bill, look in the hologram reflector. You already do.” David glanced down at my feet.
Looking down I didn’t see my feet. My pant legs were drooping so badly my feet were hidden under folds of material. “Shit!”
“If your uniform wasn’t so big you would have already noticed you have the beginning of very nice breasts. I’ll make a wager with you. I bet you had to sit on the potty this morning.”
I never made a wager with David and expected to win. Oh, I made many bets with him, but I knew I was going to lose when I was doing it. Up until now, it was all in fun. “It’s that obvious already?”
“Yes.”
With a heavy heart and a reluctant hand, I reached out and took the uniform from Toni. “No cure?”
David shook his head. “We haven’t found one yet. Don’t feel you are all alone in this, Bill. All the rest of us are in the same fix. You will see that some of the crew are as advanced as you and some don’t even look like they have been infected yet. It doesn’t make any difference. We will all end up swinging our hips when we walk.” David turned and walked out of the room.
I stared in shock as I watched him leave. Was he rolling his hips as a last joke, or was it affecting him in that way already?
As I watched David leave, Toni smiled as if she was reading my mind. “Some things are ordained.” She turned and walked out of the room.
I watched her silently walk across the floor as she left. She didn’t roll her hips. I had never thought about that aspect of her walk before now. If I was going to be female I didn’t have to roll my hips either. I would walk like Toni did. Fuck this female life! I hated it already.
After dropping my clothes and slipping into the uniform and boots, I walked over to the wall. “Reflection.” Instantly a hologram mirrored image of me appeared. Damn David’s soul, he was right. I was looking at the image of a woman. Oh, there was still a lot of Bill left in there, but not enough so as to leave any doubt as to if I was female.
Men’s and women’s officer uniforms were different in the extreme. The men’s uniform had long sleeves, a turtleneck collar with their rank bars imprinted in gold on the collar. Best of all, we wore pants.
The female officer’s uniform was a sleeveless, sweetheart neckline, the rank bars were imprinted in gold over the left breast, and the skirt was a tight skirt. Their boots had a two inch heel for general duty. They wore four inch heels for dress regulation codes. It also didn’t escape my attention that the women wore tan colored pantyhose that bonded to their skin. That was the standard uniform, unless we went into space on field work. Then men and women alike wore full body jumpsuits and boots.
UF-2 was not a field research post in the aggressive sense, so we never changed from standard issue uniforms. UF-2 was more of a watch post to make sure no alien life forms slipped by us into the thick of humanity.
I felt UF-2 had done it’s job as I looked at the hologram reflection. Whatever it was, we had trapped, it was a real strong dose and some of us paid a hellacious price. No soldier wanted to fight an enemy that wouldn’t show itself. I was wishing we had been a research post. I would have accepted a jumpsuit to what I was wearing.
“Rotate.” I watched in fascinated shock as the hologram slowly turned, showing all sides of me. My God! From the back view I was showing curves and the side view was showing a small bust line. I stared at the face as it rotated back in view. There was very little doubt that the eyes and mouth were feminine. Not fully developed yet, but I could see where I was headed.
“Shit and double shit!” I had seen more than I wanted as I spun on my heel and headed for the door. When I found who was doing this to us I was slowly going to carve off very small pieces of him with a laser scalpel. Maybe take months or a year or more before I let him die. Or... maybe I wouldn’t let him die? Maybe I might just give him a dose of his own medicine and see how he liked it!
Toni, David, and a couple dozen crewmen were waiting outside my door when I stepped out. He gave me an approving glance. “We held an emergency meeting in council. Bill Wickman was relieved of duty as Commander of UF-2 as of zero ten hundred hours.”
“Whaa…” I didn’t think anything else could shock me after what I had seen in the hologram, but I was wrong.
David held up his hand to stop me. “As I was saying, we took a vote. Seeing as how Bill Wickman was indisposed and unable to carry out his duties as Commander in Chief of station UF-2. By legal vote and duly registered in the station’s log, Brandy Winters has replaced Bill Wickman as Commander in Chief.”
Furiously I was searching through my mind as to who Brandy Winters was. No one I could think of came to mind. “I’m relieved of duty then?” I really didn’t blame them. I had let all of them down when this infection invaded our station.
David shook his head. “No, you are replacing Bill Wickman, Commander.”
“I can’t replace me. I am...” Slowly it dawned on me. David and the crew gave me a new name and retired Bill Wickman.
“Brandy? Don’t you think you might have given me the opportunity to pick my own name?”
“Did Bill get a chance to pick his name? No, we are starting a new beginning here and the crew wanted a voice in who was going to be their Commander in Chief. Brandy received the most votes and was selected as our new commander.” David smiled, knowing he had backed me into either accepting the name, or rejecting my command. The bottom line was, I was either Brandy or out of a job.
Leaning over toward David I whispered. “I don’t get mad, I get even, Sherry.”
David winked so only I could see it. “Touché, Brandy.”
He turned to face the crew as he snapped to attention. “Attention.”
The crew snapped to attention at David’s command. “Guards remain, the rest are dismissed.”
Everyone dispersed except David and four women who were carrying military issue pistols on their hips and rifles slung over their shoulders. David turned to look at me. “Your guard, Commander. Ready to tour the station, ma’am?”
“I’m guessing this is to give the crew a look at their new commander, Dav... Sherry?” I was going to have a real hard time adjusting to the new faces and the new names.
Pointing down the hallway, David... Sherry, nodded. “Shall we inspect engineering first, ma’am?”
“Damn your soul, David. You’re enjoying this entirely too much. You call me ma’am one more time and I’ll have you court martialed.” I glared at David, hoping he was intimidated, if only just a little. I should have known better.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you ma’am, but I’m not one of your soldiers. You can’t court martial me. Bill should have left you more explicit instructions as to who was or wasn’t under your command.” He grinned back at me like a Cheshire Cat.
“Maybe not legally, but I’d bend the rules to do it if you don’t stop calling me ma’am. I believe I would be entirely justified in having you shot, if for no other reason than you are enjoying yourself too much.” I headed off down the hallway as I was arguing with Da... Sherry.
Toni had stepped up to my right as she walked along with me. It didn’t escape my attention that she had dropped her right hand down on that cannon she carried on her hip. If I didn’t know better I would have sworn she was my protector. She certainly had all the looks and signals that indicated she was protecting me, and she looked serious. My male ego was silently screaming that this couldn’t be happening.
With two guards in front of us and two guards behind, there was no doubt it was an official inspection of the station after a changing of the command. I knew there were going to be a lot of eyebrows raised as we gave the station an inspection. Hell, I would have raised my eyebrows if the tables had been reversed. I was wearing a female officer’s uniform and looking more and more female by the hour now instead of taking days.
As the days rolled past, the obvious changes took place on most of the personnel on the station. Sherry was unbearably cheerful. Toni was also hanging closer to me than I liked. Before this started she seemed friendly but distant, but I really liked her. Now she seemed more than friendly and, at times, I almost thought she was going to put her arm around me. If there had been any files on Pash I would have looked one over to see what was going on. Alas, there were darn few files and they didn’t tell me anything. Obviously, they didn’t hang around humanity very much. So why was Toni hanging around with UF-2?
I was in pain in more ways than one. My mental anguish was probably the worst pain I suffered. I hated going to sleep because I hated getting up and looking at the replication in the hologram. My physical pain was an added distraction I would have bypassed if given the option. Every woman understands the pain of going from adolescence to adulthood. Emotions run off the scale, from the top of the charts to the bottom of the charts, as hormones surge through their bodies. If that wasn’t enough, their bodies are stretching and expanding to accommodate engorged breasts, widening of the hips, and padding of the buttocks as their waists shrink. Achieving soft, shapely curves is the thrill of every adolescent female.
I was a lot of things, but thrilled wasn’t in my vocabulary. Suicide was in my thoughts an awful lot. I wasn’t the only one thinking along those lines either. Every day, Sherry was locking up three to four personnel in sickbay and having them sedated to prevent them from killing themselves.
Thank God for Sherry’s, and possibly Toni’s ability to read minds, or we would have been jettisoning those bodies into deep space, or worse. One of them had decided to demolish the whole station. She would have made it too, if Toni hadn’t intervened.
Toni was in Engineering when Clark-Dana decided to set the self destruct and wipe all of us out of our misery. They said Toni walked in a few seconds before Dana came charging into the room with a phaser in her hand. Dana was screaming she was going to save us all. Toni backhanded her and Dana dropped like she had been axed. If being alive meant anything, then Dana was lucky Toni didn’t use those claws of hers.
Morning and night were not in the life cycle of UF-2 as we had no day cycles. Personnel slept when they felt the need and worked or did other things as needed. I was leaving my office after a sleep. It had been almost three weeks since we had first been infected. Medical was no closer to figuring out how to reverse the infection. The reports we were getting back from Command were no help. They weren’t able to break the coding down and reverse it either. One would think, with all their labs, all their resources, all their skill at manipulating DNA structure, they would have had the answer by now.
I was slowly adjusting to the fact UF-2 was a post of females. Of the two hundred and seven crew members who had escaped infection, one hundred and eight were male. I also had accepted the fact I was female. The thing that made it possible to accept looking at Brandy in the hologram everyday was, I considered it a training exercise like Boot Camp. Soon the training would be over and Bill Wickman would be back.
Sherry met me as I was leaving my office. “I checked quarantine a few minutes ago. The crew is getting cabin fever.”
“House cleaning find any new intruders the past ninety six hours?” I motioned for her to follow me as I headed toward medical.
“One in cargo hold nine.” She picked up the pace beside me.
“Tell quarantine to hold them for another forty eight hours. If we don’t have any new collections then they may leave quarantine at their own risk.” It was funny in a warped way. We were the ones infected and the crew members who hadn’t been altered were the ones in quarantine.
Sherry had come up with the idea of drawing any of those critters out by having decoys roam the station. I wanted to know if it had been put into play yet? “Has medical and engineering come up with the traps replicating human DNA?”
“Launched the first two a couple hours earlier. They are going through the crews quarters first. We received a supply ship from M-4 a few minutes ago. It’s in isolation now. You want to go with me to check it over before it’s opened?” Sherry pointed toward the lift leading to the docking bays.
“Sure. My trip to medical was to see how they were doing on reversing the code we were infected with. I imagine you know already.” I stopped at the lift and the doors slid open. We both stepped inside.
“Docking” I commanded before turning to study Sherry as the lift sped off toward the docking bay.
It was unbelievable how feminine she had become. Long shapely legs, beautiful hands with long fingers, and long sharp fingernails. Her reddish hair framed an angelic face. Her eyes changed color from hazel to gold, or bluish gold, depending on God only knew what. She had full sweetheart lips that begged to be kissed and doe shaped eyes with ultra long, thick, lush lashes. As if that wasn’t enough, she had high cheekbones and a voluptuous body that looked as if it had been designed by a sex crazed, genetic scientist.
I didn’t have a bit of lesbian tendencies in my soul, but it wouldn’t have taken more than a hint of an invite and I would have been lying in her bed. I imagine the whole damn station felt the same way. Sherry had been right that first day when she told me about the virus. As David changed into Sherry, she became undoubtedly the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
The doors slid open as the lift stopped at docking. Sherry pointed toward a containment chamber over to our right. “We have it shielded on the possibility it’s carrying something besides our standard shipment.”
I nodded as we walked over to inspect the shipment. Usually we never quarantined shipments between known stations. We really didn’t believe there was anything out there that could catch, or keep up with, our supply ships. However, since something had managed to get on our station without us figuring out how. We were no longer taking any chances. All incoming would be quarantined until cleared.
“Visual” We had stopped outside the shielded area. I wanted to look over the cargo ship.
A hologram of the ship appeared in front of us as if the shield was no longer there. I didn’t see any abnormalities. “Rotate horizontally”
The hologram rotated in front of us, as if the ship was on a big turntable. I let it go twice. “Rotate, laterally”
Sherry and I were looking at a ship as if it had been skewered from nose to tail and rotated on a stick.
“Standard” The hologram placed the ship back on the deck in normal position.
“I didn’t see anything on the outside. Scanners pick up any abnormalities?” I backed up and turned toward the crew who were watching the monitors.
“Seal to the hatch was broken and then repaired, Commander.” One of the women pointed toward the enlarged hologram of the hatch that had appeared in front of me.
“Sherry, did you request a seal on this shipment?” I was studying the hologram to see if I could see the repaired seal on the hatch.
She walked up and put her finger on the hologram. “Yes, it was possible our shipment had been intercepted in space, loaded up with the bio-mechanical balls, and sent on. I requested a seal on this shipment before they sent it.”
“Look at this seal. It’s been broken and then repaired, I suspect by the same intelligence that sent the bio-mechanical balls. There is molecular separation and repair on this seal. If we hadn’t been looking for it we never would have noticed. It’s almost perfect.” She touched the hologram with the long nail on her right index finger and ran it down the seal.
I had focused on Sherry’s hand and finger where she was pointing. Instead of worrying about contamination of the station, I was thinking I needed a lobotomy or a brain wash. I was jealous of how beautiful she was. “No one is to go inside the quarantine area. Take that thing apart with the bots and don’t leave any pieces together where one of those damn bio-mech balls can hide.”
It was going to take a few days to disassemble that ship. I turned on my heel to go. “Sherry, keep me posted if you turn up anything.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
That stopped me as I turned to reprimand her. She was smiling, knowing what she had done. I caught myself before my mouth opened. Sherry was in a Catch 22 situation as far as me being able to give her orders. She was a civilian and not under my direct command. I could reprimand her or fire her, but not order her to do what I requested. Yet, by default she commanded everyone under me. As much as I liked her and owed her my life several times over, she could rub me all wrong at times.
“You may be enjoying what you are, but I sure as hell am not! Would you mind trying real hard not take so much pleasure in what you have become? And while you’re at it, try real hard to stay out of my reach since I would like nothing better than to slit your cheerful throat.” I spun on my heel. I did my best to not put a swing in my walk as I left Sherry behind. I found I only made things worse. Women swing when they walk or they look clunky and awkward as they lurch clumsily forward with each step.
After I stepped on the lift, I looked back at Sherry. She shook her head and mouthed, ‘This is how you do it’. Smoothly and gracefully, she glided over to where the technicians where watching the monitors. With each step her hips rolled like a ballerina in motion, her full skirt accenting her grace.
I hated her! She didn’t lurch, she glided with each step. ‘Up yours!’ I mouthed back as she looked over her shoulder at me.
The door on the lift closed and I was thankful. What Sherry didn’t know, or maybe she did, I was consciously studying the way all the women walked as I headed back to my office. It was obvious which ones had been men and which ones had always been women.
Those who had been men lurched as they walked like men, instead of letting their hips swing with each step. It was obvious when Sherry pointedly made me think about it. Men walk differently than women. Even though we were female in form, the mind still functioned like a male. Etiquette classes were going to start in twenty four hours!
Toni met me in the hall as I headed toward my office. “Commander, I request your permission to leave.”
I shook my head as I motioned for her to walk with me. “Toni, I can’t give that permission. We are under quarantine. No one is allowed to leave. We received a supply ship less than an hour ago and it's contaminated with those damned bio-balls. Until we can reverse the process those things carry then I’m sorry, but no one is allowed to leave.”
Toni reached out and placed her hand on my shoulder stopping me. She turned me to look at her. “Brandy, I know your laws and rules pertaining to this station and to your species. Your laws say when any space traveler sets foot on your post they accept the laws for that post.”
As I watched in fascination, her pupils closed to vertical slits to drive home the point that we weren’t the same.
“Rrrrrrr” She let out a soft purr before she continued. “I’m not human and my species has no pact with your species. Neither I, nor any of my kind, are regulated under your laws. Our laws are simple, but explicit. Some that might interest you are; We do not take a life unless it is necessary. We do not take any property any life deems as theirs. We do not take another’s mate. We do not enforce our will upon another.”
“That all?” I held up my hand as she started to speak. “It was a joke. Toni, we make laws for the common good of all. I can not allow you to leave. There is no debate here. If you are carrying the virus or one of those bio-balls and carried it to another post, or even a settled world, we would have to quarantine more people than I want to contemplate.”
“Brandy, what part of ‘I am leaving’ did you not understand? I will be back in less than forty eight of your hours.” She dropped her hand off my shoulder as she turned and headed for the docking bay.
It didn’t escape my attention, she had addressed me as Brandy rather than Captain or Commander. I was caught up in emotions as I watched her step into the airlock leading to her ship. As Commander of the station, I wanted to stop her. As her friend I wanted to let her go. I com linked to Control. “Linda. The Pash is leaving. Don’t try to stop her.”
“Understand Captain. Under what orders?” My com link replied.
“Emergency relief. Contact Command Central and notify them that a Pash left our station, our quarantine has not been lifted.”
“I’ll notify Command Central.”
Except for the part about telling Command Central, I didn’t think there was one darn thing any of us could have done to stop Toni. If that cannon she carried on her hip was any indication, she probably carried more firepower on her ship than we had on the whole station. I certainly didn’t want to get in a fire fight with her and find out I was right.
I looked up as Sherry had stepped into my office and was patiently waiting in front of my desk. “What did you find?” I was working on the daily report I had to keep up with Command Central after declaring Death-Com Level.
“You will notice it in the information report from docking, but I wanted to tell you myself. We found the same bio-mechanical balls on the cargo ship as the ones that infected our station earlier.”
The first thing that sprang into my mind was impossible, but remembering the seal, I halfway expected as much. “How much or I guess I should ask, how many?”
“Several thousand count. They were scattered all over the cargo craft and even up in the electronics. I understand why we were infected without realizing it. They are inert, except for shooting that DNA cutter into anyone not already infected. It’s impossible to see or feel what they are doing with the naked eye. The action is too small and too quick to see.” Sherry walked over to the window where she could look at the stars. She was wearing a blue dress that hugged her body like paint. The tight mini skirt emphasized her tiny waist and abundant hips, the same way the deep, plunging top clung to her huge breasts.
“You have a plan for finding out how they are getting their bio-mechs on our ships? Also, do you have a plan for catching them once we figure out the first question?” I stood up and walked over to the window. I was looking at the infinite number of stars, while thinking about the infinite life forms they had spawned or could be spawning. It was sheer hypocrisy to believe humans were the only intelligent life. Mankind was bad at measuring other life forms by our standards. When we first started exploring we had met other space travelers, but they didn’t have the ability to push out in space past their own universe, so we didn’t classify them as intelligent. That kind of thinking made me realize how dumb our own species was.
“Commander, as hard as it is to believe. I think they are stopping our cargo ships and loading the bio-mechs on them.”
Sherry let that sink in before she turned to look at me. “Remember, nothing is impossible, only improbable. What we think in our minds is limited to what we believe is possible. Remember Einstein’s theory was, nothing could travel faster than light. We believed that until Remmy designed and tested a warp drive ship.”
“I remember my history. As usual, the science fiction writers had it all wrong. They designed space ships that looked streamlined and propelled them with fuel or matter and anti matter. We propel our ships like the writers envisioned, but they look like building blocks so each pod can be self sustaining in case of catastrophic disaster.” I wondered where Sherry was going with this conversation?
She closed her eyes as she nodded. “Our warp drive ships look like tin cans, or boxes, or a combination. Smooth sleek lines are not in any of our interstellar ship designs. The flat or bulky designs of the ships are necessary for warp travel. Those ships travel faster than anything known as the anti matter drive reacts with the matter drive.”
Sherry sighed. “There is a theory of something even faster than warp drive. Although only a theory, what if someone figured it out already?
“Do you have an idea how and why we are receiving those bio-mechs? Or, are you rambling to see if I am paying attention?” I knew Sherry never rambled. If she didn’t have something intelligent to say, she didn’t speak. I also knew she was priming me for something I wasn’t going to believe.
“We are under attack. I mean the human race is under attack.”
That one choked me. “How? When? Why didn’t I receive an alert from Command Central?”
“Because they don’t know it yet. You are the only one I have told this to. So far it’s only my gut feeling. I can’t prove it yet. Some ‘thing’ is trying to wipe out humanity.” Sherry looked back out into space as if she was searching for what this 'thing' could be.
“Okay, give me what you have.” I walked back over to my chair. Lately I couldn’t stand on my feet for more than a few minutes at a time or my arches started killing me. They were hurting now.
Sherry waited until I sat down. “Your feet hurt?”
I had kicked my flats off and was rubbing my feet. “Stick to the problem at hand. Tell me why you think humanity is under attack from an unknown?”
“I’m trying to tell you, if you will listen. Your feet hurt don’t they? It’s because your heels aren’t high enough….”
“You’re out of...”
“Don’t interrupt me.” She took a deep breath. “They are good, and I mean really good, at understanding DNA and how it works. Think about it, Brandy. With our hundreds of thousand of years we can do what with DNA? We can make babies any sex we want. We cut out damaged pairs from the DNA that causes hereditary defects such as blindness, Parkinson’s, and thousands of other defects. We grow spare body parts upon request. We can design almost anything a human wants, such as smaller or bigger breasts on a woman, or blue or brown eyes. Yet for all our knowledge of DNA, we can not change skeleton or bone structure after the person has matured.”
She turned to look at me. “Along with your body shape, your bone structure changed. You have the bone structure of a woman, not a man. It wasn’t done with a laser scalpel, but with DNA coding. Humans don’t have that kind of knowledge. Your feet hurt because you are not wearing a high enough heel to support your instep. Humans haven’t figured out how to do that with DNA.”
Way down inside my stomach I got a sick feeling. My body had been redesigned and reprogrammed by God only knew what. I had no idea where it would stop. “You’re working on the code aren’t you? I know our lab technicians are giving it their all.”
Sherry held out her hand and studied it before she answered me. “Have you noticed every infected person on this ship looks at the few males like they were prime meat? I bet you have been thinking about inviting one to bed yourself.”
That made me blush from my head to my feet. “No I haven’t... been thinking... I guess I have.”
“I know you have. It is your body chemistry. It comes as part of the package. I promise, if you have sex before you take your birth control shot, you will have a baby. You and every other infected female on this station are as fertile as a rabbit. It’s part of the battle plans our enemy has drawn up.”
“Oh God…!” The idea I could have a baby had never entered into my psyche. The idea I was a woman was tolerable as a short term concept. We were the most advanced intelligent race ever, at least that we knew about. I was positive medical could find a cure. Now, Sherry was telling me I could possibly not only have a baby, I was designed as a baby factory! Damn those who did this!
FROM THE EDITOR: As a certain "Leaper" used to say... "Oooboy!" Chapter 3 will be posted on Friday. Stay tuned and thank you for commenting, kudoing and reading this great story.
UF-2 by Barbie Lee Edited by Catherine Linda Michel
Sherry walked over to my couch, turned sideways and gracefully sat as she put her hand behind her legs to hold her skirt. “If we have babies they will only be girls, no matter what we do or try. We can not change their sex to boys. Those girls will carry the DNA we are carrying and they will have only girls and on and on.”
My mind was screaming in horror. My stomach was rolling as Sherry explained to me what the DNA changes had been. Obviously a whole lot more than I wanted to admit.
“Remember in your history where male tsetse flies were irradiated and made sterile? Then they were released by the millions into the wild. After they bred with the female, both adults died after the female laid sterile eggs. It didn’t take long before the tsetse fly was extinct, except in the lab.”
What was Sherry getting at? “You aren’t suggesting we are sterile? You said we could have babies?”
She held up her left hand and studied her long nails. “Only girl babies. It wouldn’t have done any good to sterilize the human males on the station. We don’t mate like tsetse flies. Even if the males were sterile the females could go on breeding and having boy and girl babies. The human race wouldn’t be in any danger of being eradicated.”
“Think about it. If we can only have girl babies, and those babies grow up to have only girls, and on and on until all that is left are girls. The war is fought and won without us ever seeing our enemy or them firing a single shot. Even if it takes a few hundred years to wipe us out as we spread the code of only girls being born, it’s a beautiful plan.”
Sherry shook her head. “I don’t think they know how wide spread the human population has become or how many of us there are. It would take time eternal for humanity to be wiped out like that if they think we are a couple space stations more or less, and our home planet is not too distant, then the plan would have worked.”
“Obviously they had a human or humans to take DNA samples from and formulate to their design. Probably space travelers who had run into them on their home planet or in space. If you plan on breeding a species out of existence, then you need what that species considers attractive females as bait. Thus we have been designed as every male’s fantasy girl. We will end up with beautiful facial features, big breasts, incredibly tiny waists, and baby bearing hips.
My com link spoke to me. “Captain, the Pash is back. She docked without requesting permission. Should we send guards down to…”
“Let her do what she wants. She’s immune and we are already... Let her come aboard.” I tapped my com link off.
Turning my attention back to Sherry I blinked in disbelief as I digested what Sherry had told me. “You’re not serious?”
It was a reflex reaction as I stared. I couldn’t help myself as I took a good measure of Sherry. After a month she was already a good portion of what she had been describing. Unconsciously I felt my waist and caught myself before my hands made it up to my breasts. I already didn’t like what I had become. Sherry was telling me I was going to look like those female freaks on the rest and recreation stations that pirates and space travelers frequented. Those women were hideous freaks with breasts so big the women...
“NO! Not me.” I had been to medical the day before. I was thinking of having my breasts reduced from what they described as a thirty eight D, back to a thirty two A. I chickened out at the last minute. The idea of someone fondling my breasts even if I really wasn’t a woman made me want to cry. How did women put up with it? I hated being a woman. I certainly wasn’t going to carry the extra package Sherry was describing.
“Won’t work.” Sherry put her petite little hands under her own full breasts. “The design is fluid. I imagine it was some pirate they received their information from. I also imagine he had returned from some bordello where that kind of woman was fresh in his mind. If that kind of woman was the ultimate turn on for mankind, then they would design the bait to look like her.”
“What do you mean won’t work? If you are telling me my breasts will grow to... Anyway, I can make surgery as often as needed. I’ll be damned if I’m going to look like the poster babe for some Trader’s Post.” Sherry was wrong on this one. I could put the brakes on the changes surging through my body.
“Brandy, you are fooling yourself if you think you can stop what is happening. This isn’t a little DNA manipulation like humans have been doing for thousands of years. This is definite coding for a specific body form. Who ever did this knew how to realign the genomes, telomeres, and nucleotides of the DNA.”
Sherry rose from the couch and walked over to the door. “If the life forms doing this figure out how wide spread the human race is and sends out those bio-mech balls to any of the busy traffic hubs, it wouldn’t take more than a few years to contaminate our species. In a way, we were lucky they sent their DNA weapon to an outpost like us. We were contaminated and found the cause before it spread.”
As I watched Sherry leave, I glanced down at my hands. We were lucky? Something had changed me into a damn woman without my consent and we were lucky? Funny, I didn’t feel so lucky! “Security, place all the men in quarantine in the lounge. They are off limits to all the women on this station. Medical, all women are to receive birth control shots immediately.”
Would it be enough to keep anyone from becoming pregnant? Up until now only the natural women had been inoculated against pregnancy. Military and company rules were, no babies and no children on an outpost station. Now most of the whole damn station was almost nothing but women. From my own feelings, I knew those women either wanted men, or soon would. Sherry was right, it was an ingenious war. And I hated it.
My door slid open as I was trying to get my emotions under control. I glanced up to see who it was. I was looking at Toni. Suddenly I hated her. God, did I hate her. She was immune to what we humans were suffering. I hated her for her slim lithe body, because she didn’t have breasts to speak of, nor wide hips, nor... I hated her for all she didn’t have. “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT!”
She looked at me with pity. “I am not your problem, Brandy. I am only trying to help. If you...”
“DAMN YOU TONI! I don’t want your sympathy nor your pity. I certainly don’t need your damn help. We are screwed! Every damn one of us on this damn Out Post who were infected are royally screwed!”
My emotions boiled over as I walked up in front of Toni, screaming at her. “THAT DAMN DAVID DOESN’T MIND THAT HE’S A BITCH! I HATE THAT BASTARD! IT’S NOT FAIR! I DON’T WANT TO BE A... a... a...”
“Woman?” Toni said the word I couldn’t.
“DAMN YOU!” I was running on pure emotional hatred of what I had become as I brought up my right hand to slug Toni.
She easily caught my right wrist before I connected. I responded by bringing up my left hand to do the job. She easily caught my left wrist with her right hand. That made me even more furious as emotional tears of frustration streamed down my cheeks. “TURN ME LOOSE YOU FREAK!”
Toni easily pulled me to her chest. I was helpless as a kitten against her unbelievable animal strength. Screaming expletives and crying at the same time, I struggled in vain to be free. Never in my whole life had I ever been held captive against my will. My rage boiled into a fury of unGodly proportions as I struggled. A lifetime later, emotionally and physically spent, I stopped struggling as I cried.
Toni bent over to her right and swept my legs out from under me as she picked me up like a child. If I hadn’t been so emotional, I could have admired the animal strength she possessed.
She carried me over to the couch, gently laid me down and sat down by my waist. With her right hand she brushed my hair out of my eyes and wiped my tears. “Everything has a reason. There are some things ordained by an intelligence greater than you suspect.”
As she rose to her feet, I felt embarrassed by my emotional outburst and ashamed because I had directed my hate for what had happened at Toni and David. I was not a leader by any definition. I had let my emotions run wild. Leaders do not think with emotions, they think with logic.
“I’m sor... sorry. It’s not your fault. Please... forgive me. I always thought you were a beautiful woman. I can’t take back what I said and undo...”
Toni smiled as she winked at me. “Captain, I can feel your emotions. You don’t need to apologize. I understand the emotional flood humans experience. Pash feel emotions too though in a different way. Let’s keep this misunderstanding between the two of us. This station needs a Captain. There isn’t anyone any better qualified to do the job.”
“Tha... thanks.” I sniffled as I wiped my eyes. I was so ashamed for what I had done. Toni was treating it as if it was nothing. If I had displayed my little emotional temper tantrum in front of anyone else I would be locked up in medical right now.
“When you feel up to it, I found the source of your bio carriers. Sherry should ride along also. Meet me at my ship in two hours.” She walked out the door without waiting for an answer.
Source? “WAIT!” But the door had closed behind her already. Two hours? I was ready now. Surely we could reverse engineer the code if we had the original code. I didn’t know if I could wait two more hours. Her ship? I had no idea if any human had ever been inside a Pash starship? There was no mention of it in any of the scant information we had in archives.
After I pulled myself together, I touched my com link. “Locate Sherry and have her meet me at Toni’s ship in two hours. Tell her to pack for any contingency.”
“Affirmative, Captain.” It spoke back to me.
I made good use of the two hours. I changed into a jumpsuit and boots as I tossed Brandy’s dress and flats into the trash. When I returned, I was going to be Bill or die trying. After Toni pointed out who had done this to me I was going to accept nothing less.
After making sure my sidearm was operational and charged, I picked up a spacesuit from supply and added an emergency pack to my load. I was gasping and wheezing as I stepped off the lift where Toni’s ship was docked. Damn! I had never noticed everything being so heavy before. Next time... I caught myself. There wouldn’t be a next time like this. Bill wasn’t a wimp. Before this was over I would be Bill, not some weepy, teary eyed, weak little woman named Brandy.
Sherry had beat me to the bay. She was a beautiful woman, there was no doubt. Extreme in the plus measurements like the women who frequent the Traders Posts. Which, I had become acutely aware, I was one myself. I glanced down at my huge breasts. Soon to be rectified I was sure.
A door appeared and a landing ramp materialized beside Toni’s ship. “Molecular flow.” I was standing beside Sherry as I studied the ramp.
“Has to be. We might as well go have a talk with the enemy and see if we can come to an agreement for ceasing hostilities.” Sherry took a short glance in my direction before she picked up her bags and headed up the ramp.
I was following her up the ramp as I struggled with my bags. “Has Toni told you what this is about?”
“Brandy, Sherry, welcome aboard. This is a personal ship, not a passenger ship, so it’s going to be a little cramped. Drop your gear by the hatch and please sit in the chairs in the aisle.” Came from my right as I boarded Toni’s ship.
Gladly, I did as Toni suggested with my bags as they were heavy. Toni was reclining behind a console at what I thought was the rear of the ship. She pointed toward my left. “Brandy, if you will step to your left and stop, a seat will be waiting for you.”
Sherry had already stopped a few steps up the aisle to my left. I watched as a recliner materialized under her. She sat down and then laid back.
“Some ship.” She remarked.
“Yeah.” I stepped up behind her and looked before I sat down in a recliner that wasn’t there a millisecond ago.
“Relax while I move away from UF-2.”
I was waiting for the sound of energy being thrust so we could start moving, but I didn’t hear a thing. I wondered when we were going to start moving? “Take long to warm up this ship?”
“Not long.” Came from behind me.
“Please stand up.” Toni put her hand down on my shoulder.
“Change of plans?” I was wondering why we weren’t moving. I stood up as Sherry rose in front of me.
“No, we are at my home. Please, won’t you follow me. Leave your equipment on the ship, if you don’t mind. There is no threat to you here.” Toni was stepping off the craft as she was talking.
Did Toni call our cargo bay her home, or did I misunderstand? The aisle was narrow and Sherry couldn’t get by me until I moved. Our recliners had formed back into the ship, or wherever they materialized from. “We must have engine problems or something?” I looked back at Sherry before I turned to leave the ship.
“Something.” She had a laugh in her voice.
“My God! Are we inside a hologram?” Standing in the door I was looking out across an expanse of a lush green world.
Toni was standing at the bottom of the ramp. She waved her hand around her. “Brandy, please, welcome to my home.”
I didn’t understand? Toni called a hologram her home? I was positive we had never left the docking bay. I was also positive we never jumped to hyperspace. We had the most advanced starships in the intelligent world. It took a lot of computer power and maneuvering to get ready to jump into hyper drive, going from star to star. Much less the braking on the other end of the trip.
I turned to look back at Sherry. “Holograms look so real don’t they? Pretty good to generate one inside a docking bay.”
Sherry laughed as shook her head and pushed me with her hand to get me moving down the ramp. “Brandy, you’re fooling yourself if you don’t believe you are a couple billion light years from UF-2. If you don’t mind, I would like to see Toni’s home. We are the only humans to ever visit.”
“Billion?”
Sherry managed to push me to the bottom of the ramp and walked around me. “Plus, some dimensional side travel tossed in for good measure. We couldn’t phone home if we wanted to. We aren’t in our dimension any longer. Earth and all the worlds mankind has populated don’t exist any longer.”
“WHAT! YOU’RE KIDDING!” I was thinking about a hologram and some weird joke between Toni and Sherry.
“Brandy, don’t get me wrong. Humanity still exists, but not in this dimension. Toni’s species travel not only from star to star but through dimensions as well.” She motioned me to follow. “Let’s go see Toni’s home. It’s a rare invite. We are the only humans to be invited to a Pash home.”
“O… kay.” I followed Toni and Sherry into what I would call an Ivy covered entry.
Where are they? Who are they? What in space is going on here? All will become clear in the next exciting installment, entitled "Secrets? We don't need no esteenking secrets" or "Holy crap! _I_'m the alien?"
Please be so kind as to comment and kudo the story. Barbie and I greatly appreciate your interest the story and thank you for reading.
Toni was waiting as I walked in. “Thank you for coming. Refreshments? Food if you like? We will eat in the dining room in four hours. If...”
“Wait a minute. I thought we were going to engage the life forms that had done this to me… us… Sherry and me. I’m tired of looking like a damn female poster babe for some Trader Outpost. I plan on getting that damn DNA coding and returning to my old self. Me… Bill.” I wanted Toni to know why I had agreed to come along on this ride. It wasn’t for dinner on some damn planet, in some damn galaxy, a billion light years from my outpost.
Toni nodded. “Understood Brandy. I will take you to the life form who designed the DNA infection.”
She held up her hand when I started to ask when. “Please, time is meaningless, a few more hours won’t make any difference. After dinner, I promise, after dinner we will go see the life form you seek.”
She swept her hand toward a hall. “Please, you have a room down the hall. If you do not desire refreshments at the moment, then make yourself comfortable. If you need for anything, ask. My home is your home. I have been away and must take care of business. I will be back in less than an hour.”
Dumbfounded, I watched as she walked out of the house. I looked at Sherry who seemed to be studying me.
“Fuck this!” I didn’t want a room, refreshments, or to wait to get back to being Bill.
Walking over to the door I looked and looked a second time. Toni and her ship were gone. “Well hell!”
I tapped my com link and... nothing. I tapped it again. Bad com link? “Sherry is your com link working?”
“Yes and so is yours, but not here. Brandy, why don’t you relax. Toni has left. There is nothing you can do about it. I’m going to my room and check out the creature comforts. I would strongly suggest you do the same.” Sherry left me standing there in the doorway as she walked off down the hallway.
Emotionally, I exploded as I spun on my heel and watched Sherry step into one of the rooms off the hallway. I wanted to go see the little weasel that turned me into a woman and I wanted it NOW not an hour later. Fuming, I headed off down the hallway knowing there was nothing I could do until Toni decided it was time. I should have stayed on UF-2 until she decided it was time.
As I walked past a door, it slid open silently. Stopping, I hesitated. Was I invited in? Tentatively I entered the room. My nerves started settling down. There was soft music playing. I didn’t recognize the tune, but it was eerily beautiful. I had been too focused on getting my hands on the thing that had made me into a woman, to pay any attention when I walked into Toni’s home. Now I noticed the walls were light pink rock or a damn good imitation thereof. The floors were a light gray rock. The furniture was quaint. It looked like wood. Humans had figured out how to make imitation wood several millenniums ago. Real wood was expensive to grow. Probably less than one person in every hundred million had ever touched or seen real wood.
There was a long, sweeping, blue cloth couch that curved around a corner of the room and a matching chair by the door. A vanity, dresser, and a really soft looking bed, big enough to take up most of my room back on UF-2.
“Your bath is drawn, Mistress.”
I jumped out of my skin before I focused in on where the voice had come from. There was a droid standing in one of the doorways leading off the bedroom. It was an odd looking droid as it looked more like two poles side by side, with two horizontal poles for what passed for arms. It didn’t have feet or rollers as it hovered.
“I don’t need a bath.” I had a chem clean before I left UF-2. I was positive I didn’t need another one yet.
“Please Mistress, Master would be most happy if you would.” It waited in the door for me to accept.
“I told you, I don’t want a bath. Go sweep some dust or trim some plants or whatever it is you do.” I was getting exasperated with this dumb bot.
“My functions do not include trimming plants, Mistress. Am I addressing you incorrectly? Is there another formality you would like me to address you as?” It waited patiently.
“Yeah, call me Bill or Captain.” I was getting steamed over at that thing calling me 'Mistress.' I was only barely tolerating being Brandy until this was over.
“Protocol for humanoids indicates that it is not correct to address you as Bill, Mistress. Unless you wish to command Master’s home then Captain is also incorrect. I have information you are to be addressed as Mistress, or Mistress Brandy.”
“Mistress Brandy?” I choked on that one. “God no, I couldn’t stomach that one. Let’s go back to square one.”
“Square one? I am sorry Mistress I have not had a lot of input of humanoid expressions. Please explain.” It was still patiently waiting as only a droid could.
“Forget it. And forget that bath bit too.” I was getting tired of this dialog with a droid. Personally, conversations with bots were a waste of time.
“I apologize if I annoy you, Mistress. Your bath is waiting.”
Damn, I had forgotten how single purpose minded a bot could be. I was going to go have to take a look at that bath to get this thing to stop annoying me. “Sure, why not? Lead on, broomstick.”
It moved back into the room it had come from. As I walked into the room I saw a huge tub filled with water. I had died, I was sure. No one, but the rich, could afford to take a water bath. Us lesser people took a chem bath which was a combination of ultra sound, and aerosol spray. Water was recirculated on a post. No one wanted to drink someone else's bath water no matter how much it had been evaporated, condensed, and filtered.
I couldn’t resist as I stuck my finger into the tub. That was either the best hologram in captivity, or that was real water. It was tepid, begging for a body to climb in. That body had to be me. I dropped my gear and clothes in record time. Sticking my foot in I almost fainted it felt so good. The rest of me followed that foot. No need of letting the foot enjoy the whole bath.
It took me awhile to start playing like a duck as I slid under the water and held my breath. I was in heaven. No telling how long I played. Eventually it was time to leave my little trip to paradise. I should have taken my clothes in with me. When I climbed out they were nowhere to be seen.
“BROOMSTICK, WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY CLOTHES?” I was dripping water all over the floor as a bot approached with a huge towel. I knew it was a towel because I had seen pictures of them. We had no use for them on UF-2. We didn’t take wet baths.
“Your clothes have been retired, Mistress. You will find appropriate body coverings laid out on your bed.” The droid held out the towel.
“Retired?” I got a sick feeling down in the pit of my stomach that told me that my jumpsuit and boots were not going to be the clothes I would be wearing to Toni’s dinner.
It didn’t answer as it left the room.
Padding barefoot into the bedroom my stomach did a flip flop as I looked at what was laid out on the bed. “Screw that!”
Staring at the outfit I decided I had two choices. I could wear the towel the rest of the evening, or I could wear what was on the bed. “I’m going to kill Toni when I get my hands on her.”
The bots were marvels of engineering. They may have looked like sticks, but they could obviously manipulate molecular flow in the same way Toni’s ship could create a door where one didn’t exist. I had one of them help me dress and get ready for dinner.
As I finished dressing and walked out of the room, the droid hovered behind me. “Mistress Sherry is in the garden to your right. Would you care to go there?”
“Why not?” I wanted to see if they had done to her what they had managed on me. Of course, Sherry would probably enjoy the five-inch stiletto pumps. I hated them.
Sherry was bent over, smelling a huge red velvet flower of some kind. “You look beautiful, Brandy.”
“How...” She was psychic, she didn’t have to be looking with her eyes to see.
Sherry was wearing a metallic blue dress. The bodice looked painted on, the full skirt shimmered and flowed a liquid blue. She was wearing matching heels with a stiletto heel. The dress had full gossamer, billowed sleeves. On her wrists I counted four of the most beautiful blue stone and silver bracelets I had ever seen in my life. Her long, dangle earrings were a perfect match. I had seen some of those women who frequent the Trader Posts and they were over endowed. If that’s what turned men on, Sherry could put all of them to shame.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Sherry. A little too much for my taste, but still the prettiest woman I have ever seen. I take it you have found what you were seeking?” I walked up beside her as I reveled in the scents of Toni’s garden. Every thing looked real.
Sherry turned to look me in the eyes. “Am I attractive to you? Do you want to make love to me?”
“Gasp!” Escaped from my mind and my lips. “Uh... yes, I mean no... I mean...”
I took a step back to put some space between us. “When I get back to me, I mean when Bill...”
“Confused aren’t you?” Sherry stepped up close and put her hands on my shoulders as she studied me. “Let me unconfuse you.”
If I had seen it coming... Hell, I don’t know what I would have done. Sherry pulled me in and planted a big, passionate kiss right on my mouth.
It was the biggest shock I had ever received in my whole life. It took me a few seconds to react as I pushed her back and wiped my mouth with the back of my right hand. “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”
Stepping back to put even more space between us so she couldn’t surprise me a second time, I glared hatred at her. “What the hell was that all about? Have you lost your mind?”
I went ballistic when she smiled and winked at me. She held out her hand and looked at her long sharp nails. They were blue to match her dress, and jewelry. “Not confused any more, are you? I’m not what you want to take to bed. That was the last of Bill, thinking I was what you were wanting to make love to. We just put that idea out in deep space. Brandy, no matter what, there is very little of Bill left.”
Her bracelets tinkled as she rolled her wrist, curled her fingers and rested the points of those long sharp nails against her palm. “You felt revulsion when I kissed you. Would Bill have felt like that? In spite of you denying it, you are a woman. A very beautiful one too, I might add. You would have noticed if you hadn’t been so focused on admiring my looks and hating your situation.”
“I’m not…”
“A woman?” She cut me off. “I think if you look in the hologram replicator you will see a beautiful woman, and that woman is you.”
Sherry put her petite hand under her breasts. “You think my breasts are big? You haven’t been noticing your own.”
She dropped her hands down and rested the heel of her hands on top of those abundant hips of hers, while cupping her impossibly small waist. “Admit it, this body was a turn on for Bill. When you finally notice your own you are going to be even more shocked.”
Unconsciously I dropped my hands down to my waist. It took all the conscious effort I could muster to not look at what my hands had found.
Sherry smiled as she nodded in acknowledgement. “Too busy thinking about getting Bill back. You never noticed did you?”
“Bill...”
“Is never coming back.” She completed the sentence I didn’t want to hear.
“Fuck you! I will get back. I am not going to be a damn woman the rest of my life.” I wanted to jump on Sherry and strangle her for what she was saying.
“First off, you can’t. We are both women. Second, yes you are, whether you admit it or not. You can deny it every day for the rest of your life, but hat is going to be one long, miserable life if you do.”
“Toni is back. Let’s go meet her company.” Sherry walked back into the house, leaving me standing there.
Damn! I hated that woman! She was probably right. When she kissed me I felt violated. Bill would have jumped all over Sherry after a kiss like that. I wanted nothing more than to put space between us. I looked down at my huge breasts. Double damn! Those bimbos at the Traders Posts were also-rans compared to Sherry and myself. My long gown was of a semi sheer, layered, chiffon, gossamer, type material. Softer than anything I had ever felt, it was a bustier design, with beads or stones in intricate patterns. There were no stays or ribs. It hugged every curve like paint. At my hips it flared out into a full, billowed skirt and the hem swept the floor, followed by a full, ten foot train.
It took me awhile to calm down as I ran through my mind what Sherry had so pointedly taught me about myself. Sighing in resignation, I took a deep breath before following Sherry back into Toni’s rock house.
Straight into the middle of a couple dozen Pash. “Oh...”
Sherry was standing between a couple of them, holding a glass, and carrying on a conversation.
Toni held out her hand toward me. “Brandy, please let me introduce you. Everyone already knows you, but I feel you should be introduced.”
Hesitantly, reluctantly, I walked, with my skirts quietly rustling, over to where Toni was and put my left hand in her right.
There were two Pash standing in front of us. “Brandy, I want you to meet, Misalachula, and Breveanolesa.”
The one to my left held out her hand. “Please, call me Missy. It is hard to roll my name in your language.”
I took her hand. “Missy, good to meet you.”
The one on my right held out her hand. “Call me Brev. Tonlosania was right. You are a beautiful woman.”
I blushed as I took her hand. “That’s very kind of you to say.”
As Toni introduced me to the others I couldn’t but help notice that Sherry was watching me like a hawk. I was wondering if it was because of what she had done to me earlier in the garden or what?
After the introductions, Toni put her arm around me. I was feeling too much closeness and affection from Toni after that event with Sherry. I tried to put some space between us. Toni wasn’t having any part of it. Her strength was something I would never be able to best.
One of Toni’s stick bots floated into the room and stopped in front of me. “Mistress, the table is ready.”
Toni swept her right hand out indicating a hall leading into another room. “Please, shall we?”
“As you wish.” What I wished was that Toni would stop holding me so close.
Toni and I led the others into a large dining room with a long, dark, wood table. I was thinking how beautiful that room and furnishings were, even if they were artificial.
Toni walked me up to an ornate chair at the end of the table and pulled it back from the table. “Please be seated, Brandy.”
I struggled with the dress and the train before I found my seat. “Thank you.”
The other Pash and Sherry had lined up on both sides of the table and waited. Toni walked to the other end and took her seat before the guests seated themselves.
Toni held up a tall skinny, long stemmed glass filled with a red liquid. “A toast.”
Everyone held up a similar glass as I did the same. I was feeling awfully strange and foolish as I held my glass up.
“It’s my birthday. I am of age to take a wife. I ask for a long and happy marriage.”
“Long and happy marriage” Rang from all those around the table.
“Lareu eh samp los vesapen.” Missy nodded toward me.
Toni looked sharply at her. “Please! Brandy does not speak Pash nor read mind thought. Speak her language when she is present.”
“My apologies, Mistress. I was in error. Please forgive me.” Missy was looking at me.
“My apologies for not understanding your language. It had never occurred to me I would be talking to more Pash. You are rare among my people.” I smiled, hoping to smooth over the error Toni thought Missy had made.
“Thank you, you are too kind.” Missy held up her glass to me.
The rest of the Pash held up their glasses to me and I felt embarrassed by it all. I took a sip of my... boy was that smooth stuff, whatever it was.
The dinner was delicious. Or I was thinking it was. That red stuff must have had a screwdriver in it, because somewhere about the second glass, my mind became unscrewed. If it had been alcoholic I would have sworn I was plastered to the gills.
Somewhere in all that conversation I heard it was Toni’s birthday again. I was wishing I had brought her a birthday present. My mind was definitely not engaged as I heard someone say that Toni had found his mate for life. “His?” Humm, fancy that... giggle. Boy was she going to be surprised. Could I have some more of that red stuff? God it sure tasted good. What was that stuff anyway? My hearing is going, along with my eyesight. Did someone say I was Toni’s fiancée? Nah, never work... I like Toni a lot. Bill even wanted to get her in his bed, but as anyone could tell, I’m not Bill. Giggle... Look, I have big boobs and... oops, no that’s gone. Yeppers, gone, gone, gone. Gimme some more of that red stuff. Boy is that stuff good. Did Toni say she wanted to be my mate? Hell, sure why not…? I love that girl. She’s such a fox. What say we get married? Is any of that red stuff left? Gimme a shot wud yuh?
I opened my eyes thinking I'd had a bad dream. It wasn’t all a dream, since I was looking at one of those stick bots. I started to rise up and my world swirled. “Ooooooohhhhhhhh.”
I held my head as my eyes tried to refocus. “I’m in serious pain.”
“Would Mistress require a medication for pain?” The stick had moved up beside my bed.
“No, it’s not physical pain, it’s a 'can’t get the world to stop moving' pain. What in the hell was that stuff I was drinking?” My world was slowing down enough for me to focus on the stick droid.
“Mistress drank a lot of things. Could you be more specific, or would you like me to name them all?” It patiently waited.
“Never mind. I probably wouldn’t understand anyway.” I tossed the cover back. I was dressed in a pink, sheer, filmy nightgown. It hid nothing as my breasts pushed pointedly at the material. Great! I had no idea who undressed me or who dressed me in this nothing number.
I rolled my legs off the side of the bed and stopped as my world wobbled. “I have to get the market on that damn red stuff. I can sell it at the Traders Posts and make a fortune. It will sneak up on you and grab you before you know what hit you.”
“Mistress is ready for her bath?” The stick had moved away from the bed as I sat up.
“Bath? Uh... sure, why not?” Standing up, I unsteadily headed for the bathtub in the other room.
Standing beside the tub I couldn’t find the closures on the nightgown. “Bot, I need some help getting out of this rig.”
The bot floated up in front of me, held out one of its stick arms and the gown fell to the floor.
“I was going to do that.” I had a strong suspicion it was molecular flow or whatever. The bot was the key to the zipper, or buttons, or binding.
I could get used to those baths real easily. They were a touch of heaven. I took my time, until I happened to remember we had a date with a DNA virus programmer.
When I toweled off and walked back into the bedroom, I almost screamed. “No way! Where’s my old clothes?”
Bot was waiting beside the bed. “Those you wore the day you arrived have been recycled.”
“RECYCLED! RECYCLED MY ASS! GET ME A JUMPSUIT OR I’LL WRING YOUR SCRAWNY LITTLE NECK!” There was no way I was going to wear what was on the bed.
Minutes later I was furious as I stepped out into the hall. Yes, I was wearing a gown, and heels, and... If they thought I was ready to kill when we left UF-2 they were wrong. NOW, I was ready to kill as soon as I got my petite little hands on a phaser. I was hot as I searched the house for Toni, Sherry, or anyone. It was a huge house and it took me a long time of searching. I didn’t find anyone to take my anger out on.
Looking outside didn’t help. There weren’t any neighbors, or streets, or transportation tubes. There was a hundred foot clearing around the house and then a forest of some kind. Not any trees or vegetation I recognized, but then what would I know? I had never seen a real forest of any kind.
Finally I ended up in the garden by the pool and fountain. I found a place on the rock bench and fumed. Over time, my fury settled as I watched the water trickle from the fountain into the pool, and the aquatic life flash to the top before they disappeared in the depths again.
I heard the click of heels on the rock floor behind me before I turned to look at Sherry. “They took my clothes.”
A smile spread across her beautiful face. “Funny, but you seem to be wearing some.”
Standing up I swept my hand down in front of the silken, light green, breaded gown. It was strapless and I was wearing a matching scarf around the neck, draped over my left breast and down my back. “You aren’t funny. I was referring to my jumpsuit. This isn’t a jumpsuit, in case you forgot what one looks like.”
I lifted up my hem, and stuck out my right foot. The shoe matched the dress. It had a four inch heel and I felt like I was walking on my toes. “Running is not an option.”
I tried to push my heel off with no success. “Have you noticed we... I and my outfit seem to be attached to one another. I can’t get dressed or undressed without one of those damn stick bots helping me. I strongly suspect molecular bonding.”
Walking over to where she was standing in front of me Sherry started to raise her hand to my face. I slapped it away.
“None of that funny business. You aren’t going to kiss me again.” I backed up a step.
A smile spread across her face. “No, I think you have the idea now. You like women, but we aren’t what you want to take to bed. That’s natural feelings as a woman.”
“Fuck you. I’m not a woman.”
She sighed. “Okay, some things you still have to learn.”
“Toni has returned and we need to go see those life forms who sent us our virus.” She turned and headed toward the other room.
“Now wait one damn second. If you think I’m going like this then you are outta your ever loving, screwed up, psychotic mind.” Unconsciously I dropped my hands down on my hips.
She waved with her right hand as she stepped into the other room. “Suit yourself. You want to stay here then that’s up to you.”
Staying behind was not part of my options. I tried to run to catch up, but four inch heels are not track shoes. Anything other than a walk, with fluid motions of the hips, was not possible. I don’t think my breasts would have let me run even if I were wearing track shoes. Women who looked like Sherry or me were not runners by the laws of physics.
As I entered the room I caught sight of Sherry going out the front door. “Would you wait up?”
She stopped and turned. “I thought you weren’t coming. Change your mind?”
“You bet your life I’m going. I want to wring some answers out of some low life forms that did this to me.” I stopped beside her as I looked at the ship parked in front of us.
“Geeze... that’s a ship!” It was twenty times bigger than Toni’s ship. It also had flowing lines that made it look like it was moving a million light years a second when it was just sitting there.
“Let’s go meet a virus designer.” Sherry stepped out ahead of me.
I followed her to where we were under the ship. No windows, no doors, nothing except smooth flowing lines from front to back to side. A light flashed and we were inside.
“Please take your seats.” Toni was standing beside us pointing toward a couple empty seats. We weren’t the only passengers on that ship. I recognized the other Pash that had been with us at the dinner party.
Sherry and I found our seats and, no sooner had I sat down, then the seat reclined. Glancing over at Sherry she winked at me. “We are there.”
Our seats rose back up into the upright position. I was having a hard time believing we had traveled anyplace. After thinking about that last ride with Toni, it could be possible.
All the Pash stood up as Sherry and I rose out of our seats. Toni motioned for me to walk up beside her. “Brandy, please?”
I did as she requested as Sherry stepped up behind me. Two Pash stepped in front of us and the others dropped into formation behind us. There was a flash and we were inside a huge room. There were several spacecraft around. Some of them I recognized as those that space pirates or explorers jump space in. Others I didn’t recognize. They were oddly designed craft. None of them looked like starships. These craft would be for traveling between planets in a solar system.
A door opened on the far wall and a delegation was headed toward us. I thought I had seen most life forms, but these were beyond being odd creatures. They had four extensions for legs, which were padded on the ends. I was guessing the four extensions at the sides were arms, or what served as arms, and four eyes on stalks on top. Reminded me of a walking mushroom with about the same color and texture.
The delegation stopped approximately ten feet away. Two of them in the middle stepped forward.
“Please, walk forward with me.” Toni put her hand around my waist as she urged me to step forward.
It didn’t make any difference, I wanted a closer look at these creatures. If they were the virus inventors then I wanted my... Well, no, I really didn’t think I should be touching them. No telling what I might pick up.
We stepped up and stopped. They took a couple steps toward us. We took another couple steps toward them and so forth until we were only a foot apart. I almost gagged. Up close they looked more like a frothy mass of boils, or pus pockets.
Toni nodded her head. “Speak in this language. My mate is not wearing a neural thought transmitter. She will not understand unless you speak in this language.”
One eye on each mushroom turned to look at the companion before focusing on me again. The one in front of Toni touched something inside that mass of puke it called a body. I almost lost my cookies.
A small hole appeared in the middle of one on the left and I heard it talk. “We did not know. It was a mistake.”
“A mistake nevertheless. You did not consult us. You know we would not have agreed. Terminating life forms is not allowable. What will you do to stop the design?” Toni was as serious as I had ever seen her.
“The design is not reversible.” The one in front of me answered.
“I see. Payment must be made to those damaged.” Toni waited.
“What is the price?” The one in front of Toni responded.
“Neutralize the process. Give those infected, trade rights with the Trag and their allies.” Toni never wavered.
“Price is too high. We do not agree.” They were focusing on me. I was wishing I had brought a phaser.
Toni put her arm over my shoulder. “Price is cheap. The alternative will not be so cheap.”
Why did I get the feeling I was the bargaining chip in this conversation?
“It was a mistake.” The first one reiterated.
“Mistakes have to be paid for. One can not make a mistake on life forms and say it shouldn’t happen. Pash do not make mistakes.” Toni ran her fingers through my hair as she was talking.
“We didn’t know.” The second one canted.
“I heard you the first time. Excuses are not accepted. Meet the first price or regret the second price.” Toni dropped her hand down on my butt. I almost jumped out of my skin.
“We have to council.” They were walking away from us without turning around.
Toni put her hand in the small of my back, urging me to rejoin the others. “Don’t step away from the group. If they could kill you the situation would change.”
“Kill me? Give me a phaser so I can defend myself.” I couldn’t believe Toni would take us to a meeting unarmed.
“You couldn’t defend yourself against the Trag if you had a star destroyer in your pocket.”
There was a flash and we were back on Toni’s ship. “Please take your seats and let’s go home. It will take them a few days to decide in council.
“That’s it? That’s the meeting? What about the coding to the DNA virus? Make them give us the codes.” I couldn’t believe our meeting with the life forms who had sent us a virus was over after a few words.
“Brandy, please take your seat. I’m sure you could ride standing up, but for safety's sake, please sit down.” Toni was motioning me to go find a seat.
“But...”
“Please?” Toni turned and walked to her chair where she pulled a console out in front of her.
“Shit, I should have brought a phaser and...” I found my seat and it reclined.
The seat rose back up almost immediately. “You can’t tell me we are back already?”
“We are at the center of Pash civilization. Please join the others and me in our Capital.” Toni offered her hand to help me up.
“Yeah, sure, why not?” I rose out of the seat. There was that now familiar flash of light again.
Toni had her arm around my waist as we were standing on an observation tower in virtual space. There was nothing around us except the platform we were standing on.
I wobbled. “Jeeze, I was thinking we would be on the ground with buildings all around us. You did say, the Pash capital, did you not?”
“Below us is the capital. Built in space. We did not destroy any worlds in building our culture. God makes worlds, we build cities.” She pointed below us.
I looked. In space there is no up or down so toward the feet is down, toward the head is up. I was looking at an area of habitation structures below us. Not nearly large enough for what I would consider a central Capital for an intelligent species such as the Pash. “That’s it? That’s the whole Capital?”
“We don’t have any need for central control like humans do. We made our laws many millennium back. They were simple. They worked then. They work now.”
She pointed out to the stars all around us. “We scattered to the stars, each one making sure they followed the Pash rules.”
I had no idea how we were breathing in space? Either I was in some hologram and this was an illusion, or they were able to compress a magnetic field around us and hold in oxygen without using walls or glass.
There was yet another flash and we were inside a great, round room. All her friends from the dinner were sitting in a panel before us. Toni bowed her head in acknowledgement.
I was envious of her transporter as much as I was of her ship. Those things were great for moving from point A to point B. I noticed Sherry was off to our left by a huge arched entry. I was wondering if she had received a tour like I was getting?
The Pash named Missy stood up. “You are of age Tonlosania. Have you considered your choice?”
“I have. At first I thought there had been a mistake.” Toni glanced in my direction.
Way down inside my soul I got a queasy feeling. Something was about to happen and I felt a part of whatever it was.
“You were guided to this one who is named Brandy Winters?”
“It has been ordained.”
“Tonlosania, there may be no mistake. A mate is taken for life.” Missy was studying me.
“As it is written.” Toni was also staring at me.
“Whaa….” That sick feeling was growing by leaps and bounds.
“Then it has been ordained.” Missy’s cat eyes were boring into my soul.
Toni turned her attention to me as she took both my hands in hers. “I have given my soul to you. I only ask that in time you learn to love me. If that is too hard to accept, then I ask you to accept me.”
“Lo…lo…ve... Toni, I don’t love you. I can’t love you. Bill loved you but not as Brandy. I can’t possibly until I change back to Bill.” I was trying my best to explain Bill loved her, not me, not Brandy.
“Maybe in time? If you can’t find it in your heart, then I will return you to your people.” She waited for an answer.
“When I am Bill then...”
“The virus is not reversible. You will never return to Bill. Please…”
“NO, YOU’RE WRONG! YOU HAVE TO BE WRONG!” I pulled my hand free and was crying as I fled from the room past Sherry.
I was stopped at the end of a hall that seemed to go nowhere. “She’s wrong, she’s wrong, she’s wrong.”
I collapsed on the floor as I curled up in a ball and cried.
“She’s not wrong. You are. You’re wrong... about almost everything.” Sherry sat down on the floor beside me. She pulled my head over into her lap and put her hand on my shoulder.
“She’s wrong. She has to be wrong!” I sobbed as I wiped my eyes.
“Where do we start? I guess one place is as good as any. She is not a she.” Sherry leaned back against the wall.
“Whaaat? You’re outta your ever loving mind! What do you mean she’s not she? We are talking about Toni, aren’t we?” The tears had stopped like a spigot turned off.
Sherry was looking at me with a smirk on her face. “Toni is a male as are all the other natural born Pash. Pash have never had a female baby. They have male babies just as you and I were programmed to have female babies.”
“But... but…?”
“If they are all males how do they have babies?” Sherry was smiling from ear to ear.
I was wiping my cheeks as I sat up in awe of what Sherry was telling me. I was studying Sherry’s eyes, trying to make sense of what she was telling me. “They clone?”
“Not hardly. They pick mates outside their race. That was what threw Toni off for awhile. They really do feel a draw toward a certain mate. Toni was drawn to you. Believe me, he was as confused as any Pash could ever get.”
“Do you remember the first time you met Toni? He showed up on UF-2, walked straight up to your office, took one look and left the station. Because Pash are slender built cat creatures you thought he was a she. You wanted to get closer to Toni and he was trying to avoid you while figuring out what went wrong. Neither one of you realizing everything has a purpose, or as Toni put it, ‘ordained’. When the virus was turned loose on the ship, Toni was caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place. He knew you were the mate he had been sent to spend the rest of his life with. Yet, he was guided as a Pash to help find a solution. One of those 'damned if we do and damned if we don’t' situations we humans find ourselves in a lot of times.”
I wiped my eyes. “There isn’t a cure is there? I’m going to be Brandy for the rest of my life.”
Sherry laid her hand on top of my arm. “There is a reason for everything. You and I can only have girl babies. Pash can only have boy babies. You and Toni are destined to be the beginning of a new Pash civilization. You will be the proud parents of the first two girl Pash in their history. Your girls will grow up to be beautiful, intelligent, wise and legendary among the Pash. When they have babies they will be boys or girls. You and Toni will be remembered until the end of time as the Mother and Father of the new generation of Pash.”
“You can see all this?” Even though I had known David for years, I never knew he was a seer.
“I can’t see all the future, but where it changes history as much as what your involvement does, then it’s easy enough to see.”
She stood up. “Let’s get back to the others, shall we?”
FROM THE EDITOR: Chapter 5 will be up on Wednesday. Barbie and I want to thank everyone for the wonderful comments and kudos and we encourage you to continue reading and commenting. Thank you all very much.
Toni was still standing where I had left him in the middle of the room. The other Pash were still quietly waiting too.
Hesitantly I walked up to him, afraid he would spurn me for running off like I did. Afraid he wouldn’t forgive me for pointing all my hate at him for what had happened to me. “I’m sorry, so terribly sorry.”
Looking down at the floor so he wouldn’t see the tears that were leaking out of the corners of my eyes, I begged forgiveness. “I know you must hate me. I was wrong. I won’t blame you if you hate me.”
Toni put his hand under my chin and lifted so I had to look at him. “I was as bad. Please forgive me. I could not contemplate a cure, for I was in love with Brandy. If you had found a cure then I would have to spend my life without a mate. That was too painful for me to bear. Is it too late to ask for you to be my mate, or do you hate me too much?”
Crying, I threw my arms around him. I pulled him in and cried with my face buried against his chest. “I love you Toni. I have always loved you. I didn’t understand, but you have always held my heart in your hands.”
He stroked my hair as he rested his chin on my head. Then he stated out loud, “I take this female as my mate. I will provide for her and protect her with my life. From this time forward until the end of time, she is to be known as my mate.”
“So be it.” Echoed from the Pash gathered up in their group.
“Let’s go home, darling.” Toni swept me up in his arms like a baby.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and laid my head against his chest. I admired his strength as he carried me across the room like it was nothing.
There was a flash of light and we were outside Toni’s ship. He carried me in and sat me down in a chair that formed from the floor. “I will teach you all our ways. I will teach you how to fly our ships and how to understand and speak our language.”
He walked back and sat down, pulling a console out in front of him. “We’re home.”
The wall formed a door and ramp. He picked me up out of the chair and carried me down the ramp, standing me inside the door of his home. “This is your home and my home.”
“When is the wedding?” I was wondering if I could invite any friends?
“We had our wedding. The council gave their approval. Brandy, if you want out you may do so anytime you like. I will take you back to your station.” He stepped in front of me, turned and was watching my eyes.
“We are married?” I coughed out.
“Yes. Do you wish a human wedding?” He waited.
“I had kind of, well, I don’t guess...” I was kind of hoping for a little more ceremony or something. Sheesh, I had turned into a woman and yes, I really wanted a wedding with all the trimmings.
“I see. I’ll arrange it. Would a wedding on UF-2 be okay or would you prefer someplace else?” His eyes had closed to narrow slits.
“It’s not important. Forget it. I was being a jerk again. Please forgive me. We are married. If that’s good enough for you then it’s certainly good enough for me.” I giggled as I said it. What difference did it make? Who would know? Obviously I was going to spend the rest of my life with the Pash. If they considered us married, then that was fine by me.
“It is important.” He swept me up in his arms and carried me to the bedroom. Gently laying me down on the bed. He leaned over and kissed me.
I thought I would have a hard time warming up to kissing Toni, but he was still the same person I fell in love with back on UF-2. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him in as I planted a firm heavy kiss on his lips. Then I let my fingers do the walking down to his... ‘Oh my lordy!’
There was no way I was going to get out of that dress without one of those stick bots using their molecular magic on it, but I didn’t care. I was a woman in heat. My afterburners were hot and in hyper drive. I ravished Toni and was ravished by him again and again, each time thinking I had given it my all, but that was my mind thinking, not my body.
I can only figure Sherry had been right when she said we had been reprogrammed as female sex machines, designed for fun and pleasure. It was a good thing I married a man with the stamina and strength of a cat. I was a babe in heat and on the prowl.
“Morning Mistress.”
Licking my lips to get some moisture on them, I rolled my head over to look at the stick bot. “Morning, Stick. Where is Toni?”
“Master is gone for the morning, Mistress. I have your bath ready.”
“Thanks.” I rolled out of bed, stood up, and turned my back to the bot. “Undo me please.”
The dress fell to the floor. I pushed down my nylons and stepped out of my heels as I headed toward the other room and the bathtub. “Thanks. You are a gentleman.”
After the bath I stepped back into the bedroom and smiled as I shook my head. “Obviously the Pash like.. or Toni does.”
I headed out to the garden after I finished dressing. Toni’s place was so beautiful. I was beginning to suspect it was real and not artificial manufactured stone and wood and probably real plants.
Stick followed me out. “You wish to eat in the garden, Mistress?”
“No, what I need is a sense of belonging. What are my duties?”
“Your duties will be explained to you, Mistress. When would you like to begin lessons?”
“Lessons?” I had no idea what lessons I needed.
“You are to learn Pash, are you not, Mistress? The transport is parked in front. You are to learn how to control a Pash starship are you not, Mistress? You will learn the Pash dimension, Mistress. When you are four thousand of your Earth years old, you will have learned the most valuable lesson of all, Mistress.”
“Oh? I have to wait until I’m four thousand years old to learn the most valuable lesson do I, my little friend? And pray tell, what lesson is that?” I was amused that it was going to take me so long because, even at our best at replacing human parts, most of us didn’t make it past six hundred. I was positive I was going to be a disappointment to the little guy when I kicked the bucket before I learned my most valuable lesson.
“You will learn you can never learn everything, Mistress.”
Laughing, I reached over and tapped the stick on what should be his shoulder. “Hey, I am ahead of the game. I already know that lesson.”
Sherry walked in. She looked great in a flowing yellow gown belted at her tiny little waist. She was wearing matching five inch heels, long dangle earrings, and a long scarf, kerchief style off her shoulder. “I thought I would drop by. You are absolutely glowing. How was your wedding night?”
I sighed in bliss. “Impossible to put in words.”
Sherry nodded. “I know.”
That caught my attention. “You didn’t?”
She nodded. “But I did.”
“Anyone I know?” I was curious if Sherry was playing the field.
“Meliss. You met him at the party.” Sherry grinned.
Silently I moaned. “Don’t mention party. There was a whole lot about that party I don’t remember. I do remember to not drink the red stuff. That drink will sneak up on you and grab you when you ain’t looking.”
“Yeah, I kind of noticed you got the blind staggers along about the second glass. Rule of the road. DO NOT drink more than one glass.” Laugh lines formed around her eyes as she looked at me.
I put the back of my right hand up against my forehead. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”
She got serious. “I dropped by to give you a couple more rules of the road.”
“Okay, do I need to sit down, or can I take this standing up?” I was wondering how serious it could be?
“You’re pregnant.”
I stumbled for the bench as I felt a rush of blood to my head. “I should have sat down. So soon?”
“Yes.” She walked over and sat down beside me.
Sherry put her hand on my shoulder. “He implanted two eggs in you. One of those eggs will absorb one of your eggs. That will be your first baby girl. The second egg will hibernate until the first baby is born. Then it will absorb one of your eggs and that will be your second baby girl.”
“Two…?” I felt faint.
“Pash carry only two eggs. They can have two babies, no more. They seed their mate at the first sexual mating. You and Toni will have two beautiful girls.” She was looking at my eyes.
I felt relief at the fact that there could only be two, but at the same time, I felt disappointment that I wouldn’t have more, I felt cheated. I had no idea what I felt. “Only two?”
“Toni would not have made you marry him. He would have let you go back if you had asked. He also wouldn’t have shared his seed with you if he didn’t love you with all his heart. The Pash only get one chance at propagation. It’s a total commitment for them. They mate for life. If their mate dies through an accident, they don’t remarry.”
Tears involuntarily trickled out of my eyes. “I love him with all my heart and soul, Sherry. I don’t know if it’s that crazy DNA mess I’ve been screwed with or if it’s something else, but I really do love him. He’s the kindest, most caring man I’ve ever met. He brings out feelings in me I never would have known with any other man. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s as if a part of me is him and he is a part of me.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I know. I married a Pash too, remember?”
“Is it them, or is it that screwed up DNA that makes us feel that way?” If anyone knew the answer, Sherry would.
“A little bit of both.” She took a deep breath.
“There’s more?” I knew Sherry and there had to be something else.
“You are the key player in the Pash and Trag negotiations. The Trag don’t mess with the Pash. The rules to the game are, no fighting between the Pash and Trag.”
“You plan on getting to the meat of this conversation before I have my baby?” Sometimes Sherry was exasperating in how slowly she could explain something.
“You are a Pash.”
Sherry held up her hand to stop me when I started to protest. “By marriage, you are a Pash. The Trag are caught in a quandary. You are Pash, but also human. That means they can’t send out their DNA virus to wipe out the human race because that would qualify as declaring war with the Pash because of one marriage.”
“But you married one too. You said you did.” Why was I the key player in this? Sherry was... “I’m sorry. I... You know you have been as human as... Shit... that isn’t what I meant. You are…”
Sherry nodded. “I know what I am. I’m test tube. Geneticly engineered and you’re natural born. Probably the reason that DNA virus didn’t work on me the same as it did you. I’m pregnant too, and I will have two girls, just like you.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Sherry. You’re probably more human than any of the rest of us. God knows we have been carved from the original DNA as mankind tried to eliminate all the defects.” I put my hand on her shoulder. David or Sherry. She was and still is my best friend.
It was time to change the subject. “Stick offered me some breakfast. I don’t know what they call food around here, but I’m betting we can eat it. Would you eat a bite with me?”
“Sure. I thought you would never ask.” Sherry rose gracefully and walked with me to the dining room.
Stick had already set two places. It looked like steam was coming out from under the plate covers on the table. “I guess he overheard me. Unless he did this when you came in, that little guy is really quick.”
Sherry laughed as she sat down by my right. That left me a plate at the end of the table. “I feel like the Captain at a formal dinner. I sat here the other night also.”
Sherry shook her head as she picked up her fork. “You really are dense for a Captain. Don’t you talk to your droid? I’m betting he is calling you, Mistress. Brandy, you are Mistress of your domain. You are going to be sitting at that specific place until you die. Didn’t you notice Toni sitting at the head of the table the other night? He is Master, but he will defer to your desires. I have a suggestion for you. Rule with silk and satin shackles. Make him desire to do what you like, because he will be rewarded greatly for it. Treat him with love and affection and never, ever demand from him. I promise your love for one another will only grow stronger than it already is.”
Laughing at her, I took a sip of my drink after double checking to make sure it wasn’t red. “And pray tell, how did you become so astute in the ways of a woman’s wiles?”
Sherry giggled and pointed a finger to her head.
“Oh... I should have known.” She could read minds. All those years of reading female and male minds taught her more than any woman would ever know about pleasing men. I wonder if Meliss knew how much of a gem he had acquired when he married Sherry?
“He will know soon enough.” Sherry giggled.
Damn, she was reading my mind again…
We had finished our meal. and Sherry and I were strolling through the house exploring. I was finding it hard to believe the house could be built out of natural rock and be so beautiful and warm. It was absolutely gorgeous. The gray stone in the entry was divine. The pink, yellow stone in the bedroom was soft, warm, and pleasing to the senses. The brown stone in the room that Sherry explained was a den, was soft Earth tones.
Sherry had to explain a lot of the rooms to me because I had no idea. I guess being born and growing up in space meant I had missed a lot in my education about what a family home looked like. I was in love with Toni, his friends, his ships, his... our home. OUR HOME! I kept repeating it over and over in my mind as Sherry and I walked through the house.
Sherry led me back to what she called a study. “It’s a beautiful home, Brandy.”
Walking over to an overstuffed brown couch, I sat down, leaned back in the corner next to the arm, and pulled my legs up under me. “I wish Toni was here.”
“He’s busy in council.” Sherry found the other end of the couch and sat down.
“Doing what?”
“I guess it’s time for the rest of the express lessons, Captain. Take a deep breath and don’t interrupt me or this is going to take a really long time.” She folded her legs up under her as she reached down with her right hand and wrapped it around her right ankle.
I was thinking how beautiful Sherry was. She was an absolute living doll. Everything she did was so female. It was hard to remember her as anything but Sherry.
She studied my eyes for a second as I heard her sigh. “The Pash have Clans. Did you ever study Scottish history?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Remember, Pash are of the cat family. Their society is structured on Clans. The eldest clan would be... When you learn Pash you will understand. I will call them Number One Clan for now. The Number Two Clan would be the second in the hierarchy, or importance.”
She rolled her hand over, palm up, curled her fingers and looked at her nails before returning her attention back to me. “Toni came of age yesterday. How old do you think he is?”
That caught me off guard. “Uh, well, ah, I’m not sure. Twenty something I guess.”
“And how old are you?” Her eyes were gleaming.
“Are you going to tell me I robbed the cradle? I’m a hundred and sixty two.” I was wondering if Sherry was going to tell Toni he had married an old woman?
Laughing she shook her head. “Hon, I already had a good idea of your age. You don’t get command of an Out Post before you are a hundred. If you think Toni is twenty, then that’s a start. You might want to add a few zeros to his age. Their years aren’t exactly the same as our years, but he is over two thousand years old.”
I choked and coughed. “You’re joking!”
She made the motions of drawing an X over her heart. “Nope, God’s own truth. He turned of age yesterday. That meant two things for him. He was allowed to marry without his parents permission, and he ascends to command of his clan. His dad, your father in law, has stepped down as leader of the clan.”
“Honey, you married into the Number One Clan. Toni is head or leader of all Pash as of yesterday.”
FROM THE EDITOR: Barbie and I want to thank everyone for all your wonderful comments and kudos. Don't forget that UF-2 Book 2 will follow after Book 1 concludes, without any breaks. Book 2 is already fully completed and in editing as I type this.
UF-2 Book 1 Chapter 6 By Barbie Lee, Edited by Catherine Linda Michel
“Toni…” I know my mouth fell open because my brain stopped working.
Sherry giggled. “That’s right, Toni.”
She got serious. “He really would have let you go back to the station if you wanted. It had to be of your own free will to marry him. If you decided to leave, he would have never married and that would have been the end of his lineage.”
“But you said there are always two. What about his brother? Is he married?” I didn’t understand.
“That’s what has put you smack dab into the middle of the equation with the Trag. Toni’s brother was killed by the Trag. Like humans, the Pash are explorers. Toni’s brother happen to be the first to run into the Trag. I understand the Trag are more vegetable than animal. They like to dissect things. Their favorite things they like to dissect are animal forms. Then they do what they have become good at, designing DNA cutters to eliminate that animal life form.”
I slapped my hand over my mouth in horror. “Oh my God!”
Sherry sighed as she shook her head. Her earrings tinkling with the slightest movement. “Pash don’t kill unless provoked. They certainly don’t take lightly to one of their own being dissected. Remember, the Trag are vegetable life, not animal. A death or two means nothing to them. Losing a few hundred would be a 'ho hum, who cares' event. A few thousand deaths might get some attention, but not much.”
“The Pash went after them with a vengeance the Trag had never felt before. The Trag understood death better than they had ever understood it in their whole history before the Pash stopped the slaughter. It was understood if the Trag tried any of their DNA virus tricks on the Pash then the Trag would be wiped from existence.”
“How did you learn all this?” I found it hard to believe anyone, even of Sherry’s intelligence, could pick up all this information in the few days we had been living with the Pash.
A smile crossed her face. “The Pash are telepathic, I am...”
“Telepathic. Duhh. I don’t guess you have to verbalize the knowledge to share it.” Would I never learn?
She laughed. “Don’t get too smug doll, your time is coming.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I searched her eyes for answers.
“That little girl you are carrying is changing you as we speak. After Pash mate, their wives change to look like Pash as their child develops. It’s sharing of life forces between mother and child. You won’t see any alien wives among the Pash because they morphed to look like Pash with motherhood.” She winked at me.
In shock I stuck my hand out to see if I was growing nails like Toni’s.
Sherry giggled when she saw the shock on my face. “Don’t worry dear, you’re different in more ways then to be the first to give birth to girls. Your physical looks won’t change. It’s part of the DNA virus. You are going to be the first mate of a Pash to not morph.”
“Then what? You said my time was coming. What did you mean by that?” I took a real close look at my hand to make sure I wasn’t changing.
Sherry pointed a long slender finger at my head. “Becoming telepathic is not a physical change.”
“You gotta be joking!” I wasn’t sure I wanted that kind of change any more than morphing to look like a Pash. Although I was warming up to the idea that looking like a Pash would be much better than the Trader Post Bimbo figure I was endowed with. Courtesy of the Trag,
“Toni’s home and I need to be going.” Sherry rose up off the couch.
“When will you be back?” I enjoyed Sherry’s conversation immensely. I was wishing she would stay.
“We go back to have a meeting with the Trag tomorrow. I’ll be there with you. Listen to Toni and act like the Queen you now are. Don’t do anything rash. You were Captain of a Space Post, remember to carry yourself with authority.”
She was walking out of the room as Toni walked in. “Hello, Toni. Bye Toni.”
He nodded his head in acknowledgment. “Bye Sherry.”
Toni motioned for me to stay put when I started to get up. “Please, you are so beautiful. I want to stand here and drown in my love for you.”
Tears involuntarily came to my eyes as I rose off the couch. Walking over to him, I wrapped my arms around his neck as I stared into those beautiful, intelligent cat eyes of his. “I love you so much it hurts. You are so beautiful... handsome. I have been doubly blessed. My heart aches to be close to you when you are out of sight. I am the luckiest person in any universe.”
Toni leaned over and kissed me. I was lost in him as my emotions flooded my soul. With love he swept me off my feet and carried me to the couch where he laid me down. My emotions were off the scale as he fondled my breasts and...
Did he ravish me, or did I ravish him? Talk about animal love! Bless those Trag and what they did to me, for I was an animal myself when it came to making love. I could never get enough.
It was much later, and I was lying beside Toni, his left arm under my head. I was tickling his lips with the ends of my long hair. He could stand it for only so long before it got to him and he would have to rub his mouth to get rid of the tickle. Then we would do it all over again.
“I need another one of those baths.” I was tickling his nose with my hair as his lips were getting immune to my teasing.
“Okay.” Toni shoved me off the couch, stood up, picked me up and carried me through the bedroom to the bathroom.
I could see it coming. “NO. I’m still dressed. NO TONI! DON’T YOU DARE!”
I was still screaming as he tossed me in, heels, dress, and all.
I came up spitting water and coughing. “You beast!”
He leaned over the tub. “You said...”
I wrapped both hands behind his head as I put my feet against the edge of the tub and pulled with all my strength. Toni came in on top of me and water went everywhere.
He came up spluttering. “That was uncalled for.”
Wrapping my arms around his neck I dragged him back under as I planted a kiss on his lips and we made love like a couple of fish as we balanced our need for air with our passion for love.
A lifetime later I had my back to the edge of the tub, and Toni was wrapped up in my arms. I was gently raking my nails across his chest. “I’m so in love.”
He rolled over in the water where he was facing me. He cupped my face in his hands. “Thank you for loving me.”
That brought the tears. I couldn’t speak as I looked into his eyes and cried. I could not imagine life without him. I now knew what they meant by soul mate. He was mine and more importantly, I was his.
I could have spent my life like that, but Toni soon escaped, asking me if I would mind getting dressed.
When I stepped out of the tub, I couldn’t believe how heavy that dress could get when it was wet. Stick was there to get me out of my wet clothes. I was thinking I had to introduce these people to velcro, and zippers, and other closures. The idea I was in my clothes until Stick did his molecular whatever was ridiculous. I was positive I couldn’t cut the material. It may look like fine material, but it was armor plate tough.
An iridescent blue gown covered in embedded blue stones was laid out on the bed as I entered the bedroom. I sighed as I studied the gown. “A little over the top for a day at home isn’t it?”
With Stick’s help, I finished dressing when Toni walked back into the bedroom. He was undoubtedly the most handsome devil I had ever laid eyes on. I was so in love it hurt. I also knew formal dress when I was looking at it. Toni was dressed formally. A bolero style jacket over a white ruffled shirt, black skin tight pants with a dark blue stripe down the outside of each leg. He was wearing a weapon on his right hip and a sword on his left.
“My soldier, would you care to take a girl to dinner?” I would have rather taken him to bed.
He walked up in front of me, took my left hand, raised it as he bent over and kissed it. “You are so beautiful. There is a banquet this evening in your honor. Be yourself, nothing more, and absolutely nothing less.”
That took me back. “Toni, I don’t know your customs. What if I make a fool of myself? I would be so ashamed if I embarrassed you.”
He put his arms around me and pulled me into his chest. “You could never do anything to embarrass me.”
“You say that now. Wait until later when you want to hide in shame.” His shirt was tickling my nose.
It was a different ship waiting outside the house than the one Toni usually flew. It was still a slick little ship. I figured it was for going over to the neighbors, not for star jumping. I also wasn’t going to walk up the ramp in those four inch heels Toni liked to see me wearing. At the bottom of the ramp he gathered me up. I wrapped my arms around his neck and laid my head down on his shoulder. He gathered me, my gown, and my train, and carried me in his arms into the little runabout.
It took me a little bit to get situated in my seat. My gown was a bustier top and barely, by the barest minimums, covered things that needed covering. My tiny waist was cinched in so tightly I could hardly breathe. The skirt flared out to about six feet around me and was held out in shape by some gossamer material almost as light as air, but resilient.
I was wearing a multi strand necklace of blue stones. My earrings were spirals of blue stones and, like Sherry’s earrings, they tinkled with the slightest movement. Stick had done something to my long brown hair. It sparkled and glistened like strands of shimmering light, every strand perfectly in place as it cascaded down to my hips. My eyes were so over done that those girls at the Traders Posts would have looked like also-rans. I guess my blue eyes went along with my blue nails, which were two inches long and sharp enough to be called weapons.
Toni had settled into his seat beside me when I finally decided I was going to have to drown in that dress as it billowed out around me. He patiently waited until I gave up. I started laughing.
“What’s funny?” He looked puzzled.
“You should have hung me up. This dress was definitely not designed for sitting.” I giggled.
“I’ll keep that in mind next time.” He pulled the console into his lap and placed his right hand on the screen, as he ran his fingers on his left hand over the left hand screen.
“We are there.” He pushed the console back, stood up, and held out his right hand.
I took his right hand in my left and stood up. I didn’t have to straighten up my skirt or my hair as they magically went back in place. Between the iridescent blue material that looked like flowing liquid, and those blue stones that radiated light like small stars, I was glowing in more ways than one as I turned and took Toni’s arm. “I love you with all my heart.”
Toni beamed as he smiled. “You are a credit to your kind and mine. I could have never loved another.”
He escorted me to the door. Either the ship was sitting down in a recess, or there was a platform raised up even with the door. I wasn’t going to have to depend on Toni to carry me down the ramp. I have no idea if I would have had the courage to step off the ship if I had been looking up instead of down at my feet when Toni and I stepped off the ship.
When I looked up my heart jumped up in my throat. There were thousands of Pash lined up on each side of a walk. About six hundred feet to the other end of the walk were two Pash sitting on blue stone chairs. It had to be a man and woman. The man was attired similarly to Toni, and the woman was wearing a blue gown.
Toni caught my right hand in his left. “Please, walk with me.”
I stepped forward with Toni, my knees knocking so badly I thought I was going to fall down. It was deathly quiet and the rustling of my skirt and the tinkling of my earrings were magnified a thousand-fold as I walked with Toni, who made absolutely no sound at all. With each step, my heels clicked on the stone tile. I swear the sound carried to the end of that huge room and back again. I could hear my twelve foot train 'shish' as it slid over the stone trailing behind me.
All the Pash lining the walk were focused on me. I could see them turn their heads as we passed them one by one, but not a sound did they make. It was eerie. as if all sound had been removed from the world except for the sounds I made. My throat was cotton dry by the time we had walked the longest six hundred feet I had ever walked in my whole life.
We stopped six feet in front of the man and woman. Turning loose of my hand, Toni kneeled on his right knee and bowed his head. “I present to you my mate.”
As the man studied me I felt like he could hear my heart knocking. “Did you take Tonlosania as your mate of your own free will?”
I glanced over at Toni who had yet to rise. I held my skirt as I curtsied and bowed my head. “I did, and I have.”
“Rise.” The man stepped up in front of Toni. He took a jewel encrusted sword and scabbard off his hip and held it out horizontally in front of Toni.
“By rite of passage, I pass on to you the leadership of the Escubanesa Clan.”
Toni stood up, removed the sword he was wearing and slipped the jeweled sword in its place. “I pledge my service to our people. If I am half the leader you were then I will have served our people well.”
The woman stepped up in front of me. “Rise.”
I raised my head and I was looking into the eyes of a female Pash, a beautiful woman by any standards. She was a contrast in study. I could see intelligence in her eyes beyond human understanding. She looked old in intelligence, but young in looks. These had to be Toni’s parents that Sherry was telling me about.
I saw a sparkle in her eyes as laugh lines formed in the corners, but she didn’t laugh. “You are everything I have heard and more. Already intelligent beyond your years. You bring the change promised to us through the millennia.”
She removed a blue jewel encrusted dagger from her left side and held it out to me. “By accepting, you pledge your unwavering support to your mate, your King, until the end of life.”
I reached out and put my hand on top the dagger but didn’t pick it up. “I pledge Toni my support and more. I pledge him my life and my undying love until the end of time.”
She nodded and I put the dagger on my left side. She lifted a blue jeweled crown off her head and placed it on my head. “By rite of passage, I pass on the title of Queen to the one named Brandy. She shall bring us a new millennium.”
Tears were trickling down my cheeks as I tried to act... God, I had no idea how to act. I held my hand out to Toni’s mother. “Does protocol allow me to give you a hug?”
She smiled as she held out her hand. “You are a Queen, protocol allows you to do whatever you want.”
I closed in and hugged her neck as I whispered in her ear. “We need to have some really long discussions. I beg for your advice to be a good leader.”
“You already are. You are a natural born leader. It has been ordained.” She squeezed me before stepping back.
“Please your highness, how should I address you?” I was scared I would make a gaffe' and embarrass Toni.
“I am Lass. My mate is Dre. We do not use formal titles except in rare instances. Tomorrow, when you meet the Trag, will be one of those instances where formal titles will be used.” She took my hand. “Please, everyone wants to meet you and touch you. They have already heard so much about you.”
“Toni?” I hesitated.
He gave me a quick kiss and a wink. “Mother is right. It is you they want to meet. They already know me. I’m old stuff to them. Most of them have never seen a human before. Go and enjoy yourself. I will be close by.”
“But...” I was in the middle of a dozen Pash. I had never seen so many beautiful people in my whole life. They were also the best mannered and most courteous people I had ever met. No one grabbed me, no one stepped on the hem of my dress, no one stepped on my train as I followed Lass and moved among them. It had to be the cat qualities in their bloodlines. I could only wish to be half as graceful as they.
It was hours later that I met Sherry and her mate, Meliss. I wrapped my hand around her neck and gave her a heartfelt hug. “I’m so glad you stayed and married a Pash. I pray you and I can work together, for I value your intelligence and your advice more than you will ever know.”
“You may get tired of me before we kick the bucket. That little girl you are carrying is going to make sure you live a really long time as she infuses her genes with yours.”
Sherry turned her attention to Lass as she held her skirt, bowed her head, and curtsied. “Your Highness. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
Lass was beaming as Sherry rose. “So formal are you. You are not to be underestimated. Your intelligence speaks volumes. I have been hearing rumors about you. It seems that the Pash have been doubly blessed that Melissandevoledo chose you as a mate.”
Sherry bowed her head before answering. “I am the one who has been honored and blessed. I pray I am a credit to the Pash as Melissandevoledo’s mate.”
Lass smiled as she placed her hand on Sherry’s stomach. “They tell me you are a seer? Why do you not see your own?”
For the first time in my life I saw doubt in Sherry’s eyes. “I have seen.”
“Tell me, Seer, what have you seen in your own future?” Lass stepped back and waited.
“You ask about our child. I will give Meliss two healthy boys.” For the first time Sherry wasn’t sure of herself.
“Are you certain, Seer? And what about Brandy? What did you see?” Lass gave a quick nod in my direction for emphasis.
“Again you ask about children. I see two healthy girls.” Sherry was back on solid ground.
Lass placed her hand on my stomach and nodded. “She will bear two girls as it has been ordained.”
Lass turned her attention back to Sherry. “I see confusion and delusion where you read your own future. You do not feel worthy of such an event. You keep calling yourself a test tube experiment. I know of this type of life reproduction. It is not the fault of the life that is created, as you had nothing to do with it. It would be the same as one of us saying we were to blame if we were born to the Pash, or Wern, or any other species.” Then she turned back to me.
“Do not be surprised when you give birth to your girls. They will grow up to be leaders of a new generation of Pash.”
I was looking at Sherry who had a look of shock and doubt all over her face. Turning to look at Lass I saw nothing but seriousness. Obviously, my mother in law was a seer herself. If she wasn’t, she was a darn good con artist because I believed everything she said.
The news about me being pregnant with girls, spread like wildfire, although I was no longer the sole object of attention in that hall. All the Pash wanted to touch Sherry also.
I lost Lass in the crowd and that was where Toni found me. “You look beautiful.”
I slid my arms around his waist as I laid my head up against his chest. “And you look handsome, my Lord. I’m in love with your people, they are all so courteous and kind, and handsome, and beautiful.”
I snuggled in close to his chest. “Your mother is such a sweetheart. I hope she teaches me how to be like her.”
Toni pushed me back and kissed my forehead. “My mother is fascinated with you, my Queen. As is my father and everyone else. I most of all.”
I looked into his beautiful, yellow cat eyes. “I need to pay my respects to your father.”
“He’s looking forward to talking to you some more. Personally, I think he wants to admire your figure some more.”
“Me? But all your women are so slim and fit. Even your mother is such a fox. I wish I had her figure. She looks like she could run ten miles and never break out in a sweat.” I ran my hand down his arm as I was talking. Toni was pure muscle. Every time he picked me up, he made it seem like child’s play.
Toni put his hand in the small of my back and steered me toward the other side of the hall. “There are benefits to being slim. There are also benefits to having your figure. Never forget that, what makes you one of us, also elevates you above the rest of us. Your blue eyes are a wonder to everyone. None of us have ever seen blue eyes before. Someone asked me if the only color you see is blue?”
That tickled me and I laughed. “I guess all of us jump to conclusions at times. Blue eyes, blue color? Sure... makes sense to me.”
Toni’s dad was staring at me as we walked up to him. I curtsied and bowed my head. “Your Highness, it is such a pleasure to meet you again.”
He reached out and put his hand under my chin, raising my head to look into my eyes. “I should have never doubted. When Tonlosania returned after the first time he saw you, he said there had been a mistake. I agreed with him and told him to forget you. His mother disagreed. She said the only mistake was to not go back. Tonlosania heeded his mother’s advice and returned to the place where he was ordained to meet his mate. Again he came back and said it could not be. Again I agreed and again his mother sent him back, admonishing him to wait, for it was ordained.”
I blushed in embarrassment because I knew what Toni was looking at when he first visited that station. The funny thing was, I fell in love with him thinking he was she. In an odd way, things worked out. I was head over heels in love. “I’m glad Toni listened to Lass, your Majesty and took your advice under consideration.”
Toni’s dad closed his eyes as he laughed. “She is a diplomat too. You are a credit to your race. We are proud to accept you as a Pash, and one of us.”
I curtsied again. “You are most kind, your Highness. I pray I do not disappoint you too many times. I beg your favor as I seek your council if I am ever asked to make a decision.”
Again that chuckle of his. “Make a decision? You are Queen of the Pash. Of course you will make decisions. However I am afraid you seek advice from the one least qualified to give advice. Lass is the seer in our family. Seek her council when you feel the need.”
I glanced over at Toni and he nodded his head. “Mother is the one for advice. In time she will come to you for advice. Our daughters may not change you into a Pash, but they will change you.”
I blinked as I stared at him. Unconsciously I put my hand on my tummy. I was in way over my head and scared to death.
Toni took my arm. “I think we have been called to dinner.”
“I’m not hungry.” My nerves had killed my appetite.
“Sit at the Royal Table anyway. It’s tradition.” He guided me into another room.
Toni’s dad was right behind us. Before we waked halfway across the room, his mother stepped up beside him.
Toni guided me up to a huge banquet table with two large chairs at the head. I was left of Toni, and Lass was left of me, in front of a smaller chair. Toni’s dad was to the right of Toni.
The rest of the Pash and Sherry filed in and found places in front of the tables. Toni leaned over in my direction. “Be seated and they can sit.”
“Lass said I could do anything I wanted and it would be okay. Is that right?” I hesitated.
“Yes, within reason.”
I backed up behind the chair and bowed toward Lass. “Your Highness, I never had the honor to serve a Queen before. Would you please grant me this wish and sit here?”
Toni looked amused, Lass’ eyes were dancing as she moved to the Royal Chair and sat down. Toni nodded in agreement as he moved out and let his father sit in his Royal Chair. I moved to the left of Lass and waited for an indication it would be okay to be seated. Lass looked at me and smiled. “Please be seated.”
I managed with that full skirt and the train to sit down, even if I was sitting on the edge of my chair to do it. When I did, a roar swelled up from the banquet room, as the Pash cheered.
Toni’s dad leaned over toward Toni. “You are going to have your hands full. When she gets to be too much for you, then drop her off at our house.”
Toni laughed as he looked at me and mouthed, ‘I love you’. “Dad, you are wishful thinking if you believe I will ever let her out of my sight.”
I kept an eye on Lass and made sure to mimic her while eating. I did not want to make a gaffe' in a room full of Pash.
It was late, late, late when Toni took me home. I was so tired. Most of it was from nervous excitement, but part of it was physical from being on my feet most of the evening. I wrapped my arms around Toni’s neck as he carried me down the ramp off the ship.
“I can walk from here.”
“I know, but it feels good to hold you in my arms. You feel so soft and warm.” He walked into the house carrying me.
“Did I ever tell you, I love you?” I whispered in his ear.
“No, but you can start now.” He tried to bite me on the neck and received a mouthful of hair for his efforts.
“I love you, Toni. I love you so much I can not begin to tell you how much because words don’t explain.”
He laid me down on the bed, bent over, brushed the hair away from my face, and kissed me. “I know the feeling.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Then make love to me.”
He kissed me and then pulled back out of my arms. “We need to get some rest. We have work to do tomorrow.”
Glancing around the room he removed his sword and pistol. “First things first.”
He lay down on top of me as he smothered me with kisses and then playfully put those fangs of his in my neck.
“Oh Master, I am yours to do as you wish. You are a man and I, a mere woman.” I giggled as I said it in mock of his strength.
Toni grabbed my wrists and held my hands up above my head as he stared into my eyes. I didn’t think I could have escaped if I had the help of ten men. But feeling mischievous I brought my knees up under him as I leveraged my heels against the bed. It tossed him over my head upside down up against the head rail on the bed.
I don’t know who was more shocked, Toni or me? “I’m sorry, Toni, I didn’...”
He rolled back down where he was beside me as he studied my eyes. “Bring that ‘mere woman’ by me again because I was believing that one.”
I reached out and dragged him in as I planted a big kiss on his lips. “Enough chatter. I’m your Queen. I demand you make love to me.”
Toni reached up and removed my crown and then down to my side and removed my dagger. He set them off to the side. “You are my Queen and I can not refuse your command.”
How Toni found me under that full skirt and gossamer petticoat was a wonder, but he did.
The next morning, I rolled over and was looking at Stick. “Where’s Toni?”
“Assembling the attack force, Mistress.”
That brought me awake, along with my heart up in my throat. “We are under attack? By whom? Why didn’t he wake me? Take me to him.”
“You are not properly dressed, Mistress. We are not under attack. No life forms have ever attacked the Pash. The attack force is for the meeting with the Trag. Now, if Mistress will take her bath, I will prepare her meal. It is going to be a busy day.”
I rolled out of bed and turned my back to Stick. “Undo me please. I really need to teach you about zippers.”
My dress fell to the floor and I stepped out of my heels. It felt sooooo good to be out of that thing. I rubbed my waist. I couldn’t believe I had managed to sleep like that. I must really have been wiped out.
After the bath I stopped in the doorway and stared at my clothes lying on the bed. “We must have a talk about my attire.”
I was finishing breakfast when Toni and several Pash walked in. I studied them. Warriors for sure and armed to the teeth. Toni had his cannon on his right hip, a sword on his left, and I guessed some kind of shield generator on his belt, right in front of his sword. The four Pash behind him were dressed in similar fashion. They also carried rifles of some kind.
Toni took me in from head to toe. “You did well. It is time to go.”
I rose out of the chair and walked beside him out of the house. Everyone’s mood had changed. These Pash were not going to a banquet, nor were they going to a social meeting. They were going to negotiate a bargain, or let blood.
The ship outside our house was huge, dark, and formidable. It scared me and I was only looking at it. I was guessing it was one of the Pash Star Destroyers. Our group stopped under the ship, there was that familiar flash of light, and we were in the bowels of the beast. If I thought it looked like business from the outside I was wrong. It looked like death personified from the inside. There were a dozen Pash at consoles and those were fire control consoles they were sitting at.
Toni put his hand in the small of my back. “Forward, my Queen.”
I glanced over at him. “Formal titles?”
“Yes, please. This is not a pleasure trip.”
He motioned me to a chair with a console in front of it. I sat down and it formed to my body.
He sat down in the chair beside me and pulled a console up in his lap. “As Queen, you are the Commander. Place your right hand on the right side of the screen.”
I did as he directed and felt a tingling in my hand.
“It has read you and accepted you as in control of the fleet. Place your fingers on the left side of the screen.”
Again I followed directions. Something I had never seen before blipped up in front of my face. A star chart unlike any chart I had ever seen before.
Toni ran his left hand over his console and one of the stars on my chart glowed red. “That is the Trag galaxy. You are going to fly us there. There are several ways to guide the ship to that destination. The easiest one would be for you to reach up and touch the red star.”
I did and my star chart disappeared, replaced by a universe chart.
Toni touched his screen and one of the planets turned red. “The Trag inhabit all the planets in this universe. The planet in red is where the meeting is to take place. Please touch it.”
My touch made the universe chart disappear and a planet hologram was in front of me.
There were thousands upon thousands of bright dots around us.
“Full view.” Toni, touched his screen.
I was looking out across space at thousands and thousands of ships. By their very design, easily identifiable as Pash ships. “My God!”
“Our meeting is here.” Tony touched his screen and a red dot appeared on the planet hologram.
I touched it and a view of buildings appeared in front of us.
“This one here is the meeting hall.” One of the buildings turned red.
I touched it and we were in front of that building. I now realized Toni did all that so fluidly and quickly I had never noticed he had taken us from point A to point B.
“Full battle ready.” Toni stood up and held out his hand.
I took his hand and stood beside him. We walked back to the lift. Two Pash disappeared ahead of us and then we were in the flash. I was standing beside Toni in the same hall we had been in two days earlier. There were a couple dozen Trag on the other side. I was guessing those things they were holding in their arms were weapons.
Four more Pash, and Sherry, dropped in behind us. I took a quick glance in Sherry’s direction. She was wearing black hip boots, with a four inch stiletto heel. Her micro mini skirt was tight. Her huge breasts couldn’t be considered covered by that flimsy chain mail brassiere she was wearing. Her long earrings were too much, like mine were. Her long, golden hair cascaded over her shoulders down to her hips. Like everyone else, other than me, she carried a sword on her left hip and a blaster on her right. Sherry was a fox, no matter how she was dressed, or not dressed.
Four Trag walked toward us on those funny legs of theirs, their eyes moving in agitation from us to the other Pash. Toni put his hand in the small of my back. We stepped forward to meet them halfway across the room. Sherry stepped up behind me to my left.
The Trag on my right waved an arm in my direction. “There is no need for this show of hostility. We Trag have no quarrel with the Pash.”
“My Queen informs me you have broken the treaty with Pash.” Toni looked more serious than any time I had ever seen him.
The Trag on my left motioned toward me. “You are Queen of Pash? You do not look Pash. This is trick.”
Toni shook his head. “It is not a trick. You met her two days ago. I informed you she was my mate. You said you had to take our terms to council for consideration. What is your answer?”
The Trag directly in front of me stepped forward and reached an arm out to...
Toni was holding his sword in his left hand. A green goo was dripping off the blade. The Trag that had reached out was missing half his arm. Green goo was dripping out of the stump. Toni had his blaster in his right and he had a fighters stance, legs apart ready to move in any direction.
“Dare to touch our Queen and you will forfeit your life. Next time it will be more than an arm.” He shifted his attention from one to all four Trag.
“I meant no harm. I only wanted to take a DNA sample to test if you speak the truth. She does not look Pash. Her eyes are not Pash. Her skin is not Pash. Where are the Pash teeth? Her fur is not Pash. You are lying to us. This life is not Pash.” The Trag who had lost an arm countered.
“I tire of your rebuke. She is my mate, our Queen, and most certainly Pash. I can offer a solution, a test, but if you touch her, you will die, along with all Trag.” Toni waited for an answer.
“I have to touch her for test sample.” He countered.
“Put your arm out, but don’t touch her or I will carry through my threat.” Toni tensed waiting for the Trag to try something.
The Trag extended his arm out, careful to not touch me.
Toni glanced in my direction. “Spit on it.”
I almost gagged. The smell was of something rotten. I managed to get some saliva in my mouth and spat on the Trag’s arm.
The Trag pulled back and left the room. All, except the three Trag in front of us, followed the first one from the room.
“Can you use a sword?” Toni was looking nervously about the room.
“I have used one in practice a long time ago. I’m better with a phaser.” I was looking to see what was making Toni so nervous.
“Pull your sword.”
I reached up over my back, not really expecting to wrap my right hand around a handle. The handle was there and I felt a hum between my shoulder blades. I could also feel it in my hand when I gripped the handle. I lifted a sword that was not there a second ago. As I brought it up and over I took a fighter’s stance. The blade cast off light beams in random directions. There was no doubt that a faint hum was coming from the sword.
The Trag backed up several steps as their eyes waved excitedly on their stalks. One of them turned and scurried from the room.
“What’s going on? They going to jump us?” I was trying to keep an eye on the whole room, while waiting for an attack.
“They were planning on it.” Toni looked like he had relaxed a little.
“I don’t think I would make a lot of difference. I’m not as quick as you are.”
“Quick has nothing to do with it. That’s the Queen’s sword. Only the Queen can pull it. It’s not there until you reach for it. Anyone else could search for eternity and never get their hands on it.”
“It’s a damn good thing Stick told me I had a sword between my shoulder blades then, isn’t it? I thought he was joking. It’s always there?” I took a close look at that sword. What was so special about it, besides it could disappear?
Toni never took his eyes off the Trag. “It goes with the Queen’s Crown and Dagger. When you accepted the position you accepted the Sword.”
Taking quick glances at the sword that seemed so special, I could not fathom why. “Maybe you should have told me more before we were married, my love. Anything else I should know that slipped your mind before our wedding?”
“You might try and be extra careful what you cut with that sword. It collapses molecular structure.”
“Oh shit! And I’m holding it!” I was considering handing it to Toni.
“Don’t even think it. Your molecular structure bonded with the sword when you accepted the title. If anyone tries to touch it they will be history. You can swing the blade through your body and nothing would happen. You can’t hurt yourself with it.”
Toni looked over and smiled a crooked smile. “Could we discuss history lessons at a later time?”
I wanted to take a deep breath, but that little nothing outfit Stick had bonded me into was ridiculously tight. My blue boots were thigh high with a four inch stiletto heel, my skin tight, blue skirt was so short it was more of an idea rather than practical. I felt like toothpaste my waist was so small. I was sure Toni could touch his fingers if he wrapped his hands around my waist. I hope he was enjoying my figure now because I was sure I would look like a barge ship when our little girl started growing. I had no idea how that little bit of bustier material could support those huge breasts of mine. I was positive the material was stronger than boilerplate. I would never claim I was dressed.
My conversation with Toni was cut short by the return of two Trag. One of them walked up in front of me making sure to not get close to me. I was positive it was the sword he was respecting and not the woman. I was also positive Lass had been involved in the revenge the Pash had taken against the Trag for her son’s death. Otherwise, the Trag would not have known about the Queen’s Sword. I could only hope to be half the woman she was, is.
The Trag studied me for a long, long time. “The test is mixed. We do not agree she is Pash.”
For the first time I saw a hint of a smile on Toni’s face. “Would you like a little proof at the point of her sword?”
The Trag was waving his arms as he backed. “NO! No need for hostilities.”
I was thinking how strange that they would fear a sword, yet the blaster Toni held in his hand was not that much of a threat. I was missing something.
The Trag grouped up in conversation, but those eyes of theirs kept looking in my direction.
What I never expected was for two of them to leap at me from the group. It was pure reflex reaction rather than skill, as I brought the sword up to block the weapon thrust at my eyes from the one on my right. No conscious thought was involved as the Trag’s weapon disappeared. I jumped to my right, straight into Toni as I tried to sidestep their charge. Toni was knocked off balance and stumbled to his right as I body slammed into him. He had involuntarily checked my movement. I two fisted the handle as I flat bladed a sweeping arc into the Trag nearest me. I had overpowered my swing, expecting resistance where blade met Trag, but there was none. The Trag just disappeared.
Because of my mistake I was pulled off balance and clumsily stumbled forward. The second Trag thrust his weapon at where I would have been standing had I not been so clumsy and fallen out of his target area. I planted my right foot and swung underhanded, bringing my sword up, hoping to cut his weapon in half. When sword and Trag weapon touched, the Trag weapon disappeared.
I was too close to the Trag. It snaked out an arm as a phaser came up in one of its other arms. I shortened the arc of my up swing and brought it down hoping to catch the Trag’s arm before it could wrap me up. What I saw was beyond my powers of comprehension. When the blade touched the Trag’s arm snaking toward my throat, the whole Trag disappeared.
“BEHIND YOU!” Blasters were barking as Toni shouted.
I spun on my left heel leaning into whatever? I only knew Toni had yelled and nothing else.
The other two Trag had decided to attack. I was lucky beyond belief that I had advanced rather than retreated when Toni yelled. They must have figured I was running when I started to spin, for their attack carried them into the sweep of my sword. I had it in a two fisted swing, waist high, and putting everything I had into it as I stepped forward. The sword met no resistance as it cut through the Trag and like the first two, they disappeared. I stumbled forward after meeting no resistance and only by the slimmest margin managed to keep my balance. I was standing where the Trag had been only seconds before.
I was scared out of my ever loving mind. I fully expected a couple thousand of them to come pouring into the room to finish the job the first four had started. “Toni?”
I could see laugh lines forming around his eyes as he and the other Pash stared at me. “Honey, your style is a little unorthodox, but I’m not complaining.”
“Let’s get back to the ship before they regroup. I’m not your mother and...” I couldn’t believe we weren’t already back in the ship headed as far away as we could get.
Toni put his sword and blaster back on left and right hips as he walked over in front of me. “Careful with that sword. It’s as dangerous to me as it was to the Trag.”
“The fight is over?” I couldn’t believe we weren’t about to be swarmed with a couple thousand others.
“It’s over. Put up your sword.”
Hesitantly I slipped it over my back and turned loose of it, expecting to hear a clatter when it hit the floor. There was no clatter. I could only imagine it was one of those dimensional portals it had slipped into.
Toni wrapped his right arm around my waist as his eyes gleamed. “The test is over. The Trag won’t be sending any more bio-balls to destroy the human race.”
“Test…?” I coughed. “They forfeited four lives on a test to see if I would kill them or not? And what were you shooting? I heard your weapons discharge?”
Sherry walked up beside us. “If that was an act with the sword, please don’t ever do it again.”
She leaned over and gave me a hug. “I’ll see you in a couple days. You need to drop back over at UF-2 and tell them the virus attack is over. You need to take them off Death-Com or those poor souls on that station will be stuck there forever. Command Central won’t ever lift a Death-Com alert.”
“Thanks for your support Sherry. I guess I’ll figure out what we did when Toni decides to explain it to me.” I hugged her back before she stepped back and disappeared in a flash of light.
We were back on the Pash Star Destroyer. Toni motioned me to the console. “Please, my Queen, take us home.”
We made it home, but not because I knew how or where. Toni guided me step by step. I also figured out we were traveling dimensionally as well as distance. Would the human race ever figure out how to travel through dimensions? I had no idea, but if they did it would be a long, long time. The other half of traveling through a dimension is figuring out how to get back where you left. Obviously the Pash had it figured out.
The place we stopped wasn’t home. I recognized Toni’s ship when we beamed off the Star Destroyer. The Star Destroyer disappeared. Toni took my right hand in his left and led me into the house. His parents were waiting.
I curtsied and bowed my head in respect to both of them.
“Please, you are the Queen of the Pash. Dre and I no longer deserve formal address.” Lass put her hand on my shoulder urging me to rise.
I stood up and looked into her eyes. “You will always deserve formal address, my Queen. A crown or a title does not make a Queen, nor does it make a King. Working toward the common good of all your race is what made you a Queen and Dre a King. I pray I do not disappoint you or my King as I try to be half the woman you are.”
Her cat eyes opened as she studied me before she answered. “The Pash could not be more fortuitous than having you reign as their Queen.”
She turned her attention to Toni. “I know my son well. He will be a good King.”
Lass put her hand around my arm and urged me toward the living room. “I heard the meeting with the Trag went well. You go back tomorrow to sign the treaty. A word of advice. Don’t let any of them touch you. They carry the nastiest spore on their bodies. It takes a trip through a field portal, the likes of which you don’t even want to think about, to get rid of the spore and lesions on your skin.”
I took a quick look back over my shoulder at Toni who was nodding his head in agreement. That was why he didn’t let the Trag touch me. A wash job through that field portal didn’t sound like something I wanted to experience.
“You’re welcome.” Toni laughed.
Darn him, he was mind reading again. Wait until tonight. I was going to do things to him he hadn’t ever...
Lass looked over at me, her eyes were wide open in shock and then she was laughing.
Jeeze, everyone was reading my mind. I blushed in embarrassment. I hadn’t planned on Toni’s mom knowing how we made love.
FROM THE EDITOR: This is the end of Book One. Book Two will follow as soon as I get it proofed, edited and ready to post. Hopefully by Wednesday at the latest.
Barbie and I are very pleased that you have enjoyed this story and we appreciate all your comments and kudos. Thank you all very much.
"His breath reeked of gin and spirits. It was probably the only mouthwash he ever used. He smiled, and his yellow teeth looked bright against the dark recess of his yawning gullet. His lips were thin. Probably from seldom being pulled into a smile. He held his knife to my throat. “I’m going to sell you to the slavers.”
The Seeds of War
Barbie Lee
UF-2 The Seeds of War
by Barbie Lee
Edited by Catherine Linda Michel
Copyright April 2002
"His breath reeked of gin and spirits. It was probably the only mouthwash he ever used. He smiled, and his yellow teeth looked bright against the dark recess of his yawning gullet. His lips were thin. Probably from seldom being pulled into a smile. He held his knife to my throat. “I’m going to sell you to the slavers.”
Over the shoulder of the first man, I could see another man coming across the room. He was holding up a slave collar. A cruel device, it was guaranteed to make the person it was placed on, submissive. Voice controlled, the master didn’t need a transmitter. All the master had to do was give a command. If the slave didn’t respond the slave collar would give a cruel shock. I had seen slaves drop to the floor writhing in agony when they didn’t respond to a command from the master. Those slave collars were a product of the government for use on prisoners. Pirates and slavers found a new use for the government prisoner collars."
And off we go in Book two of UF-2 The Seeds Of War. Strap yourselves in and suit up for action in deep space. Pirates, slavers, alien races and war loom ahead for Brandy, Sherry and all the universes and dimensions. Can our heroes and heroines stave off war and win out against the worst that space has to offer? Well here we go!
Hate, greed, desire for someone’s property, a lust for wealth, or for power... wars are as old as life. All it takes is one person who can convince others to believe they are destined to own that which can be taken by force or by con.
That one person lets others die, while trying to achieve his or her goal of undeserved power and wealth. Either by desires to follow, or being forced to fight because the masses are in favor of war, there are those who die because one person wanted wealth or power, or they hated the other person. In the beginning, it’s always the poor, the uneducated, the lower classes who follow the evil dream. Soon nations and worlds are at war because one person convinced a few it was their right. In the end many die, both good people and evil ones, and those who were mislead by one evil person.
May God have mercy on us all as we march to war to defend ourselves, or our friends freedom. Why do we have to fight to live without the repression of an over burdening government dictatorship, or to protect that which is ours. Sometimes peace comes at a terrible price. If we did not pay the price for peace and freedom, the price for dictatorship would cost much more.
It seemed like yesterday, yet it was forty two years ago I met Toni and married him, or took him as my mate. I was born human. My mate was Pash. The Pash were of the cat species, not the human species. Their race was also several millennium older than the human species.
After Toni and I married, I bore him two children. Both of them were girls. Lavess was the oldest, Toness the youngest. Both of them were turning into beautiful young ladies.
Lavess was more like her father, even tempered and always a joy to be around. Toness was more like me. She had a temper and was quick to anger. Thankfully, it never lasted very long. Toness was also the one who would act before she thought things through. They both had their father’s cat qualities. They could walk across the room so silently that one had to be watching to know they were moving. They also had their father’s cat strength.
Luckily, I got my bluff in on them when they were toddlers. They never seriously challenged me later on in years. Don’t get me wrong, they did test me in jest or for fun. I was grateful they didn’t inherit my human side and act like brats or juveniles. Oh, they pulled pranks alright, but certainly nothing cruel or mean.
In all my years living with the Pash, I never saw a mean or cruel one. They had disagreements and fights all right. They were capable of killing if provoked. I finally understood that being civilized didn’t mean one didn’t strike back if it was necessary. Sometimes, other life forms needed to lose some blood, since that was the only message those forms understood.
I loved Toni, our daughters and the Pash. Over the forty six years we had been together, Toni had taken me to see a few thousand other species, spread out among the galaxies. I was so lucky to have married Toni. He was my soul mate. I could have never loved another. Sometimes life worked out. Sometimes it didn’t... My own species, humans, were acting... Well, they were acting human and wanted what didn’t belong to them. It was times like this I really did wish our daughters had morphed me into a Pash as they grew inside me.
“You don’t have to go.” Toni was watching as I dressed.
“It’s my duty. We made a treaty with them. We promised that, if they didn’t destroy the human species, their galaxy would not be settled with humans.” I pulled on my boots and picked up the black bustier from the bed. I wrapped it around me and turned my back to the droid. He fastened the bustier. The black microskirt was next and then, the wide, black belt around my waist.
The Pash droids were an engineering marvel. They looked like two vertical sticks with two horizontal sticks, and they hovered instead of walking or rolling on wheels. The droids were able to manipulate molecular flow. My bustier was a seamless one piece, once the droid bonded the material together. For better or worse, I was also bonded into that bustier, along with the rest of my clothes at the same time.
The idea I was dressed until a bot helped me undress bothered me at first. It took some getting used to. Mostly in the mental department, as I was geared more toward zippers and fasteners.
Females of other species who married Pash, morphed to look like Pash as their babies grew inside them. It was the sharing of life forces between mother and child. Because Sherry and I had been contaminated by the Trag DNA virus, we were still human in a lot of ways. We didn’t change physically in outward appearance, like other Pash wives. The Trag had sent their bio- balls to our outpost where I was captain. Most of the men and women on UF-2 had been infected. Much to my dismay, Sherry and I were two of those unfortunate souls. At first I would have gladly wiped out the Trag for what they did to the other humans and me, but time has a way of changing one’s perspective. Eventually, over time, instead of hating the Trag for what they did to me, I was thankful.
The male Pash seeded their mates with two eggs. Those two eggs absorbed the eggs of their female mates, Then their female mates would gave birth to two males. The male Pash carried only two eggs and they mated for life. Again, because of the Trag DNA, both Sherry and I gave birth to two girls, not boys. Toness and Lavess changed me, but it was mentally. I became telepathic. It was hard at first, as my mind picked up the thoughts from Toni and the girls. It was a clutter of noise, more like being in a room full of people talking. Eventually I learned to focus my mind to one or more mind thoughts. It was similar to listening to one person in a room full of chatter. Tune out the background clutter and focus on the person speaking.
The Pash looked a lot like humans, except for a couple of things. They had yellow cat eyes with vertical pupils. They also had cat strength and were slim creatures. I guess I had become used to the extra long canine teeth all of them had. When I first met Toni and he smiled, I was kind of taken aback. Over the years it got to where it seemed normal. At times I kind of wished I had fangs like my husband and our daughters, but it wasn’t in the cards.
“You’re making it an official visit then?” Toni picked up his sword and blaster off the dresser.
“Yes. I want the Trag to know we support them. We gave them our word. The Pash have never broken a treaty. I am not going to be the one to do so now.” The jeweled dagger went on my left, on the belt. I was also armed with another weapon, one only I could use. It was the Queen's Sword. Retrievable only by my hand, it was invisible. Until I laid my hand on the sword, it was in another dimension. There was also something else about the Queen’s Sword that made it different from any other sword, or weapon, I had ever seen or heard of.
The blade of the sword collapsed any molecular matter it touched. Anything it touched changed into a black hole, but since the mass wasn’t big enough to maintain a black hole, it rebounded back out in x-rays, gamma rays, invisible light, etc. The rebound was too quick to see, but the disappearance of the object when the blade touched it, was startling.
The Pash were divided into clans. Whether it was luck or fate, I had married Toni, who was head of the Pash. Walking over to him, I put my arms around his neck and pulled him in as I gave him a kiss. “I do not deserve to be so happy. You are the most handsome male of all. Thank you for loving me, my Lord.”
Toni studied me with his big, yellow cat eyes. “You grow more beautiful by the day. I’m so in love with you, my Queen.”
Our daughters were at Meliss and Sherry’s house the next galaxy over. I guess every galaxy was the ‘next’ galaxy over wasn’t it? The Pash were star travelers. They figured out polarity drive a long time before humans had come up with the idea that there was something faster than light speed. The other thing about the Pash polarity drive was, they had figured out how to put something live inside that ship. Humans weren’t even getting close to something similar to polarity travel for cargo carriers, much less human transportation.. Humans hadn’t figured out how to balance the energy fields around the drives so energy bleed inside the ship didn’t kill the life forms it was transporting. So far humans were creating a black hole event where everything disappeared as their ship launched. I was positive that, if the Pash had figured it out, humans would also. Maybe in a few thousand or possibly a million more years?.
Toni walked with me out to our little starship. It was the same ship Toni used when he first visited outpost UF-2. He had suggested we get a bigger starship, but I had emotional attachments to that little craft. In all honesty, it was a little one-person ship. Two or more could ride in it with someone sitting in the aisle.
As I walked up to the ship, I touched the side, an opening formed in the side of the ship and a ramp appeared. It was accomplished through molecular flow. That was something else the Pash had figured out several millennia back. Turning to look at Toni, I wrapped my right hand around the back of his neck. “I will see you in a few hours.”
He shook his head. “I should be going with you. I don’t like the idea of you going by yourself to check out how widespread the humans have encroached into the Trag galaxy.”
“I’ll be fine. I dealt with these kinds of humans while I was on UF-2 and I know how to handle them. You must convene the Council for a vote on the treaty. I need to do some fact finding to see how bad this situation has become.” I gave him a kiss and then walked up the ramp. Taking my place at the console, I could see concern on Toni’s face as the ramp flowed back up into the side of the ship.
Jumping dimensions and distance was not an easy task, in spite of how fluidly Toni did it when he was piloting the craft. I pulled up the star charts and picked the Earth and Trag’s dimension. Then I pulled up the two billion light years I would have to travel to get there. When I touched the star chart hologram in front of my face, it changed to the Trag galaxy. I had jumped distance and dimensions back to the Trag and Earth dimension. The little Pash starship polarity drive had already taken me there. Like the Pash bots, the starships were marvels of engineering
I had heard there were humans on the Enren planet in the Trag galaxy. I pulled it up on my star chart, touched it and I was looking at the planet in the hologram. There were lights and artificial heat coming up from several spots. Obviously human settlers and their allies. I was sure they had detected my starship by now.
I touched the brightest light in the hologram and was immediately above the outskirts of the illegal settlement. From there on down to the ground I guided the little ship by moving my fingers across the console. The ship could have auto parked a lot quicker and gentler than I could manually fly it in. Sometimes I felt like doing it without the AI (artificial intelligence) computer built into the ship design, but I needed more practice before I could get that good.
Pushing the console out of my lap, I opened the side of the ship and walked out before it closed. The settlement looked about like what I expected. Slavers and pirates lived with no regard for hygiene or order. They had few rules. Take what you can, and the one with the most power at the moment rules all the rest.
I felt them approaching before they spoke. “Don’t shoot her. Keep your eye on that ship. There could be others. Is she armed? I see a dagger on her side. Looks expensive.”
Holding up my right hand, open palm, I was looking at the one who seemed to be leading the other six. “I didn’t come to fight. Why are you trespassing on Trag worlds? Don't you know it’s against the treaty the Earth Alliance signed with the Trag?”
He walked up in front of me and took a measured look as he mentally undressed me. The way I was dressed, that couldn’t take too much brain power. It was probably more than he possessed. Pirates and slavers didn’t ever strike me as being too intelligent.
He glanced from me up at my ship. “What kind of ship is that? I’ve never seen one like that before. Where you from? You alone?”
“I’m alone. You didn’t answer my questions. You’re trespassing on Trag planets. Don’t you know the Trag aren’t going to allow this? Have you ever met a Trag? Did you know they like to dissect humans and their allies?” I was hoping to jump-start his brain about what he was facing. I should have known better.
He laughed as he glanced around at the other men. “We aren’t afraid of a few Trag. This planet is rich in energy crystals. Len is bringing in slaves to mine them for us. We’ll all be rich.”
“You will be dead if you don’t leave immediately. The Trag will not accept humans in their galaxy.” I looked at the other men to see if I was getting through to them. Again, I should have known better. These kinds of men understood brute force, not dialog. It was as if their minds had never evolved up the evolutionary scale.
The leader reached for my hair. I slapped his hand away with my left hand as I sidestepped to my right and pulled my dagger. I was looking at the business end of five phasers. Maybe I should have asked Toni and a few dozen friends to come along? Somewhere in a small part of my brain, I remembered I'd always had a few dozen soldiers along when I happened to meet these kinds of people. Now wasn’t a good time for my memory to be reminding me of the details though. Obviously pirates and slavers weren’t the only feeble minded ones at this meeting.
“Feisty aren’t you? I like that in a bitch. I don’t know where you came from, but you made one hell of a mistake, dropping in here like you did.” He slowly reached out and took the dagger out of my hand, daring me to do anything stupid.
He pointed at two men. “Look the ship over and see where the door is. I want me a looksee inside that thing when we get through with the bitch.”
He walked around behind me and gave a hard push in my back with his hand. “Let’s go see what Len wants to do with you.”
When he pushed me, I stumbled forward before I gained my balance. They marched me into the settlement. We passed a couple dozen buildings before they muscled me into one of the larger geo-dome buildings. One of them shoved me in the back and I stumbled across the room. I was getting damn tired of their constant pushing. Inside, I counted four men and two alien Churters, not counting the three men that had marched me there.
By a table to my left, one of the men stood up and walked over to give me a thorough examination. “Who the hell is this?”
The man that had taken my dagger smiled as he stared at me. “We have a present for you, Len. She dropped in on the outskirts. As far as I can tell, she’s all alone.”
“Lady, you are either the dumbest bitch in the universe, or the bravest.” The man called Len stepped in front of me and grinned.
Right now, I had to agree with him. I was the dumbest. I was going to see if I could pull this situation up out of the pits. “I may be your guardian angel. You’re trespassing on Trag property. If you don’t leave, you’re going to end up dying. I know what the Trag do to their enemies. It’s not pretty. I can’t tell you in strong enough language that you have no options, except to leave this planet and this galaxy.”
I knew the man behind me was going to grab my arms before he touched me, but those other men still had their phasers pointed in my direction. I couldn’t fight all of them when I was unarmed myself. That was when the one they called Len pulled a knife and stepped up in front of me. I figured he was the leader of this band of miscreants.
His breath reeked of gin and spirits. It was probably the only mouthwash he used. His yellow teeth looked bright against the dark recess of his yawning gullet as he smiled. His lips were thin. Probably from seldom being pulled into a smile. As the man behind me held my arms, Len put his knife point up against my throat. “I’m going to sell you to the slavers.”
I could feel the point of the knife pierce my skin, and warm blood trickled down my neck. Len looked pleased as he stared into my eyes. “That’s so everyone knows you’re my slave. I’ll drop some markers in you so you can be found if you try to run away.”
Glancing down at my breasts before looking back into my eyes, his eyes gleamed with lust. “I’m guessing a bitch with your looks is already used merchandise. A little more use won’t bring down the value any.”
Reaching out, he grabbed my left breast in his right hand and squeezed. The pain was so sharp I almost dropped to my knees. Involuntarily, I groaned. I wanted to strike back, but the guy holding my arms wasn’t my only problem. My mind kept reminding me of the phasers still trained on me.
Len stared into my eyes as he squeezed harder on my breast. “You were wanting to hit me. Control, I like that in a slave. Since we are going to be intimate, we should be on first name basis. I’m Len. I prefer you call me Master. I already know your name, Bitch!”
I couldn’t stop the tears of pain that trickled out of the corners of my eyes. Finally he turned loose and that caused more pain from the release of the pressure. I sucked in my breath.
The other man who was behind me, holding my arms, laughed. “I think we should sell her services here, first. With a body like hers she should be sharing. She’s prime stuff.”
Over Len's shoulder, I could see another man coming across the room. He was holding up a slave collar. A cruel device, it was guaranteed to make the person it was placed on, submissive. Voice controlled, the master didn’t need a transmitter. All the master had to do was give a command. If the slave didn’t respond, the slave collar would give a cruel shock.
I had seen slaves drop to the floor, writhing in agony, when they didn’t respond to a command from the master. Those slave collars were a product that the government used for prisoners. Pirates and slavers had found a new use for the prisoner collars.
Len stepped over to the side, as another man stepped up in front of me. His eyes were devouring me like I was a slave on the auction block. He reached up over my shoulder and pulled my hair away from my neck. He was rough and intended to hurt me. He succeeded.
Stepping up beside the man standing in front of me, the third man opened up the collar to slip it around my neck. I brought my right foot up with all the strength I could manage, and it caught the first man right between the legs. A look of shock and then pain flashed in his eyes. He turned loose of my hair. He was dropping to his knees when I jumped back and tossed my head back at the same time. I was hoping to catch the man holding my arms in the face or under the chin with the back of my head.
Unfortunately, he was ready and bobbed his head to the side. I only managed to bump back against his chest. I could see that slave collar coming at my neck and I tried to kick the guy holding it. He dodged my kick, as the collar snapped around my neck.
“Turn her loose. She’s not going anywhere now.” The man behind me backed away.
I lunged for the guy who had placed the collar on me. An electric shock unlike anything I had ever felt stunned my mind and my body. I fell to the floor, crying and writhing in pain. Even though the shock was only the smallest microsecond, the pain lasted for over a minute before I could regain use of my muscles.
The man who had placed the collar on me, stared at me with lust in his eyes. “Get up!”
Slowly, I managed to get to my knees and then to my feet. “YOU BASTARD!”
The men were laughing as they holstered their weapons. They knew that slave collar could control me better than any threat from any phaser. The man shook his finger at me. “Your name is 'Bitch.' From now on you will call me Master. He nodded toward the other two men. You will also call Chad and Len, Master. When I tell you to do anything you will answer, Yes Master, before you do it.”
“Drop dead!” I screamed, and then I fell to the floor crying in pain. The collar reminded me who was Master.
The third man had managed to find his feet by the time I regained control of my body. I could read his mind. He was thinking of the things he was going to do to me for what I had done to him.
“Get up, slave.” He was staring at my breasts.
I started to get up. Again I received that terrible shock and went to the floor. They all smiled at my pain. “You didn’t say, Yes Master. Now get up Bitch.”
“Yes Master.” I slowly made it to my feet expecting the slave collar to knock me to the floor any second. In my years of living with the Pash, I had forgotten what hate was. These humans were giving me a real strong dose of remembering.
The man I had kicked was rubbing between his legs as he stepped up in front of me. “What’s your name?”
I hesitated, wondering if I should tell them my name. “Brandy.” Again that terrible shock and I was writhing on the floor.
He didn’t give me a chance to get up as he leaned over and grinned. “What’s your name?”
I sure wasn’t going to say Brandy again. “Winters.” And again that pain. What was I not doing right? Then it came to my pain wracked brain. “Yes Master, Brandy.” And again the pain.
All of them were enjoying seeing me writhing on the floor. I was positive I wasn’t going to be able to last much longer.
He leaned down and put his hand between my thighs. “Okay Bitch, what’s your name?”
“Yes Master, my name is Bitch.” Involuntarily, I cringed expecting the shock that didn’t happen.
“She figured it out. That’s good Bitch. Most of the bitches don’t get it right until we tell them.” He stood up. “Now get up Bitch, and tell me your name.”
“Yes Master.” I managed to push myself up off the floor and stood. “Yes Master, my name is Bitch.”
Len motioned the others to give a little room. “Bitches need to be properly trained. Over behind the bar you will see slave rings. Go fetch and bring a handful of them back over here.”
“Yes Master.” As I turned to obey his command I wanted nothing more than to kill him. That slave collar they had slipped on my neck was cruel beyond words. When I was Captain of UF-2, I thought they were a great idea for controlling prisoners. I guess one’s concept of good or bad depended on whether one was wearing one or not.
I walked behind the bar and saw a stack of body rings. I knew what they were for. As if the slave collar wasn’t enough, these men were sadistic enough to want their slaves wearing body-piercing rings in all places imaginable and unimaginable. My mind was going full tilt trying to figure a way out of this mess I had dropped into. I picked up a hand full of the rings and walked back to the group of men. Holding up the rings I waited for Len to take them.
Len nodded. “You are going to make an excellent slave. Show me where you want them placed.”
“Yes Master.” I didn’t move because I didn’t want them placed anywhere in my body.
“Now that’s not very co-operative, Bitch. You know all the places they need to be inserted, so show me now.”
“Yes Master.” I had two choices. Either hold a slave ring over every part of my body I thought these guys would think a well dressed slave would be wearing one, or have that slave collar knock me to the floor and then follow their command. I held a ring up to my nose and each breast. From the look in his eyes, I could see Len thought that was a start, but it wasn’t going to satisfy him.
“The gun is beside the rings. Bring it.” Len commanded as he stared at me.
“Yes Master.” I turned to go get the gun laying beside behind the counter with the rings. It was the insertion tool. A ring was placed in the jaws of the gun and it was placed up against the body. When the trigger was pulled it clipped the ring and drove it through the flesh. Then the ring was spun inside the jaws of the gun and welded back together, along with changing the molecular structure of the ring. One of man’s better ideas no doubt? Made of Vadim alloy, the ring was indestructible once it had been inserted. There was no way to remove them except through surgery.
Some of the slave rings were no more than what they seemed to be, simple rings. Others were a product of a sick mind. When inserted into flesh they spawned tentacles, which spread throughout the body. As if that wasn’t enough, if another ring was inserted, the tentacles would spread and interlock, each successive ring spreading and interlocking as it was inserted. It was unbelievable what man could do to man in their search for power over another. One individual looking for control over another, or a world looking to control the galaxy, it was the same. Ultimately it was control or domination they desired.
I was praying the rings these slavers had weren’t the ones with the tentacles. Those were almost impossible to remove unless the slave was butchered like a slab of beef and then stuck back together after the rings and tentacles had been peeled out. If it was a nose ring or an earring then the slave could forget about removal. Tentacles spread throughout the brain assured the slave owner that the slave would die before the rings could be removed.
There was no doubt in my mind why he was doing this to me. Making me go after my own torture device was added pleasure to their cruel minds. I walked behind the bar and picked up the gun. I walked back over to Len and held it up.
“Load it.” He was enjoying his control over me.
“Yes Master.” I dropped the smallest ring I could find into the jaws of the gun.
Len shook his head. “No Bitch, I think you need something a little more you.”
He reached over to my left hand and picked up a ring that was six inches in diameter and an eighth of an inch thick. “These are you. Load it.”
“Yes Master.” I could hardly believe he thought that ring would go in any part of my body, much less any of the places he was thinking.
“Where do you think the first one should go, Bitch? Show me.” He was waiting along with the other men for me to inflict self mutilation.
My mind was going into overload as I was praying for a way out of this mess. “Yes Master.” How long did I have before that collar hurt me? There was no way out as I held the gun up to my left breast.
“Take off your clothes.” The man standing to Len’s left commanded.
“Yes Master.” I laid the gun and rings down on the table in front of me. With my right hand I reached up behind my back as if I was going to remove my bustier top. I started to wrap my hands around a sword handle no one could see. If my hand touched the Queens Sword, it was summoned from another dimension. Even though it was still invisible, I could feel the hum in my body as my hands got close to the handle.
Toni’s mom, Lass was the prior owner of the Queens Sword. After I accepted Toni as my mate, I inherited the sword, along with the title of Queen, Lass gave me lessons in handling the sword. I hoped the years of practice under her guidance were going to pay off.
The collar knocked me to the floor. It was quicker than my reflexes. I had no idea how it could know I was going to try and destroy it.
The slavers were surprised to see me drop to the floor in pain and then it was funny as they started laughing. Len shook his head. “Get up Bitch.”
“Yes Master.” Slowly I managed to find my feet again.
The man who was holding my dagger touched the point of it with his left index finger and blood trickled out of the prick. “DAMN! That’s sharp!”
Len glanced over at the man, as blood dripped on the floor. “Use it on the Bitch if she doesn’t ditch the clothes.”
Looking back in my direction, Len nodded. “Well?”
“Yes Master, but the slave collar won’t let me put my hands behind my back.”
Len shook his head. “Damn device must be set on extra sensitive. Control, set to minimum. Okay Bitch do it, but I warn you, if you try to move against one of us you will be knocked on your butt again.”
“Yes Master.” I cleared my mind of what I intended to do as I focused on an imaginary zipper running down my back. I reached up over my back for a sword handle that was yet still in another dimension. I was thinking ‘zipper up,’ as I brought the sword up.
As soon as I started to bring the sword up it shifted to this dimension. Now it was most certainly visible to everyone. As I brought it up I sliced through the middle of my neck with it. It was too late for them to react to stop me. Attuned to my molecular makeup, the sword would never hurt me but it collapsed molecular matter on everything else it touched. The sword never really passed through my body. The blade shifted back to another dimension where my body was. To those who were looking at me it seemed as if I had passed the blade through myself. The slave collar disappeared when the sword touched it.
“WHAT THU...” Len was staring at what he couldn’t believe. His slave was armed and no longer wearing a slave collar!
The men on my right were clawing for their phasers when I planted my right foot and two fisted the sword in a horizontal arc, waist high. They disappeared as the edge of the sword touched them. I kept on turning and caught the man behind me who was reaching for me. Like the first two, he disappeared. Len was half way up with his phaser, but I wanted him alive. I did a half step in his direction as I spun to my right and jumped. I planted my boot up against his skull. His shot went wild as his lights went out. He was down and out for the moment.
I still had three men and two Churters who wanted me dead. I stepped to the side as a phaser barked. I sidestepped, tucked, and rolled toward the shooter as two more shots went over the top of me. I was looking up at the man who was desperately trying to get me in front of his weapon. Pushing up off the floor with my left hand, I thrust my sword into his belly. He disappeared. Springing to my feet, I rushed the two men who were stupid enough to still be sitting, while trying to draw their weapons. Though both of them had their weapons out of their holsters, the table held them to a disadvantage. They had to bring their arms back and up to get past it.
The table between us disappeared as my sword touched it. The advantage was mine, as I knew what would happen when the sword touched the table. They were too slow in making good of the opportunity and failed to aim their weapons quickly enough. I swung up at a slant catching the two still seated. They were gone. The Churters had seen enough and decided they wanted reinforcements before they took me on. They were racing for the door and more help. I beat them there. Their momentum carried them within reach. It was over for the moment.
As I walked back over where the leader was lying on the floor I picked up one of those slave collars off the bar. He was coming around. I squatted down and snapped the slave collar on his neck. “I am your Master. Get up.”
“Fuck you.” He wrapped his hand on the collar and, when he couldn’t get it off, he tried to lunge for me. He screamed in pain as the collar shocked him.
“When I tell you something you will answer with yes. You will not talk unless I tell you to. Now get up.”
“Yes.” He got up off the floor, glaring hatred at me.
I picked my dagger up off the floor where it had fallen after the guy who was holding it disappeared. I slipped it back in the sheath on my belt. “We are going to walk out to my ship. You disobey me and that collar will make you wish you hadn’t. If we run into any men along the way, you will tell them it’s okay. At my ship there are two men. You will send them back here. If you don’t act normal and they get jumpy, I’ll take care of them myself. Do you understand all this?”
“Yes.” If looks could have killed, I was a dead woman.
“Good. Let’s walk out to my ship as if we were old friends.” I slipped my sword over my back and it disappeared. Reaching down, I picked up one of those phasers off the floor. If trouble started again I wanted a little more reach than what my sword gave me. I gave myself a mental kick for not being prepared for these kinds of men, for not wearing a phaser when I left home, and for being plain stupid. My years living with the Pash had lulled me into a false sense of complacency. I vowed I would never again underestimate the evil in humanity.
In spite of his problems, Len stared at where the sword should have been. “Wha…”
The collar knocked him to the floor. I shook my head when he finally stopped writhing in pain. “I said you couldn’t talk unless I told you to. Get up.”
“Yes.” Slowly, he got to his feet.
“Collar, don’t let slave touch me. Let’s go to my ship.” I closed in beside him, knowing he couldn’t lay a hand on me. The slave collar would make sure of that.
“Yes.” He walked out the door with me as if we were old friends.
I saw three men headed our way. “And I can get you those parts for the mining bots from the Nebula Brud galaxy. If we can agree on a price and a time that is. You think that would be a fair trade?”
“Yes.” He did good as we passed the three men.
“I thought you might be agreeable. It’s quite a shocking experience isn’t it? It appeals to me more and more after thinking about it.” I almost laughed as we walked out of the settlement.
“Yes.” He and I both knew I was talking about the slave collar he was wearing.
We were within sight of the two men guarding my ship. “Stop and shake hands with me like we had agreed on a contract. Collar let him shake my hand.”
“Yes.” He turned to face me and held out his hand.
“If you try anything, I’ll kill them and tell that slave collar to teach you obedience every three minutes.” I took his hand and shook it as the two guards walked toward us.
I saw the fear in his eyes. He knew I could and would leave him to a cruel teacher as the slave collar repeated the pain every three minutes. “Yes.”
“Good, then we can do business together. Tell your men it’s okay and walk me to my ship.” I turned loose of his hand as the other two men stopped in front of us.
“Yes.” He turned to his men. “It’s okay.” He walked past them as they started to ask what.
The fact their leader was wearing a slave collar never registered in the men’s minds. Obviously, they were used to seeing people wearing a slave collar. The fact their leader was wearing one never clicked inside their brain.
As we walked up to the ship, I touched the side. The side flowed out into a ramp. I turned my attention back to the man. “Listen very close to what I’m going to tell you. You and all these others are trespassing on Trag property. They love dissecting animal life forms. Humans are on their number one list to pull apart piece by piece.
The Earth Alliance is letting you settle here, hoping you will cause a war between the Trag and the Earth Alliance. They don’t care about you any more than the Trag do. Your deaths will solve a few pirate and slaver problems for them. They are in a win-win situation. They get rid of you, and your death means they can take the Trag planets they want after a few million soldiers die.”
“Yes.” He knew he had to answer.
Reading his mind, I knew I wasn’t getting through. He didn’t believe it and didn’t care. I shook my head. “That slave collar you are wearing is a joke compared to what the Trag will do to you. I would choose a slave collar over ending up in the Trag’s laboratory. Your friends were lucky, they had a quick death. Go back over to your settlement. You will not be able to remove the collar. Anytime someone puts his or her hands on it to remove it, you will be taken to task. Collar do not respond to anyone but me.”
“I’m going to give you one last piece of advice. I have no idea how many lives you have destroyed. If I was still working for the Earth Alliance, I’m sure my superiors would be diplomatic and feign shock to a report that humans were in the Trag galaxy. They might also make a token gesture of asking you to move on. I don’t have that much diplomacy left in me. I have no respect for slavers and pirates. You deserve the same fate as those whose lives you have destroyed. If we ever meet again, I’ll kill you. Now go.”
“Yes.” He had hate in his eyes as he turned to walk back to the two men waiting for him.
After the altercation with the slavers I had an idea. The Trag were next on my meeting list. I had to be careful though. The Trag had no love for animal life. With the pirates and slavers trespassing in their galaxy they were especially hostile toward humans. I had a lot of human in me. I pointed the little starship toward the Trag home planet, Oblick
The Trag meeting went better than I expected, mainly because of the telepathic abilities my daughters had infused in me. Trag were good at handling mind thought, fair at handling Pash, and poor at speaking English. Years back, Tony explained how Trag communicated. They were plant life, not animal. The Trag were empathic and telepathic long before they managed verbal communications.
Soon after the Trag meeting, I was star jumping again. I was headed back to the Pash dimension, a couple billion light years from the seeds of war germinating between humans and Trag. The Pash had built their main city, which was not their capital, Avar, in space. Actually Avar was four times the size of earth’s moon in area, but it was flat rather than being round like a planet. The city orbited Ecss like an artificial moon. Ecss was a lot like Saturn.
Pash also lived on Ecss with the aid of gravity stabilizers. Otherwise, the gravity of the huge planet would be too much to bear. After parking at the pad, outside the conference building, I found Toni in council, making plans for what seemed to be an unavoidable war. Stepping into the conference room, I walked up beside him.
Toni gave me a hug before returning his attention to the sixteen Pash sitting at the conference table. “We agree? If it comes to a vote, and it means war, we will honor our treaty with the Trag? The Earth Alliance has millions of ships it can commit to the battle. We will be out numbered better than one hundred to one.”
After he stood up, Meliss looked at those around him. “We can not and will not hide behind our dimensional capabilities. We know it’s a matter of time before humans figure out polarity travel for their life forms. Will they figure out dimensional travel? How long will we be safe after that? A million years? Ten million years? No, we must make the humans understand they can not make and break treaties as it suits them.”
Meliss took a long look at me before he continued. “Sherry, has informed me she believes she can get support from among the humans. Even if it’s only a couple hundred thousand ships, it would be a help.”
It was one of those impossible situations. I didn’t want Sherry trying to organize the clones. It was a moot point. She was the only one who could. “I know what she’s thinking. There are those who have been bred and designed by the humans and are looked on as meaningless life forms, even if they are human themselves. It will be risky trying to contact and organize them. It would mean death to her if she is captured.”
Meliss nodded. “She understands the consequences if she’s caught. I am neither for, nor against her in this decision. However once she starts I will give her my full support and help her in anyway I possibly can.”
A hint of a smile crossed his face for the briefest of moments. “You, better than anyone, should know Sherry doesn’t change her mind after she decides on a plan.”
Unconsciously, I closed my eyes as I remembered a different life on a space station named UF-2. Sherry gave me advice over the years and she was never wrong. Although she was never commissioned in the military, she was my best friend and my confidant while I was stationed on that frontier port.
I never did understand why she spent ten years of her life there with me. She could have gone anywhere she wanted, any time she wanted. Most any place would have been a thousand times better than UF-2, but stay she did. I would be eternally grateful. I would probably never know why she stuck it out with me.
Toni got dead serious. “It’s agreed. We meet at Vell in two days. Call a war council and bring it to a vote.”
Vell was the Pash capital city. I knew why the meeting was going to be there. To make it official. The meeting would be either a declaration of war, or an adoption of hands off and let the Trag handle the humans on their own. I knew the purpose of this meeting at Avar, at this time, was to make an unofficial decision. In some ways the Pash lived a very black and white life. There was right and then there was wrong, with very little gray area in between. After living with them for the past forty two years, I knew what we were headed for. Deep down inside my heart there was no doubt of the outcome when it came to a vote. Unlike humans the Pash didn’t make and break treaties as it pleased them.
The meeting was over. I wanted to talk to Meliss, but he was quickly gone. Wrapping my arms around Toni’s neck I gave him a kiss. “How do you think they will vote if it comes to war?”
He sighed as he studied my eyes. “They will vote for honoring the treaty.”
“Let’s go talk to Sherry and Meliss. I want to know how she’s planing on contacting the clones without getting herself arrested for sedition against the Earth Alliance.” I was pulling on his hand, urging him to walk out to the ship with me.
We arrived at Sherry and Meliss’s home minutes later, even though it was a galaxy away. It no longer surprised me how quick the Pash starships jumped time and distance.
Sherry met us at the door, as Toni and I deboarded the ship. “I felt you coming, and don’t try and make me change my mind. We need all the help we can get, and then some. The Earth Alliance is going to outnumber us better than a hundred to one.”
Toni had spent years teaching me how to bury my mind thoughts so others couldn’t read me, but I usually didn’t bother. It was a mental gymnastics exercise and normally I didn’t care who was hearing what I was thinking. Sherry had picked up my free thoughts and she was right. I intended to try and stop her. Thinking about it, this wasn’t strictly between Trag and humans. This was a moral issue about right and wrong. Humans should be involved against any wrong, even if it was a treaty with plant life forms. Humans liked the idea of a treaty, when it was learned those plants could possibly wipe out the human race. Now, greed had taken the place of honor. Humans wanted to ignore the treaty as they settled in the mineral and energy rich Trag galaxy.
Sherry backed up from the door. “Come on in. Meliss hasn’t returned yet. I imagine he is working to get the word out about the meeting in two days.”
It didn’t escape my attention that Sherry was wearing a floor length, golden yellow, gown. Because she was a product of the Trag genetic engineering, Sherry was well endowed with an ample bust, tiny waist, and abundant hips. Meliss liked his sexy wife to wear clothes that showed off her figure to the max. Like myself, and a couple thousand others on UF-2, Sherry had been contaminated with the Trag virus which carried a specific DNA code. After the change, she could have walked into any Trader Outpost and been their number one show girl.
There was a blessing in that Trag virus, along with the curse. Sherry and I both agreed that the blessings outweighed the curse. She married Meliss and I married Toni because of what the Trag virus did to us. We each gave birth to two girls which was a first for Trag mates. Again it was because of the Trag virus. Up until Sherry and me, Pash mates only gave birth to males. Sometimes there’s a silver lining in that black cloud.
Sherry walked ahead of us into the living room and motioned for Toni and me to find a seat in one of the chairs or on the divan. She sat down in one of the big cushioned chairs and turned her attention toward me. “I plan on leaving when Meliss returns home. Should be in a couple hours. There is an outpost in the O’Ryan universe where many of the clones pass through. I can make initial contact there.”
“You’ve been there?” Sherry’s past wasn’t something I knew anything about. I knew she was a clone herself. She was also the most intelligent person I had ever met.
She shook her head and her golden earrings tinkled. Reaching up with her right hand, she pushed her long red hair back away from her face. “No, it wasn’t a place I ever considered visiting. I didn’t need anything they could provide and I had nothing to offer anyone as helpful information.”
“I’ll go with you.” I could feel her protest before she said it. “You need someone to guard your back. Who is the least likely person to do that without looking like they were guarding you? Me, of course.”
Sherry looked at Toni and then me. “There is no need. I can...”
“No you can’t. I tried that same trick by myself already today. It’s no good wishing you had brought a friend along when you are up to your armpits in pirates or slavers. Wishing doesn’t make them go away.” I was determined I was going with Sherry, even if I couldn’t stay more than a couple days. I would have to return in two days to be at the meeting when the Pash voted whether to go to war or not.
Sherry was quiet for a long time before she spoke. “If you’re determined, I don’t guess I can stop you.”
Toni turned to look me in the eyes as he reached for my right hand. “I’m coming too. It may be for only half a day, but I’m coming.”
I had never seen Toni angry, but when I was Captain of UF-2 I did see what a man looked like after he had pulled a phaser on Toni. It wasn’t a pretty picture. I was glad he made the offer. “Thanks, but let’s not go together. I would rather the locals didn’t connect you with Sherry and me.”
He nodded in agreement. “I’ll go in first then. Ten or fifteen minutes ahead of you and Sherry.”
I was pulling on Toni’s hand as I rose off the couch. “Sherry, give us thirty minutes. Meet me in space far enough from the outpost they won’t be picking us up on the sensors. You have the co-ordinates, or do we fly around the O’Ryan universe looking over outposts?”
Toni’s ship picked up extra looks as it appeared on the pad outside Durus Nine. Polarity drive was instant travel. It was as if the ship wasn’t there and then it was. There were more looks as two Pash walked into Rims Traders Post.
A typical traveler’s watering hole, it was busy with life forms who looked death in the eye each day as they traveled out into the vastness of uncharted space. When they returned alive from exploring, they wanted to let off built up tensions and have a couple years of fun in one or two days before they set off again to cheat death or find it. The law usually looked the other way, or it didn’t exist in these kind of places.
Meliss motioned toward an empty booth. “Let’s take that one.”
As Toni and Meliss were walking toward it, a huge man stepped up in front of it. “This is my booth. You want to sit here, then you have to pay me.”
Toni gave the man a hint of a smile. “Are you the owner of this place?”
The guy nodded yes. “Sure. You ladies want to sit in my booth for free, then I have a couple men who would like to buy your drinks.”
Toni glanced at Meliss and gave a wink. “That would be nice, but I’m afraid someone is confused. We aren’t ladies.”
“You look like women. I have a couple girls who that like that kind of guy. You buy them drinks and the booth is yours.” His mouth curled up into a false smile.
Meliss took a step toward the man. “I believe you have everything wrong. We aren’t ladies, we aren’t butch, dyke, or gay, and this isn’t your booth. Go back to your friends at the table. This conversation is over.”
“The hell you say!” He was dropping his hand to his phaser on his hip.
Meliss’s hand came across the man’s face. Meliss had his claws out. The guy was spun around to his right as he flew into the empty booth.
Up until that moment the bar had been a low roar of voices and sounds. It was as if there was a master switch in the universe and all sound had been shut off. It was instantly deathly quiet. All eyes focused on the three men.
Chair legs were dragging on the floor as his friends at the table were rising to pull weapons. Before they had found their feet, they were looking into the business end of the huge blaster Toni carried on his hip.
Toni shrugged his shoulders as he held his aim. “If your weapon clears the holster you’re dead. One or all three, makes me no difference.”
From across the room a woman’s voice was heard. “Boys, if you ain’t ever seen a Pash, you’ve met one now. They move quicker than greased lightening and have the strength of four men. If you ever heard any of the old tales about them, figure most of it was the truth rather than exaggeration.”
The men looked into Toni’s yellow eyes and vertical pupils. Their own eyes growing wider in response as it registered on their brains. The one closest to Toni was slowly moving his hand away from his weapon. “Oh shit...”
The three men hesitated, knowing the situation was out of their control. Spacers didn’t survive the grim reaper by being stupid. Drawing a weapon when one was already pointed in your direction was stupid. Drawing a weapon on a legend was beyond stupid. They had heard the stories told about Pash, even if they had never met one. One of them slowly motioned with his left hand toward the body in the booth. “Can we have Greg? If he’s not dead then he needs medical.”
“Sure.” Toni slid his blaster back into the holster as he backed up from the booth. Meliss stepped off to the other side.
As the men rose from the table and walked over to pick up their friend, Meliss pointed toward the booth in the corner of the room, where a man was extending his arm across the table. “If you plan on using that needle gun you have up your sleeve, I suggest you take your best shot right now. If I sit down and you are still pointing that thing in my direction, I’ll kill you.”
The arm stopped moving as the guy was swallowing. Looking around, he pulled his arm back across the table.
Meliss nodded in his direction. “Smart move.”
“Holy father!” The men had pulled the big man out and rolled him over to pick him up. Attached to the guy’s face by a strip of skin, his ear was lying on the table. The skin on the left side of his face was peeled back to his nose. A pool of blood was on the table where his face had been. One of the men pushed the man’s skin back as best he could.
Meliss glanced at the guy as they picked him up. “He’s lucky I didn’t want to hurt him.”
As the spacers carried their comrade out of the bar the babble picked back up. There was a difference though, as most everyone, humans and aliens, kept glancing over toward Toni and Meliss. Everyone was trying to tell some of the old stories they had heard about Pash.
A multi armed bot rolled over to the table, cleaned the blood off, and then rolled away to clean another table, as it dutifully carried out its single minded functions.
Meliss and Toni slid into the booth as they pulled their blasters and laid them on their lap. Some of those spacers in that bar were either drunk enough, or ignorant enough, to want to kill a Pash because they were a legend.
A reptilian female walked over to the Pash. “What will it be boys? You here for a little fun and games, or to see how the lower life forms live?
Meliss recognized the voice as the female who had announced to the spacers that they were Pash. He glanced over at Toni and then back to the female. “Two frozen drey will be it, unless you can point us toward a repro lab experiment.”
She gave Meliss a sharp look as she shook her head. “I’ll get the two frozen drey.”
After walking over to the bar and talking to the reptilian bartender, she picked up a tray and placed three flasks on it. She walked back over to the Pash and set the tray down as she slid in beside Tony. “I’m Vin. We don’t advertise clones in here. Is it business or pleasure you are seeking?”
Toni held out his hand over hers. “Strictly business. We are looking for help.”
“Help?” Vin looked dubious as she rolled the palm of her left hand up under Toni’s fist.
He dropped ten gems and two gold coins into her palm. “Humans are trespassing in the Trag Galaxy. It could lead to war.”
The gems and coins disappeared into a pocket on her skirt. “You looking for mercenaries, or what?”
“No, just honest people. The Earth Alliance made a treaty with the Trag and now are ignoring it.” Toni watched the cold spill out of his flask as he pulled it over in front of him.
“And you think the clones will fight for nothing because you ask them to?” Vin looked at Toni and then over at Meliss with suspicion.
Meliss studied the woman sitting beside Toni. She was a Monta, her heritage was of the reptilian family. She had long lashes over red oval eyes. She was either a product of genetic engineering, or serious plastic surgery. Montas didn’t have eyelashes and their faces were longer. Vin had a lot of human looks in her features. Obviously she was designed, or shaped, to please the human traffic that passed through the outpost.
“You’re a clone.” Meliss said it without feeling in his voice. He didn’t want to make their first contact angry.
Vin stared at Meliss for many seconds before she answered. “Yes, I am. Was that a guess, or have you met natural born Monta?”
Toni gave Meliss a slight nod. “We have visited Agus-Sse, your home planet. Your facial features and figure are different from those we visited.”
She reached up with her left hand and touched her face. “Humans have a desire to make everything they meet into an image of themselves. The closer aliens resemble humans, the easier it is to accept us as useful, or at least a step above ignorant beasts. Yes, I’m a genetic product of the human labs. I worked here for several years before I found out Montas don’t have breasts or a small waist. I thought I was normal until then. What’s your point?”
“The point is, you hear a lot about what is going on among the clones. Do they still talk about a rebellion? If they are, how do we contact them?” Toni turned in the booth so he could give Vin his full attention.
She shook her head. “How do I know this isn’t part of an Earth Alliance trick to find and destroy any potential threat against them?”
Meliss gave her a nod of his head. “I think you forget where we are. All you have to do is stand up and yell we are part of the Earth Alliance. Everyone in here would be trying to kill us. There is a second problem, when did you ever hear of Pash teaming up with the Earth Alliance? We tolerate the species. Some of us have taken humans as mates. Not all humans are bad, and not all clones think ill of the Earth Alliance. If you are happy with what the genetic labs did to you, then most likely my friend and I will not walk out of here alive.”
Vin held rolled her hands over and looked at them. “Happy with what I am? I’ve accepted it. I’m a genetic mess, but I’ve accepted my life. I can never get pregnant, lay eggs, nor live like a Monta or human. The traders that stop by tell me how beautiful I am. I know they are starved for any kind of female relationship. I give them what they desire and they leave, promising me they will be back to marry me when they get rich. They won’t ever get rich. I know that.”
Vin’s eyes showed great sadness as she looked at Meliss. “I’m a freak, designed for pleasing men. I’m very good at it. I guess I’m not anything more than a pet. The person you want to talk to is a woman who goes by the name of Dora. She comes in here from time to time. You’ll be more likely to catch her in a little café on the other side of this settlement. If she has anyone with her, give them time to leave. A lot of the ones she deals with sell information to both sides.
It had been a long time since Sherry and I had walked into a trader’s post. Sherry was one step ahead of me. She was wearing a metalic gold bustier, black jacket, black skin tight pants and high heeled black boots. Her long red hair was caught in a ponytail and cascaded down to her diree. She was wearing a pistol on her right hip and a sword on her left. As she walked into the barroom, she received more than her fair share of catcalls and instant offers to visit the backroom or someone’s spaceship.
I was right behind Sherry. My outfit was a white satin blouse with sheer, billowing, gossamer sleeves. My pants were black and I also had on high heeled black boots. I had a big wide black belt around my tiny waist. Fastened to the belt where the big silver belt buckle was, and in the middle of the back of the waist belt, was another belt dropping down on my right hip to a holster slung low on my hip. The bottom of the holster was strapped to my leg, just above the knee so it wouldn’t bounce or move when I walked. The jeweled dagger was on my left side, riding high on my hip in the sheath. The sheath fastened so the dagger handle tilted forward so it could be quickly and easily drawn. I had pulled my hair into a ponytail too. In case Sherry and I got into a fight in the bar, I didn’t want to have my hair in my eyes. My shoulder purse was small. I carried it on a gold chain over my left shoulder. As I was right handed, I wanted my right arm free without excess baggage.
Vin turned her head to see what was causing all the excitement in the bar. “New blood. They don’t look worn out. If they came here looking for adventure, they are going to be severely tested, staying alive and away from the slavers. Slavers will kill to get their hands on anyone who looks like them.”
Toni leaned over and whispered. “They can take care of themselves. The blonde killed six men and two Churters this morning.”
Vin’s head snapped around to look Toni in the eyes. “You’re kidding? She looks like a slaver’s dream machine…., You know her?”
“She is my mate.” Toni’s eyes were gleaming.
Vin’s face showed disbelief. “And Red?”
Meliss gave a hint of a smile. “Sherry is my mate.”
“They look human.” Vin glanced at the two women before turning her attention back to the Pash.
“They are.” Meliss responded.
Vin turned to study the two women as they walked across the room to an empty table. She was trying to figure out how anyone who looked like those two women could be so deadly. She decided it proved the old adage, looks can be deceiving.
Sherry and I knew Toni and Meliss were in the bar before we ever walked in. We didn’t want to acknowledge we knew them, as we were hoping to double our chances of making contact with the clone underground organization.
Before we had walked halfway across the room a couple men were already following us to an empty table. Sherry and I never sat down as the men split up and walked over to opposite sides of the table we had stopped at.
“You need something?” Sherry looked at the man to her right.
I glanced in his direction. He was medium built and had a few scars on his left check he'd never taken the time to have removed. His clothes were well worn, as was the phaser he carried on his hip. I turned my attention back to his companion. He was a good match, except for the scars. In my mind I classified them as traders or movers of merchandise. They didn’t quite have the look of slavers or pirates, but they were only a small step above. I guess it was a very important step.
The man to Sherry’s right pulled the chair back. “What you ladies looking for? Tom and I can help you find it. You want to explore the edge of space? We know spacers who are outbound. They would be glad to have company such as yourselves. Or if you are looking for...”
“I don’t think you have what we are looking for. Why don’t you use your retro jets and park your ass back where you just left.” Sherry gave him a disgusted look, as her left hand dropped down to the handle of her sword.
The guy was too infatuated with Sherry’s body to take the hint or notice where her left hand was resting. “Why don’t you tell me what it is you are looking for. Tom and I might have it.”
Shaking her head Sherry sighed. “What is it I’m saying that you don’t understand? You need it in clearer language? Drop dead. Get lost. You annoy the hell out of me and remind me of Wubbe vomit.”
In spite of my best efforts not to, I chuckled. “Wubbe vomit? I guess they do, don’t they?”
“Glad to see you find us amusing.” The man pulled back the chair and was starting to sit down.
I knew what was coming. I reached up over my back pulling my sword the same time Sherry drew hers. Sherry was too close to the table and had to take a step back as she brought her sword out of the scabbard. She made a sweep with it under the chair seat. She cut the back legs out of the chair. Caught off balance, as he was more down then up, the man went over backwards with the chair as the chair legs fell outward. He sprawled out on the floor with what was left of his chair.
Because the Queen’s Sword didn’t have to be powered into what it touched to collapse molecular structure, I didn’t have to position for the swing as I brought it up over my head and down to cut the chair on my right. The man named Tom wasn’t as far down into the chair when it disappeared under him. He didn’t go down. He stumbled into the space vacated by the chair as he caught his balance.
I took a stance with the sword ready to swing if he made any threatening moves or went for his weapon. Tom’s eyes turned to two white balls of fear. He understood how close to dying he had come. He was also smart enough to not challenge me.
There was a solid thunk when Sherry stabbed the point of her sword between the guy’s legs who was lying on the floor. “Only two chairs at this table. I guess that means you need to find someplace else to sit.”
The man turned white as he looked down. It was with a cough when he managed to speak. “I think you’re right. Sorry, my mistake. We meant no harm.”
Pulling her sword out of the floor, Sherry gave a slight nod of her head as she took a stance, ready to attack if the man wanted to press the fight. It was unnecessary as the man found his feet. Both men scurried away as quickly as they had arrived.
Vin had been watching, along with everyone else in the bar. “Those girls are deadly. They handle those swords as good or better than any bounty hunters I’ve seen.” She looked over at Toni. “The chair by the Blonde disappeared when her sword touched it. It’s been a long time since I heard stories about the Sword of the Queen. I’m guessing I just saw the sword in action?”
A hint of a smile crossed Toni’s face. “It’s possible.”
FROM THE EDITOR: Barbie and I thank all of you for your comments and kudos, and want to remind you that comments and kudos are the only payment authors receive here at Top Shelf. We are very pleased that you are enjoying this story and we thank you for all your interest.
UF-2 BOOK 2 CHAPTER 3
BY BARBIE LEE
EDITED BY CATHERINE LINDA MICHEL
Vin turned her attention back to the sword the blonde was holding and was carefully watching to see what the female did with it.
Sherry slipped her sword back in its scabbard before she sat down and pulled her chair up to the table. I had a problem with my sword, I really didn’t want everyone in the bar see it disappear. Sitting down, I was extra careful to make sure I didn’t touch anything. Last thing I needed was to touch the table and have it wink out of existence. I figured most of those in the bar were too slow to see the chair disappear. Without the added distraction of a fight, and because of the large size of the table, it would be very conspicuous if it suddenly wasn’t there. After I sat down I slid the sword under the table and turned loose of it, knowing it was once again behind my back.
Vin was watching as the sword the blond was holding disappeared. “The old tales were right. She does handle the Sword of the Queen.”
She studied Toni’s cat eyes. “If she is your mate that would mean you are the leader of the Pash wouldn’t it? Go talk to Dora. She can point you toward what you seek. Tell her Vin sent you. It wouldn’t hurt to mention you and your mate are... King and Queen?”
‘Wrong bar, we need to go to the café at the other end of the post. I don’t feel any telepaths in here. I do sense a couple individuals who are sensitive enough to feel mental thought.’ Meliss sent Sherry and me a mind thought.
Vin slid out of the booth and then leaned back over the table to look Toni in the eyes. “If you hurt Dora you might as well kill me, because I’ll do my best to kill you, even if you are a King.”
If anyone is with Dora when you find her, wait until they leave. Most of those she deals with are pirates, slavers, spacers, or those like them. Most of them are also merchants of information. Dora collects information. She passes it on to those operating on the fringes of the Earth Alliance. She has saved most of them from getting caught and going to a penal colony at some time or another. A lot of clones owe her their lives. They would look unfavorably on anyone who might hurt her.” She straightened up, turned, and walked over to a table to take an order before going up to the bar.
As Toni and Meliss slid out of the booth they were putting their blasters back in their holsters. Toni dropped a couple coins on the table to pay for the drinks. They never acknowledged Sherry and me as they walked across the room and left.
The lady who had been with Toni and Meliss walked up to our table. “Hi, I’m Vin. May I get you ladies something?”
“A frozen d...”
“Klip.” Vin completed the sentence for me as her eyes looked over toward the booth where Meliss and Toni had been sitting. Still on the table were two frozen drey. The robot was headed toward the table to clean it.
I understood the message. Two groups of strangers walk into a bar and order the same non alcoholic brew. It wouldn’t take a mental giant to add two and two. “Klip would be fine for us.”
Vin was back almost before she left. She leaned down over my shoulder to set the flask in front of me and whispered in my ear. “Two men will be over to pick you ladies up and escort you out of the bar. It will look like you found dates, rather than following the Pash.”
I passed the message to Sherry as I reached into my purse and retrieved eight coins. “Thanks.”
When I dropped them into Vin’s hand she closed her fist and shoved them into the pocket in her skirt. “Be real careful while you are here. You’ll have slavers or their friends following you. Either one of you would fetch a million credits or more on the slave block. The slavers will be dying to get their hands on you two.”
A frown crossed Sherry’s face before she responded. “I guess we will have to make sure to send any slavers we run into, back to the recycle plant won’t we.”
Vin acted like she was wiping the table and didn’t look at either one of us. “The law is bought and paid for, like everything else on this post. They get you in jail and you will be sent to the slavers. Trust no one.”
“Even the two you are sending over?” Sherry said it before I managed.
“Two million credits will test anyone’s loyalty. You two are walking retirement packages to anyone who can kidnap you.” Vin straightened up, turned, and walked back to the bar.
‘This is worse than I thought. I hadn’t counted on you being a prize package. I only figured on you dodging the Earth Alliance. Staying out of the hands of slavers, pirates, or anyone who thinks you are the golden goddess wasn’t in my mind.’ I sent Sherry a mind thought as I checked the room for possible trouble.
Because she was facing me she was able to keep an eye on the part of the room I had my back to. ‘Where I’m going after I make contact will be safe. Clones know what it’s like to be treated as merchandise. Slavers are hated by most clones. They kill them when the opportunity arises.’
I didn’t like the idea I would have to leave Sherry behind when I returned home but her mind was made up. Reaching across my waist with my right hand I inched my dagger up out of its sheath and up into my hand. I turned it upside down and laid the blade up under my wrist. Toni’s mom, Lass, had taught me a lot of things besides how to act like a queen. Pash didn’t start fights, but they most certainly ended most of them.
Sherry nodded, knowing what I had done. “Company, two men coming up behind you.”
Sherry and I rose out of our chairs. I turned to look at the men approaching. Escorts or trouble?
One of them held out his hand. “We’ve been looking for you. I guess we should have been more definite where we were going to meet. Come on, we’re late.”
“Sorry, our misunderstanding. We’re ready if you are.” I checked for hidden weapons before I turned and put the guy on my left, as I wanted my right hand free and his in a bind if these weren’t the men Vin lined up for us.
Sherry did the same thing to the other guy as she stepped up beside him. He reached over and put his arm around her waist. They walked out ahead of us.
We were outside the bar before Sherry’s escort dropped his arm and put a little space between her and him. Sherry’s right hand dropped down on her blaster. The movement wasn’t lost on the man. He held up his right hand with an open palm. “Easy does it. Vin said your mates were looking for clones. If you think I’m stupid enough to try and kidnap a Pash’s mate, then you’re wrong. Although I’ve never met a Pash I’ve heard enough stories to know I don’t want to be on the wrong side if I do.”
Sherry had her hand resting on her blaster. “Words are cheap and worthless. Thanks for walking us out. We can make it from here.”
The one who was with me slowly moved to put a little distance between us. “If I did anything foolish would you kill me with the knife you have in your right hand, or would you shoot me?”
Turning to face him I slid the dagger back into its sheath. “Distance is the deciding factor.”
He nodded. “I figured as much. Your mates went to talk to Dora.” He pointed toward the other man. “He’s Dan, I’m Sandy, we will walk with you to the café where they are meeting.”
Looking over at Sherry she agreed. “Okay, but you stay on my left and you don’t get behind me.”
A smile spread across Sandy’s face. “That’s a plan I can live with.”
“I feel them too.” Sherry glanced in my direction, as we passed one of the darker buildings.
Raising my left arm to keep Sandy at a distance, I took a quick look behind us. “We have company. I don’t know you, so keep your hand off your phaser. Sherry and I will take care of the problem.”
Sherry had her blaster in her right hand in less than the blink of an eye. “Six? In the third door to the building ahead.”
“Eight... nine, three behind us came out of the bar. They must have been on their communicators the minute we walked into the bar. Glad we didn’t stay longer or there might be a couple dozen slavers by now.” I pushed Sandy over beside Dan to the left of Sherry as I compacted our little group.
Sherry had stopped and waited. “How you want to handle it? I take the six in front and you the three behind us?”
I pointed my finger at Dan and Sandy. “You two even think of drawing your phasers and you’re dead. The slavers are getting nervous since we stopped.”
I took a quick look at Sherry. “Why don’t I hose down the doorway and see if I drive them back into the hole they crawled out of, or see if they flush?”
Sherry backed up a couple steps to keep Sandy and Dan in her view ahead of her. “Go for it.”
The Pash war scream I let out as I ran toward the doorway where the slavers were waiting in ambush, wasn’t the cry Toni tried to teach me. I was positive it still curdled the blood of normal humans who had never heard it. I could feel the slavers hesitate in confusion, wondering why their prize packages hadn’t stepped in front of them by now and what was that awful noise?
One of them stepped out to check for the two women they wanted to kidnap. It was a fatal error, as Sherry nailed him with her deadly aim. I had shot at the pirates at the same time, but running and shooting wasn’t my thing. What I never counted on, was my war cry bringing up those from behind. A phaser blast heated the air and part of the building front to my right. Someone had their weapon on stun and I was the intended target.
I dropped and rolled right, knowing he would be adjusting his aim to his left. The air where I had been standing rippled and warmed from a second phaser blast. I took a snap shot back down the street behind Sherry, knowing my chances of hitting anything were slim to none. I wanted to make them think about hunting cover, rather than plastering my space with blasts from phasers.
Sherry’s blaster barked twice as she concentrated her attention on the five men I had my back to. I took a deep breath and waited for the men behind Sherry to regroup. It didn’t take long as one of them leaned out from behind a building and was randomly firing, hoping to hit me or keep me off balance. Years of training under Lass paid off as I focused on my target and squeezed the trigger. The second and third slavers were already exposing themselves before the first one died. They figured three weapons pointed in my direction would keep me hunkered down and unable to respond. They had taken that fatal step out as their friend died. His death distracted them as they never took careful aim. They tried to spray my position with phaser blasts. I was focused. The second one and then the third one died a quick death as two more shots from Sherry’s blaster blistered the air.
Blasters barking further down the street behind me, got my attention as I shifted position to see if we had more slavers joining the group. It was Toni and Meliss. Those big cannons they normally carried on their hips were chewing hunks out of the building where the remaining slavers were. As quickly as it began it was over.
Dan was motioning for us to hurry out of there. “The law will be here in a minute. If they catch us here, then it’s jail for all of us. You might have escaped this batch but you won’t escape again if Crus gets his slimy hands on you.”
It was a warning Sherry and I didn’t need repeated. We sprinted down the street, yelling to Toni and Meliss to run.
We kept Sandy and Dan with us when we walked into the Star’s End Café. We found a table and sat down, hoping we looked like travelers. Meliss and Toni sat facing the door. Sherry and I sat facing the other side of the room. We didn’t pull our blasters as that would have been too conspicuous. We each had a hand in our laps.
Dan leaned over in my direction. “Dora is the lady in the booth by the kitchen door.”
I relayed the information to Sherry, as she took a casual look around the room. Dora had someone with her. When the serving bot rolled over we ordered lunch while we waited.
Sandy was watching the door when he stiffened. “Crus... and I’m betting he is looking for the two women who escaped the slavers. He has four men with him.”
Sherry and I were facing away from the door, but we could feel the men Sandy mentioned. We pulled our blasters and brought them up under the table to keep them hidden. I felt Toni and Meliss do the same thing. Even Sandy and Dan had pulled their weapons.
Crus stepped into the café and scanned the room. His attention focused in at the back of the café. Two women sitting at a table on the far side of the room. Even from the back side they looked like money. It had to be them. He motioned to his men who had their weapons drawn. “That’s them.”
The café grew deathly quiet as all the patrons turned to look at the armed men in the doorway... everyone except the two women over on the far side of the room. They didn’t turn to look. Crus knew it had to be the two he wanted. They were his retirement plan. The slavers had already posted a bounty of one million credits for the women.
Crus was headed across the room where he could get a good look at the women from the front. With four armed men, weapons drawn, and two more men who had moved in from the back door, Crus never imagined anyone would be stupid enough to challenge him.
Toni and Meliss pushed Dan and Sandy back out of the line of fire as they stood up. At that same instant in time, Sherry and myself rolled out of our chairs to the right and left as we spun to face the armed men. I could see disbelief on the face of the big man up front. I guess shock would be an apt description on the faces of the men beside him.
“NOW!” Was in my mind and my ears as I squeezed the trigger. Less than one hundredth a second and it was over. Seven men were dead. The five in front of us and the two by the door leading into the kitchen.
I can’t say everyone in that café was in shock. Most of them had either been in, or seen, fire fights before. Living on the fringes of space wasn’t the place for the timid, or the bible thumpers. Those kind of people would come later and demand everyone be disarmed. For now, this part of the world belonged to the bold, the adventurous, the con artists, the pirates and the slavers.
Crus and his kind were a product of the kind of life they dealt with everyday. He may have been an honest man when he took his job as justice of the peace. I can’t say if it was the illegal money that flowed through his world that corrupted him and he wanted part of it. He had become worse than the pirates and slavers he was dealing with. Bad law was worse than no law.
I’d never be able to tell Crus he had made a mistake in going up against a telepathic Pash. Toni might not have been able to read everything Crus had in his thoughts, but it was enough.
Dora stood up and looked at the lifeless form of Crus. “That’s been needed for a long time.”
The man who had been sitting with her at the table slowly rose as he stared at the two dead bodies beside him, before he headed for the door. “I’ll be going. I wasn’t here, I didn’t see a thing.”
It must have been the same idea in everyone’s mind, as they all scrambled for the exit. Everyone except Dora and our little group fled the café. She walked over to where our little group was, as Sandy and Dan found their feet. She nodded at Meliss. “I saw you at Ferris One, about twenty four years back. I know you star travel. You and your friends might want to put some distance behind you. Crus was on the payroll of the slavers. They aren’t going to be too pleased to learn you took him off that payroll.”
She turned her attention to Toni. “I’ve never seen two Pash at the same time. Important business, or passing through?”
“Actually my business.” Sherry slid her blaster back into her holster.
Dora turned her attention to Sherry. “Oh? Traveling in the company of two Pash? I hope your business takes you on, because this place is going to become your nemesis if you hang around. Even with two Pash bodyguards.”
Dora looked me over before turning back to Sherry. “I’m betting you ladies are what this is all about. The slavers saw you arrive and they wanted you. Not often we get women who look like you two out here. Most of the women are smart enough to keep their distance from places like this. Again, I strongly suggest you keep moving. Enough money will be placed on the table to purchase a small army with one purpose. Capture you two.”
“Money has already been placed on the table, as you put it. Crus and the others were looking for Sherry and Brandy because they had killed a couple slavers a few minutes earlier.” Toni walked around the table beside me as he was talking.
Sandy had found his feet. “Dora, Vin sent them down here. The one talking is the mate of the woman. Vin said she carries the Sword of the Queen.”
“Mate? Strange? She looks human. I didn’t know Pash took mates outside their species.” Dora was giving me a closer scrutiny.
“Long story, let’s get back to why we are here. Sherry is determined to find the clone nucleus.” I pointed toward Sherry with my left hand.
Sherry picked up her cue. “Humans are trespassing in the Trag galaxy. The treaty with the Earth Alliance strictly forbids humans or any animal forms of life in that galaxy. It seems the Earth Alliance is determined to not only let the trespassers get away with it, they are covertly encouraging it, and backing it up with threats of war if the Trag harm any humans.”
“I’ve heard the rumors. Supposedly one can get rich just by dropping in and picking up a handful of gems with little or no mining. Those kind of rumors would convince any pirate worth his salt to take the risk of prospecting in the Trag galaxy. I haven’t met anyone who has struck it rich yet, but rumors like that do tend to pull in everyone.” Dora put her hands on her slender hips as she studied Sherry. “Why the clones and why would you care about the Trag? Aren’t they a bunch of plants?”
Before Sherry had a chance to answer, Toni interrupted. “If I’m going to go see some slavers who put a bounty on my mate, where would I start?”
“You’re going after the slavers?” Dan coughed it out.
“Better than letting them come after Sherry and Brandy. Our mates aren’t the only ones the slavers have abducted, or tried to. If we take care of this now Sherry will have a little less to worry about. You know where they would most likely be?” Toni dropped his hand down on that huge blaster he carried on his hip.
Dan was shaking his head no, as Sandy answered. “They took over the Control Center by pad six. Most of the time that’s where you will find the majority of them. They can keep an eye on the spacers coming and going and what everyone is shipping. Kind of like a help yourself buffet. You like what’s moving in front of you, then you take it. If it’s not worth the trouble or it belongs to another slaver let it pass.”
“How many?” Meliss waited for an answer.
“I’m not sure. Forty or so from what I’ve heard.” Sandy figured the conversation was over. Two men going up against forty were not good odds.
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“How many are there at any given time would depend on what was on the agenda. One or two would be there if everyone is out looking for your mate and her friend. Or around forty if they are all there for a meeting.” Dora added her knowledge to the conversation.
“Sounds fair. Point us in the direction and we will take it from there.” Meliss gave a quick look at Toni as he grinned.
“I’m in.” I wanted a piece of this action. “Sherry can have her talk with Dora and we can get out of the way while she is taking care of business.”
Dan gave a quick glance at Sandy. “Count us in. They will find out we were with you when you killed that first bunch and Crus. Either way we are dead men. They will drop a bounty on our heads too. There won’t be anyplace we can go and feel safe. Taking a few of them with me before I die will be a better way to go.”
Sandy shook his head. “That place is shielded. I don’t think we can make it in. It would take a Star Destroyer to blow a hole in that shield.”
Toni put his left arm over my shoulder. “Or one sword. I think we have the shield problem licked.”
“We are dead men.” Sandy took a quick glance in my direction after he said it.
“I know the expression, and you could be right.” I was laughing as I gave Sherry a wink. “I will be back in five days to check on you. If you have star jumped, leave information with Dora. If that isn’t possible, then leave it with Sandy, Dan, or Vin.”
Dora shook her head. “It's dangerous leaving information with another on this post. I suggest you call.”
A smile spread across the faces of Meliss, Toni, and myself as Sherry shook her head. “Can’t call across two billion light years.”
“What has that got to do with anything? I know you can’t call across two billion... The Pash use Polarity Drive? You traveled two billion light years from home?” Dora was in shock as she calculated the distance in her mind. Dan and Sandy weren’t doing a whole lot better.
“I’ll leave the message. You take care. This might be a game to you, but a phaser can kill you as quickly as it does everyone else.” Sherry walked over and gave me a hug.
She turned and took Meliss in her arms. “I will miss you. Be careful, our daughters need you at home.”
Meliss gave Sherry a tender hug and a kiss before he straightened up. “Come back safe. I hate to think I would have to kill all slavers to avenge any harm that may come to you.”
I don’t know if Dora or the two men put much stock in that remark Meliss made. I knew it wasn’t an idle threat. If anything happened to Sherry I was positive Meliss would spend the rest of his life hunting down and killing slavers. Pash didn’t start fights, but they sure finished most of them.
Five of us walked out of the café headed toward Control Center on pad six. The slavers on this post forfeited their lives when they put a bounty on Sherry and me. Now it was time to make them pay the price.
We didn’t go in the front door. We went in the back way, which wasn’t actually a door until I made one. Before we reached the shield, I pulled my sword and pushed it into the force field. We could hear the shield generators screaming as they overloaded when my sword sucked all the energy out of them. A bright fireworks of energy beams poured into the place where I had the sword stuck in the shield. A black hole formed at the tip of the blade and radiated outward as it collapsed the shield. Toni, Meliss, and myself had seen these results before. I can honestly say, Dan and Sandy were in total disbelief.
“Now!” I charged forward as the shield collapsed, and swung at the armored wall of the Control Center. There was a flash of light as the wall disappeared before us.
Toni and Meliss were already past me, firing as they ran into a room with only one man in it. The inside walls weren’t armored and Toni blasted the door in front of him. Meliss turned to his right and blasted a hole in the wall. Those rooms were empty as they should be. Toni ran into the next room, past the crater he had left when he blasted the door. Meliss did the same as he charged into the room through the gap in the wall.
I was right behind Toni as I sprinted for the door twenty feet away to my right. Toni and Meliss waited until I had reached the door. I was standing off to the side as I held the sword in my right hand and swung it toward the door. The door disappeared in a flash as the blade touched it. With the blaster I was carrying in my left hand, I hosed down the inside without even aiming, knowing I wasn’t hitting anyone. Dozens of phasers answered my shots. The slavers already knew something was wrong when their force field collapsed. They were waiting, and figured we were coming in the door. They poured a sweeping death of phaser fire into that doorway, guaranteed to kill anyone stupid enough to step forward.
“Crank it up.” Was in my mind. I was firing wild random shots back into the room. It was my job to make the slavers inside that room think that was where the attack was coming from. Toni and Meliss blasted holes in the walls. Toni and Meliss were at a full run when they made passages through the walls. The slavers were caught looking in the wrong direction when Toni and Meliss ran into the room, a nano second after the respective holes were blown. It was over in less than a heartbeat. The slavers were out matched.
I turned around to look at Dan and Sandy who hadn’t even made it into the room where I was. “Put up your weapons. This has already ended.”
Sandy hesitated before holstering his weapon. “Only a couple of them here? We missed most of them, didn’t we?”
Toni and Meliss walked out of the room as I shook my head. “All of them were here. You have your port back, if you can keep more slavers from moving in.”
Slipping my sword over my back I turned it loose, knowing it had disappeared. I holstered my blaster as I walked over in front of Dan and Sandy. “Hold up your right hands and I’ll swear you in.”
Neither one of them comprehended what they were going to be sworn in for, but they automatically held up their right hands.
“As an active Captain of the Earth Alliance, and still registered as Captain Brandy Winters of UF-2, I hereby do deputize Sandy and Dan as Justices of the Peace on Durus Nine. There’s a lot more to it than that, but it’s legal. You can lower your hands.”
I was looking at two disbelieving faces as they lowered their hands. “You’re the law on this outpost. It’s legal. I’ll drop the paperwork in the post log. The next cargo ship that comes by will hold your comlinks and security badges. Any questions?”
I glanced from one to the other. “If you two pick up where Crus left off, I promise to come back and personally take care of the situation. You're going to find a terrible temptation to help yourself to the money that flows by this post. You'll tell yourself it won’t make any difference if you take some. It either won’t be missed, or those it belongs to won’t report it, as they operate outside the law. Don’t do it. It’s tainted money. It will own you if you touch it. It corrupts and controls the lives of those who touch it. Think of Crus if you are tempted. ”
Staring with disbelieving eyes, Sandy dropped his hand as he shook his head. “You are joking aren’t you?”
“If you think I’m joking go take a look at the thirty one dead bodies in the next room. Deep space isn’t the place for anyone looking for a long life. Trading in slaves will shorten that life even more. I didn’t do you any favors. The slavers may want this post back. If they do, then you both are probably dead men. If they don’t, then the idea you are lawmen may keep any bounty hunters from wanting to kill you for any reward the slavers may place on your heads. Let’s go back over to Crus’s office and I’ll file that report. We need to be going. If you do your job right, this is probably the first and last time you will ever see a Pash.” I didn’t have to tell them that, if they didn’t do their job right, they wouldn’t want to see a Pash. They understood the message that wasn’t spoken.
By the time I left Durus Nine with Toni and Meliss, Sherry had already taken her ship and jumped space. I prayed she stayed safe. If the Earth Alliance had any inkling what I was involved in, I would have been court-martialed and executed. I found the double set of standards I was playing hard to believe myself. I had deputized two men, under the authority given to me as Captain of an outpost, while helping Sherry find people who would fight against that same authority. Now I was headed home to join forces against the Earth Alliance. In simple terms, I told Dan and Sandy to uphold the law while I was breaking the law. The concept would play havoc with the mind if one let it.
Two days passed, and we were leaving home again. I walked up the ramp ahead of Toni. “You drive.”
He stepped up into the ship behind me. “You sure?”
“Yes, you can get us there a lot quicker. I have to bring up the co-ordinates every time I take us anywhere.” I turned around waiting for him to take his seat behind the console.
He nodded as he moved to the console. Running his hand over the console caused a seat to form up out of the floor behind me. The side of the ship flowed back again. “You don’t take that long and besides, you will never learn if you don’t keep doing it.”
Taking my place on the seat that formed under me, I motioned with my finger for us to go. “Maybe I’ll have it figured out when I get to be your age.”
“Are you suggesting I’m old?” The side of the ship opened up again as Toni stood up.
I stood up and turned to look at him. “No, my King. I should be flogged for the mere suggestion you might be old. I was only suggesting you were sufficiently aged to be wiser than me.”
Toni started to step off the ship ahead of me. “I thought that was what you were suggesting.
We walked into the huge meeting hall together. I had been told there were approximately half a million Pash in that hall when it was filled. Today, it was filled past capacity, and more were still arriving. There were millions more Pash waiting at home, or wherever, for the result of this meeting. I could feel Meliss, and the four girls in there somewhere. Of course the girls would be the center of attention for the moment. They were the only natural born Pash females. Up until Sherry and I had daughters, no females were born to the Pash. The Pash took female mates outside their species. That was how Toni found me. I was so lucky in a lot of ways.
I walked with Toni up to the speaker’s stand. The hall was filled with voices, but not the kind most humans would ever hear or understand. It was a calliope of mind thought. It took me close to twelve years to learn how to separate mind thought in a crowd. It’s like humans learn to listen to only one voice in a room full of people chattering. Eventually, I learned to separate the mind chatter and listen in on a particular mind thought.
Toni raised his right arm up in the air and it was as if all sound in the world had been turned off. It became deafening in how quiet it was. “Humans are settling in the Trag universe. In spite of the notice to the Earth Alliance, and repeated warnings to the settlers, more humans keep coming and refuse to leave.”
“In a few minutes, our Queen will ask you to vote in support of the treaty we signed with the Trag. The Earth Alliance has betrayed the Trag by allowing this to continue without taking measures to punish those who trespass. The Earth Alliance has betrayed the Pash, as we also signed the treaty. The treaty was plain. No human settlement would be allowed in the Trag galaxy, in return for the Trag not unleashing any more bio mechanical virus on human life forms. Trade between humans and Trag was agreed upon, on the condition that those who had been infected would be in charge of the trade. That was the treaty the Trag, the Pash, and Humans signed. There have been no revisions, nor new treaties.”
Toni looked over at me. “My Queen.”
I nodded in agreement with Toni. “My Lord.”
Taking a deep breath, I turned my attention to the sea of Pash in front of me. “Your King and I have arranged to meet with the Trag, immediately after we take a vote. We hope to accomplish several things with our visit. We wish to convey to the Trag that the Pash do not break treaties. We want to meet with some of the settlers and convince them it is a situation of utmost importance for them to leave the Trag galaxy immediately, or they will forfeit their lives.”
Toni reached over and put his arm around my waist. He knew how hard this next part was for me.
I made sure my mind was clear before I started. “IF the Earth Alliance believes it has a right to take action against the Trag for killing the trespassers who refuse to leave, they may declare war against the Trag. If the Earth Alliance declares war against the Trag, they are also declaring a war against the Pash. We signed the treaty with the Trag.”
I started to say 'I know my people,' but humans were no longer my people. “I know the humans and they will risk war for the spoils of war. Toni and I have requested a meeting with the President of the Earth Alliance. We will remind him of the treaty with the Trag. We will also inform the Earth Alliance that a broken treaty and war with the Trag, means a broken treaty and war with the Pash.”
Turning my head to look at Toni, I sent him a mind thought. ‘Time to vote’
Toni squeezed me before he looked out across the sea of Pash. “The question is, do we honor our treaty, or do we let the Trag take care of this themselves? Yes is to honor the treaty, no is to let the Trag do this alone. Vote.”
We waited for the hologram generated, blue and white graph, to tally the vote. Seconds later the graph was solid blue. Not one single white showed up on the graph. I was proud of the Pash for their solid commitment to their treaty. I knew this could very well lead to war if the Earth Alliance did not pull the pirates and slavers from the Trag galaxy. How many had to die before it ended, if it began? No doubt our lives would be changed from this point forward.
Hours later Toni and I were on a starship, larger than Toni’s little personal craft. We were going to try and talk some sense into the humans, and their planet grabbing allies. There were no negotiations here. It was a clear case of 'leave the Trag galaxy or die.'
Our first stop, of course, was to visit the Trag. We wanted to reaffirm our commitment of support to the Trag and get a feeling for how bad the situation had degraded.
Toni parked the starship close to the Trag capital. I had been there many times on trade disputes. The Trag weren’t a bad species, if one could call plants an intelligent species. They just took a lot of getting used to.
This starship had teleport capabilities, and we beamed into the conference room. Toni gave me a mind thought as we faced a party of eight Trag across the room. ‘Let’s get serious. The Trag do not have a sense of humor.’
Four Trag separated from the group and walked over to meet us. “You have broken the treaty.”
I stopped several feet back from them. No matter how many times we met, I always thought they looked like walking mushrooms. They had four eyes on stalks, four arms and four legs, on a body that resembled a mushroom. Years back when we first met them, Toni told me they were vegetable life, not animal. It was a never-ending problem for me to comprehend that plants could grow to be intelligent.
Hoping to show respect, I bowed my head as I answered the Trag. “We only recently have learned of the transgressions. We have come to warn the trespassers that they must leave, and that the Pash will honor the treaty with the Trag.”
One of the Trag stepped up in front of the others. “We would be within our rights to kill them.”
Straightening up, I nodded in agreement. “You would. It may also bring war with the humans. I am sure many humans would die, but so would the Trag. You do not understand the numbers of the humans. Take the numbers of the Trag and increase them by several thousand fold. That would be the beginning of the human numbers. Even if you managed to kill several thousand of them to one of your deaths, they would still win in a war of attrition. “
The Trag looked back at the others behind him, before he looked back at me. “We should have destroyed them the first time. We will revise their DNA so they can no longer reproduce.”
I shook my head. “That won’t work. Only those that are infected will not reproduce. I know of your DNA virus. The first plan, where you were going to change all of them into females only able to bear females, could have worked. This second plan is flawed and will not work.”
“Then we will redo the first plan. The treaty was broken and is no longer valid. We are within our rights to wipe them out.” He waited.
Trag didn’t have facial expressions, so I couldn’t tell how serious his statement was. Was war eminent, or would they give us time to try and rectify the situation? “The first plan would have worked. It would have taken them by surprise. It won’t work now. They'll find one of your DNA bio-mechanical balls and it will be all they'll need to declare war. The Trag would not survive. The Pash signed the treaty along with the Trag. Let us see if we can make the humans leave the Trag galaxy, as agreed. If they do not, the Pash will join the Trag in a declaration of war against the humans.” I glanced over at Toni. That was a terrible commitment for me to make. If it came to war, many Pash would die along with the Trag.
“The Pash have never broken a treaty.” Toni was looking at the Trag, as he reaffirmed what I had said.
“The Pash are good, the humans are not.” The Trag studied me for a long time. “You will fight for the Trag? You are human. You also have reason to not like Trag.”
It was a long sigh. So long ago. I was a product of the Trag DNA virus, but now I thanked them for what I was, instead of hating them. “I am not all human. I am Pash. I was born human. That I can not change. My mate is Pash, my daughters are Pash, my friends are Pash and my home is Pash. The Pash part of me is by desire, the human part of me is by fate. I can not change my fate. I can change what I do with my life. I am Pash, I honor the Pash treaty with the Trag.”
“You fight for the Trag?” He waited for confirmation.
“No, I fight with the Trag. The Pash will not fight the Trag battles. I will try and intervene. Please let me see if this can’t be resolved without loss of life. If the humans will voluntarily leave the Trag Galaxy, before we start spilling life forces, it would be beneficial to all parties.” I started to say blood, but the Trag didn’t have blood. I was sure they would know what I meant though. They had dissected enough humans, and other life forms, to know what blood was.
“We shall wipe out all humans who settle in Trag galaxy.” He had all four eyes focused on me.
It didn’t escape me that talking to Trag was a lot like talking to a bot. The had a single purpose mindset. “You would be within your rights, but let me talk to the humans who have broken the treaty first, and see if we can get them to leave.”
“If they do not leave, they die. No human is welcome in Trag galaxy.” He waited for an answer.
“Yes, if they do not leave, they will die. You may kill the humans if they do not honor the treaty. I remind you that there can not be any dissecting of the humans or their allies for your experiments. It is in the treaty.” The problems with broken treaties are that all bets are off when one side stops following the rules. They shouldn’t be shocked when the other side does indescribable things in return.
“We will not agree to more terms. We have the right to protect Trag galaxy.” There was a definite tone in his voice.
I knew what that meant. The Trag would start dissecting the trespassers and designing viruses to wipe out the species. The Trag hated animal life forms. They only tolerated the Pash because of the treaty they had with the Pash. The Trag had captured, and dissected, Toni’s brother. The Pash retaliated with a vengeance. There was no doubt the Trag would have been wiped from existence if they had not signed a truce with the Pash.
It never failed to amaze me how contradictory life is as it moves along in time. At one time I would have killed all the Trag if I could. At one time the Pash were in position to eliminate the Trag. Now, here we were, ready to give our own lives to protect them. Some said it was Karma to go back and face the same problems in life from the other side.
“I would rather you didn’t start dissecting humans right away. Give me some time. I would like for them to leave voluntarily. You are within your right to kill them. I request you don’t make them suffer if you dissect them. Give me thirty days. I need time to contact all parties involved. We will meet with the some of the trespassers and the Earth Alliance.” I may have hated pirates and slavers, but being dissected by the Trag wasn’t the way to die, even for those kinds of life forms. I had a strong feeling the Trag were going to have a lot of lab specimens if those humans who were trespassing on Trag territory didn’t leave. I was going to do everything I could to convince the humans and their allies that they were not going to enjoy what was left of life, if they stayed in the Trag Universe.
“Thirty Earth days. Not one more.” The Trag waited.
Another Trag stepped up and set eight small cylinders on the floor before it backed away.
I glanced over at Toni as I shook my head. “This is going to get messy. I need to see Lass. I want to know what she can tell me about the future.”
“Let’s get to it. Thirty days is awfully short when you’re trying to stop a war.” Toni and I gathered up the cylinders. He touched the relay on his belt and we were back in the starship.
It was times like this that I wished Toni’s mom, Lass was still the reigning Queen of the Pash. I believed, with all my heart, that the hardest thing I ever had to do in my whole life was to commit the Pash to a war. So many lives could be lost on all sides. For what? Because of the greed of a few? If any survived they would look back, as they traded back and forth between Trag and humans, and wonder what the war was all about?
In my heart I knew that millions of lives were going to be lost. Humans had a very nasty record of making and breaking treaties as it suited them. There had to be a way out of this mess. The Earth Alliance had to understand that they could not ignore this treaty.
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Our first stop after leaving the Trag was one of the human settlements on Kcagcu in the Trag Universe. Tony parked our ship close to the settlement. I could tell it shocked and scared those who saw the starship appear. I guess, in a sense, Pash starships appeared as if they were teleported out of nowhere. The polarity drive of the Pash starships meant instant travel.
The settlement was a mixture of pirates, thieves and claim jumpers. They were the human and alien flotsam of life. The scum of life, who wanted to take by force, or by crook, something that didn’t belong to them.
Toni started to transport us into the busiest building there, when I stopped him. I didn’t have to imagine what dropping both of us into the middle of a bunch of pirates would cause to happen. We would appear, and everyone in there would draw their weapon, or dive for cover. We would be dead before I could say, ‘Excuse me’.
We appeared under the ship instead. There were a half dozen men and a couple Sag aliens standing there, with their weapons in hand. One of the men motioned toward Toni with his phaser. “Nice ship. What do you want?”
Most of the men were staring at me. I could feel their minds working on several possibilities. They were thinking I was one of the women who traveled with the pirates. I guess that was the perception I would give, since I was designed to look like a pleasure slave, courtesy of Trag DNA coding.
“We wish to talk to the one who is in charge.” Toni took a careful measure of the men and weapons.
I could feel Toni doing a mind search on these men, and the alien Sag that was with them. I knew with Toni’s strength and speed he could handle them if they decided to kill us for our ship and weapons.
“I’m in charge. What did you bring me?” The man over to our left took a step forward.
Toni shook his head. “I came to trade, and offer a word of warning.”
“What do you have to trade that would be useful to us?” The man stepped up closer.
I held out my hand and opened it. Hundreds of small, round, polished jewels radiated and cast off rainbows of color. “Are you interested in precious stones from the mines of Venus?”
A smile almost spread across his face before he looked skeptical. “Venus is government controlled. No way you could get stones from there. Could you?”
“We could and did.” Always show them the pretty things that dazzle the eye and they will take it.
He reached out his hand. “Let me see.”
I dropped all the jewels in his hand. “Are we trading?”
He wrapped the jewels up in his fist. “You just did. They are mine now,”
Toni nodded. “I figured as much. I guess there is no need of telling you about what else I have to trade?”
The man gave a faint hint of a smile. He opened his hand and dumped the jewels on the ground. “Depends. We have little use for trinkets and beads out here. If you have weapons or supplies, then we may be talking.”
Toni held out his hand and a slave collar appeared in it. “The latest from the Earth Alliance.”
Leaning up to take a closer look, the leader shook his head. “Looks the same as the old ones, but I could use a few. What makes this one better?”
“It has a muscle lock command. You can freeze the slave in position.” Toni opened it up and held it out.
The leader reached over and took it. He examined it before handing it back to Toni. “Give me a demonstration.”
As Toni looked around at the men gathered, and they started backing up. No one wanted to be under the subjugation of a slave collar.
The leader pointed at me. “Try it on your bitch. I want to make sure it doesn’t damage the merchandise.”
It wasn’t all fake when I shook my head with fear in my eyes. I started to back up from Toni. He was quick as he caught my arm and snapped the slave collar around my neck. “Stand still.”
My trembling wasn’t all fake neither as I stood still. “Yes Master.”
Their leader pointed at me. “That’s nothing new. Any slave collar will make them do as they are told.”
“Freeze, slave.” Toni nodded in my direction. “Have two of your men tip her over and pick her up. She’s as stiff as a statue. She can’t move from that position until I command her to move. Want your slave to stay in a certain position? Sure, the old slave collars would stop them if they moved, but only by knocking them down with punishment. I can leave her like that for days and she won’t be any the worse for it. It has to do with the muscles locked in position. They aren’t elastic.”
Toni was right, I couldn’t move if I wanted. The leader motioned for two men to pick me up. The sensation when they touched me was weird. It felt like my body had gone to sleep. I had almost no feeling. I was stiff, not flexible, as they pushed me over and picked me up by the head and heels.
“Looks good. Toss in the bitch and I’ll purchase the collar.” The leader was satisfied the new slave collars could lock a person up as solid as if they had been cast in stone.
The two men unceremoniously dumped me on the ground. Toni reached down and removed the slave collar. I managed to find my feet. Toni held up the collar. “This is what I’m trading. The woman stays with me. Are we dealing?”
“How much?” The leader was ready to try the collar on his slaves.
Squatting down, I picked up the stones the leader had dropped on the ground, as Toni begin the process of haggling for an agreeable price. All said and done, Toni sold the collar for two thousand Earth Alliance credits. Toni tossed in a handful of radiation sickness pills, after convincing the leader that Kcagcu had spectrum radiation, which would cause blindness if not prevented.
Toni beamed us back in the ship. We were gone. We were in deep space as I turned to look at Toni. “I don’t think that’s the way to trade. Let’s go home and decide on a more secure way to bargain with those pirates before someone gets hurt.”
“I get the feeling we don’t look enough like pirates to suit those people. We need someone who is one of them, or does business with slavers. We need someone who can trade with them without causing suspicion.” Toni looked over at me and shook his head. “Sorry about the slave collar. It was the only thing I could think of at the moment.”
Looking into his beautiful golden eyes, I managed a frown. “Remember, payback always comes.”
He stood up. “We are home. You mean sorry, and an apology, are not enough?”
“What do you think?” I was going to make him pay, and pay, and... “Come to the bedroom.”
Hours later, we made the jump to UF-2, after an idea came to me. When I was Captain of UF-2, a lot of different life forms passed my way. Now was the time to put that knowledge to good use. It had been many years since a Pash starship had parked in front of UF-2. And yes, we scared the absolute bejeebers out of everyone on that station when we appeared right in front of their noses from nowhere.
We docked in bay six, after receiving permission to land. I didn’t expect a hostile welcome, but we received one as Toni and I beamed off the ship.
The Captain was there, with a full detachment of armed personnel. “What’s your business here?”
I looked at his nametag. “Captain Deric, we are on an information quest. I am looking for a spacer who passed through here from time to time.”
“Who and why? What’s your authorization?” He was seriously studying Toni’s weapon before focusing his attention back on me.
“Could we make this a little more private? Captain, I have no idea why you are on a high alert, but my bodyguard and I are looking for information. I would like to use the station’s computer for a few minutes to see if the individual I am looking for is still alive.” I had a good idea the rumors of war with the Trag were already starting to spread across the galaxies.
Captain Deric was seriously studying me. “We don’t allow non-military access to our database.”
That brought a smile to my face. “I heard there was a policy change. Please Captain, if you check your records I’m sure you will find me there. I apologize for not wearing my uniform. I didn’t want to make this an official inspection.”
A look of doubt, and then shock, crossed Captain Deric’s face. I was exactly what all spaceport captains didn’t want to see, an official inspection of their station. I had a good idea I was still listed in the records as a captain, since I had never officially retired. I was betting my name was on the active list. It would be funny to log in and request back pay. That would bring me to the front of everyone’s focus. It would be a short lived joke, for sure. Very short lived.
“Uh... your name?” Captain Deric looked serious.
“Captain Brandy Winters.” I stepped away from Toni so he wouldn’t put his arm around me. I wanted this to look official to our Captain Deric. I was positive Deric was the eighth or nineth captain to rotate to UF-2 since my departure. If he looked over the names of the previous command, my name would be there in the list. If he had studied that list he would know, Brandy Winters, logged in as Bill Wickman, was retired in the middle of a Def-Com. He would also know I had never logged out, but a new replacement came in behind me, as soon as a Military Transport ship could arrive. Two and two added up to four in the log. Brandy Winters was a head hunter who had relieved Bill Wickman, who wasn't able to handle a Def Com. That meant I had military power and political muscle behind me.
Most of that was half true. As an ex Captain I knew how it would look to anyone reading the post logs of UF-2.
“But of course.” Captain Deric turned to the guard. “Henson, Brown, follow us, the rest of you stand down.”
Captain Deric motioned with his left hand. “Let’s keep this informal, shall we? Where would you like to go, Captain Winters?”
“Captain Deric, do you mind if I wander the station with my staff? I would kind of like to do this, as you said, unofficially. No reports, I’m only a visitor.” Smiling at Captain Deric, I motioned for Toni to follow me to the lift.
“Nothing official of course. Please look us over, Ms. Winters.” He dropped the formal title to keep it unofficial. He stood where he was, as Toni and I stepped on the lift.
In two minutes, Deric would be running my description through the grinder to see if everything matched. I was surprised he didn’t ask me for an eye scan, but then this was an ‘unofficial’ visit. He probably wanted to keep it as unofficial as possible. Toni and I stopped in engineering. We could access the Earth Alliance database from there, as well as from the control deck. It would be a lot more private in engineering. Only a couple of non commissioned officers were in engineering as Toni and I walked in.
I waved at them with my right hand. “Gentlemen, I’m only looking things over. Please don’t let us interrupt you.”
“Certainly. May I ask what it is you are looking for? If it’s the visitor’s lounge, it’s two decks up and at the other end of the station.” One of the men offered, as his partner nodded in agreement.
I took a good look at their nametags. “I’m not quite a visitor, Mr. Kander. If you need conformation, please comlink your captain and tell him, Captain Winters is in engineering.”
From the look on their faces, these men were old hands at unannounced inspections. “No, of course, go right ahead and look us over, Captain.”
“Thank you. I need to access your database for transient records.” I walked over to their computer station. “Access, Captain Winters.”
“Retinal scan confirmed. Access approved, Captain Winters.” The soft female voice of the computer answered.
I looked over at the two non-coms. “Gentlemen, I need a little privacy. Please take care of your duties.”
“Yes Sir, Ma’am, Sir.” The first one answered, as he urged his buddy to the other side of the room.
I went through a list of names and found whom I was looking for, but never stopped the list as I scrolled down the names. Finally I stopped the list on one of the officers who had been stationed on UF-2 and asked for a full report on Janna Veka
“We have to look this station over so it doesn’t look like we were here only for access to the computer.” I motioned for Toni to walk with me. It was like old times for both of us, as we wandered through several other sections of the station. I bet we really did look like an unofficial inspection team. The only thing that changes on an outpost are the names and faces. The station was an old friend, well worn over time.
We wandered the decks of UF-2, reminiscing about the things we had done. We talked about the lives lost and the lives saved. Of course, all the personnel had been rotated, but the station was the same. The one glaring difference between the current regulations, and the ones I had in effect when I was Captain, was the lack of side arms on everyone. Besides the security that met us in docking, Toni and I were the only ones carrying arms. The station personnel kept staring at us, wondering why we were armed. I couldn’t believe Captain Deric would order all arms locked up. God help this crew if they ever ran into some of the life forms I had seen when I was Captain. They would all be dead before anyone could get to a weapon. I also couldn’t stop thinking about the Trag. If Captin Deric was on alert because of the mounting tensions with the Trag, he should have issued side arms to all personnel. Captain Deric was obviously not battle hardened. I was praying he didn’t find experience fighting the Trag and, of course, the Pash.
Stopping in Control, I dropped a personal message into Captain Deric’s log. ‘All personnel should be issued side arms immediately. They should have those arms at hand at all times, even when off duty.’ After all, I was on an unofficial, ‘official’ inspection.’
I bet the crew thought I was crazy as I patted the console where the Captain normally sat. “She was a good post.”
Hours later we were back in the ship. “She’s on Lazarus in the Twins Galaxies.”
“That’s a penal colony.” Toni put the co-ordinates in the polarity drive.
“You got it.” I dropped a hologram card in the computer. “That will give us her location through the tracking device they have on that collar she’s wearing.”
Toni glanced in my direction. “We are there. There is a patrol ship sitting up there, to stop anyone from doing what you are fixing to try.”
“I know. We will have one minute and twenty-two seconds to get in, pick her up, and get lost, before they get a fix on us and blast us. Can you do it?”
“I can get you there. You will either be back on board with or without her in one minute and twenty two seconds.” He brought up the hologram of the planet Lazarus in front of his control panel. “I have her located. Tell me when you are ready.”
I took a deep breath. “Ready.”
Two seconds later, Toni had the ship parked a few feet away from our target. I beamed out to where I was standing beside her. We were lucky she wasn’t in a crowd of people, or alien life forms. It could have gotten messy.
“Jeeter, do you remember Captain Bill Wickman? I’m here to pick you up, without Earth Alliance approval.” I was looking at the frightened eyes of a woman who had just experienced seeing a starship and someone appear out of nowhere.
“I remember Bill. I can’t go with you though.” She pointed to her slave collar. “You move me off this planet without decoding this thing, and it will kill me.”
“Trust me, and don’t move.” I reached up over my back and pulled up a sword that wasn’t there a second ago. I took a swing. To her credit, Jeeter didn’t move, and twenty years of sword practice paid off. When the tip of the sword touched the slave collar, it disappeared. “Let’s go!”
Jeeter pointed to the bear creature standing beside her. “My friend goes too.”
“WE DON’T HAVE TIME!” I was counting seconds and it was getting thin.
She crossed her arms across her chest. “Not without my friend. Bill wouldn’t have left anyone.”
“ALL RIGHT, BUT GET HER FUR OUT OF THE WAY. IF MY SWORD TOUCHES HER FUR, SHE IS HISTORY.” I heard Toni give me a mental thought to get my butt moving.
Jeeter reached over to her friend’s neck and parted the fur away from the slave collar. I gave a prayer I didn’t miss and took a swipe. The collar disappeared. I slipped the sword over my back. It was gone again.
‘TONI, GET US ON BOARD, AND GET US OUT OF HERE!’ There was that familiar flash of light. The three of us were standing in the middle of the ship. I had learned over the years that the flash of light was only a mental vision, not a visible flash. When solid forms of energy, such as bodies, were changed into less solid energy and beamed from point A to point B, the mental picture inside that energy beam was a flash of light. To those not inside the transport beam, it was as if someone was there, and then they weren’t. There wasn’t any flash to those not inside the beam. I guess it was more on the idea of radio beam, rather than a flash of lightening. The bot had been right when he was explaining life to me. I would find that I would never know everything.
“Are we safe?” I glanced up at Toni, who was busy running his hands over the console.
“We’re home. Honey, you were slicing it pretty thin back there. You didn’t have a nano second to spare, and what’s with the extra guest?” He stood up as he was talking.
Glancing over at our furry guest, I shook my head. “Ask Jeeter. She said she wasn’t leaving without her friend.”
The bear and Jeeter looked around in bewilderment. Jeeter asked the question that was on both their minds. “Who the hell are you, and why aren’t we moving? That patrol ship should be blasting us.”
I laughed as I remembered my first trip in Toni’s starship. “Jeeter, that patrol ship is wondering where we came from, and where we went. I’m betting they are searching for a stealth ship. Right now you’re safe. Earth Alliance couldn’t find you if they sent the whole fleet out on a search. You’re a couple billion light years from where you were a few minutes ago.”
Shaking my head, I had my own questions to ask. “What in the world did you do to get tossed into a penal colony? Did they implant you with a tracer along with the slave collar? And what about your friend? What happened to Joni, your old running buddy?”
She looked sad. “I pissed off a couple captains on a few outposts. I wasn’t kicking back any bribes as I was running in and out of the unexplored zones. I hit pay dirt on an asteroid and was going to be rich with galinium ore. Bill Wickman would have let me keep it, since I found it and claimed mining rights. He was an alright guy.”
“Tossed a few trumped up charges on you, sent you to a penal colony, and kept the asteroid for their own?” I guessed the outcome if money was involved.
“Yeah, something like that, and yeah, they put that damn tracer in me. I’ll glow like a trader’s post when I get close to any Earth Alliance forces. Same with Bunny here. She was with me. Joni was killed in an accident as we were testing the asteroid for quantity of ore. I miss him.” Her eyes turned sad with the thought of her lost mate.
I always thought Jeeter was a cutie. She had big, doe shaped eyes. Right now, she didn’t look that great. Life on a penal colony isn’t the place to keep up personal hygiene. Her lineage was of the reptile family. Her skin was a soft, brownish green. She didn’t have a single hair on her body, but that was normal for her species. She wasn’t wearing any clothes either, but that also was normal for her species. They laid eggs, not babies.
Jeeter took a hard look at Toni. “He’s Pash. I met one a long time ago. Latonvicaka was the name. We have never met before. What’s your name, and why did you pick me up?”
“My mate was the one who suggested we pick you up. You may address me as Toni.” Toni sent me a mind thought. ‘The other is a Bundadee.’
Bunny nodded. “Yes, and we also use mind thought.”
“A changeling? Is this your normal form?” I was curious, as I had read in the station logs about Bundadees. I had never met one.
Jeeter held up her hand. “Wait a second. First things first. I want to know why we were rescued, and who the heck is asking the questions? You’re human.”
Bunny put her hand on Jeeter’s left shoulder. “You’re looking at Captain Bill Wickman.”
“You’re kidding! I heard of such things but…? Kind of kinky if you ask me. Each to his or her own.” Jeeter was shaking her head.
“It’s not what you think. It wasn’t my idea, but I’m glad it happened. I hated it at first. I would never go back if I could. Jeeter, we need your help. I want you to trade with the pirates and claim jumpers settling in the Trag galaxy. It will be dangerous and could get you killed. I didn’t pull you out to get you killed. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.” I backed up into Toni’s chest. He wrapped his arms around me.
Jeeter studied my eyes and then stared at Toni. “Give me the plan before I agree or disagree. I know of the Trag. They like to dissect animal life forms. In case you didn’t pay attention in your biology class, I’m animal, and so is Bunny.”
“It’s the Trag’s biology class that is going to help you and us. I think the Pash can wash the tracer out of your systems with a trip through what they call a Field Portal System. It is a lot like their transporter. It was modified to sample the subject and remove the things in question.” I knew I hadn’t explained it very well, but it was difficult to explain.
Bunny glanced over at Jeeter for a second. “Sounds interesting.”
Nodding, Jeeter never lost her focus on me. “Sounds painful to me. You’re telling me that thing works like a giant vacuum and sucks things out of the body?”
“I guess that’s one way of explaining it. I was told it feels like being dropped out in space, and then pressurized.”
“That’s impossible. Even a wash job through a transporter won’t remove the tracer. That shit was injected in us and it permeated every cell in our bodies. It screwed up Bunny something awful. She can’t alter her appearance. I’d kill those bastards that did this to us if I could. It’s not right!” Jeeter didn’t have much of a facial expression, but her voice carried hate in the message.
I nodded. “First things first. Let’s go into the house and get you ladies cleaned up. If you want clothes or cover, let one of the bots know what you prefer.” I knew Jeeter only wore clothes when she traded with humans. I had no idea if the Bundadee wore clothes or not? When we picked them up, the only thing they were wearing was a slave collar.
We were off the ship and in the house in a flash of light. Jeeter looked around, like any careful spacer would. She made sure she cataloged all the passages and doors in her mind before continuing. “Nice place. Who does it belong to?”
“The Pash don’t own anything in a strict sense. Toni and I occupy it, along with our two daughters. If you want to say it belongs to someone, then Toni was the one who built it.” I walked up beside her as I was talking.
I pointed down the hall. “You may wish to take a bath and put on body cover before we go to the lab and see if they can wash that tracer out of your system.”
“Sure.” Jeeter and Bunny headed off down the hall.
It wasn’t that long ago when I was given the same courtesy. It was funny how life seemed to always be revolving back to the same cycle.
Lavess and Toness popped in a few minutes later. Toni came in from the study. Our daughters caught him and gave him a hug and a kiss.
“Who are our guests?” Toness always was direct. A beautiful girl, she was filling out with soft curves as she matured. She was certainly going to have more of an hourglass figure than female Pash normally possessed.
“Your mother brought a couple Alliance prisoners home after she helped them escape.” Toni looked over at me with a gleam in his eye.
Lavess turned to look at me out of the side of her beautiful golden eyes. “Mom?”
“It’s not the way your father makes it sound. Jeeter is an old acquaintance. We desperately need her help. She didn’t belong in a penal colony.” I wrinkled up my lip and gave the best ‘grrrr’ I could manage at Toni. It was a Pash warning to watch your step.
“Did she growl at me, or was she mocking our language?” Toni tried to keep a straight face, but it wasn’t possible. His eyes were smiling.
“Mom, this is the way you do it. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR” Toness made the air and walls vibrate as she gave her warning.
I shook my head. It would be a physical impossibility for me to duplicate a lot of the Pash sounds. They pushed the air up past the diaphragm in their chest, making their whole body a sounding board, not just the vocal cords like humans did. “Thanks for the express lessons. Tell your father that was what I meant. Grrrr.”
The girls looked at one another and burst out laughing. Lavess was giggling as she tried to imitate me. “grrrr?” Jeeze mom, that ought to warn everyone they are treading dangerously.”
She wiped tears out of her eyes as she looked at Toni. “Dad, did you get mom’s message, or do you want her to repeat it?”
At that, both the girls haw hawed as they clung to one another and laughed.
“Critics, everyone is a critic.” I walked over to Toni and put my arms around his neck. “Mess with me and I’ll make you pay. When I say, grrr, you better watch your step.”
“Yes my love. Although it’s not visible, I am quaking inside with fear. My bones are rattling. I am barely, by the slimmest thread, able to stand.” He wrapped his arms around me as he looked into my eyes.
“That’s better. For showing proper fear, you shall be rewarded.” I stood up on my toes and gave him a passionate kiss.
Toni returned the kiss and then turned me around so my back was against his chest as I was facing the girls. They both had looks of shame on their faces.
“Ummmm, mom and dad are kissing again. I shall never live down the embarrassment my parents cause me.” Lavess brought the back of her right hand up against her forehead as she rolled her eyes up.
“Yes, it tis such a burden to go out and face the rest of the world when your own parents are acting so juvenile.” Toness hung her head in shame as she let out a deep sigh.
“What beautiful daughters.” Bunny walked into the room. She was dressed in tan slacks, blouse, and boots. She also was wearing a sidearm, knife, and had a needle gun up her sleeve. She stopped and was looking at the girls.
Lavess, Toness, this is Bunny. Bunny, these are our daughters.” I motioned toward the girls as I glowed with pride.
Lavess and Toness nodded and curtseyed.
“Welcome to our home. We are most honored by your visit.” Lavess gave the official Pash welcome.
“You are most kind. It is I who am honored. Bunny bowed her head toward the girls.
Jeeter walked in and stopped beside Bunny. She was similarly attired, except she was carrying a rifle over her shoulder. I knew I had made the right choice in Jeeter. She and Bunny looked more pirate then most pirates I ever met. They had experience dealing with the scum of all worlds. If the Portal Wash could remove the tracer the Earth Alliance had pumped into them, then the plan was coming together.
“Make me an offer I can’t refuse.” Jeeter always was direct.
She wanted to know why I needed her help. If the circumstances had been a little different, I could imagine she would have been a pirate. Thankfully, she never slipped into that kind of life. “We need you to make contact with all the pirates and slavers in the Trag universe. You will be trading with them. Tell me what they normally like to deal in and we will try and get it for you.”
“And?” Jeeter knew there was more. Pash didn’t trade with pirates and slavers. There was a reason for the request, and it wasn’t trade.
“Girls.” It was going to be difficult explaining why I wanted Jeeter to trade with the pirates. I didn’t know if I could do it in front of our daughters. I also knew there were no secrets between us. They knew who I was. There was also the fact that, even though our daughters were out of hearing range that didn’t mean they couldn’t listen in mentally.
“Go ahead, mom. We love you.” Lavess walked over and took my hand.
Bunny held up her hand as she looked back at Jeeter. She had read my emotions and my mind. “I’ll take it from here. The Pash want us to give the pirates something extra when we deal with them. It’s a small gift from the Trag. Like all gifts, it should be given without the pirates knowing they are receiving a gift.”
She turned her attention back toward me. “Sounds like fun. Count me in.”
“You are going to be dealing with murders and cutthroats. They are the scum of life. They will kill you, or worse, if they find out what you are doing. They might do it anyway for the fun of it. I ran into some of them a few days back. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.” I wanted Bunny to know she was putting her life on the line in more ways then one.
“Bunny speaks for both of us. I don’t know exactly what it is we are doing, but Bunny does. That’s good enough for me.” Jeeter put her left hand on Bunny’s shoulder.
“We are in too.” Toness glanced over at her sister.
“NO!” I was sure I didn’t want our daughters close to any slavers. Toness always was the one to speak up without thinking. She was too much like me.
Lavess looked at Toness and then back to me. I knew what was coming before she said anything. Lavess was the one who thought things through. Her logic was murder if one was on the wrong end of her speech. “You are willing to let Bunny and Jeeter put their lives on the line, yet we can not? Are we more special than Bunny or Jeeter? Are our lives worth more than theirs because we are daughters of the parents of the Pash Clan? A life is a life. One can not be more valuable than another because of species or place in hierarchy. If you are truly Pash in your heart and soul, you understand this.”
I couldn’t stop the tears from falling, as I backed into Toni’s arms for support. I had to swallow several times to get the cotton out of my throat. “I won’t forbid you from helping. I know you would go anyway. Not out of disrespect for me or your father, but because you are Pash.”
It was all I could say as I choked up. Our daughters were going in harms way because I had brought Jeeter and Bunny to our home.
Bunny stepped up in front of me and took my hand. “We won’t let anything happen to them. I promise they won’t be harmed. They can’t trade directly with the slavers. They would become slaves themselves. They are too beautiful and not experienced enough to handle slavers, even if they are telepathic. Jeeter and I will make sure they stay safe.”
“Toni?”
He pulled me in tighter as he held me without answering. His pain was evident. In true Pash form, he was willing to let our daughters do what they knew was right. Even if it cost them their lives.
FROM THE EDITOR: As I have said many times, Barbie and I value your comments and we thank you for them and the kudos. Please remember to comment? Thank all of you who have been following and enjoying this story.
Time was of the essence. Those thirty days the Trag allotted us were steadily slipping by. We were headed for Lo One with Jeeter and Bunny. Jeeter and Bunny were both carrying side arms and knives. Normal attire for a lady dealing with pirates. Jeeter asked for and received a needle gun after she saw Bunny with one. Both ladies were carrying phasers strapped to their inner thighs, and knives in their boots. Sure it was old stuff, but sometimes it was that extra weapon that kept a person alive.
Toness and Lavess star jumped over to Sherry’s home to talk to Wasvaki and Aberombra, Sherry’s two girls. They were the same age as Toness and Lavess. I could only imagine what was going to happen when our daughters shared their story with Sherry’s daughters. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.
Cassida met us as we walked into the lab on Lo One. “I need a tissue sample to see if I can set up the extraction, before we put them in the chamber.”
Jeeter didn’t look like she was comfortable with the idea of what we intended to do with her. I guess her treatment on the penal colony didn’t give her much faith in other races. Humans could be cruel to the extreme when they had the chance.
Bunny walked over to stand by Cassida. “I’m ready. What do I need to do?”
Cassida picked up a small cylinder off the lab bench and waved it down the front of Bunny. “Got it. Give me a second to see if I can separate the tracer from your cells.”
She slid the cylinder into a slot on the lab table as she turned to focus her attention on the monitor in front of her. Her fingers were running over a keyboard as she was talking. “Nice tracer. It integrated with the cells of the host. It’s mineral, not biological. Let me match up with the atomic structure and... Got it!”
She turned back to look at Bunny. “It’s gonna hurt, but I can remove it.”
“We are wasting time. Let’s get it done.” Bunny gave Jeeter a quick glance as she mentally prepared herself.
Cassida pointed toward a large cylinder with a door in the side. “It will be easier if you aren’t wearing anything when we do this.”
Bunny didn’t hesitate as she dropped her clothes and her weapons before stepping into the chamber. The door silently slid shut behind her, as Cassida was playing with her keyboard.
In all my time with the Pash I had never seen the Field Portal. At this moment, I was glad I'd never had a need. It looked clinical. I would swear the cylinder Bunny had stepped into looked like it disappeared for a second before it reappeared.
The door slid open and Bunny looked like she was in shock. Toni was there to pick her up and carry her over to a couch. She lay there with her eyes open, not focusing for several seconds before she blinked and a soft moan of anguish escaped from her lips.
“Bunny?” Jeeter reached out to hold Bunny’s hand.
Bunny focused her eyes on Jetter. “Are you sure?”
Jeeter looked relieved, as she shook her head. “Yes, I’m sure. How do you feel?”
“Best damn ride I ever took in my whole life. Ever step into a blender?” She sat up and looked around. “Wonder if they got all the parts put back in the right order?”
Jeeter looked over at me with those big doe eyes of hers. “Guess that means it’s my turn, huh?”
“Only if you want, Jeeter. You don’t have to do this.” I could see that Jeeter wasn’t too sure about walking into a Field Portal.
Jeeter was pulling off her weapons and clothes. “If Bunny can handle it, I can handle it. We go as a team.”
She stepped up in front of Cassida and turned to look at me. “No matter what, thanks for pulling us out of that penal colony.”
Cassida nodded, as she ran the cylinder down the front of Jeeter. “I got it. Anytime you are ready, step into the chamber.”
“I’ll never be ready, but sometimes one has to go on blind faith. I would have followed Bill Wickman to the ends of the galaxy if he had asked. He was an okay guy.” Jeeter took a deep breath as she stepped into the chamber.
There was a soft hum and lights started flashing on Cassida’s control panel. “Hold on. The tracer is pulling pieces of her cells along with them as it is removed.”
Toni moved up beside Cassida. “Put her back together with the tracer if it’s not possible to remove it without killing her.”
“I’m trying, Toni. I never pulled tracer out of a Hespa before. Her cellular makeup is really something.” Cassida was working furiously with the touch screen under her fingers.
“Catch her, Toni.” The door to the chamber opened up. Jeeter was falling.
Toni easily caught her in his arms and carried her over to the examination table. “Is she okay?”
It scared me that we might have killed Jeeter. Her thin membrane eye covers were halfway down over her eyes. She looked dead. “Jeeter? Cassida, is she alright?”
Bunny moved up beside Jeeter. She was taking quick glances from me to Jeeter, wondering if her friend was dead?
Cassida shut down the Field Portal, picked up the body scanner, and walked over where Jeeter was lying on the table. She waved the scanner over Jeeter. “She’s regenerating. Her species is capable of growing new cells, along with arms and legs if something happens. I went ahead and removed the tracer from her system. Now she is rebuilding cells that were damaged.”
Cassida laid down the scanner. “It will take a day or two for her to regain consciousness. I’ll stay with her. All the rest of you can go on.”
Bunny shook her head. “I’m staying.”
“Bunny, time is essential. If Cassida says Jeeter is okay, I would bet my life she was okay. You need to be briefed about the situation. Toni is going to teach you how to drive a Pash Star Cruiser. You can’t spend months traveling between planets if all you have is a few days to get the job done.” I knew time was our enemy at the moment. Bunny needed to be working, not holding a sick friend’s hand.
She looked up in surprise. “We get a Pash Star Cruiser?”
Toni nodded. “It seems to be the only option. I don’t think any of those Earth Alliance ships will work for what we need.”
“Jeeter, pull yourself together girl. We get to drive a Pash Star Cruiser. Come on, girl. You don’t want to miss this one.” Bunny was picking up her clothes and weapons from where she had dropped them.
The Trag always met us in numbers of four, or any multiple of four. They never met us with an odd number of Trag. I had never seen three, or five, or one. It was always four or multiples of four. This time was no different. We met them and there were four Trag. It was also always just Trag. They didn’t have names.
“You wish for us to supply these with bio- cutters also? You said we could not send the DNA to the humans, since it would be reason for war. DNA has no other purpose than design. The bio-cutters you request only work on humans. Do you wish to start a war now?” The Trag was addressing Toni.
“We have a plan, but we need help. We explained the plan to them and they agreed.” Toni nodded toward Bunny and Jeeter. “We wish to prevent a war, not start one. We only wish to infect the ones who are trespassing in the Trag galaxy, not the whole human population. Also, we wish for those who are infected to be infertile, not fertile. Is it possible?”
“Must discuss this in conference.” The Trag was moving away.
“You don’t have time to discuss this in conference. Time is a luxury we don’t have. It has to be immediately.” Toni took a step after the Trag.
It stopped and the other three Trag moved up where they were touching one another. A moment later it stepped away from the group. “We agree to the request. We will have the bio-cutters you desire in four hours.”
Toni looked back at Bunny and Jeeter. “This is the last chance to leave, and go back to your old way of life. The Trag will make the bio-cutters for us. You aren’t human and it won’t affect either of you. The Trag are very good at what they do in bio-science.”
Jeeter looked over at Bunny. “Do we trust them? What keeps them from using us as one of their lab specimens?”
Toni glanced over at the Trag. “Their word. They haven’t learned the art of lying. They are as close to black and white as you will ever find. They either give their word, or they don’t. I’m sure after they have been dealing with humans for a few thousand years they will figure out what lying is.”
Bunny nodded. “I’m game.”
Jeeter shook her head. “I like the idea of driving that Pash Star Cruiser. Die now, die later. I guess what doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger. I’m in.”
I realized at that moment what a symbiotic relationship animals and plants have in life. No matter how intelligent we think we are, we will always need one another. The Trag had knowledge that would jump human science ahead by a thousand years. Humans had knowledge that would jump Trag exploration ahead by a thousand years. I was wondering if I was going to see a sharing of knowledge, or the end of a species. A Galactic War was coming, unless we could stop it.
Our daughters were already hard at work mapping out the illegal settlements. Sherry’s girls demanded to go along when they found out what Toness and Lavess were up to. In a way, I guess it was as safe as staying home. There wasn't any ship in any galaxy capable of catching a Pash Star Cruiser.
It was time to set up a meeting with the President of the Earth Alliance. We were going to see if negotiations could stop this madness before it sucked us all into a war. The treaty was clear enough. No trespassing in the Trag galaxy. Humans had a nasty history of making treaties and then breaking them when it suited them.
We discussed our plans with the Trag. They weren’t willing to go along on a meeting with the Earth Alliance. They didn’t trust humans. I gave that some thought as we headed back to the ship. I didn’t trust humans either, and here I was going into the lion’s den. Not only that, but I was going to drag Toni and my best friend along with if we could catch up with her. I desperately needed Sherry to be there when we talked to the Earth Alliance. Time was our worst enemy. The initial thirty days the Trag gave us to get rid of the trespassers was grinding along at a definite pace.
Two days later we had a diplomatic meeting set up with the Earth Alliance. Our first stop was to pick up Sherry.
"You broke the treaty." I was talking to a group of men who were sitting on a dais or platform. It seemed humans had the idea that, if they raised themselves above those who questioned their judgment, the humans were automatically superior in intelligence and power. Where do they get ideas like that? Dumb!
"They were murdering settlers and traders." The man in the front center responded. He was sitting at the peak of a pyramid seating arraignment for the group of twenty-one black robed men I was facing.
"Your settlers and traders were nothing more than pirates and thieves who deserved to die...,"
"THAT IS BLASPHAMY!" The man on my far right shouted at me, as he glared hatred and pulled himself up in self-rightness indignation.
I stepped up to the banister and leaned across it as I studied the men in front of me. "It is the truth. The Earth Alliance made a treaty with the Trag. That was and is a treaty all of you were party to. You agreed you would not allow human settlement in the Trag galaxy. Nor would you steal from them, or allow their laws, if broken by humans, to go unpunished." If these men thought their black robes, their higher perch, or their condescending attitude intimidated me in the slightest, sadly they were in gross error of judgment. But then, I guess it shouldn’t surprise me. An error in their judgment was what brought us to this situation. They were human and thought all life forms were lesser quality than themselves.
The man in the middle was the President of the Earth Alliance. He looked to his right and left for support and agreement from his cabinet. When they all nodded their heads, I almost laughed. They were nothing more than a bunch of yes-men.
Lucus, stared down at me as if he could scare me with his demeanor. "We have to protect our settlers and traders. Settlers have built on Rious Six and several other planets in the Trag galaxy. They have a right to be...,"
Shaking my head, I stepped away from the group of men. "You admit by your own words, settlers are in the Trag galaxy. THEY HAVE NO RIGHT! Your treaty with the Trag, signed twenty one years ago, was explicit in its language. No human would settle in the Trag galaxy or any galaxy of their allies. You have allowed the pirates and thieves to violate that treaty time and time again."
I sighed in disgust as I shook my head. "Your greed for what does not belong to you is unbelievable. You hope to start a war with the Trag under the guise that you are protecting legitimate lives."
The men looked shocked when I pointed my finger at each of them individually. "You think you are immune to war, as you sit so far from it inside the center of human expansion to the stars. I have met you before."
"We have never...," Lucus started to protest.
"We have met. You are all the same. The names and faces change, but you are the same. You make treaties as long as it suits you, and break them when you want. The treaty with the Trag was more for the salvation of humanity than it was to protect the Trag from the exploitation of humans. Their human coded DNA virus is not reversible and spreads like a plague once it is released. That treaty was to keep the Trag from using the DNA virus code on...,"
"I would think, you would be the last one to defend the Trag. Are you not a product of their experiment?" Lucus interrupted.
"I thank God for that. At least I'm a little less human because of their virus."
That brought a collective gasp and looks of disdain from the assembly. Lucus smirked. "You are a freak. Nothing more than a whore. You are an abomination of life."
Toni was on my right and the Sherry was on my left. I could sense their hatred as they started to pull their phasers.
'No!' was my mind thought to both of them
I smiled at Lucus. "Thank you for proving my point. I am a lot of things. I am Pash by marriage. I am a woman ordained by the powers of life. I was born human by mistake."
I could sense their hatred building toward me. I held up my right hand to silence their murmurings. "Please, allow me to finish. A whore I am not. I have taken one mate for life. That is the Pash part of me. I could never love another as long as I live."
Sighing unconsciously, I held out my petite hand and looked at the long sharp fingernails. "An abomination? I guess I'm that in some eyes."
I looked up at Lucus as I rested my hands on those abundant hips I was blessed with. "What I am, or what I am not, is immaterial. You must respect the treaty with the Trag. If you do not pull those pirates and thieves out in twenty two of your earth days, they will be killed."
"YOU DARE NOT KILL..." Lucus was glaring at me.
"I DO DARE, AND I MOST CERTANLY WILL, IF THE TRAG ASK FOR THE PASH FOR HELP TO ENFORCE THE TREATY YOU SIGNED!" I already knew Lucus was not going to pull those pirates out. He was going to let them die, in order to start a war with the Trag and their allies. It was part of human nature to sacrifice a few lives for greed, as long as the life sacrificed wasn't their own. In this case it would serve a double purpose. A few pirates would die, which meant the Earth Alliance would rid itself of a few vermin. Getting rid of something they wanted to eliminate anyway could start a war, and the Pash would be doing the housecleaning if necessary.
"HOW DARE YOU THREATEN EARTH ALLIANCE! We will not be intimidated by your threats. Do not get in a war you can not win. We will crush the Pash as easily as we will the Trag if you allow the Pash to get involved in this. If one of our settlers dies, then the Earth Alliance will declare war, be it against the Trag, the Pash or any of their allies stupid enough to engage in war with the Trag." Lucus looked for support from his yes men after he glared hatred at me.
We were at war. It may have not been declared yet, as a declaration of war had yet to be announced. But..., make no mistake about it, Lucus was determined to let the pirates and thieves break the treaty. Lucus wanted humans to settle into Trag territory for the abundance of natural wealth and Trag gene coding knowledge they had found there.
I could read their mind thoughts. There was no reasoning with Lucus or his kind. They didn't care about sacrificing lives for riches of territory, science, and personal wealth. They were sure the war would never touch them. They could walk in and collect the spoils of war when it was over.
What he was thinking was as old as mankind itself. Sherry could read mental thought and was also good as a seer. She was also a product of human genetic cloning. She had told me to research American History before our meeting with the Earth Alliance. I did, and it made me sick to my stomach as I read what the white man had done to the Indians. The white man made treaties and broke them faster than they could be written. The Indians believed a word or treaty was a bond to never be broken. The Indian would die before he broke a treaty. Yet, with each new broken and remade treaty, the white man used to it as an excuse to push the Indians off more and more of their land. Treaties were broken time and time again by the white settlers as it suited them, and lined their pockets with wealth.
It was unbelievable that the Indians could be so trusting after one treaty was broken. Yet, trust they did, and they did it time and time again, until there was no land left to push the Indians from unless they were exterminated. And yes, I'm ashamed of my human part to say that we even tried that as the women and children were butchered in their villages, by surprise attacks from the Calvary, as one more treaty was broken. I guess I should have never read the historical records about Black Kettle and Custer. It made me sick to think I was born of man.
Sherry had foretold this meeting. It would not stop a war with the Earth Alliance. I knew she was probably right, but I had to try anyway. The greed of these men to take what didn't belong to them, and their complete lack of compassion for those they were willing to let die to achieve their goals, still shocked me.
Toni was also my husband. All Pash could read mind thought. I acquired that ability after giving birth to our two daughters. It was one of their many gifts to me as I carried them from conception to birth. Their Pash genes mixed with my human genes as they grew inside me. Unlike all those who had married and bore children to Pash before Sherry and me, we did not morph to look like Pash during motherhood. I regretted that because the Pash were of the feline family. They looked human enough, except they were all slim, sleek creatures, with the strength of cats.
I would never be slim and trim. Lucus had been right when he said I was a product of the Trag virus. Sherry had also been infected by that virus. We were always going to look like the poster, pinup babes for any Traders Post frequented by pirates and thieves. That was the result of the Trag virus. It was an ironic twist of fate. At one time I had wished for nothing more than to wipe out the Trag civilization for what they had done to me. Now I was defending them. I was willing to give my life to save their universe from Lucus and those like him.
One other feature separated the Pash from humans. They had yellow cat eyes with vertical pupils they could dilate at will. Those eyes could see quite well in the dark where humans couldn't.
"Lucus, you are not looking at the whole picture and this war will...,"
"You will address me by proper title. I am the President of the Earth Alliance. Address me as Mr. President when you speak to me." Lucus glared daggers at me for my infraction of formality.
I started to laugh and caught myself. "If formality is what you wish then I strongly suggest you address me by my formal title."
He blinked, as he stared first at me and then at Sherry and Toni. "I see. Well..., you can give yourself any title you want, but it's so trite as to be of no importance to the Earth Alliance."
"No!" again I had to tell Toni and Sherry, with mind thought, this was not the time to pull their weapons to defend my honor
I was wishing I had worn Battle Dress to this meeting. Alas, it was too late for wishing. My attire was a blue gown, long sleeves, floor length hem, and a cathedral length train. The gown looked like flowing blue waters, embroidered in intricate detail with blue stones that sparkled like star reflections off that water. My spiral earrings were blue stone and tinkled with the slightest movement. I was wearing five inch pumps, with a stiletto heel. My brown hair softly fell across my shoulders and cascaded down my back ending at my hips. I was wearing a blue crystal crown and carried a jeweled dagger on my left hip.
As my council, Sherry was similarly attired. Her flowing gown was soft sea foam green, no train. Her earrings were crystal spirals, soft green in color. Although she was Queen of her Clan, she was not wearing her crown at this meeting. She did have a sword on her left hip and a blaster on her right. Space travel and any meeting were not to be taken lightly. Even a diplomatic meeting such as this one.
"Mr. President, if you do not respect my title, I can not respect yours. You may address me as 'Your Majesty' or you may address me as 'Your Highness'. My title may also be addressed as 'My Queen' if you like." I knew mister uppity up was not going to address me as anything beside 'whore' or 'abomination'.
Lucus's face turned beet red as he struggled to choke down addressing me as anything besides scum. "I am President of the Earth Alliance. I do not lower myself to bow or scrape to any whore."
"NO!" Quickly I glance over at Toni and then Sherry.
Sherry glanced at me as she sent me a thought message. 'He is a disease begging to be eradicated-----Let me help him succeed'
'Killing him will accomplish nothing-----he will be replaced by the next one who is as bad-----my honor is not worth dying over-----we will not lower ourselves to his level of intelligence' I thought back to her and Toni.
"Lucus...,"
Lucus stared down at me from his seat. "That is, Mr. President, you freak. You will address me by my proper title."
I stepped up and put my hands over the railing separating us from Lucus and his council. "Lucus, you do not know what you have done by refusing to remove the trespassers from Trag boundaries. This war will come all the way back to you. You and your bloodthirsty band of miscreants will see blood. I promise, your blood will be mixed in with those pirates and thieves you so willingly defend for a few pieces of gold."
Stepping back sadly, I shook my head in pity at those who were no more than pawns in this sordid mess. The front line troops would be the first to be sacrificed. Then millions more troops would be poured into a battle the humans could not win. “Please pull all animal life forms out of the Trag galaxy, or war will be upon your head.”
I thought Lucus was mad before. I had misjudged. His face turned purple as he exploded. "YOU CAN NOT THREATEN THE PRESIDENT OF THE EARTH ALLIANCE. GUARDS! ARREST THIS WHORE AND HER WHORING ESCORTS!"
UF-2 BOOK 2 CHAPTER 7
BY BARBIE LEE
EDITED BY CATHERINE LINDA MICHEL
So, we come to the end of Book 2, Seeds Of War. Will our heroes and heroines be able to avert was with the Earth alliance, or will there be a space battle the likes of which would curdle even E.E. 'Doc' Smith's sensibilities? This chapter is a bit more violent than previous ones so be prepared. Also, a new player enters the game. Who is it? Who are they? Only the author knows. Strap in, settle back and get ready for ACTION!
FROM BEFORE: "Stepping back sadly, I shook my head in pity at those who were no more than pawns in this sordid mess. The front line troops would be the first to be sacrificed. Then millions more troops would be poured into a battle the humans could not win. “Please pull all animal life forms out of the Trag galaxy, or war will be upon your head."
I thought Lucus was mad before. I had misjudged. His face turned purple as he exploded. "YOU CAN NOT THREATEN THE PRESIDENT OF THE EARTH ALLIANCE. GUARDS! ARREST THIS WHORE AND HER WHORING ESCORTS!"
And NOW...
The guard on Toni's right was swinging his rifle off his shoulder. Toni's reflexes were a hundred times faster. Toni pulled his sword off his left hip with his right hand and cut the man in half. I reached over my back for a sword that would only be there for me. Toni had already turned and shot one of the guards by the door before I had laid my hand on the Queen's Sword.
Sherry had her sword out and swinging as the guard to her left was bringing his weapon to bear on her. She stepped up with her right foot to face him as she brought her sword up. She caught the guard in the middle as she swept up with the blade. She split him open from bottom to top.
I wanted Lucus to taste what he had started as I leapt forward bringing my sword over my head from between my shoulder blades where I had retrieved it. A shield screamed as sparks lit up the assembly room when my sword smashed into the force field guarding the president and his council. A hole formed in the force field around my blade, refilled, formed again, and then the field collapsed as the room was plunged into total darkness.
Toni fired his blaster again and another guard died. By this time, Sherry had her blaster in her left hand and she fired at where the president had been.
Unless the humans had special gear for seeing in the dark, they were lost. Sherry and I could see in the dark as well as Toni. It was part of the blessing our daughters had given us as we carried them in our womb and shared life forces.
The president and his council had dropped down through a lift under their seats when the shield had been activated. In the time it took for my sword to collapse the shield they had fled the massacre they had started.
"TO THE SHIP!" I wanted to pursue the President, and kill him in the worst possible way, but it was too late for that. In my mind I could feel them speeding away on a transport as I spoke.
"FOLLOW ME!" Toni shot two more soldiers who had blindly and stupidly run into the room.
We were in the hall running for our ship parked two blocks away in a VIP dock. Alarms were now going off and a security door slammed shut at the end of the hallway. I could hear them slamming shut behind us as well.
"MY TURN!" I swung my sword into the door. There was a flash of light as it disappeared.
"Gotta get me one of them swords." Sherry laughed as we fled through the opening where a door used to be.
Toni pushed me to my right as he dodged left. A blaster shot plastered the end of the hall in front of us. Toni spun and fired in the direction we had escaped from. He fired twice more before he turned to follow Sherry and me down the hall in the direction of our ship.
There was no doubt, Toni would have already been at the ship if Sherry and I had not slowed him. I was wishing with all my heart I had morphed, with the gestation of our daughters, to look like a Pash like all the other mothers, but it was not ordained. By the laws of physics, Sherry and I were not designed for running fast. We were also not dressed for battle. We did the best we could with our gowns and heels.
"Last door. Soldiers on the other side waiting by the ship. Six of them." Ahead of Sherry and me, Toni had reached the security door leading to the VIP dock.
"I sense them. Sherry and I will take the three on the right." I was swinging my sword at the door. Like the time before, there was a flash of light, and the door disappeared.
The soldiers were ready, but not that ready. I guess they expected it to take a few seconds for the door to melt from blaster fire. The Queen's Sword caused molecular collapse. A good way of explaining it would be to say anything it touched turned into a black hole. Of course objects I was slicing through could not sustain a black hole as there was not enough collapsed matter in the center. The matter collapsed in on itself, couldn't hold in that form, and rebounded back out as light, X-rays, gamma rays, and a whole host of other energy particles.
The soldiers never stood a chance. Toni was by my left side when the security door disappeared. Sherry was in lock step right behind me. Toni fired three times as I caught a blaster shot with my sword. Sherry fired twice and I trapped another blaster shot. Toni took care of the last soldier.
It was a waste of life. They were defending a tyrant when they were thinking democracy. Why does human history repeat itself over and over and over? Are humans that stupid or is it a karma they carry? We were at the ship when I screamed. “NO WAIT!
Toni yanked back his hand before he touched the ship. “Force field. I sense it too.”
“They set up a shield around the ship. Let me see if I can collapse it without touching our ship.” I was sticking the point of the sword up close to the side of the starship.
“Careful, you touch our ship with that sword and we will walk home, and could you hurry? More soldiers are on the way.” Toni turned to guard our backs.
An eerie glow formed around our starship as I moved my sword in close to it. A black hole spread out from the tip of the sword half way around the ship as the sword swallowed the force field. Black holes could be formed from solid matter, as well as pure energy of a force field. There was a huge suction as the force field collapsed at the end of the sword. I thought we were all going to be swept in before there was a flash of light. The power generator for the force field had burned out, and the field collapsed.
“Toni!” I touched the side of the ship and a ramp flowed out of the ship while a door formed.
“GO! I’M RIGHT BEHIND YOU!” Toni fired twice down the hall leading from the meeting room.
I wrapped my skirt up in my left hand and sprinted up the ramp with Sherry right beside me. I hadn’t even made it inside when I screamed. “TONI, NOW!”
The flight console was in front of me. I glanced over my right shoulder to see Toni as he literally jumped into the ship. I slammed my hand down on the hatch control and the ramp flowed back into the side of the ship. The opening closed. The star map was up in front of me and I touched a star with my finger. The ship gave an unexpected shake.
“Did they trap us?” I was looking at an unfamiliar star map that generated in front of the flight console.
Toni had made his way up beside me. “I don’t know. Let me check.”
He slid down into the seat and pulled the console up in front of him. “No, we aren’t in the Earth’s dimension. I strongly suggest you find your seats. I have no idea where we are. They must have been trying to toss another force field over us and you jumped through it. It bounced us out in unexplored space.”
I was looking for my seat as Sherry took hers. “Great. And home is which direction and through how many dimensions?”
I looked over at Sherry hoping she could sense the way home with her seer abilities. “You sense anything? Got any ideas in that mind of yours?”
Sherry got real quiet, then shook her head. “I have no idea where we are, but we have company.”
“I have it.” Toni brought a starship up in the hologram. “Nothing I’ve seen before. Sherry are they friendly or hostile?”
“Neither. They are curious, wondering what we are doing.” Sherry had her eyes closed so the physical world wouldn’t distract her as she felt with her emotions for the other ship.
‘Permission to come aboard, Your Highness.’ Was in our minds. Obviously the life on the other starship had mind thought.
‘Our ship or your ship?’ Toni projected back.
‘Our ship is a lot bigger. Would you like to transport over?’
‘Sure.’ Was hardly out of Toni’s mind before all three of us were standing in a huge control center. I took a look and then a second and third look at our hosts. They were almost there. It was as if I was looking at a Will-O-Wisp. I couldn’t see through them, but they were not definite forms either.
One of them walked up in front of Toni and nodded. ‘Welcome aboard Your Highness. I sense uncertainty in your mind. Either this was an unplanned trip, or you are lost.’
He walked over to Sherry. ‘Ah, one who can see the future. An unexpected pleasure. Your Highness, welcome aboard.
Was Your Highness his normal greeting, or did he sense Toni and Sherry were heads of our clans? I was trying to puzzle out the question when he turned toward me. ‘It is difficult for me to verbalize, so I use mind thought. You carry the Queens Sword. You are Queen of the Pash. We know about the sword because we can see it. Many millennia back it was a gift to the Pash Queen. We also know of the seeds of war that are being sown between the human race and the Trag race.’
“Can you stop the war.” It was more natural for me to use my voice than my mind for conversation and sometimes I forgot.
‘We can not interfere. It has not been that long ago that you learned some things are ordained. The seeds of war may or may not produce fruit.’ He backed up and what I perceived as a female stepped up in front of me.
She held her hand. ‘May I see the Queens Sword?’
I reached over my back and brought it up in front of me. “If you touch it, it will destroy you.”
She reached out. ‘I am the sword designer. It will not hurt me.’
Holding out the sword with two fingers, I handed it to the woman. She took it in her hand and examined it. ‘It needs an adjustment. It has lost some power over the millennia. I will be right back.’
I didn’t have time to dispute her taking the sword. She was gone.
Another woman appeared in front of us. ‘I have programmed into your ship’s drives, the portals back to the Pash dimension. When you return to your ship it will take you home.’
Toni nodded his head. ‘Thank you for your help. You are most kind.’
The first woman reappeared with the sword. She held it out to me. ‘I do not believe you will have any more trouble collapsing any force fields. The molecular collapse should cause a wrap around effect as your sword touches the field.’
I took the sword and slid it over my back. Did she know about our escape from the Earth Alliance because they were there, or because she read our minds? I decided not to ask. “Thank you for all you have done for us.”
She held out her hand toward Sherry and a sword appeared. “I brought a gift for you also. If this war happens then you may find a need for this.”
Hesitantly Sherry took the sword. I could only imagine she was afraid it might not be adjusted to her body. She didn’t have to worry. The sword was in her hands and it didn’t make her disappear. “I do not have anything to offer in return besides my thanks.”
“You have the heart and conscience of honesty. That is enough.” The woman who handed Sherry the sword closed her eyes and nodded as she backed away
The woman looked around at Toni and Sherry. ‘You may stay if you want. The War would not reach you here.’
“No, it is our destiny for whatever happens, to try and prevent the war. If that’s not possible then we must support the Trag even if it means dying. Some causes are worth dying for. Dying for a just cause cannot be wrong.” I answered before Toni or Sherry had the chance.
‘As you wish.’
We were back on our own ship without that familiar flash of light when transported by beam. I looked around. “Toni?”
He gave the mental thought, ‘thank you’ before he reached up and touched the star map in front of his console. “We are home.”
I had a million questions about the life entities we had met. Our curiosity had to be put on the back burner, as war was looming larger and larger. Possibly several races could be wiped from history once the war commenced. The Pash were one of those who could become extinct.
Now it was a game of waiting to see if we were going to war, or not. I was positive Lucus wasn’t going to back down from declaring war with the Trag. He wanted their galaxy and he didn’t mind sending in a few billion innocent soldiers to die for his cause. And they would do it because their Commander in Chief said it was the right thing to do. All wars are insane! Good young men and women died needlessly for all the wrong reasons.
Sherry immediately left to contact the underground of the human population and their allies. Lucus would label them traitors and have them tortured and executed if he won this coming war. They really were putting their lives on the chopping block if war broke and the Trag and their allies didn’t win.
The Earth Alliance took in a huge number of non-human allies as the clouds of war became darker and darker. Everyone could smell the spoils of war. Planets, property, goods, land, and slaves could be had for the taking after a war of this magnitude.
The Trag had the Pash as allies and the underground movement on their side. It was nine days before the Trag ultimatum for all settlers to leave their galaxy when I met another plant intelligence as they gathered to support the Trag.
It was our daily trip to the Trag galaxy to try and negotiate a settlement to this madness. When Toni stopped the ship we were smack dab in the middle of millions of other unidentified ships. Shields on the alien ships immediately went up as one, and enough firepower focused in on us to make us a distant memory.
“What’s going on?” I was watching the monitor and it didn’t look good.
“I don’t know.” Toni called the Trag over the communicator. “Trag, this is Pash starship. Clarify the situation.”
“Pash, you are cleared. The Muvin have joined us.” Came back.
We beamed into the council building where we always met the Trag. I was looking at a life form there I had never seen. It reminded me of…? I had no idea. The body was round and red in color. There was no head or eyes, but it had a lot of limbs waving back and forth. I imagine it was sensing its environment with its branches or whatever. Not everything needed eyes to understand what was going on around them. What they did need was the ability to handle tools or objects if they were space travelers. This thing could do that with the snake like limbs it had. They also needed the ability to intake quantities of food if they were mobile. Then they needed the ability to think or reason if they were intelligent. I guess this thing could probably do that. They were driving starships, so they had to have something in the mental capability department as well. They also needed the ability to understand instruments. Driving a starship wasn’t done by sticking an arm out the window and feeling the air currents to see if one was headed in the right direction.
“Trag, do you have more allies? I would like to know in advance. The next ones might shoot us and then ask if we were on your side or not.” I stepped back from the Muvin as I had no idea if it understood we were not the enemy.
The Trag that stepped up to meet us turned one eye toward the Muvin. “The Muvin are not allies of the Trag. They join this war because their galaxy is not too distant. We stop the humans now, or the Muvin will find they have to fight alone when humans want their galaxy.”
I started to tell the Trag that was the exact definition of an ally, but thought better of it. The Trag had some unusual ideas about who was or wasn’t an ally. “How many ships did the Muvin put in space? Can they tell the difference between friend and foe? If it comes to war we will have many Earth Alliance ships fighting with the Pash and Trag. We certainly don’t want to have to defend ourselves from those who are fighting on our side.”
“Muvin put many ships in space.” The Trag answered, as it waved an arm toward the Muvin.
Sighing, I glanced over at Toni. “Make sure the computer does a ship count before we leave. There will be a bunch of Trag ships in there, but we can do a fair estimate if we subtract the number we have been checking the past week.”
“Sure, I was thinking of doing that already.” Toni beamed us back aboard our starship.
We found Jeeter and Bunny on Durus Nine. The large settlement where Toni and I had first landed, almost twenty days ago, was nearly deserted. The only life forms left were non-human. I was positive the Earth Alliance would find it tough sledding trying to defend illegal alien life forms instead of illegal humans.
If I hadn’t sensed it was Bunny, I would have never known it was she. She had changed her looks to those of a beautiful human female. I acknowledged her with a nod of my head. “You could have fooled me if I didn’t know you.”
“The pirates like this form. I use whatever is pleasing to them.” She had her hand resting on her phaser and it looked natural.
I was sure she had plenty of practice the way she casually carried herself. My attention was turned to Jeeter. “How’s it going?”
Jeeter shook her head. “Still have several colonies to visit yet. It would have been faster if Bunny and I had split up but it wasn’t safe. She watches my back and I watch hers. There is no honor among thieves. They will slit your throat, or doublecross you in a heartbeat if it suits them, or if they can see a profit in it.”
“Yeah, just like Earth Alliance.” I muttered under my breath.
“Captain, we need more time and more of those bio balls from the Trag. There are more pirates and claim jumpers than you estimated.” She held up an empty cylinder to show me.
“I guess you didn’t want to go back to the Trag and pick it up yourself? I can’t blame you. Probably a good idea. The Trag have allies and they are vegetable life forms also. I don’t know what the Muvin think of us. We need to set up a buffer between the Trag and Muvin ships and the other life forms that are joining in this war.” I took the cylinder from Jeeter. Toni and I would go back and get it refilled.
We tried to set up a meeting with Lucus and the Earth Alliance at a neutral location to stop this madness. It was to no avail. They never answered our request. I imagine there were a couple reasons they wouldn’t meet with us. They were afraid of an ambush like they tried on us, or they were gathering forces for the looming clouds of war.
Despite my prayers the final day arrived. To many of the Pash and a few billion humans, it was the final day of life. The Pash had been gathering in the Trag and Earth dimension for hours. My monitor was almost solid white with Pash starships. Toni and I kissed our daughters goodbye before beaming aboard a Star Destroyer. Pash Star Destroyers weren’t large ships, as they carried a compliment of twelve fire control stations. The energy those individual gun turrets were able to hurl was more than an Earth Alliance Battle Cruiser would be able to withstand. Their Star Destroyers wouldn’t be any safer. The problem was, they would outnumber us a hundred to one. How many shots can one take before we take one ourselves? The odds were against us surviving, no matter how powerful our weapons were.
I looked over at Toni and smiled. “I love you with all my heart. I have always loved you. Thank you for my life.”
Toni smiled. “Thank you for loving me. You are my life.”
“It’s time.” I reached up and touched a dot on the hologram in front of my console. Millions of Pash starships jumped distance and dimensions, as they were sync, locked with our ship.
“GOD HAVE MERCY!” Came from one of the hundreds of thousands of ships in front of us.
“Underground, this is the Pash. Please stand down and do not fire.” I wanted those ships to know we were not the enemy. Luckily, no one got trigger-happy on either side.
“Pash, where did you come from? You weren’t there a second ago.” “My god, my whole screen is filled with ships.” “I thought there were only a couple dozen Pash.” “Anyone able to count the number?” “Are all those ships Pash?” Came back from other ships scattered across space.
“Cut the chatter. The Trag and Muvin are moving up.” I could see hundreds of thousands of ships approaching from the Trag home planet.
“Trag, this is Pash. Did you get your screens in place?” I was hoping the Trag did their part. With our superior numbers, the Pash were going to take the brunt of the battle against the Earth Alliance. Those screens I was hoping were in place would bring the Earth Alliance ships to a halt, trapped in an electronic field the Trag had spread across space. The net would only work so long before the Earth Alliance figured it out and broke their ships free. Hopefully, in that short period of time, we could destroy most of them if things when as planned.
“Pash, Trag, net is in place.” Came back over the communicator.
“Pash, deploy to battle positions.” I could see a few hundred thousand ships approaching from the Earth Alliance. All the Pash ships disappeared off our scope. I knew if the Earth Alliance had seen them, they would think it was a blip on their screens and nothing more.
Our screen looked empty with only Trag, Muvin, and underground ships left on it. The Pash had moved back out of scanner range into battle groups. Five ships to a group, they would appear, pick targets, disappear, come back and do it over and over until they were either destroyed themselves, or the Earth Alliance and their allies were destroyed. War was for killing. A great man once said, “The idea is to not die for your country, but to make the other poor bastard die for his.”
I switched to the Earth Alliance frequency. “Admiral Baker, this is Queen Brandy Winter of the Pash Escubanesa Clan. I am here with King Tonlosania of the Pash Escubanesa Clan. We wish a conference.”
“We have no need for conference, your Highness. We are here to protect the settlers. Back off, or face our guns.” Came back.
“Admiral Baker, are you in too big a hurry to engage in war you can’t spare a few minutes to talk? Are your men so eager to die that you can’t talk to King Tonlosania and me? I promise the war won’t go away, even if you take a few minutes longer to begin. Please, your men might like a few of those minutes to think about their families. Please give me the honor of meeting my opponent if for no other reason.” I was praying something I said got through to Baker.
“I heard what you did in the meeting with President Lucus. You tried to kill him under the guise of a meeting. I will not give you that opportunity with me.”
“On screen.” Immediately Admiral Baker came up on a hologram in front of me.
Admiral Baker did not look pleased as he stared back at me from across twenty thousand miles of space. “I am not going to let you try the same trick on me you did on President Lucus. This is a waste of time.”
“Admiral, Neither I, nor my mate, nor counsel started the fight when we were meeting with Lucus. If I had started that fight we wouldn’t be here discussing it. Lucus and his counsel would be dead. The only reason he’s alive is because we were caught off guard. It was us who were ambushed in that meeting. Think about it. We managed to fight our way out of the hall and back to our ship after Lucus ordered his men to arrest us. Do you honestly think we would kill the guards before killing Lucus if it had been us who started the fight? Would you in that kind of situation?”
Admiral Baker looked doubtful before he answered. “Don’t bring any weapons and you may come aboard.”
“Do we have your word as an officer and gentleman this is under a white flag of truce, and you won’t try the same trick Lucus tried?” I didn’t like the no weapons idea but if there was any way to halt this madness I was willing to give it a try. I was probably going to die anyway, so why not die trying to save a few billion lives?
He nodded in agreement. “You have my word. You may return to your ship after we talk.”
“Tell your gunners to stand down. We are going to approach.” I glanced over at Toni and he was slipping off his sword and phaser.
Admiral Baker turned his head to talk to someone across the deck. “First Officer, tell our gunners to stand down. We have a Pash Starship approaching.”
“Aye aye, Captain. Gunners, stand down, Pash Starship shall be allowed to pull up alongside.” Came from someone off the side of the view screen.
I waited a couple seconds as Admiral Baker turned to look at the screen. I was waiting to give him time for the command to get through to his gunners. “Are their fingers off the triggers? We move pretty fast. I don’t want to get shot by someone who had a twitch.”
“My men don’t twitch. You may approach.” Admiral Baker looked disgusted.
I glance over at Toni. “Beam our crew over to another ship in case his gunners are twitchy.”
“Not a chance.” He touched the red dot that was in the hologram. We were beside the Admiral’s Battleship the Missouri. Less than half a second later we were inside the control deck of the Missouri.
“Permission to come aboard, Admiral.” I was looking at Admiral Baker who looked shocked that we were already there.
“Holy sh... you don’t waste any time do you? You were twenty minutes away.” He blinked his eyes to make sure we weren’t hologram generated.
“Admiral, I asked to talk. Twenty one years ago your Earth Alliance signed a treaty with the Trag. The treaty stipulated there would be no humans or animal life allowed into the Trag Galaxy.” I handed Baker a copy of the treaty.
“This treaty is non-negotiable. If you declare war on the Trag for defending their rights in a treaty your own Earth Alliance signed, then you are no better than the pirates and slavers you are protecting. Lucus thinks this will be an easy victory and none of the blood letting will get back to soil him. He’s wrong. The Trag do not go by rules if a treaty is broken. If you start a war by defending the pirates and slavers, who have illegally settled into the Trag Galaxy, then there are no rules.” I could see Admiral Baker was an intelligent man, but how much he was willing to follow illegal orders, or how much he would take upon himself to follow a signed treaty, was anyone’s guess. The military drills into their men that they must follow orders, no matter what, and without question. If an officer doesn’t follow orders, then he can kiss his career goodbye.
Admiral Baker was looking at the treaty. “Captain Jaser, pull up a copy of this Earth Alliance treaty from our records.”
“Yes Sir.” The Captain to our right walked over to a seaman sitting in front of a console and repeated the command to pull up the treaty.
“Your Highness, you must convince the Trag there are rules to war. We are civilized and will treat prisoners decently. We will not harm civilians or non-combatants. We do not destroy cities needlessly. I’m sure you would be able to convince the Trag they need to follow the Global Convention.” Admiral Baker looked first at me and then at Toni.
Shaking my head, I looked Baker in the eyes. “Admiral, if you don’t honor a treaty, you have lost all honor and can not expect the other side to be honorable.”
I sighed as I thought about how humans had always wanted to fight wars. “Admiral, you are the first flotilla to arrive at the Trag Galaxy. There are millions of other ships headed this way at flank speed as we speak. We both know some of those ships will be arriving in a few days. Others, posted on the other side of the Earth Alliance settlements, will be traveling for over a year before they arrive.”
“This war will not be fought only here. It is going to be spread clear to the other side of human settlement. I can assure you with the first shot fired, Earth itself is going to be under attack. Those Earth Alliance ships on the other side of the universe are going to be destroyed before they even know they were in the war zone. Every human settlement is going to be attacked almost immediately. This is going to be the most ungodly war humanity ever started, and possibly the last, because the Trag and Pash don’t take lightly to someone signing a treaty and then breaking it because they feel like it.” I watched disbelief grow in Admiral Baker’s eyes.
“You wouldn’t...” He had never heard of such a thing and his mind couldn’t comprehend instant war across the spread of humanity.
“I would and so would the Trag, the Muvin, the Pash, and a dozen of their allies. Admiral, your wife’s name is Dee and your two sons are named Chris and Charles. The first shot will unleash a war you do not want. Your family will be victims of that war. It will reach all the way back to them. If you’re lucky, you will die and not realize what you have done if you persist in following illegal orders. You have been ordered to defend pirates and slavers who are breaking a treaty the Earth Alliance has signed. If you were following orders to enforce that treaty then you would be legally and morally right.” I was desperately praying somewhere, I was getting through to this man.
Captain Jaser handed a copy of the treaty to Admiral Baker. “Her copy is correct. Nothing was altered or changed on it.”
Admiral Baker studied the treaty and then looked it over again. “Have any new treaties been made?”
“No Admiral.” Captain Jaser shook his head.
“I see. Our orders are in direct violation of this treaty?” Admiral Baker sighed as he knew his decision could possibly end his career. “Are you really positioned to strike our convoys on the other side of the universe?”
For the first time I saw a chance of stopping this war before it started. “Yes, and everything in between. My King will give you a ride over and back if you like?”
Shaking his head, he smiled. “No, as much as I believe you, and I would like that ride, I would be deserting my post. Would humanity be wiped out?”
“I doubt it. Not completely. There would be a few isolated pockets of humans left. The Trag don’t take kindly to broken treaties. They would do their best to make sure humans were taken off the species list. Humans would lose any ability to travel in space. Any ship that lifted off a planet would be a target and that would be a pointer back to where other humans were. The Trag would eradicate any humans they found.”
Admiral Baker glanced over at Captain Jasper. I knew he was looking for support one way or another. “Admiral, President Lucus sent you out on a fool’s errand. He was thinking of this war costing a few thousand or a few million lives and then the Trag Galaxy would be his for the spoils. I promise you, it’s not a mouse you are fixing to swat. You are about to unleash a dragon and this dragon will have his revenge on every human.”
I really didn’t want humans to know the number of Pash they would be up against, but I was desperate to stop a war before it began. “My Lord, if it pleases you, bring up the Pash Starships.”
Toni nodded in agreement. “It is done.”
“HOLY MOTHER OF MARY!” Came from the helmsman.
Admiral Baker turned to look at why his helmsman had spoken out. “OH SHIT!” He was looking at a view screen that was almost pure white with ships scattered as far as the sensor could monitor. “Where did they come from?”
“They just appeared, Sir.” The helmsman was trying to decide if his monitor was being fed erroneous information.
“Admiral, what you are looking at is not a hologram. Those Starships are real and their weapons are lethal. Your shields are useless against their phasers because their phasers are in a different sync than your phasers or shields. One hit from one of their guns and your ship is history.”
“Please, for the love of God, for the lives of every man, woman, and child, do not enforce a broken treaty against the Trag. You will be signing the death warrant for all of humanity.” I was praying Admiral Baker had a little bit of self-initiative in him.
Again I turned to Toni. “My Lord, if it pleases, deploy our ships to battle position and be prepared to give the order that no quarters are to be given or taken.” I was praying a little bit of military protocol would jump start the Admiral’s mind. It was what he had been trained to follow all his life.
Toni was staring straight at the Admiral. “It is as ordered.”
The helmsman’s screen went blank except for a view of space. “They are gone.”
Turning to look at the view screen the Admiral had passed beyond shock. “Are they on the other side of the universe?”
“Some are. They have broken up into battle groups. Each group is following one of your flotillas, ready to wipe them out if my King gives the command.”
Admiral Baker glanced in Toni’s direction and I could tell what he was thinking. I shook my head. “Or if he stops communicating with them. Admiral, we communicate by mind thought. So do the Trag and most of the others who have joined this battle. They don’t need equipment or mechanical devices to talk to one another across space. This is what I was trying to explain to Lucus when he tried to have us imprisoned. The treaty the Earth Alliance signed with the Trag wasn’t to protect the Trag from humans, it was to protect humans from the Trag. The Trag were going to wipe out the human race before the Pash intervened on the behalf of humanity.”
I glanced at Captain Jasper. “This is one treaty you must defend with all your honor.”
Admiral Baker took a deep breath and sighed. “Please your Highness. Give my staff and me time to discuss this alone.”
I had no idea how old Admiral Baker was, but at that moment he looked to be five hundred years or more. “Certainly Admiral. My King.”
We were back aboard our Starship and just as quickly the ship was at the edge of their scanner range. Toni was studying me. “What are your feelings?”
I shook my head. “The Admiral believes me but he’s fighting with years of following orders without question. It depends upon how much backbone he has. He is an honorable man, but can he overcome his military training and make a career decision? It also depends on how many of his staff will support him.”
My years as Captain of outpost UF-2 had given me the knowledge of what Admiral Baker was going through. We were still waiting an hour later when Jeeter and Bunny’s ship showed up on our screen along with four Trag ships following along.
“Captain, the Trag have been counting noses and I think they are ready to give it more time.” Jeeter came over the communicator.
Looking over at Toni I was wondering if he was thinking the same thing? “Jeeter, has everyone left?”
“The humans have, Captain. What is left isn’t by choice. It’s non humans who are stranded without any ships to leave by.” Was Bunny’s reply.
As the Earth Alliance ships started moving my heart jumped up in my throat. Then we picked up a transmission. “Trag, this is the Commander of the Earth Alliance Space Fleet. We are here to pick up any trespassers in the Trag galaxy. We request permission to proceed.”
“Admiral Baker, this is Trag Alliance. You have one day to pick up those illegally in Trag galaxy.”
“I’m wondering if this is a trick?” I was looking at Toni. “Could be they want us to stand down and then they will attack?”
“We will wait to see. A few days waiting should be plenty.” He was double-checking his monitor for any extra ships from the direction of earth.
Jeeter pulled up beside us. “Permission to come aboard?”
“Permission granted.” I touched my console.
Jeeter and Bunny were standing inside our ship. Jeeter shook her head. “I love your transporter.”
She held out her hand toward me. “Your plan worked. We traded these things with the pirates and they did the rest.”
I was looking at the bio balls in her hand. “Changing all the human pirates into females desiring sex, not war, wasn’t exactly my idea. The Trag came up with the idea a long time ago.”
Bunny picked up a couple of the bio balls out of Jeeter’s hand. “Who would have thought a war could be fought and won with a few little things like this?”
I had to laugh. “The Trag are good at things like that. I imagine that was why Lucus and his cabinet didn’t want to meet with us. They were too busy with female problems. I gave them a dose of the same when I leaned over the banister to talk to them. The virus was a lot smaller and airborne as I let it slid out of my hands. Hopefully the new council and President they elect will honor the Trag treaty without the threat of war. I know human nature though, and I wouldn’t bank on it. Maybe the threat of visiting one of the Trag planets as male and leaving as female will keep the pirates and trespassers away?”
Jeeter nodded in agreement. “I imagine it will. Big, strong, tough pirates don’t want to change into sex starved female nymphomaniacs. I hope the Trag haven’t come up with a virus for my species.”
“Who said they haven’t?” I winked at Toni as I answered Jeeter.
I thanked God no one died in an insane war that day. It was funny that a little thing the size of a bb could divert a war. Did the life forms that handed Sherry a Queen’s Sword know what had happened? I was curious to find them again.
FROM THE EDITOR: I know that this seems like a cliffhanger, but this is the very last bit that Barbie sent me. IF there is any more, I will get it up and posted ASAP. Both Barbie and I want to thank ALL the commenters, those who left kudos, and those who send private messages. We REALLY appreciate your input and corrections that you suggest. YOU readers are the reasons why writers write and post stuff for free on sites like this one, and on behalf of all the great authors here and on other sites,we thank you, from our hearts.
UN VA CA SHUN
by
Barbie Lee
copyright 6/2018
“Mommm.” Brenda’s whine in the kitchen was plain enough. Sitting at the kitchen table I was thinking of the same thing. Mom had announced to my sister and me the family wouldn’t be going to Bennet Springs this year. The place was a favorite for sis and me since our family reunions had been held there for the past three years. We got to meet with all our cousins. Sis and the girls would form up as a girl group and the boys had their own boy cousin pack. My uncles and aunts were nothing more than big kids themselves as all their problems and responsibilities were left behind for a few days.
“Where are we going this year?” I figured it would be some place to look at the trees, the desert, or the mountains. As long as my cousins were there, I’d manage to survive my parent’s idea of a fun family trip.
“Brenda, Sierra, set the table. dinner is almost ready.” Mom answered as she stirred the gravy.
Sis was reaching for the plates in the cabinet; I was headed for the silverware drawer.
“We aren’t going anywhere.” She finished with the gravy.
Sis and I both halted in mid reach. “What…,What.” We both echoed.
“Your father and I decided all the effort we put in planning for a vacation, packing, the traveling, the expense, and cleaning up the house, the yard after we return isn’t worth it. This year we are going to relax at home. Take in a few movies, go to some ball games, picnic in the park, have a barbecue in the back yard. Just relax at home for the summer.”
“Ball games? Mom, are you serious? The ballgames in this town are little league and high school.” What I tactfully didn’t say was going to the movies with my parents was the same as getting a tattoo on my forehead saying I was a dweeb.
Sis, being the smarter one didn’t say anything. She was already plotting a summer of meeting with her three girlfriends practicing as a band, malls, and boys.
Me, not having two working brain cells when I got depressed, pushed the hot button issue with my next comment. “If we aren’t going anywhere, I want a Jericho Ranger Station.”
Mom had finished ladling the gravy into a bowl to sit on the table. Slowly she placed the skillet back on the stove. My two working brain cells told me I had stepped over the line and to run. When mom got really really mad she slowed down. My feet didn’t co-operate with the run command from my tiny little brain.
Slowly mom turned around, her laser eyes burning holes into my eyes and into my brain. “Sierra, you will not waste your life and spend your summer sitting in front of a video screen playing games.”
“But there isn’t anything else to do in this crappy town.” Nail number two I drove into my own summer of coming hell.
“Brenda, isn’t complaining.”
“Of course she isn’t complaining. She’s a girl. Girls have things they can do boys don’t.” Nail number three I put in the lid of my impending doom.
“Then I suggest you get with your sister and do some of the things she does. I believe you will find it isn’t all mindless female fluff.”
“Pal around with my sister and her dorky friends? You gotta be kidding! Girls are dumber than dirt. Has Brenda told you about the band several of them are forming up? I heard better sounds from fingernails on the chalkboard.” Nail number four just went home in the corner of my casket for the summer.
I honestly believed my mother strangled baby kittens for fun before she married dad. She gave me this predator look as she smiled sweetly. The look and the smile together would scare Halloween goblins if they had seen it. “Brenda, your father is in the den, ask him to come to the table. Dinner is ready.”
My problem was I was a male. Males have NEVER understood how devious, cunning, smart, sly, and underhanded the female mind works. From the beginning in time, females have always let men think males are the superior and more intelligent gender. It proves just how stupid we can be. Men will never be able to out think the female of our species.
===============================================================================
Supper was a quiet peaceful meal of pork chops, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, and corn. Mom was the last to sit down and get food on her plate. Mom was always last to sit down and get food.
She was spooning gravy over her potatoes. “Mark, I think the flower beds in front could use a little more mulch. I’m getting some weeds coming up now and then.”
Dad nodded in agreement after he chewed up and swallowed the bite of pork chop he had put in his mouth. “Sounds right, I’ll pick up some at the garden center tomorrow. You want to go and see what kind of plants they have?”
“I’d love to. Might pick up some paint, brushes, rollers and masking tape at the same time. The trim around the house is needing a fresh coat.”
“Yep, it’s starting to fade a little. What do you think if we go to a lighter brown this time? That dark brown fades pretty fast. Probably should start checking prices on washing machines too. I’m sure washing machines aren’t supposed to growl. I heard ours growling last week when you put that heavy load of jeans in it.”
They even talked about checking the guttering, the roof, and maybe changing out the dryer. Then their discussion moved to replacing the living room couch with the money they would save by not going on a summer vacation. All boring and not once did they mention a new gaming set or getting rid of our old fifty five inch TV and getting a bigger one. There was no doubt dad expected me to help out with some of the gardening, painting, and mowing. That was besides mom always asking me to take my clothes to my room after she washed and folded them. I had to make my bed, and take out the trash. Sis did those things too but she was a girl. Girls are supposed to do them things. It’s their job. My whole summer looked like crap as far as I was concerned.
Everyday the next three days only drove home how good girls have it compared to boys. Brenda was gone before breakfast. No doubt to go to the mall and boy shop. Dad and I painted the trim in the front of the house. I helped carry bags of mulch to the flowerbeds. Then I helped him and mom spread it out just so. I didn’t even get a chance to play video games when they went to the store. I had to mow the yard. And sis, was probably with her friends at the mall.
It was the fourth day, I had walked into the house after helping dad finish painting the trim on the backside. Mom and sis were discussing something in my parent’s bedroom.
“Mom, all of us are from the high school band. We blend which is saying a lot if you have ever heard any garage bands.”
“You’re good I’ll give you that. Your problem is you have a hole in pushing out the notes. He can fill that hole. Mr. Christi used him to do exactly that in the high school band. You have an excellent ear for music and a beautiful voice. You know what I’m saying is true.”
“Mom…, he’s stubborn and lazy. He does what he has to in order to get by. We filled up our time slots for the whole summer after you said our vacation was canceled. I won’t have him come in when he wants. I hope to get some scouts to look us over. I don’t expect to ever be a big name or top money. All any of us want is to have fun with this as long as we can. The girls will marry, have families, kids, grow old and maybe when we are all in the retirement home we can entertain there until they kick us out.”
===========================================================================
The next morning Brenda had already left the house when I approached mom to borrow the car.
She gave me that look and I knew I was in for a grilling. Mom strangled baby kittens for fun before she married dad. I just knew it. “Sierra?”
Every question she wanted answered was in that one word. “I figured I’d drive over to Patty’s place and listen to the girls. I heard you and sis talking yesterday. I’ll stay out of sight and listen to what they manage to do with their instruments. Sis isn’t the only one with a decent voice, Patty, and Lorrie can also sing.”
“I know you. You aren’t doing this out of the kindness of your heart. What’s in it for you.”
“Jeeze mom, I offer to do something for sis without asking for something in return and you gig me. Am I really that bad of a son? I heard you and sis talking about me yesterday. I lay awake half the night wondering if I really was that person? The truth is, I am but I’m going to try and change.”
Mom nodded. She wasn’t agreeing but willing to accept I was going to try. “If you don’t mind, I’ll drive.”
“To make sure I’m not there to run them down and tell them their efforts stink?”
“Yes.” Mom always was direct.
“I deserved that. Okay, let’s go. They will have their instruments tuned up and the music picked out they want to practice on today.”
Mom parked a block away in case the girls had the garage door up. We could hear them as soon as we got out of the car. I motioned for mom to wait as I listened. Brenda was the lone vocalist. She was behind the beat. Speaking of beat, they were using a synthesizer to fill in the drum section. Lorrie was their drummer, where was she? Patty was their bass guitar and she was off a quarter beat. Mitcha was their violinist; she was the only one in sync with the beat.
Looking at mom, I shook my head. “I said I wouldn’t bad mouth them, but mom…, they are terrible. I wouldn’t hire them to play in a dog kennel with the dogs accompanying them. Each of them are doing their own thing.”
Mom thought about it for a few seconds. “They are bad. If we go down there can you give them constructive criticism instead of just telling them they are off key?”
“Yes, I promise I’m going to be a better son, a better brother than what I have been.”
“Okay, get in the car and I’ll drive down.”
“I’ll walk. I want to listen to what they are doing and how the acrostics change as I get closer.”
The girls started another song and the tempo was wrong. They didn’t reset the drum beat and it was too slow for this song. They were better than this. What had happened to them?
They noticed when mom drove up in front. They faltered and then tried to catch back up. They were bad before and turned into terrible now. Was this how they were going to perform in front of an audience? They were high school band members for god’s sake. They performed in front of huge crowds. Something was terribly wrong.
When they saw me the notes kinda drained away. The only thing still going was that stupid synthesizer. I walked into the garage and switched it off. Looking back at the girls they were all focused on me.
“Where’s Lorrie?”
“What’s it to you?” Mitcha almost snarled it out. “You’re not wanted here. Go back to your video games.”
Mom had walked into the garage. “We stopped by to listen to some music. Girls, Sierra and I have been parked down the block listening. Your timing is off. What is the problem?”
“Lorrie’s parents moved to Seattle. Lorrie is gone.” Mitcha wiped at a tear.
I knew Lorrie and Mitcha were an item. I didn’t realize how close of an item they were. I pointed to Lorrie’s drum set back in the corner. “She didn’t take her set?”
“It was a sudden offer in her dad’s company. They lost one of their executives in an accident, her dad was given the position at four times the money he was making. They would make sure their home here was sold for a fair price, offered him a better home there at way below market price, and would move them. She didn’t have time to come after her drums. She would send for the set when they got settled in.” Mitcha wiped at some more tears.
Walking over to the drum set I started moving them out to the middle of the garage.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing! Stay away from Lorrie’s drums!:” Mitcha was glaring at me.
I didn’t stop as I was arranging the set. “Mitcha, I’m not Lorrie but I can play the drums. If you’ll let me, I’ll try and give you girls a beat you can lean into and get on tempo. I know you don’t like me. You don’t need to in order to understand what I heard down the street was not what your girls are capable of. Put your hate aside for a little and focus on nothing but your songs and your music. There are ten thousand screaming fans out there waiting for you girls to step up to the center stage and give them some of the best live music they ever heard.”
The drums were set up, I rolled through a drum beat to make sure they were still solid. Most people never realize a drum can get out of tune the same as any other instrument. It was a go. I fired up the bass, the snares, the cymbals with a solid up and then down rolling drum beat rocking the whole neighborhood for four minutes and then settled into a steady beat with the right tempo for the last song the girls tried to play. I kept it up for over two minutes before they decided that was their intro. They came online, on time, in perfect sync with the beat. The girls weren’t only good, they were damn good. They would never be top billing. They would be the best the majority of the population in this town ever heard from a live band.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq14laA-jjg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3Jtp3-0FqI
Mom stood off to the side listening for a little while. She nodded in agreement, gave me a smile, and indicated she was leaving. I nodded back as I held onto the beat. Don’t let distractions tear the song apart. It was what live bands had to contend with and overcome to be good. I knew the girls were good. Lorrie leaving had tossed them a curve ball.
The girls needed more backup to their band. Four members was thin. Lorrie left them with only three which was basically no longer a band but a trio or group. I had some girls in mind who could fill that void. Now if Sis and the others agreed, they would have their all girl band that could rock our part of the world. And…, provided the girls I’m thinking of join in.
Sis and the others stayed after it all morning and well after lunch without taking a break. They knew they were rocking the beat. Most of those songs I joined in harmonizing with Mitcha., Patty, or Sis as each took her turn as lead singer. I didn’t have a mike and their backs were to me. With our instruments adding to the music I knew I wouldn’t be heard.
Three times the police drove by. The officer would motion for us to turn down the volume and then give us a thumbs up as he smiled and drove away. I wondered if he was sitting down at the end of the block listening?
A little after two the girls called it quits. They were hot, thirsty, and their fingers were getting sore. I yelled at sis before she put her guitar away. “WIPE OUT!”
Brenda looked at the others, back at me and nodded okay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdMjXJTsX94
For the past couple hours neighbors had been opening up their garage doors sitting up their lawn chairs in their garage and listening to the girls. Now they were coming to stand in front of the garage as Brenda and I finished up with Wipe Out.
“One last one, okay? We will rock you.” I motioned to all the people out in front of the garage. “We need your help with this one. Please join in as this is our last song for today.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tJYN-eG1zk
Starting in with the beat, The girls and the majority of the people all joined in. Everyone had big smiles on their faces. Brenda did all of us proud on the guitar.
Standing up, I bowed to all the people out front. “Ladies and gentlemen thank you for coming and helping out with our last song. We couldn’t have done it without you. You’ve been a great audience and again thank you for your help.”
The crowd started leaving, Mitcha and the girls were looking at each other and smiling ear to ear knowing they had nailed it today. As the crowd thinned out there was the policeman writing something in a book. I figured we were fined for noise.
He came in and handed me the ticket. “I don’t remember ever having a better more fun day. You kids are great. Thanks for the entertainment.”
“Uh…, yeah, okay.” I glanced at the ticket.
His eyes were dancing as he smiled, turned, and left.
Looking down at the ticket there weren’t any fines listed. He had written on it. Next time pull a block party permit if you’re going to entertain the neighborhood.
Patty’s mom, Rachel came into the garage with a pitcher of ice tea and plastic cups. “I figured everyone could use a drink.”
“Yes:” “I could” “I’m so hot” “Thank you Mrs. Webb.”
“Sierra, did I call you Mr. Loyd? We aren’t formal around here. Leave off the titles or it’s Rachel.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Sierra, what did I just say?”
“Rachel, ma’am.”
Rachel laughed as she shook her head. “Okay, you’ll grow into it if you hang around with the girls long enough.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Okay, that’s enough. Girls are you through for the day? You need to put all your instruments back off to the side so Nick can get his car in when he gets home.”
“We will, and thanks for the ice tea.” Brenda was pouring herself a second cup.
“You girls sounded good today. I think all the neighbors noticed. Do you think you can move the entertainment around a little since you seem to have found yourselves?”
Patty giggled. “Mom means she’s a little over entertained for awhile. Mitcha, how about your parents house?”
Mitcha shook her head. “We have some really crabby neighbors. They complain every time dad gets out the mower, the edger, or they think he left his car idle in the driveway too long. They call the police and complain every day or two. There is nothing they or we can do about them.”
Everyone turned to look at Brenda. “Okay, I guess turn about is fair. We been driving Rachel crazy for weeks, I guess it’s mom’s turn.”
Rachel reached out and gave Brenda a hug. “Hon, you girls haven’t been that bad and today you really rocked the block. I wouldn’t mind keeping you but I’m guessing we might end up with some crabby neighbors too if we don’t give them a break.”
“We’ll pick up the instruments later if that is alright with you, Rachel?” Looking at the other girls, Brenda got nods of agreement.
“What about Lorrie’s drum set? Will you be able to find a place for it until she comes back or have it shipped?”
Brenda glanced at the drum set. “Ummm, Mitcha, call Lorrie and see if she wants it put in storage or we can use it if we get a drummer. Maybe our new drummer will want to buy it if we find one that is.”
Rachel looked at me and then each of the girls. “I thought you had a drummer? That wasn’t a machine playing the drums.”
The girls hesitated.
“They are an all girl band Mrs Webb. I only stopped by to talk to Brenda for a minute and kinda got carried away thinking I could play the drums since they weren’t being used.”
She looked doubtful. “I see or I don’t see. There is a hard and fast rule this has to be an all girl band? All your events are going to be held in a Nun’s convent? You’re playing in a girl’s dormitory? You’re in competition with all girl bands from across the country for that elusive million dollar prize?”
She shook her head. “No…, I don’t see. Brenda, you girls have never sang and played better. Trust me on this since I started out with you girls in our garage since day one. Your brother brought all three of you together in a cohesive group for the first time since you started. Lorrie is better than good. Your brother beat her hands down twice over. You never congealed with Lorrie. With Sierra you never got off the tempo, never missed a note. As little attention as everyone pays to the drummer sitting at the back, they are the heart beat of every song as they are the key to the rhythm the song must be played.”
Patty looked kind of embarrassed. “Mom played in a professional band while she was in college and for a short time there after. She played the guitar, bass fiddle, fiddle, and the drums, and was their lead vocalist. Daddy said she was their Girl Friday filling in all the spots when one of the others was sick or too drunk to play.”
“Thank you Patty. I believe Nick and Patty embellish the story every time they tell it but yes I was in a professional band. Of all the instruments I played, I felt the drummer was the one key player in every band. Girls, give it serious consideration.”
“We will.”
Rachel watched as they all piled into Brenda’s van and pulled out of the driveway. She gathered up empty and not empty cups hoping they would return and pick up the instruments still in the middle of the garage before Nick got home. For the first time in a long time she felt like she wanted back up on stage. Listening to Sierra play the drums today had put an itch in her emotions that needed scratching and relief. She looked over at the drum set wondering? Could she? Should she? She lowered the garaged door. The neighbors heard someone trying to playing on the drums. They weren’t bad but they weren’t that good either. Couldn’t be the boy who was playing earlier. Had to be someone else. They needed practice.
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On the road Sis looked at me in the rear view mirror. “We’re going for burgers and fries. You can come with us or I’ll drop you off at home.”
“What about the instruments? Rachel wanted them out of the garage.”
“We’ll go pick everything up after we stop for lunch.”
“I’ll stick with you. Lorrie’s drum set is high end and needs to be broken down a certain way so it doesn’t get damaged. I helped Mr. Christi do that so I know how it’s done. Also it won’t all fit in your van. You’ll need to make two trips.”
“Swing by my house after we grab a bite to eat. I can bring mom’s van over.” Mitcha was looking at Sis to see if she agreed.
“That will work.” Sis gave Mitcha a quick glance.
An hour later as we were loading the instruments, Mitcha called Lorrie and they talked for the forty minutes it took the rest of us to get the instruments loaded in the vans. She was looking at the drum set in the back of her mother’s van. “Lorrie said to sell it if we can. Her dad’s company offered to buy her a new set since hers didn’t get shipped with the rest of the household goods.”
I doubted Lorrie would get another set. She never was that enthusiastic about the drums after she talked her parents into buying them. I bet she conveniently forgot to tell anyone where her set was when the moving company came in to pack everything up.
Back at our house, I helped set up the amps and get a mike check. The girls were using high end personal wireless mikes. Lorrie’s drum set was unpacked from the back of Mitcha’s van and put in the corner of the garage. I started to unload Mitcha’s amp and guitar.
“No, leave it. I have a few things I want to do before I set up again.” She was closing up the back door as I moved back.
“Okay.” I hadn’t heard anything wrong when we were at Patty’s house. Maybe she wanted to restring it and get new strings broke in before they played their first gig coming up in four days on Saturday at the Library. It seemed strange to have the girls rock a library which is supposed to be quiet for reading but seems as if the fate of life has a sense of humor. Those who manage the library figured the girl band would draw attention to an institution many people no longer think of in our digital age.
I hoped it worked out for both the girls and the library. Mom had kept me informed what Sis was doing even though at the time it totally pissed me off she was having fun playing while I was working with dad on the house. The girls had signed on with the Library Committee to do a freebie for the exposure and their first public performance.
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Wednesday morning I rolled out of bed. When I opened my door I heard crying coming from the kitchen. Heading that direction, I stopped as I entered the kitchen. Sis had her head down on her arms, on the kitchen table, bawling her heart out. Mom was standing beside her with her hand on her back.
I gave mom a ‘what gives’ look.
“Your sister called Mitcha this morning to see if they could start practice around nine. It seems after talking to Lorrie yesterday Mitcha was invited to visit Lorrie for the summer. She had already accepted the invite yesterday and didn’t tell anyone before the girls picked up their instruments. Patty and your sister are the only two left in the band. It fell apart before it ever got started.”
“CRAP!”
“SIERRA, YOUR LANGUAGE!” Mom was glaring at me.
“Well, it’s true.” I may have been jealous of sis getting out of helping fix up the house but she didn’t deserve this. I knew she had her heart set on making this dream come true even if only for a short time. She had talked about having a girl band since she was seven years old. She had a taste of it and her dream had been yanked away.
“Don’t let her go out in the garage. She probably feels like destroying every instrument out there. I know some girls, I’ll make some calls.”
It was over two hours later I was searching through the house for mom and sis. I found them out on the back porch sitting in the glider. Sis had her head in momma’s lap and mom was stroking her hair.
“Sis, I asked four girls to see if they want to help out in your band. Beth Ann is bass fiddle, mandolin, trombone, trumpet and several other instruments. Linda Don is steel guitar, dubro, flute, harpsichord, Hurdy Gurdy, and the banjo. Roshel Adams is electric guitar. Ashley Williams is keyboard. They all drive and promised to be here in an hour or so with their instruments.”
Mom was staring at me. Sis had sit up and was doing the same thing. She finally found her voice. “How…?”
“I helped Mr. Christi with a lot of the members of the band. Most of the kids are multi talented where they can play more than the instrument they are using in the band. These girls are better than good and they can blend into a cohesive group in a day or two. Linda Don and Ashley have beautiful voices and can sing lead on many songs that fit their style. All of them harmonize with other singers.”
“You wanted a girl band but your problem is you picked your friends instead of those with the best talent. Your friends aren’t much friends if they skip out on you when you need them. Lorrie had a choice just as Mitcha did. She could have stayed with Mitcha instead of moving for the summer. They both bailed as far as I'm concerned.”
I held out my hand to sis. “Come on, we need to get set up and get the drums in place. None of the girls have a drum set. We need to do some tests before they get here.”
As sis took my hand and stood up, I looked at mom. “Lunch, pizza will work, lots of liquids as I’m going to give all of them a real workout on vocals. They have only…,”
Mom was grinning ear to ear as she shook her head. “Where did the aliens stash my son and who are you?”
“They have three days to blend together as a band. Their performance on Saturday might is a freebie but they are going to play like it was Carnegie Hall if I have anything to do with it. Sis and Patty are good, so are the girls coming. They still need time to find their places.”
Leading sis toward the garage I remembered what a policeman had told me. I was wearing the same jeans from yesterday and found the note in my back pocket. I handed it to mom. “Make a call, get a permit for the next three days. We are going to make some music and rock the neighborhood. Better pay up front for a permit than later for a fine. Call the library and get their committee to call in for the permit for you. Public service, free entertainment and all that. I’m positive they will have enough pull with the mayor and the politics of this town to grease it through. See if they have a place for future practice after this week. I bet the neighbors will be entertained out after Friday and start complaining.”
Mom was shaking her head as she looked at me. Maybe she didn’t kill baby kittens for fun before she married dad?
An hour later I was still getting the drum set arraigned. Beth Ann, was the last one to arrive. Those who arrived earlier were busy visiting and setting up their own instruments. Roshel and Beth Ann were from the Charger High School band. I introduced all the girls to each other. Being band members they all had heard of one another even if they weren’t close friends.
I introduced myself to the girls. “I was Mr. Christi’s assistant and I know all of you. Because of my job, I studied each one of you on your strength and weakness even though two of you were not in our high school. I hope none of you take this the wrong way as it was part of my job to dig into your history to check your talent and skills. All of you are exceptionally gifted. This may sound like your band teacher but it’s still true even out here in public life. What you put into this is what you will receive back. My business with this band was to help my sister after several of her friends bailed out on her. It isn’t she wouldn’t have gladly accepted all you girls into the band when it first formed but the truth is, she was in band and not part of the leadership. She never gave any thought to seeking the best talent in the bands.”
Looking at Patty, I gave her a smile. “Patty, that is not a slight on your talents. You’re good and I believe a very important part of bringing this band together. I’m positive Mitcha and Lorrie are happy doing what ever it is they are doing and I wish them well.”
Rubbing my hands together I looked over the faces looking back. “Ladies, I listened to all of you tuning up. We are almost on key. Linda Don, you need to give a little more squeeze to the G string on your guitar. I called everyone I knew hunting a drummer. None of the girls I knew who can provide what this band must have are available. Until Brenda comes up with a drummer I’ll fill that void. Ladies, you have three days to blend into a million dollar band. Make it happen.”
Sitting down behind the drums, I nodded. “Too Good to be True in the style of Eden’s Edge. Linda Don, I expect those sliding notes to talk to me. Lead us into it…, now.”
We didn’t do the song any justice. It wasn’t terrible but it was bad. They all knew it. For our first song together and half the girls didn’t even know the song, it was okay. They did better than good. Sometimes, the effort counts more than the actual doing as everyone knew it would get better.
We played until six shutting down only long enough to eat and to keep everyone in liquids. All the girls were great on harmony and would only get better with practice. Roshel had a powerful voice. There were several songs I knew of she would make her own. Ashley had a high soprano. There was no doubt the girl could shatter crystal glass. There were several Celtic and Viking songs that would fit her like a glove. Brenda was going to have to expand her band concept from hard rock to encompass almost every genre of music for her dream of making a viable all girl band come true.
The only fly in the ointment at the time was we needed a girl drummer. Small details can make or break a band or dreams.
===========================================================================
Thursday and Friday we started at ten and finished at six both days. Mom had that permit and those were the hours we were allowed. Which was more than enough. The girls were beat at the end of each day and their fingers were sore.
Friday evening instructions were given before they packed up their instruments. “Saturday morning you need to be set up and ready by ten A.M. I’ve been on the phone with the library people everyday. The committee promised a tent and stage will be set up out front. The street will be closed off. Food venders will be set up at each end of the block. Each of you get a free meal ticket good for thirty dollars cashable at any of the venders. Besides the appreciation from the audience it is the only pay you will receive. Mom and dad will bring four large ice chests with water and drinks. Everyone stay refreshed. Patty, Beth Ann your moms called me and said they were bringing food.”
Taking a deep breath I looked at the girls. “What I have to say next may not set well with any of you. I’m sorry to be bringing it up so late. The Library Committee was promised an all girl band. They have sent out flyers and advertised the heck out of this on TV, radio, newspapers, and the supermarket flyers. Yesterday I had to promise them an all girl band or they were calling in the backup band, The Panthers. After failing to produce, this band would never get another chance at any public event this city had to offer. Not only that but the negative publicity would crash it before it ever got started.”
Looking at sis I gave her a crooked smile. “We’ve always fought like brother and sister. I have zero desire to do what must be done except I do love you even if you are a stinky smelly girl. Yesterday I called Kendra and asked if she could change me into a girl for a day if we didn’t find a drummer for your group by this evening.”
Sis’s mouth dropped open as her eyes got as big as egg whites. The other girls weren’t doing a whole lot better. She started to say something.
I held up my hand. “Tomorrow, The Morning Glories, an all girl band, are going to perform for the Library and all citizens who wish to stop by and be entertained by the best live musical group they will ever hear or see. If any of you wish to pull out and not be a part of this, I understand. I hope if you leave no hard feelings. I know there will be as you will feel you have been deceived and put in all this effort for a lie.”
“I’m sorry.” I turned to go back into the house.
“Sierra, wait.” Sis walked up and took my hand. She turned to look at the other girls. My brother brought us all together and has been the drummer from the beginning. He understands music better than Mr. Christi who I think is the best music teacher ever. He has corrected our mistakes, encouraged us, made us better than what we could ever be without his help. Never once did he say we stank which we all know we did that first day.”
She glanced at me and then back at the girls. “Are we all in this together or do we quit now? This is the once in a lifetime opportunity for each and every one of us. It won’t ever happen again. In seventy years when you’re telling stories to the grandkids about what you did back when you were young, are you going to say, I was in a band…, for three days. Or are you going to say, I was in a band for the summer. Or possibly even longer if this works out for us.”
The five girls looked at one another and then surged forward. Brenda and I were swallowed in a group hug.”
=========================================================================
Kendra was one of those confusing persons. I wasn’t sure she was a girl or a male. At a community play I had seen her in a dress, heels, jewelry, her long straight raven black hair glistening. She was the prettiest female there. The problem is, I had also seen him in a dress suit, tie, and I swear he had a thin mustache. If he still had all that hair it was tucked up under that fedora hat he wore. He was the best looking man in that committee arts meeting.
Kendra was active in a lot of different places. She helped prep the actors and actresses in the community plays. She worked with our college in the arts department. Where I first heard of her and met her, she was helping set up a movie shot of a parade. Our high school band was marching down the street as part of the parade. I helped Mr. Christi organize our band in the order the movie people wanted them. The movie people wanted the players matched as to height not instruments, and the girls on the side closest to the cameras as we marched by.
It was my only introduction as to how movies are faked to please the script and the director, not imitate real life. Our efforts never made the movie as we ended up on the cutting room floor. The agency was kind enough to send to the band department what they had shot of the band. There were four different views. One camera was street level. One was what I would call second story view looking down. The third one was overhead as we marched under the camera. The fourth one was an active car chase as it ended half a block away A shoot out began and the band was marching in the background oblivious to the event because of the music downing out the noise of the fire fight.
The movie went straight to DVD. I didn’t buy a disk but a lot of the other kids did. The ones who bought it said the only good acting never made it into the movie. Of course they meant the high school band. That was the time I learned Kendra did a lot of acting in the movies herself. She was what the movie people call an extra. She never made the credits but if one knew who and what to look for she was there in the background. Sometimes picking up fifteen to twenty minutes of screen time.
The couple of DVDs I had where she was in the movie I couldn’t believe it was the same person. In one she was the sexy seductress in the background. In the other he was one of the hit men for the mafia. Absolutely unbelievable it was the same person. The other unbelievable part was her voice matched whatever persona she was acting. I didn’t think the girl was human. I really didn’t know her and the only reason I called was for advice. If anyone could change me into a girl for the band, she would know who could do the magic.
========================================================================
The band wrapped up practice by six. I had the discussion with the girls after that. By Six fifteen I was in dad’s car headed over to meet Kendra and some of her friends in the community theater building. I was told to meet her at the back door. Three women were waiting outside alone as I pulled into the back lot. I kinda had an idea which one was Kendra but not wanting to stick my foot in my mouth I stopped a couple feet from them after I had walked up. “Kendra?”
The lady wearing sneakers, jeans, and a Woodstock tee shirt held out her hand. “That would be me.”
“I gripped her hand without pumping it. “Nice to meet you. You probably already figured out I’m Sierra since I’m the one who is supposed to meet you here.”
A smile touched her lips. “I was leaning in that direction. How well do you wish to present as a female?”
That stopped me. “I’m a male in an all girl band. As hard as I tried I didn’t find any girl drummers to fit in with what my sister had dreamed of since she was a little girl. I want her to have her dream. For tomorrow at least.”
“And then?” She waited.
“If the band gets as much exposure as I know they will, they have a tentative this coming Friday and Saturday for the grand opening of the new boat dealership. The band will net sixteen thousand for the two days. It’s grueling for them to play most of a whole day but close to what we are already doing in practice. The girls are not only good, they are dedicated and tough. I’m proud of them, every single one of them and not because it’s my sister’s band.”
“My question still stands. How long are you in for and how far are you willing to go to be a girl in an all girl band?”
“I’m in it for the long haul. I guess I’m the undeclared manager for now. I’ve been organizing the music and got the girls playing well together. If I could find a girl drummer who knew her stuff and was willing to join a beginner’s band I’d step back in a heartbeat. You see the problem don’t you? She has to be not only good but top of her class. Then she has to be willing to go to the bottom of the up and coming bands and do most of all of it for free or almost free. In other words, I’m looking for a miracle.
“Sierra, I want a black and white answer, not a generalization about what you aren’t finding. How far are you willing to go and how deep do you want to get into being a girl.”
“Kendra, I’ve never done this kind of thing before. I’ve never even wore any of my sister’s clothes. It’s hard to put into words. The girls got this far. I don’t want to disappoint them. I guess I want to look as much like a real girl as you can make me. It will probably have to be for the whole summer.”
She looked at the other two women and sighed. “I’m not going with I guess, I want, nor probably. You’re either sure and positive or I hand you a blouse and a skirt and tell you we’re done.”
“I’m positive but I’m afraid of looking like a boy trying to look like a girl.”
“Okay, I’ll accept that. Sierra, when we are finished with you, no one will ever think you are a boy trying to look like a girl. Come on inside. Time is of the essence. We need days and you gave us hours. The looks we can handle. The mannerisms, you and your girls will have to fill in yourselves. There is more to being a woman than just clothes and makeup. It is what she is inside that counts even more than the clothes. You’ve seen women wearing pants, shirt, work boots working like a man. Yet the instant you lay eyes on her there is no doubt in your mind that is a woman and not a man. Your girls will need to turn you into a woman on the inside. If they are as dedicated as you say, they will be your best critics and your best teachers.”
=========================================================================
I made it home by six A.M. set the clock for eight and fell into bed. As strange as everything felt, I was out like a light. The little electric alarm was buzzing its little heart out. Brenda was pounding on my door. “Sierra, get out of bed, shut off the alarm, and get it together. We have to be set up by ten. Mom dropped some pop ups in the toaster. Come on, move it bro.”
Pushing up out of bed I hesitated. If this was what girls went through, I was going to shoot myself before the summer was over. Standing up I brushed down my skirt and headed to the bathroom. No one was in the hall as I made the trip and completed the necessities. Kendra told me not to wash my face or I’d need to do the makeup all over again. I sure wanted to splash cold water on my face to help get my eyes balls lubricated but I passed.
Brenda was on the left side of the kitchen, mom on the right, and daddy was sitting at the table when I walked in. Sis had seen me out of the corner of her eye and turned her head to get a good look. “Who are y…” She slapped her hand over her mouth as her eyes turned to two egg whites and stared.
Mom had turned to look, smiled at the new girl, stopped, blinked, blinked some more and her mouth fell open.
Dad looked up at Sis and mom, turned to look at what they were both staring at. Smiled and motioned to a chair as he was used to Brenda’s friends running in and out of the house. “I don’t think I’ve met you before. You one of the girls in the band? My daughter tells me four new ones have joined, Have you eaten yet? My wife is fixing pop ups for the kids. You’re welcome to join us. Pull up a chair.”
“Thank you, you’re very kind. I do believe I’ll have one of those pop ups if it is okay with your wife.” I moved up to the table by one of the chairs and had yet to sit down. The voice was one Kendra coached me into finding and I practiced most of the night I was there. Female voices rise and fall in pitch. Because I knew music scales it was easy to get an understanding what Kendra was teaching me. My voice never was a, me Tarzan you Jane masculine voice. To find my female voice I dropped an octave and went lyrical in my speech. Kendra told me some girls worked for years to find their voice while I found mine in less than an hour. Even better, I didn’t have to work at it as it came naturally.
Mom was about to go into hysterical giggling fits while sis still hadn’t closed her mouth or stopped staring.
Dad took a bite of his pop up and swallowed after chewing it up. “What instrument in the band do you play? You did say you were in my daughter’s band didn’t you?”
“No sir, I didn’t but yes I am in her band. I’m at the back of the group.” I pulled back the chair, cupped my skirt behind my legs with my hands and sit down.
“Back of the band? Don’t sell yourself short. From what Brenda tells me all you girls are really good. I’m only catching part of your entertainment by the time I come home in the evening. I think you’re being modest as it all sounded good to me.” He was steadily working on eating his pop up.
Mom set a plate with a pop up on it and a glass of milk in front of me. “Did you bring your makeup kit with you? You’ll need to repair your lipstick after eating.”
“Oh yes Ma’am, I was warned I wasn’t to ever go anywhere without my purse and makeup. It’s a woman’s curse to need to look good at all times when out in public. Is it not?”
That did it for mom. She whirled around, leaned over the kitchen sink and was shaking as she was laughing and trying to hold it in.
Mom losing it caused sis to lose it. She turned around, put her arm over mom’s shoulder and was haw hawing as she tried to reign it in.
Dad looked over at me. “I don’t know what got into both of them. They aren’t like this. I hope you don’t think badly of our family.”
THAT remark wiped mom and sis both out. They were both cackling no longer trying to hold it in.
Dad looked at them and back at me, not sure what to say now.
I was holding my own even if I was grinning ear to ear like a fool. “No Sir, I don’t think I could think badly of your family. If I did, I’d have to think badly of myself.” I choked down a snicker and coughed.
Mom finally got it under control. She turned around to study me still snickering off and on. “Dear, I know I should remember your name.”
“Yes Ma’am, I don’t believe I mentioned it before. I always liked the mystique of the name Nadia.”
Mom rolled in her lip and held onto it with her teeth to keep from laughing again. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Yes dear, that’s a very nice name. And you are in my daughter’s band are you not?”
“Oh yes Ma’am. You wouldn’t believe what I went through to be in your daughter’s band.”
Mom eyed me critically. “Do you feel it is worth it?”
“For your daughter to achieve the dream she always had since she was a little girl? Most definitely, Ma’am. Everyone who has a dream should be able to touch the star where dreams come true, don’t you think?”
Mom got serious. “I do think. Nadia, What is your special dream?”
“I guess, your daughter’s dream and mine are almost the same. I want to write and teach music. I believe music fills an important part in all of us. I believe those who learn to play and live music are better happier people whether they live it, do it part time, or do it for a short time as they are growing up.” I looked at sis. She was wiping tears from her eyes.
I pushed back from the table, stood up still holding onto my pop tart. “We need to get going. It is going to take some time to set up the instruments. I have a full drum set to install and it will take the longest.”
Brenda grabbed a pop tart, walked over, took my hand and led me from the kitchen.
Mark watched them leave and then looked at his wife. “I thought Sierra was their drummer? She never did say what she played. I guess it’s a trumpet or something simple? She meant she would have time to help Sierra set up the drums?”
Donna shook her head as she smiled. “We’ll find out what she does when we take the ice chests and drinks out there, won’t we.”
“I really don’t remember seeing her before and I thought I had seen all the new girls.” Mark screwed up his mouth trying to pull in a picture of where that girl fit in the band. Nothing came to mind.
=========================================================================
Brenda had rented a U Haul trailer Friday and a couple dozen padding blankets. It was hooked up to her van. The girls had loaded everything into it after I left yesterday. It only took twenty minutes to get to the Library. The street was barricaded off.
After sis pulled up in front of the barricades I got out and walked up to the man guarding it. “We are the band, or actually two members of the band. We have all the instruments in the trailer. We need to drive down to the stage to unload and set up.”
“Let’s see your pass.” He held out his hand.
“We don’t have a pass. All our contact has been via phone. Would you like to look in the trailer at all the instruments.”
“Everyone who is part of the Library Reader’s Party was issued a pass. If you don’t have a pass I can’t let you through.” He straightened up and hitched up his belt with the gun, handcuffs, and all the other things guards hang on their belts.
This wasn’t the first uncooperative guard I had ever dealt with. Working with the band I had run into others. I looked at his name tag. “Mr. Becks, you either let us in to set up or there isn’t going to be a Library Party. We are that Event.”
“No pass, then you don’t pass. Are we clear?” He tugged on his belt again.
“Hope I find someone on the other end a whole lot smarter than you.” I reached down for my phone. It wasn’t there. It was in my purse which was in the van.
He smirked, “Lose something, Miss?”
“Yes, my patience. Don’t worry, I’ll have it returned as soon as I make a call.” I headed for the van.
After picking up my phone, I started scrolling through the numbers. I found the one I was looking for. I pushed the button for the phone to dial the number.
“Hello.”
“Mrs. Wright, this is one of the members of the Morning Glories and we seem to have a small problem. One of your guards won’t let us in to set up our instruments.”
“Show him your pass.”
“Ma’am, all our contact was by phone. We weren’t ever issued a pass.”
“Oh…, Oh I see. Yes, of course. What is the guard’s name?”
“Mr. Becks is the man I’ve been trying to talk into letting us by.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“Yes Ma’am, hold one minute. I need to walk back over where he is at.”
I put the phone on speaker and held it up as I closed in to the guard. “Mr. Becks, Mrs. Wright would like to speak to you.”
“Who’s Mrs. Wright?”
“One of the organizers of this event. If you would let the young lady and the rest of the band through I’m sure all of us would appreciate it.” Came back over the phone.
“Lady, I don’t know you, and they ain’t got no pass. They ain’t going through without a pass.”
“Mr. Becks, due to the nature of the situation they weren’t issued a pass. Now if you would please let them through all of us would be most happy.” Came from my phone.
“Lady, no pass means no pass. Are we clear?”
“Miss, what did you say your name was?” My phone repeated to us.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t give it. I’m Nadia, I’m the drummer for the Morning Glories. I believe your committee was corresponding with Sierra Loyd to set all this up.”
“Yes, that’s right. Is he there?”
“No Ma’am, he was delayed do to other matters this morning. I’m positive he will be here as soon as possible.”
“Stay put. I’ll make a phone call.” There was silence as she went off line.
It didn’t take long, three to five minutes a big guy came out of the library building carrying a coffee cup and wearing storm clouds over his head. He headed straight for us. “Ned, just what the fuck do you think you’re doing! I got a call you are holding up the band that is going to be the focal point of entertainment today.”
Becks pointed at me and then the van sis was sitting in. “They ain’t got no pass.”
“Did you check to see what they had in the trailer? NO you didn’t. Do they look like terrorists fixing to put a bomb in the middle of this shebang?”
The big guy looked at me. “She doesn’t look like a terrorist.” He looked at my sister. “Nope, no terrorist there either.”
He pulled back the barricade. “Go on kids, get going. Are there any more of you who don’t have a pass?”
“Yes Sir, five more. They won’t be driving in. All our instruments are in this trailer.”
He looked over at Becks. “Repeat after me. This is a free event. Everyone is allowed in even if they don’t have a pass.”
Becks glared daggers at me for getting him chewed out. “Vehicles coming in need a pass.”
“NED!” He shook his head. “Kids, go.”
Brenda started the van and slowly pulled down behind the platform. I walked down and got there as we both met at the back of the trailer. “I wish we had some muscle to move all this gear up on stage.”
“I can arrange that.” Came from behind us.
The rest of our band members waked up beside the trailer as they had come in from the other end of the street from where we entered. Each one of them looked stage ready as they were all dressed for wow. Even if their talent as musicians didn’t sizzle the audience their looks most certainly would. They were all staring at me.
I gave a little wave. “Hi, I’m Nadia, your drummer.”
They all looked stunned but accepting. “Hi, Nadia” came from each of them.
The guy that had offered to help put his fingers in his mouth and gave out a shrill whistle. He waved his hand and pointed to the trailer. “Guys, want to make Brownie Points with the girls? Need a little help moving something up on the stage.”
“Our musical instruments.” Brenda unlocked the trailer and swung the doors open.
Ten enthusiastic looking young men had gathered round. I put my arm across the doorway. “Guys, these are high priced delicate instruments. Two of those guitars are worth over nine thousand…, each. The Tama Star Maple drum set cost over fourteen thousand. The Yamaha Modus key board cost over thirteen thousand. “
Looking at each individual I gave a slight smile. “Please be gentle and caring with each piece you are handling. None of us can afford to replace anything if something gets damaged. Our lives are tied in with those instruments. And if you don’t damage any of it, I promise you will hear some of the best live music you will ever experience in your lifetime no matter how old you get. You’ll remember this one musical event even if you go to a hundred others.”
That was when I remembered Kendra’s tee shirt. “You may have heard your parents mention Woodstock was the event of a lifetime. This can be your Woodstock, a once in a lifetime chance to see a happening. Please be careful with the instruments.” I backed up from the door. Yet close enough to supervise how they moved the blankets and picked up the instruments.
“Brenda, Patty, Ashley, go up on the stage and show these really careful movers where to set the instruments. Beth, up in the trailer to move the blanket pads and show these gentlemen where and how to pick up the instruments. Roshel, Linda, make sure when these fine caring men step out of the trailer they are holding those instruments in the right way.”
Every single one of those young men understood without a doubt they were moving something very valuable and important to the girls. One uh oh was going to erase any Brownie Point they could ever hope to have with them.
One of them was muttering as he stepped out of the trailer carrying a guitar case. “I never saw a ten thousand dollar guitar before.”
The other one behind him was carrying an amp. “Yeah you have. You just never knew it.”
“All they are is wood and strings. What makes it so valuable?” He was walking up the stage steps with it.
“Probably the name. They also have a lot of electronics in them now. A lot of that cost is this amplifier I’m carrying. Probably has more computer power in it than that first astronaut shuttle they sent to the moon.”
I was thinking how right that young man was.
========================================================================
The guys were careful and we were getting close to ready as we finished setting up when an older man walked over to Linda and Patty. “We have the sound system ready for you.”
“Sound system?” They both turned around to look back at me.
He noticed. “You must be the organizer for this bunch. We have the sound system set up.” Another man came across the stage with a couple mikes on pedestals. He put them down a couple feet apart.
We had our own sound system but…, I moved out from behind the drum set. “Let’s run a test. Motioning for Ashley I pointed to the right mike. “Break the crystal.”
She nodded in agreement as she walked over to the mike. I moved the other mike clear across to the other side of the stage and motioned for Beth. “Get your violin, The second part of Sing.”
Beth uncased her violin and walked over to the left mike while I moved around to the drums. Ashley gave a nod and I started in with the beat. Beth picked up the notes and Ashley began with her pure high soprano. God, that girl could reach high notes humans weren’t meant to.
Everyone out there stopped and was looking around. What was going on? It sounded like something from an opera. Was that the girls who had been setting up on stage or a recording? The impedance from the mikes and the speakers started giving feedback. The squawk and roar from the speakers drowned out Ashley until their audio technicians shut everything down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgK3ztmc6fM
Ashley and Beth were smiling ear to ear as they turned to look at me. “I believe you broke their sound system. Thank you for the test ladies.”
The sound man came storming across the stage. “What the hell did you just do!”
Walking out to meet him I shrugged. “We were testing your sound system. Correct me if I’m wrong but you have a lot of excess wiring coiled up from your right hand speaker laying on top of a lot of coiled up wire from your left hand speaker. I believe you achieved electrical conductance as one coil fed into the other coil until it overloaded your system. My advice is to never get your wires close to one another and never lay coils on top of one another.”
He glared at me. “What the hell does a little girl know about sound systems?”
“Oh nothing much except I helped set up and operate one of the best sound systems this state ever had.” I figured our high school did have the best in the state. They should have, they paid a ton of money for it.
“Fuck you, bitch! You fried my system. No one is going to be happy when the speakers who are giving speeches today find out they don’t have any mikes.”
“Oh, I think we can help out there.” I pointed to the voice mike I had on my head. “We’ll let them use our systems. And mister…, you ever cuss me out like that ever again I’ll report you to the people who organize these events.”
He grinned, honest to god he grinned. “Fuck you again, bitch. I have a year contract. You think you’re somebody because you can come out here and play a few lousy songs? I never heard of this shitty group and I know them all. I have set up the sound system for everyone of them. The Morning Pussies? Hah, nothing but a bunch of retards from daddy’s garage.”
The rest of the girls looked shocked, disgusted. They had never run into this kind of abuse before. I was sorry they were getting initiated so early in the game. It happens as there are those kind of people out there who think women are lower than man’s best friend, his dog.
“Have you had your say?”
“You bet your sweet ass I have. And I’m going to be laughing my ass off when the crowd starts leaving when that other bitch starts screeching into the mike.”
“Thank you for your honest opinion. If you would kindly remove your…, from the stage we need to make sure all our instruments are still in tune so we can do our screeching as you call it.”
He turned and walked away muttering loud enough for everyone to hear. “Stupid bitches.”
Motioning all the girls over, I looked at each one making eye to eye contact. “He’s an obnoxious bastard isn’t he. Don’t let it rattle you. Be professional and understanding as his kind are out there. I was hoping we wouldn’t run into one of them and yet on our very first public show he had to be there too. Get into the music, let it sooth your emotions.”
I started whistling. Everyone moved back to their instruments, slipped on their mikes, and waited to make sure everyone was ready. I stopped whistling, nodded and began whistling again. Each girl picked it up and joined in playing. When it was time for the vocals they all joined in on that also. I guess this was our tune up. The girls were harmonizing perfectly, they were with the rhythm and beat in perfect sync. I know it was a laid back song to get them to relax and forget the jerk but my god were they good! I felt chills run up and down my spine. This was their moment in life. I prayed nothing took this from them and they had good memories of the band for the rest of their lives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRv-fgfLFTk
Most everyone out there stopped to listen and then returned to finish their jobs. A lot of them were singing along to the song. I bet not a single one of them consciously understood the sound coming out of our system was a hundred times better than that cheap sound system that horse’s butt had set up.
The girls were relaxed and back on track. They were more than ready. “Okay, everyone, take a break. Mom and dad aren’t here yet with the coolers so find water where ever you can. I’m staying here to make sure no one messes with our system. Brenda, if you find bottled water please bring me back a bottle. Call our parents and if they are close all of you can head over to where they parked and help carry the ice chests back.”
Looking at my watch I noticed we were closing in on ten. We didn’t have to start off exactly at ten. “It’s twelve to ten so try and make it back at least in fifteen minutes or so. We don’t have Prima Donna status yet, that is coming. We can still push the times around a little. Now go.”
The ugly guy kept poking his head up over the stage and looking at me. I figured he was dying to come up and break something. I pointed at my phone as I yelled at him. “It takes pictures too.”
He ducked back out of sight. I was glad everything we had was on top the stage and not behind it or under it. I phoned my sis. “Did you get everything that guy was saying when he had diarrhea of the mouth?”
“Yes, everything. Why?”
“I’m sending you a phone number. Send it to that number.”
“Who is it?”
“Lance Sharp. He is one of the members of the mayor’s city promotional teams. I want them to see what kind of guy they hired to set up their sound systems when they promote events for the city. And sis, be and sure and tell him this happened while the Morning Glories were trying to set up in front of the library.”
“He’ll want to know who the girl was the guy was cussing.”
“I figured as much. It can’t be helped. It is what it is. Make sure you tell him my name is Nadia. It’s Nadia Loyd if he wants the full name.”
“…., are you sure?”
“I’m positive. Sis, that guy has been back and I’m positive if I wasn’t here he would be up here destroying our equipment. I have pics of him glaring at me from the edge of the stage. Send your video and then I’ll send my pics. Mine won’t mean anything unless they follow yours.”
“Sierra…, Nadia, I’m afraid for you.”
“Sis, I’m good.
“Okay, send me the number and I’ll do what you asked.”
“Love you, sis.”
“Oh, by the way, mom and dad are here. They have one of those little rolling garden wagons and the ice chests are stacked on it. The girls already lightened the load from one of the chests.”
“Great, we’ll have to make sure the chests are in sight at all times. I made an enemy out here and he isn’t going to go away peacefully. No one drinks from a bottle if the seal has been broken. If anyone puts their bottle down unfinished don’t go back and drink out of it again if you haven’t had it between your legs all that time. Okay, love you, mom, and dad. Give everyone the heads up so I don’t have to repeat it here. Gotta go. Love you.”
Twelve minutes later the six girls climbed the steps back up to the stage carrying three ice chests. Mom followed them up, came around to the side and motioned for me to stand up. She walked up and hugged me giving me an air kiss. “Didn’t want to mess up your makeup. Your dad still hasn’t figured it out. I bet he gets a clue when you start playing. Sis told me you are going to start in a couple minutes. We brought umbrellas and lawn chairs. We’ll find a choice spot out front to listen to the best live band in the whole world.”
“Well they are good but I’m not going to call them the best in the world…, yet.”
Mom laughed, “That’s okay, I will. Are they up to a full day of playing?”
“We’ll have lots of breaks and then there are speeches the library people give. They have some authors who come up and give some readings from their published works. With all the people who want to speak, we’ll have about four hours total of playing. I can guarantee you a very boring day if you and dad stick around.”
Mom pulled me into a hug again. “Nadia, I can not imagine being around you could get boring. I’m ready to hear some really good music. What’s up first?”
“Brenda is going with Rolling in the Deep sung the way Marina Dalmas sings it. The song is carried by the vocals and the beat. Sis really nails it.”
“Give us a chance to get out front. Dad and I will set up after your sister sings her song.”
“Okay, love you momma.”
“I love you too, Sweetie.”
Moments later mom and dad had moved out front pulling their little garden cart with the umbrella, lawn chairs, and ice chest. The girls were taking short glances in my direction. “Is everyone ready?”
They all nodded in agreement. “Ashley, it’s your lead in. When ever you’re ready.”
Ashley started in with the heavy string cords on the electronic keyboard. Six beats later Brenda began singing. Nineteen seconds later I came in with the bass drum and a body shaking beat. The other girls blended in real softly in the background. This was truly a vocalist song and was carried by the singer. Sis nailed that puppy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJv4KiPJkcs
There was only sixty or seventy people out front but they were rocking with the song. Our intro was accepted by everyone there. Well, almost everyone there. I was positive Mr. Ugly wasn’t a happy camper.
Our next song was The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. I wanted the band to appeal to all generations not just a sliver of society. After that one Ashley stepped up and did Orinoco Flow. We didn’t have a full orchestra pushing behind her but we did have the best musicians to ever touch an instrument. I was positive our audience now belonged to us. They weren’t going to leave no matter what as they had no idea what was coming next. Beth followed Ashley with Eye of the Tiger. I loved it because it has a heavy beat and again the singer is the one who makes the song. Roshel was up with I Need A Hero. I think that girl’s vocal cords go all the way to her toes. She belted that one out better than Bonnie Taylor.
By now the crowd had grown to over three hundred with more pouring in. Billy Maddox who was supposedly MC for this finally made it up on stage. He looked around for a microphone. I pointed to a wireless hand held by the keyboard.
He picked it up and was talking into it. “Does this thing work?”
“It does now.” Ashley responded as she turned it on via her keyboard.
“Testing. Testing, one, two, three.” Boomed out over the crowd from the huge speakers we had setting at each corner of the stage.
Billy looked at it and then the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our first Library Readers Party. We hope you are enjoying the music from these fine young ladies behind me. I know I have been even though I haven’t been here until just a couple minutes ago. But I have a good excuse. Flat tire and it took the repair people fifty minutes before they arrived. Then it took another forty minutes for them to find a special tool to unlock the lug nuts. It seems my car doesn’t have normal nuts.”
Everyone in the audience laughed at his joke.
“As I was saying about the music these talented youngsters are playing. For all you who wish to call family and friends who haven’t found out yet. Their music is being picked up and rebroadcast by KVCO radio station. He pointed to the back of the crowd. We also have the TV station KOKO picking up our Library Party. And no disrespect because I mentioned them last, our MidTown News paper is covering our Library Party. Be sure and pick up a copy for your reading pleasure tomorrow and of course every day.”
The girls turned to look at me. I held up my hands. No one mentioned any of this to me and I wasn’t smart enough to ask. I guess if the city was pushing this event it stood to reason they would be asking the news media to cover it. Duhh!
“And now we have one of our own home town authors Missy Dugger to give us a short reading of her published novel The Shadow Knight. Please give a round of applause to Mrs. Dugger.”
Missy had come on stage earlier and now stepped up beside Billy. He handed her the mike.
I hesitated about giving the girls the break sign. If those TV cameras were focused on all of us it would give the wrong impression for us to take a break while Mrs. Dugger was promoting her book.
Billy walked to the back of the stage and I motioned him over. “The girls need a break.”
He looked like he didn’t understand why I mentioned it.
I pointed toward Mrs. Dugger. “The TV cameras, what will it look like if we walk off stage now?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, the cameras will be focused in on her or panning the audience. They won’t see anything back here. The crew knows what is going on. You start moving around and they will pan the audience so none of you show up as leaving.”
“Thanks, Billy.” I stood up and gave the girls the break sign. They headed for the stairs and the bathroom. At least we had library bathroom privileges. The crowd out front were going to be using the porta potties set up at each end of the block.
“Billy, can you get security up here to watch our equipment? I’ve had some threats and destroyed instruments is not something we can afford.”
He looked surprised. “You think someone would come up here in front of a couple hundred people and destroy your equipment?”
“I know someone could without anyone knowing what they were doing. Those couple hundred people have no idea how delicate all this equipment is or how easily it is damaged.”
“I’ll make the call.” He stepped off to the side and immediately was talking to someone on his phone.
Couple of minutes he returned. “Link Ranes is coming to make sure your equipment stays safe. Anyone in particular he should be watching?”
“Your sound man is really pissed at me. His equipment fried first thing and he is blaming the girls for his problems. Me in particular. He was cussing me out this morning. He was coming by every little bit after that to see if we had left our equipment unguarded. I’ve been here the whole time.”
A policeman came up the steps. His name tag was Ranes. He had to be the man Billy called. Billy motioned him over. “This lady claims Harold Holmes has been threatening the girls and eyeing their equipment. Make sure he doesn’t get close to any of it.”
Ranes nodded. “Holmes is bad seed. I’ve told you people before you need to find a different sound crew.”
“He has a contract”
“Is it worth it, putting up with things like this? Sometimes the smartest business is one where you cut your loses and move on.”
Billy motioned for me to leave. “Go take your break. Missy will be there another fifteen minutes. I’ll do my spill promoting the library for another six. You and the other girls will be up anytime after. I’d cut my speech and every speaker for the rest of the day if I could to hear you girls sing and play. I haven’t heard you sing yet. When do you?”
“I’m one of the background singers. Support only, not someone you want to hear as lead.”
Billy shook his head. “You have a beautiful interesting voice. I bet you have just as interesting musical voice. Is that what you call it when someone sings? I’d love to hear you sing and I’m betting so would twenty thousand other people.”
“Thank you for the compliment but it isn’t happening. I’m strictly support.” I headed for the stairs and the bathroom.
Billy watched her walk into the library. “That girl can sing, I just know it. I bet she is as talented as any of the other girls. I could listen to any of them sing all day every day.”
Ranes nodded in agreement. “They are good. Better than anyone else I have ever heard. The way they handle those musical instruments of theirs, just listening to them is pure pleasure. You did say the TV and radio was recording them didn’t you?”
“I didn’t but yes they are. Why? You aren’t thinking CD are you?”
“Of course I’m thinking CD. I’d buy every CD they put out. I bet everyone out there listening would do the same.”
“Legals. The TV and radio can’t cut a CD from what they are recording. They haven’t the rights to the music. Their only right is they can rebroadcast as many times as they want but that is it.”
“Copying the music from the TV or the radio would be useless. Those kids are hitting notes not on the scale and certainly wouldn’t come through some broadcast to ninety percent of the radios and TVs. The girl on the steel guitar must have been practicing while still in her mother’s womb. She makes that thing talk and sing all on it’s own. The other girls aren’t running second fiddle to any musician out there. Nor are they running second to any singer. They are putting out those songs better than the originals. Their drummer…, I hope she cuts lose before they finish up. That girl is holding back. I can feel it in my bones.”
Footsteps coming up the stair caused both men to turn and look. Ranes was the first to speak. “Harold, what do you need up here?”
“I left some of my equipment and am going to pick it up since Billy isn’t using it.” Harold was eyeing the keyboard, that would be the easiest to break or put a foot in the violin parked in its holding chair.
Ranes moved over in front of him stopping Harold on the stairs. “Tell me exactly what equipment up here is yours?”
“uh, I’ll need to look. A couple microphones and a splitter along with a reverb. I see one of them. It’s over by that keyboard.” He pointed off toward the floor in back of the keyboard.
Billy closed in. “We’ll wait for the girls to come back and see if they agree you have any of those items on this stage.”
Harold tried to push himself up on the stage. Ranes put his hand on Harold’s chest. “Harold, you put that foot up here and I’ll arrest you.”
“ARREST ME! FOR WHAT!”
“For assaulting a police officer.”
Out on the TV platform the crew was yelling at the station controller. “Go to break! Go to break!”
The radio jockey was telling his controller the same thing. “We need to go to break NOW!”
Missy was holding the mic out wondering how to turn it off.
Harold didn’t know when to quit. Might have something to do with all that weed he had smoked over the years. “YOU FUCKING PUSSY LOVER! THOSE GIRLS FRIED MY SOUND SYSTEM! I OWE THEM BIG TIME!”
In as soft and calm voice as he could muster, Ranes had to ask. “And how did they fry your sound system?”
“THAT STUPID BITCH SANG INTO THE MICROPHONE!”
Both Link and Billy were dying trying to not laugh. Billy was gasping air. Link was clinching his teeth and making small snorting sounds. It took many many long seconds for Link to finally think he could talk without laughing.
“HarOld…, snort…, you neEEd…, to…, snort…, leave.” Link brought his fist up to his mouth and coughed into it thinking he was going to pee in his pants if Harold didn’t leave.
“FINE! THIS ISN’T OVER BY A LONG SHOT! I’LL FIND WHERE THEY STORE THEIR INSTRUMENTS AND BURN THE PLACE DOWN!” He turned and stormed back down the stairs.
The laughter both men had been holding back was gone like a snowflake in July. Nothing like threats of violence to sober one up. Link looked over at Billy, I have all that on body cam. I’ll turn it over to my Captain and he can run it by the DA.”
“Make sure that psycho isn’t able to carry through his threats. One or more of those girls end up hurt or dead I’ll never forgive either of us.”
Missy came back and handed the mic to Billy. “That was a little more excitement than I normally like when I’m giving a reading hoping to sell a few more books. I didn’t finish, but I am finished if you get the drift.”
“Understood and sorry about the interruption, Mrs. Dugger.”
“Yes okay then. Make sure that man doesn’t get close to any of the girls.”
“We’ll do our best, Mrs. Dugger.” Billy glanced over at Link.
======================================================================
The girls pretty well controlled the bathroom when I arrived. There were two other women in there talking to the girls. “You girls are the best musicians I have ever heard. How long have you been playing?”
Patty looked at the others and everyone was smiling. “Not very long. We have a great bandleader. Well two great bandleaders.” She looked at Brenda and then me.
Kendra had coaxed me in how to handle a bathroom. I headed for an empty stall admitting to myself I was scared out of my wits and trying desperately not to show it.
“I love the variety of songs you are playing. And your singing, I would have sold my soul to sing as well as you girls do. All of you show so much talent you’re unbelievable. I wish I had brought a notepad and got everyone’s signature. Maybe later? You’re going to be famous. Well today you are famous. Everyone in the crowd is talking about how talented you girls are.”
Brenda looked at the others who gave nods of agreement. “Thank you Ma’am, your compliments are appreciated.”
“No, the Library Committee thanks you. I’m Marcella Wheeler, head of that committee. I’ve been bending the Mayor’s ear for the last ten minutes you ladies were on stage. He has been watching on TV. He has proposed several more city sponsored events he would love to have you ladies perform at.”
‘while they are new and unknown and he can get all the mileage out of them for free’ I was thinking to myself as I had been listening. My nerves finally relaxed enough I managed to take care of business.
Heading over to the lavatories to wash my hands I was doing my best to not look like a deer in the headlights.
“Touch up your lipstick.”
Brenda was standing beside me. “I didn’t bring my purse.”
She fished a tube out of her purse. “Use mine.”
Looking, I shook my head. “Wrong color.” It was a Fire Engine vivid red.
“Nadia, you’re smoking hot out there. The color will go with the fire you’re spreading across the stage.” Ashley and the others had formed a circle around behind me.
Hesitantly I took the lipstick, leaned into the mirror and did the best I knew how as Kendra had taught me. Retracting it back into the tube I capped it and handed it back to Brenda. “Thank you.”
“Girls, we have people to entertain.” Roshel walked over and held open the door.
Outside the bathroom another woman met Marcella. “Our sound man was threatening to do something to the girls or their instruments.”
My heart leapt into my throat. “Did he…”
“No, he was stopped before he could do anything. Security is going to be close by the rest of the day even though Mr. Holmes was seen leaving the area.”
Minutes later we were back on the stage. “Everyone take a drink of water whether you feel you need a drink or not. You’ve been working hard, using your voices a lot. Keep lubricated.”
The girls were giggling. Beth gave me a look. “Nadia, that is stay hydrated not lubricated. We aren’t machines.”
“Sorry, misuse of words but same idea. When you’re ready let’s give them Top Gun Danger Zone. Roshel it’s your song, make them feel it. Linda, we’ll do El Condor Pasa next. Is your flute unpacked? Beth Ann your mandolin is the lead in for that one. Brenda that is yours and Beth’s vocals. We’ll go classical with Love is Blue to keep the audience from putting us in a certain kind of band. Beth Ann, Promontory follows and we break for lunch.”
“Linda, did you bring your Hurdy Gurdy?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGfnlO_z97E
“It’s in the trailer, why?”
“There is a TV crew out there along with radio and newspapers. After lunch I want each of you to showcase as much of your talents as we can before the day is up. Those watching won’t categorize us as a one trick pony band. We aren’t the sixties nor heavy metal. The Morning Glories are a brand new day band.”
“Beth Ann did you bring your trumpet?”
Beth looked around at the others and then back at me. “Okay, what am I playing?”
“I heard you play The Lonely Bull at one of the school events. Do you remember it?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uqPBZncL5Q
“Yes, you want me to get my trumpet I suppose.”
Beth Ann, Linda Don, a couple of Blue Grass songs with the banjo and violin or when you’re playing Blue Grass I guess it’s a fiddle? Anyway there are people out there who love and live Blue Grass. I want you two girls to give them some. During lunch think of what you’ll play.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHGfHltVY-s&list=PLJplbDeWoD...
I laid out a list of songs for each of the girls to show off their individual talents. Of course with the other girls giving support they would prove to the whole world girls rock! We might only be seven members but I swear we sounded like twenty or more.
It was a long grueling day even with all the breaks tossed in. All of us were dragging by the time it came to an end and we had to break down the set and load everything back into the trailer. All our parents had stopped by off an on during the day. Each of us hinted it would be nice to have help getting everything back in the trailer. Several of the boys who helped out that morning offered to help again. We turned them down. There was no way we would let anyone pack that trailer besides ourselves. When loaded the trailer would be carrying over forty thousand dollars worth of musical equipment. Each piece was carefully packed and padded with a shipping blanket even if it was already in its own protective case.
=======================================================================
The Morning Glories received a million dollars worth of free publicity that day and earned every single penny of it. After I pulled what amounted to an all nighter Friday night with Kendra and the ladies turning me into an acceptable girl; working our little tails off all day Saturday; I planned on sleeping until noon Sunday. Of course early the next morning before seven I received a call from Bob Marky of Marky Boat Sales confirming the Morning Glories were going to be playing for him this coming weekend. He was going to catch the promotion wave the city had done for the library and use us while we were a hot item on everyone’s lips.
“Yes, Mr. Marky, the Morning Glories will be there for your grand opening Friday and Saturday. You have arranged for a forty by forty tent haven’t you? And refreshments? Yes Sir, I did mention you would be responsible for refreshments. Sir, you scheduled us for two days Friday and Saturday nine to four, six hours each day with ten minute breaks every thirty minutes an hour for lunch. A stage wasn’t mentioned, however if we are up two or three feet above the pavement so all the crowd can see us you’ll get a lot more mileage out of our performance. Four of the girls aren’t that tall. No stage and those people three or four persons back in the crowd will hear the music but not be able to see who is singing or playing. The appeal of a live band is visual more than hearing what is being sung. Also if our speakers are up above the crowd those further back won’t have the music blocked by those up front.”
“You’ll consider it? Yes Mr. Marky it makes a huge difference in how the crowd enjoys the performance. Think of it like this. You go to the theater and they never open the curtains so you can’t see the actors. The curtains muffle the voices so you can’t really understand what they are saying. Would you enjoy the play?”
“Yes Sir, the very same idea. In a sense we are actors playing and singing.”
“Mr. Marky, before you hang up. I’ll be by Tuesday with a contract. What time can we meet?”
“Yes Sir, I do trust you. That isn’t the question though. Do you sell boats or high priced equipment without a contract? Surely you and the customer don’t agree on the price of a hundred thousand dollar boat and you let him pull it off the lot without a signed contract.”
“No Sir, this isn’t a hundred thousand dollar agreement.”
“No Sir, the girls and I are not coming if we don’t have a signed contract.”
“Mr. Marky, you can mention trust every other word but trust works better when it’s down on paper.”
“Thank you, I’ll see you Tuesday at two O’clock. And Mr. Marky, I trust you will be there if you want us to perform for your dealership. Yes Sir, I understand you have already spent a lot of money advertising us being at your grand opening. I suggest you keep that in mind on Tuesday and think of us like this, no contract no sale.”
“Yes Sir, it’s been a pleasure talking to you.” The connection was lost. Looking at the phone I was positive that guy planned on short sheeting us after we had done the two days for him. Verbal contracts are he said, she said, and he was the one holding the checkbook. I felt like sticking my finger down my throat. I was regretting the up coming performance. Come Tuesday if he didn’t show I wouldn’t need to regret it any longer because we wouldn’t be there.
Literally crawling out of bed I stood up and walked over to look in the mirror. What was looking back at me looked like death warmed over, dark circles under both eyes, and they looked hollow. Lights are on, no one is home. Mom helped me…, actually mom removed all my makeup last night, unzipped my dress, unlaced my corset, pulled off my sneakers and held me up as she pulled the sheet back on my bed. When she turned loose I fell into the bed. My body was in, my legs and feet weren’t. She hoisted my legs in and pulled the sheet up. I was out before she started removing makeup. By the time my body hit the bed I was gone.
Still staring at the stranger in the mirror, I cupped my breasts with my hands. They didn’t come off with the corset. Kendra’s girls did a lot of makeup magic on me. I was positive I wouldn’t be able to replicate it. One of the women worked at the Swan Beauty Parlor. She told me to start the morning out with her every day and she would teach me how to reapply the makeup while she did it for the first several times. There was a lot of blending of shades and over laying of colors to bring up my cheekbones, shape my chin, bring out my eyes among many other things.
Never again would I think mom and sis had it easy because they were girls. Being a girl meant no more jumping out of bed into jeans, tee shirt, sneakers and be ready to go anywhere. They made it look so easy I never understood being a female was a full time maintenance job. I shook my head as I stared at the stranger. “Suck it up little camper, you signed on for the duration. Your sister, all the girls, and your parents are counting on you to stay the course.”
Sighing and turning away from the mirror, I gave the strange girl the one finger salute as I headed for the potty and the bathtub in that order.
Remembering Sis had asked the girls what they would tell their grandkids later in life? Were they a three day band or a summer or longer band? I knew without a doubt we were summer or longer. I laughed as I gave Sis’s question some thought. What was my answer going to be when my grandkids asked me what I did growing up? I’d start off with, “Well…, you ain’t going to believe me but…”
I knew what I was doing wasn’t only for my sister. In an odd way our dreams were tied together. She wanted a band and I wanted to be in music. By tying our dreams together we both achieved what we always wanted. Something that might have never happen if we had tried to go it alone.
=========================================================================
Mitcha and Lorrie had caught several news articles on cable about the Morning Glories. Sunday Mitcha called Brenda and said she was coming back to be part of the band. Sis told her no. She had pulled out when we needed her and it was too late now as she was no longer needed as a member.
“I recognized your brother playing the drums. He might be dressed as a girl, he’s still a boy. Either you let me return to the band or I’ll tell the tabloids the Morning Glories are a fake as you are using a boy for your drummer.”
Brenda got instant hot but held it in check. “Go ahead. Sierra has already been exposed. There was an incident on the stage before we even began. It was reported to the Mayor. Then the jerk returned and pushed it until criminal charges were filed against him. Everyone wanted to know everything about Nadia because she was the one his anger was directed at. Sierra told them she was born a boy and left it at that. The news picked it up from there and ran with it claiming she was trans gendered. Except for a few jerks everyone is cool with who she is. Even if she is my brother, I’m jealous. She’s a prettier girl than any of the rest of us. I heard the majority of the people don’t believe she ever was a boy. They think it’s all a promotional gimmick.
“Screw you, Brenda. Lorrie wants her drum set back. She recognized it from the pictures. She never gave you permission to use it.”
“If I recall, you told me she said to sell it. We had it appraised by two different dealers. They said it was worth six tops. Lorrie didn’t handle it with care since her daddy paid for it. I’ll have Nadia send Lorrie a money order for seven thousand if she’s agreeable. It’s worth that much to Nadia because she’s already familiar with how it is arranged. By the way, how did you enjoy my sister on the drums? She beats Lorrie hands down without even trying.”
The phone went quiet as Brenda heard Lorrie and Mitcha talking in the background. “Lorrie said she wouldn’t take less than ten for the drums.”
“Tell her to come and get them. They aren’t worth it.”
“She said to ship it to her.”
“That so ain’t happening. We parted friends and then you two try and pull this after threatening to out my sister? I’m so happy you two left and I found out what kind of friends you really are before the band became known. Lorrie can come and get the drums or she can accept a money order. Let me know what you decide.” Brenda closed the connection.
Three hours later Brenda’s phone rang, Lorrie’s name showing up. Brenda answered and decided to keep it civil. “Hello.”
“Brenda, tell your sister I’ll accept the apprised value of six for the drums. I was listening when Mitcha called. You’re right, your sister can play those drums like no one else can or ever will. I’m jealous too. I’m jealous she’s so damn good on those drums. I will imagine myself playing those drums from now on every time I hear the Morning Glories play. I’ll regret until the day I die daddy moved and I left with him. My problem is one as old as mankind. We never miss what we have until we no longer have it. I wish you and all the girls the best. I know you’re going places, I can feel it in my bones. You, me, Patty, Kitcha would never have made that trip. We weren’t that good.”
Brenda wiped back a couple tears. “Thanks for the up beat Lorrie. I’ll let Nadia know she bought your drums. Anytime you’re close by where we are playing, stop and join in. I’ll let everyone know you were one of the original Morning Glories. I’m positive Nadia will let you play your drums again.”
“And Mitcha?”
“She’s welcome too if she can control her temper. I won’t put up with any bad mouthing on the stage.”
“You always did have a big forgiving heart. Love you Kid O, knock their socks off and become a big star for Mitcha and me.
=======================================================================
By the time I wandered into the kitchen mom, dad, and sis already had breakfast and was discussing the show the band had put on yesterday. I was wearing jeans and a tee shirt. The breasts Kendra and the ladies had glued on were very realistic with very perky nipples. The tee shirt only emphasized all of that.
Mom shook her head as she held up her hand in a stop fashion. “Nadia, march your butt right back to your room and put on a bra. That kind of look is not acceptable in this house. I’ll accept you aren’t totally clued in as to how a young lady should dress and act. You may wear jeans and tee after you learn how to act as a lady. Until then you will dress appropriately for a young eighteen year old who was brought up with social skills.”
“One of the discussions at the table this morning was about you. You teach Brenda and the girls how to be the best band to ever pick up an instrument. Your sister and the girls are going to teach you how to be a lady.”
A moan involuntarily escaped. “You and Kendra talked yesterday didn’t you!”
“Your dad and I met the amazing lady at the library party while you girls were playing. She said she was very impressed with the talent up on that stage. If you and the girls are interested she will get the band a contract doing the music for animated movies. She told me music is added to the finished animation. She had no doubt the band could do that. If you girls agree she would have you over to her home where she has a studio.”
“Sierra…, Nadia, I believe that lady is a godsend for you and the girls. There were over a dozen people she had brought with her to watch what you girls were capable of. I recognized four of them. Joan Annor is president of the college. Sue Blackman is head of the state arts department. Alice Sheridan is head of the state tourist department. Henry Melborn is the governor’s political adviser.”
Mom pointed toward the door. “Go! Get decently dressed, then we will discuss what kind of future the band might have. Brenda go help your sister.”
“MOOMMMMMM!” Sis and I both whined as we headed to my bedroom.
We were in the hallway when we heard mom talking to dad. “Met up with Patty’s mom Rachel Webb out at the kid’s party. She asked me if I had ever played an instrument or in a band?
Sis and I stopped to listen to this conversation which interested us both.
“I told her I had played in a college band at one time and we had toured several surrounding states but we fell apart when we graduated from college.”
“Rachel was in a band herself. After watching the kids the bug kind of bit both of us again. I know three other women our age who were in a band and Rachel knows four. We contacted them yesterday. Four of them were out at the party watching the kids. They were immediately onboard in joining a band. Two of the others we contacted by phone. They were watching on TV and agreed they want to give it a try. The kids enthusiasm has spread to all of us. Can’t call it a comeback because none of our bands were ever that good to start with. Evelyn owns a music store. She is going to let us try out in her store with her instruments. We’ll rent for the summer if we decide to go ahead with forming up. We already have a name for the group. The Faded Roses.”
Sis looked at me with a smile a mile wide. Then she hip bumped me as she silently screamed, YES!
“I hope Sierra…, Nadia has time to coach us too. She has a gift for bringing music into balanced harmony from many different musicians. She brings out the best talent in everyone.”
Sis nodded in agreement. My fat head swelled up ten sizes with mom’s compliment.
“She has a job already making Brenda’s girls sound like no other band anyone has ever heard. The range of songs they were playing had to please everyone there. The almost unbelievable fact was those girls played those songs even better than the original artists. I imagine she would help if you ask. Donna, don’t spread her too thin. She’s your child and she would do anything you asked. Despite being a prodigy with music, she’s still human. I was afraid she over did it yesterday. After we came home she looked totally exhausted. I know you put her to bed. Whether it’s Sierra or Nadia or Brenda, I love those kids with all my heart as I know you do. Honey, be careful with their lives. No matter how mature they act, they have a lifetime ahead of them to learn not to push their bodies too hard until it’s too late to fix what went wrong.”
Grabbing sis’s hand, I pulled her into my bedroom, turned and shut the door. “If our mother’s start up their own group they are going to need help. Daddy is right, I can’t help them and keep your group polished at the same time.”
“That is, if both the bands are practicing in different places at different times.”
Sis was staring trying to figure out where I was going with this.
“This is yours and the girls call. I’ll do whatever you decide. What if we bring both bands together for practice? Music is music and the heart of music is the harmony of all sounds each one is creating. I believe it will be beneficial to both parties. We aren’t in completion with one another and playing in a group is synchronizing and harmonizing one’s notes with the others in the group. Nothing will change when we go out to play for a club, restaurant, business, or civic function. It will still be us and the girls.”
Sis was silent while she gave it some thought. “We might even be scheduled for more things if we use both bands together time to time. Remember mom mentioned Kendra might find us a job adding music to animation films? Mom’s eight and our seven together really will sound like an orchestra if need be.”
She was laughing as she backed up and spread her arms out. “Who would have thought two days ago The Morning Glories and The Faded Roses were going to ROCK THE WORLD!”
Sis walked over to my closet, lifted a Royal blue dress off a hanger. She collected the corset I had on yesterday as she passed by my dresser. She laid both out on my bed and pointed.
Covering my face with my hands, I shook my head. “oooo maannnn, I wish I had been born a boy instead of a girl and didn’t have to put up with things like that.”
“Come on, get dressed and I’ll help you with your makeup. It won’t be close to what Kendra did for you Friday night. I want to watch next time she does your makeup. What she managed was pure magic.”
“Don’t I know it. She’s an actress. I guess she has learned a lot from the artists who make up the actors. I didn’t expect her to help Friday night. All I wanted was to be presentable. I owe her big time. Don’t know how I’ll ever pay her and the other two ladies.”
Sis looked at my breasts. “Did she say how much those cost?”
“Not really. She said she had a payment plan. I looked it up and as close as I can figure the high end ones, which I seem to have, run close to a thousand dollars give or take. The corset, close to four to six hundred. And the makeup, I haven’t a clue.”
Brenda slowly shook her head. “You didn’t ask what her make over was going to cost before you had it done?”
“Sis, I ran into a time crunch. I couldn’t find a drummer for your band. I didn’t know Kendra except by reputation. I only had a few hours to turn from an ugly boy into a swan so that Library Committee didn’t black list the Morning Glories.”
Looking at what Sis laid out on the bed, I licked my lips. “I guess…, No Kendra asked me if I was positive and I said I was. She also told me I was going to need a lot of help and support from all the girls if I was going to be believable as a girl myself. Sis, I need yours, mom’s, and all the girls help. I’ll do everything I can to make sure the Morning Glories and now the Faded Roses be the best they can. All of you have a more difficult job than I do. You have to turn a duck into a swan every single day until the swan is no longer a duck. Is it a deal?”
I held out my hand toward her.
Sis closed in and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Girls hug, boys shake hands. It isn’t a hard and fast rule but it holds most the time.”
Putting my arms around sis, I hugged her back. “I’ll take that as lesson number one.”
She backed up and headed for my closet again. “Because you’re our drummer, you get to wear sneakers most of the time when we’re playing. For those very important meetings, interviews, and photo ops you will be wearing heels the same as all the rest of us.” She backed out of the closet holding stilettos pumps with a four inch heel.
“Dare I ask how all this got in my closet? I may have lost my mind but I believe I would remember hanging dresses in my closet and putting high heels on the shelf.”
Brenda giggled as she put the heels on my bed. “Blame Kendra and mom. Kendra gave mom your sizes and told her you had to be full time girl until it was in your blood and no longer make believe. After that you could be whatever you wanted whether it was boy or girl. Which ever one you were, no one would have any doubt.”
“So that is how she does it.”
“Does what?” Sis questioned.
“Becomes a woman or a man and there is no doubt. I believe with all my heart Kendra is the greatest actress ever born. If I’m half the actor…”
“Actress” Sis corrected me.
“If I’m half the actress she is I’ll be lucky.”
“Didn’t you tell us everyone is best at something? You’re the best drummer and the best music director I know. Don’t get greedy. It’s okay to let Kendra be the best actress.”
She pointed at the clothes on the bed. “Enough procrastinating. Ditch the tee shirt and the jeans and become the second best actress.”
“ooooh maaannn”
“And no whining.” Brenda picked up the corset and waited for me to ditch my clothes.
Neal wanders into a business, having just been laid off from his job, looking for work. What he finds will stretch his ability to understand and cope with major life changes
Barbie Lee
WARRIOR PRINCESS By BarbieLee.
Neal wanders into a business, having just been laid off from his job, looking for work. What he finds will stretch his ability to understand and cope with major life changes.
CHAPTER ONE OF THREE.
The 'Help Wanted Inquire Within' sign on the window was innocent enough. I was a Technical Laboratory Engineer. It was another way of saying I set up research and development labs before a company stocked them with their people. Chemical labs, Research and Development labs, Computer labs, Micro Processor Labs... Name a lab and, more than likely, I set it up or one just like it. Like all jobs, mine wasn’t immune to the recession.
“Hate to let you go Neal. You made my company look good.” Bill Meyers said, as he handed me a ten thousand dollar severance check, along with his goodbye speech three months earlier. At least it wasn’t a gold watch, but when one isn’t working the hard truth is, the savings are going to run out if one isn’t flush with lots of squirreled funds. I had saved some money, but not the kind to be able to quit working for a salary.
I had stopped and was looking at the sign. It didn’t explain what kind of help they wanted and the building didn’t give a clue to what they did. It was a nice looking building, the entrance was immaculate. As far as windows? There weren’t any. I looked for a company name. If I had installed a lab for them they would know the quality of my work. No name on the building or the entrance. I looked for a street number. I could look up the name by searching the street number on my notepad. No street number either. I looked at the building across the street. Four twenty one six nine and I was on Kelmer Ave. This building would be an even numbered building then. I did a search on all the four twenty one six even numbers. There was a Financial Solutions and a Carrier business listed on this side of the block, but this one wasn’t one of them.
Out of curiosity, more than anything else, I opened the door and went in to see what kind of business this was. Behind a desk there was a very attractive lady off to my right. She had long, wavy auburn hair draped over her left shoulder. Her eyes were the bluest blue I had ever seen. I immediately suspected contacts were helping. Her heart shaped lips were glossed with the most liquid pink lipstick I had ever seen. Her eyelashes, were long and thick. She had high cheekbones. She was a knockout in the looks department. That was before my focus dropped a couple degrees. I got a better than good look at perfect breasts, exposed enough to be seductive and yet perfectly innocent.
“May I help you?” Her voice was more of a purr than words.
“Uh, yeah, I noticed the help wanted sign out front. I have a resume with me. I was wondering what kind of company this is and if I might qualify?” I wasn’t ready to open my briefcase and hand out a resume just yet. They weren’t that expensive to print up, but they did cost. I still had no idea what kind of help they wanted. I wasn’t ready to be a short order cook or dishwasher just yet. That might come, but not today.
She reached over to her right and picked up a page from a stack of papers. She held it out to me. “We are a security company. We hire all skills or trades. You look clean enough and your manners indicate you are management. If you have experience in logistics, management of more than one job at the same time, and can guide and instruct others in the performance of their duties, you could start in a leadership position in our company.”
I looked at the paper she handed me. The top word was Management. Below that were levels of management positions designated by the first being level one and the second being level two and on down to level eight. To the right of the page opposite of the level positions were numbers. Level one was one million six hundred thousand. Level two was one million three hundred thousand.
I looked up at the lady. “These numbers…?
“Those are salaries per Earth year.” She picked up another piece of paper and held it up.
I honestly choked. “Dollars?” I managed to cough out.
“Payment is in gold, not dollars. It can be direct deposit, or one can accept it personally.”
“Damn...” Slipped out before I got hold of my mind thought. “That would be a lot of weight accepting that kind of money each month.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Personal payment is weekly unless one is on location where it would be inconvenient. Most of our employees set up direct deposit for their wages.
“So... if I’m hired and I want a direct deposit to my bank in St. Louis, then the funds would be sent there every week? That would probably cause some problems. I can’t imagine them changing gold into my account so I could withdraw to pay the utilities and other bills.” I was staring at the Level Eight. If I was hired that would be my position. I would be the bottom new guy. Still seven hundred thousand a year wasn’t anything to sneeze at. I could learn to love security work at that price.
“Do you want the job?” She was still holding onto the last sheet of paper she picked up.
I nodded, even if I couldn’t do the work and was let go thirty days later the paycheck would be over thirteen thousand…? No wait, I’d be making close to sixty thousand a month! “Where is the application form?”
She smiled as she handed me the sheet of paper. “Go through that door.” She pointed to a brown steel door to her right.
“Thank you.” I looked at the sheet of paper. It had a pink dot in the center. Weird, but I wanted that job no matter how short the duration I would be working.
Walking through the doorway I stopped. I was looking at an endless hallway. It seemingly went into infinity. There weren’t any doors to either side. “Better be the best damn job in the whole world if I’m going to have to walk to the other end to fill out an application.”
“Maybe this is how they test the resolve of the applicant? Who in their right mind would walk down an endless hallway to fill out a job application? ME! That’s who.” Thinking of the money, I started walking.
There wasn’t any exposed lighting in the hallway. When I entered the lighting was white. As I walked it slowly changed to pink. The end was still nowhere in sight. I was beginning to doubt the sanity of this job search. No one knew where I was. It was on a whim that I walked into the building in the first place. If I collapsed or was kidnapped who would know?
No amount of money was worth my life. I pulled out my cell phone to tell Marla, my girlfriend, where I was. There was no signal. “Rats.”
The pink lights were getting brighter the longer I walked. There still wasn’t any end to the hallway. Not good. The pink lights were so bright I was having trouble seeing. I stopped, unable to see anything. I was blinded by the lights. I turned around to go back, but wasn’t sure if I had turned half a turn to head back, or was going to walk into the wall?
“How much experience do you have?” Was coming from a woman’s voice. A woman that I couldn’t see.
“I’ve been setting up labs for over sixteen years. I’m darn good at what I do.” I tried shielding my eyes to see whom I was talking to.
“Shit! You’re green ain’t you? Have you any experience in security?” She was slowly coming into focus.
I shook my head and something felt like it was tapping me on the back. Turning to look I still couldn’t make out anything besides the glare around me. “I haven’t had any experience in security. I manage logistics and personnel.”
“Well ain’t that something? I guess it’s better than nothing. You can round up supplies and talk to people. Why do they send me all the inexperienced ones? Okay, let’s go see what the seer has to say.”
I was finally able to make out the blurry outline of a woman. “I can’t see.”
“Where did you sign up at?” She stopped.
My sight was getting better by the second. I could tell she had nice curves. “There wasn’t any name on the building. It was on Kelmer Ave.”
“Oh double shit! They sent me an Earthling. Just so swell I can’t begin to contain my joyous emotions. Hells bells! Well, you’re here and you’re the replacement, so let’s get one thing straight. I hate Earthlings. You don’t take orders, you can’t get anything right, you constantly complain, and you want to go home a minute before you arrive. To top it off you don’t speak Pars, Kuk, Niddorun, Saforlu, or any of the other universal languages. So I’m going to be stuck explaining things to you in crappy Earth language. Crap and double crap!” She turned and was walking away.
I was thinking I had been dropped into the looney bin instead of a security job. What ever the lady was on I didn’t think I wanted any of it. Pot must have been laced with PCP or loco weed. My vision was getting better. Whoever she was, she was armed to the teeth. What she had wasn’t with the kind of security tools I thought of when security was mentioned. She had a side pouch among other things. It wasn’t packed with hand tools to install security lights and alarms. There was some kind of sword on her left side. An obvious dagger was on her right hip, along with some kind of really strange pistol. She had another kind of rifle thing slung over her shoulder. She was wearing some kind of blue mini skirt and blue high heel boots.
I started to follow her and stopped short after the first two steps. Everything felt... wrong. Either I was hallucinating, or I had lost my mind. I had breasts!? They were damn big from my perspective. They were cradled in some kind of golden bra made from metallic looking armor. I couldn’t see straight down, so I leaned over to the side and looked. I was wearing glistening, golden armor. Or it looked like armor, but it wasn’t. It was softer than satin against the skin. The golden high heeled boots were of like material. I didn’t panic because I knew I was hallucinating. This couldn’t be real. Someone was fucking with my mind is all. Probably set me up in that hallway of lights. Some kind of mind control.
I had a strong suspicion of what I would find when I reached my left hand up behind my head and pulled around long gossamer strands of hair. It was like the finest spider silk and hung down past my butt. Make that an ample butt. And ample hips... and damn tiny little waist. Oh, this just keeps getting better and better. I couldn’t wait to find a mirror and see what kind of image they planted in my mind for a face. This had to be part of the job application screening. Well, we will play all the games they want. I’ll just go along with their little game.
The woman was waiting in some kind of vehicle that didn’t have any wheels. I climbed in beside her. “You guys are good. This feels so damn real. Where we going?”
She looked at me in disgust. “Damn Earthlings. Stupid creatures.”
She punched it and I was slammed back into the seat. We were instantly about a thousand feet up in the air. I looked back and could see a bunch of dome shaped buildings where we had left. There were no doors or windows on the craft so I started to stick my hand outside. I rapped my fingers up against an invisible barrier of some kind. “That hurt.”
She dropped it back down to a couple feet off the ground and was speeding along about a hundred or two hundred miles per hour at my best guess. Then just as quickly I felt I was slammed into a wall. It had to be that invisible shield in front of me holding me in my seat when she braked to a stop.
“Come!” She was out headed to a silver, dome shaped building.
I didn’t expect to be able to move as the invisible shield held me in my seat, but there was no resistance when I slid out. “I gotta get my hands on their mind program.” I followed her into the building.
She was standing before another woman. My driver bowed to her. “Kasu, I bring you an Earthling. I needed a warrior and this is what they sent.” She motioned back toward me.
The one she called Kasu nodded and then walked over to stand in front of me. She didn’t say anything, but was taking in every inch of my body.
There was no longer anything wrong with my sight and I liked what I was looking at. Kasu was a tall girl, standing about seven plus feet or so. She had more than her fair share of abundant curves in abundant proportions. On her breasts were coiled gold spirals, her liquid red skirt was long enough that the hem dragged on the floor. She had a gold spiral tattoo on her right arm from the shoulder to her palm. On her left the tattoo started between her fingers, circled around the back of her neck, up her right cheek and ended under her right eye. She had golden circle tattoos on her stomach. When she turned around to the first woman I could see those tattoos were also on her back. They ran from her shoulder to disappear under the waist of her skirt. I figured she was probably covered on her legs too, but it was up to the programmer who designed her in this mind game I was in at the moment.
She turned back toward me and then brought up her right hand and slapped the shit out of my left face. I stumbled to my right to keep my balance. The side of my face was on fire and burning. “WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT FOR!?”
She took a couple steps in my direction. I could see her hand coming for a second time. I pulled back. Her finger tips brushed my nose. She didn’t hesitate as she was bringing up her left hand.
“ENOUGH BITCH!” I blocked with my right hand and slugged her with my left at the same time.
Funny, I thought I hit her but obviously I didn’t. She wasn’t moved. She came at me with her right hand. I blocked with my left and put everything I could into slugging her with my right. Nothing happened. It was as if I was fighting with myself.
Her golden eyes were dancing as she stepped back and nodded. “You will do.”
Looking over at the first woman she gave a slight bow. “Sala, do not be so judgmental. This child may surprise you as she adapts. You give short shift to Earthlings from your experience with many. After she has two moons training, her skills may be clearer. There is much hidden inside her that will come out with time. Training with kindness and respect, not anger and pride will be rewarded. Do not bring up her hate and anger until she understands and can control.”
She turned back to study me again. “What do you call yourself child?”
I was getting pissed at being called a child but held it in. “I don’t call myself anything. I’m a technical laboratory engineer.”
A glimmer of a smile touched her face as she nodded. “That would be your job in your world no doubt. No, I mean by what name are you called?”
“Name?” I had forgot I never filled out a job application. Obviously they wouldn’t know my name. “Neal Goodwin.”
Closing her eyes for a second her smile got even bigger. “I am familiar with your world. I was there for many of your Earth years. That was many eons ago. The name no longer fits, as there have been changes. It is not uncommon for such to happen in dimensional shift portals. Many are not what they wear in outward appearance. The portal exposes the true life force deep within, not the subterfuge on the surface.”
She walked a circle around me a couple times as she studied me. “Your name comes to me. The one you cry out to all who would hear. LaSaDa is your name. It means golden girl with golden heart and sword. In all our worlds there is not another so named, as it is forbidden.”
I heard a gasp from the other woman called Sala. “Kasu, are you sure? If she isn’t, then you condemned her.”
Kasu took a deep breath, put her hands together in form of a temple in front of her face, and closed her eyes. I wondered if she died standing there? She didn’t move, look like she was breathing or anything else necessary for life.
Her golden eyes were true depths of golden light when she opened them after long minutes of silence. I could see all the way into infinity in those eyes of hers.
“It is as I said. Teach her well Sala. Use all the skills you have learned over the millennia. She will need everything both of us can teach to survive and make the prophecies true.”
She turned her attention on me again. “Your first training begins now.”
I took a step back waiting in anticipation for her to try and slap me again.
That hint of a smile touched her lips. “No, you will learn in time to judge the mental from the physical, but this is not that lesson. You are to learn your true self so the other lessons will be understood more quickly.”
She spread her arms out and tilted her head back. “PUSESOSE ME” A bluish haze swirled about her.
Okay, this was getting to be a little too much shit for me. Even if it was all in some screwed up mind control hypnosis game or whatever they had pulled in that light tunnel. I started backing up. If I could break their mind control I would walk out of the building while flipping the hot little secretary the bird.
Before I could put my thoughts into action the blue haze jumped from the lady called Kasu to me.
“Ooooh” I groaned as my mind exploded in brilliant flashes of multi colored lights. I saw millions of years of life forms of all kinds, including humans and humanoids that weren’t human. I saw savage wars where worlds were left in barren waste. I saw untold trillions of deaths of all kinds. I saw life forfeited in savage fury and gallant bravery. There was pure evil and good spread across galaxies in personal battles and huge wars. I saw life at its best and its worst.
The one truth that shook me more than all the carnage I saw was, I was not in some mind control game. It wasn’t an endless hallway I stepped into. I walked into another life and a dimensional portal. I left my world and my manhood behind. I was a girl... to be more exact, a woman, in a dimension humans didn’t even know existed. I wanted to scream it wasn’t so, but for some strange reason, I knew it was the truth and it felt right. More than that I felt like I had been released from a bondage. I felt free and more alive than I had ever been. I started crying it felt so good. I was me!
Tears were sliding down my cheeks when I opened my eyes. “Yes, I am free.”
Kasu and Sala were looking solemn. “What is your name?” Kasu asked.
“I am LaSaDa.” Came from my mouth without even thinking.
Kasu frowned. “You have many enemies. They would know you are most vulnerable at this stage. No one must know your name until we have taught you all we can. The majority of your training will come from within you.”
Kasu turned to Sala. “We must guard her with our lives until she is stronger. Her name must not be spoken again until she is ready. Use an appropriate Earth name to address her until then. You aren’t the only one who thinks Earthlings are weak and mindless. An Earth name would help disguise her.”
She focused on me again. “What name shall we call you? Your true name can no longer be said, as it will draw too many assassins.”
I ran a couple dozen former girlfriends names through my mind. Marla was my current girlfriend. Make that past tense girlfriend. I gave it some serious thought. No... I kinda liked Melody, even though I never dated a Melody. “I shall be called Melody until such time it is no longer necessary.”
That evening at Sala’s, before bed, I undressed although I’m not sure removing what I was wearing could be called getting undressed. The weird part was the outfit slowly evaporated or disappeared after I removed it. I kept hoping that, once I went to sleep, I would wake up in my bed and this day would all be a dream. I didn’t think I would ever get to sleep. It was as if this dream was fighting me to keep me awake and trapped in the dream, but eventually sleep did come. Sure as one sleeps they must awake if they are still alive. I was still the same woman I was when I went to sleep. Nothing had changed except I was naked, if one could call what I was wearing before, clothed.
That morning Sala acted like it was a normal situation when I told her what happened. “That also sometimes happens when one passes through the dimensional portal. You knew who you truly were coming through the portal. Your clothes were a part of the physical manifestation, or a creation of your mind. You have refused that knowledge as a reality. What you no longer physically touch melts away like your faith in yourself. Kasu can explain it to you better than I.”
She rounded up more clothes for me. Again, I wasn’t sure clothes was the right word. I was wearing a golden coil bra, golden miniskirt, and calf length, golden stiletto boots. If I had known what she had planned for the day I would have opted for medieval body armor.
Sala was beating the tar out of me with what could only be considered a broom handle. I had one hell of a time, trying to block her whacks and get in some myself. I wasn’t having much luck in my pathetic attempts. I hadn’t touched her and I wasn’t good at blocking.
She brought her stick around to smack me in the side. I blocked. She brought her stick up and hit me on the side of the head and my ear.
I put my left hand up and felt my ear. I came away with blood in the palm of my hand. “SHIT BITCH! You trying to teach me or kill me?”
An evil grin spread across her face as her eyes closed to slits. “I hate humans.”
I shook my head. She looked as human as all the rest of us. Except for the fact Sala didn’t have an ounce of fat on her any place. Her body had more serious curves than any woman I had ever seen.
“Okay, I hate whatever you are. You fucking freak.” I brought my stick up intending to return the punishment with as much force as I could muster. I fully intended to knock her damn head clean off her shoulders.
She deflected my strike by angling her stick. My swing went up over her head. She poked me in my stomach with her stick. It knocked the air out of me and shoved me down on my butt.
Sala put the end of her stick on the floor and leaned on it. “Anger is good in some instances but must be controlled and focused. You use it like a… billboard. You advertise your anger and your moves before you strike. It doesn’t take a telepath to read your thoughts. The least experienced warrior would strike you down in seconds because you are broadcasting your emotions.”
I decided to not get up so she could beat up on me some more. I leaned back as I looked up at the sky above us. “Give me a gun and I’ll show you who’s telegraphing their actions. What’s with these stupid sticks? Only a fool would bring a knife to a gunfight.”
Sala took a deep breath and held it before letting it out. “Only an untrained fool would chose a gun over a saber. Soon you will hold one of the most deadly of all weapons in your hand. These sticks are only the beginning. First you must learn control. You must learn to use your enemies mind to control your actions. They act, you react. Not one, but dozens all at the same time will be trying to kill you. It must be instinctive intuition within you. Instead of confusion you find harmony and peace as you defend and kill.”
“Harmony and peace as I kill?” I choked on that one. “Peace isn’t exactly the thought that comes to mind when trying to kill someone. Sounds damn morbid to me. More the mind of a lunatic serial killer or someone like minded.” I felt my ear again. The blood was drying and only a little came off on my hand.
“Rise and we will begin again. You have much to learn. I’m afraid you don’t have that much time to learn what you must. Stop watching me with your eyes and watch me with your emotions, your feelings, your inner self, that which is your true self. Bring her forth. She will guide you and guard you, for she is you. She does not want to see me hurt you.” Sala whacked me on the leg before she backed up.
“Damn bitch, that hurt!” I pushed up to my feet, fully intending to return the favor. I was swinging at her ankles before I stood up.
She easily jumped my stick and planted her foot on it, pinning it to the floor, while at the same time, she swung at my head.
I had no defense so I lunged back. I had my left hand up and caught her blow in the palm of my hand. It stung, but only slightly. I wrapped my hand around her stick, twisted and yanked it out of her hand. I had her stick as she was reaching down to pick up mine off the floor. I whacked her on the back.
“Ohhh!” She went to her knees.
I put the end of the stick in the middle of her back and pushed. She was face down on the floor. “Yield or you shall die,” came out of my mouth from only God knows where.
“I shall never yield. My loyalty lies with the one who is true. Kill me now and she will avenge my death.”
Backing up I couldn’t help but grin, thinking at last I had bested her. “Who will avenge your death?”
Sala rolled over and sat up looking more serious than I had ever seen her. “You will avenge my death and all the others who died as prisoners and slaves.”
“Me…?” I choked on that one. “Yeah, dream on. I have a thousand bruises and you have one. Tell me again who doesn’t have all their oars in the water here.”
Time wore on, and the lessons from Sala and Kasu seemed to never end. There were no days and nights here. Where ever here was. Sala kept beating the holy tar out of me and Kasu would teach me about the things our normal senses didn’t know. Kasu’s lessons delved into the realms of what I considered spiritual and magical.
The two women had duties or jobs other than teaching me. There were times Sala would leave for days, if there were days that is. She would leave me with Kasu. Then there were times Kasu would leave. I missed her most of all because when I was with Kasu I escaped Sala’s constant physical training.
“Think in terms of understanding what you don’t know, instead of thinking it isn’t possible.” Kasu formed a blue ball the size of a basketball in her right hand.
I figured it was a magician’s trick and I tried to poke my finger through it. It was solid, or my mind thought of it as solid. “That’s pretty neat.”
“It was created by thought. You can destroy it only with thought or by killing me. I prefer you use thought instead of thinking of my demise. Now look, not at it, but into it and understand it is a creation of mind.”
Staring at it I finally started to see through it instead of thinking it was a solid blue ball. I poked my finger at it. It was still solid.
“Doubt stops you. Clear your mind.” Kasu encouraged me.
I stared and stared and nothing was happening. It wasn’t any more transparent than when she first held it out. “Horse feathers!” I spat in disgust.
The ball shattered into millions of tiny fragments. Kasu looked worried. “You did that in anger not with controlled emotions. Anger is a frightful weapon, as it usually is thrown out like a hand full of needles. If one uses anger it must be controlled, the same as all other emotions. One needle at the target, not a handful.”
Something wasn’t right. I stopped listening or paying attention to Kasu. “Strangers coming.”
Kasu nodded. “Very good. I did not expect this from you so soon. You are developing faster than I would have thought. Let’s keep this between us. Not all those that come are trusted. Even if they were trusted, allies can be made to talk.”
Four men walked into the dome where Kasu and I had been training. Only one looked human. The other three were aliens of different species. They were all well armed. The human looking one stood back and studied me as the others stepped up. He may have looked human but like Sala I sensed he wasn’t. He wasn’t her species either. I was wondering how many species there were that looked human on the surface?
“Ofasa mste omdi ruleskah Kasu.” The lizard looking creature bowed to Kasu.
“Speak in this language Osk. It is rude to speak in front of others who do not understand Puseje.”
He turned around to glare at me. “Kasu, where do you find these scum and why do you put up with them? It’s human, isn’t it? Can’t depend on or trust humans. They flee at the first sign of trouble and will tell all they know at even the thought of torture.”
He spat on my foot. It was some kind of green goo. “Human weaklings don’t even make good slaves.”
My blood was boiling. I had no idea what it would take to hurt him, but I was running a thousand thoughts through my mind. He had twice the body mass I did and a head taller than me. If I could break his kneecap that would bring him down to my size.
Kasu slightly shook her head 'no' as she took a quick glance in my direction. Although the lizard didn’t see it the humanoid caught it. His interest renewed as he switched staring between Kasu and me.
“I sense hate. The human is capable of hate. They are poor pathetic creatures, Kasu, I will take this one. She will learn how to serve her master and be an obedient slave.” He reached in a pouch before a clawed hand came toward my throat holding a metal collar.
There was an unmistakeable low hum in the air. I didn’t think this could be good. Tension filled the air as everyone went to high emotional alert. I was back peddling, wondering what I could possibly do to defend myself.
“Osk, stop!” Kasu demanded, as a red flame appeared in her right hand.
I backed into one of the aliens behind me. He was wrapping his arms around me to hold me as Osk opened up the collar to slip around my neck. Kasu must have thrown her fire. It spread all over me. Why did she kill me and not the ones who were going to enslave me?
Only... I wasn’t burning up. The alien who had wrapped his arms around me shrieked in pain as he flung himself away from me. Osk dropped the collar as it turned to ashes. All the skin on his hand was seared off.
He looked at it in stunned silence before turning to look at Kasu. “I shall not forget this.” He headed for the door with the others following. The humanoid took a long last puzzled look before he turned and followed.
It was as if I was standing there beside them as I watched them get in their craft and fly off, but I was looking at Kasu. “Thank you. I was sure I didn’t want to be a slave to that creature.”
Her eyes were wide open in shock, the fire still in her hand. She looked down at her hand and the fire disappeared. “It wasn’t me. I’ve been the worst teacher you could have. I’ve been trying to explain, rather than letting you experience the lessons.”
Was she talking about the fire she poured on me? “You mean the humanoid can do that too? He protected me? I thought it was you.”
She shook her head. “Not him, nor me. He’s not capable and I had yet to spread my fire so you didn’t get hurt too.”
That only left one other person there. “The alien that looked like the lizard’s forth cousin? Why would he stop them? I had the strong feeling they were allies.”
The shocked look finally drained from her face. “Not us, you.”
“Me? I couldn’t do that if my life depended on it! I don’t know how. You haven’t taught me that lesson yet.” I wondered what she was trying to pull?
“You picked it up from me when I put the fire in my hand. My fire would burn you just as easily as everyone else. Your fire isn’t going to hurt you. It is one of the gifts, or oddities, of creating mental, physical objects. Do it again.”
Hard as I tried I couldn’t find the emotional or mental switch to make something like fire appear. Kasu waited patiently as I struggled every which way I knew how. I was beginning to think my teacher had lied and she created the fire to protect me.
Kasu held out her hand. “Watch. It is more than thinking. It must be real in your own mind, not just a thought. You can’t think you want a fire. You must be able to know without doubt that there is fire.” A fire appeared in her hand.
I tried and tried some more to visualize a fire in my hand. I thought it, wished it, visualized it and nothing happened.
“I’m trying to teach again instead of showing you. Relax, let your mind flow into and with my mind. Feel what I am feeling. See what I am seeing.” She held out her hand.
Her hand was my hand. I not only thought I was holding fire in my hand I really was holding fire in my hand. I pulled my mind back and looked. I had fire in my hand. It scared the bejeebers out of me. I dropped it. It disappeared before it hit the floor.
Kasu laughed as her golden eyes sparkled. “Now do it again. You have the feel and the knowledge to do it. No doubt this time. You know you have done it twice. Doubt will stop you. Faith will carry you through to your goal. Again.”
Lessons were over for the moment. My thoughts turned to the four men who tried to claim me as a slave. “Kasu, why did that man think he could take me as his slave?”
She held out her right arm with the tattoos. “In this dimension some men think women are property and have no rights. The marks on my body are a sign I am not a normal. They appeared when I came of age, not physically but mentally. Because I can turn thought into physical things such as fire, I am considered too valuable to be a slave or someone’s property. In reality most are afraid of me. I have many enemies and many friends. In the war council they think of me as somewhat of a prophet. I do not always tell them the truth so they won’t rely on me to be their planner for their next battle. Good men aren’t always good when they acquire power. Power usually corrupts their soul, even when they started out as good men.”
“Information spreads, even when no one shares any. I would know if Sala had spoken about you to others. She hasn’t. The only way Osk could have known an Earthling had arrived would be if someone in your world shared information with others who had returned. Because you weren’t placed in one of the military units, it was assumed you were too stupid to be anything other than a slave. Neither Sala nor myself own slaves. When Osk learned about you he saw a chance to claim another slave for virtually no cost.”
“I’ll never be anyone’s slave. I’ll die first.” I hissed, as the thought of being someone’s pet ran through my mind.
Kasu shook her head. “Never say never. The future is always fluid, as men and events are changed from a certainty to a non starter. Think of a boy who is destined to be president and is run down by a transporter. The future that should have been is changed forever.”
I gave that one some thought. “But if he was run down then that was the future not his role as the president.”
She laughed. “If he doesn’t go out that day and isn’t run over. Now he becomes the president. Then what of the alternate future where he was killed? Which one was supposed to be the true future?”
The more I thought about it the more illogical it became. “You can’t swap one future for another because something does or doesn’t happen.”
Kasu was walking to the door. “You will learn in time. Lessons are over for now.”
Time had no meaning, as there were no days, no nights, no time clocks where I was at. I don’t guess it made any difference. I think it was months after I first arrived when Sala walked into the dome with rapiers in her hands.
She handed one to me. “Try and not kill me, human.” Lately the tables had turned and I had been beating the tar out her with the sticks, while she was unable to land a blow on me.
I shrugged as I hefted the weapon. “Then stop talking down to me like I was a low life. Besides, you look like a human too. You insult me, you insult yourself. You act like the queen in the ivory tower who isn’t part of the DNA of the rest of the peasants.”
I touched the edge of the sword and cut my finger. “This thing is sharp. Are we really going to swing at one another?”
Sala held hers up and swung it down to her side with a swish. “That is the idea unless you think you can take out your opponent with a stick.”
“I think I could do that.” I swished mine out to the side.
She was swinging at my throat. That was where my heart was when I realized what she was doing. I underhanded my swing and came up to block her blade. “Are you insane!”
She rolled her blade over the top of mine and would have sliced my arm off if I hadn’t rolled my blade with hers and pushed her sword out to the side. I was ready to scream for help. By this time I was positive Sala was trying to kill me.
Sala leaned down to her left and back swung to cut my legs out from under me. My blade was down by the side of my leg. Her blade bounced off. I knew she was going to kill me if I didn’t kill her first. I followed her blade out with mine and hefted her blade up. She failed to anticipate me, giving her blade an extra push as she straightened up. Her blade was up in the air when the point of my blade touched her throat.
“Drop it or you’re dead.” I was ready to ram my blade through her neck to save my own.
She did what I least expected. She turned lose of her sword and let it fall behind her as she smiled. She reached up to the back side of my sword and pushed it away before putting her finger to her throat. She pulled her hand back and was looking at blood on her finger. “Kasu said you wouldn’t kill me. I trust her with my life. You were to be tested not for what Kasu knows about you, but to teach you to believe in yourself. You will be able to do what Kasu believes, only when you fully understand and trust your abilities without any doubt or hesitation.”
“That’s a dangerous way of finding out. I could have killed you. Looking at it the other way I wouldn’t have been too happy about it if you had killed me. That’s an awful lot of trust to put into someone without telling them the plan.” I took a long hard look at that sword I was holding. I didn’t like this part of the training.
Days, weeks, months, who knew what time was? Sala taught me how to drive a transporter. She no longer had to give me a ride from her side of the planet, or whatever we were living on, to Kasu for my mental training. I thought about taking off and seeing how big this planet was, or what was over the horizon. I didn’t. If I ran into someone like Osk I wasn’t sure I could handle him again.
From forty feet away Kasu threw fire at me. I blocked with my right hand. She threw a frozen globe at me. I moved to the side and pushed with my mind to keep her from curving it into me. It hit the wall and ice formed ten feet around the impact. She pulled a pistol off her hip and... I was ready before she pulled the trigger. An image of me was standing in front of me and took the phaser blast.
“You cheated.” She put the gun back on her hip before removing the holster and belt. She laid it down on a table.
“You said I could use any defense. Doesn’t mean I want to stop a phaser blast with my hand. What if I hadn’t shielded my hand and someone shot it? Wouldn’t look very good going around with no hand for the rest of my life.” I took a quick look to assure myself I still had one.
She formed a pink flower between her fingers. “Energy is energy, whether it comes from a weapon or mind thought. As you have learned to form and use that energy you still have doubts whether you can do so when it counts. You must rid yourself of all doubt or it will be used against you. They will destroy you.”
I reached out and touched her flower, putting green leaves on the stem and adding four long stem red roses. “I try, but as Sala says, I am but a lowly human. We lowly life forms always have doubt. It is bred into our DNA.”
Kasu waved her left hand over the flowers. They disappeared. “You must learn to retrain all your thoughts so there is no doubt in your actions. Then you will be able to understand all is the same. Light is not an absence of darkness, nor is darkness an absence of light.”
Kasu waved her hand. Total darkness came upon the room. “Do you see me?”
Trying as hard as I could my eyes still didn’t see anything. “No.”
“That is because you are trying to see me with your eyes not your mind. Everything is as it was. Nothing disappeared when light was removed. Now, let go of everything you were led to believe. See with your mind. Feel me and then see me.”
It was easy enough to sense she was there. Seeing was entirely something else. “I can feel you.”
Kasu stepped off to the side without making a sound.
I turned my head to follow her.
She shook her head. “You are still trying to use your physical senses to see me. Turn your back to me and feel me and see me.”
Doing as she suggested I could still feel her as she moved further away to my left. Slowly the room started glowing with a little light, but it wasn’t light. It was the energy presence everything gives off, whether it is living or non living.
Kasu picked up and swung one of those training sticks at my waist.
Instinctively I turned it to dust before it hit me.
She smiled. “You were not only feeling my presence, but watching me as well. We will continue for awhile without the light. You must learn to trust your mind and always check what you call your five senses. It is that sixth and seventh sense you need to learn to trust.
My time became marathon training with Kasu or Sala. I developed an acute concept of small pieces of time. Each mental and physical action and reaction developed and executed in less than a nano second. Taking longer than that earned me more bruises from Kasu or Sala.
“I want you to see some of those in the Alliance who are fighting the pirates.” Sala motioned to a small ship Kasu was already sitting in.
“Are we going to join the fighting?” I was curious about the trip, as I stepped into the ship.
“Not unless the pirates attack while we are there. I was told to report to a security meeting. All military brass in this quadrant not engaged or on maneuvers will be there. The Alliance is making battle plans to retake one of the shipping ports the pirates captured. Do not give any indication you are any more than a normal while we are there. It best you keep your true identity and your abilities secret. If the pirates found out who you are they would launch everything at us in order to kill you.” Sala followed me onto the ship.
Kasu handed me a small pencil eraser.
“What’s this?” I turned it over giving it a close examination. “Never mind.” I slipped it up into my left ear.
She nodded as a hint of a smile touched her face. “Very good Melody. You are learning to follow your instincts.”
Those weren’t the words Kasu said, but the tiny little translator changed it all to English.
“General” Several aliens, male and female, were standing to the side of the ship as Sala lowered the hatch. One of them saluted as she addressed her.
Sala saluted her. “Keep it informal Captain Ara. I’ve been receiving reports. The Lordeen Shipping Port was a strategic loss. Let’s see if we can get it back before the pirates can fortify it. Brief me on the way to the control headquarters.”
“As you wish General.” Her attention turned toward me. A disgusted look crossed her face. “human” She muttered.
Sala glanced in my direction and nodded in agreement. “Yes they are weak allies. We need all the able bodied soldiers we can find if we are to win this long miserable war.”
Ara rolled her eyes and false eyelids wiped across them to prove her species were superior in more ways than tough hide. “I’ll settle for one android over ten thousand humans."
WARRIOR PRINCESS
BY BARBIELEE CHAPTER TWO
As I stepped off the ship Kasu walked off behind me. “Captain Ara.” She acknowledged.
Ara gave a slight bow of her head. “Your Majesty. We are in dire need of your foresight at this time. Please join us in the Data Room to discuss battle plans.”
For a long time I had suspected my instructors were more than common people. I wasn’t surprised to learn I was right. Why had they spent so much time and effort in training me? Especially since I was obviously one of those disgusting, lowly humans everyone despised?
As the group headed off toward a dome I started to follow.
Ara held up her hand. “She’s not allowed. This is not for outsiders.” Came off her tongue like spit. She might as well have said 'slave' instead of outsider.
Sala pointed to a man standing at attention several hundred feet away by one of the hangers. “Tell the private you are to be given a tour around the facilities while we discuss battle plans. Inform him that is an order from me.”
Captain Ara stopped. “General Sala, is that wise? She hasn’t been cleared by a mind scan.”
“She has been cleared by me.” Kasu added to the conversation. “Even though we can’t fully trust them, she is harmless.”
There was that implied 'human' thing again. This was beginning to rub on my emotions and nerves. I headed off toward the private to get away from any more insults to my species. “Kiss my ass.” I thought to myself.
Kasu laughed. She had read my emotions and thoughts. Rats, I had forgotten to guard them.
“Behave... human. I’m not the only one who reads thoughts around here. This is a command headquarters. Dozens of telepaths are here. I’ve been guarding your mind. No, no one suspects right now, but close your mind to outside thoughts. You are a lowly human. Play the part they expect.” Came back to me.
Dozens of telepaths? I snapped the curtains shut around my emotions and my mind. Kasu had taught me how to mentally look without showing I was sampling everything and every thought around me. It took effort and I leaked like a seive in the beginning. Now it came as second nature when I learned to engage it.
The Private I had been sent to talk to was human. I had a sneaking suspicion Private was the rank for most humans. I smiled at him as I stopped in front. “I’m Melody, Sala said you were to give me a tour of the base.”
He swallowed. “Sala? General Sala said I was to give you a tour? I’ll have to clear this.” He touched a throat mike. “Security HQ, Private Williams reporting.”
He hesitated. “Yes Sir… Yes Sir… Yes Sir... General Sala's orders Sir? Yes Sir.”
He looked at me kinda funny. “What would you like to see?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m not up on military things. Why don’t you show me the most interesting things? What’s in the hanger you’re guarding?”
He gulped. “Our latest fighters. They are faster than any pirate ships and more maneuverable. They carry enough fire power to...” He gulped. “I’m not supposed to say. I've said too much already.”
“Good. Then let’s go look them over.” I was headed for door.
“You can’t.” He held up his rifle.
I looked crestfallen. “You mean GENERAL Sala’s orders don’t carry any authority here?”
The poor kid had the worst look of confusion I had ever seen.
“Yes, I mean no... uh,I mean.” He turned and opened the door. “They are going to shoot me over this.”
All the technicians turned to stare as I walked into the building. Some were the same species as Sala and looked human. I climbed the ladder and dropped into the seat of one of the fighters. Williams and several of the technicians were protesting. Everything felt like I had been sitting there all my life. Kasu said to have no doubts. I had none. I could start that craft and engage the enemy. It took almost all my willpower to NOT start bringing it to life and fly it out for maneuvers.
Williams looked relieved when we left the hanger. He was leading me toward one of the other huge domes. “You can get a feel for our weapons at the gun range.”
Inside the dome I got another dose of emotional disgust from everyone there. Williams checked out a rifle and led me to a shielded booth. He pointed toward hologram targets. I was guessing they were supposed to be two or three miles away. They weren’t really. They were on a grid only ten feet in front of us. They were an illusion.
Williams pushed some buttons on a console and the figures were less than twenty feet away. “If you hit one then it is considered a hit. They may be kill shots or wound shots. The fire control co-ordinator figures it all out.” He took two shots. The monitor registered kills for both.
Okay, a stationary alien life target, eight feet tall, three feet wide, twenty feet away. How can I possibly miss? Williams handed me the rifle.
“Where’s the safety?” I pulled the trigger after fat fingering the safety. Phaser fire splattered across the ceiling.
“HEY! The safety is by your second finger!” Williams ducked as he backed out of the booth.
I was seriously looking the gun over for a safety. “Where?” I shot the floor of the booth.
“This isn’t a good idea! Give it back.” He was trying to decide if he should reach for the rifle or run for cover.
“I’ve got it now.” Two shots and the high speed targets of the aliens on the next range disappeared. “Oops!”
“Take your finger off the trigger!” He was crowding into the booth beside mine.
“No, that’s okay, I got it now, I can handle this.” I sprayed the ceiling of the target range and took out the hologram generator. My range went dark.
“What happened? They switch on me?” I sprayed the ceiling of the range on my right. His hologram generator went dark. “Are they turning out the lights?”
“Stupid human.” The alien growled.
“STOP BEFORE YOU KILL SOMEONE!” Williams was shouting at me.
“What? They are going to kill someone?” I turned around in the booth and hosed down the opposite wall as the aliens behind the supply locker dove for cover. I was ashamed. “Sorry.”
The alien to my left grabbed the rifle out of my hands. “Humans have no reason to own a weapon. You’re dangerous.”
I was crest fallen as I looked dejectedly at the floor. “I said I was sorry.”
The aliens behind the booth at the supply locker were starting to stand back up and glare at me.
“General Sala gave her clearance.” Williams was urging me for the door.
“Stupid humans. Crazy bitch” Followed us out the door.
“I said I was sorry.” I felt better all over and had a terrible time trying to keep the smirk off my face.
After the fiasco at the target range I wasn’t allowed near anything that could be considered a weapon. At the mess hall I was given a wide berth by all. Even the nine humans there avoided me like the plague. They weren’t sure what I was. I couldn’t blame them. By Earth standards someone dressed like me and as tall as me wasn’t human and they weren’t telepaths nor empaths.
After lunch Williams guided me out to what I would call the motor pool. He motioned to one of the smaller two seater jobs. “We use these for personal transportation.”
“Great! I’m tired of walking.” I climbed into the drivers seat.
“Hey wait you can’t…” He was shaking his head.
The craft started moving forward. “Ooops”
Williams jumped into the passenger seat. “Take your hands off the controls.”
“What?” The craft leapt forward at high velocity.
“STOP! TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF THE CONTROLS!” He was screaming at me.
We were headed toward one of the large battleships.
I could hear the klaxons going off calling everyone to battle stations as we rocketed toward the ship.
“HELP!” I screamed in terror. Just before impact the craft flew up and over the top of the battleship. Luckily the crew on the battleship didn’t have time to get to battle stations and lock in on us.
Once clear of the battleship we pointed straight back down at the ground. “HELP!” I screamed.
The little craft flattened out just before we nosed straight into the ground. It belly smacked the ground as we rocketed forward the hangers. “HELP!”
“TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF THE CONTROLS BEFORE YOU KILL US!” Williams was screaming at the top of his lungs.
We were headed straight for the hanger Williams had been guarding. Just before we flew into the hanger we turned only the craft didn’t turn. We skidded sideways through the hanger doors and into the hanger. “HELP!” I screamed.
By now the inertia drive had regained control and we stopped sliding sideways. We rocketed toward one of those super special fighters. Williams knew we were going to die this time. Just before impact the little craft belly smacked the surface and we flew under the fighter, the top of our craft had less than a millimeter clearance under the ship. On the other side we pulled straight up toward the ceiling of the dome. And... kept going over until we pulled a complete loop headed straight back down toward the floor. We had cheated death too many times. We were going to impact the floor. The little craft groaned in protest as we did a half barrel roll and flattened out just before impact. The ship slammed into the floor. The craft stopped as smoke poured from the drive modules and inertia compensator module. It was finished.
By this time the whole base had gone to high alert with lights, Klaxons, and sirens going off all over the base as battle stations were manned and security doors slammed shut.
“WE’RE ALIVE!” I screamed as I jumped out of the craft and ran for the doors before any of the other guards decided to disobey General Sala’s orders and shoot me. I barely made it outside as the hanger doors slammed shut behind me.
Williams was left behind inside. He wasn’t the only security guard on this base. I was met by a dozen armed men who looked like they wanted to shoot me.
“SAVE ME!” I screamed as I ran to the one in front and wrapped my arms around his leathery skin.
He looked pissed as he shoved me back. “Come with us... human.”
The others crowded in around me to make sure I didn’t escape. I was escorted to a small silver room inside one of the domes. I had no doubt it was a prisoner’s interrogation room. Four guards stayed inside the room with me. All looking very serious and very pissed. Kasu told me to have no doubt. I had none, as I was positive they would have joyfully shot me if allowed.
An hour or two later the door opened. I was escorted back to our ship by a dozen guards. Kasu and Sala were waiting. Both looked sternly at me as I was marched up to stand in front of them.
Sala shook her head. “We told them you were harmless. Captain Ara my apologies for putting your base in such an uproar. I promise it won’t ever happen again.”
Captain Ara glared at me. I was positive she would have slapped me in chains if it hadn’t been for Sala. “Not that much damage done General. I’m sure we can get everything put back in order in a few days. In time to launch our attack to retake the Lordeen Shipping Port.”
We were headed home when Sala turned her attention in my direction. “You sure know how to disrupt a security meeting. Everything stopped while we tried to figure out what the threat was. You panicked the whole damn base.”
I bowed my head and looked ashamed. “I’m sorry.”
Kasu laughed. “No you’re not. I’ve been watching when you play with Sala’s transporter. There is not another person who can put a transporter in a side skid. The guidance system won’t allow it. What you did was with faith in yourself, knowledge of your surroundings, and no doubt, but you did it to antagonize everyone who thinks humans are lower life forms. I’m still trying to decide if your motivation was for revenge?”
That one stung after all Sala and Kasu had tried to teach me. This time I really was sorry. “I wasn’t thinking along those lines. I’m sorry.”
Sala got serious. “Don’t be. You’re learning. It was an excellent training exercise, although I’m positive Captain Ara wouldn’t agree.”
I turned my attention to Sala. “I want to go with you when you retake the Lordeen Shipping Port.”
Kasu and Sala both looked shocked. Kasu shook her head. “You’re not ready.”
“Yes I am. Sala can whack me with a stick until time ends and I will never be ready in your minds. You think I’m some sort of person who is supposed to help win this war. If you don’t let me try then I’m no better than a hologram. I’m there with no substance.”
Sala looked out across the planets scattered across deep space in front of our ship. “In a battleship…”
“NO! One of the fighters I saw in the hanger. I was born to fly that ship. I know more about it than those who built it.”
Sala laughed nervously. “A fighter? Many moons of training they require. The pilots are the elite of our pilots, hand picked. Very few finish their training.”
“I can do it.” I wanted... I belonged in one of those fighters.
She curled up her fist and looked at it. “Never happen. Even a general can pull only so much weight.”
Kasu closed her eyes and sat silent for a minute. “It is time to turn her loose. We can only teach her what we know. We have done our jobs. The future is fluid. I find it darker if she does not go now.”
“But... how will we get her into a fighter?” Sala opened her fist and stared at her hand.
Two days later I was on the battleship I had almost run the transporter into, albeit I had two armed security guards standing beside me watching me closely. Sala had mortgaged her career to get me on that ship.
As the powerful engines engaged, liftoff was smooth as silk. In deep space two more ships joined up as we headed toward the Lordeen Shipping Port. It was when we were parked a few planets away and forming up a battle line Sala turned to my guards. “Take her to my quarters and lock her up.”
One of the guards pushed me in the back. “You’re not allowed on the bridge any longer... human.”
They were escorting me down the corridor when the guard in front spat. “I don’t know why General Sala allowed her to come along. She’s not even a soldier.”
They marched me into Sala’s assigned quarters. They were turning to leave the room when I mind smacked them. It was a simple thought implanted in their minds that they had been drugged. They both dropped to the floor like they had been bludgeoned. I pulled out the pilot’s uniform in Sala’s locker and slipped it on. I settled the helmet over my head and pulled down the radiation shield. My long hair wasn’t going to fit up inside that helmet. The helmet was formed to let my braided hair hang out and over my right shoulder. My helmet would translate my English to Puseje. I was learning but I wasn’t fluid in Puseje yet. I strapped on the phaser and the flight emergency pack on my right hip. I stepped out of the cabin headed toward the flight deck.
The few crew that was still moving through the corridors saluted me. I snapped a salute back. When I walked up to the front fighter the crew was still preflighting it.
“Commander?” One of the crew turned in my direction.
“Change in orders. Lieutenant Muwick is sick. I’m the replacement pilot.” I walked under the fighter, dragging my fingers along her fuselage. This ship and I were brought together for this exact purpose.
“Flight deck, control.” The guy touched his throat mike. “I have a Commander…?” He looked at my name tag. “Commander Huma said she was a replacement for Lieutenant Muwick. I received no orders or conformation. Please advise.”
He waited for almost a minute. “That’s an affirmative. She’s cleared? Input that into the launch status.”
Sala was watching the monitor from her control seat as the switch in pilots was listed. She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer. “Prove us right, LaSaDa.”
Sala touched her control panel. “All ships, engage.”
The pirates at the Lordeen Shipping Port weren’t taken by surprise. They could pick us up sitting out there before we ever started in. The only thing they weren’t able to do was call in reinforcements before the battle started. Any real support was light years away. Even with their ability to jump space it still took one thing they didn’t have, time.
“Launch fighters.” Came in over my helmet. I was sitting inside the fighter. My wingman and I were the first ones launched from the battleship.
I did a wing over leaving my wingman wondering where I went. I flew up over the top of the battleship and right down in front of the control bridge with nothing but a few millimeters between me and the screen in front of those in the control room. Everyone except Sala instinctively ducked as a fighter filled the whole damn screen in front of their faces.
“SHIT! Copy the number of the fighter. I want that pilot’s ass.” Sala watched as the fighter disappeared to a tiny nothing in the distance. Then she smiled.
I was headed straight toward a destroyer with a dozen fighters hovering around it. I hosed it down as I did a left hand roll and slip. Fire control computers were good. They couldn’t calculate what they had never been instructed to follow. The ship was returning fire. It was a nano second too slow and only hosing down space under the belly of my fighter. The slip was throwing them off. The fighters broke off to come out and greet me.
“No wingman. Where’s the rest of them? One is all I see on my scope. Wait, there are more closing in. Take this one out now before he gets help.” Came in over my helmet.
They said this ship was faster and more maneuverable than any of the pirates crafts. It was time to find out. I did a power nose over at full throttle. The little inertia compensator groaned to keep me strapped in my seat. Full back stick and I was looking at the bellies of the fighters that had come out to give me a welcome. I laced three of them with lethal fire before they could react. The others were turning to maneuver into position.
I was now behind them and between them and the destroyer. I poured everything the fighter had into the bridge. They were shielded. Even shields have a power thresh hold where they no longer can accept any more. I closed in too fast for their big guns to compute me into their targeting grids. The fighter shook as I unleashed all the missiles I was carrying. I flew by that control bridge scraping paint as the missiles impacted behind me. A huge explosion erupted behind me. The destroyer was still intact. Their command room was gone. It would take them time to move and set up personnel in their reserve command room located deeper in the belly of the ship. That few seconds was all Sala needed to turn her battleship’s firepower on the destroyer. She fried that ship.
“We lost our ship. You can wait around here to see what happens. I’m leaving. Fighting with a battleship isn’t my thing.” “I’m behind you.” The pirates turned and fled into deep space with our fighters following.
Sala could sit out in space and duke it out with the cannons defending Lordeen Shipping Port. Eventually she would win with her superior firepower. It also meant her ship would take a pounding before it was finished.
I flew past the horizon, dropped down to ground level and reversed course. Sala was already trading blasts from the ground cannons. The buildings and transporters shook as I flashed past them hurling toward the power grid network. The defense cannons were shielded, the power generator stations were shielded. The grid network was so spread out they never thought it would be necessary to shield it. I was lacing the distribution lines with my phasers as I raced across the planet. One by one lights started going out as the rerouting circuits no longer kept up with the failing grid. I flashed by so close under a public transporter, the shockwave caused it to roll over and over. “Sorry.”
The grid closed down as the broken system collapsed and then fed off it self. The defenses on the planet were defenseless. “Alliance we surrender. Cease fire. Cease fire.” Came in on my helmet.
I pulled up and headed back to the battleship and the docking bay.
“Commander cut your speed. I repeat cut your speed.” The Flight Officer was telling me to slow down. Klaxons started ringing on the battleship. “BRACE FOR IMPACT!”
I flew inside that docking bay at full throttle, hit full stop just before the safety shields inside caught the fighter in their grip, and was out of that fighter, sliding over the side without a ladder in less than a heart beat. When the Kaxons started sounding everyone ran for cover. Before they could collect their thoughts and return I was gone from the hanger bay.
I was in General Sala’s cabin when the two guards woke up. The flight suit was gone. I was wearing what I had on when they escorted me in.
“Mmmmm.” One of them rubbed his head as he stared at his partner.
“Don’t try to get by us.” The second one offered.
Sitting in the chair I gave them my most innocent look. “I could never get by you. I sure wish we could see the battle from the bridge.”
They looked at one another trying to figure out if they should say anything about passing out. I almost laughed, but managed to choke it back down.
“Report to the bridge.” One of them motioned to me as he touched his ear.
“Oh goody. We get to go watch the battle?” I jumped up from the chair.
“Stupid human.” The other one smirked.
When we walked onto the bridge Sala was staring at me. She shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“When do we fight the pirates?” I was looking at a big screen filled with our fighters returning.
Sala choked and coughed. “Soon. You have permission to stay on the bridge and watch.”
“The General is too kind.” I gave a bow in her direction.
“Send down a team to give them terms of surrender.” Sala spoke to the man on her left.
“Aye Sir. Lordeen Shipping Port, this is Battleship Pa'an, we are sending down a team to accept your surrender. Any further hostilities we will wipe you off the face of the planet. Acknowledge.”
“Pa'an we acknowledge. Your team may approach.” Came back over the speakers.
I looked shocked. “That’s the battle? I kinda thought there would more to it than that. Oh well, I like it. Do we get to party and all that afterwards?”
“General we found a flight suit in one of the cabins.” One of the guards came on the bridge carrying clothes and a helmet.
Sala turned to look. “Commander Huma?”
The guard shook his head and held up the flight suit so everyone could read the name tag.
A collective gasp came from those who were looking. Those who weren’t, turned to see what had happened. Most of them sucked in their breath also.
“Corporal, is this a joke?” Sala demanded.
“No Sir. This is what we found.” He was holding it out as if it might turn into something he didn’t want.
“Where’s Commander Huma? I want an explanation for this.” Sala was glaring at the guard.
“We didn’t find her or anyone else in the cabin. Just this suit.” The guard looked like he wanted to disappear.
“Search the ship. No one leaves until Commander Huma is found or whoever she is.” Sala gave her orders to the Captain of the Guard on the bridge.
“Aye aye Sir.” The Captain saluted and was giving orders to the ship’s guards.
The Communications Officer, Lurm, walked over to the uniform and touched the name LaSaDa on the nametag. “LaSaDa flew that fighter. She was with us.”
“Don’t be foolish. LaSaDa is a myth. No one has ever seen her. This is someone’s idea of a joke.” The orderly was positive it was a prank.
Lurm shook her head. “No joke. You ever hear of anyone flying a fighter like she did? You ever hear of a fighter disabling a destroyer? LaSaDa has come.”
“She didn’t disable it. She only took out the bridge for a few seconds. We took out the destroyer and finished what she couldn’t do.” He was positive there was no LaSaDa.
“Lurm looked over at the orderly. “And the power grid? That was a fluke also?”
“ENOUGH! We will find who is making this up when we find Commander Huma.” Sala was looking at me.
It was a day later after the battleship had been torn apart by search parties before we were allowed off. It was reported Commander Huma had somehow made it off the ship in the confusion. It was the only explanation. Unless… one wanted to believe the rumor circulating around the ship. LaSaDa had come.
Sala, several of her guards, and officers flew down to inspect Lordeen Shipping Port. I was allowed to ride along. It was on almost everyone’s mind why Sala allowed me to tag along. Respectfully they didn’t question her.
“I have official business to take care of. Try and stay out of trouble. And don’t attract any more attention than you already do.” Sala waited as I stepped off the transport.
I motioned down in the front of myself. “What more than this?” The outfit was the same Sala had loaned me that second day. A golden coil spiral bra, golden mini skirt, and golden thigh boots with a stiletto heel were my attire. Funny what I was wearing seemed normal for me, although I was the only one dressed as such.
Sala traded her mini skirt for a uniform before the battle. She had to present the image of a general in command. She curled up the corner of her mouth before she nodded at one of the guards beside me. “Trest.”
He swallowed and looked doubtful. He had heard the stories about me at the firing range. He handed me a phaser, sword, and a dagger. “I don’t like it. You just remember I’m going along to guard you. You might be carrying one. Keep your damn human hands off the gun... or the sword.”
I buckled the belt around my waist. “Whatever you say. Let’s go. I’ve never been to a shipping port. I wanna look around.”
He was walking along with me. “You might be the general’s pet for whatever reason. I think you are a total fuck up.”
“I’m glad we cleared the air on that one. I love you too.” I turned my head and gave him a wink. It didn’t register. He had no idea what a wink was or that I was being condescending.
Trest guided me to one of the traders shops. The power grid was down. Everyone seemed to be lost and wondering aimlessly. There were a few transporters moving. The big public transporters were stopped because they fed off the power grid. Everyone gave us a wide birth as we walked down the travel ways. I figured it was because of Trest’s Alliance uniform.
“I thought this port was part of the Alliance before the pirates took it? It hasn’t been that long ago. Two moons maybe? Why are they avoiding you?” I watched as a few more stepped back into the shops when they saw us coming.
He was looking as others turned their backs on us. “You’re not very smart. We ran off the pirates who had ships and could flee. That doesn’t mean pirates aren’t still here. The others will probably be back to retake the port. These people aren’t going to take sides until they find out who is in control. Pick the wrong side the pirates will take your business and your life.”
One of those aliens didn’t retreat as we walked past her shop. She looked human. She wasn’t. When I turned to look at her she bowed her head. “Princess would you grace my shop with your presence? Your bodyguard is also welcome.”
Trest hissed in protest. “I’m not her bodyguard.”
“As you wish.” She pointed toward the inside of her shop.
I hesitated. I didn’t want to put a death mark on her head because I walked into her shop. “What if the Alliance doesn’t manage to hold onto the port. It would put you in danger.”
“I am not concerned about the pirates. Please come in.”
Trest grabbed my arm. “If she’s not afraid of the pirates she’s one of them. It’s a trap.”
I pulled the curtains around my mind before I searched the shop with my mind. Then I tried to search her mind and emotions while hidden. She was a telepath and felt me looking at her thoughts.
She closed her eyes and opened her mind hiding nothing. Like Kasu she wasn’t only a telepath, but a seer as well. I looked to see if she had markings on her body like Kasu. She had faint interlocked circles on both arms. I admonished myself for not noticing earlier. I pulled back. It felt wrong to be looking in the closet of another person’s mind. “You are a seer. I’m sorry for invading your life. I didn’t know a seer could hide her markings.”
She studied me as she looked into my eyes. “You can see my markings? I’m not surprised. It’s best to not be known as a seer when the pirates are in control. I feel it was a gift to meet you, even though I did not foresee this part of my vision. You will suffer greatly in the many moons ahead. I saw many paths for you. In all of them you pay a great price, no matter which one you choose. With so many paths for your choices, it clouded the future past that beyond understanding. Be strong Princess. For you we have waited many millennia.”
“Can you not tell me more?” I was hoping for a little guidance into the future. That speech about the pain part wasn’t exactly giving me a thrill.
She shook her head. “You shift the future with your presence. It is no longer clear.”
Trest was holding onto my arm. “Let’s go. She’s one of the crazies.”
I pulled away from Trest and gave a nod to the lady. “Huluo, I wish you well. I pray you find your path easy and your enemies few.”
She bowed. “Thank you Princess. I am afraid you will not be so fortunate. May the Creator give you the strength to match the task which you have been assigned.”
Trest was pulling on my arm again. “Let’s go. She’s diseased.”
We headed back to the docking port. With no power the city had little to show any visitors unless one wanted to count the people scurrying away from us when they saw us.
“Assassins” I screamed as I shoved Trest into a shop door. The phaser blast scorched the building.
I had my phaser in my hand as one of them across the street took aim on Trest. He was a micro second too slow. The two that had been behind us closed in thinking they could step around the door and surprise us. It was their final mistake. I slid the sword back into the scabbard.
Trest was bringing his gun up. The three that had been ahead of us decided they had seen enough. They started retreating as they hosed down the area with phasers. I wanted answers. I didn’t dare show Trest any more than I already had. I reached around the opening and fired a bunch of shots up in the air as the men fled into one of the side streets.
I fell back into Trest hanging on for dear life. “THEY WANT TO KILL US. SAVE ME! SAVE ME!”
He shoved me away. “I can take care of them.” He still had no idea what happened besides hearing a lot of phaser fire. He waited for someone to poke their nose inside the shop. And waited, and waited, until he could wait no more. He eased up to the door. There were two bodies on the walkway just to the side of the door. Trest slowly stuck his head out to look up and down the street. Of course by now it was empty of all life.
I knew Trest was ship personnel and not a real soldier. But slowly sticking one’s head out is the surest way of not having a head to bring back if danger is still lurking. Can we say pop up target? Of course we can.
There was a dead body across the street. As Trest eased out onto the walkway I was praying no one would be foolish enough to step out into the open now. No doubt Trest would shoot first and ask questions later.
I stepped up and grabbed his arm to make sure that didn’t happen. “Are they gone? Are we safe? Let’s get back to the ship before more show up.”
“Sure.” Trest had no idea what happened. He wasn’t going to stick around to figure it out.
As we started back toward the ship something was tickling my mind. Make that several some things. I only knew we were in danger. I urged Trest for a doorway when I was hit in the back. My lights went out.
“Forget the soldier. He has little resale value. We have the woman.” The man with the metal helmet pointed to the body in front of him.
One of the others was firing randomly into the shop to make sure the soldier didn’t come out while a third drove a transporter up beside the woman. They tossed her up into the transporter, climbed in, and fled.
Trest was behind another doorway at the back of the shop firing toward the front every now and then. It was long minutes before he realized no one was firing back. He stuck his head out and waited before he stepped out. The woman was no where to be seen. “Human? Human are you there?”
Slowly, hesitantly he headed for the front of the shop softly calling for the human. He looked outside. The walkways were empty. Turning his attention back inside the store he started calling again. “Human, it’s safe now. You can come out. Human?”
“WHAT! YOU LEFT HER BEHIND!” The words came harder than a whip.
Trest winched. He almost believed he saw storm clouds in General Sala’s eyes. He didn’t think it was such a big deal. After all she was a human. Why was General Sala so upset?
Sala turned to her aid. “Commander, get me a full regiment right now! I want this port taken apart piece by piece. Shut down until Melody is found.”
“Yes Sir!” As Commander Muk was turning to carry out his orders he heard General Sala whisper. “LaSaDa, I shouldn’t have let you go.”
My head was throbbing, I hurt all over, my tongue felt like it was swollen. Other than that and the shackles and chains I was bound with, I was good to go. I pulled the curtains around my mind and started checking my surroundings. I was in a ship in deep space. I was real careful to make sure I didn’t touch any telepaths before deciding there weren’t any on board. I sensed several dark areas. It was the same before my lights went out. I focused on one making, sure I didn’t alert it to my search. I wanted to know what they were.
Slowly I spread my mind into the room. One of the dark areas wasn’t too far from me. It wasn’t a dark void as I had at first thought. It had a physical presence. I didn’t dare touch it with my mind, as I didn’t want to alert it. I studied it wondering if it could be dealt with the same way Kasu had taught me to deal with other life forms? I didn’t want to break my bonds and find out I was facing an adversary I couldn’t deal with. I needed to know how many I was dealing with.
I searched the rest of the ship. There were two more dark voids on the ship along with four reptilian pirates. The pirates wouldn’t be a problem. It was those dark voids that stopped me from shifting the matter around me to free myself. I concentrated on listening to the pirates in the cockpit flying this ship.
“We were the last out. Lordeen was taken over by the Alliance.” He was talking into his mike.
“We picked up a slave before we jumped space. The Homm were there too. We will have to share whatever price she brings with them. No, she’s not marked. She was with an Alliance soldier. We killed him. You know they are trying to stop the slave trade. Hard to imagine though, someone who looks as fine as her wasn’t taken.”
I pulled back to study one of those dark void creatures. I wonder why Kasu never explained them to me? With millions of life forms maybe it was just a matter of time. Or it was possible she had never run into any of them? Even a seer can’t foresee what doesn’t appear to be there. I reached out to the one furthest from me. It had a physical presence, sort of. It was more of a blob than any single shape. It shifted and started acting agitated.
I withdrew my mind. Although not telepathic they were sensitive. It could feel something wasn’t right when I was studying it. I still needed to know what they were. I closed in on the second one. If they had a physical presence, why couldn’t I read their minds? Thought is a universal common thing, no matter the species or the intelligence. Were they guarding their minds the same way I was? It too started becoming agitated. I pulled back.
I could take out the pirates without any effort. It was these Homm that stopped me from dropping my bonds and walking into the cockpit. I had no idea how to fight them. If physical or mental didn’t work on them I was positive I would be dead in seconds. Kasu warned me, no matter how good or how strong one thinks they are, there is always someone better. I didn’t want to find out that lesson when it was too late.
One of the dark void creatures moved up to the cockpit. There were bursts of light coming from it. One of the pirates turned around. He held up something in his right hand and bursts of light came from it.
It dawned on me they were talking to one another. I couldn’t touch the Homm but reading the lizard’s mind was fair game. I tuned in.
“There is a presence on this ship.”
“Where?”
“We don’t know. We can feel someone or something watching us.”
“You have space psychosis. There isn’t anyone on this ship besides us.”
“There is the human you brought on board.”
“That stupid bitch? Is she a telepath? Did you check her out?”
“No we found no extra mind thought for her species.”
“If it isn’t us, or you, and the bitch ain’t anything special, then what is it?
“Be warned. It could possibly kill us all.”
“IT? I’m getting tired of you describing an it to me that isn’t.” The lizard turned and sat down in his seat. “Stupid Homm.”
I pulled back. The creature was searching for me in the cockpit. They communicated by light. A different kind of mind thought, but still mind energy which had to be generated to create thought. I pulled my mind back into the deepest recesses while I studied what I had learned about the dark void creatures. If a phaser could kill them, they wouldn’t be a problem. I could get my hands on a phaser before they could react. Possibly. I had no idea how fast they could move. Then I had no idea if a phaser would hurt them. If they controlled energy the way Kasu could, it would be a short suicidal escape. I wasn’t capable of controlling enough energy to hurt Kasu or anyone else who did.
Was it doubt that stopped me? Or was I being smart by not breaking my bonds and escaping? I decided to wait when no dark voids were around. Something had knocked me out without me sensing it coming. I didn’t want a repeat performance. Going against an unknown was an act of desperation. I wasn’t desperate. Yet.
Chapter Three will be posted Saturday. Stay tuned. More exciting adventures of our Princess are yet to come.
The ship settled in on a port on Erue. “On your feet slave.” I was hoisted to my feet by two of the lizards. I had hoped to be touched by the one of the creatures called the Homm to learn more about them. Provided it didn’t turn out my lights again that is.
I was marched to a cell. It wasn’t only for holding prisoners. It was for fitting them with the things a well dressed prisoner was supposed to be wearing. I didn’t like where this was going. Those Homm were sticking close or I would have taken my chances and escaped.
“No markings. Where did you pick her up at?” One of the men in the cell was looking me over.
“We picked her up at Lordeen. We were the last out. The Alliance moved back in. How much you think she will bring on the market?” One of the men from the ship poked at me.
“Fine looking slave. I’d give a couple thousand for her myself.” The cell guy dropped a metal bucket helmet down on my head. I could feel it tighten up around my neck. There weren’t any eye holes and everything went dark.
My eyes weren’t necessary to see what they were doing. I watched as the cell guy worked with a computer. My body stiffened. I didn’t try and break their control over my body.
Two more guards moved up with more equipment and removed all my chains… and my clothes, which included my bra.
“Look but don’t touch.” Was in my mind. If those Homm would leave, I’d tear this place apart.
One of them placed a bucket on my left breast and... I had a breast shield and a vertical ring in my left breast. The metal bucket on my head was supposed to keep me under control and not feel or know what they were doing. Hey guys, I felt that and it hurt like hell. He did my right breast with the same machine. Damn that hurt and it was so quick. Nothing like high technology for your fresh slave introduction.
They fused a metal band around each wrist and each ankle. They weren’t through, as they fused a metal corset around my torso pulling in my waist even more. My breasts weren’t covered. The helmet was removed leaving the collar around my neck. I received a ring through each ear lobe, along with a nose ring.
What is it about slavers wanting to put rings in every place imaginable when they take slaves?
“Over here slave.” One of the cell guys pointed to a tall box.
When I didn’t move that collar shocked the heck out of me. “uhhhh” I went to my knees.
“Get up bitch.” He motioned to the box.
I guess I was too slow to respond, or maybe he just liked teaching new slaves the rules. The collar shocked me again. “uhhhhh”
“Get up you stupid bitch.” He pointed to the box.
I managed to get to my feet and walk over to the box. My arms were yanked straight out in front of me as I was pulled into the box. They used a tractor field on the wrist bands. I bet it worked on the ankle bands the same way. A metal ring was placed around the base of each breast squeezing the fire out of them. I screamed in pain. “AAAAAAAEEEEE!”
The metal ring, the breast shields, and rings were opposing one another so my breasts were stretched out. I guess that was their idea of a brassier? That hurt like hell. “AAAAEEEEEEE!”
My head was yanked back by my hair. I wasn’t pleased with what they had done there either. I had small twinkling lights, and bells imbedded in my long hair. The bells didn’t need me to move to be constantly tinkling. The bells were self powered. I also had a huge, heavy ring braided in at the end of my braid.
“Come slave.”
I backed out of the booth.
One of them handed me a skirt wrap to put around my waist. “Put this on.”
I took it and covered myself.
“She doesn’t say much does she?” One of the cell guards was examining his handiwork, which was me.
“Maybe she’s mute, or maybe she doesn’t know how to speak.” One of the other guards stepped up and put his hands on my butt.
“Come slave.” The guard walked toward the door.
I received another shock from that collar. I went to my knees. “Aaaaah!”
“Now get up bitch, and get your ass moving. Follow me.” He was out the door.
I jumped to my feet and ran after him. I needed an escape plan, and I needed to know more about the Homm.
He walked out to a transporter. I climbed in beside him. My wrists immediately pulled up and locked to my breasts, as my ankles locked together. Fascinating technology. I was positive he wouldn’t enjoy it as much if he was the recipient of it.
We left the Homm behind. I could easily escape, take the transporter to a ship, and leave this pirates torture world behind. I needed to know more about the Homm. The pirates had a formable ally. One I needed to know how to defeat.
He stopped at a huge dome where crowds were coming and going. This was getting worse by the minute. I could take out one or more, but a crowd? Not happening.
“Move it bitch.” My ankles were free, but not my hands. I managed to work my way out of that transporter with my wrists locked to my breasts.
“Follow me.” He headed into the dome.
Most of those coming and going were giving me the once over. I was searching minds until I felt a dark void. I pulled back before I touched it with my mind. Several more dark voids came to my mind. I had hoped I had left them behind. I pulled the curtains around my mind as they became agitated. They seemed to be extra sensitive to mind thought. I had no idea if they were telepathic or empathic. I was afraid of touching their minds and alerting them that I was more than a normal.
My handler led me into the center of an arena. There were forty three more slaves in the same area. Not all of them were female species. “Do not step outside the circle until someone comes to claim you.” He left.
I looked for a circle on the floor. There wasn’t any.
Someone screamed. A female fell to the floor, writhing in pain. Two men grabber her and dragged her back toward the center. “Told you to not try and escape.”
She screamed again. They were using the shock collar as punishment.
I searched the crowds for the Homm. Looking up I saw a big ring suspended above us. That had to be the circle we weren’t supposed to step outside of.
A big lizard stepped up in front of me. He reminded me of Osk. “What’s your name slave?”
“Melody.” I figured they would learn I could talk sooner or later. I wasn’t into the punishment thing.
“You’re human aren’t you.” He didn’t say it as a question.
“Yes.”
“Pathetic creatures. Yet if you go cheap enough I will buy you.” He reached down and grabbed the ring braided into the end of my hair. He held it up.
Instantly I was pulled up off my feet. I was hanging in the air by my hair. Another one of those damn tractor beam things no doubt. It was a technology I was getting damn tired of.
I had an idea. I found one of the slaves and gave a mind thought for him to start walking. He walked out past the ring and fell to the floor screaming.
At the same instant the collar shocked him I searched through the mind of one of the Homm and pulled back just as quickly. Just a nano second, but it was a start. The five Homm in the Dome started flashing one another. They were more than agitated. From that instant connection, I found other telepathic species outside the Homm never connected with a Homm. I found out why. Their minds were just as big a black hole as they represented physically and emotionally. If I hadn’t flashed in and out it was possible I could have been pulled into that void.
How in the world were these creatures ever formed in the first place? They seemed to be the complete opposite of all other life. What kind of devils contract did the pirates agree to when they joined league with these creatures?
The Homm I mind flashed moved down in front of the slave that screamed at the same instant I mind flashed him. The slave’s ankle and wrist bands were locked together so he couldn’t back away. He was screaming in fear. “NO, NO, NO, NO…”
A tentacle snaked out from the Homm and touched the slave who instantly went limp. That must have been what happened when they captured me. Didn’t see it coming until it was too late. The Homm pulled back and flashed the other Homm. It moved back up into the bleachers.
Two slaves came in from the aisle, picked the man up and carried him out. I touched his mind for an instant. He was still alive but barely. Having a Homm touch you obviously wasn’t in one’s best interest.
The big lizard that had left me hanging by my hair started auctioning off the slaves. The older ones went cheap, if one considers selling any life cheap. They sold off thirty one slaves when the lizard got to me. “What’s your name slave?”
“Melody.” I heard my voice echo through out the dome. They were broadcasting me. I came up on big screens around the dome.
“You will answer with master from now on. “What is your name slave?”
“Melody, Master.” I didn’t need to be telepathic to understand how he wanted me to answer.
“Where were you captured slave?” He gave my body a spin and I started spinning around like a top suspended by my hair.
“Lordeen, Master” I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to watch the audience spin around me.
“She is a fresh, disease free virgin.” He stopped me from spinning and removed my wrap skirt. “Who will start the bidding at forty thousand?”
No one said anything, or made any indication they wanted to bid.
“Am I offered thirty?” The bells braded into my hair started chiming loudly as the lights flashed. No one moved.
“Am I offered ten?”
One of the assistants took my arm and paraded me around inside the circle.
“Am I offered five?” Still nothing. “Then I offer five myself and will buy her. Going, going…”
“Ten” Was called out from the bidders.
“Fifty” Another voice cried.
“One thousand” From a third.
“Fifty thousand” Came from the speakers, but it was a Homm who flashed the bid.
Oh great. Sold to a Homm. Shoot me now because it will never happen.
“One hundred thousand” Came from someone who looked human enough.
“One hundred fifty” The Homm upped the offer
“Two hundred” The man was just as quick
“Two fifty” The Homm placed his bid
“Four hundred thousand” The man countered.
The auctioneer looked around. “Do I hear four hundred ten? Going, going, gone.”
The man said something to the woman beside him and turned and left. She made her way down the bleachers until she was standing in front of me. I was lowered to the floor, the bells and lights were turned off and my hands were free.
“She handed me my wrap skirt. “Put this on.”
“Yes Mistress.” I did as she ordered.
The auctioneer handed her a control. No doubt the device to control the bonds.
“Follow me.” She picked up the chain attached to my nipple rings. As she turned, my wrists were pulled up and locked to my nipple rings.
She led me out of the dome to a transporter. “Get in.”
“Yes Mistress.” I struggled to get into that transporter without being able to use my hands, but I made it. My ankles immediately locked together.
She drove out to a space port and up to one of the space craft. The man was waiting. He walked up to the transporter. The woman handed him the control. My legs were free.
“Into the ship.”
“Yes Master.” I worked my way out of the transporter and was headed to the ship when a Homm appeared.
Lights started flashing between the man and the Homm. I tuned into the man’s thoughts.
“She’s mine.” The Homm flashed.
“Then you should have bought her.” The man flashed back.
“I didn’t have that many credits.” The Homm flashed as his agitation begin rising. It wasn’t all due to the way the conversation was going. He could sense mind thought.
He pointed at the woman. “Your witch is using thought. Tell her to stop.”
“She’s free do to do whatever she wants.”
“Give me the slave.” He was really agitated now.
“Never happen.”
I was wondering how this was going to end. The man wasn’t expressing any signs of fear of the Homm.
The Homm started to reach for me. The man had a phaser in his hand. I closed my eyes and turned my head as he fired. It didn’t fire an energy beam as such, but a light beam. A really bright light beam. One that would burn your eyes out if you were looking at it.
The Homm fell back, stunned and not moving.
“Get on the ship.” The man motioned to me and the woman.
Minutes later we were in space, leaving that world behind.
I was working on what I had witnessed. “If the Homm were a dark void in a sense, then the opposite would be light. They could stand normal light, as it didn’t seem to affect them. Enough light stunned them.
We jumped to hyperspace. The woman picked up the control and locked my ankles together again. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Melody Master.” I knew she was looking for answers. She was a telepath. She could sense some mind thought back at the port, even though she couldn’t make it out.
“Don’t you get smart with me. You’re more than looks. Just who the hell are you and how much mind control do you possess?”
“I’m sorry Master I don’t have any psychic abilities.” I bowed my head in submission.
I fell over on the floor curled up like pretzel as my breast rings were pulled down to my ankle bands. Which hurt like hell.
“Answer me. How much mind thought do you possess?” She pushed another button.
My breasts were slowly being squeezed by the big ring at the base. I started to cry in pain. “Please Master I have no mind tricks.”
She pushed another button and my breasts were being stretched as the nipple ring was pushed away from the shrinking base ring. She was trying to read my mind.
“Aaaaeeeee! Please Master.”
The collar shocked the heck out of me. “Aaaaeeeee!”
Everyone has a thresh hold where, no matter the consequences, enough is enough. I could retreat in my mind and let my body take the punishment without me, but I'd had enough. I lashed out. Everything is made of energy. Everything is energy, no matter whether it is living or inanimate. The control in her hand turned to dust the same instant all those things they put in and on my body fell away.
I stood up.
She was in total shock, not believing what she witnessed. “not possible”
Her clothes fell away. All that damn metal that had been placed on me was now on her. “Get a feel for it bitch because it is possible.”
I closed off her mind thoughts so she couldn’t scream out to the guy in the cockpit. I formed fire in my right hand and played with it. Her eyes grew in sheer terror. She understood no matter how impossible it might be she was experiencing that impossibility.
Closing my fist the fire disappeared as the ‘clothes’ I was wearing when I first stepped into this dimension, appeared on my body. A golden sword appeared in my right hand. The junk in my hair fell to the floor as my hair untwined from the braided pony tail. It swept out around me, as from a mysterious wind of energy. Unbridled energy was playing around most of the cabin as if we were riding a lightning bolt itself. Golden serpents appeared on both my arms, their tail at my shoulders, their heads on the back of my hands. I took a look. They weren’t on top of the skin but they weren’t under it either. I reached over with my left hand and touched the one on my right hand. It felt like my own skin. Fascinating. “I guess I’m marked now. Kasu said I would get my markings when the time was right.”
Next time I ran into the Homm I needed more than fire or ice. I formed a light ball in my left hand. I knew without doubt I could make it strong enough to give everyone photo flash burns and more. I closed it off.
“Let’s go talk to that pilot shall we?” I pointed toward the cockpit.
She went up ahead of me. The pilot turned to look when she walked into the cockpit. “Muel, she should be locked...” He took a second look as he reached for his phaser.
I let him pull it and fire. I caught the blast in my hand. He fired again with the same results. The phaser turned to dust. “My turn.”
“Who the hell are you?” He stared at me in shock.
Muel was staring at me. “She’s LaSaDa. She has to be.”
“The children’s tales? That was only entertainment for children and weak minds.” He was still staring.
“Children’s tales? I guess I am. Would you care to taste a few of those children’s tales?” He was now she wearing an exact copy of the same metal Muel was.
She screamed in terror. “nnnnooooooooooo”
Funny but it was which side of those damn slave ornaments one was wearing whether it appealed or not. I don’t guess he liked it from the slave side.
Pulling up the star chart on the console I pointed to Lordeen. “Point this ship toward that port.”
She was still trying to come to terms with the fact that she was no longer he as she stared at herself. I dropped down in the co-pilot’s seat and altered course. “Tell me how to navigate back through the system without raising the suspicions of the pirates?”
When she didn’t answer I turned toward Muel. She was shaking as she whined. “I’m not a pilot. I don’t know.”
My attention went back to the pilot. “Okay sweetheart this is where we start with the training lessons you wanted to inflict on me. Answer my questions or it’s going to get really ugly.”
“Please... change me back.” She was crying and begging.
I took hold of her mind and shoved her out of the spaceship. She was flailing, clawing to get back in. I pulled her back in. Even though she had never left the ship her mind experienced it.
“How do I avoid the pirates?” She was sobbing and crying in fear. I didn’t receive a response. “I can take your mind apart until I find the answers. You think what you experienced was scary? Wait until you have someone crawling around inside your head with you.”
“I... I’ll tell you. Please change me back.” She was crying.
“Don’t tell me just plot it into the navigation system.”
Muel was crying by now. “You’re going to kill us.”
“Only if you lead me into a trap. I have enough blood on my soul without adding more for revenge or for no purpose.” I searched ahead. The problem with a mind search is, the further one reaches out, the stronger the mind thought becomes. It stops being a flashlight and turns into a spotlight, and then a search beam. And it draws unwanted attention from those who sense it. It was easy to understand when one realized that thought is energy.
I would risk it. I reached out and touched Kasu’s mind. “I’m okay. Can’t visit.”
Kasu found a seat before she fell down. The mind thought was no longer the Melody she knew. LaSaDa had arrived. She reached out and searched with her mind, knowing it was probably futile. There were billions of minds out there. Searching through them for this Melody would be a Herculean task. Given time and enough contact with the new Melody it would be easy to find and touch her mind, no matter where she was or how far away. Although the thought Kasu received was Melody, it was no longer her. She had changed. She had come of age. The prophecies had come. The Warrior Princess was now a true warrior.
Kasu walked over and picked up the transmitter. “Sala, Melody is alright.”
“Thank the Creator. Where is she? We will go pick her up.” Came back.
“She didn’t give a location. Praying for her safe return is the best we can do.” Kasu laid down the transmitter and prayed. This could be a long wait.
I could feel them, even though the ship’s screen wasn’t showing them. There was an empty place out in space that didn’t belong. I scoped out the ship I was riding in. The armament was next to nothing. Shielding was paper thin. We were at full throttle and that other ship was closing. There was no safety in playing normal now. If they got their whatever on me I was through. I reached out to the other ship. The three Homm became extremely agitated. I didn’t touch them, although I really wanted to try. Their ship was heavily armed and had shielding out the wazoo. If they caught us it was lights out for me.
“You have any friends in this part of space?” I looked at the pilot.
“Friends? You have friends everywhere if you have credits. Look at me, no one could be my friend. If anyone sees me they will want to own me.” She was crying.
“Yeah, I know the feeling about everyone wanting to own you. Goes with being in the wrong neighborhood and being the wrong sex. When you’re a bitch life turns into almost everyone looking down their nose at you.” The Homm ship blipped onto the edge of the view screen.
“Look who’s coming to dinner.” I sought out the Homm ship again. They knew I was looking at them. One of them tried to look into our ship. This was an unexpected surprise. I thought they were only sensitive to mind thought and had to communicate via light. I pulled back and started picking at his thoughts via his link inside our ship. I could feel him as he pulled back in confusion. Unexpected results for sure. Were they like other species, where the odd one was telepathic?
The pilot looked like a wretched mess. She was not handling the sex change very well. “Why are the Homm closing in on your ship? Are they friendly or do they want prisoners?”
She sniffed and looked out across space as if looking for the Homm ship. “In the seldom traveled parts of space they take prisoners for food. May be that Homm we left behind.”
Now it was my turn to be shocked. “They do what? They are cannibals?”
She nodded in agreement. “They suck the life force out of other life forms.”
“Then why in the hell are pirates trading with them?” It wasn’t a question. I knew the answer was as old as time itself. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ The pirates were willing to sacrifice a few lives as long as the Homm were taking lives from the Allies. Kasu why didn’t you teach me about this life form? How do I fight them?
Before heading toward the cargo hold I turned on the distress beacon. I popped the hatch on the life craft. I formed three golden globes in my hand and placed them inside the craft. If I could get the Homm to follow the life craft it would give me a little more time. The globes created from mind thought would feel like mind thought to those who might be looking. Hopefully the Homm would think it was us. I launched the craft tangent to our direction. Its distress beacon immediately kicked in when launched.
Back in the cockpit I pulled the shades down over my mind and the minds of the other two. And waited. The Homm took the bait. They searched the ship for thought. Almost immediately their ship changed direction headed after the life craft. I had bought us a little time. They would be back.
Hoping someone would answer the distress signals from the raft, and this ship, were all I had. We weren’t going to make a port before they were back and took us out. If the Homm wanted us for a meal they would take out our drive and then board us. I could flash and kill them, but the ones left on their ship would back off and turn us to cosmic dust.
Minutes later, just to prove me right, the little life ship winked out of existence. The Homm found out they had been duped and turned it into space debris.
“Oh joy this is going so well LaSaDa.” Saying my name brought me up short. It was the second time I had said my name. The first was when I had told Kasu who I was. “Courage girl, you’re supposed to be someone. Yeah, like dead meat. Or more aptly lunch for some damn Homm.”
Kasu said no matter who or what you think you are there is always someone more powerful and better than you. I just hated proving her right so early in life before I really got started.
“Well poop.” I unshielded our minds and backed mine up where I would appear as nothing more than a normal if the Homm did a mind search on us.
It seemed like the Homm ship was alongside almost instantly, although it took almost half an hour for them to catch us. They were good, as they fried the shields, drive, and then the life support. The distress beacon died, along with everything else on the ship.
Muel and the pilot were both crying in sheer terror knowing what was coming. I decided that was the way to blend in so I started crying in sheer terror too. “Please, please, don’t hurt me. Please save us.”
They tractored the ship over to the belly of their craft, dropped an airlock on us and then lasered a hole into the hull. A Homm slipped into the ship. Muel was screaming as it reached out and touched her. She went limp. He did the same to the pilot who dropped like she had been sand bagged. I retreated my mind and shielded it from my body as it reached out and touched me. I could feel the life instantly leave my body. And then, slowly, life started regenerating.
Now I knew what happened when they touched me back on Lordeen. Same effect as killing someone and then reviving them. We were carried back over to their ship and down to some sort of holding compartment where ten other life forms were. Two were human, five were the lizards. And the last three…? More dead than alive. The Homm had been feeding off them. They were nothing more than empty shells.
Reclaiming my body, I took hold of everyone’s mind and forced them to look away. The Homm knew something wasn’t right as it started to reach out to me. I formed and let loose a light in my right hand that would make the sun look like it had gone out. The Homm was gone.
“Disgusting.” I headed for the cockpit and the other two Homm. They knew something was wrong, but were slow in deciding what it was. I walked into the cockpit with fire in my eyes and anger in my heart. I didn’t try to shield my mind or my emotions. They felt me coming. I wanted them to feel some of what they had been spreading, terror. But they weren’t capable of feeling terror. It was an unknown to them.
When I walked into the cockpit they both were waiting and lashed out to touch me. I already had the light in my hand and released it.
The controls were unlike anything I had ever seen. There wasn’t anything like buttons, handles, dials, or any seats or things my kind of life forms would use to control a ship. Forming a chair I sat down in front of the console. Laying my hands down on the console I tried to feel how they controlled this craft.
“They use thought.” Came to me. Their mind thought was so alien to all other life forms I didn’t think it would be possible to control the ship. As I sat there their mind thought slowly came to me. I had touched one of them even if only briefly.
Talk about dark matter. Slowly the ship started moving away from the other craft. Instantly we were in hyperdrive, hurling through space toward Lordeen.
“Alien craft stand down.” Was coming from the Pa'an.
I couldn’t communicate with them because the Homm ship used light thought. I hadn’t figured out what color, strength, or duration of light it took to communicate. “Sala don’t fire on us.” I sent to her, hoping she was on the bridge.
“Alien craft, I repeat stand down.” Was being sent over and over again.
“Sala, it’s me. Don’t fire on us.” I didn’t lower our shields. I didn’t want that first blast from the Pa'an to roast us.
The Pa'an started moving out to cut us off. “Alien craft this is your final warning. Stand down. I repeat, stand down.”
Sala was running down the corridor toward the bridge. “DO NOT FIRE ON THAT SHIP! OFFICER OF THE DECK DO NOT FIRE ON THAT SHIP!”
A phaser blast fried our shields. I knew the second one would be curtains.
“Sala, it’s LaSaDa don’t fire on us.” I knew she was on the Pa'an. I could feel her.
Sala ran onto the bridge. “CEASE FIRE, CEASE FIRE, DO NOT FIRE ON THAT SHIP!”
She hit the com link on the command chair. “FIRE CONTROL STAND DOWN! DO NOT FIRE ON THAT SHIP! FIRE CONTROL STAND DOWN! DO NOT FIRE ON THAT SHIP!”
“Bridge, this is Fire Control, cease fire understood Captain.”
Sala fell into the chair. “My God, we almost killed her!”
Taking a deep breath she looked over at her communications officer. “Tell LaSaDa welcome home and accept our deepest apologies.”
“Ma’am? I mean Sir?” Communications Officer, Lurm looked doubtful.
“Send it.” Sada looked at the bridge officer. “Clear hanger deck one and accept LaSaDa as our guest.”
Now it was Jun who looked doubtful. “General?”
Sala pushed up out of her chair. “Officer of the Deck you have the bridge again. I’m going down to the hanger deck to welcome her home.”
“The General has lost her mind.” One of the orderlies whispered, as Sala left the bridge.
They didn’t allow me to fly that ship onto the Pa'an. I was ordered to shut everything down as the Pa'an pulled up beside us. Every gun on that side of the Pa'an was trained on us as they tractor beamed us into the docking bay.
There were heavy guns inside that docking bay trained on us, along with forty two soldiers who took up firing positions as the hatch opened up. Sala disregarded all protocol and safety as she stepped up beside the craft.
Sala’s eyes got as big as saucers when I stepped off the craft. She gave a slight nod of her head as she stared. “Your Majesty.”
Walking over to her I was laughing as I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her. “Have I changed so much you forgot I am the one you beat the poop out of with those training sticks?”
She wrapped her arms around me and hugged the life. “Yes, you have changed. I was so afraid we had lost you.”
“It was touch and go a couple times. I learned a lot.” I eased back as I looked at the soldiers still ready with their weapons. “Love your homecoming committee.”
Sala laughed as she cried and pulled me in for another hug. “Same we give for all who come in with a craft we haven’t ever seen before. Where did you steal it?”
“Actually it found me. Long story. I’ll tell you and Kasu everything I learned. If you don’t know the craft then you haven’t ever met the Homm. You will need special weapons to fight them. They are in league with the pirates.
Sala backed up as she looked me over and ran her hands down my arms. “You have come of age.” She was looking at the golden serpents.
“Yeah, it happened as I was being tortured. I have some souls on board. Some need medical. Three of them... they are already dead, but haven’t given up yet.”
“A few minutes won’t matter then.” Sala turned to face the soldiers. “Captain, I want you and your men to meet LaSaDa.”
He looked doubtful. “She’s…? She looks human? Is this not the one you called Melody we searched the port for?”
Sala laughed. “The one, but not the same. She has come of age.”
She winked at me. “It seems my soldiers are having a little trouble believing LaSaDa has come. Would you mind, a little show and tell.”
“If you like.” My hair began waving in the invisible wind whirling around me. Talk about theatrics. I needed to learn how to control all that energy swirling around as I pulled it in to use. A fire ball appeared in one hand and an ice ball in the other. I put them down on the floor. They started rolling out away from each other. Then circled back to collide where they canceled each other out.
Some of the soldiers lowered their weapons. Most all of them stared. A few looked doubtful. They were trained soldiers, expect the unexpected.
“Illusion.” One of the soldiers snorted.
“Sergeant please step forward.” I motioned a come here with my finger.
He stepped up.
“That rifle you’re holding real?”
He grinned. “Real enough to kill anyone I shoot. I don’t think magic tricks and illusions are going to stop anyone shooting back at me. I want the real thing.”
Nodding in agreement, I smiled. “Me too. Courage soldier. Shoot me.”
“Ma’am!?” He looked confused.
“I said shoot me, or I’m going to kill you.” Reaching over I pulled Sala’s phaser off her hip.
“Put the weapon down.” He raised his rifle and aimed it at me.
“I’m going to kill you.” I brought mine up. He fired.
I didn’t hold up my hand or form another me to block the blast. I no longer needed to give my mind that physical assurance that I wasn’t going to be hurt.
“Hologram.” He muttered, as he fired again to erase all doubt.
The golden sword appeared in my right hand after I handed Sala’s phaser back to her. I could feel the energy as small sparkles of light began playing around me like fireflies. There was a flash. All of the soldier’s rifle in front of his hands fell to the floor. He never felt it when the sword cut through his rifle. What he had left was basically a stock and trigger.
“Ohhhhh shit...” He was looking and trying to comprehend. He dropped what was left in his hands as he back peddled into the man behind him.
Looking at the sword I wondered if it was the same as other objects created from mind thought? Or possibly pure energy unlike anyone had ever seen before? The sword slowly faded away. I shook my head. “Humans aren’t the only ones carrying a load of doubt.”
I took her hands and studied her eyes. “There are a lot of pirates. They have some really wicked friends. This war isn’t going to be easy nor quick. The price is going to be extremely high in lives lost on both sides. I need yours and Kasu’s guidance if I’m to help.”
Sala laughed. “My guidance? You’re joking. You are way past anything I can teach you.”
“You’re wrong. There is a peace and tranquility about you. You taught me to fight, Kasu taught me to use my mind. Now I need you to teach me peace. I need Kasu to teach me about life. My cup is only half full. Please, I need your guidance.”
Sala ran her fingers down my arms, tracing the golden serpents. “Me teaching LaSaDa. The grandkids will never believe this in a million moons.”
Sala took a second look as my golden eyes danced with mischief. “Oh no, whatever you’re thinking, this is a military ship and...”
She was no longer wearing her military uniform. A silver coil bra covered her breasts. She was wearing a silver mini skirt and silver high heel thigh boots, along with the pistol, sword, and dagger on her hip, and a rifle slung over her back.
She laughed as she glanced down at her attire. “I’ve lost their respect as a General.”
“But you gained their respect as a patriot. Let’s go talk to Kasu. This battle ship will be okay as long as I’m not out there for them to target practice on.” I pointed at the fighters on the other side of the hanger bay.
“You can’t just come in here and take what you want without the proper clearance and request forms... well, I guess you can.”
Sala turned to the Captain of the Guard. “Captain. I’m leaving the ship with LaSaDa. Tell the Bridge Officer the ship is his.”
“Ma’am... Sir... General…? Yes Sir, Ma’am.” He gave a snappy salute. “May I add, I like your uniform Sir... Ma’am.”
It felt good being close to Sala. There was a peace within my soul when I was close to her or Kasu. It was more than them being my guardians and mentors. They were a balance in my life in the chaos of this dimension.
As we launched out of the hanger bay I did a wing over. Sala was right on my wing tip as we flew up and over the battleship and skimmed the bridge. We knew each other so well we flew as one. I knew everyone was diving for cover as we put distance between us and that battleship.
“Someone get me the number of those two pilots. Have a safe trip General. You also LaSaDa.” Came in over the comlink.
Thinking back I remembered what Huluo had told me. “You will suffer greatly in the many moons ahead. I saw many paths for you. All of them you paid a great price no matter which one you chose. With so many paths for your choice, it clouded the future past that beyond understanding. Be strong Princess, for you, we have waited many millennia.”
What I had been through with the Homm and pirates was probably a non-starter. Huluo indicated this was going to be a long drawn out painful process. Everyone was going to pay a high price.
“Kasu? Sala and I are coming home. See you soon.” I sent Kasu a mental message.
“Do you mind?” I sent Sala a mind thought instead of using the transmitters.
“Not at all. I prefer this way. We aren’t broadcasting our conversation across space.”
“How is it a General is command of a space ship? Back home we call them...”
“I know what you call them. Here we use what is available. I was the highest ranking military officer with the experience. Thus, I was in command when the need arose. Accept that which is LaSaDa. Push when you have time. Fight when you must. Kill as necessary. Accept that which matters little. The Private can fire a gun and so can the Captain. When both are there, would you care if you were defended by the Private or the Captain? Peace will come to your soul when you do not try and micromanage everything and everyone.”
EPILOG:
Sala told me I could return to Earth if I wanted. I wouldn’t change back to a man. I wouldn’t blend in so many ways they would probably want to start shooting me. She told me most of the humans I met or would meet in this dimension were born here and those who weren’t human looked down on other species. That included humans. Although the Alliance recruits from many worlds, Earth is a very small infinitesimal part of that. She said it was divine guidance she had been testing a portal that day when I stepped through. Kasu called and told her LaSaDa had split the dimensions. It was the only reason Sala took me to see Kasu instead of sending me to a military training unit.
I asked about a General commanding a battleship. Sala told me the Alliance used resources where ever they found them. There were Admirals in the Alliance too. There were never enough for a war that had been ongoing for centuries, scattered across hundreds of galaxies.
As long as there are intelligent beings, some will want to take and control everyone and everything. There will be those who don’t want to be taken or have others controlling their lives. This war would end only if we could stop the takers, such as those like the pirates and the bloated government bureaucracy. Even if we succeed, life will cycle and start anew doing the same thing. Was it worth the effort? I needed to know more about the Homm. Gear Up!
The End
Both Barbie and I wish to thank all of you for reading, commenting and kudoing the story. We very much appreciate ALL your input, whether good or bad. Another story IS in the works and will begin posting on Monday or Tuesday the 18th or 19th of August 2014. It's another Space Opera/Adventure tale but this one is huge, with two books already written, so get ready to Blast Off again!
Catherine Linda Michel, The Editor.
Slowly the door opened. A shapely leg wearing high heels came out and touched the ground. The other leg followed as the door swung wide open. She was a dark haired beauty. She stood up, brushed down her short skirt, and then pushed her long hair back over her shoulder.
Barbie Lee
White Rabbit
by Barbie Lee
He clocked the car, on his radar, doing ninety-six. Hitting the lights and siren, Dana pulled out onto the interstate in pursuit as he keyed his radio. "Two eighteen. I have a silver sedan headed west on twenty, two miles west of the three ninety-seven ramp. Speed is…, I have a hundred and six on the gun."
Whoever the speeder was, Dana wasn’t closing the gap very quickly. He had the pedal all the way to the floor. His patrol car maxed out at a hundred and twenty one. He keyed his radio again. "The silver sedan is pulling away. I am clocking it at one hundred thirty six. Request help."
"Two eighteen, this is one sixty nine. I am approximately ten miles west from your location. I will try to intercept." Came back over the radio.
"Two eighteen, one fifty four. I am north of you on two eighty-one. I will drop down and intercept." Was the second message over the radio.
Dana knew this wouldn’t last too long. The speeder would find his world boxed in by the time the other two Texas Troopers slid into position and formed a rolling roadblock ahead of the speeder. Dana would close up the rear and the speeder would be finished.
"Damn!” Came a radio call, “I dropped on twenty and the speeder jumped off, headed north on two eighty one."
Dana could see lots of smoke where the speeder had burned his tires shutting it down. The other patrol car was making a turn across the grass median to get back up on two eighty-one in pursuit. Dana was shutting down to make the exit ramp; the other patrol car was blocking his path, still picking up speed. The third patrol car was headed their way from the east as he too made the exit ramp. All three patrol cars were quickly up on highway two eighty one headed north in pursuit, lights flashing, sirens blaring warnings to other motorists to move out of the way.
"Two eighteen, we have a silver sedan headed north on two eighty one, speeding in excess of one hundred miles per hour." Dana keyed his mike again, hoping Bud was up ahead of them and could cut the speeder off.
"Two eighteen, this is deputy Wills. I’m north of your location approximately twenty miles. Do you request spike strips?" Came in on the radio.
"Two eighteen, deputy Wills, lay out your spike strips. This speeder is not slowing down." Dana answered as he watched the silver car dodge out to pass a semi on a blind hill.
"Affirmative, I am laying out spike strips now." Was the reply. Wills knew if that speeder was running close to a hundred; the speeder would close the ten miles in less than five minutes. Wills had to hurry to get those spike strips in place before the speeder passed by his location.
He jumped out of his car, ran to the trunk, and retrieved the spike strip with the attached rope. It took almost two minutes of that precious time to get the strip set up on the other side of the highway and the rope stretched back across. His adrenaline was pumping when he heard the sirens coming in his direction. He heard the roar of engines screaming as they pushed the cars to the limits of speed.
It was unbelievable how quickly the little silver car popped up into view and closed the distance. At the last second, Wills remembered to pull the spike strip out onto the highway. The silver car ran across the strip and instantly the sound of rubber being thrown off rims could be heard as the tires went flat. Whoever was driving that little car was good because they didn’t lose control or hit the brakes and try to stop. They also knew it was useless to keep pushing the car without tires as they let off the gas.
Wills pulled the spike strip off the highway before the three Texas highway patrol cars flew past. They stacked up behind the silver car as it slowed. When it pulled off the highway onto the shoulder of the road and coasted to a stop, one patrol car pulled in front, another pulled out to the side next to the highway, the last one pulled in behind it. The three patrolmen were out of their cruisers with weapons drawn.
"GET OUT OF THE CAR AND LIE DOWN ON THE GROUND!" Dana was the one on the highway. He stayed behind his cruiser as he focused on the driver’s door. The windows of the silver car were tinted too heavily to see the driver. "GET OUT OF THE CAR NOW! LIE DOWN ON THE GROUND!"
Slowly the door opened. A shapely leg wearing high heels came out and touched the ground. The other leg followed as the door swung wide open. She was a dark haired beauty. She stood up, brushed down her short skirt, and then pushed her long hair back over her shoulder."
"LIE FACE DOWN ON THE GROUND NOW!" Dana had to cough that one out as he stared at the woman. It was procedure and now wasn’t the time to get lax. She could have a compatriot in the car. That friend could be holding a gun, waiting for anyone to do something foolish.
The woman squatted, put her hands down on the ground in front of her, and laid down.
"ANYONE IN THE CAR COME OUT NOW AND LIE DOWN ON THE GROUND!" The officer behind the car was shouting as he held his position behind his car door.
"I’m alone." The woman’s muffled voice carried across the pavement.
Wills had pulled up and joined in. Slowly the officers closed in on the car. One opened the passenger door at the same instant the other looked into the car from the driver’s side. It was empty.
Dana pulled the woman’s hands behind her back and put handcuffs on her before helping her to her feet. "You have the right to remain silent…," He wanted to make sure she understood her rights before she said anything. There were a half dozen laws she broke besides speeding. She was going to jail.
"You don’t understand! I’m late!" She was trying to make them understand as she was led to the patrol car and placed in the rear seat.
"What’s your name?" Dana wanted a name.
"Please, I’m late! I have to get there or they will leave without me!" The woman was pleading.
"What’s your name? Where do you live?" Dana wasn’t getting the answers he wanted.
"Please, you must understand! They will leave without me!" Her eyes were begging.
Dana was in no mood for mercy after the chase. "Lady, I’m getting damn tired of this. What is your name and where do you live?"
"They won’t be back. Please, I must be there before they leave." She had tears in the corner of her eyes.
Dana shut the door knowing he wasn’t going to get any useful information from her. He looked over at the other troopers who were still searching her car. "Find her driver’s license or purse?"
Clay sighed as he stood up. "Clean as a whistle. No driver’s license, no purse, no ID, nothing. She say what her name was?"
Shaking his head, Dana walked over to the woman’s car. "No. She has White Rabbit Fever."
Clay blinked as he searched though his mind what that could be. It wasn’t any disease he recognized. "White Rabbit fever?"
"Yeah, she’s late. Alice in Wonderland and the White Rabbit. The Rabbit was always late." Dana laughed after he said it.
"Uh, okay. So she’s bonkers, or she wants us to think she’s bonkers. Take her in and print her. I’m betting she comes up on someone’s radar." Clay shut the door to the car and headed for his patrol car. "Hank, call it in and have it picked up. What came back on the tags?"
The third patrolman hung up his radio. "Tags and vehicle identification number are listed to Lan Corporation out of Houston. Base is trying to call them now. No one is answering."
Dana looked at his passenger in the back seat. "I’ll run her back in. Shouldn’t take long to get a name on her if she works for that corporation."
The trip back into Fort Worth was quiet except for the radio chatter. The woman had stopped saying she was late, somewhere halfway back to town. In the station they fingerprinted her and photographed her as Jane Doe because she had stopped talking.
Cindy led her back to a cell and locked her in. "Honey, you might as well tell us who you are. It would go a lot easier on you if you co-operate."
Receiving no answer, Cindy turned and left. "Not a good choice."
Hours later, it had been a long day and Dana returned to the station before he went off duty. Cindy was still on duty and he sat down in the chair by her desk. "Get anything back on the White Rabbit?"
"White Rabbit?" Cindy had no idea who Dana was talking about.
"The Jane Doe I brought in earlier today. At first she kept claiming she was late, before she clammed up and stopped talking." It brought a smile to his face as he remembered her.
"Oh her. No. She doesn’t have a record. No matches on the fingerprints or the photo." Cindy was filling in the arrest information on a drunk and disorderly brought in a few minutes earlier.
"I’m going back to see if she’s talking." Dana rose up and headed back to the holding cells.
Cindy had finished her report when Dana walked back up to her desk. "Where did you send her?"
"Nowhere. She’s in cell nine." Cindy glanced up to see if Dana was joking. His face didn’t look like he was joking.
"She’s not there. Cell is empty." Dana wasn’t amused.
"Who pulled Jane Doe out of cell nine?" Cindy stood up and shouted to the rest of the officers and staff in the room.
Everyone was looking around at everyone else to see who had taken Jane Doe out of her cell.
"Okay, this is serious. Who moved Jane Doe out of cell nine?" Cindy thought the joke had gone far enough. She was headed back to the cellblock to check herself.
Dana followed Cindy into the cellblock. Cell nine was locked and empty. "I told you she wasn’t there."
They walked back up to the office and ran the video monitors back to see when she had been removed from her cell. The video showed officers escorting prisoners to and from the cellblock but no one had gone into cell nine. By all rights, the woman should still be there. She had pulled a Houdini and disappeared without a trace.
"Put out an arrest warrant on her. I don’t know how she did it, but she couldn’t be far." Dana wasn’t thrilled they had lost his prisoner.
"What did you get back on that Lan Corporation today?" Dana figured if they could get a name on the woman it would be simple enough finding where she lived and going after her.
Cindy shook her head. "Had someone in Houston check it out. It’s empty. They closed down their headquarters. I went through the directory and they had an office here in Wichita. Sent Merle over to check it out. Office is empty there too. Phone service still works as I called over there and it rang but Merle said there wasn’t anything inside."
She smiled as she raised her eyebrows. "Could be you stumbled onto something big. Caught one of them as she was escaping with government secrets."
Dana looked disgusted. "Sure, and she was hiding it where? Car is as clean as a whistle. She wasn’t carrying any ID or papers. She was a speeder and nothing more."
"Your speeder was driving a Lan Corporation company car. Lan has obviously closed up shop very recently. No one knows what Lan Corporation did. They don’t list any services or goods and they were only in the white pages. Sounds like what spy stuff is made up of, to me." Cindy was smiling from ear to ear.
"Sure and I’m Bond…, James Bond. You’ve been seeing too many movies." Dana turned and headed for the door. He wasn’t happy his speeder had been misplaced.
Weeks changed to months, Dana forgot about the White Rabbit. Life went on, even when a mystery or two was tossed in. His vacation came up and he was headed to Canada for some serious moose hunting south of Dawsons Creek. The Southwest Airlines flight out of Dallas to Los Angeles wasn’t bad. The Alaska Airways up to Seattle was a little rough. The Bush Freight Airways into Dawsons Creek was really rough, with lots of air turbulence.
Dana was glad to get his feet on the ground at Dawsons Creek. He caught a cab into town. Settler’s Inn was almost empty but the season was several weeks old. Most hunters had come and gone already. Dana had hit the lull before the traffic picked up again.
"Welcome to Dawsons Creek, Mr. Cooper." The desk clerk pushed the registration book toward Dana.
"Thanks. Long trip. I’ll grab a bite and take a nap. Has Frank Cheksaka showed up yet?" Dana signed the register and handed over his visa card.
"You weren’t informed? Mr. Cheksaka had an unfortunate accident. Broke his leg when a snowmobile rolled over on him."
Dana looked up at the desk clerk and his nametag. "No, when did this happen? Why didn’t someone call me? I need a guide and Frank was it."
"I’m sorry Mr. Cooper. It happened early this morning. I’m sure you can find a suitable replacement for Mr. Cheksaka. Your room is one oh eight, down the hall to your left." Eddie was holding up the Visa card for Mr. Cooper after he had scanned it. "We will add to your credit card during your stay. You may sign out when you leave."
"Sure." Dana wasn’t happy the way this hunting trip was starting out. No guide meant no moose.
Dana found a café and his bed in less than an hour. He was up before sunup the next morning looking for a guide. He had gone through the telephone book and most of the cafés before two hours were used up. Guides were either gone or they were already booked. In disgust, Dana leased a snowmobile when one of the locals told him where he might find moose.
Dana soon found he was lost. Either he had taken the wrong turn or he had gone too far, but beyond doubt he was lost. His only chance was to find his way back to town. He knew which direction Dawsons Creek was so he drove in that direction until he was almost out of gas. Then he smelled smoke. Where there was smoke, there were people.
He followed the scent upwind until he came to a little cabin nesting up against an embankment. It was covered over with snow. If it hadn’t been for the smoke drifting lazily up out of the stovepipe he wouldn’t have ever seen it.
"HELLO, IS ANYONE HOME?" Dana didn’t want to get shot by someone thinking he was a bear.
"What do you need?" Came the feminine voice that answered him from the doorway.
"I’m out of gas and I think I’m lost. I was headed back to Dawsons Creek. I seem to have missed it somehow." He killed the snowmobile before he slid off and stood up.
"You certainly are lost. Dawsons Creek is thirty miles north east of here. You can’t make it tonight. You might as well come on in and wait for light tomorrow." The voice answered back.
Dana picked up his rifle and headed for the cabin. He was wishing he had brought some of his camping gear, but he hadn’t planned on spending the night out in the woods. He kicked snow back away from the door before he opened it and walked into the cabin. The room was dimly lit by a kerosene lantern hanging by the fireplace.
His eyes hadn’t adjusted from the bright snow to the dark cabin but he could vaguely make out a woman with her back to him standing by a pot hanging in the fire.
"You hungry? I don’t have much but you’re welcome to share. I wasn’t expecting company." She dropped a ladle down in the pot and stirred it.
"I haven’t eaten all day. I was dumb enough to think I could go out and shoot a moose and be back before dinner. Getting lost wasn’t in my plans." The cabin felt toasty warm. Dana’s fingers and toes were starting to hurt as they warmed.
The woman reached over to a cabinet on her right and picked up a bowl. She ladled some food into it from the pot. "This will warm you up."
She picked up a box of crackers off the cabinet before she walked over and set the bowl and crackers down on the table in the middle of the room. "Here, go ahead. I’ll get mine."
Dana wasn’t looking when she walked toward him. He only caught a glimpse of her before she turned to get another bowl. She was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. She looked familiar.
She ladled up another bowl and walked back over to the table. She sat down, picked up her spoon, and stirred her food. "It’s hot. Don’t burn your mouth."
Dana did a double take and looked harder. "I know you!"
He grabbed his rifle. "You’re under arrest."
She blew on her spoon and took a small bite. "Not bad. Could use a pinch more salt and another clove of garlic."
"Didn’t you hear what I said? You’re under arrest." Dana pointed the rifle at her to get her attention.
She sighed as she looked at him. "I also remember you. You are the patrolman who made me miss my ship. Cooper was the nametag you were wearing at the time. Is it still Cooper? Look around you, Cooper. Where do you think we are? This isn’t Texas. Even if it was, it still wouldn’t make any difference. There are four feet of snow outside, it’s growing dark, and it’s bitterly cold."
She took another bite after blowing on it. "I heard you the first time. I’m under arrest. Big deal. What now? Are you going to tie me on that snowmobile you said was out of gas and pull it and me back to town? I have some kerosene for my lantern. You want to try running that through your carbs? The engine may run but it wouldn’t move that vehicle. Kerosene doesn’t burn like gasoline."
She reached over and picked up several crackers before dipping one into her bowl. "You plan on standing there all night holding that rifle on me? Long nights up here."
Snapping her fingers she nodded. "I got it! You are going to handcuff me."
Shaking her head she curled up the corners of her mouth. "Small problem. You probably didn’t bring your handcuffs to go moose hunting. Hard to handcuff a moose."
Dana wasn’t amused. "You’re still under arrest. I’m taking you back to Dawsons Creek first thing in the morning."
"Great, you finally came up with a plan. If you aren’t eating, I’m going to put your stew back in the pot." She took another bite of stew and nibbled on a cracker.
Dana finally realized it was a ridiculous situation. He couldn’t watch her all night, he couldn’t tie her up, and he didn’t want to end up dead because he went to sleep. "I’m not taking my eye off you." He took the bullets and bolt out of his rifle before he sat down and took a bite of stew. On an empty stomach, it tasted great. When his stomach was full and he was warm, it only took minutes before he was nodding.
"Bed is over there in the corner. I didn’t plan on company so we share. You get any funny ideas in the middle of the night and I’ll toss you out into the snow." She pointed over to a dark corner of the cabin.
"I’m not sleepy. I’m only going to find a little softer place to sit. These wooden chairs are hard on the butt." Dana rose from the table and walked over to the bed. Minutes later snoring sounds were coming from the corner of the room.
"Oh swell! He snores. That’s just great! I can tell this is going to be a long night." She picked up the bowls and carried them over to the sink where she washed them before heading to the rocker beside the fire.
>>>>>>>TO BE CONTINUED
FROM THE EDITOR: There's much more to come. Stay tuned to this station for the further adventures of the Trooper and the Alien! Please be so kind as to comment and kudo. The author and I would greatly appreciate it, and thank you for reading.
When Dana woke he knew it was still night so he went back to sleep. The second time he woke he wasn’t feeling sleepy but it was still dark so he went back to sleep. The third time he decided he couldn’t sleep any more. He would get up and wait out the night.
He slid out of bed as he looked for the woman. The cabin was dark and she could have been anywhere and he wouldn't see her. She might also have run while he was sleeping. At least she didn’t slit his throat or shoot him while he was out cold. He walked over to the fire.
She was sitting in the rocker. "I see you finally decided to get up."
"Why don’t you take the bed and I’ll spend the rest of the night here. I’m not sleepy any more." Dana stuck his hands out toward the fire to warm them.
"You shouldn’t be. You slept two days. Stew is hot if you want some. Sorry the breakfast menu isn’t up to your standards but stew is all there is." She rose out of the rocker and walked over to get him a bowl.
"Two days? You’re not serious? I slept all night and day and now it is night again?" Dana looked at his watch.
"No, it’s daylight outside. Snowed some more while you were sleeping. We are buried under about twenty feet of snow." She ladled up some stew in a bowl
"Twenty feet? It can’t snow twenty feet in one day. Can it?" Dana was aghast she could even suggest such a thing. She must be playing with his mind.
She set the bowl down on the table along with a spoon and crackers. "Where we are, it can. This cabin sits right up against a bluff. Snow is driven up against the bluff and settles down on the cabin since it can’t stick to a vertical cliff."
She pointed to a shovel by the door. "You can start digging your way out if you like as soon as you eat. Keep in mind, your snowmobile is at the bottom of that snow so it isn’t going to help you. Open the door and start digging up. Make a small tunnel because all that snow has to come back into the cabin. Too big a hole and you fill up the cabin before you reach daylight."
Dana was in shock. "Is that how you planned on getting out?"
"Why would I want out? I’m stranded here on your world until they come back. Where would I go if I went out? One place is as good as another. I don’t mind it here." She shrugged her shoulders.
Dana hadn’t missed the ‘your world’. The woman was crazy. She really was the White Rabbit in Alice. He didn’t relish the thought of being in close proximity with a crazy woman. "Uh, I think I’ll get to work on that tunnel now if you don’t mind."
"Why should I mind? They're your muscles, not mine. I think you are going to find out you are digging a mighty long tunnel if you don’t eat." She pointed at the bowl steaming on the table.
Somehow he was sure he didn’t want any more stew from a crazy woman. "No thanks. I’ll work on that tunnel."
An hour later Dana was dripping with sweat and exhausted. He had tried digging up but it was impossible once he needed to get up in the tunnel he was excavating. He kept sliding down and out. The heat from his body and the cabin was turning the inside of the tunnel into ice as slick as glass.
He found a chair by the table and was panting trying to catch his breath. "Is it me or is all the oxygen out of this room?"
"A little of both. You have been working hard and using up our oxygen. The fire is using some and what little seeps in from the cave and the snow has to replenish." She picked up a log to put on the fire.
"Cave?" He turned to focus on her.
She pointed to curtains beside the cabinet. "Cave is there. I keep my food stock in there."
As Dana rose up out of the chair he felt like he was going to faint. "Air, I gotta have air."
"You’re probably feeling claustrophobia. Not many people can stand the idea they are walled in. Kind of like tossing someone in a jail cell." She smiled as she looked at him.
He felt trapped. "You did this on purpose. I’m going to…,"
She watched as he fell to the floor. "I tried to tell him to not exert himself."
Dana opened an eye. It had been a bad dream. He was looking at walls and he was lying on a bed. A real bed, not some bunk in some dark little cabin. He took a deep breath before he slid out of bed. Yes, there was plenty of air to breathe. Bad dreams. He looked around the room. No pants and not his hotel room. What was going on?
He found a white satin bathrobe on the chair beside his bed. He slipped it on before walking out the door. He was in a huge room. Something wasn’t quite right. The woman was over on a divan watching television, or he supposed she was watching television.
She waved her hand in the air, even though she had her back to him and never looked. "Up again I see."
"Where are we? What have you done? Where is this place?" Barefoot, Dana padded across the room.
"This place is my place. I was hoping you would tunnel out and leave, never to darken my door again, but it wasn’t to be. You might as well make yourself comfortable. Would you like something to eat? I promise it won’t be stew, although I thought it was pretty good stew." She turned and put her arm up on the back of the divan and looked at him.
"Lady, you are under arrest. I demand you return my clothes and my gun." Dana was ready to leave this nuthouse.
"Why don’t you call me something besides Lady? My name can’t be pronounced in your language so call me Vicky. Vicky Sue Martin would work if you want a full name." She smiled, as her eyes looked down at his bare feet.
"Listen, I plan on taking you back to the nearest authorities and having you held until I can get a warrant to transport you back to Texas for escaping jail, among other charges." Dana focused in on the woman hoping to intimidate her.
She giggled and that infuriated him. "What’s your first name? I don’t plan on calling you Cooper forever. You seem to have a one-track mind. I suggest you get a new plan, because the old one isn’t working."
"Where’s my clothes!" Dana was past mad. The woman had no respect for the law, either in Texas or here in Canada.
She sighed as she pushed herself up off the divan. Shaking her head, she turned to face him. "You are starting to annoy the hell out of me. Let me explain a couple things to you, Mr. Cooper. You made me miss my ship."
"What are you talking about?" Dana was positive she was crazy. He was also positive he could handle her if she became a threat.
"Back in Texas when you stopped me. I was barely going to make it until that officer blew all the tires on my car." She walked over to a stuffed chair and sat down facing him.
"We had completed our research here. The ship has a window of opportunity to make the jump from your world to Rious. That window is open for six hours every ten years." She curled up her fingers on her left hand and studied her fingernails.
"Lady, you are as crazy as a rabid dog." Dana was positive she was the White Rabbit.
"Lan Corporation was our cover. The corporation did nothing except gather information. I was a field agent. My task was to monitor your nuclear experiments and how quickly humans were adapting to nuclear energy. Penny was my coworker. She monitored your nuclear arms. She did the estimates to determine if humans were heading toward nuclear genocide." She smiled a sad smile. "Humans are awfully close to the middle of the nuclear genie. They are either going to eliminate themselves, or they will find that unlimited energy resource."
Dana started to say something and then didn’t.
Some of what she was saying was making sense.
"Our research files were loaded, we had cleaned out our offices, and everyone was either on the ship or headed that way. I was coming up from Galveston with plenty of time to spare. I received a call. Uagford had not destroyed the files in our Wichita office. I was driving through Wichita so all I had to do was stop and complete the task. I had four and one half-hours to spare. That was more than enough time."
She took a deep breath and looked at Cooper. "Stopping at the office, I managed to get in and destroy all the records. I don’t think your government would have been able to decode the files but your progress in computer science is gaining quickly. Maybe they could break the code, provided they ever found the files and realized it was code. That’s a lot of maybes, but we don’t take chances of letting humans know they are being watched by alien life forms."
Dana was looking at her as he waffled back and forth between, was she crazy or was she on the up and up?
"I finished up and walked out to my car. All four tires had been slashed. Not an ideal situation. By now, all the earth vehicles besides mine had been destroyed. It would look kind of strange to have a couple dozen cars and vans parked in an open field and no drivers. Thus, I couldn’t call up anyone to come and get me. I also couldn’t drop in and lease a vehicle as I had destroyed all my earth identification. No credit cards, no money, no license, and no way of getting any in the short time I had."
"Believe it or not, I resorted to thievery. I took my car jack and went out scouring the parking garage two blocks east of our office. I stole tires from vehicles like mine. It took time but I finally had four tires again. I was late but I could still make the ship."
She raised her head and studied Cooper. "That is until you stopped me. I thought about stealing your vehicle at the time, but I’m not good at dodging bullets. I either waited until I had the opportunity to escape and wait for the ship to return in ten years, or I tried to catch it in your car. As you can see. I’m counting years now."
He was looking into her eyes. "You’re not the White Rabbit. You are as crazy as the Mad Hatter."
She waved her hand to indicate the room they were standing in. "I came up here to get away from those like you, and wait. I am also still doing what I was trained to do. I am monitoring your nuclear experiments. We, my race, built all this for exactly this kind of contingency. Where do you think you are, Mr. Cooper?"
Was she trying to trick him? "I’m inside your cabin or someone’s cabin. You probably stole it too while the owner is in Florida."
"Not hardly. We are inside a mountain. The cabin is a façade or a false front if you want. It is there solely for the purpose of giving me a place to enter and exit from if anyone happen to be passing by. However that is highly unlikely considering how remote this place is." She motioned to a machine on the other side of the room. "That is my servant. It takes care of monitoring the place when it’s empty. It also takes care of house keeping when someone like me is here."
Dana was looking where she had pointed. The machine looked unlike anything resembling a useful piece of equipment. In fact it looked a lot like a box. A big gun metal blue box but a box never the less. He decided to pacify her. "Sure looks like a nice looking robot."
She laughed as she studied him. "That nice looking robot reads mind thought, Mr. Cooper. I don’t have to verbally speak to it for it to understand if I need anything."
"Okay, if you say so." He was positive she was the Mad Hatter.
The box moved out in front of Dana without making any noise. He took a step back and it moved forward. He took another step back and it moved forward. He had enough, as he stepped forward and pushed. To his amazement it didn’t move. It was as solid as if he had pushed on a rock. He dropped to his knees and looked under it. There weren’t any rollers and it wasn’t floating on a cushion of air, yet it wasn’t on the floor either.
The woman walked over to the wall to her left. It opened up to reveal delicate crystal drinking glasses. She picked one up and walked out to the middle of the room. She opened her hand and turned loose of it.
When it hit the floor and shattered, Dana jumped back to his feet. "What did you do that for?"
The box moved over to where the shattered glass had spread out across the floor. To Dana’s amazement, the pieces seemed to swarm toward the box as if they were metal and it was a strong magnet. A perfect crystal glass appeared on top the box. It moved over to the cabinet and the glass floated back up in to place on the shelf. The wall closed shut.
Dana’s eyes were bugging out by now. "I don’t believe it. That was some trick."
"Yes, by human standards, I guess it was a trick. By human standards, I’m full of tricks. By Rious standards it’s dark ages stuff. The glass shouldn’t have broken. I am good, but I haven’t been able to formulate silicone into clear carbon with the tools I have. If it was possible to do so, you could drive nails with that glass and it wouldn’t break."
She turned her attention toward him. "I’m explaining this to you because I want you to understand the reason for what I have done. I can’t let you go back home and talk about me. Although it would be possible to keep you here for the next ten years, it wouldn’t be right."
Dana got a cold feeling down in the pit of his stomach. She was planning on killing him. He knew he had to be quick before she carried out her plans. He sprang toward her. He would get her down, tie her up, and escape.
She saw him coming and didn’t try to evade his lunge. Dana body slammed her and they both went to the floor. He pulled her arms up and out as he sat on her stomach. He was surprised when she didn’t offer any resistance or try to escape. "I plan on leaving and you aren’t going to stop me."
She lay there looking back up at him. "I hadn’t planned on trying to stop you. You might consider it is thirty miles to town. You have no idea which direction that is. You might also consider that you weren’t able to tunnel out that first time, so what makes you think you're going to do a better job this time?"
He sat there thinking about it. "You’re going to show me the way. You’re under arrest. I’m taking you with me."
Her eyes were twinkling with amusement as she studied his face. "How did you ever make Highway Patrol Trooper? You’re so dumb it’s not funny. You really expect me to help you dig out and lead you back to town so you can put me in a jail? I don’t think so. I’m not helping you dig out. Does that mean you are going to beat me until I become your prisoner and co-operate? Even if I did help you dig up to the surface, what makes you think I would lead you to town?"
She shook her head. "Did you miss the class where they were passing out brains, or did yours come in a Cracker Jack Box? You don’t get it do you? I’m not your prisoner, even if you tie me up and beat me until I’m dead. As bad as you might hate to admit it, your life belongs to me. I die, you die. Is that simple enough for you to comprehend?"
His eyes were blinking as his brain processed all the options. It wasn’t looking that great for him. "What makes you think I can’t last out the winter without you? Obviously you have food stores."
She wiggled her finger on her right hand as she pointed to her head. "This place is run by mind thought. Unless you think in Rious mind thought, then you’re not going to appreciate the comforts very long. When I leave, or die, this place is going into hibernation mode. That means it's going to sterilize itself and cool down to close to zero degrees Celsius."
She gave him a wink with her right eye. "If this place has been compromised with alien life forms, it will self destruct. Would you like to take a guess as to what the sensors in this place considers alien life? Let me give you a hint. It isn’t yours truly."
Grudgingly Dana got off her, stood up, and offered her his hand. "Your insanity is catching. I’m beginning to believe you."
She took his hand and he pulled her too her feet. "I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t bruise anything."
"I heal pretty fast. We might as well get on a first name basis. I’m Evaisa. You may call me Vicky. And you are?" She waited for a name.
"Dana. Are we really inside a mountain? Where’s your cabin?" Dana was fishing for answers, since she seemed so open about everything.
Eve pointed over to her left. "The cabin is behind that wall. It wouldn’t do to have anyone stumble into the cabin and see a door into the mountain. Believe it or not, cabins are considered safe ports by anyone passing by in this part of the world. They stop in, warm themselves, replace what they use and move on when weather permits. My cabin doesn’t get many visitors since it’s usually buried, but every couple of summers it may get a visitor or two."
Dana kept eyeing the wall for a door, without trying to seem obvious about it. He pulled at the robe he was wearing. "I am missing my clothes. I would feel better if I had my pants back."
"Sorry, your pants were disposed of along with your other things. Please show Dana where he might find clothes." She was looking at something or someone behind him.
"Gatechu fluac movus emekasume." Was the answer.
Dana jumped forward and spun on his heel when he heard someone speaking close to his ear. He was looking at a stunningly beautiful woman. Or was she a woman? She looked feminine. She had delicate features, but she didn’t have defining body curves. She looked boyish in that respect.
"Speak English from now on. Dana does not understand Rious." Vicky stepped up beside Dana and nodded toward the person in front of them. "This is Umba. Umba is an android, capable of independent thought or what your species calls artificial intelligence. Umba is not a living creature but an intelligent machine. You may address Umba as either male or female, as your species tends to do to inanimate objects. She or he is a non issue."
"It’s not alive?" Dana choked that one out as he studied the creature in front of them.
"Depends on one’s definition of alive. Umba is capable of independent logic. Please show Dana where he might acquire body cover." Vicky turned and walked across the room.
"Follow me, please." Umba turned and waited on Dana to follow.
Dana watched as Vicky approached the wall. It turned transparent, she walked though it, and it returned to solid form again. "You got to be kidding!"
"No, if you want body cover then follow me please." Umba was waiting.
"I wasn’t talking to you. I mean I wasn’t talking to anyone in particular. I mean…, Did that woman walk through that wall, or am I hallucinating?" Dana stepped up beside Umba.
Umba turned to look at Dana as she walked toward a solid looking wall. "We do not walk through walls. We go through portals, or in your language, doorways. Evasia is capable of molecular transference if she has to. I guess that would be passing through a solid object in a loose sense."
"Some doorway. So that was how she escaped from the Texas jail. She walked through the wall straight to the outside." Dana watched the wall in front of him and Umba turn transparent before they stepped through.
They were in another room. "Damn, some door."
Umba walked over, opened a door, stepped in and came back with a white satin shirt and pants.
"Your body cover."
"Not exactly what I had in mind. You have anything with a little more color? Something in jeans and denim shirt?" Dana was hesitating to take the offered clothes.
"Unless you prefer pink, teal, or pastel colors, this is your cover." Umba held up the shirt and pants and waited.
"Fine! Give me." Dana took them and turned his back to the android. He slipped the pants on and then the shirt. Funny shirt, it buttoned wrong.
"You want shoes and socks?"
"Sure." Dana turned around to take the shoes. He hesitated. Unless he was mistaken they were women’s shoes. "How about boots?"
"If you prefer." Umba retrieved fashion boots with a four-inch stiletto heel.
"Forget it. Shoes will work." Dana took them before sitting down on the bed to slip them on.
MORE TO COME. Tune in Thursday on this same Bat-channel. Barbie and I thank you for spending your time with us.
When Dana walked back into the big room, he felt like he was wearing pajamas. The clothes were lightweight and soft against his skin. Vicky had already returned. He walked over in front of her. "What’s your plan? You going to keep me here til spring thaw?"
She smiled as she shook her head. "I hope not. Even though you are a liability, I have things I need to do. Staying here in the safe house for ten years is not a plan. I will be out monitoring your world and your science until the ship returns. I must plant receivers or as you know them, bugs, to transmit information from strategic areas."
"And me?" Dana figured he was going to end up dead before this was all over.
"You may accompany me if you like, when the time comes. I really have work to do right now, so make yourself comfortable. If you need anything ask Umba." Vicky turned and walked through the wall and out of the room.
Dana decided to follow. He hesitated when he got to the wall and it didn’t change to transparent. He put his hand out and pushed on it. It was solid. He felt along the wall pushing, but nothing was happening. "I’m in a prison."
"You are in a research safe house, designed for contingencies if a Rious is stranded on your world. Evaisa is working in the lab. Because you do not think in Rious, I am to open the portals for you. Do you wish to go to a different part of the lab?" Umba had walked up behind Dana to explain why the walls weren’t opening for him.
"The woman won’t mind?" Dana was wondering if it was a trick?
"You may call her Vicky. Evaisa said you may go any place you please, except outside or back into the log cabin. Not because she is afraid you will escape, but because it isn’t safe for you. The cabin is not heated. You would probably freeze to death. Outside the snow is six feet deep. Again, you would probably freeze to death." Umba patiently explained.
"I have a snowmobile…," Dana was thinking of escape if he could get the snowmobile going.
"Your snowmobile was destroyed. Evaisa, said it had a tracking device on it. When you didn’t return that first day a search party was sent out for you. The snowmobile was driven off a ridge where it crashed and burned. Your clothes were scattered around the wreckage. The rescuers would think you had been wounded and the animals dragged you off."
Dana’s eyes were getting bigger and bigger as he listened to Umba explain his death to the search and rescue party. "It wouldn’t work. They take any clothes back and do a DNA sample they will know it wasn’t me."
"DNA sample will prove it was you. Blood was splattered over your clothes and the DNA will match exactly." She was giving him the smallest detail of his faked death.
"You can do that? Match DNA?" Dana didn’t believe it.
"Evaisa can. Reports of your demise made the news the forth day. Your district has paid its respects in a ceremony. Evaisa recorded the events for you if you care to see them." Umba patiently waited for an answer.
Dana felt sick to his stomach. No one was searching for him any longer. To the world, he was dead. He wondered how long it would be before she made that a fact? "No, I think I’ll go sit down for awhile."
"As you wish. Do you wish entertainment or news? The receiver is capable of six hundred and ninety one of what you call television channels from all over your world." Umba led Dana back over to the divan where Eve had been sitting when he thought she was watching television.
"I don’t care. I’m not really interested in anything at the moment." In a funk, Dana flopped down on the divan.
"I will be available if you wish for anything." Umba walked over to the wall and passed through it.
"I’m dead! Everyone thinks I’m dead! I have to get out of here. No one will be looking for me. I have to escape." Dana stewed as he worked on an escape plan. There was a small problem with working on his escape plan. He had no idea how the place he was a prisoner at functioned. He had no provisions for making it to town once he made it outside. That left a lot of holes in his escape plan.
Dana walked the room and slept, and walked the room and slept. He had no idea how much time was passing, as there were no clocks. Days maybe? Weeks possibly? The rooms were constantly bathed in light from some source. It wasn’t bulbs because the whole room, including ceiling, walls, and floor were light. Out of boredom, he started following Vicky around. She didn’t seem to mind. She was constantly working on something or monitoring some program. Dana found out if he was right next to her when she passed through the wall, or one of those portals, he could walk through with her. If he was a couple steps behind, the wall was solid.
He was following her when he misjudged the distance and for the twenty-eighth time, he was blocked. He kicked the wall. "I’m tired of this. I feel like I’m on a leash. Stupid wall, open up!"
Vicky stepped back through. "Think in Rious. It’s more than sound; it’s a mental thought projection. Think and project, efate."
"Efate?" Dana looked doubtful as he talked to the wall.
"No, you only voiced it. You have to mentally project the thought. You may voice it too until you get the feeling for it, but project. Think of an opening as you project your thought. Efate." Vicky was looking at Dana but the wall became transparent and then solid again.
Dana stared at the wall. "efate…"
Eve nodded her head. "You almost had it. The equipment doesn’t understand almost. With a portal it either opens, or it doesn’t. Try again, efate."
Dana closed his eyes and concentrated on seeing the wall open in his mind. "Efate."
When he opened his eyes he was amazed to see the wall transparent. "I did that?"
"You did. Not bad for someone who isn’t used to mind projection. If you get caught someplace and can’t get back, call for Umba." Vicky stepped through the portal and it closed behind her.
"Hey, wait for me." Dana concentrated on the wall again. "Efate."
It opened up and he stepped through it. Vicky was already gone to one of the dozens of other rooms scattered throughout the complex. Dana thought about it for a second and decided this was the chance he had been waiting for. He turned and made it back through as he headed across the big room toward where Vicky told him the cabin was.
He tried his new skills on the wall and was rewarded with what looked like a tunnel leading into the cabin. He stepped through and the wall closed. It was more than dark. Dana felt his way down the walls toward the cabin. Something brushed his face. A curtain. That first day, Vicky had pointed toward a curtain inside the cabin and said it led back to the cave where she kept food stores. He pushed it aside and slowly edged forward in total darkness.
His reaching fingers found the table in the middle of the cabin. Slowly he moved around it by feel and reached for where he thought the door should be. He had to keep reaching but he finally found it. He pulled it open and felt the mind numbing cold settle into his bones as he reached his hand out to feel packed snow. The tunnel he had dug earlier had either collapsed, or Vicky had packed it back in.
Franticaly he pushed at the snow and it gave under his hands. He fell forward into the tunnel. The snow had settled down at the bottom against the cabin door. Dana pushed his way up the tunnel until he came to the end. Try as he might he couldn’t push out. He tried clawing with his hand to pull the snow down.
Dana screamed up the tunnel. "HELP! I’M TRAPPED! SOMEONE HELP ME! HELP! ANYONE PLEASE HELP ME!"
Finally chilled to the bone and exhausted, he gave up and slid back down to the cabin. "I’m dead. No one knows I’m still alive."
The little cabin was flooded with light. Dana was blinded until his eyes, accustomed to the dark, adjusted to the light. Umba was standing there holding a light. "Would you like to go back to the shelter now?"
"NO! I WANT TO GO OUT!" Dana pointed up the snow tunnel.
"That would be foolish. It is nighttime and the temperature is forty-one degrees below zero. You would freeze to death in less than fifteen minutes." Umba stared at him.
"I don’t care. I want out of this place. Don’t you understand? I want out!" Dana was looking for the shovel he had used the first time.
"Evaisa said you wouldn’t understand. As you wish. Please move away from the door." Umba was walking around the table.
"No, you can’t make me go back." Dana was determined he would fight it out with her.
"I do not intend to make you go back. I am going to open up the tunnel so you may go outside as you desire." Umba had pushed Dana back as she stepped up to the tunnel.
She shined the light up the tunnel and stepped back. "You may leave now."
"You think I’m stupid enough to start up that so you can shut the door behind me and leave me there to freeze to death trapped in a tunnel with no way out." Dana wasn’t moving.
"The tunnel reaches the surface. I will go first." Umba stepped into the door and disappeared.
Dana was sure she had crawled to the end. He took a look and it was pitch black at the end. Either it really did go out, or Umba had disappeared into thin air. He started crawling up the tunnel. It seemed like it went forever before he stuck his head up above the snow. The stars were out and he could seen trees and snow all around him.
Umba was waist deep in snow standing beside the opening. "This is what you desired?"
"I’M FREE!" Dana was already trying to run. Each step he was up to his waist in snow. He could not get up on top of it. Finally he tried rolling and was on top, but when he went to stand up, he buried down to his hips. The snow wasn’t supporting his weight and he was getting colder and more exhausted with each failed effort.
Exhaustion and hypothermia did him in. Dana had given it his all. He closed his eyes, as he needed to rest. When he opened his eyes, Umba was standing beside him and he was in his room. "I couldn’t escape."
"The snow is too deep and it is too cold for you to be hiking. You should have known that. Would you like some soup?" Umba stared at him.
"You brought me back?" Dana wasn’t sure he was glad to be alive or not. He almost wished he had died out there.
"No, MVU carried you back. I could not, as I also was not properly attired for moving in snow that deep. If you do not require soup or attention, I will return to my duties." Umba stepped over to the door and waited.
"Thanks, I can take care of myself." Dana rolled over on his back to stare at the ceiling.
"You were not doing a good job of taking care of self six hours earlier. Evaisa said, when humans become emotional their rational thinking is lost. You are the only human I have come in contact with. I must agree with her. Logic and emotion don’t seem compatible in humans." Umba walked out of the room.
Dana slammed his fist into the pillow as he rolled over to face the wall. "They should have let me die."
Time passed. Dana had no idea how much time, which was as maddening as being a prisoner. He would follow Umba or Vicky around to kill the boredom. The two women were always working on or with equipment he had no concept of. He figured part of his problem was the information on the equipment, or on the monitors was Rious.
He was following Vicky as she stopped in front of the big monitor on the wall. "Would you like to watch television? Umba mentioned to you we could receive six hundred and ninety one television channels."
"Why not? I seem to be as useful around here as a pet fish." Dana was ready for anything to occupy his time and his mind.
The monitor flicked on and he was looking at a Spencer for Hire rerun. "How do I change channels?"
He held up his hand. "Never mind, think Rious. I’m afraid I won’t be able to remember six hundred numbers in Rious."
"You would if you wanted. It seems you either don’t care to learn or you refuse to learn my language and writing so Umba fixed you up what you call a remote. We also have needs for mechanical controls at times. The concept is not new to us." Vicky motioned for Umba.
Umba walked up to Dana and held out what would seem like a very simple remote control. "Up arrow scan will switch channels every minute going up to the higher numbers. Down arrow scan will switch going down. You press any sequence of numbers and the channel will come on the monitor."
Dana gladly accepted the remote. "Thank you."
"You are welcome." Umba turned and followed Vicky out of the room.
Dana pushed the scan and the stations started changing every minute to a new channel. When a news channel came on, Dana hit stop and stared. It was a station in Hawaii. When the woman news anchor gave the date, Dana choked. He had been in captivity for more than sixty-one days.
He found it hard to believe it wasn’t longer than that. With no way of knowing day from night it seemed like…? Certainly more than a couple months. He had to escape, but he had to make sure when he did, he was prepared. He had to let the world know about these aliens who were watching humans.
Days turned into weeks as Dana watched the monitor to keep his mind occupied and keep track of time.
Evaisa was watching him as the woman turned to smile at him. "You think she’s pretty?"
"Yeah, I mean, she’s okay. Where did she come from?" Dana couldn’t take his eyes off the woman. He had been sitting on the divan watching CNN news on the monitor when Vicky and the woman walked in front of him.
She was a stunner to say the least. Beautiful high arched eyebrows, blue eyes, small upturned cute nose, high cheekbones. Her soft platinum blond hair framed an angelic face as it lay softly on her shoulders and accented her abundant breasts.
She was wearing a black knit sweater dress with a turtle neck collar. Long silver dangle earrings, long multi strand silver necklace, and silver bracelets emphasized her stunning beauty.
Dana’s eyes darted down the sweeping curves of her body to long sexy legs. She was standing on four inch stiletto black heels. She put her right hand on her right hip and smiled at him.
"Is she another one who was left behind?" Dana’s mind was racing, trying to figure out where she came from? If she came in then there must be a way out. All he had to do was find her transportation.
Vicky’s eyes danced with delight as she shook her head. "No, she is a project."
Dana’s heart fell. "A project? You…, you made her?"
"I had something to do with it, yes. She meets your approval?" Vicky was staring at him as if she was trying to read his mind.
"A damn bot! I’m looking at a damn robot!" Dana growled as he pushed up off the divan and headed for his room. He couldn’t believe it. He almost had an escape plan, but if she didn’t come in from the outside he was no nearer to escaping than he was that first day.
Umba walked up to the blond and studied her. "This is the design that turns men on?"
"No Umba, this design is what Dana desires. Not all men would see the same desires in a female form. After studying Dana, while he was watching the monitor, we have designed his idea of the sensual woman." Vicky looked over at the room where Dana had gone to sulk. "Integrate them."
Vicky headed back to the lab in another part of the complex. A soft hum filled the bedroom Dana had gone to sulk in. He never heard it as his mind shut down.
"Follow me." Umba walked over to Dana’s room with the blond walking close behind. She stepped into the room where Dana was stretched out on the bed.
"Undress." Umba walked over to the bed and removed the clothes off the comatose Dana as the blond undressed.
"Integrate."
The blond padded softly on bare feet to the bed. She looked down at the body before leveraging herself up on the bed and lying down on her back on top of Dana. Slowly, ever so slowly, she began sinking down into his body.
Umba kept watch as the blond absorbed Dana into her own body. Seconds changed to minutes and became hours as the last of Dana was absorbed into the blond. And Umba watched with the patience of an android, never moving, only watching.
Dana woke with a ringing headache. "Ohhhhhhhh. Someone stop the bus. I want off."
He put his hand up to his head and brushed the hair back out of his face. "Gotta get a haircut. I’m starting to look like a damn hippy."
With a lot of effort he sat up in bed and swung his legs off the side without focusing his eyes. "I’m in serious pain. What in the world did I do to deserve this?"
Pushing his hair back out of his face with his left hand as he held his balance on the bed with his right, he stood up and finally focused on Umba who was watching him. "I have one big fucking migraine and it has affected my hearing. You got any aspirin?"
She slowly shook her head. "We have no need of chemical addictives. Your pain will subside in one of your cycles you call a week."
"A week? My head is killing me along with everything else. I don’t have any place on my body that isn’t screaming in pain. How about a stiff drink?" Dana closed his eyes to try and deal with the pain.
"Fermented juice is not in our food stores. I can supply you with a substitute. The chemical composition of alcohol is not a complex molecule bonding. Walk to the divan and I will have MVU bring you some." Umba backed up to the doorway as it opened.
"Sure." Dana pushed off the bed with his right hand as he headed past Umba for the divan. The sooner he made the trip the quicker he would get that drink. Something wasn’t quite right as he walked to the divan, but his pain fogged brain couldn’t figure it out. Something wasn’t quite right when he sat down, but his mind was in too much pain to care about whatever it was. Something wasn’t quite right when box floated over in front of him and held up a glass and he reached out to take it.
He was bringing the glass back to his lips when his mind found a clearing in the pain fog. Dana’s eyes snapped open as he stared at the arm and hand holding the glass. The glass dropped out of his or her hand and shattered on the floor. Dana’s eyes had followed the falling glass. It disappeared under his vision as two perfect female breasts blocked his downward view.
"Noooooooo" He grabbed his throat with both hands. "Nononononononono" The sound was coming from him even if it wasn’t his voice. "Nononononooooo"
He sprang up to his feet not thinking of the broken glass. Luckily, MVU had already pulled in the shards and the liquid.
Dana looked down at her body. NOT HIS BODY, BUT HER BODY!!! "Noooooooooo"
"Why?" Her eyes were pleading as she looked at Umba. "Why?"
FROM THE EDITOR. I know some of you have gone elsewhere to read the whole story in one chunk. I hope knowing what happens won't deter you from commenting or hitting the kudo button. Barbie and I thank you for reading and for your comments and stuff.
Dana looked down at her body. NOT HIS BODY, BUT HER BODY!!! "Noooooooooo"
"Why?" Her eyes were pleading as she looked at Umba. "Why?"
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>and now,
"Evaisa had limited options. She would not kill you. She also could not turn you loose. If you convinced someone you had seen an alien and they returned with mining equipment, this place could be compromised. She would not keep you here until the ship returned. What would be the purpose? You would either have to return to Rious with her, or be turned loose, at which time, again it could be compromised." Umba looked into the sad, frightened eyes of Dana.
"Believe it or not, we did not have plans for containing a security breech. We also did not have the technology for changing you into female form. Evaisa was able to design a plastoid you thought was the perfect female form."
"Plastoid?" Dana had to cough it out.
"Plastoids are the beginning of those like me. They are the designs or shapes with intelligence installed. Plastoids have semi form. It is fluid and easily absorbed by living cells. You absorbed the plastoid you were looking at."
"She turned me into an android?" Dana held out her hand to look at the small hand and long slender fingers.
"No, you are human. As a human, your body had a certain shape. You have a different shape. I see no difference." Umba carefully watched Dana’s eyes.
"NO DIFFERENCE! YOU CALL THIS NO DIFFERENCE?" A frightening thought came to him. If he had breasts and hips. Did that mean…? He grabbed between his legs and fainted.
"Umba stepped up and grabbed her before she fell. "Evaisa said some women lose blood flow to their brain and faint."
Dana felt a terrible grinding headache before he opened his eyes. He was dreading to open his eyes, afraid the nightmare might not have been a dream. It was better to know, rather than lying there not knowing, so he opened his eyes and focused on the room. Umba was there.
"Tell me I had a nightmare." He held up his right hand and looked at it. Unless he could no longer see, what he was looking at was smaller than what he remembered.
"You can’t do this. It’s not right." Dana sat up and stared at his two perfect breasts. He had to know. Slowly he brought his hands up and cupped them. They had feeling and they were transmitting that feeling to him. Why did they look so much bigger looking down at them when they were his, rather than when they were on…?
"OH SHIT!" He remembered the big buxom blonde he had been looking at before he headed to his room. His pleading eyes looked at Umba. "Why?"
"This is what you desired in a woman. As you watched the monitor, certain images registered desire in your mind and eyes." She patiently explained.
"On a woman but not me. I can’t believe I liked them this big…," He realized he did like them this big. What had he told the other guys in the station? A woman needs big tits so there couldn’t be any doubt she’s a woman.
Dana realized he was the recipient of his own lust. Life was a cruel teacher. Clumsily he struggled to stand up. "You can’t do this to me."
He was going to do everything he could to end this nightmare, even if it meant killing himself. "I’m going to destroy everything I can. Vicky made the mistake of her life. I can’t live like this."
"You don’t seem to understand. You have absorbed a plastoid. She was fully programmed and, In time, her desires will become your desires…," Umba was trying to explain.
"Her desires? What do you mean her desires? I am not an android." Dana refused to accept what Umba was saying.
"You have your mind. The mind is capable of adapting and accepting. With time, you will accept her emotions and desires. Her name is Dee Dee McBain. That will be your name." Umba looked at Dana and waited.
"Fuck Dee Dee what’s her name. I’m Dana Cooper and I’ll always be Dana Cooper." He tried to growl back at her. Dana realized with the voice he now possessed, women don’t growl. They shout or scream, but they do not growl.
Evaisa walked into the room and smiled at Dee Dee. "Perfect."
"Fuck perfect. I don’t like your game. Get this plastoid, or whatever the fuck it is, off of me and out of me." Dana turned her attention on Vicky.
"Not possible. Once integrated, it’s not possible to separate plastoid and living tissue. You have to understand, Dee Dee…,"
"I’m not Dee Dee, I’m Dana Cooper." He insisted, as he unconsciously put his hands on his hips.
"Dana Cooper is dead. If Dana had escaped it could have compromised our situation. Dee Dee can escape and who is going to believe she was Dana Cooper? It was the only solution to the problem." Vicky walked over beside Umba as she was talking.
"I’ll make them believe it. I’ll figure out a way to make them believe it." Dana knew what his goal in life was.
"Why don’t you get dressed? It would seem the thing to do rather than running around here naked." Vicky nodded toward the bedroom.
Dana’s face flushed. He had been unconscious of the fact he was indeed naked until Vicky pointed it out. "Pants and shirt. None of that sissy stuff."
"I think this calls for a meal together. Please dress appropriately." Vicky glanced over at Umba who nodded her approval.
"Not in my lifetime, I won’t. You can kiss my ass if you think I’m going to wear anything besides pants." Dana was going to make sure they regretted doing this to him.
Vicky’s eyes closed slightly as she focused on Dee Dee.
"Yes, I think I would like that too. A reason for dressing up sounds lovely." Dana turned and walked to the bedroom thinking how wonderful it would be to dress for an evening.
"She will learn with time." Umba watched her walk into the bedroom.
Vicky crossed her arms as she turned her attention to Umba. "I’ve always wondered what it was like to be like you? Do you ever get frustrated or disgusted as an android? You have cognitive thinking so you are able to think independently. Giving Dee Dee a mind thought that she wanted to dress up this evening made Dana think it was his idea. She feels it is her own desire to dress up. She doesn’t realize it was my request for her to act like Dee Dee."
Umba returned the attention. "Do I feel like a machine or an android? I can’t answer that. I don’t have anything to relate to feelings as anything, but what I am. I do not get frustrated or disgusted. I can’t answer for what Dee Dee feels. I’m positive, with time her desires and his will be one. I am also positive that, at some point in the transition, he will regret all the physical attributes and emotional desires he wanted in a woman."
"Why do men lust after women with huge breasts? Except for very short periods in life when females are nursing their young, breasts serve no purpose other than design. Why is a small waist desirable by men? For lifting purposes, the smaller the waist the more strain placed on the backbone. I guess I fail to compute the human emotions of lust and desire." Umba pulled up the corners of her mouth in thought.
"That makes two of us. It seems only a man could answer that question. Or maybe they don’t know either? It makes no difference. It was what Dana desired and what he received. Let’s dress up for Dee Dee’s formal event. Ask MVU to set a table arrangement for dining." Evaisa was walking toward the wall as she spoke. It opened up before she reached it and closed behind her.
MVU moved out to the middle of the room with table and chairs floating along beside it.
Dee Dee left her bedroom to walk to the equipment room. She didn’t think about the portals opening up as she passed through. She didn’t struggle to understand the strange symbols on the console of the equipment as she programmed in her desire for proper attire. She understood all the functions of the shelter perfectly. Dana knew what he was doing wasn’t him, but the end result was what he desired. He wanted to be dressed properly.
Dee Dee admired her form in the hologram replication she was looking at. It was an image of herself. She was wearing a mauve sleeveless gown with a matching jacket. The dress hugged every curve of her sensuous body. The hem was floor length. The straight skirt had a slit up to her thigh on her left leg. The matching heels had a five-inch stiletto heel. She had styled her blond hair where it lay softly across her shoulders, accenting her face. The large multi hoop earrings would have been brassy on anyone but her.
Dana was having a raging conflict within his mind. After Dee Dee had dressed up the desire had been accomplished. He liked what he had become, but he hated what he knew was her desire controlling his desires. Her body was sensitive to the slightest touch and it was driving him wild. With each fluid step her hips swayed. The soft material brushing against her hips and thighs was caressing his passion.
A beautiful woman entered the room. When she spoke the voice was soft as black velvet in the night. "Vicky darling, what have you done with my mind? I’m in love with myself and I can’t stand myself."
Vicky was waiting at the table along with Umba. "Dee Dee, please have a seat and join us. You look ravishing. The dress is beautiful and I love your hair."
There was the conflict again. Dee Dee appreciated the compliments. No he didn’t. Dana hated them. He didn’t want to be beautiful. He was going to escape or kill himself.
Vicky noticed the hesitation and the momentary pained look on Dee Dee’s face. She concentrated as she closed her eyes for a few seconds.
"Why thank you, Vicky. You look nice as well, and I love your dress." Dee Dee’s emotions were becoming his emotions. He was thrilled he looked beautiful. Escape or killing himself wasn’t in his thoughts. He knew Vicky had adjusted his attitude, but it felt wonderful when he felt beautiful. He was trying to fight the idea of becoming Dee Dee, but somehow it wasn’t working. The mental pleasure he felt when he allowed his desires to be her desires was too great to resist.
Dee Dee gracefully sat down at the table. When she spoke the voice was soft and sexy. "Thank you for what you have done for me."
Vicky smiled and nodded. "It was your idea not mine, Dee Dee. This wouldn’t have worked if you hadn’t desired it."
"Whatever do you mean, darling?" Dee Dee brought her right hand up and touched her right breast. "Not in a million years would I ever desire to be a woman."
There! He had finally said something he wanted to say!
Vicky laughed as she shook her head. "You misunderstood. This is the woman you desired. Now you have her. Because she is everything you desired in a woman you are her, no matter how much you want to deny it."
"Thank you. I am the woman I desired." She smiled sweetly as she realized it was the truth.
That was why he was so easily becoming her. She was all he desired. The logic was so simple it was beyond belief. How could one resist becoming the sum total of their desires? In his own flawed mind he lusted after a woman with all the sweeping curves he now possessed as his own. His own mind had betrayed him. He desired a tall statuesque, big, buxom woman with a tiny waist, wide, sexy hips, and long, sexy legs who could set men’s minds on fire with lust as she strolled across a room. And now…, He possessed that woman. She was all his, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
DAMN HIS MIND FOR BETRAYING HIM!
The tall sexy blond was a man magnet. At six foot one, her height would have intimidated most men, even without heels. Unlike most tall girls who always wore flats, she always wore heels. Ninety percent of the men looked up to her in more ways than one. Today she was wearing a soft, form fitting, polyester dress. The dress had full sleeves and a tight skirt. She drove up to the security gate and stopped.
Brian knew her well. Miss McBain had been working for Dellvic Labs for a year now. He could have waved her though without stopping her as he did most of those he knew. The reason he didn’t was he wanted to get a good look and hear her soft velvet voice. Even after a year of passing through his gate she still made his knees go weak when she spoke to him.
"Morning Miss McBain. No passengers this morning?" He knew she didn’t have any passengers before he asked. It was small talk and nothing else.
"Hello Brian, good to see you are alert this morning. No, it’s only me." She smiled as she looked up at the gate guard she knew so well. Dee Dee knew why he had stopped her. She didn’t mind. It was such a small inconvenience to her when it meant so much to Brian who had a lonely job as security.
"Have a good day then, Miss McBain." Brian never took his eyes off her as he nodded for her to drive on through.
"Thank you. You have a good day too, Brian." Dee Dee knew Brian liked it when she addressed him by his name. It was one of the small things that meant a lot to people, especially gate guards who are bored silly most of the time.
In the fourteen months she had been working for Dellvic Labs the company assigned her a parking space close to the front entrance. It was a reward for several reasons. Dee Dee was a research specialist the likes of which they had never seen before. The company had four medical patents come out of her department since she started work. It was rumored she was working on a neurological computer memory system capable of infinite memory storage in a baseball size container.
Many of the men worked to time their arrival at the same time Miss McBain arrived so they could walk into the building with her. Those long shapely legs of hers looked mighty fine in those four or five inch heels she always wore.
Dee Dee pulled into her parking space. She killed her BMW when someone opened her door. She looked up and smiled. "Morning Albert. You still trying to solve that puzzle on Alzheimer’s?"
Albert stared as one beautiful leg slid out of the car and put a heel down on the pavement before the other followed. Dee Dee stood up, adjusted her dress, and picked up her purse before stepping back out of the way of the door.
He sighed. He was in love. But then so was every unmarried man at Dellvic Labs and probably all the married ones, if the truth were known. "I’m not gaining on it. I inoculated ten mice last month. They went ahead and developed Alzheimer’s."
She headed toward the building. He shut the door and hurried to keep up with her. "I heard you are going to shove another patent out the door this week. How many will that be?"
She glanced in his direction as he stepped up beside her. "Too many rumors floating around this place. Don’t believe everything you hear. Why don’t you try RU 453 with the drugs you are already trying?"
"An abortion drug? What in the world for?" Albert blinked as he was trying to figure out what that could possibly do for Alzheimer’s.
"Just a suggestion. You are trying to stop a mental function from developing. Instead of trying to supplement what you feel is the drug those patients lack, stop it from developing instead." Dee Dee stopped at the entrance as he opened the door for her.
Albert was running the possibility through his mind as he opened the door. "Stopping it from developing is what everyone has been trying to do from day one."
She walked up to the security desk with Albert close beside her. "Yes by adding more drugs to feed what you think the mind is lacking. The mind may not be lacking anything. What if Alzheimer’s is like a child who gets tired of working? They lack ambition, not energy or food. You can’t feed them enough to make them want to work. Maybe all those researchers are wrong? Maybe all you need to do is abort the desire in the mind where it decides to get lazy? It’s only a guess but give RU 453 some thought."
"Morning Doctor McBain." The guards at the desk had been watching as Dee Dee and Albert entered the building.
"You too Pat." She looked over at the other guard to her left and smiled. "How are you this morning, Larry?"
Larry smiled from ear to ear. He was betting Dee Dee knew the name of everyone in Dellvic Labs. "I’m fine doctor. You look awfully pretty this morning." Of course Dee Dee looked awfully pretty every morning.
"Thank you Larry. That was kind of you." Dee Dee turned and left the men standing there as she headed down the hall toward her end of the building and her lab.
The doctor title was Evaisa’s doing. Dee Dee McBain had a PhD in chemistry. She had grown up in Scotland and graduated Magna Cum Laud from Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College. She had worked for pharmaceutical companies in the United States, France, Scotland, and England for nine years before applying for a job at Dellvic Labs. Evaisa said all the papers were there if anyone inquired. Dee Dee checked, herself and was more than slightly surprised to find, on paper, she was as real as anyone.
As Dee Dee walked down the hall her hips gently swayed with each graceful step. Her stiletto heels made a tapping noise. Her long, glamorous legs were wrapped in nylon and looked breathtaking. Her long, silky, blond hair lay softly on her shoulders. Larry, Pat, and Albert were all eyes. They were in love. No researcher had a right to be as beautiful as Dee Dee and still be smart.
Albert shook his head as Dee Dee entered her lab and closed the door. "Damn, that woman is a moving violation of physics." He headed off to his own lab as he tried to remember what it was she had been explaining to him about his own research. An abortion drug to stop Alzheimer’s? It was an interesting theory. Albert was betting Dee Dee was right.
Larry and Pat turned to look at one another. Pat shook his head. "Back to the grind. The show is over for the morning."
Larry smiled as he turned his attention back to those coming in the door.
Dee Dee had accepted her fate in life. She no longer tried to figure out if it was her desires or his desires. It didn’t matter. The plastoid she had absorbed was programmed with knowledge humans would take hundreds of years to figure out. That knowledge was hers. Dee Dee’s main problem was pacing herself so she didn’t bring that knowledge to mankind too quickly. She hadn’t decided if she wanted to go back to Rious with Evasia in nine years, or stay here. She had plenty of time to decide. Right now, she needed to concentrate on the moment. The compounds available to her from earth resources were different from Rious compounds. Her mind worked with Rious formulas, not earth formulas, and it wasn’t easy substituting.
Her phone rang and she picked it up. "Dee Dee."
"Miss McBain, this is the Sheriff Association. We appreciate you applying for enrollment in our cadet program. I must say, your test scores were some of the highest we have ever seen. I had a talk with Governor Staily. He suggested with the research you are involved in we make a waiver in our enrollment program to accommodate your research. If you could come in from six to ten every evening and give us your weekends, I’m positive you would make the grade to Deputy in three months." The voice on the other end answered her.
"That sounds like a workable plan. When can we start?" Dee Dee was delighted to have the chance to become a member of law enforcement again. She was sure she could work her way up from Deputy to Highway Patrol in a couple years.
A new class starts in two weeks, but since you are working, come in a week from today and we will start you early." The voice answered.
"I’ll be there." Dee Dee hung up the phone. High speed pursuit was in her blood and if there was any way possible, she was going to be a lawman again. In pursuit of that speed she had designed and built a Funny Car that summer. It was a full blown, nitro burning monster. The cost of building it was horrendous, but she could afford it. She named it the Black Widow.
She won both class races she ran in, but it didn’t fill the desire for speed inside her. Drag racing was over too quickly. 5 seconds to three hundred + miles per hour, then decelerate and wait half an hour to do it again. She sold her Funny car to Budweiser. They put Laura Saska in as a driver. Laura was a good driver, but she didn’t have the reflexes Dee Dee possessed. Laura’s selling point was the fact she was a beautiful woman. She made those Budweiser commercials look fabulous, even when she wasn’t winning.
She held out her hand and looked at the long fingers, sharp fingernails and delicate hand. Sometimes life had to rough you up a little to make you appreciate it. Dana had no idea how to appreciate life. Dee Dee did and she smiled as she thought about it and put on her lab coat.
THE END
FROM THE EDITOR: I have two more stories of Barbie's in the pipeline. One is SciFi, one is Swords and Sorcery and then, when I work my way through it, a full length, almost 200,000 word novel that was published in 1998 and is out of print, so it will be awhile before I work all the way through the editing process. That one will be posted in many chapters, but will remain for only two weeks after the final chapter is posted. Barbie owns the copywrite so there will be no infringement of it. All the stories I will be posting for Barbie are complete, so there will be no unfinished stories lingering about. Once again, we both thank all of you for your acceptance and suggestions, as well as your thoughts about where the story might be headed. Writing is a curious thing. You work and work and rework what you wrote and hope and pray that what you wrote will be interesting to the readers. You put your heart and soul into a story and wait, hoping for the accolades and dreading the critical thumbs down responses. As an editor, it's a more relaxed attitude, but you still hope and pray that you don't destroy anything the writer tried so hard to convey, and it is also, in it's own way, more stressful and time consuming because you have to go through every single word, punctuation mark and phrase usage so you can make the story perfect for the readers. As we all know though, there IS no perfect, so you do the very best you can. I am pleased that Barbie has entrusted me with her hard work and I hope I have done her proud.
Ye of Little Faith
Barbie Lee
copyright 8/29/21
Permission given may be copied and shared but not for monetary gains.
Ye of Little Faith
David, all you have to do is cut it off.” Dr. David Woods was my personal physician and had been for the past forty three years.
“You’re insane. And it’s against the law to mutilate dead people.” He shook his head as a hint of a smile touched his face.
David thought I was joking, I wasn’t. “Who has to know. Besides I’ll be dead so it’s no big deal. I don’t think I will feel it. After all dead people don’t feel pain. Which will be a double blessing as I escape from this body I’ve mistreated all my life.”
“Mistreated? You don’t drink, don’t smoke, never did and you never used drugs. I wish ninety percent of my patients mistreated their bodies like you have yours.”
“It was physical mistreatment David. I manhandled farm equipment by myself it should have took two to four men to move and hook up. Loaded hay bales, hundred pound seed and feed sacks and ten gallon cans of milk. I installed heaters and air conditioners by myself that weighed eight to sixteen hundred pounds. I lifted forty gallon water heaters still full of water when they were so corroded they wouldn’t drain. I carried twenty one foot joins of four inch steel pipe because the crew couldn’t get the fork lift started.
Yes, I mistreated this body. You know as well as I the small size and bone structure wasn’t intended to do any of those things except in an emergency. Damn it David, I was stupid trying to prove I was a man when I own a girl size body. I’ve paid the price these last eighteen years. God should have recycled me when I retired. Every year it has got worse as I growl, moan, and groan as I get out of bed every morning.”
“And? I do the same thing and I’m certainly not ready to toss in the towel yet. Hell Don, eighty percent of my patients complain before they get out of bed.”
“You’re awful quick with percentages. What about the twenty percent who don’t complain?”
A smile spread across David’s face. “Their wives push them out before they have the chance to complain.”
“Back to my request David. Can I count on you?”
“Don, you’re as healthy as a horse. I asked you to touch your toes without bending your knees. You did. I asked you to turn right, left, and bend over backwards a little. You did. My questions didn’t stump you and your memory is sharp. We can discuss this in twenty years.”
“David, I’m not living twenty more years. I had a long talk with God last month. He told me this coming Sunday on the eighteenth He will send Bonnie back to collect me. I laid out what I wish to be buried in. What I don’t want is to still have a penis and balls. For my final rest I don’t want the part of myself I always despised to be buried with me. All I’m asking is for you to step into the morgue, snip and toss the offending pieces down the disposal. I’m offering ten thousand dollars for a couple minutes of your time. You know I won’t be back to complain later if I changed my mind.”
“Okay, I’ll think about it.”
As I left David’s office I knew he wasn’t going to do it. In all fairness it could be possible for him to lose his medical license. I didn’t have the money to ask him to do it before I died. Sixty thousand dollars for SRS was pretty well the norm now. And that wasn’t counting the shrink’s charges before anyone would touch me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tuesday Dr. David Woods called Carl Fielders, the country physician when he read in the paper Don Woods had died Sunday. Carl informed David the body confused a lot of people. Although he was evasive about the reason for the confusion. He told David a woman who gave her name as Bonnie, had called the Sheriff Dept Sunday morning informing them Don Evans had passed in her sleep. Although told to stay at the house, no woman was found when Deputies arrived a few hours later with the county physician. The door was unlocked and they found Don laying on top his bed. Only it it wasn’t him. They took fingerprints to identify the body which matched the ones they had on file when he registered for concealed carry. They sent in the fingerprints and the FBI confirmed it was Don when they took his prints to work on a Federal building. The city had his fingerprints on file when he applied for a police permit as a guard for a housing project.
David figured the name the woman gave was a coincidence. Bonnie was the name of Don’s wife. She died from cancer twenty years earlier. He had never met two more in love people in his life, especially after they had been married for so many years. When people told him, he needed to remarry, he would tell them he was married.
Tuesday Dr. David Woods walked into Heavenly Gates funeral home. The woman in the soft green business suit approached. “May I help you?”
“Yes, I was informed you have a Don Evans here. You picked him up Sunday. I talked to Carl Fielders our county physician and he waved the autopsy. May I see the body?’
“Of course.The government records we received didn’t have anything in them about the lady being female. Everything they sent us listed her as male. Follow me please, she’s in our Lavender Room for viewing by family and friends.”
David didn’t follow. “Miss, I think there has been a mistake. I’d like to see Don Marion Woods.”
“No mistake, if you come this way.” She stepped into a hallway.
He followed the woman past several doors before she turned into a lavender room. Walking across the room she stopped beside a rose colored casket and motioned with a sweep of her hand. “This is Don Marion Woods.”
David walked toward the casket and stumbled when his eyes focused on the beauty laying there. He started to object this wasn’t Don. Yet the face resembled him somewhat. She was dressed in a white satin, brocaded and beaded wedding gown, chandelier diamond earrings and gold necklace.
He backed up and looked at the woman. “How…,”
“She was dressed this way laying on her bed when we picked her up.
He shook his head. “You keep saying her.”
“Well unless all of us here are blind or can’t tell the difference between a male and female, despite the government papers, that’s a female in that casket.”
Don turned his attention back to the body. She had breasts but Don had breasts after being on hormones for almost twenty years. She had a wedding band on her left hand and it looked like the same one Don always wore.
He returned his attention back to the woman as he pulled out his billfold and opened it to his medical license. “I’m a doctor and I assume you handle male and female bodies. I
hope this question doesn’t offend you. I’ve known Don for more than forty years and was his personal physician. I will swear on my physician’s oath he was a male. A transsexual male but a male with the male parts between his legs.”
He could hardly believe he was going to ask the next question even as a doctor. “Does she have…”
It looked like the woman was going to laugh before she composed herself. “Doctor if you’re asking me if this woman has a penis and balls? No she doesn’t. As you stated no autopsy was performed. We did have her completely undressed before we pumped her full of embalming fluid and she is a genetic female as far as all of us can tell.”
“If this is your patient and you say she’s a male then I believe you up to the time we had her naked on the embalming table.”
David shook his head as a smile spread from ear to ear. “Ma’am, do you believe in God?”
“No I’m atheist.”
David turned and stared at the body. “I never believed but I didn’t disbelieve either. Don kept telling me there are no miracles only lack of faith. I…, think…, I’m looking at faith strong enough it was a miracle.”
“Don, I don’t have your faith. Put in a good word for me when you’re talking to your God, if you would.” David was headed for the door.
You Must Die Before You Live
Copyright 10/2/2020
Barbie Lee. Proofed by Catherine Linda Michel.
Story may be shared but not published for profit or any other gains.
It had been a harrowing six days and just before Halloween too. Thank God everyone had been alerted in time and a major crisis adverted. Calista never was stable and shouldn’t have been allowed to join. She was going to turn lose vampires, ghouls, demons, monsters, dark witches, and a whole lot more this Halloween. An emergency call went out from Shasta who had been keeping a watch on her since Calista had gone wobbly the past several years. She felt what she was planning on doing. Halloween was the one night when magic and resources were perfectly aligned for Calista to open a door to the Dark World.
Twenty seven from all over the world who belonged to the coven showed up within seconds of each other, surrounding Calista preventing her from doing what she had planned. The pentagrams painted in white paint on the floor, the runes inscribed around the edges was enough evidence no one questioned what she had intended.
Shasta spoke for the others. “Calista, you intended to open a door to the Dark World. Your preparations are almost finished. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Glaring at all the others around her, Calista snarled. “I am releasing the others from their prison. They deserve to be free. Who are we to pass judgment on others who aren’t like us? Are we not a contradiction ourselves to all others? We have powers most mortals don’t even know about.”
Minddy along with a few of the others shook their heads. Truly Calista had lost her mind. Releasing those from the Dark World would be the end of everyone including the witches if they couldn’t lock them up again. It would be a battle no one wanted and an outcome no one could predict.
Calista had already set up an invocation where all she had to do was speak the words and summon a demon over from the other world. She started to do just that. “zitseko zidzatsequulidwa ndipo…”
More than two dozen spells were immediately cast upon Calista to silence her and keep her from finishing the chant. She was spell bound to keep her from moving or speaking.
Shasta looked at Calista with pity, “You condemn yourself. What you planned cannot be allowed. Take a vote.”
No one moved, raised their hand, or spoke verbally but the vote was unanimous. Calista would have her powers removed. All of them, down to the very last drop. A binding spell would be set upon her where she could never learn magic of any kind, especially witch magic. If she tried doing any magic she would lose her memory of them. She would lose her witch semi immortality and grow old and die like normal humans. She would lose her ageless beauty along with everything else.'
No one spoke but they all agreed to the judgment. Calista couldn’t be trusted with witchcraft any longer. And so began the long arduous process of spell casting after spell casting to place all the binding rules upon the woman who was once one of them. All the black art she had been preparing had to be totally removed, the home had to be cleansed and sanitized. Some of the coven rotated in and out as the six days it took to accomplish everything that was done. Despite the time it took, it was better than closing up a door to the Dark World after one had been opened and fighting the dark life forces that emerged from there.
Minddy had put up all her Halloween decorations two weeks before, inside the house were pumpkin lanterns, skeletons, black gauzy curtains on the windows and hanging in the middle of three of the rooms. Small miniature witches on brooms were on top the ceiling fans in the living room and dining room. Outside across the yard were gnomes, goblins, a vampire, and ghosts. The lights were placed just so. As they operated randomly they flickered on and off the shadows made all the figures look like they were moving.
The candied apples, caramel popcorn, bubble gum, and assorted candy was piled high in the pantry waiting for the hundreds of children who always swarmed her house on Halloween.Only…, only this time all the lights were off, her house was dark. With no lights the ghosts and other cloth figures waving in the slight breeze looked more realistic than usual and the children were scared to approach the house. If parents were taking them around then the parent would automatically bypass the house with no lights.
She felt the lone person sitting in the corner of the porch as she was driving down the street toward her home. She turned off her lights before she ever pulled into the driveway. She didn’t activate the garage door but parked on her driveway, opened her door, gracefully swung her legs out, stood up, retrieved her purse, and locked her car. She never hesitated as she walked up the steps to her porch and stepped over in front of the young man curled up in the corner who had been crying his eyes out.
“Want to talk about it?”
He shook his head without looking up. He had stopped crying but was sniffing and wiped his running nose with his shirt sleeve. “No, I’m sorry. I’ll leave.”
“Not before we have a talk, Mitchell. You’re sitting here on my porch getting the decking wet and running my decorations with your salty tears. The gnomes, goblins, ghosts, and other assorted monsters want an apology and an explanation.”
His head snapped up, his eyes flashed wide open when she mentioned his name. And then she threw in the rest of the story of goblins and such and it brought a sharp laugh from him.
She gave him a smile. “Now that’s better. Let’s go inside where we can have a drink and you can tell me what brought all the tears and heartache on such a glorious night as Halloween. Do you drink whiskey, rum, scotch, or I might still have some Kentucky white lighting in a jug from some of our picnics this summer.”
Mitchell’s eyes opened even wider as he stared at her.
“Gotchu again. Seriously, it’s a hot cup of chocolate with marshmallows. I also have tons of Halloween candy which I didn’t get to pass out this year. We can eat candy until our bellies are going to pop and we pass out with a sugar high. Tomorrow we will wake up, hung over the potty praying to the gods of Halloween who are still awake for a quick death to end our misery of gluttony.
“Gods of Halloween? If only there were.” He looked so sad again.
“What! You don’t believe there are gods for Halloween? You practice sacreligion at your own perle you young whelp. Now come on, inside where I can introduce you to the witches.”
Mitchell shook his head as he got to his feet. She indicated he should go first so he did, opening the storm door and then pushing the door open as he stepped out of the way and held the door for her.
“Thank you Mitchell, that was very courteous of you. The kitchen and hot chocolate is this way. He closed the door and followed her through the living room, the dining room and into the kitchen.
She motioned to a chair at the table as she walked up to another chair beside it and sit down.
He stared at the two cups of steaming hot chocolate with a big marshmallow floating in each. Someone is in the house and heard her talking about hot chocolate. He took a seat, picked up the cup and took a very small sip. The taste was unbelievable deep black chocolate. Rich, creamy chocolate. He had heard women mention they would die for a little chocolate. This must be the chocolate they were talking about. He took another sip. If it wasn’t so hot he would drink it all down in one go. He had never tasted anything like it.
Minddy smiled knowingly as she sipped her chocolate. “It’s Halloween chocolate. It’s always good but it hits its peak on Halloween.”
Nodding in agreement he took another sip. “It’s so good. I never tasted anything like it.”
“I believe it is worth a story, don’t you? Talk to me Mitchell. Why aren’t you with the other kids out partying, playing pranks, and getting into trouble as you paper someone’s house, soap their car, or toss water balloons at kids walking down the street?”
“I…” He wiped tears leaking out the corners of his eyes. “Mom and dad, office party, my friends, lake drinking, too old to go trick or treating. Me, I mean. Costume…, too old to dress up in the one… Mom and dad never let me when I was…, kid. I wanted even if only for couple hours one night a year.”
He turned and looked at her, a full blown flood now. “You’re so beautiful.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hands and bawled.
She knew what he wanted, what he needed, but he had to say it so it was his choice not something she put into his mind. “You want me?”
He shook his head. “I want to be you. You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”
“I think your mom is a pretty woman.”
“She is pretty. A lot of women are pretty. You’re beautiful.”
“That’s very sweet of you Mitchell. It doesn’t really answer the question though, does it? You can’t be me. What would you like instead?”
He had stopped crying and wiped his eyes again.
“It hurts! Deep down inside it hurts! I know I can’t be you. Please understand, I can’t be me either!”
“We finally get to the crux of the situation don’t we? How and when do you plan on killing yourself?”
“Tonight, I’ll do it tonight. Halloween is a good night for freaks like me to give it up. Don’t you agree?” His voice had taken on a little hardness.
She shook her head. “No I don’t agree. For many of us it ruins the spirit of what Halloween is all about. Tricks are to be played, treats are to be passed out, and fun is supposed to be had by everyone. Too many spread their dark ideas into Halloween.”
She motioned toward the pantry. The door swung open, displaying all the goodies she hadn’t passed out this Halloween crowding the shelves. “I haven’t gave away any treats this Halloween and that makes me unhappy. May I give you a treat?”
“I don’t feel like eating candy.”
She laughed and Mitchell would swear he heard lyrical music. “Not the treat I was thinking of, but you’re welcome if you want.”
She turned toward him, took his hands in hers and looked him in the eyes. He was thinking how warm and soft her hands were.
“My treat to you is that you die so you can live.”
“You’ll help me kill myself?” Funny... the concept pleased him. He wouldn’t be dying alone.
“In a sense. You’ll die, but not really. Everyone must believe you have died for you to live as you wish... as a woman.”
His eyes grew four sizes too big as he stared at her. “Come again?”
You must die so you can live as you want. You said you wanted to be me. You can’t be me, but you can be a woman. A beautiful woman, a real woman. Mitchell will have to give up his parents, his friends, everything he has in order for this beautiful woman to take his place.”
He leaned forward to get closer to her. “Explain it to me so I can understand.”
“I just did. Do you want to be a female, yes or no?”
“Yes.” He nodded in agreement.
“That dream can be yours, but there are rules. The girl you want to be cannot take Mitchell’s place. She must be her own self, not a warmed over Mitchell. Thus, Mitchell must die before she can begin her life. An accident, one where the body can’t be identified because it can’t really be you. There is no resurrecting the dead. That gets into an area we won’t go.”
“We?”
“I’ve heard the whispers, the rumors, I’m a witch. I’m not denying it. I am... one of many in the coven I belong to. After we fake your death, we will change your mortal body to match the spiritual body inside you. The girl you feel you should be.”
“You can do that?”
“Look at me. Yes. They, we, I can do that. I was born as a male the same as you. Bonnie found me and offered me the same deal I’m offering you. There are other covens, but we are the only one where each one started life as a male and is now female.”
“….but, you’re so beautiful.”
“Thank you. It’s the transformation effect. We generally transform into that which we seek. That is in the person transformed. It is not in anything the casters do.”
“When?”
“When can we do the transformation?”
He nodded.
“Tonight if you like. It’s Halloween and I’m so wanting to do a treat. A flaming car wreck, the body so fried there's nothing but ashes left. It must be an accident, not suicide, so your parents don’t blame themselves. You rented a car earlier today. You were texting and ran a stop sign. Collided with the trailer of a fuel truck. Everything goes up in flames. The body is cooked to ashes. The truck driver releases the trailer and drives a safe distance away.”
“You’re going to kill someone as me? No, I won’t do it.”
“Nice to know I’m not supporting a dark spirit. No one is going to die in your place. There will be a body, but it will have already died long before we snatch it from the morgue. The size and sex will be the same as you are now. The dental records will be the only thing positively identifying the body as you. A perfect match by the way.”
“A car, a tanker of fuel and the tanker, I’ll be paying for that the rest of my life, but it will be worth it.”
“The coven pays for all of it. We are witches remember. Money earned honestly, but we do have a very generous funds account.”
“You… they… would do this for me? Why? You don’t know me. They…”
“Oh, I know you well enough. Your parents moved into town when you were seven. I’ve been watching you since then. I felt what you were, Mitchell. You had to come to me or I couldn’t help you. It’s a hard fast rule of the coven. One I truly don’t agree with, but we all either live by the majority rules or we die by the rules.”
She gave him a soft smile. “No I didn’t plant the idea in your mind that you were a girl. You had that idea before your parents moved here. That is another rule we can’t break. No mental steering allowed on others. It is why you must die. Your mother, father, and brother will miss you. They won’t wonder where you’ve gone or wonder if you are okay and still alive when you are no longer there.”
“Have you picked your new name?”
“You mean if I was a girl?”
“Yes”
He nodded. “Rachel Ann Hunter is the name I finally settled on for the past six years after going though thousand of names in the news, baby books and searching online.”
“Okay, the others are working on all the legals for your new name. Anything else?”
“May I look like you? You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Minddy giggled as she slowly shook her head. “No you may not look like me. No twins in the coven…”
“Another rule.” Mitchell finished up for her before she said it.
“Right! Now, I’m only a thirty six. You don’t want more?” She held out her hands in front of her breasts.”
He shook his head. “no…, you’re perfect, you have a beautiful face, a perfect body. I don’t want to look like a bimbo or hooker. I want to look like you.”
“Mitchell, I believe you have too much of a Minddy obsession. You’ve been wanting to be a girl for so long you have become obsessed in your mind of what the perfect woman should look like. You make me regret I didn’t move away when your parents moved into town.
I stayed knowing what you were and hoping one day you would come to me and tell me your secret. I’ll ask the ladies to put a variable into the transformation. You may alter the design after it has been cast. That variable will cancel out after a year, giving you time to come to terms with your body.”
“New body?”
“No, it’s yours, the one locked away deep inside this outside facade wrapped around it.” She touched his chest with her finger.
He felt…, a shock deep down inside himself? No, it was more of an awakening from a long sleep. “What do I need to do?”
“Your parents have gone to the office party. Both will be wiped by the time they are delivered home, by taxi I might add. No one is allowing either of them to drive. Your brother Jeff is, as you mentioned, out at the lake with friends. All of them drinking in excess. Something I don’t agree with for anyone, but humans have it in their nature to over indulge in spirits. A sheriffs patrol will happen by and relieve everyone of their vehicle keys after breathalyzer tests. Cell phones will be drained of battery power so they can’t call for pickup. They will have to sleep it off out at the lake camped out in their vehicles.”
“The sheriff patrol really isn’t sheriff people are they?”
“Oh they are real alright. We work with them from time to time. We won’t do their job for them by naming suspects who they seek, but we do inform them at times on problems before someone dies. Like your brother and three of his friends wrapped around a bridge abutment if they tried to drive home. Tonight is your night to die, not your brother’s.”
“Thank you. Jeff and I never got along that well, but I still love him and my parents. Thank you for saving my family tonight.”
“You’re welcome. Let’s go meet five of my sisters. They are in the study waiting for you. It takes six to perform a transformation. I can’t do this by myself. None of us can.”
“Is it going to hurt?” He rose up from his chair the same time she did.
“No, you’ll be conscious. You must be for the transformation to be what you wish to become in your thoughts.”
“You can’t make me into one like you? What if I mess this up?”
“You won’t. What you have desired all your life is inside and she wants her freedom. Don’t be scared. You aren’t losing yourself, but becoming what you always were. Let me give you a hint from someone who has been there and done exactly what you are fixing to do.
Accept both your feminine side and your masculine side. Don’t treat him like you had to treat her and hide him away. What I’m looking at now is what you have been for eighteen years. If you close the door on him you’re only hurting yourself. Real women aren’t afraid of showing a little what everyone thinks is a masculine trait. A little assertiveness. Don’t allow yourself to be treated as only a sex toy though. The list is long, but you get the idea. You may be soft, comforting, non confrontational or enjoy sex if you want, use your woman’s wiles to entice men into doing what you want.”
Minddy took Mitchell by the hand and led him to the study. “You are going to receive power and strength most mortals don’t have. Do not let your anger, or your hate overwhelm your judgment, your compassion, your ability to forgive.”
When they stepped into the study, five women spread out around Mitchell in equal spaces. Minddy stepped into the imaginary sixth space. Mitchell was looking at the floor. Connie shook her head. “No circles, no pentagrams, no candles, no incense Rachel. Only six of us women are necessary to perform the transformation on someone who is willing and desires the change. Relax and wait for the old you to become what you have desired from the moment you knew you were truly a girl.
Mitchell turned completely around staring at each of the women. They were all stunningly beautiful. When he stopped he was staring at Minddy. She was the most beautiful of all the women there. Was it as she had told him, just an infatuation with a person he wanted to be since he first laid eyes on her eleven years earlier? Nothing has changed. He may not be allowed to look exactly like her, but he wanted to be close. Like a sister? He smiled. He knew exactly what he wanted.
All the women there smiled along with him as they knew what he had decided. Mental telepathy was one of the gifts when one became a witch in the coven. All six began speaking in perfect unison. chikhumbo cha moyo wanu chizikhala chanu gwiritsani ntchito mphatso zanu kuthandiza ena kuti asagwiritse ntchito molakwika mphamvu zanu phunzirani kuchokera kwa anzanu ndikumvera malamulo a panganoli osangoyenda ndi” (Your life's desire shall be yours. Use your gifts to help others. Do not abuse your powers. Learn from your peers and obey the rules of the coven. Never dabble with dark forces or go near the dark world)
“Welcome to the coven, Rachel Ann Hunter.”
She had closed her eyes as the ladies began chanting and still had them tightly shut, waiting for the promised transformation. Someone took her hands in theirs as others placed their hands on her shoulders.
“Open your eyes, Rachel.” Was the soft lilting voice of Minddy.
Rachel opened her eyes. Minddy was standing in front of her, holding her hands. “When will I…”
An amused smile spread across Minddy’s face. “Change? Sweety, you already are. You’re Rachel from now on until the day you die.”
Rachel lowered her head and stared. “I have breasts!”
Someone behind her snickered. “It’s a pair of things that comes with a woman’s body. Minddy, take care of your new charge. We’re gone. There's still some Halloween left and we are going to enjoy it.”
The study was empty of females except for Minddy and Rachel as Minddy backed up. “Take your time to adjust and accept Rachel is in charge now. I know you want to explore your body with your hands, eyes, and imagination. I did, but take your time. Rachel is here to stay and you have a lifetime ahead to understand and get to know her. I’d like to enjoy what’s left of this Halloween myself. What say we go turn on all the lights, start the mobiles out in the yard and invite the little trick or treaters up for some candy?”
Rachel nodded absently as she was still staring at her breasts. Slowly she brought her hands up to check if they were real. They were! When she cupped them with her hands she felt it all the way down to the deepest parts of her souls, both physical and spiritual. “Oh my god” She whispered.
I should have warned you. Your female body is a thousand times more sensitive than the male body.” Minddy smiled at her new friend. She took Rachel’s hand and led her back to the kitchen and the pantry. “Pick a basket. It’s a little late, but we can still pull some trick or treaters in.”
Minddy picked up a couple baskets herself before allowing Rachel to step in and pick up two more. As she headed for the front door and the porch, Rachel followed along behind. Minddy knew the girl was on autopilot and not thinking about what she was doing. Her mind was still overwhelmed with the change. She’d grow into it, all of them did eventually. Each one different and the time it took to adjust. There were so many factors involved before the change. How badly did they want to be a girl? How many years were they drummed into being male before the opportunity arrived for the transformation?
How strict were their parents? Did they punish their son if they showed any indication they might be leaning toward female or did they understand and try to help. The things in one’s life before the transformation were beyond measure, even with the powers the coven possessed. Calista was a mistake but not the first, nor would she be the last. Everyone tried to be careful and make sure before anyone was allowed to be transformed, but mistakes still happened.
The florescent, infrared, and ultraviolet lights in the yard and on the porch turned on. The creatures in the yard began moving or not, but still looked like they were, the way the lights played and danced around the yard. Minddy’s house was a favorite among all the trick or treaters, young and old alike. The monsters in her yard always seemed so real and the treats she passed out were always more than other places gave away.
Minddy always seemed to “try” and dress up scary, but seemingly always failed miserably. Her black Morticia costume was the present Halloween failure. The black dress was gothic and very realistic, along with her long, black, silken hair that reached past her butt. Her really dark eyes with the over abundance of dark makeup was real enough. But somehow Minddy misunderstood her lips were supposed to be dark not pretty peach. No skeleton earrings neither. They were gold, pearlized inlay with a cross.
Besides all the mistakes in her attire and makeup, she was just too darn pretty to bring off the evil witch look. Even her evil witch cackle sound more like a giggle than an evil witch. The littlest trick or treaters might have been scared of all the monsters and ghouls in her yard, but Minddy always seemed to be so warm and inviting, their fear was over ridden by their desire to receive some special treat from Minddy’s own hands. Minddy ooohed and awwwed over each little one’s costume telling them how real they looked or how cute they were.
Standing beside Minddy, Rachel was passing out extra treats after the trick or treaters had already received goodies from Minddy. She was also entranced by the ghosts, goblins and all the other monsters in the yard. They all seemed so real with the way the lights played on them.
She was fascinated by the costume Minddy was wearing. It certainly wasn’t what she was wearing when they retrieved the treats from the pantry. Her own clothes had changed as well. She was wearing a beautiful full, white, early century gown. Rings adorned her fingers, her blonde hair spread across her shoulders and down her back in tight spiraling curls. A golden multi strand necklace with a locket at the end, nestled between her breasts which were pushed up and very exposed by the Victorian gown. She wore a jeweled golden crown on her head. All the kids and even most of the adults were addressing her as Princess. Some who were still out in the street were even pointing her out to the little ones as a Princess.
She was a bigger draw to the little ones than Minddy. Maybe for tonight she was a Princess. Her fondest wish had come true and she felt like a Princess. No matter what the future brought, she was complete for the first time in her life.
Minddy’s eyes narrowed as she stared out into the yard. Some of those goblins, ghouls, and ghosts weren’t hers. She cast a magical net over everything all the way out to the street. As long as they didn’t follow anyone home, they were okay. BUT, a conversation was coming up after the last of the trick or treaters had left for the night.
“Minddy?” Rachel felt the magic when it was cast.
“Uninvited guests decided to drop in. They aren’t a problem. Barbara, Connie and well, all the ladies, are going to take you in and teach you everything you need to know. I guess the lessons will be starting earlier than anyone thought. You should stick around until I have a talk with our friends who decided to stop by.”
Rachel was looking around expecting to see more women. “Uninvited friends?”
“Yes! I’m not going to punish them. I’m going to explain some rules they have to follow.”
“Rules?”
“Yes, no scaring the trick or treaters. No following anyone home. And they must be gone anytime after midnight and before daylight. Or if they plan on hanging around, no showing themselves to the mortals. I refuse to allow my home to become a real haunted house.”
Rachel gulped, she hadn’t considered this aspect of the transformation and joining the coven. “I’m not sure I want to meet your uninvited guests.”
The End?