Storiesonline.net ------- Some Kind of Hero by Sea-Life Copyright© 2011 by Sea-Life ------- Description: This story is about becoming a super hero. It is not so much about being a superhero. Codes: superhero ------- ------- Prelude I don't know about all 93 year olds, but I'd been feeling delusional since my birthday three weeks earlier. I kept hearing a voice in my head, asking me the same questions, over and over again. "Harley, can you hear me? Can you answer me, Harley? Harley can you hear me?" Over and over again. Not continuously, mind you, but every few hours, regular-like; 'Harley, can you hear me? Can you answer me, Harley? Harley, can you hear me? Oh, I answered of course, but since my stroke, my voice was pretty weak, and I had a hard time making myself understood to anyone. My great grandson Brandon did the best job of understanding what I was trying to say, but he wasn't around much. The staff at the White Oak Assisted Living facility where I'd been while I still had some money in the bank had tried some, but the folks here at the Sherman House didn't bother. They knew I'd been pawned off on them because I was dying, so why bother? I was too: dying that is, at least my body was. The damned thing had been failing me in stages since I'd hit my 60's, but the last ten years had been the worst. My body had failed spectacularly and often, and the sad thing was that buried inside the wreck of it, my mind was as sharp as ever. "Of course I can hear you, you idiot," I mumbled back at the voice for the umpteenth time. "I can hear you!" I shouted that last one, but I didn't have the lungs for yelling anymore, and the esophageal tube and oxygen mask muffled everything anyway. It pissed me off even more that I still felt so sharp-witted but was succumbing to the delusions of dementia. I didn't have enough energy to shout again, but in my head I screamed one last time. "Yes, I can hear you, now shut the hell up!" "Ahh, at last!" the voice said this time, and then the world flashed white in an instant before everything went black. ------- Book 1: Awake ------- Chapter 1 I woke up laying face down in the mud. It was dark and I was cold and shivering. As I became more aware, I realized that I was laying half in a pond or pool of some kind, and in the dark and the confusion, I struggled up and out of the water. The darkness was not so complete that I couldn't see at all, but the mud and brush in front of my face was the only thing I could see clearly. Everything else was just dim shapes in the darkness. I made it up onto my hands and knees, and turned my head. I could see stars, and the moon must be up, though I couldn't see it, for there was enough silvery light reflecting off of the horizon to let me get the feeling that I'd come awake at the edge of a small lake. I struggled to stand, and I was beginning to shiver, or else I was just finally self-aware enough to notice it for the first time. This wasn't good. A man my age, and with my poor health, would die of hypothermia pretty quickly. I took a few shaky steps away from the lake's edge and saw the hard edges of something dark about as tall as I was angling down and to my right. I reached out with my hand as I took another step and felt the once familiar feel of a tent. Thank god! I needed to get out of my wet clothes and get warmed up pretty quick. I began to feel my way around the edges of the tent, though now that my brain knew what it was, the little light available had resolved it into something resembling familiarity. Three shuffling steps to my left found the flaps of the entrance. It was zippered shut, which I'd feel grateful for later, but right now it was excruciating torture trying to work the zipper with my cold, trembling fingers. Thank god for the large, over-sized zipper tab. There was a small tarp set beneath the tent and the edges of it stuck out past the door by several feet. With the flaps unzipped, I finally realized that my feet were bare. No shoes or socks. I struggled out of the shirt and pants, leaving them piled where they fell and stepped into the tent, bending a little to manage the tent's low ceiling. In the darkness of the tent my feet found a sleeping bag, perched atop a small pad of some type. I sighed with some relief at that, but followed that with a grimace in the dark as I once again began to force shivering fingers to work a much smaller zipper in the dark. It took many long minutes to work the zipper down enough to let me slide in. I tried to dry my lower half off as much as I could with the outside of the bag. I had the presence of mind to zip the front flaps of the tent shut again before I slid at last into the bag. The bag had a synthetic shell, but a flannel liner, and I enjoyed the immediate sense of warmth that gave me. I didn't appreciate the length of time it took for zipping the bag back up once I was in it, but once I had, I relaxed and let myself calm down a little from the semi-panicky survival mode I'd been in. It didn't take long for the shivering to transform into a warm, fuzzy feeling, and for that to quickly evolve into a hard sleep. Just as things were blacking out again, I thought I heard that voice once again, offering me a cheerful, 'Good job Harley!'. 'Fuck you, ' I thought back just before sleep took me. ------- Chapter 2 I woke up to brightness and the sound of birds chirping, and the barking of dogs off in the distance. I opened my eyes and looked around. Yes, I was in a tent. To my right I saw a cargo bag and a back pack. They both had a camouflage pattern, though the cargo bag was a heavy canvas material and the pack was a lighter material – ripstop nylon, it looked like to me – parachute cloth with a liner on the inside. They looked like the ones I remembered seeing the soldiers carrying on TV coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Along with the sound of birds and dogs, I realized after a moment, I could hear laughter – little kid's laughing, actually. "Well, good then," I said to no one in particular. "At least I'm not completely off in the wilderness somewhere." Unzipping the sleeping bag was much easier than it had been the night before. I slid out of the bag and sat cross-legged on it and reached for the cargo bag. It was at this point that some things finally occurred to me. I was Harold Lee Scoville. I was 93 years old. The last I remembered before last night had been laying in bed waiting to die of old age and generally crappy health. There should be no way I could be sitting in a tent somewhere by a lake, let alone sitting cross-legged. I was far too old for that shit. So I looked at myself for the first time, and damn it, I wasn't me! After 93 years, you know yourself pretty well. 93 years of staring at your own face in the mirror every day makes you pretty good at knowing the nooks and crannies of what makes you, YOU. This didn't even take that much familiarity. I was looking at the legs and hands of someone much younger. Much younger. I was naked of course, having stripped off the clothes I'd been wearing, so I had all of me to examine, except my face. This person looked to be long and lean. I'd been pretty fit in my younger days, off and on, but long and lean would never have described me. I had also had black, straight hair. This person had reddish-brown hair. I raised a hand up and rubbed my head. There was hair there, where I hadn't had much at all for years, but it was closely cropped, and dense. Definitely not the thin limp strands I knew. "What the hell is going on?" I said to myself. Nobody answered. Having heard laughing kids somewhere outside while waking up, I figured it wouldn't do to open the tent flaps until I had something on, so I finished reaching for the cargo bag and pulled it open, as it wasn't zipped. The bag was full of neatly folded clothes, but atop the mix of military surplus and casual clothing there was a small stack of other things, a small leatherette document bag, a wallet, a watch and a ring. The ring looked like a class ring of some kind, and the watch was an expensive looking dive watch. I set the two of them back on the document bag as I grabbed the wallet and opened it. I found a military ID or driver's license, and my name was Cooper Jackson James. The date of birth said April 23rd, 1984. I grabbed the watch again from where I'd set it – it had a calendar that gave the date as Wednesday, May 25th. It had been May 22nd, 2011 when I had last looked at the date at the Sherman House, but how many days ago had that been? I couldn't remember. Cooper James, huh? The ID said I had blue eyes, brown hair, was 6 feet four inches tall and weighed 186 pounds. Long and lean indeed. I looked at the document bag, but something inside of me didn't want to know what was in it yet, so I set it aside. I put the watch on my left wrist and the ring on the ring finger of my right hand. Both seemed comfortable there. I sat the wallet on the sleeping bag beside me and rummaged through the bag until I found a pair of boxers, a long sleeved pullover shirt and a pair of blue jeans, faded, but in that way that told the eye they'd probably come from the store that way. Back at the tent flap leading out, I saw what was probably the reason I'd found myself barefoot the night before. A pair of leather and mesh low-top boots with a pair of white socks stuffed into the top of them. The boots were those new, expensive hiking shoes. Waterproof, lightweight and comfortable. I slipped them on and they too felt comfortable. I might not be Cooper James, but this was certainly his body. "What the hell has happened to me," I muttered as I zipped up the tent flap and stepped out. ------- Chapter 3 Besides the fact that the lake I thought I'd climbed out of in the dark turned out to be a river, there was only one thing of note outside my tent, apart from the trees and nearby campers. A motorcycle: a Harley Davidson Road King, saddlebags and all, though I wasn't sure of the year. I took the wet pants and shirt I'd stripped out of the night before and hung them where the sun would dry them, then headed over to check out the bike. I'd been a Harley fan in my younger years. My affection for the machines had grown out of my nickname, which was a corruption of my name Harold Lee. Grandma Williams had called me Harley almost from the day I was born, and over the years, the rest of the family and then my friends had taken to calling me Harley as well. I'd even been called Harley by the rest of my unit when I was in the military. Even that damned voice had called me Harley, and where the hell was it when I needed it? All in my face when I was trapped in a hospital bed, but now that I'd somehow gone down the rabbit hole? Pulled the Cheshire cat act and disappeared. The bike had an electronic ignition and locking saddlebags, as well as a helmet, painted to match the bike's colors, which was locked into a spot on the back of the seat. I had no keys. I made an immediate trip back into the tent and found the keys in a jacket hanging from a hook on the back tent pole. It had been there the whole time and I hadn't noticed. That bothered me; for some reason I didn't like missing details, despite having spent the past twenty years with fading vision, bad eyes and non-existent reflexes. The left side saddlebag produced the bike's title and registration and, surprisingly, a sheaf of paperwork from Eastside Harley Davidson in Bellevue, Washington. I had a 2011 Road King with an optional rear luggage rack. The invoice said it was Merlot Sunglo and Vivid Black, but it looked more like a rich brown and deep black color combination to me. Cooper James bought it off the showroom floor five days ago, and now I figured that made it mine. The right side saddlebag held 4 cans of Mountain Dew and half a package of Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies. Oh man, I used to love those things! It had probably been at least ten years since I'd had one. Harley wasn't allowed, but Cooper James was young and healthy. So Cooper had one of the decadent little bitches and washed it down with a Mountain Dew. I'd never been big on it before, but it tasted amazing, and it was almost cold, having retained the overnight chill within the shelter of the saddlebag. The little snack and the drink had taken the edge of my hunger, but I was still thinking breakfast when I went back into the tent. The backpack contained the expected minimum of camping supplies – a first aid kit, a small pack of fire building materials, some thin nylon rope, a spool of heavy twine, a compass, a small hand-held GPS and some odds and ends that had me puzzled at first, but which I eventually decided must be the minor accessory bits from several MREs, the modern military's field rations. I also found a rather lethally competent survival knife sitting snugly in an inside pocket. I pulled it out and saw that it had a no-nonsense sheath made of some sort of woven and knotted fabric. I could tell by the hilt that it was designed to be fixable on the end of a rifle, bayonet-style. It looked military, but knew from experience that it could just as well be a replica. It looked fairly pristine for a service issued item. The GPS was a very nice tablet sized unit, and it immediately showed me a map with a small red dot in the middle of it, which was good, because I had no idea how to work one – such things were way too new school for an old geezer like me. Correction: like I used to be. I did manage to figure out how to zoom the map out without fucking anything up, which was a relief, but I was somewhat disappointed when I did. I was inside the Klamath National Forest, alongside the Klamath river in California. California! What the hell? I was an east coast kid, and except for my time in the service, hadn't been past the Mississippi River more than a couple of times. I'd put the jacket on after finding the keys in it, and the revelation about my location had me do a quick search of the rest of the pockets. I found a gas receipt from Riverwoods Country Store in Bend, Oregon, another receipt from a Safeway in Ashland, Oregon that showed where I'd gotten the Cookies and Soda, and a receipt from the US Forest Service for an overnight camping permit for the Tree of Heaven Campground. I knew who I was, and had some idea of who I was supposed to be now. I now knew as well where I was, but still had no idea if this was where I was supposed to be, or if it was just a stop along the way. ------- Chapter 4 I pulled the backpack and cargo bag out of the tent, then the sleeping bag and ground pad. The sun wasn't up quite high enough to be shining directly down on me yet, but it would be soon so I figured I'd best get myself packed up before I went where I'd been reluctant to go – that leatherette document carrier sitting on top of the neatly folded clothes in my cargo bag. I shook out the sleeping bag and unzipped it completely, draping it over the camp table which I'd managed to not see in the dark, or give any notice, with my eyes drawn to the motorcycle. I swept off the pad, but it didn't really need it, as I hadn't tracked much of anything into the tent. The entire thing was designed to fold up into a 1x1 foot square, which was kind of cool, and it fit easily into the bottom of the backpack that way. Ten minutes later I had the tent cleaned out, the stakes pulled and the entire thing stored in its own bag which fit nicely inside the backpack on top of the pad, leaving room alongside it for the sleeping bag, once it was rolled up. Except for that, the backpack was ready to go. I went over and brushed off the flannel side of the sleeping bag, turned it over on the table and did the same to the outside. I turned it again, making another check to make sure nothing had been picked up from the table's surface. Zipped, folded and rolled up like I knew what I was doing, the bag fit snugly alongside the tent in the backpack. That left only the wet clothes I'd been wearing when I came awake as Cooper James for the first time, and the cargo bag. I looked for the sun again and took a moment to get a feel for how warm it was. Northern California and the end of May? Plenty warm already, given it was only 8:36am, but it would take a couple of hours of direct sunlight to dry out those clothes, and we probably wouldn't see the direct sun for at least another hour, I guessed. I had no desire to stick around that long, as I still felt a need for a real breakfast tugging at my stomach. I moved the rest of the Oatmeal Cream Pies over into the saddlebag with the bike's title and registration and rolled up the wet t shirt and jeans and stuffed them under the last three cans of Mountain Dew. So much for the wet stuff. The bungee cord tie-downs for securing things to the rack on the back of the bike were all hanging off the backpack, including two with braided wire loop ends rather than the normal open hooks. Hanging off those were two more small padlocks, which matched two of the three remaining keys on the keyring. The last I could tell was for the gas cap on the Road King. The cargo bag would have to go on first, so I finally decided with a sigh that I'd put off looking through the documents long enough and grabbed the bag and took it over to the camp table and opened it up. The stack was bigger than it appeared, but was divided into two basic collections. The first was the paperwork for Cooper James' discharge from the Marine Corp. He had been honorarily discharged with the rank of Gunnery Sergeant. Apparently he had been stationed at Camp Gonsalves, on the Japanese island of Okinawa. Half the paperwork seemed to be related to getting from there to the airport in Seattle, Washington. The rest of the paperwork was much, much harder to swallow, and the reason whatever buried remainder of Cooper James there was left in me had been avoiding them. They were a combination of letters, printed emails, faxes and legal documents. First, were the notifications telling Cooper James that his parents, Charles and Deanna James were deceased. Mixed in among them were the details, shot by gang members when their car was mistaken for a rival gang's while driving through one of the seamier sections of Santa Rosa, California. Second were letters from lawyers, banks, the IRS, the Social Security Administration, the First United Methodist church and the Santa Rosa Memorial Park. These were all of the 'what should we do' category, and would have been troubling were it not for the third category, mostly legal documents, but a few letters also from the legal firm of Preston & Roberts, and particularly from Darius Booker, the estate lawyer who was the co-executor of my parent's estate. As their only child, Cooper James was the other co-executor, but my military service and overseas duty status had forced Mr. Booker to make some decisions with only minimal input from me. "Cooper, Harley, he, me, us – this better start making sense at some point down the road, I muttered to myself. I could only hope, but in the meantime, I at least knew where I was going, and when I had to get there. I had a meeting with Darius Booker at his office in Santa Rosa, and it was on an 'as soon as you get here' basis. With this information to hand, I truly had no reasons to hang around Tree of Heaven. It took me ten more minutes of careful stowing the cargo bag and backpack before I put my helmet on, zipped up the jacket, slid the key into the ignition and slipped on the leather gloves I'd found buried in the helmet and fired up the bike. It sounded sweet to my ears, but I fired off a little prayer, hoping either Cooper or I remembered how to ride one of these things, I slipped into gear and slowly made my way out of the campground. Santa Rosa, and some strange destiny, here I come. ------- Chapter 5 Why Cooper James had decided to camp along the Klamath River where he did was a mystery to me. If he'd left Seattle headed for Santa Rosa, he had two choices, one was to take the coastal route along highway 101, or the inland route on I-5. He must have chosen the I-5 route to begin with, because we were only a few miles west of it now. We were on highway 96, the road that followed the Klamath river across the Klamath National Forest. It met up with highway 263 a few miles west, and from there it was either a couple of miles back north to hit a junction with I-5 or else just a dozen miles or so south to Yreka, where 263 and I-5 merged. He must've decided to switch over to the coastal route once he hit California for some reason and was planning to take this road west and south until he hit the coast. Still, looking at the terrain on the GPS' map, I couldn't see what attracted him to this new plan. Another bit of information that didn't make sense. "Like why the hell I'm here!" I yelled into the Road King's rumble. Still no answer from the voice, the coward. I found my breakfast less than a half hour later, and in the perfect spot – halfway through Yreka within spitting distance of the on ramp to I-5 South. Denny's isn't what you'd call inspirational food, but they had what I wanted and they weren't shy about letting me pay for a little extra of this and that. I had fried eggs, crisp bacon and a waffle big enough to choke a horse slathered with butter and drowned in blueberry syrup. I was very happy when I left the place, and I think my smile even made the old sourpuss at the cash register happy. I hit a Texaco just before the on ramp and filled my gas tank – at the price of gas these days I was sure glad it was only a motorcycle tank I was filling! With me and the Road King both fueled, I wasted no time getting on I-5 and heading south. I spent the morning cruising from Yreka to Williams, a couple of hundred miles to the south. I found a pizza place off the highway for lunch, topped off the gas tank and sat staring at the GPS while I finished the big frosty root beer I'd ordered with it. Did I want to stay on I-5 South until I hit the junction to I-505 and follow that into Vacaville, switch to I-80 in Vacaville and take it to Vallejo where I could get on highway 37 and swing west around the north end of San Pedro Bay to take highway 101 up through Petaluma and on to Santa Rosa? My alternative was to switch to highway 20 here in Williams and follow it west and south to Clearlake before following highway 29 south to Calistoga. The Calistoga – Santa Rosa leg was much less clear than any other leg I had under consideration, but as far as that went, the map suggested that Calistoga was more or less a suburb of Santa Rosa. There should be plenty of help in Calistoga for finding my way to Santa Rosa. The highway 20 and 29 route was also showing as being little more than 90 miles of road between here and there, and in the end, that decided it for me. I could go at my own pace on slower roads and still get there before the end of the afternoon, find myself a room for the night and a decent dinner. I could track down the offices of Darius Booker and perhaps wrap up with getting on with the life that Cooper James had left me. Highway 20 out of Williams was easy to find and dead flat to begin with. Twenty miles later things got less flat as the highway cut through Cortina ridge. Things weren't so bad for a while as we followed a valley between two of the ridges, but once we turned west, things got wrinkled again and between there and Clearlake, the wrinkles turned into some serious hills. Clearlake itself was a pretty smooth area, and it stayed that way for a few miles until we got past Lower Lake, a Clearlake suburb. Lower Lake led to Hidden Valley Lake, which led to Middletown. Middletown led to Calistoga, but between the two lay Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, and there the road got about as twisty as you could ever hope to see. The park featured the lovely and scenic Mount Saint Helena, not to be confused with Mount Saint Helens in Oregon that blew its top so spectacularly back in 1980, and highway 29 wound its way around the eastern edges of that rather large bump in the Earth. No more cruising along valley floors for us. It was ridge line to ridge line and all kinds of up and down and back and forth. Coming down into the flats that meant we'd made it to Calistoga was a beautiful change of pace, but it was a change of pace that was only a few miles long before we'd crossed the little valley it nestled into and hit more endless foothills and winding roads, though they were mild compared to those around Mount Saint Helena. ------- Chapter 6 Coming down out of the hills and back into the flat land of the Rincon Valley, it was still only late afternoon, but I was ready for a break. I rumbled across the valley until I saw signs saying I was following Santa Rosa Creek, and then I began looking for a place to park the bike for the night. I passed a building with a sign that said 'Hillside Inn', but kept going until I got to a place called the Flamingo One Stop Shopping Center. There was an IHOP there, so I walked in and smiled at the young lady at the register. "Hi, I was wondering if you could help me?" I asked. "What can I help you with," she asked with a smile. She was a cute little thing, but she was probably five years younger than Cooper James, and way, way younger than old Harold Lee Scoville. I smiled back anyway, just for the practice. "I've been on the road a while and would like to get a good night's sleep and enjoy a fine dinner. Could you recommend someplace nearby?" "Sure," she smiled bigger, but then turned her head to look around a bit before leaning in. "I'm supposed to recommend the Flamingo Conference Center, but its kind of a funky old joint," she whispered. "I think you'd do better at the Hillside Inn." "Ahh, I saw the sign on my way in," I nodded back in the direction of the highway. "I know right where it is, thanks." "I've got their number if you want to call ahead," she offered. I realized about then that the name tag on her blouse said 'Mila'. "Thanks, that would be a big help, Mila." she blushed when I said her name. I could see I was going to have to get used to being young and 'eligible' again after all these years. "I imagine they could be pretty busy this time of year. They might not have a room." "Well, it is going to be Memorial Day weekend in a few days, so that might be true. I can punch the number into your cell, if you'd like to call right now." "Ahh," I sputtered, realizing this was one item every young person these days seemed to have, but which I hadn't found among Cooper's possessions. "I've just gotten back into the country a few days ago and hadn't gotten around to getting one yet." "Oh, here let me," she giggled, and quick as that pulled a cell phone out of her apron pocket and dialed a number from memory. "Kelli? Mila!" I was listening to one side of a conversation that was already in some sort of friendly shorthand. "You guys got any rooms available?" I watched Mila nod her head in silent agreement with whatever the person on the other end of the call was saying, but finally she turned to me. "Short term or long term?" "Short that I know of, a couple two or three days, but it could be longer. I'll know more by this time tomorrow, I think." "A couple of days would be no problem," Mila said after another session of nodding her head silently to whatever her friend at the inn was telling her. "Might be hard to keep it after that though, unless you wanted a weekly rental, because of the holiday." "I understand," I did my own silent nod. "Two days for sure." "What name shall she make the reservation under?" Mila asked. "James," I said. "Cooper James. Tell your friend I'll be right over to check in, and thank you." "You're entirely welcome, Cooper," she said with a tone of voice that told me I had best be making my exit. It was a matter of a few minutes to make my way back up the highway to the Hillside Inn. I parked near the main entrance, spent a few minutes getting my backpack and cargo bag unhitched from the back of the bike and hefting the two onto a shoulder, made my way in. A young woman hailed us as we approached. "Cooper James?" she was much closer to Cooper's age than the last one had been, but still way, way younger than Harley. She was equally as easy on the eyes as her younger friend at the IHOP, maybe easier, but she went about it with more subtlety and elegance. "Yes, you must be Kelli," I said reaching out to shake hands. "Kelli Montoya," she replied taking my hand for a brief but friendly shake. "Welcome to the Hillside Inn." The gracious young woman walked me to the reception desk, where she had already entered the information she had into their computerized check-in system. "I'll need to see some ID of course," she began with a more detached, profession voice. "And we'll need a credit card to secure the room." Crunch time, I thought to myself. I knew there was a credit card in the wallet I had in my back pocket. What I didn't know was if it was any good, or if my signature would pass muster. "Sure," I answered with a smile. "Hope its still good. I've had Uncle Sam doing most of my major purchases for me the past few years." That was a completely true statement, to the best of my knowledge, but I said it more as a bit of 'cover-your-ass', just in case. "It should be fine, I'm sure," she said soothingly as she quietly and efficiently processed the card. A moment later the printer attached to the unit begin 'zhupping' back and forth, printing out a registration form. "No problem at all, Mr. James. If you'll sign here?" She held the page turned towards me with her finger indicating where she needed my signature. Moment of truth time. I took the offered pen and signed Cooper James, very quickly. The C was large and slanted forward. The J was just as large and the curve at the bottom of the J was more flat than curved. It got barely a glance before I was handed an electronic key card. "I've given you room 213. Its upstairs and in the back, away from the highway noise." "Thank you, I appreciate that. I've got my bike parked just outside," I motioned towards the entrance. "Is there someplace closer to my room, where I could park it?" "Oh sure!" she nodded. "There's parking outside all the rooms. There's a stairwell that will get you down to the bike without coming through the lobby too. You entry card will open that door as well until 11pm. After that you'll have to come through the main entrance, I'm afraid." "No problem," I laughed. "I'm thinking a shower, a good meal, then a nice night's sleep on a real bed. I probably wont stir until its time to head over to IHOP for breakfast." "We do serve a full breakfast here," Kelli offered, but I could tell it was more of a tease than anything else. "And a fine breakfast, I'm sure it would be, but I feel like I owe the IHOP for your friend Mila's help." "That's fine, just be sure not to mention her referring you here. She could get in trouble for that, cause I think they're supposed to send people to the Flamingo." "She mentioned something like that. I'll keep my mouth shut except for the occasional bite of my breakfast, how's that?" "That sounds good," she laughed. "If you like, I can watch your bike while you find your room?" "Only if you want to. I'm not that worried about it being there for a little while. Hell, I've left it to the squirrels and the bears, I can trust it to the patrons of the Hillside Inn." ------- Chapter 7 I found the young Miss Montoya standing beside my bike when I got back downstairs. The back parking area was well lit and there was a large flowering bush of some kind that would keep anyone from seeing it from the highway, which was several hundred yards away. "This is quite a nice bike," she said with another smile. "It looks new." "It is pretty new," I confessed. "I bought it when I got to Seattle a week ago, more or less." "A world traveler and rich to boot!" she grinned at me with a devilish rise to one eyebrow that warned me she was going more for effect than anything else. "I should have been a little more seductive when we first met, I see." "Well, I'm as much a world traveler as any other of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children, I suppose," I said, dredging the slang phrase from somewhere. "I was in the Marine Corp. Stationed in Okinawa." I tried to say it in a way that gave the impression I didn't want to talk about it, and I must have done it right, because all I got in response was an "Oh, I see." It was too late in the day to call Darius Booker and let him know I was in town, and too early yet for dinner, but a shower felt very nice, followed by an hour in front of the television watching the early news. I had found an open package of disposable razors with three remaining, but saw no sign of shaving cream. I felt my chin and decided Cooper James and I had similarly stubbly features at this age, definitely not the kind that would respond well to a bare shave. Well, it could wait, or I could do a little wandering about the Flamingo One Stop Shopping Center, which seemed such a grand name as to suggest certain disappointment. A third option suggested itself when I went back into the bathroom. The amenities offered were much more complete than I'd anticipated, and the soap looked to be adequate to lathering up for a shave with a fresh razor. Dinner was a very nicely done rack of lamb. When I was asked what I'd like to drink, I said beer, preferably something local and unforgettable. That resulted in something called Pliny the Elder from the Russian River Brewing Company. It fit the bill perfectly, but I was glad I wasn't driving when I left, as I'd had a second glass, and the glasses were rather large. Dinner was followed by a few more hours of watching the tube, mostly news, as I was still trying to reassure myself that the world of Cooper James that I had entered seemed to be the same one that Harley Scoville had been part of. Based on the usual crap-tastic load of news regarding the politics of the day I hadn't taken some sort of metaphysical jump – well more than the inexplicable jump from old dying me to young unhappy me. As I faded off to sleep that night my beginning to get fuzzy brain thought of that damned voice again and I silently hollered into the coming sleep, "Where are you now voice?" Just as I faded to black I thought I heard the voice tell me, "Soon Harley. Soon it will be time to talk." The morning brought another hot shower, which felt just as nice as it had the night before. I put on a fresh set of clothes, noting that I had one more clean pair of boxers and another clean t shirt. Laundry day was here, once I found a laundromat. This morning's wear included the only button-up shirt to be found in Cooper's bag and the only dark pair of slacks. This would have to be what I met the lawyer with. Hopefully the wrinkles in the shirt would smooth out from being worn between now and then. Breakfast at IHOP was just what you might expect it to be, nothing more, nothing less. There was no sign of the young Mila. I ate quickly, not lingering over coffee and headed out on foot to see what sort of shopping the one stop shopping here actually offered. I needed shaving cream, after shave, deodorant, a toothbrush – all the usual toiletries someone on the road would need. It was strange that Cooper had not been carrying any of those things with him. I found a good coffee place inside the Safeway that was a part of the shopping center, so I bought as large a coffee as I could get and sipped it contentedly as I walked back to my room. Cooper's watch told me it was almost 8am. I figured another hour or so and it would be safe to call the number I had for Darius Booker, but I still needed a cell phone. It would be nice if the lawyer could call me back if he needed to, and right now I was tied to the phone in my room at the Hillside. I got my purchases squared away, took a big sip of coffee and picked up the phone and dialed the front desk. "Front desk," a somewhat dull male voice answered. "Good morning. I'm in need of a cell phone. Could you recommend someplace nearby where I could get one?" "How nearby where you thinking?" the man asked. "As nearby as possible and still offer me a decent phone that I can be using when I leave the store," I answered. I didn't know much about cell phones, but I knew there were a lot of options and there was some sort of activation required. I'd bought them for my grandchildren, but hadn't ever used one, let alone bought one for myself. "Well, there's the Radio Shack just across the highway on Farmer's Lane. They're very close and probably have anything you might want." My next call was to the Radio Shack. The clerk there was happy to sell me a cell phone, and I was able to cover my ignorance by telling him I was a 90 year old man buying my first cell phone. I see, do you want just a phone, or do you want one with a data plan?" "I'm completely ignorant about these things, son," I told the clerk. He sounded young. "What do I need?" "Well, will you want to be able to send and receive text messages and emails?" he asked. "I'm pretty sure I'll need to do that eventually," I answered. I was sure I would. Too much of the world seemed to be tied together that way these days. As young as Cooper James was, it wouldn't look right if he didn't as well. "Will you want to have a phone that allows you to look up things on the internet?" "I'm sure I will eventually," I answered. Better too much that I won't use than too little and wind up not able to do what I want. "Well sir, I think we can set you up, no problem, but that still leaves a lot of choices." "How about you just set me up with what you would buy for yourself, as long as it fills the bill for me. I'm not fussy otherwise." "Certainly sir!" I could almost hear the dollar signs ringing in his voice when he said sir. I'll be sending my nephew Cooper James over shortly to get this. He'll sign the paperwork, make the payments and all that – They say I'm too old to do these things for myself anymore." The Radio Shack was indeed a very short ride away, and 45 minutes after hanging up the phone, I was back in my room with a brand new HTC Inspire 4G and a 2 year contract with AT&T. I'd even gotten it in a reddish brown color that sort of matched the Road King, which I thought was a hoot. Time to call the lawyer. ------- Chapter 8 The last letter I had in the collection of correspondence from the law office had been a personal letter from Darius Booker to me. In it, he gave me his direct number, so I called it. It was obvious that he didn't give the number to a great number of people when he answered. "Booker!" "Mr. Booker, this is Cooper James." "Mr. James! I've been hoping I'd hear from you soon, where are you?" "I'm in Santa Rosa, more or less. I'm at the Hillside Inn, which I think might be considered the edge of town." "I know where that's at. Its near the Flamingo. So are you ready to come downtown and get this done?" "You bet," I said, though I was still uncertain what all it would be. Cooper James must've known what his parents might have left him, but Harley Scoville pretending to be Cooper James was completely lost. I gave my new cell number to Mr. Booker then warned him I was riding a motorcycle, so wouldn't be able to answer if he called while I was on the way in. "You'll probably want to use the City parking garage on First & B street. Our offices are right across the street from it on First." "Sounds good, see you soon." The GPS, and it still struck me as odd that Cooper had this expensive piece of equipment, but no cell phone, told me that all I had to do was follow 4th street all the way into town until I hit B street, then take a left and follow B street until I hit 1st street. The garage would be on the corner. Nothing could be simpler, it seemed, as 4th street was the road in front of the inn. It felt a bit odd not having to pack up to make this trip. The run to the store and to the radio shack had been too short to think of it as leaving the inn, but this trip would be longer, so felt more that way. It was nice to know I'd have someplace to come back to, even if it was a hotel room. It was still beautiful California weather and the run into town was as simple as promised. I rumbled into the parking garage at 9:45. I got a thumbs up from the attendant as I entered and quickly found a ground floor parking spot. Since the Road King would fit into seldom used spaces set aside for bikes and sub-compacts, I found one that looked pretty safe right in the attendant's line of sight and walked back over to him. "Nice ride," he offered immediately. "Thanks, glad to find a spot where you'll be able to keep an eye on it for me." "Where you headed?" he asked as he punched a parking ticket and handed it to me. "I have an appointment at Preston & Roberts." " Ahh, they're just across the street. The big Bronze and Copper doors right there" he pointed at the doors in question. "Awesome, thanks!" "No problem, and let them know you parked here, they'll validate your ticket so you won't have to pay." I thanked the friendly fellow and slipped him a 5 spot at the same time, hoping it would ensure his keeping an eye on the bike. I had no sense of the character of Santa Rosa or its citizens, but thought it was better to try a little insurance. When I was Cooper's age a half dollar would have done the job, so figured these days that would make it a fiver. The building in question was a bank, but the main lobby included a receptionist who sent me to an alcove with a row of elevators and instructions to take one to the fifth floor. Arriving at the fifth floor I found a lot of glass, bronze and lightly stained wood arranged in very modern, somewhat abstract ways, but more importantly, I found another receptionist. "Hi," I said as I walked up to her desk fronting the elevators. "I'm Cooper James to see Darius Booker." "Ah yes Mr. James, Mr. Booker is expecting you. I'll let him know you're here." The pleasant but somewhat severely made up woman turned slightly away from me, speaking into the headset of her phone in a voice that didn't carry. I couldn't make out what she said at all, but she turned back only a few seconds later with a smile. "Mr. Booker will be right out." "Thank you," I responded, but even as I was saying this a door just across a small waiting area from her desk opened and a man walked out with a smile, extending his hand. "Mr. James, a pleasure to meet you finally," he offered. His handshake was firm, and up close the guy looked like a running back or linebacker. He had broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and very obvious muscles beneath the finely tailored suit he was wearing. "Thank you," I said, returning the handshake. "Sorry it took me so long to get here." "Perfectly understandable Mr. James, or would you prefer to be called Sergeant?" "No," I said with some hesitation, surprised by the question. "That part of my life is over now. Call me Cooper." "Of course," and with that the conversation turned more somber as we both remembered the reason we were here. "Lets go get comfortable in my office, shall we? Would you like something to drink?" "I'm fine for now, thanks," I said as I followed him back through the door he'd come out of. "There's not really a lot left for us to deal with. I'm mostly responsible for getting your signature on a few documents transferring control of your parents assets to you. Their will was pretty straightforward. You were their only child and they left everything to you." "Would it surprise you to know that I'm not sure what that means, as far as their assets go?" "No, actually. I had assumed that you might have been too busy with a war or two overseas in recent years to have been involved in their move from back east four years ago." Ahh ... Cooper James was from closer to home than I'd been assuming. "You're right. I have no idea if they left anything behind or not." "Nothing," he said with a shake of his head. "They uprooted completely. Sold the home and other properties back in New Jersey, moved here and bought the Russian River property. At the same time they liquidated all their assets and, except for an operating account for their day to day expenses and mmm ... ten percent that they invested in a high tech startup company called – ahh ... FiberDyne, transferred the bulk of it into an investment account managed locally here in Santa Rosa." "Where were they living in New Jersey when they did this?" I asked. I was completely flabbergasted now. I was finding a connection to Cooper James now where I hadn't thought one had existed. We were both Jersey boys. "Blackwood, New Jersey," he answered after shuffling through a few papers until he found the information. Crap-ola, even weirder. I had been born in Blackwood and had grown up there until leaving for college. Once again I was reminded that I had been on a journey through the twilight zone, and the journey was not over. ------- Chapter 9 It was Darius and Cooper by the time we were done and it was a pretty small amount of paperwork, but there were a couple of more people who would be involved before this process was over. The investment firm's senior partner wanted a meeting as soon as it was convenient, but essentially I was already legally in control of the investment accounts Cooper's parents had set up with them, and they would continue to do as they were doing with the investments until the time came I felt I wanted to make changes. I would also need to schedule a meeting with someone named Lloyd McCoy, the CFO of FiberDyne, the startup company that the James' had invested in. "That takes care of all the official business, Cooper," Darius told me when he'd handed over the last of the signed documents. There were at least three copies of all of them and some seemed to have a half dozen. I sighed heavily and he put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a reassuring squeeze. "Careful there man, you look too much like a football player to be running around squeezing shoulders," I joked. "I was a football player, not that long ago," he said with a small frown. "Started all four years in college, but never got drafted. Had a few shots to go pro – tried out for a few teams, made a couple of mini-camps, but never did go anywhere with it." "But you were able to get back in school and get your law degree?" "Yeah, well I'd done well enough in college to get some endorsement deals, especially locally. I was smart enough to save that money until I knew the NFL wasn't going to happen, and it paid for the law degree." "And here you are, handling this for me." "Yeah," he laughed. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm the junior man here at Preston & Roberts. I get all the nuisance accounts. This estate matter wasn't going to generate a lot of billable hours, so it was mine by default." "Well, I appreciate all your work, even if no one else does," I added my laughter to his. "Oh, its been interesting – your situation made me have to get creative more than once, and I'm glad I was able to help. We have too many men in uniform getting screwed financially back home these days as it is. You deserved my best." I wasn't sure how to react to that, feeling as if I was accepting something I hadn't earned. I reminded myself that Cooper James had earned it, and so I smiled and said thanks for the both of us. "There's one more thing," Darius said then. "Not something on my official list, but I figured you would need this." "What's that?" "I've got the keys to your parent's house here," he pulled the keys out of his desk drawer and handed them to me. "I've been in contact with the real estate agent who sold it to your parents and put me in touch with a house cleaning service. I've had things cleaned up out there and made sure everything was ready for occupancy. If you'd like we can make a run out to the property this afternoon and get you settled in." "Wow," I said out loud. I hadn't even thought about having their house, or what was next for Cooper James. Still, I had nothing else to do and nowhere else to be. I still had to meet with the bank and the investment folks, but I'd seen the current statements that Darius had collected for me. I could afford to live there for quite some time before I had to worry about finding a job. "We can wait on that if you'd rather," he said when I hesitated. "No, no, its fine," I said somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "I guess my mind was still associating their life with living in New Jersey. I hadn't even thought about living here. I've got nowhere else to go at the moment though, so why not. I've got my room at the Hillside Inn for one more night, but I can give it a look through today and move in tomorrow." "Works for me," Darius stood and came around from behind his desk. "Let me grab my jacket and tell Veronka where we're going. We can stop for lunch on the way out." "Sounds good," I said as we walked out. Darius spoke briefly with the receptionist and then we were in the elevator. "Veronka?" I asked after the doors closed, getting a snort back. "Yeah, she's very pretentious. Loves to pretend she's European. The senior partners love her." "I imagine so," I laughed. "My wife says she hates her, but I think she's really more amused by her than anything else." "She doesn't see her as competition?" "Nobody competes with Tina," he said with dead seriousness. "Besides, I'm too low on the totem pole around here and my skin is the wrong color." "She gives you problems because you're black?" "No, she's never shown me the slightest bit of disrespect and works as hard for me as for anyone else here, but – she's the receptionist, not an executive assistant, to a senior partner. Junior associates like me have to share Veronka. She doesn't see me as having much chance of advancing to senior partner though because she thinks I'm the token black at Preston & Roberts." "I see," I said, and I did. There was all kinds of prejudice in the world. Not all of it was horrible, but none of it had ever made sense to me. We left my bike in the parking garage across the street and took off in Darius' Lexus for the Russian River and my new home. ------- Chapter 10 "Wow," was all I could say when we pulled in front of the house. "Yeah, not your typical home, and not your typical location, is it?" Darius said. The house sat inside a curve of the Russian River and seemed to almost be built into the side of the hill behind it. The house was elevated slightly from the rest of the area in front of it and had a nice view of the river and the road in front of it. The road was visible from the house but it was set back in a draw about a quarter mile. There wouldn't be any problems with road noise. The house itself was one of those awesome modern cedar log homes. There was a huge triangular window in the front of it that suggested quite a view from inside. "Its completely custom built," Darius said as I fumbled with the keys he had given me earlier. "It's super-insulated, has two full stories, as well as a full basement." "This is a lot of living space for just two people." "That it is, and I know your parents had some people hired to help with the cleaning and maintenance. If you decide to stay, you may be able to keep them on." The tour was interesting and creepy at the same time. There were little things here and there; pictures, books, paintings that suggested some importance, but except for a picture of Cooper, in uniform and standing somewhere dry and dusty, nothing that had any impact on me. The ground floor of the house was made up mostly of a huge living room that was faced by the huge picture window we'd seen from outside, a large kitchen with a huge walk in pantry, stainless steel professional grade appliances, a library/study/office that was quite a bit larger than I expected. This was not a converted bedroom, it was too big. There was a downstairs bedroom towards the back of the house. A mudroom connected to a huge, long garage that looked more like a converted horse barn or stable than a garage with a large work area at the back. The garage was empty of course. Across the hall from the mudroom was a door that led to the basement. The second floor was two bedrooms and a sitting room that looked as if it had been used as a second office. Based on the decorating touches, I guessed that this one was Mrs. James' office and the one downstairs was her husband's. The smaller bedroom was nice enough, and shared a bathroom with the upstairs office. The master bedroom was definitely what one would call a master suite. The bed was a king, there were two walk in closets and the master bath had twin sinks, a very large jetted tub and a custom made shower that looked big enough for three or four people at a time. "This place is incredible," I said to Darius when we got back downstairs. "And you haven't even seen the basement yet," he joked. "Actually, it is pretty empty, except for the laundry room and the utility room. The furnace, air conditioning and water heating systems are all in an enclosed space that separates them from the rest of the basement. The main electrical panel for the house is there as well. The whole house is wired up for an internal computer network, but it didn't look like there was an active internet connection at the time of their death." "Damn, Darius," I said with some genuine affection. "You really did go the extra mile for me. There was no reason for your getting so much information for me. You've saved me quite a few hours of being on hold getting answers, I imagine." "Don't worry too much about it," he laughed. "It was mostly Veronka sitting on hold, not me." We shared a laugh over that before heading back to town and lunch. "What do you feel like for lunch?" Darius asked after we'd been on the road a few minutes. "Your know the town, not me, so you choose and I'll buy," I offered. "Now that I know this credit card in my wallet has got some serious money behind it, I'm feeling better about using it." "Okay then," he laughed. "In that case I think we'll go to the Red Rose Cafe and let you enjoy some really good soul food." "Any kind of food, as long as its good food is good enough for me," I said, echoing a favorite saying from my – Harley's, younger days. I did enjoy the food at the Red Rose, and Darius was obviously well known there. We talked about food and motorcycles, as he was fascinated by my Road King. After we returned his car to its parking spot beneath his office building and made a quick to his office to get my parking validated, he walked across the street with me to get a look at it. "Nice bike, eh Big D?" the attendant said as we were crouching beside it looking at the engine. "You bet Andres," Darius responded. Obviously he knew the attendant. "Big D?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. "That's what I was called during my playing days in college." he said lightly. "Big D could sure run," Andres said with a sigh. "Over 'em, around 'em or through 'em, didn't matter." "Nope, not back then. Now I just bury them in paperwork." I unlocked my helmet and straddled the bike, rocked it forward off its stand and then slowly backed it around towards the exit. I fired it up and with the low rumble surrounding us, we shook hands one more time. "You're a good guy Cooper. I'm sorry about your parents, but I hope you decide to stick around Santa Rosa. You've got my number. Give me a call when you get settled. Maybe we can do something together one of these days, and I'd like you to meet Tina." "I'd like that," I said returning the handshake. I put the helmet on to hide the big grin I couldn't seem to get off my my face and with a wave, I was on my way back out onto the streets of Santa Rosa. ------- Chapter 11 I pulled into the rear parking space at the Hillside Inn, but walked through to the main lobby before going up to my room. Mostly I was looking for a newspaper, but I was pleased to see the lovely and elegant Kelli Montoya on duty at the desk. "Ahh, the lovely and elegant Kelli Montoya!" I said as I walked up. "Why if it isn't the charming and handsome Cooper James!" she returned with the same feigned bombastic air and a grin that matched mine. "How was your day in Santa Rosa?" "Productive, sad, promising, all of the above," I said, sighing through my smile. "Oh, I'm sorry about the sad, but the rest sounds okay," she said sympathetically. "Well, the sad is an inevitable part of clearing up your deceased parents' estate," I confessed. "They moved here four years ago while I was overseas, so I've never been here; never seen their home here. I have no idea if they had friends here or anything else." "Oh, that is sad," she murmured, reaching out to pat the back of my hand where it rested on the counter. "But, the house is beautiful, the lawyer who handled it for me is a great guy, and so far everyone I've met in Santa Rosa has been very nice." I patted her hand back. "What are you going to do? You said you were overseas, are you in the army or something? Are you going to stay in Santa Rosa now?" I laughed at her curiosity before I answered. "Well lets see – I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, I was in the Marines, but I've been honorably discharged and I'm going to stay in Santa Rosa for now at least, while I decide what to do." "Oh," then she giggled and blushed a little. "Sorry to sound like the inquisition all of a sudden. "No, that's okay, I'd be curious too, in your position. I am going to be checking out in the morning though and moving into the house." "Oh, that makes sense," she blushed again, just a little. "I hope you'll stop in to say hi now and then while you're here." "I will," I answered, only the old Harley in me keeping us from blushing back... "In fact, I'm hoping you wouldn't mind if I called you, once I'm no longer a client of the inn." "I'd like that," she smiled, regaining some of her elegant composure now that our cards were on the table, so to speak. "Here, let me give you my number." she pulled a card out of her jacket pocket and flipped it over, writing a number on it. "I have a cell phone now too," I said, suddenly remembering my new acquisition. "Let me give you my number." Kelli pulled out another card and I wrote my name and number on it. Kelli tucked the card in a shirt pocket inside her jacket and I slid the card she gave me in alongside my credit card in my wallet. "Well, was there anything else sir?" she asked with a twinkle. "Actually, I was hoping to find some local newspapers. Gotta have something to do, whiling away my idle time, all alone in my room. Stranger in a new town and all, ya know." "I see," she said once we'd both stopped laughing. "Well, we've got the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, that's the local daily, and I think there are copies of the Sonoma Times & News as well," she pointed at two stacks on the end of the desk. "The Times and News is a weekly, but its great if you're looking for local events and activities in Sonoma County. They publish on Thursday's, so that's not 'news' news, if you know what I mean." "Great," I said, grabbing one of each. "How much?" "Oh they're complimentary to guests," she said. "Well, I've got a few hours before dinner, so I think its time for a shower and then catching up on the news." I got my shower first thing, and I caught sight of myself in the mirror and raised an eyebrow at the still unfamiliar face that stared back at me. "Well Cooper James, you seem to have no problem attracting beautiful young women, but just what the hell are the two of us going to do, eh?" As usual, nobody answered, so I went and slipped on a clean pair of boxers and lay on the bed reading the news with the TV on CNN Headline News in the background. There wasn't anything surprising in the paper, or in what I heard the talking heads saying in the background. Santa Rosa had it's share of problems these days, just like everyplace else, but city and the county didn't seem to be sounding the alarm too stridently about anything in particular. There did seem to be a lot things available to get involved in, if one was the getting-involved type. I brought the STN weekly, as I'd begun abbreviating it in my own head, with me when I went down to dinner. I had a steak and baked potato, skipping dessert in favor of a second beer. Back in my room I decided my ability to absorb the news of the day was starting to fade, so I looked for and found a baseball game on, though it was a replay of a game from earlier in the day. I sat there and watched it, barely paying it any real attention, while I fretted mentally over every little thing my mind could dredge up. I was, memory-wise and emotionally, a 93 year old man. I didn't know much of anything about what was supposed to interest someone Cooper James' age. We had a fancy cell phone that would let me send emails and find things on the internet, but I didn't have a clue how to actually do any of that stuff. I didn't know the first thing about the music of his generation, or even the couple of generations before his. The same was true of movies, art, television, and to a lesser degree, sports. I wasn't sure how much longer I could continue to pull off the pretense of being a 27 year old young man. "One day at a time, I guess, or at least until someone decides to tell me what the hell is going on," I told myself as I was falling asleep. ------- Chapter 12 I woke in the morning, semi-glad to see that I was still Cooper James. The part of me that wanted to go back to being Harley Scoville had lost the argument long ago. The most convincing argument was the morning wood we'd been waking up with the past couple of days. There was a function long and sorely missed! Both sides of the coin would gladly settle for knowing why this had happened, even if we never learned how. Both sides also wondered what the hell we were going to be doing with our life and wondered just how useless the skill set we brought with us from that other life would prove to be. Harold Lee Scoville was born on November 11, 1918. Armistice Day. I was the son of privilege, growing up in New Jersey to Harold and Virginia Scoville. My father was a printer and publisher, and more importantly at the time, an influential man in the politics of the area. He had come to America from England with his father at an early age. He had been academically brilliant and his father's skills with the typesetting equipment of the day made the family prosperous. By the time he was in college, his father owned his own business, and while he had no interest in politics, he understood its importance to anyone whose business was printing the news and opinion of the day. He arranged my father's engagement to Virginia Caldwell of the New Hampshire Caldwells ( as she laughingly would say it when I was young). Like my father, she had come to America from England as a child with her parents, and was resistant at first, due to the much higher station her ancestors held there than ours. She watched my father blaze a path through the halls of academe, and forge friendships with the power brokers of both her home state and those of his in New Jersey though, and eventually she ended her resistance. As he was fond of telling it, this success opened her to the possibility of a relationship and their 'compatibility' once they'd had a couple of chances to spend some time together unchaperoned did the rest. My mother would act quite indignant at such times, but I never heard her disagree. I was a member of the Dartmouth freshman class of 1936, and like my father, I found academic success with relative ease. When the winds of war stirred again in 1939 though, my parents, both of whom had been born in England and still felt a great deal of loyalty to the land of their birth, began urging me to leave school and head to England to join the British Army and help fight against the Kaiser and protect British interests. I was an American though, and refused to end my college education early, especially since I was only a year short of graduation. Instead I promised that if the war was still being fought when I had graduated in a year then I would indeed go to England and sign up. In the meantime my parents and their parents were among the many working hard to get America into the war, though to us all it didn't appear likely to happen any time soon. The European conflict just didn't seem that much of a threat. I made that promise, and I meant it, but the potential fly in the ointment was Rebecca Worthington. I met Rebecca at the beginning of my Senior year. She was the sister of William Worthington III, a freshman assigned to the dorm where I was assigned to assist with getting the new sheep settled. He was Billy, he said, or 'Bad Billy' as we called him later when we got to know him better, and she had accompanied her parents in seeing him to school. Rebecca was a lovely girl, and I was shocked to discover the family also lived in Blackwood. We lived only a few miles apart and I'd never known her. Perhaps it was the age difference, for she was only a year older than her brother. As instantly smitten as I was with her, she seemed to have acquired a quick fascination with me as well. When we broke for the Christmas holidays, I called on her at the Worthington home, and she did receive me. Before I left, I asked for, and received permission from her parents to call on her again, and I did so three more times before leaving once more for school. There was a spring break for those who would be graduating that year, and upon my arrival home in Blackwood I called on Rebecca immediately. I was not encouraged, this time, and not allowed to stay. "I'm sorry young man, but we have found a more acceptable suitor for our Rebecca, and they are to be married this summer," her father told me as he escorted me out to my father's car. "I shall not expect to find you calling again, you understand?" I did understand, having a perfect understanding of arranged engagements, after all, but I was not happy. With two months to go before graduation, and the war still raging in Europe, I knew I was going to be going overseas almost before the ink was dry on my diploma. Given the nature of the war I would be joining, I was unsure of my chances of returning. I had hoped to express my love to Rebecca and extract a promise from her that she would wait for me to return. Now I had no such hope. The night before I was scheduled to return to Massachusetts and the halls of Dartmouth, I received a rare phone call. My parents had a phone, but it did not often ring unless their was a problem at one of my father's print houses or newspapers. With the both of them out for the evening, a sore spot with me, as I was leaving in the morning, I expected no one to be calling for them, and yet the phone rang. "Harley?" the voice asked. It was Rebecca. "Becs? What are you doing!" It seemed semi-scandalous to me that she was calling me, but my heart soared at the thought of it. "I'm sorry, Harley, but I know you're off to school tomorrow, and to the war after that, and I knew I'd never get to see you again if I didn't call you now and ask." "Ask what?" I answered, confused. "Can I see you tonight?" "We can't!" I said, shocked. "I know," she sobbed, "But we must. I've thought of nothing but being with you since the day we met, and there is no tomorrow for us, it must be tonight." "You have been constantly in my thoughts since that day as well," I said with anguish in return. "Then let me come to you tonight." Those words bore meaning I found it difficult to fathom. No – I knew what they meant, and I burned at the possibility, but it seemed too unreal, given our circumstances. "How will you? I asked. "How can you?" "My parents are out tonight, as I'm sure yours are. Everybody who's among the elite in Blackwood are in town tonight. The opera is visiting." "The opera, and you did not go?" "I feigned illness. I knew it would be my chance to see you." "I should come there," I offered. "No, the servants would see you, and they know you aren't welcome here any longer. I must come there. I have my brother's car. He is out carousing with friends, so father would not let him drive." And so it was. Rebecca came to me, and we spent four hours together before she rushed home to ensure she was there when her parents came home. During that time we expressed our love for each other, and then gave ourselves to each other as lovers do. She had no experience and I had very little, but it was exquisite, and we both understood that the memory of it would have to last us a lifetime. ------- Chapter 13 I left for Dartmouth the next morning, before either of my parents were up. The train left at 5am and I wasn't foolish enough to want to try driving all the way to Dartmouth. As well, I knew that my parents would be there for my graduation, and they would come prepared to have my accumulated scholastic detritus packed to take home with them, since I would be headed straight for England. I thought of Rebecca the entire way and kept seeing her face in the glass of the rail car's window. We had been foolish, though I had protection, and we had tried to add to it with my pulling out, but we had only been partly successful with that part, and if the stories I heard could be believed, then we were either completely safe, or utterly doomed. I suspected it was somewhere between the two, but as Blackwood fell further behind it began to feel more and more like the former rather than the latter. The last few months of my college years were not stressful, academically. I had completed my course work and had several classes in which I had theses to hand in, but these works were complete and I expected to graduate as a Bachelor of Arts, and probably with honors. My faculty adviser and the dean had been rather tight-lipped about that, but in my asking around it had not been unusual to find my fellows equally as ignorant of their fates. Two weeks before graduation day, we were each informed of our fates. I had managed Magna cum laude, which was more than I'd expected. The number of smiles I saw on various faces that morning were balanced it seemed by an equal number sporting small frowns, and several were sporting rather large ones. I called home and informed my parents of the impending honor and they were quite effusive in their praise, but it did nothing to deter them from their unwavering goal of seeing me to the ship that would transport me to England. When they arrived, I had everything packed together and ready for them. It was not much, as I had not been an acquirer of things, as well as having sold off the better items to my classmates. My things had been much in demand once it had been learned that I was sailing for England immediately following the ceremony. I took pleasure in the thought that my parents would have little beyond a box of books and another of soiled clothing to take home with them to New Jersey. I was hugged profusely, kissed by my mother and subjected to an achingly repetitious number of hearty back slaps from my father. The impending ceremony thankfully forced me away from them, and they were directing the large men hired to pack my belongings as I left. I hoped they did not think they got to pack the furniture as well, but if so, well, I would be in England after all, so they would have to deal with the Dean. The ceremony itself was less the penultimate climax of my scholastic career that I had always envisioned it and more the tolling of a bell that signaled war and uncertainty. I had the diploma in my hand and there was no getting it away from me. I fully intended to take it to England with me, where it might do me some good. It was certainly worthless to me hung from a wall at my parent's home in Blackwood. We stood at last at the dock in Boston, a ticket for the finest cabin my father's money could buy and two steamer trunks full of clothing and necessities pulled from Boston's finest stores. In the two days we'd been there waiting for my sailing, the character of my parent's regard for me seemed to change. My father took me aside and gave a leather attache, inside which were several letters of introduction to important men in the English military and parliament. There was also £5000 in cash. "For emergencies," he told me. This struck me as strange, but I was struck even more by the absurdity of my situation when my mother took me aside as well. "Harley, I will worry for you, while you are gone, but I know you will return to me." "I appreciate your confidence in me mother," I answered as a joke. It missed her completely. "While you are gone I shall find a suitable match for you, so that you can marry well, as everyone expected." "I'm not sure I'll appreciate that mother," I laughed. "But since I'm in no position to thwart you at the moment, please at least try to make sure she is a lovely girl and not too frightened of me by the time I return." "Of course my child," she continued in all seriousness while I could barely suppress my laughter. "She will love you already, before you ever lay eyes on her, and she will be true, not like that Worthington woman." "What?" I stuttered. "What do you mean by that?" "Well that suitor they found for her must not have been the gentleman they bragged him up to be, because they moved the wedding up two months and were married several weeks ago." Well that took care of that fantasy, and I was suddenly no longer laughing. My sober mien hid my shock, when mother leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, "After all darling, we all know why young women find they must rush their weddings, now don't we." Those were the words that launched me off to England and to war. ------- Chapter 14 I had fallen asleep with the TV on the night before and it had still been on when I woke up, but the channel it had been on had been showing something quiet – weather reports or something, until it had been interrupted by some onscreen airhead wishing some other onscreen airhead a happy birthday or something involving confetti, balloons and noisemakers. It was the noisemakers that pulled me out of my reverie. The memories of my early years and my departure for England in the war had replayed in my head vividly, almost as if I'd been reliving them. I couldn't remember ever having that kind of memory recall, conscious or asleep. I had remembered details of those events that I hadn't thought of since the day they'd occurred. "What the hell is happening in my head," I asked myself, but as usual nobody answered. I left a $20 bill on the pillow for the housekeeping staff and straightened up, though the only place that came close to needing it was the bathroom, due to my morning shower. I didn't make the bed. It had been close to forty years since I'd rented a hotel room myself, so all the fine print and details were new to me, including the fact that I was able to do some sort of instant checkout. Apparently they feel safe in letting you leave without a room check when they have your credit card info to bill any surprises to. I left the key card in the room, went down the back stairs to my bike and got my gear stashed for the long ride out to the house and then did a quick trip over to the IHOP for one last breakfast. Smiling Mila was my waitress this morning, and the smile was wide the entire time. I'm not sure I saw her actually wait on anyone else while I was there either, though I tried not to pay too much attention to her. Her cheery "Welcome to Santa Rosa, Mr. James" as I walked out the door told me that there had to have been some sort of Mila – Kelli communications in the past twenty four hours, but I managed to hide my own grin until I had my helmet on and it was no longer visible. The ride out to the house was nice. The traffic wasn't too bad and I had a good feeling about the future for the first time since I woke up in Cooper James' body. I almost felt like whistling a tune, but it felt weird knowing that the only tunes I could really whistle were from the Frank Sinatra and big band era, unless it was a TV theme song. The good mood lasted until I was walking up the steps to the porch, and then it didn't go away so much as get washed over with the somber memory of why I was here at this house. Cooper James had lost his parents, and what remained of their lives together were here, and it was up to me to honor their memories for him since he wasn't here to do it for himself. Those tasks were going to have to take a back seat to a few more mundane tasks required to keep me warm and fed. The fridge was empty, having been cleaned by whoever had put the house in order to await my arrival. The pantry had quite a bit of canned goods in it, and there were still spices and other things with long shelf lives in the various cupboards, but the fridge was empty, there was no bread, no fresh fruit, not potatoes or onions. I needed fresh vegetables and meet, milk and cheese, and those were just a start. This need was complicated by the fact that I knew the garage, beautiful as it was, was empty. The Road King was currently my only transportation. I couldn't haul much more than the basics in the bike's saddlebags, and though I could perhaps manage a fair amount on the rear rack, it wasn't the greatest place for anything that needed to be kept cool. I needed to shop for groceries, but before I could do that, I needed to shop for a car. Both shopping trips had to wait because I needed to make some phone calls. I found the list of names and numbers that Darius had left me on the counter and called the woman he had listed as the James' housekeeper, Mrs. Edwina Ibarra. "Hello," I heard in a very plain, unaccented English. I guess my old-school prejudices were showing, as I'd expected an accent. "Mrs. Ibarra?" I asked. "Yes, who is this please?" "Ma'am, this is Cooper James." "Oh, Mr. James! Oh you poor young man! You are at the house?" No accent and not slow on the uptake either, I decided. "Yes Ma'am, Mr. Booker gave me a list of numbers I might want to call, and you are the first." "I took care of your parents house for them of course, and often cooked for them as well, though your mother was a fine cook herself. Are you planning to live at the house then?" "I am, at least for now. It is a big house and I've never seen it before in my life, so am wondering if you would like to continue in the job?" "Of course, I love your parents' house, and loved your parents. I will look forward to taking care of you like I took care of them." "Thank you Ma'am. That takes a big load off my mind." "I look forward to it young man, and please call me Edwina. Will you need me today?" "No, except perhaps to drop by and discuss our expectations later. It will have to be this afternoon though, I need to make a few more phone calls and then do a little shopping. I was thinking that you could start right after the Memorial Day weekend?" I called the groundskeeper next. Cal Herrera and Western Sonoma Landscapers. Mr. Herrera ran the landscaping and grounds keeping service my parents had hired to maintain their lawn and grounds of the property. That had included some landscaped shrubbery on both sides of the house and the back, which offered more privacy for the side yards and some visual separation from the steep hillside for the back yard and garden. The small garden in back of the house had not been part included in the service's contract. I asked Mr. Herrera to stop by after the holiday to take a look at it and help me decide whether it was worth keeping. I would talk with Edwina about it as well. I made a few more calls to check on the utilities, but decided to leave everything else for later. It was time to go car shopping and then I could do a little shopping. Though I hadn't been looking for them before, I was pretty sure highway 101 was where the car dealerships would be. I wasn't sure what I wanted yet, but I knew it wouldn't be some 4 door sedan. Cooper James had picked out the Road King when he got back to the states. He would probably prefer a pickup truck or something more rugged than the prototypical family car. In the end I found the Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge dealership and left with a silver 2011 Jeep Wrangler Sahara 70th Anniversary model with a soft top and fully loaded with almost everything the dealership had to offer. The base price was almost 30 thousand dollars and I was well over that with what was on the model I picked, but the virtue for me was I saw it sitting there and bought it – I didn't have to spend any time fiddling with the deal, and that made me very happy. Although I still had to talk to some bankers and investment executives about the details, Darius was able to show me that Cooper James' parents had left him a very, very large inheritance. I paid cash. I still had the problem of how to get both vehicles back to the house, but the manager at the dealership was more than happy to work something out with me, so I drove over to the Coddington Mall where I'd seen a Whole Foods and did a little shopping, then I drove back to the dealership, switched back to riding the Harley as two men from the dealership followed me back to the house, with one of them driving my new Jeep and the other driving one of their cars. I tipped them both $50. Hell, they even helped me get the groceries inside! ------- Chapter 15 The house was quiet, that first night. Far quieter than the inn had been and quieter than anything I remembered. Even my time at home before I'd started inhabiting retirement homes and elder care facilities hadn't been so quiet. The quiet was more a product of my feeling alone and far from anything or anyone I knew. I sat around a while, then tried going for a walk, but the driveway emptied directly out onto the highway and I didn't want to be walking alongside it with the sun going down and the light fading, so I turned around and walked back to the house. I wandered the house a bit, poking my nose here and there. The basement seemed even emptier than the rest of the house, but I finally realized I had something I could do when I spotted the laundry room. The clothes in my cargo bag cold be categorized as either dirty or 'stale', so They all went into the machine – fortunately for me Cooper didn't seem to own a single pair of white socks or boxers, so I wasn't even worried about the old whites and colors problem. I got the laundry going and that got me wondering about fresh towels and bathroom supplies. I hadn't really looked through the bathroom to see what was there, and of course I hadn't thought to deal with my lack of toiletries while I was shopping for groceries. I slept restlessly, but still woke up early, as I had every day that I'd been Cooper. I puttered around in the kitchen for a little bit, but I felt isolated here at the house by myself so I climbed into the Wrangler in search of breakfast. I decided to go west on River Road today to see what I could find that way and wound up having breakfast at the River Inn Grill. The coffee was good and plentiful and that made me wonder what I had for making coffee at the house. I got a big to go container with a spill-proof cap and used the cup holder in the Wrangler for the first time as I headed back to the house to answer the coffee question. I found no coffee and no coffee maker in the house. I found two tea pots and a wide assortments of teas. The James' had been tea drinkers, darn it. It was Saturday May 28th and it was a long weekend holiday. The roads were filled with people headed for picnic and campgrounds all over the state. I was at loose ends. "No sense sitting here if I want coffee tomorrow," I said to empty air. I went back to the place where I got my groceries, because they had a JC Penney and I knew I could get a coffee maker there. I found what looked like a nice one, then I wandered a while, thinking I needed a couple of button-up shirts, more slacks and a couple more pairs of shoes, I headed back to JC Penney, knowing they carried big and tall sizes. If I'd have been able to make it back from the jungles of the Philippines in time for the funeral I might have worried about a suit, but according the documents I'd read, both those I'd found in Cooper's cargo bag and those Darius had given me, I'd missed that by more than a week. Still, I would go visit them soon, and I wanted to be wearing something besides a T shirt and jeans when I did. Once I'd done my shopping I found a nice restaurant for lunch, and while I was eating I noticed a curious thing. About half the people eating in my section had those computers you could carry around with you that ran on batteries. Some were small tablets and the others were the folding kind. Laptops, I think they were called. I'd had a grandson show me one, but I'd not been feeling well that day and I wasn't able to concentrate on what he was doing. Still, I was remembering now that these computers these days allowed you to connect to the internet and email from almost anywhere. This was probably what I needed, given my ignorance about so much of the modern electronics that everyone seemed so tied to these days. When I finished my meal I approached one of the younger men, high school age, I thought. "Excuse me," I said as I approached. "S'up dude, I'm clean." the kid said. "What?" I said, confused. "you're not a cop?" "What? No. Why, do I look like one?" He laughed, and I joined him. "Sorry man," he said. "Sometimes they hassle us if we sit here online too long." "No, that's okay, in fact that's sort of what I came over for. I'm Cooper James. I just got to town and need to get myself a laptop and thought I'd ask you where I should go?" "Mitch Price, nice to meet you," he offered with a nod. "You looking for fast and painless, but maybe you'll want a new one in six months, or you wanting to take your time and get what's perfect, first try?" one of the other young men sitting nearby interrupted with the question. "Good question, Col," Mitch nodded. "So?" he directed at me. "Fast and painless sounds good for now. I don't know what's good and what's not, to be honest." "Geez man, you been off hidin' with Osama, or what?" a third, thinner pimplier one asked as obviously I was drawing a crowd. "No, but I was looking," I joked, willing to cash in on Cooper's past if it greased the skids for me. "I spent a few years in Iraq, a few in Afghanistan and then I was in the jungle over in the Philippines before I got home." "What, we fighting terrorism over there too?" my original questioner quipped. "No, but we have a Marine base on Okinawa where they teach jungle warfare. That's what I was doing before I left the service." It was nice to see the respect Cooper's service generated in them. It had been the same when I'd returned from the war in Europe in 1945, but that respect had gone missing for a while. So, fast and painless, huh? What do you guys recommend?" "Well, if you're not worried about it, then I'd say lets just head down to the the Radio Shack at the other end of the mall," he stood up, flipping his laptop closed and slurping up the rest of whatever frothy coffee drink he'd been drinking. "Road trip guys, I'm gonna take – Cooper, right? " I nodded. "I'm gonna take Cooper down to Radio Shack and get him set up with what he needs. See you later." "I appreciate this Mitch," I said once we'd gotten out and on our way. "The least I could do man, and one of the guys working there's a friend of mine, so this way we can make sure you don't get stuck with some dicey refurb or a granny model." I figured I knew what a refurb was, a used machine that had been repaired. "Granny model?" "You know, something nobody but your grandmother would be happy with, no power, no features and no room for upgrades." "Ah, I see," I laughed and he joined me. ------- Chapter 16 "Mitch, 'sup?" the kid at the counter hailed my young acquaintance. "Kory, I wanna find this dude here a laptop. What's the nicest piece of iron you got?" "For reals? Wow, uhh ... you need wireless, bluetooth, the works?" "Yes," I agreed, seeing Mitch nodding his head. In my head I was wondering what the hell bluetooth was. "Probably this HP then, he said turning back to the combination shelving unit and display. "802.11 N & G wireless adapter, 100 meg ethernet adapter, three usb ports, built in lightscribe DVD/CD combo burner..." "Yeah," Mitch interrupted him. "Big hard drive, fast processor Windows 7 ultimate?" "No man, you know we don't get anything that comes with that factory installed. Windows 7 home premium though." "Probably more than enough for this guy. Kory, this is Cooper. Cooper, this is My friend Kory." We exchanged nods, which seemed to be this generation's answer to the handshake. "Mostly I'm wanting email and internet access," I reminded Mitch. "Everything else is gravy." "Oh this has a lot of gravy then, far as you're concerned," Kory offered with a gulp. I saw him visibly straighten himself, clearing his throat at the same time. "This is listed at $1245.00 Cooper." I could tell that he expected that price to give me pause, but I had meant it when I told Mitch I wanted fast and painless shopping. "I'll take it," I pulled my wallet out and dropped my credit card on the counter top. Mitch slowed me down at that point and made Kory set it up and let us test it out for a few minutes, just to make sure, he said, that it didn't 'brick' as soon as it I turned it on. 'Brick?' I thought to myself while I raised an eyebrow Mitch's way but the eyebrow got no response. This must be some current replacement for 'dead as a doornail'. I was glad in the end for Mitch's efforts right then because I was able to watch him respond to the laptop's popping up a little notification in one corner saying it had detected wireless networks and asking if I wanted to connect to one of them. He did, followed quickly by opening a new window to something with a big blue 'e' with a swirl on it, and very quickly using that to install a few other programs. I was mostly busy with Kory at the time, so I didn't see too much of what he did exactly, but when he finished, he turned to me. "Okay, I've installed Google Chrome for you, so you'll have a decent browser," he pointed at the new item on the screen. "I also took the time to install Libre Office for you so you'll have a decent set of office apps. The antivirus software that comes with the computer is fine for now, and this top of the line machine has a full year's coverage, so that's good. Just don't forget to renew it! You know what a pain it can be if you get a virus. There's a 90 day trial version of a decent spyware tool on here too, but I'd recommend switching to something better when that expires." I acted as if I knew what he was talking about, but man, I was totally lost. I tried to keep it from showing as I thanked him. "Mitch, if there's anything I can ever do for you, just let me know," I said as we walked back towards the internet cafe, as I now knew it was classified by Mitch and Kory. I gave him my cell number and he gave me his, along with his email address, accepting my explanation that I just hadn't had time to set up a personal one since I got home. We actually shook hands when we parted. The first thing I did then was head to the book store. I needed some sort of help understanding this computer stuff. I got home that afternoon with a book called 'Computers for Dummies', another whole series of books for Seniors that were very visual, which helped immensely, and even a DVD. I was not surprised when I got home and logged into my new laptop to find that it couldn't find a wireless connection. I looked through the list of numbers that Darius had left me and saw that one one of them was for a cable TV and internet provider. I was pretty sure the house had satellite TV, not cable, so I wasn't sure what they were on the list for, but Darius had said the house was fully wired for computers, so maybe they did have something set up. It was the Saturday of a long holiday weekend, but I decided what the heck, and gave the number a call, and damned if someone didn't answer! In fits and starts, I was able to get the person on the other end to find the records for the James' account. "The account has been suspended sir," I was told. I then began the laborious task of explaining that I was neither of the people whose names were on the account, and then had to explain why I was calling instead of them. It had helped that someone, probably Darius, had been thoughtful enough to suspend the account rather than cancel it. I had been wrong about the satellite TV here, finding that the James' had both Cable TV and internet access provided by them. I wasn't surprised to find that the package they had previously was what the operator called 'basic plus'. It offered their minimal cable channels plus an additional business and news bundle, with the 'plain vanilla' internet access. I upgraded on the spot to their 'premium' offering, which was less than eighty bucks a month. It included some options that I didn't currently have, and I worried that the internet access would be beyond my abilities to activate, since I had no idea where to find the devices that were supposed to already be installed. "Sir, our usual technician for your area lives in Guerneville. Let me give him a call and see if he's available today," she had the number for my cell, and of course they had my address, so I said great and told her I'd be waiting for her call back. While I waited, I explored a little, checking various closets and other nooks and crannies, looking for the cable modem and other equipment that would normally be associated with their internet service. I finally found what must have been it in the basement in the utility room. There appeared to be two devices, the smaller of the two was the cable modem as described by Penny the service agent, and the larger looked like some sort of computer, but they were both turned off. The operator had asked me to turn the cable modem on when I found it, so I did, and I considered turning on the other one, but decided it was safer to wait until she called back. I went back upstairs and played with the cable TV, which was already working now, and happily put it on a baseball game after spending some time surfing the channels. Maybe what I had was overkill, but I was feeling a little giddy with purchasing power after several decades of having 'assistance' with most of my decisions. I was poking around in the closet in the upstairs sitting room when my cell rang with the little ditty that announced an incoming call. I wasn't sure if I like the idea of these 'ring tones' or not, but when my phone rang now it played a little bit of the William Tell Overture. I had been promised it was easy to change when the fellow at the Radio Shack where I'd bought it had demonstrated it to me. Other than answering the phone or making a call, I was still pretty much ignorant of how to do much of anything with it though. "Cooper James," I answered, expecting the service person from the cable company. "Mr. James," a male voice began. "I'm Bobby Chalmers, the install technician for Sonic," "How do you do Mr. Chalmers?" I asked, amazed to think he was calling in the middle of the Memorial Day weekend. "Well, I'm doing good enough, but my daughter-in-law is due to deliver a baby any day now, so we decided to stick around the house instead of heading off for the weekend." "Oh, well I'm sure everyone will be happy to have a new little bundle show up safely instead," I suggested, to which he laughed. "Well, I wish someone would teach the two of them something about birth control, because they've got three already, but being a grandpa is kinda nice, so I don't object too much." I understood exactly how he felt, but couldn't let the 27 year old Cooper James admit to that, so I didn't say anything. "Listen," he said when I remained silent. "I got the call about you needing things hooked back up over there – I'm the guy who got your folks all hooked up in the first place, and I'm going nuts sitting here listening to my wife and daughter-in-law talk about childbirth, so I thought I'd offer to come over and get you going. I've even got the extra equipment you'll need for your upgraded TV package. You going to be free?" "Absolutely," I replied with some glee. I even think I found the cable modem and some other thing down in the basement while I was waiting to hear back." "Ah perfect, did you turn them on?" "Well, I turned the cable modem on, because Penny asked me to if I found it, but I left the other one alone." "Good enough, 'cause I've got a replacement for it here. I'm not sure how much your folks even used the setup they had. Were you wanting to use a wireless connection?" "Yes, actually, that was one of the things I was going to ask about. I bought a laptop and it has a wireless adapter," I parroted Mitch and Kory, since I wasn't really sure yet of what I was talking about. "Okay, well I've got some decent wireless repeaters here, we can add one on each floor so you will have a nice clean signal everywhere in the house. I've even got one we could hook up so you could have a connection in that nice garden area in the back." "I'll want the inside ones for sure, but maybe we can wait on the outside one. I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing here yet." "Works for me," he replied. "Now these wireless repeaters are a side deal between you and me, you understand? They're about $30 apiece." I still had a three fifties and a half dozen twenties in my wallet, so I figured I could cover it with cash. "No problem, and I got you covered," I told him. "See you in about a half an hour then?" he asked. "Works for me," I answered back with a chuckle that he echoed. ------- Chapter 17 The doorbell rang about fifteen minutes after I'd hung up with Mr. Chalmers, while I was staring into my newly semi-filled fridge trying to decide what I was going to have for dinner. "That was fast," I said as I opened the door, but rather than the male figure of Mr. Chalmers that I'd been expecting, it was a small, plump 40-something woman. "Oh excuse me, Mr. James," she said in a familiar voice. "I know I shouldn't have dropped in unexpectedly." "Not at all ... Mrs. Ibarra?" I ended in a question, though I had little doubt of her identity. "Please, its Edwina," she reminded me. "Of course, please come in!" I stepped aside and waived her in. "I was expecting the technician for the internet company to be coming by. When the doorbell rang, I thought you were him." "Well, I won't stay long," she said, which was when I noticed the foil-wrapped object in her hands. "I thought to drop something by for you, in case you hadn't gotten yourself situated." "Thank you, that's very kind," I offered sincerely. So much for my dinner plans. "I've put a few things in the fridge, but had just been staring at it trying to decide what to do for dinner tonight." "Ah, well this is just a simple bean and rice casserole, but I think you'll like it, and it should refrigerate well if you decide on something else. Let me put it in the fridge for you for now." I watched her nod to herself, as she put the casserole dish away. "Well, at least you haven't filled it with beer," she laughed. "Your parents said you weren't much of a drinker, but their information was a few years out of date." "Yeah," I said, wondering what had happened to keep Cooper and his parents apart so long. "Did you find the bar yet?" she asked. When I said no, she took me into the living room and showed me how a very nice looking piece of furniture I had though was a display case for some small decorative items pulled out to reveal a small bar with a small sampling of bottles, glasses and various other associated odds and ends. I was examining the labels on the bottle when the doorbell rang again. "That will be the internet guy," I told Edwina. "I'll leave you then," she offered, "I just wanted to stop by with with the casserole and say hello." We walked to the door and I opened it to find a balding man somewhere past middle-age with dark hair peppered with gray and large glasses that rendered him somewhat owlish-looking. The mustache that connected to bushy mutton chop sideburns completed what I thought was a rather unique look. "Mr. Chalmers?" I asked. "Mr. James, a pleasure to meet you," he reached out a hand and we shook. "Edwina, a pleasure seeing you again." "You too, Bobby. How's Julie?" "Due to pop any minute. I'm glad to get away from the mad house for a little bit today." Mrs. Ibarra raised her arms up looking for a hug, so I bent down and let her give me one. She held it a moment, patting my back before easing back a bit to kiss my cheek before letting me go. "Once again Mr. James, I'm so sorry about your parents. I hope you can find some happiness here, and I'll see you Tuesday." With that and a smile for the both of us, she left. I closed the door behind Mr. Chalmers who had been standing the whole time with his arms full. "What a nice lady," I said as we walked into the living room. "That she is," he agreed. "The whole family is just the salt of the earth." "Where do you want to start?" I asked. "Basement first," he said, setting the bigger of the two boxes down beside the coffee table. In the basement the first thing he did was give the smaller box a cursory glance. "Looks like your connection is up and looking chipper," he told me. "If your connection ever seems to just die on you, this is the first place to come look. If those lights there aren't flickering around like they are now, then you should pull this out and then plug it back in. What he pointed at was obviously the power cord, because the cord went to a small black box and then to a larger black brick-shaped object. That brick was plugged into a wall outlet. "This is the old router," he told me. "Really its a small computer set up to act as a router. That offered some ease of use for your folks, but the wireless access you want is going to require something a little more sophisticated." The old box got disconnected and the new one connected in its place. "Okay, Mr. Chalmers," I said, trying to keep my total ignorance out of my voice. I don't think I succeeded, because he laughed. "don't worry about it, and please call me Bobby. Bottom line is we could do this two ways. Set up a wireless access point here, and then set up repeaters everywhere, or we can set up a small internal computer network in the house and put wireless access points wherever we need them. Were doing it the second way. It's more reliable in general and at the same time makes the wireless side of it less complicated." "You're the expert, Bobby" I said, and meant it. The new box got turned on a let sit for a few minutes. While it was doing that, another box got pulled out of the cardboard box. It was a small black and blue plastic box with two antenna sticking out of the back of it. A cable from the back of it got plugged into the same black box the bigger box and the cable modem were plugged into, and as well a cord that I already had learned was called a network patch cord got connected between it and a small panel on the wall. A similar cable had been disconnected from the old box and reconnected to the new box. Everything Bobby had hooked up was now lit up and happy. "Okay, lets go back upstairs. Bring that new laptop you said you have to the living room." "Okay," I had the laptop sitting in the kitchen on the breakfast bar, so I grabbed it and brought it into the living room. I'd had it plugged into wall power there, but popped it free of house power and brought it over running on the battery. "Lets see if we find the new wireless network." he said, and I was glad at that moment that I'd paid attention to Mitch back at the store, because I was able to click on the little Wireless connection symbol in the corner. Sure enough a connection now showed in the display. It was called 'JamesOne'. "Not too bad," Bobby said, looking over my shoulder. We're probably almost directly over the utility room here, so we've got pretty much a full strength signal. Lets connect to it." I clicked on it and it immediately asked for a password. I looked at Bobby. "First two digits and last two digits of your full cell number, then 1962 – eight digits total." I entered the string and the connection completed happily. We then took the second box that we'd left up here and repeated the wireless access point installation here on the ground floor and again upstairs. I now had complete coverage in the house for the laptop. "Perfect. Full Bars" he said when we were done. I grinned back and handed him two fifties and a twenty. "Full bars is good," I agreed. ------- Chapter 18 I spent the rest of the night sitting in front of the laptop with the Chrome browser open Googling for ... well it seemed like everything, because there was so much I felt ignorant about. I did remember to throw Edwina's casserole in the oven. There was a post-it note on top with the cooking instructions. Probably something 27 year old Cooper would have needed, but a casserole is a casserole for a man my age, so in the oven for an hour at 350. I had some tomatoes and cheese that I had sliced up so I added a few slices of each and a nice ripe orange that I peeled and sectioned, and that was my dinner. Tomatoes had been a real luxury when I was younger, and again later in life. Today's tomatoes looked better but didn't taste it, generally, but these I'd found were very good, so I was reliving my youth a little bit by having them this way, just sliced, salted and peppered and with a slice of cheese. The casserole was good. The beans and rice had been spiced up with some Cajun spices and there were little bits of pork and shrimp in it as well as corn and diced onions and peppers. I rubbed my belly when I was done and thought about how I'd been eating since I''d awoken in Cooper's body. "Better start exercising," I said aloud to myself. Maybe I could get some sort of exercise equipment for that big empty space in the basement. After dinner I went back upstairs and took another shower. After I was clean and had brushed my teeth I decided to take a closer look at the stuff I'd found in the upstairs office. There were several large photo albums as well as a large box filled with old Kodak film packages – the kind you used to get from the photo shop when you had your film developed, as well as some framed pictures that had been covered with soft, pillowcase-like covers to protect them. I started with the Kodak packages, opening a few and thumbing through them. They were the typical family pictures, Cooper, His parents, family friends and other children. Birthday parties, holidays, vacations – exactly what you would expect. The two photo albums appeared to be more Mr. and Mrs. James' pictures from before they were married. The first one was Mr. James' and I saw a collection of pictures that were arranged chronologically from oldest to newest. The last few pages were pictures of Mr. James in college, and then wedding pictures showing him and Mrs. James. They had been a very photogenic couple. Mr. James cut a dashing figure and Mrs. James was very beautiful. I could see Cooper's features in both of them. Out of curiosity, I opened the other album from the back to see if the pictures there were also of the wedding, and sure enough, they were. Several of the wedding pictures were even identical, shared between the families, obviously, and taken by someone who had been hired to photograph the event. Several of these had featured the entire wedding party, including both sets of parents, and I could see where Mrs. James got her looks, as her mother was a lovely woman as well, though there was something about her I couldn't put a finger on that made my eyes linger. I worked my way back through the album and saw Mrs. James grow younger and younger and her mother did as well. Grandmother James as I began to think of her struck me oddly, for some reason. It wasn't until I got almost to the beginning of the album that it began to come to me, and that sent me scrambling back to the box tearing the cloth covers off of the framed pictures there, but those proved to be the final proof, and I sat stunned for many long minutes. The connection was made clear now. I stared at the portrait of three women, a young Mrs. James between an older woman holding her by the shoulders and an even older, gray-haired woman standing beside them. The gray-haired woman was Rebecca Worthington and the younger woman was Cooper's grandmother. Now I understood as well why Mrs. James' younger pictures kept drawing my attention. The features she shared were obvious, once I knew to look for them, and those features on her mother were even more so. The features she shared with Harley Scoville. Rebecca had given me a daughter all those years ago. Cooper James was my own Great Grandson! For the first time in my life, both of them, I fainted from the shock of something. ------- Book 2: Harley ------- Chapter 19 "Harley, can you hear me? Can you answer me, Harley? Harley can you hear me?" Over and over again. "Shut up, I hear you!" I said aloud while screaming it in my head. "No need to yell any longer, Harley," the voice said. "We've got a good connection now. Full bars." "Full bars is good," I agreed, my eyes opening. The ceiling stared back at me. I sat up, shaking my head to try and clear it. The shock of what I'd just learned started to come back to me a little, and then the memory of the return of the voice. "So you're back," I said aloud. "Or is it just while I'm unconscious?" "No, I'm back," the voice answered. "Really, I was never gone, but some things had to happen before we could have this kind of chat." "I HAD TO LEARN THAT I'M LIVING A SECOND LIFE IN THE BODY OF MY OWN GREAT GRANDSON?" I said very loudly. "Yes, and you don't have to be so loud," the voice said calmly. "In fact, you should get used to just thinking your answers to me. We can communicate clearly now, and its really all internal." "Who are you? What do you want with me? What's this all about?" "I'm an agent of ... a group of peoples whose goal is the preservation of humanity. You are one of a very few who have what it takes to help us. I have been tasked with preparing you to act in our behalf to further that goal." "What makes me so special then, and what about Cooper? He was an innocent in all this. Did you kill him so this could happen?" "Oh no, we didn't kill Cooper," the voice managed to sound offended. "Cooper was quite an interesting young man, but he had a serious flaw, and one that plagued him all through his adolescent and adult life. You should take a closer look at the Harley, Harley. Or should I call you Cooper now?" I ignored the voice and went grumbling out to the garage where I'd parked the bike. I began giving it a more thorough going over, but I wasn't sure what I would find. I looked under in and around everything, but didn't find anything. Finally, in frustration, I even opened the gas cap and tried peering into the tank. It was too dark to see anything, but just as I was about to give up, my eye caught something. There was a small metal ring, like a gasket around the top of the tank where the cap screwed on. I reached down with a finger and tried to feel for an edge to the gasket and as I ran the finger around it, I bumped into something hanging down from it. I slid a second finger in and was able to grip something. It pulled up easily and I saw it was a braided wire – stainless steel by the looks of it. As I pulled it up the little metal gasket it was attached to came up as well. Along with that came a small stainless steel ball with a screw on cap that was attached to the other end of the braided wire. It was covered with gasoline of course, so I took it over to a workbench nearby and found a shop cloth to wipe it down with. It took a bit of muscle to break the screw cap free, but it opened, and I poured the contents out on the bench. Pills. "Crap," I said aloud. "We would wish it were not so," the voice said in my head. "But it was his addiction, and his shame over it that lead him to take his own life there along the river." I stood there, silent, stupefied by this knowledge. Some of the odd things about Cooper's choices along the way from Seattle made sense now, in a sadly bitter way. "His suicide was the key for us though, to giving you the chance to continue on in Cooper's body." "But why?" I asked, not sure what thing I was asking why about. "Because we couldn't put your mind in this body with him if he had not died. Because one of your mind's is not enough, as unique as they are. To gain the ability you will need to work for us, you needed the strength of two minds. Three such minds together would have been even better, but – ahh the math needed to understand how unlikely a chance could ever come to make that possible – even I find it hard to appreciate. Needless to say, humanity's end would have come long before such a chance could occur." "Well you blew it then," I laughed aloud, even though the words had been spoken silently. "There's nobody in here but me. You only got one mind after all." "No, that's not true, thankfully," the voice chuckled back. "Cooper is in there with you. He's just been hiding. Ashamed and embarrassed, and a little shocked himself lately, having lived your memories of his great grandmother and his grandmother's conception along with you when you relived them." "Bullshit," I thought, rather loudly. "No, grandfather, its true," a new voice said in my head. A harder, rougher voice that still reminded me so much of me. I fainted again, or maybe things just wore me out and I slept. For whatever reason, the world went dark on me once again. ------- Chapter 20 When things came clear again, it was very obvious that I wasn't really awake. For one thing, I was sitting on my bed in my old dorm room at Dartmouth. For another, Cooper James was sitting in the chair at my study desk staring at me. "Cooper?" I asked. "Hello Grandfather," he answered gloomily. "I'm sorry," I said, not sure for what. Maybe for lots of things. "Great grandmother never told a soul," he said, letting me know what he thought I was apologizing for. "I always wondered why mother and I seemed so different. So much like Great grandma and so little like the rest of her family." "Really,?" "Oh yeah, and looking back on it, I think Grandma at least might have suspected, but if she did, she never said anything." "So where do we go from here?" I asked. "Onward and upward," he laughed. "You're Cooper James now. I'm just along for the ride. I've been holding back, hiding. The voice got it right. Because of that you haven't had access to any of what was me. Memories, skills, nothing. Now that we're aware of each other in here, I hope that will change." "Well, I guess I hope they do to. I was sad thinking I'd never get the chance to know you, and even sadder knowing that you were my great-grandson. I've been feeling pretty lost trying to live as a part of your generation. The world has changed too much since I was young. I don't know how to do anything. I don't know what anything means." "Well, you were doing okay so far. You got a cell phone, a laptop, a car, cable TV and an internet connection, and you managed to not look too lost doing it." "Well, that was mostly just treading water," I admitted. "Maybe so, but you got a class act like that Kelli Montoya to give you her number, and I don't think I could ever have had that kind of luck with her. Your manners might be those of a different age, but they're classy, and she liked you because of that." "You think?" "I think. And I think you ought to call her tomorrow morning. Leave her a voice mail at least. Let her know you've been thinking of her." "Voice mail?" I mentally gulped. Cooper Jame's laughter in my head, faintly echoed by that of the voice faded out with me as I finally found real sleep. I woke that morning bristling with energy. I got up and started for the shower but stopped when I remembered my promise to myself that I would start exercising. Too bad I hadn't thought of that promise while I was at the mall the day before. "Lets see what dad's got," Cooper's voice reminded me I was no longer alone in my head. We wore the same sized shoe four years ago. "We all here?" I asked silently. "Yes!" came the sounds of both mine and Cooper's voices in my head, sounding rather enthusiastic. There were some low top deck shoes that would be better for a little light jogging in than my hiking boots. The new casual shoes I'd bought the day before would not have worked at all, so I tried them on, and they did seem to fit, at least for walking around in. "What do you think?" I asked silently. "Feels like they were mine," Cooper said after a moment more of my experimental walking around. "Okay, where too? The edge of the highway doesn't seem the safest, and the driveway's not very long." "No, but the yard is huge and its mostly lawn or dirt with scrub," Cooper offered. "We could run the perimeter of it and it would be about a mile and a half per circuit I think." "A mile and three fifths, I make it," the voice countered. "Voice, I've been just thinking of you all this time as 'the voice'. Now that there's two of you, I need something better to call you, don't you think?" "Hmm," he said sounding like me for a moment. Then he was silent for a minute longer, followed by a giggle, which really sounded strange, coming from him. "How about calling me Bud?" "Bud?" I said incredulously. "Where the hell did you get Bud?" "Well, amongst other things, one of my jobs is to be the voice of wisdom for the two of you in this venture. So since I am the wiser of the three of us..." The pause was broken by Cooper's laughter. "Oh man," he said " he's Bud-wiser. Good thing we both like beer." So that was how the voice got to be known as Bud, and how Cooper and I learned that our companion had a sense of humor. We were all three still chuckling intermittently when we began our run around the perimeter of the yard. We ran it three times before we stopped and found a nice piece of lawn where we could do some crunches and push ups. "A chin up bar would be better," Cooper said as we were doing the push ups. "I was thinking yesterday that there's a lot of room in the basement for exercise equipment," I added. "You two will have to decide that for yourselves," Bud said. "My people have already done the last of what they can accomplish physically for a while." "What?" I asked, echoed by Cooper. "Shower and breakfast first," Bud answered. "I'm hungry." The shower was welcome, and needed. Breakfast was a decision. It was Sunday and it was Memorial Day weekend. There was no more bacon in the fridge, the sausage links I'd bought were in the freezer and solid as a rock. I had the makings for pancakes or waffles, but a waffle iron didn't seem to be among the items I could find in the cupboards. If there was one, it would have to wait for Mrs. Ibarra to find for me. There were, however, some fresh raspberries in the fridge, and I knew they wouldn't last that long, they were just too delicate. I checked to see if I had the makings for some whipped cream to accompany the raspberries and I caught myself. This was not the way to keep faith with my desire to keep fit. Instead I took half the berries and whipped them together with a little water and sugar, making a frothy rapberry sauce that wasn't too bad after I folded the rest of the berries in with it. I checked the butter dish and found it empty, so I softened a stick in the microwave, then cut the stick in half and put half back in the fridge. The center of the stick always softens first in the microwave, so I had some very soft butter to slather on the two pancakes I had. Cooper tried to talk me into a third, and had the three of us laughing silently when he reminded me I was eating for three now. The last time I'd had the ability to do anything in the kitchen had been at least twenty five years ago when I was in my70's. Given the times as I remembered them, I didn't really appreciate dishwashers. I had washed the dirty plate and silverware from last night's dinner and did the same with the dirty plate, silverware, mixing bowl and frying pan from this morning. The casserole dish was still in the fridge with the other half of the meal. I was thinking it would make a good lunch and was already thinking about finding some beer to go with it. It was going to take larger meals that generated a few more dishes before I figured I'd have to worry about it. Assuming Mrs. Ibarra let me worry about it. "Okay Bud," I said once the kitchen was squared away. "You said shower and breakfast first, and we've had a shower and breakfast. What did you mean about your people doing something physical?" "We need to go to the basement," Bud said, so I headed us there immediately, but stopped, glancing at my watch. I had been up early again and even after the shower and breakfast it was still only 8:15. Too early to call Kelli, but since I was thinking of the phone I grabbed the cell and slipped it in my back pocket. We walked down the stairs into the basement and looked around, not sure what to expect. We saw nothing. "Okay Bud," I said again. "Walk over to the far wall," he said, managing somehow to draw my attention to where he meant. It was the back wall of the big open space where I'd thought about putting exercise equipment. I walked over there and stood, staring at the wall. "Now, both of you," and he emphasized the 'both of you'. "Imagine that you could focus in on the wall, looking at an ever smaller piece of it, so that you could see each piece as small as a grain of sand. Imagine that wall is made up of those grains and that you can see and distinguish each one of them." Well wasn't that a tall order! I bit off the smart remark I was thinking of saying and just stared at the wall, trying to do what he asked. Oddly, it felt like Cooper was right beside me doing the same thing, and slowly I began to sense somehow what he was looking at and what I was looking at. It was like watching something come in an out of focus, but in bits and pieces scattered all over instead of smoothly. That sense of focus wobbled back and forth, shimmering in and out of existence until it finally seemed to settle down. "Very good," Bud's voice came as almost a whisper. "Now, see this shape in your mind, and find it within the focus." In my head I suddenly saw a symbol glowing with a soft orange light. It looked like an upside down question mark superimposed over a sideways exclamation mark. The symbol faded away, and the focus wobbled around on the wall for a moment before settling down again, but once it did, damned if I didn't start to 'feel' that some of that wall seemed different, and the symbol shape started to resolve out of the focus, which seemed strange since it was resolving out of what already seemed in focus. I 'heard' a sigh that sounded like Cooper, and suddenly the symbol seemed to jump out at me, whole and complete. "Yes!" I heard Bud whisper triumphantly. "Now, twist it! Reach out and twist it!" How we both new he didn't mean physically, and how we managed to concertedly twist in the same direction, I don't know. Maybe we just got lucky, or maybe in this way, we were alike enough to just think the same way, but we twisted that symbol and damned if the wall of the basement didn't shift and move, revealing a passage leading off into the side of the mountain behind the house. ------- Chapter 21 The doorway opening in the basement wall broke Cooper and I out of whatever state we'd been in and suddenly everything returned to normal. Well, except for their being a door to nowhere in the wall. "Enter," Bud said dramatically. "Its dark," Cooper pointed out. "There was a flashlight in the utility room," I offered, remembering seeing it sitting on a shelf by the fuse panel while we'd been in there with Bobby yesterday. I walked back and grabbed it, realizing it was one of those rechargeable ones that stayed plugged in until you needed it. Good, we wouldn't have to worry about the batteries dying while we were in the tunnel. I brought it back and flipped it on then stepped through the door. Inside the door the tunnel was about 4 feet wide and eight feet high. The tunnel continued into the side of the mountain beyond where the flashlight could reveal anything. There were smooth domes in the ceiling of the tunnel spaced every eight feet or so. They looked to be about 4 or 5 inches across. They looked like lights, but I didn't find a switch on the wall anywhere. "Where's the switch?" Cooper asked. "You'll find it like you found the doorknob," Bud answered smugly. We stood and scanned the walls, trying to see it the way we'd seen the basement wall, but didn't find anything. I shrugged my shoulders and started walking down the tunnel. The tunnel ran in a straight line about a thousand feet and then stopped at another door. "Another door?" I asked "Same deal as the first one," Bud answered, not surprising us at all. "Okay then," I said, and Cooper and I began focusing on the door. We found that feeling of being side-by-side very quickly and within minutes the symbol resolved itself and we twisted. The door in front of us opened silently. I walked in and was met by darkness. "hmmm ... I heard Cooper think aloud. "What?" I asked. "What were you focusing on back when we were trying to turn on the lights?" "The wall," I answered. "Yeah, me too." he agreed. "Why? "Why?" I began, but then it occurred to me, as it obviously already had to him. We'd been focusing on where we expected a light switch to be, rather than on the lights themselves. "You're right, lets try." I walked back to the tunnel and pointed the flashlight up so we could see one of the smooth little domes. I focused on that and the side-by-side feeling showed up almost instantly. There wasn't a symbol this time so much as just a point of – I don't know – cooperation, was as close as I could come to what it felt like. We focused on that for just a second and suddenly, there was light! I unfocused and looked around. All the lights were on. "They must be linked," Cooper thought to me. "Guess so. That last one sure focused easy, didn't it?" "It did, Bud interrupted. "Your minds are getting used to finding the necessary state. That is good, as it it is the key to where we will ask you to go and what we will ask you to do in the future." With the lights on we found that the big black empty space behind the second door was still a pretty big empty space. A huge cavern deep inside the hillside behind the house. "The cave was already here," Bud said as we walked around it, listening to the echo of our footsteps bouncing off the walls. "We expanded it, added a secret entrance only you could use on top of it, smoothed out the floor and added the lights. Additionally, the walls are coated with a substance that makes it undetectable to ground penetrating radar, or even the modern tools designed to detect gravitational anomalies caused by subsurface chambers." "Awesome," we both said together. "But what is it for?" "Every super hero needs a secret base, don''t they?" Bud said. Well it took quite a while for the big stir that pronouncement caused to settle down, but mostly because Bud refused to talk about it any further, at least for the time being. "Each step along the path must happen in its own time," he said, which seemed odd for the agent in charge of facilitating the whole thing to say. We walked back out to the outer door, reaching out to shut the lights back off when we got there. Cooper and I almost didn't have to think about it, it seemed so easy this time. The door itself was a little harder, because we weren't sure where the door had actually gone, but after a moment of focusing ourselves here and there, we found the symbol right where it had been the first time and just like that, the door was closed. We'd been in the basement and the cavern for about an hour and a half. It hadn't seemed like that long, which made me think that first time of trying to focus on the wall and find the symbol had taken a lot longer than it felt. It was now almost ten am. I pulled the cell phone out of my back pocket and tried Kelli's number. "Kelli Montoya," she answered on the first ring. "Hi Kelli, its Cooper James," I said, trying to ignore the laughing from Bud and Cooper in my head that I knew she couldn't hear. "Cooper! She said with a cheery lilt. "You called!" "Well, I promised I would call after the holiday when I'd had more time to get settled in, but I thought I'd call this morning just to say hi." "Well now don't I feel special,"she giggled, and then added with a little more breathy timbre to her voice. "Thank you." "No, thank you again, for being so nice to me," I laughed. "And for giving me your number. You don't know how far that went towards making me feel like I was really home again." "Oh stop," she said softly. "You're gong to make me cry." "Well, I don't want to do that, and I am still getting settled in here. I just found out this morning that I don't have a waffle iron, for one thing, so I'd better let you go for now and get back to your weekend. Can I call you again Tuesday or Wednesday?" "I'll be looking forward to it," she replied "I'm available for any sudden shopping emergencies too," she laughed. "Even if I'm at work." "Well I'd like to build up a list of small conveniences that are missing save it all for one trip. Instead I seem to keep making small trips every few hours. My next trip involves finding a beer to have with my lunch." "Well, good luck with the beer, and the list, and I look forward to talking to you soon." And then she was gone. I sighed, big and out loud. "She is a nice girl," Cooper thought. I had to agree. Memorial weekend was notorious for encouraging bad driving, especially drinking and driving, so I figured I was safer driving the Wrangler, even if I would have rather taken the Harley. A six pack of beer was easy to find if all you were after was a Budweiser or a Miller Light, and all I had to go on where my most recent samples from the Hillside Inn. Those were some good samples, but I asked Cooper for his preferences. "Beer is beer to me," he said. "I got too used to drinking crap beer in the Philippines and not drinking at all in the sand," he shrugged mentally and I felt it. I knew he meant Iraq and Afghanistan when he referred to the sand. "That stuff we had at the inn was good though. Wouldn't mind more of that. There was some subtle subtext to his reply that I didn't catch right then. Later he explained that he couldn't afford to mix the pills he was hooked on with alcohol, so he'd stopped drinking so he could manage his habit. That revelation was in the future though. We drove to the closest Safeway and looked through what they had. Not too much besides the usual, but we grabbed a six pack of Anchor Steam that looked appealing. I was right. Beer went perfectly with the bean and rice casserole. ------- Chapter 22 Sunday night felt like a bit of a free-for-all in my head. Cooper and I were trying to reach some accommodation to the fact that the both of us were stuffed inside the body that used to belong only to Cooper. Fortunately, Cooper agreed with Bud that he had thrown away his chance to be in charge when he tried to kill himself. "He did not try to kill himself," Bud reminded us. "He did kill himself. Our intervention prevented that death from being as permanent as Cooper thought it was going to be." Cooper's purpose in this was to try to reintegrate his knowledge and skills. As far as it went we weren't sure what might still be there as far as the physical skills went. We had both been soldiers during our own time, and we had both seen men killed and had killed men ourselves. Mine had been on a scale that Cooper had trouble grasping and his had evolved into something I had trouble understanding in return. "A Marine is trained to kill," he pointed out. "I received advanced training that made me proficient. Through that training I found a natural aptitude for it, and had been going through advanced training in the jungles of Okinawa at the time of my discharge that was intended to make me more than what I was, and I was already a legitimately scary fellow." He was hoping that some of that training had become so ingrained physically that our body would remember the appropriate skills even if I consciously wasn't aware of them. At the same time we wished for this, we worried that it might be so and that we wold react in a way that I wasn't prepared for if the situation triggered any of Cooper's training. The better solution would be for Cooper and I to merge more completely. It didn't seem to be working. "I would suggest we just continue with life and where Cooper has knowledge and skills, let him provide them. The more we use it, the more it may integrate," Bud suggested. Worked for me, I was still feeling a little weird having three people in my head. Especially since the head wasn't mine to begin with. "Here's something Cooper can help with," I thought. "We need an email address. Mitch suggested something called Gmail. Do you know how to set that sort of thing up?" "Sure, no problem," Cooper said. "Its a kind of web-based email from Google. Most of us stationed overseas tried to have something like that to use for keeping in touch while we were there. Just about every base had a tent with computers and internet access for keeping in touch with family and friends back home." So we went back upstairs and at Cooper's suggestion, first looked through the sheaf of papers Bobby Chalmers had left us. We did have an email address as part of our internet package. We also found the address of their web mail site and we tried logging in their with the information on the sheet. "One day and we've already got 6 pieces of spam, not counting the welcome emails from the ISP," Cooper snorted. "That's bad?" I asked. "Yeah, but we're just going to use this address as a starting point for signing up for Gmail." Cooper started telling me where to click and what to type, but at Bud's suggestion, he began pausing each time before doing it and instead just thinking about what would be the thing to do next without 'saying' it to us. That was the first time I'd realized that our internal dialog was separate from our thoughts, even the surface, verbal thoughts I had almost continually. It took a conscious effort to rise above that level of thought and be heard by the others. Cooper was trying to make the conscious effort without verbalizing. It didn't seem to work too well, but as Bud had said, maybe it would come with practice. Even with that effort slowing things down some, we soon had a new Gmail account. The only email address I had for sure was Mitch's. I had a thought though and looked back at the other side of Kelli's card that she gave me with her number on it. She did indeed have an email address at the Hillside Inn. I decided it wouldn't hurt to send an email to her at the address on the card. Mitch first, as Cooper guided me with brief instructions, prefaced by pauses as he waited to see if I got what to do first. A few times I did, but then again, now much instruction do you need to guess that the big 'Compose Mail' button was what you clicked on in gmail if you wanted to compose an email message? Mitch, Things are proceeding smoothly on the computer front. Thanks again for all your help with getting the laptop. Pass my thanks along to Kory for me as well. Cooper James. I clicked send on that message and then clicked the Compose Mail button again to send one to Kelli. Kelli, As you can see, I'm getting settled in even more. So I figured I would try out my new email address by sending you an email to the address I found on your card. Thanks again for all your help while I was there. Cooper James I figured the last sentence would make it seem like a business-related email in case whoever she worked for objected to getting personal emails at the work address. I had no sooner clicked send on that message when I got my first incoming email besides the ones Cooper explained were automatic welcome messages from Gmail. It was a reply from Mitch. Cooper! Good news dude! Will do. Mitch For his next trick, Cooper showed me how to set up my cell phone to check my email with it, and even notify me when I had new emails. "We can even send emails from our phone." "Sounds convenient," I answered. "Yeah, well we won't even get into texting yet. I'd feel like I was corrupting you," he laughed, and I joined in, but I thought I knew what he meant a little from my grand kids. Sometimes they would come to see me in groups, and half the time it seemed like most of them spent the time hunched over their phones with their thumbs flying. When I asked what they were doing one of the girls said 'texting, ', huffing indignantly, as if the answer was so obvious I shouldn't have had to ask, thereby inconveniencing her. From Gmail we migrated to a little web surfing and when I asked about finding out where we could get exercise equipment, we moved over to Google Maps. By the time we'd satisfied my initial surge of enthusiasm for this, I was starting to yawn. Dinner had been hours ago and was just frozen egg rolls zapped in the microwave. 'Let's hope we don't do that too often, ' I thought to myself without sharing. While I continued to appreciate having a young metabolism and enthusiasm for eating that I hadn't had for the last couple of decades. I still wasn't willing to waste my meals on mindless consumption. Sleep came very quickly. It had been a long day. ------- Chapter 23 Monday morning was a bit of a repeat of the day before. Up, out for a run around the property, in for a shower and then breakfast. Since I hadn't gone shopping for that missing waffle iron, I was still not getting that breakfast, but a quick survey made me think that I could do french toast, even if it was just the plain frying pan style. I found cinnamon and vanilla extract in among the spices and there were plenty of eggs still and I'd remembered to move the link sausage from the freezer to the fridge the night before while fetching the frozen egg rolls. So I had french toast and link sausages. The new coffee maker made good coffee, I decided after my second cup of the morning. It was Memorial day. There were probably parades and picnics and all kinds of other events going to be happening all across the country today, but I wasn't all that anxious about participating in them. Cooper and I were vets, and Cooper was a recently discharged one. That made me wonder about Cooper's uniform and the other things he should have come home with. Where were they? I tried wondering to him non-verbally for a while, but it didn't seem to be working. "Cooper, I started to ask. "Where..." "Where's my uniform?" he asked before I could finish. "Yes!" I said triumphantly. It had worked in one direction, at least. No one said anything for a while, when suddenly it seemed like I just knew. "You mailed them home, didn't you?" "I did. Mail from the Philippines to here is pretty slow, but I paid to have them sent FedEx once they got to Seattle. I almost expected them to beat me here." "Don't forget its a Holiday long weekend," Then the three of us were all silently cheering each other as we realized we'd managed to do a little transferring in both directions. "Still, it required effort," Bud reminded us when we'd calmed down. "We've got some work to do if we hope to have it happening effortlessly." Which got Cooper and I curious again about the whole super hero pronouncement. To say we had questions was a major understatement. We had just begun bombarding him with them when my cell phone chimed to tell me I had an email. When we walked back to the living room we saw that the open Chrome browser in front of us had popped up a window telling us the same thing. It was from Kelli, and all it was was was a picture and the subject 'Wish you were here'. The picture showed Kelli wearing shorts and a halter top sitting on a three wheeler and waving at the camera with a sandy beach and the sea behind her full of breaking waves. "That is a picture designed to keep you interested," Cooper commented. "Well its doing its job then," I laughed. "Its keeping us interested, isn't it?" "That it is," he added to the laughter in our head. "She must be there right now," I commented, looking at the picture on the laptop and then at the sun shining through the window. "How'd she do that?" She sent the picture from her cell phone's camera. We can do the same thing with ours," Cooper explained. "Wow," I said, realizing again How much I didn't know about the way things worked these days. "We could send her one back then, if we wanted, and wouldn't be sending her a picture of us just sitting at home being dull and boring." "So lets go for a ride or something," Bud suggested. "Are the roads so unsafe this day that you don't want to risk any travel at all?" "No, but I thought we were supposed to be training?" "We've already done some training today, with you and Cooper managing to send to each other non-verbally. It is not our intention to keep you from having a complete life, and to be completely honest with both of you, I enjoy the experiences you have as much as you do." There were obviously still things we didn't know about Bud, and about the 'People' who had managed putting us together here in Cooper's body. I got the sense that he was reluctant to tell us too much, and that it would have to come out over time. Fair enough, I thought. Neither Cooper or I would have this life if it hadn't been for Bud and his 'people'. I felt Cooper silently agreeing with me, and smiled at the reaffirmation of our recent success. "You know, its not like in the old days," Cooper told us. "Just because its a holiday doesn't mean the stores are closed. We could go shopping for that waffle iron if we wanted. A lot of places have big Memorial weekend sales. We could even go looking for the exercise equipment we want for the basement." "Do you think you will be able to recognize the equipment we'll need?" "I think so, and if I don't, we can always hire someone to come out and look at the space and give us a professional estimate." "Can we go down and take a picture with the cell phone to show them?" "good idea!" Cooper enthused. "Now you're starting to think like the young man we are!" "The room is bare," Bud added. "Should we bring a chair or something down that will give the picture something that will let them judge the scale?" "Good idea," I said. "We can probably find a tape measure in the garage to measure the dimensions with too, if you want." In the end we didn't need to take a chair downstairs as there was a cheap but standard folding chair in the laundry room that worked perfectly for taking the picture. We emailed it to ourselves so if we had the chance to access Gmail from wherever we were we could offer a larger picture. The camera was capable of taking quite large pictures – a function of its resolution, Cooper explained. We found a very cool Stanley laser level that also measured distance, and after a little experimentation, found the big empty room in the basement was 25'x 60'. That came out to 1500 square feet. Quite a lot of room! Without any discussion I went upstairs to the laptop and quickly googled fitness equipment. Of the ones that came up in the Santa Rosa area, Play it Again Sports seemed to be the best choice. The only one that scored higher on Cooper's 'hmmm' meter was one way down in San Rafael, and I didn't feel like traveling that far on highway 101 today. The quick consensus was that if we also went waffle iron shopping, we could probably fit a waffle iron in the saddlebag, but only if we took it out of the box it came in. That suggested we take the Wrangler, but it really felt like it was a Harley Davidson kind of day. "Weren't we going to wait until we talked to Mrs. Ibarra before we bought a waffle iron?" Bud reminded us. That settled it. We cleaned the helmet with a little spray cleaner that was supposed to be safe on plastics, then checked the bike, but the cursory cleaning we'd given it when we put it in the garage, combined with the dry weather we'd been riding in meant it was more than clean enough. A few more weeks and we might want to clean off any accumulated road tar, but for now it was good. The road wasn't anywhere as bad as I'd been envisioning. Cooper suggested it was because everyone who was going somewhere for the weekend was already there, and it was too early in the day to be seeing people making the return trip. The sounds of the road and passing traffic weren't as nice without the nice radio we had in the Wrangler, but just as I was about to mention it, Cooper headed me off at the pass. "We need to get an ipod or some other mp3 player so we can listen to music while we're riding the bike." "Okay," I agreed, getting an image in my head of what he meant, again assisted by the sight of some of my grandkids during their visits. "where would we go to get something like that? Radio Shack again?" "Sure, or best buy, hell these days you can find them at Walmart, Costco, even Safeway, though I would never buy anything that wasn't groceries at Safeway unless it was an emergency." "There was a Costco and a Best Buy in the mall just before we get to the fitness place," Bud told us. "There is? How do you know that?" I asked. "I saw it on the map when we were looking for the Play it Again Sports." he said, matter of factly. "Okay," Cooper and I simulcast. Both of us felt the other wondering when we would finally find out exactly what Bud was. "We're getting close to the exit we want," Bud said about ten minutes later. "Look for exit 488a. It should be the Baker Avenue exit." A few minutes later I saw the first sign for it and followed the arrows into the rightmost lane to get ready for it. The exit was one of those big, swooping loops, and it had us going northeast by the time we were down to the surface streets. "Take a right here onto Santa Rosa Avenue," Bud prompted. There was a right turn only lane only and I stayed right to get into it. It was two lanes and I started to pull into the left side one because I wasn't sure if where we were heading would be on the other side of the avenue or not. "Stay right," Bud corrected, so I slid over to the right side lane after making sure I wasn't cutting anybody off. I could actually see the Costco off in the distance when we got to the intersection. We took our right turn and followed the traffic south. The Play it Again Sports was less than a quarter mile past our turn and we pulled into a parking spot in front of the entrance. I had a self-satisfied smile on my face when I took the helmet off. Internally Cooper and I were both thinking the same thing. We had ourselves a navigator. Together we also wondered just how good Bud's memory was. ------- Chapter 24 The people at Play it Again Sports were very helpful. There weren't a lot of people there, holidays like this were usually slow, they explained. For that reason the limited staff working today were mostly veterans and managers. When I started talking about buying an entire home gym and then gave them the dimensions of the space available I found myself talking almost instantly to the owner, who asked me to call him Billy. He turned out to be quite a character, but also very sharp. We showed him a picture of the space we had available. "This is a basement you said?" he asked. When I nodded yes, he asked if I had the dimensions of the basement's entry. I had to confess that I didn't, but that it seemed to be a normal door and a straight stairway with no turns. "Did the stairs seem narrow or steep?" he asked. I thought they seemed 'normal', and told him so. From there it was a series of questions about what kind of equipment I wanted. I knew from the internal conversations Cooper and I had that at a minimum we both wanted a treadmill and a heavy bag. Whether we would up with a weight machine, exercise bike, rower or whatever would be up to Billy. I mentioned Cooper's recent discharge from the Marine Corp, and a desire to maintain a high level of overall fitness. "Train for strength, but don't sacrifice any flexibility?" Billy asked and I agreed. "What's your budget," he asked finally. "What's the range between good enough and the best I could get?" I countered. He told me and I gulped. High end was more than I'd paid for the Wrangler! In my mind I glanced again at the financial statements Darius Booker had shown me. Money was really not a problem, but I was spending money like it grew on trees and I didn't know if I could afford to keep up the pace. I'd know more after I talked to the investment guys later in the week. Billy grinned at my gulp and the following silence, raising an eyebrow. "I can afford the best I could get option, but I'm not sure if the best I could get is what I need. I would have to depend on your judgment. Also, this is just for me. I'm single and just returned to the states. I have no other family in the area and haven't even had time to make any friends. What I need only needs to be enough for me." "Understood," Billy said. "But I also bet you don't want a multi station machine if it means having to fiddle with it to change from one exercise to another, right?" "That would be my preference," I agreed. "Something mechanically simple would be nice too," I added. "I don't want something I'm going to have to have tuned or serviced constantly." "Yeah, some of this stuff can get that way. Don't worry, I don't want you to have any of those either. I prefer happy customers. Happy and healthy. You have any health issues I should know about?" "None," I semi-lied. He didn't really need to know about the two dead guys who were really inhabiting this body. "I had a clean bill of health when I received my discharge." "Good enough then." "I leave it in your hands then," I told him, offering him my hand. "I'll leave you my address and contact information. Do you want my credit card information now?" "No, the rest will do for now," he grinned again. "We'll swipe your card after we get everything in your basement and all set up and tested." "Works for me," I grinned back and we shook hands. It was a quick trip back up Santa Rosa Avenue to the Santa Rosa Marketplace where the Costco was. The good laugh was that there was a Best Buy directly across from it. Comparison shopping at its best. "We'll really find a better variety at Best Buy," Cooper thought. "Costco will probably have a better price on what they do have, but they'll have a couple of variations on each item where best buy will have dozens. Sometimes multiple dozens of different makes and models. Also, they talk a good support game, but actually getting good support can be frustrating. Something like this is almost a disposable item for us, so we can probably ignore those concerns." I walked through the doors of best buy and had to just stop and stare. Every kind of electronic device you could imagine from computers to wide screen TVs and everything in between. The two Radio Shacks I'd been to in Santa Rosa were hole in the wall closets compared to this place. "Over on the right," Bud roused me from my stupor. "Halfway back." I really couldn't make up our minds over what to get. We, meaning Cooper, who had the only real experience with these things, was attracted to the latest generation of iPod, mostly for the ease of acquiring music through the Apple iTunes store. What he didn't like was the way Apple tried to tie you so closely to their brand. For that reason he was also tempted by a simple Sansa Fuze mp3 player. We could buy the music we wanted and upload it to the player. It wouldn't be as simple as the Apple-only process, but it did seem a little more under our control. We dithered around the decision for twenty minutes before finally I came to our decision. "What's my motto when it comes to shopping?" I asked. Cooper sensed where my thoughts had gone and answered. "Fast and painless," he laughed. "Exactly," I answered. "We take the fast and easy choice and be done with it." So, after spending a little more time in creating an iTunes account and getting some initial music – stuff that was way too new for my tastes and way too old for Coopers, thus annoying but acceptable to both. We each added one selection of something we really wanted, which for Cooper was Counting Crows and for me was Benny Goodman. Cooper explained that his love of Counting Crows was ironic, because they were a San Francisco band, so he finally was living close to where his favorite band originated. There was nothing ironic about me and Benny Goodman, except that we were both dead. ------- Chapter 25 We stopped at Applebee's and picked up a chicken Caesar Salad to go, then headed home. We'd managed to kill a few hours of our day and had started the ball rolling on getting the exercise equipment we wanted. On top of that it was just a great day to be out on the bike, and now we could listen to music while the miles zipped by. I spent the time while those miles zipped on in thought. The silent, me only kind, though I assumed Cooper would get at least a sense of it, the way things seemed to be working. I wondered how we seemed to let ourselves get caught up in so much minutia. Buying a cell phone at the drop of a hat, same with a laptop and now a home gym. Thinking about doing the same for a waffle iron. Boom, just like that getting hooked up for internet and cable TV. It seemed like I was hurrying, when I had nothing to hurry about. The introspective mood continued through the lunch, which we accompanied with another Anchor Steam. With lunch out of a to-go box and beer out of a bottle, the only cleanup involved was brushing my teeth. "We should consider a training session this afternoon," Bud said, breaking our mutual silence for the firs time in over an hour. "Works for me," Cooper chimed in. "I agree..." I added. "Why do I sense a 'but' at the end of that?" Cooper laughed. "But I think we should sit down for a few minutes and talk out a few things." Cooper agreed, of course, since he more or less knew what my concerns were. Bud didn't see it as a delay, so we sat down and turned the TV on, finding some mindless Sci-Fi movie on. We mostly ignored it while we had our internal conversation. "Okay, what's on your mind?" Cooper offered me the opening. "Tomorrow, we will have Mrs. Ibarra here for an undetermined amount of time. We need to find out how she was working for your parents, Cooper and decide if that same schedule works for us." "Because while she's here, we need to be careful about being in the cavern behind the basement wall," Cooper finished for me, having sensed my concern. "Too many instances of us seeming to disappear in the basement would begin to rouse her suspicions," Bud stated the obvious concern. "Right. The laundry room is there, so there will be times when she will need to come down," I added. "And if we're not there working out, she'll wonder where we went, and how." Bud finished laying out the concern. "So what do we do about that?" I asked. "We do have some obvious options, but I have concerns about making decisions that might impact what she'll let us pay her. I don't want her to wind up with an effective cut in pay just because we want to limit the amount of time she's here." "she may be expecting something like that though. The needs of a guy our age would be different than the needs of a couple in their mid 50's. We need a cook more than we do a housekeeper, so it would probably be more kitchen responsibility and less general household responsibility." Cooper suggested. "That sounds about right to me," I agreed. "Perhaps we should add in the grocery shopping as one of her responsibilities, since she's usually going to be setting the menu." "It seems to me that we have three basic options," Bud said after a few minutes of the three of us silently mulling things over. "First, we proceed as we've been discussing and set up a schedule for her employment that limits her time here to a strict schedule so that we can simply work around her. Second, we simply let her go and take care of the cooking and housekeeping ourselves." "Those were the only two options I saw," I said. "There's a third?" "Sure," Cooper laughed. "We add her to the team. Make her a co-conspirator and let her help cover our activities down the road." "Exactly, Cooper." Bud agreed. "But we couldn't do it right away. We would have to have some more training. At this point you two don't even know what it is you can do, let alone what's possible with it." "It has something to do with the way we had to focus to find the door to the cavern, doesn't it?" I asked the question, but I really didn't need Bud to answer it. I knew because it just felt too right, "Correct, in part, and when we get back to the cavern to resume your training, we'll begin to explore it more closely, which will require an awareness of exactly what it is that you are doing." "But until we've gotten better, we're not impressive enough to convince anyone of anything except that we have a few screws loose," I laughed. "I think we need to assume plan one for now and hope for plan three eventually, but be prepared for plan two if we decide the other won't work." Cooper and I simulcast, which made us both laugh, though not in synchronicity. "That seems to be happening more frequently," I observed. "Good," Bud told us. "It is an indication we are moving in the proper direction and at a a better speed than I had envisioned." "So we know what we need to do tomorrow when Mrs. Ibarra gets here. Let's go train!" ------- Chapter 26 Now that the surprise of its existence no longer overwhelmed my normal attention to detail, I took notice of a few of its features. The cavern was not as cold as it looked, nor did my voice echo within it to the degree I expected. With the lights on, darkness existed only at the edges and far corners. The floor of the cavern was covered in a dark gray dust that muffled my footsteps to the point where they didn't echo at all. Still, I didn't want these new details to distract me from our purpose. "Okay, its the focus thing," I began. "Yes," Bud confirmed. "Think about what you were seeing when I first asked you to focus on the wall. What eventually happened?" "Parts of the wall seemed to come into sharper focus," Cooper said. "But every time I tried to concentrate on that part, the focus would shift." "Right," I agreed, picturing it in my head. "The focus seemed to swirl randomly at first." "Yeah, but kind of in waves at the same time." "The strangest thing was when suddenly a piece of whatever part was already focused would seem to jump out more sharply even that it already was." "Yes!" Bud confirmed again, this time with some excitement. "Now -," we could almost feel him taking a breath and regaining his calm. "This feeling of a new focus building out of the old is one side of the coin." "Yes, but what's the coin?" Cooper asked. "No, stay with me now!" Bud rebuked him. "We're almost there. This super-focus is only the beginning. Think if it as if it was sight. Can you see a single grain of sand? Yes you can, but it takes some effort to focus on something that small. Can you see something smaller than a grain of sand? Perhaps, but you might not be able to appreciate the difference in size." "So what are we seeing?" I asked. "First, while this sensory information is overlaid atop your vision, it is not sight. Second, the things you are 'sensing' are much smaller than grains of sand. What you are sensing are molecules." "Molecules!" we simulcast. "Molecules," Bud repeated. "But sensing them is only the beginning." "How?" one of us said. "What?" asked the other. Who said which was lost in the moment. "Right now you are sensing molecules along a cross section of your field of focus. With a depth of focus that is inconsistent and constantly changing. Once you have this sense of yours under better control, you will be able to act on those molecules." "Act on them?" Cooper asked. "Move them," he responded. "Move them," I echoed, trying to understand what he was telling us. "Telekinesis?" Cooper asked. "Yes!" Bud said with triumph. "This is to be your super power." "Telekinesis." I said. "Moving things with our mind?" "Yes," Bud said with less triumph and more smugness. "Someone's going to have to get me up to speed on this entire thing," I said finally. "I have some idea of what telekinesis means, and not just because they were still teaching Latin when I was in college. I know what molecules are, and maybe what they are means something different to someone with a modern education than they do to me, but what I'm interpreting you to mean is that we can move individual molecules with our mind." "Molecular telekinesis," Cooper added. "Yes, But don't be too hasty in dismissing it because of that," Bud added hastily. "That's where the training comes in, and as you get stronger, you will be able to move increasingly large numbers of molecules, and some molecules will be easier to move collectively than others." "Like grains of sand?" I said with a laugh. "And much, much more," Bud said with some humor. "But first things first. We need to see them before we can move them. Now, let's practice!" And so we did. If you had been an observer, it would have seemed like I was in a staring contest against an invisible opponent at first, but the object of our attention was the dusty cavern floor, or rather the dust of the floor. "Macroscopically, as your normal vision perceives things, except where you've left footprints from your walking around, the dusty floor is very smooth and featureless," Bud explained. "But your molecular sense sees things microscopically, and seen that way, the surface is anything but smooth. This is part of the first hurdle you must overcome." "Reconciling the macroscopic and microscopic senses," I reasoned, almost feeling like I was stuck in a Jules Verne fantasy. "To a degree. On a practical level, it may seem so, but in actual practice what you must learn to do is deal with the new sense separately while still maintaining the functionality of the original." "We don't want to start favoring the microscopic sight over the macroscopic," Cooper laughed. "We would probably be running into walls and tripping over things for a while if we did." "Exactly," Bud agreed. "The key will be in learning to accept and interpret both inputs simultaneously. Your current situation will aid in that. You have already shown that you can each maintain a separate focus and train of thought." This was a lot to mull over, and I promised myself that I would do some of that mulling when I was less occupied. For now I was too busy trying to to work through this focusing thing. I tried mentally zooming in on a point within the area that came into focus, but invariably when I did, the focus fled somewhere else, or disappeared altogether, which was the same result attempting to 'de-focus' while focusing. Apparently this wasn't going to go all Zen philosophy on me. Our efforts were interrupted by my stomach grumbling, and that's what made me glance at my watch. We'd lost track of time, or maybe Bud just didn't want to interrupt our efforts. It was a quarter after seven. "Lets stop for the night," Bud said. "We'll try some more tomorrow. I'll have some different things for you to try now that you're settling into the effort." The minute we opened the outer door leading back into the basement, the cell phone chirped loudly. I pulled it out of my pocket and stared at it blankly. It wasn't ringing, it was something else. "We've got voice mail," Cooper said. "We must not be able to get a cell signal in the cavern," leading me through the process of checking the messages and we listened to Mrs. Ibarra letting me know that I could expect her around ten the next morning, and to call her if there was a problem with that time, and she would gladly reschedule. "We should call her back," I said when we were done, hitting the button that pulled up the address book. "Let her know we got her message and the time is fine and apologize for missing her call." "Good idea. We can tell her we're not used to packing a cell phone around and keep going places without it," Bud said. "Right," Cooper enthused. "That gives us a built in excuse for not always answering our calls." "We can then use that excuse with Kelli, or anyone else we interact with." I added the last when I sensed Cooper thinking of teasing me. "Very good," Bud agreed. "That seems very workable. Our call to Mrs. Ibarra was brief, and appropriately apologetic, which she dismissed immediately. We confirmed the 10 am time and said our goodbyes, already having moved into the kitchen to try and find something that would serve as dinner. "This is where we really do need Mrs. Ibarra," I thought to Cooper. "So far we've been pretty bad at remembering to plan even as far ahead as the next meal." "Well, we are a little distracted by the situation, but I agree. At least we remembered to do our run this morning. We're not completely useless." Dinner wound up being a bell pepper, cheese and onion omelet and the last of the Anchor Steam. Afterward we turned on the TV and sat for a while, catching up on the day's news while we did a little web surfing. Cooper led the way in this, but I was beginning to get a grasp on the concept, though I was still being constantly amazed at the range of information that was available there. "If we lived a little closer to Santa Rosa proper, we could probably do all our grocery shopping online." Cooper commented. "The places that offer it might be hesitant to deliver this far out of town, and it would be risky expecting delicate and perishable goods to arrive in pristine condition. We probably could do everything else online now though." "Don't forget that tomorrow morning we need to call those investment people," I reminded Cooper and Bud. "We need to call Lloyd McCoy at FiberDyne tomorrow too." The busy day tomorrow, with the arrival of Mrs. Ibarra, as well as the thoughts of more time in the cavern and the new things Bud had for us to try were what kept me from falling asleep quickly, but they did keep it away too long. It had been a very full day. ------- Chapter 27 Our morning run felt good and the shower afterward felt even better. The aftermath of the shower combined with the leavings from a couple days of washing up and kitchen cleaning made me decide that we needed to wash a load of bath and kitchen towels, wash clothes and the handful of shop rags we'd used to wipe the bike down with. It was a small load, but I'd feel better about not having any dirty towels in the hamper when Mrs. Ibarra arrived. Except for what I had worn the day before, all my clothes were clean as well. While the first load was washing, I ate breakfast. Today I settled for a bowl of Cheerios and a fruity yogurt. Cooper had suggested I try them when we were grocery shopping and I found I liked them. They were a far cry from the yogurts I had experienced in my previous life, but Cooper was quick to point out that they were much higher in Sugar than plain yogurt, and not just from the added fruit. The dietary details would have mattered to old Harley, or rather to those who were in charge of his meals. The young, active Cooper could shrug off a little added sugar without concern, and they were still far healthier than some things. I remembered several decades of my earlier life when breakfast consisted almost exclusively of a cup of coffee and toast or a pastry. After breakfast I changed loads I swapped laundry loads and then straightened up the bedroom and living room. I put the spoon and bowl in the dishwasher and poured another cup of coffee before I glanced at the time. There were now three clocks in the kitchen: one in the oven, one in the microwave and the third in the coffeemaker. No, counting the watch on my wrist, there currently were four clocks in the kitchen. It wasn't barely past 9am and I was getting wound up for Mrs. Ibarra's arrival. "We need to do something," I spoke internally. "Maybe we can try calling the investment folks, or FiberDyne." "I'd suggest saving FiberDyne until we've talked to the investment people," Cooper thought back. "We should have as clear a picture of our financial situation as possible first." So I grabbed the cell phone and pulled out the investment-related documents I had collected from the cargo bag and from my meeting with Darius Booker. I looked them over one more time before dialing the number. "Howes Investment," came a pleasant voice. "This is Della." "Good morning Della," I returned. "My name is Cooper James. I'm calling for Mr. Michael Guilford." There was a surprisingly brief pause before she answered. "Good morning Sergeant James. Dr. Guildford will be pleased that you've finally called. Please hold while I see if he's free at the moment." "Of course, and its Mr. James, or Cooper please." "Of course Mr. James." I was put on hold, which put me in the middle of something familiar. Big band music. Stan Kenton, to be specific. I listened happily for less than a minute before the hold music went away to be replaced by a soft male voice. "Mr. James, Michael Guilford. I'm so pleased to finally get a chance to speak with you." "As am I Dr. Guilford," I replied. "And I'd like to apologize for it having taken so long." "Nonsense my boy, and please ignore Della's use of the honorific. She likes to put people in what she sees as their place. I prefer Mr. Guilford, or even Mike, if you can force yourself to pretend to be on a first name basis with someone you've never met." "I'll be happy to call you Mike until you tell me to stop," I laughed. "And please call me Cooper." "Very well Cooper. Now, since you're calling, what are the chances of you coming by our offices in Santa Rosa for a meeting? "I'm calling from my parent's Russian River house, so we could easily schedule a meeting at your offices. I have a meeting scheduled this morning, but should be free as early as this afternoon, unless you would prefer a little more lead time?" "You're in town? Excellent, and this afternoon would be fine. Could you make it here by two?" I had used Google maps to look up the street address shown in the documents in front of me. It was on 4th street, the same street I'd first followed into town from the Hillside Inn, and almost directly across the street from the Macy's in the Santa Rosa Plaza shopping center. "Not a problem. I've already stopped by the Preston & Roberts law offices, and they're literally just down the street from you." "No, I imagine you'll have no problem at all. I will be looking forward to this afternoon. If you would, can I transfer you back to Della so she can get your new contact information in case we need to call before then?" I had no problem with that of course, and after a few more pleasantries, he passed me back to Della, making sure to call me Cooper as he did so, intending for her to hear him do so and perhaps more importantly, to hear the uncontested 'Thanks again, Mike. See you this afternoon." Della was much more polite in getting my cell number and confirming the address of the house before offering a friendly goodbye. I still had a quarter hour before I expected Edwina, and I suspected she was the punctual type. My coffee cup was empty, but so was the coffee pot. I put the teapot on in case Mrs. Ibarra preferred it, but didn't brew another pot of coffee. A whole pot in one morning was my limit these days. While I waited for the water to boil, I pulled a can of frozen lemonade concentrate out of the freezer in the pantry and made a pitcher, adding ice from the dispenser on the fridge. I had a couple of lemons in the fridge as well so I quickly thin-sliced four slices from one of them and threw them on top of the pitcher. I started to put the pitcher back in the fridge, glancing again at the clock. It was almost ten now. I set the pitcher back on the counter and grabbed myself a glass. I half-filled it with ice from the dispenser and then poured it full of lemonade from the pitcher before I put everything back in the fridge and waited for the doorbell to ring. It was at that moment I remembered I had all the Howes Investments papers sitting on the coffee table. I ran over and straightened them up, putting them under the laptop, closing it up as I did. In the middle of doing it, the tea kettle whistled, so I had to run over and turn the burner down to bring it off the boil. As soon as I finished that I ran back into the living room and as I was giving the room one more looking over, the doorbell rang. ------- Chapter 28 Mrs. Ibarra stood smiling at the door when I opened it. I wasn't sure if I was happy or sad when I saw that her arms were empty. No gift of lunch today. "Good morning Edwina, please, come on in," I smiled in return, opening the door and waving her inside. "Thank you Cooper," she said and I followed her through the entry and into the living room. "I thought we might sit in the kitchen, if you'd like. I've got tea water on, or lemonade if you'd prefer something cold." "The kitchen, of course, and I would love a glass of lemonade." I fixed her glass, and grabbed mine from the breakfast bar, bringing them both to the small country kitchen table that sat at one end of the kitchen. "I'm pleased of course to see you haven't been throwing wild biker gang parties since I was last here," she said with a twinkle in her eye. "The gang had other plans for the holiday weekend, sorry," I laughed. Then there was a long pause. "So," she hesitated. "So, Edwina," I continued for her. "I've been giving our situation a lot of thought in the past few days." "Our situation?" she laughed. "I need help, there is no doubt about that, but I"m not sure if the level of help you gave my parents is the level of help I will need." "Well," her smile weakened a little, and her eyes went sad. "I would find it very unlikely that you would need the level of help I gave your parents. If your concern is whether you will be able to offer me the same kind of employment or pay that they did, please know I don't expect you to even try." "Mostly I need a cook," hoping to counter the impending sadness I thought I was seeing. "Also, someone to do the household shopping." "What about laundry and house cleaning?" she asked. "Laundry? Probably not. I would have to own a whole lot more clothes and be going through multiple outfits a day before I could be convinced that I needed help doing the laundry. House cleaning? You would know better than I do how often things need to be dusted or vacuumed or polished or whatever. I was thinking that it could be a once a week thing, with the occasional extra day thrown in to clean up after having company or dinner guests, maybe even a non-biker gang party, once I make enough friends here to be able to have one." "But you do plan to stay?" "I plan to make this my home," I assured her. "I can't say yet how much time I will spend in it yet, only because I don't know for sure what I'll be doing." "Are you looking for work then?" "Not exactly," I snorted a laugh. "I've got a meeting this afternoon with the investment people that were handling mom and dad's retirement funds, and I'll know better then what my situation is. From what I've seen just in the legal papers so far, those things readily available outside that investment portfolio, I'm comfortably well off. On top of that they were heavily invested in a company called FiberDyne. I own ten percent of it, and have to talk to a Lloyd McCoy there to arrange a meeting." "Lloyd McCoy was a frequent guest of your parents here," Edwina told me. "They were good friends with him and his wife Deidra. They had much more than a business relationship." "Thank you, that's good to know. It will make my approach to him much easier." "Have you looked through your mother's photos yet? She asked. "Some," I said. I was mostly looking at the older ones from back east though. "There's a picture of Mr. McCoy in there, if I'm remembering correctly. He's a tall, thin man with a prominent Adam's apple and red hair. He's a loud person without trying to be, but a good man." "I'll look forward to meeting him then. Why my parents would have chosen to invest so heavily in a technology company in California – why they even moved to California in the first place is a mystery to me." "I believe I can shed some light on that," Edwina said softly, the sadness creeping into her eyes again. "Cooper, Your father was very sick. He had a serious heart condition that kept him in bed most of the past three years, except for visits to the hospital and business and doctor's appointments. That was why they moved so suddenly and so far. The heart specialist they were hoping could keep him alive is here." "My god!" I echoed feeling Cooper's shock as I/We said it together. "And that wasn't all of it. Shortly after the move into the new house, your mother had a bit of a nervous breakdown. Her doctor back in New Jersey had prescribed something for anxiety and she unwittingly abused it, causing a, - well, I'm not a doctor, so I shouldn't say more, but it was explained to me as something of a pseudo-schizophrenic state that had her in and out of rationality for almost a year and a half before they got her stabilized and on the proper medication." "I knew nothing of any of this," Cooper thought and I repeated his thoughts aloud for Edwina. "You weren't there housekeeper, you were their caretaker," I sighed. Old Harley Scoville knew all about needing a caretaker. "Yes, well your father was still sharp as ever mentally, so he was able to continue dealing with the bills and legal matters as they occurred. He wasn't allowed to drive though, and for that first 18 months, neither was Mrs. James. After her recovery she had her license restored and she was able to do everything." "But you continued to work for them?" I asked, wanting to understand how the situation had evolved up until their death. "I did," she was crying. "We had become friends by then, and it was reassuring to both of them to have someone else around whose judgment they trusted. It would probably have changed further, given more time for them to regain their confidence. Mr. James was anticipating a surgical procedure which held a lot of promise for his ability to function normally once more." We were both crying now, and my tears were not just a reflection of the grief I knew Cooper was feeling. Though I hadn't known them, they were family. Their death had been even more a tragedy than Cooper or I had known, given the promise of recovery both of them had before them. It took a little more crying and a few sips of lemonade before either of us could gather ourselves, but once we had, Mrs. Ibarra reached across the table and patted my hands where I held them clutched together. "So you see, I know you will not need me as much as your parents did. I expect you will need me only as much as you described. You strike me as a fine young man and I am willing to continue in whatever capacity works for you. Cooking and shopping, at least for staples and those items needed for the meals I plan. Housekeeping is a bit more nebulous. You don't strike me as the messy type. The only cleaning you will need is as you say, is the weekly dusting, vacuuming and polishing along with the occasional extra cleanup. You definitely don't need me for laundry." "I think we agree on what my needs are," I said as she sat back in her chair. "The question is how do we want to work it? How much of what I need do you see yourself doing?" She laughed at that, and we spent the next hour discussing it. Neither of us was surprised by the final results. Edwina took charge of the kitchen, including its cleaning. I didn't need a breakfast cook, and it wouldn't be reasonable to expect it unless it was a live-in situation. I was also perfectly capable of putting leftovers together for reasonable lunches, so we settled on dinner only cooking, and lunches when it was apparent there would be a need, but not more than once or twice a week. Edwina gave me the number for a cleaning service that she said could do a much more thorough job, much more quickly than she could. I could schedule them for a specific day every week or even every other week. We established a budget for the weekly and monthly shopping. I would set up an automatic transfer of funds into an account she had set up when she was taking care of Cooper's parents. We would adjust the amount up or down as needed. There was a cork board on the wall in the pantry and I could put a list of any specific items I wanted her to buy on the list. She would monitor the laundry supplies and buy them as needed so I wouldn't have to put them on the list unless I thought we were getting low on something faster than normal. We were done by eleven. Edwina did a quick inventory of the kitchen and pantry before she left. Dinners would start tomorrow at seven in the evening and the rest we would sort of play by ear. With the business out of the way we just sat and talked for another half an hour. Mostly her talking and me listening to her tell stories about her work for my parents. I was trying to think of them that way, because in this life, that's who they were. With the edges of Cooper's thoughts and emotions seeping in, it wasn't hard. I showed Mrs. Ibarrra out, and sat on the porch as I watched her drive away. I sat, carving 'CJ' into the wood of the bottom step with a sharp rock I picked up next to it. I carved and I thought, but before I managed to permanently distract myself, I called Lloyd McCoy. "McCoy," he answered. Obviously this was a personal number. "Mr. McCoy, this is Cooper James." "Mr. James, a pleasure. Are you in town?" "I am, and I'm hoping to come by and see you this week." "Absolutely!" he enthused. "When would you like to do it?" "I've already got a meeting this afternoon, but tomorrow or any other day this week would be fine with me." "Tomorrow it is then, Mr. James. What time is good for you?" "I think you should call me Cooper, and I was thinking 10 am? I'd like to keep my afternoon free tomorrow for some personal stuff." "That sounds fine, and Please call me Lloyd. Do you know where we're located?" "Well, I have the information somewhere, but confess I don't remember it. I didn't know one end of Santa Rosa from the other when I last looked at it." "We're not actually in Santa Rose. We're just east of Forestville, which is a bit north and east of Santa Rosa proper." "Actually, I think I have a vague idea of where that is. Its not that far from the house here on the Russian River." "Of course, you're at Charles and Deanna's house," he laughed, nasally, but not an entirely unpleasant laugh. "Well anyway, if you're at the house, just take River Road towards town as usual. Then take Laguna Road south when you come to it and keep going until you see the big building with the giant red FiberDyne sign on the roof." "Will do," I said. "And I look forward to tomorrow." One more little loose end scheduled. ------- Chapter 29 Lunch was toasted bagels, with slices of salami and pepper jack cheese, and then I spent some more time online. Google let me find the news I was looking for from the Blackwood area newspapers. Harold Lee Scoville had died and the reporting was very kind. I found references to several obituaries in some of the larger national print publications as well, thanks to my ties to the newspaper and publishing industries. I had been too old too long to be worried about how any of my children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren were doing without me. I had left the empire my father had begun in fine shape, and to the best of my knowledge my children had only improved it. I planned to poke and prod at the edges of my old life, just to satisfy my curiosity. I could walk in my oldest son's house and claim to be a relative, if I had a need to, and Cooper James' DNA would back me up. But I had no desire to. That was my old life and this was my new, and this one was going to be very, very different. After all, the disembodied voice in my head told me so. I took the Harley into town for my meeting, thinking I might stop at a place I'd found online that looked like a good place to have it serviced when the time came. I was thinking I should have it looked at anyway, since it was so new, just to make sure there were no surprises. There was an actual Harley dealership just down highway 101 in Cotati, but I'd prefer someone local for repairs and servicing, if possible. The offices of Howes Investments were easy enough to find, in a small but standalone three story building that was very distinguished looking, faced in a blue-gray slate and granite with the name across the front in rough-cut letters in the same stone. I parked the bike right in front of their doors and walked in with my collection of documents and correspondence in one hand and my helmet in the other. The receptionist looked very much as I expected, and I wondered if this was Della. I wasn't sure because she smiled as I walked across the small lobby to her desk. "Mr. James?" she asked as I approached. "Yes," I answered. She held out her hand and we shook. Her hand was cool and smooth and her handshake was firm yet still feminine. "We've been expecting you sir," the smile continued unabated. "I'm Simone. Let me call up to Mr. Guilford's office and let them know you're here," she turned partially away without waiting for my answer and very quickly spoke a few brief words in hushed tones. "Someone will be down to get you momentarily." We stood together there as we waited and I saw her glance at the motorcycle helmet. We waited a few minutes at most before the elevator door behind her and to my left chimed softly and opened. An elegantly dressed woman with very classy features walked over to where we were. "Della, this is Mr. James," Simone introduced. "Mr. James this is Della Conrad, Mr. Guilford's administrative assistant. Della Conrad held her hand out as we were introduced, and we shook. "A pleasure meeting you Mr. James," adding a smile equal to the one Simone the receptionist was wearing. "If you'll come with me, Mr. Guilford is looking forward to meeting you." Simone offered to take my helmet and then I followed Della and wondered at the magnitude of the reception I was being given. There was something at work here I didn't understand yet. I wasn't sure how much of the third floor was dedicated to Michael Guilford's office, but it must have been the majority of it because it was a huge space with a large desk, a conference table large enough for ten or twelve people and a small couch and easy chair in a corner next what looked like a bar. Michael Guilford was waiting about halfway between his desk and the door, and he to broke into a broad, cheery smile when he saw me. "Cooper!" he strode forward with hand outstretched. I don't know what Cooper might have picked up during his career in the Marines, but my years of experience in board rooms and executive's offices as Harley Scoville had taught me a lot. One of the things I knew was that this kind of behavior was usually from men who felt I had the advantage in our business positions. I was dying to find out why that was. "Michael," I replied, holding out my hand. We shook, the proverbial hearty handshake, after which I was guided deftly over to the conference table where I saw several small piles of neatly stacked papers. "Lets sit here. It'll be easier to work. Would you like something to drink?" "Something cold and non-alcoholic if you've got it," I answered. "How about some iced tea for the both of us Della?" she nodded and left us then as we sat at the table. "Now, Cooper..." there was finally a pause in what I was starting to think of as a well prepared performance by everyone I'd met here so far. Mr. Guilford leaned back in his chair and swiped the fine, graying hair on his head back out of his eyes. Except it wasn't in his eyes, but it was done with what seemed the force of habit. "Cooper, Howes Investments has been simultaneously dreading and enthusiastically anticipating your arrival and there are very powerful reasons why. Reasons I was told you are unaware of." "Michael, you have me completely stumped. You did know that my parents moved here while I was overseas and that I had never been to Santa Rosa before?" "I did know that, and I knew why they had moved here." he shook his head sadly. "I just learned about my father's heart problem yesterday," I told him, causing the head shaking to grow more pronounced. "At the same time I learned of my mother's breakdown and recovery. They had kept this from me completely." "They kept many things from you, it seemed. One of those things was that they had moved all their finances and investments out of New Jersey to our offices here in California. Our main offices are in San Francisco and Los Angeles, but I'm semi-retired and work out of this Santa Rosa office now." Della returned at that point with a large glass pitcher filled with iced tea. There was a thick coat of lemon slices at the top of it. "I don't know if you have a preference, but this is sweetened ice tea," Della said as she poured us each a glass. "Michael prefers it." "I share the preference," I said before taking a small sip from my glass. It had been brewed very strong and the lemon and sugar combined to make for a very pleasant drink. "If you haven't had lunch I could bring you something," she offered. "No, thank you. I did eat lunch before I came." she smiled at both of us in turn and left. "A little different than yesterday?" Michael observed the moment the door was closed. "Night and day," I agreed. "She was not as aware just how important a client you are to Howes Investments. I enlightened her. It was fun, because she seldom gives me the opportunity." "She didn't make it past my age," I thought aloud. "Precisely." "Michael, why would I be an important client, and since you mentioned it, how important am I?" "Cooper, let me begin at the beginning, so to speak. You know your parents were both well off didn't you?" "Sure, though I was never all that interested in the details. Mom was in banking and dad was some sort of financial analyst." "That's accurate, as far as it goes, but it doesn't go nearly far enough. Charles Jenkins James was not only a financial analyst, but he was probably one of the best in the world. He was also a world class economist. There were several times in recent years where his name was mentioned as a possible candidate for a seat on the federal reserve board." "Wow," I said with all the astonishment of Cooper's reaction showing on my face. "Deanna James was not just 'in banking'. In New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia she was banking. There were political and other considerations involved or it would have been true of New York as well." "My god," I sputtered. "I never knew any of this. Why wouldn't they have told me?" "There were some aspects of the family banking business that were embarrassing to your mother and which would have been difficult to maintain outside of the friendly courts and governments of New Jersey. That's why she divested herself of everything when she moved here with your father, and why she transferred control of those funds to us here. Your parents were movers and shakers nationally and internationally in the world of high finance. I'd known them professionally for over twenty years." "This is incredible. Those embarrassing elements must have been criminal, I assume. I am familiar with New Jersey's reputation after all." "That's correct, and Deanna took a great deal of care in making sure that when she was done moving her holdings to us here, they would be absolutely above reproach." "Okay then, apparently this whole thing was designed to keep me in the dark and it worked perfectly, but I'm starting to feel frustrated here. The figures my lawyer showed me don't suggest anything like this. Just how rich am I?" "The nature of the investments makes a hard number difficult to pin down Cooper, but using conservative calculations, you are at this moment not in the list of the Forbes 100 richest Americans, but you are in the the middle of the next ten. You personal worth as of this moment is 3.12 billion dollars." ------- Chapter 30 I was used to well off. As Harley I had been used to far more than well off. But a billionaire? Three times over? Oh My God. Throw in a few expletives while you're at it! God Damn! "I'm richer than Donald Trump." I said through my slack-jawed daze. "you're richer than quite a few billionaires," Michael laughed. "The Forbes 400 is a list of the 400 richest Americans and you are richer than almost three hundred of them." "How does this work then?" I asked through my slowly weeping eyes. I was crying tears, not of joy, not of pain or anger, but tears of uncertainty. I had no idea how to be a billionaire. "Do I just ask for more money if I want it, or what?" "The figure your lawyer showed you was fifty million dollars, correct?" "Yes, and I thought I was rich when he told me." "The fifty million figure indicates your personal wealth. That is the amount you have to pay taxes on personally, though our tax department has been filing all the tax returns for your parents and I strongly recommend you allow us to file for you as well." "Oh absolutely. I can't count high enough to do this kind of return," I laughed and he joined me. "The rest of your wealth is actually 'owned' by a small group of limited liability corporations. Profits from those corporations are invested back into them on a quarterly basis and for now the schedule is that on that same quarterly schedule, some of those profits can be returned as dividends to the shareholders. You are the only shareholder, so the LLC group will divert whatever amount is needed to refill your personal account back up to that fifty million level." "So I could spend fifty million dollars every three months and not run out?" he nodded. I gulped. "How much of that is involved in the FiberDyne investment?" I asked. "Ahh, FiberDyne," Michael ran his hand through his hair again and took a large swallow of iced tea. I suddenly realized my throat was a little dry myself and followed suit. "I will let the fiberDyne people talk to you about what your investment with them means, but for the moment it is treated as an unrealized investment, so it is effectively off our balance sheet and not something you need to declare until such time as FiberDyne assigns a value to your share of the company." "I'll be meeting their president, Lloyd McCoy Tomorrow morning. Edwina Ibarra tells me that my parents were close friends of his." "They were. They met on the flight out from New Jersey when they first moved out. They just hit it off and were friends immediately. Lloyd's a good guy, you'll like him." "So far I've liked everyone my parents knew here in Santa Rosa." We both sipped our iced tea again for a quiet pause. "So, where do I go from here?" I asked once we'd both set our glasses down again. "It really depends on what you want to do with your investments. Right now they are still running under long term guidance provided by your father. Those instructions are only good for a few more months, and every week they become slightly less effective because he is no longer here to fine tune them in reaction to changing markets and economies." "What would you recommend?" I asked. "I'm not the genius your father was, but I'm considered to be one of the best of those of us who wished we were him. I think I can do at least half as well as your father was doing and that would be some better than most. Your money's here already, which means its earning me money too." "I'll check with people I trust, but I think you are exactly where I need to be, financially." I said, reaching out my hand. We stood and shook on that. "Come back in early next week and we can get everything signed. That will give you time to do some due diligence on me, and give me time to get a fresh set of papers drawn up and over to your lawyer for review. You're keeping Darius Booker, I assume?" "I planned to, yes." "Good. They've got some financial specialists there that he should have look over what we send him. Be sure to ask him about that when you talk to him." Twenty minutes later I was sitting on the seat of my bike with my helmet in my hand, trying to get focused enough for the drive over to the Double V bike shop. "Bud, you there?" I asked silently. "Of course," came his reply. "Cooper?" "Sure thing, boss." "You guys were awful quiet there at the end. I could have used a few friendly reassurances." "Sorry man," Cooper said. "I guess I was a little flabbergasted." "My apologies too, Harley. While I had some inkling of how things were going to work out, I was no more aware than you of the specifics. Like Cooper, I was at a loss for words." "I understand," I said as I put my helmet on and started the bike. "Now that I have my trusty navigator back, maybe you can guide me to the motorcycle shop." "Of course," Bud said haughtily. "We need to go south on Santa Rosa avenue until just after we cross Luther Burbank Memorial Highway. Then we take the turn onto Petaluma Hill Road south. The shop is about four blocks on." "Sounds easy enough, but keep your eyes open for the turn." The double V shop was just what I was hoping for, and Gus, their 'Harley Miracle Man' won me over immediately when he looked at the papers I carried on the bike and told me I needed to go down to the Harley dealer for any servicing for another 11 months. "This baby's still under warranty," he said with a rueful grin. "You can any repairs or scheduled maintenance done free of charge at the dealership down there. Once the warranty expires next May, you can start coming to me. Now, you want any sort of customization in the meantime, you come to me. They've got good mechanics down there, but if it don't meet the original HD specs they don't know it exists." Gus had looked my helmet over and asked me a few questions when he saw the ear buds sticking up out of my jacket. He suggested a bluetooth communication system that would allow me to listen to my mp3 player with much less hassle than I was experiencing, trying to get the helmet on without dislodging the ear buds. "I can do better than that if you'll leave your helmet with me for a couple of days," he offered. " I've got a custom padding replacement insert that has all the wiring embedded. You just connect the bluetooth system to it and you're ready to go." I bought a second helmet to have as a spare and wore it home, leaving my original there. I bought a bluetooth unit for it too and had my music hooked up to it for the ride home. One of the girls in the shop was about Kelli's size, so I asked her what size helmet she wore. I bought a woman's helmet in that size. I had given the shop my email address, as they promised to keep me informed on any sort of organized Harley events in the area. The upcoming Fourth of July parade was a rapidly approaching one they mentioned, telling me they usually had a contingent of 30 or 40 Harley and Viking riders who participated, riding as a group. The parade information had me Hmmm'ing on the way out the door and all the way down the street to the Russian River Brewery. It was so close I didn't even need Bud to act as navigator. I bought two pint bottles of their 'Blind Pig' to take home. I was going to need a few good beers to help me wash down the days developments. ------- Chapter 31 There was a big surprise waiting for me on the porch when I got home. The FedEx folks had been by and two very large boxes were sitting against the front door. "That's my stuff from Camp Gonsalvez," Cooper said. I drove the bike into the garage and parked it, but took the two helmets and the two beers in with me, dropping the first two on the breakfast bar. I opened one of the beers and put the other in the fridge. I took a long, refreshing pull from my open beer and immediately began wondering if two were going to be enough. I put the beer on the coffee table in the living room and opened the front door to stare down at the two boxes. "They're not going to move themselves," Cooper laughed. "I know," I laughed in return, "but I do still have moments where I forget I'm not a nonagenarian any more. I was standing here wondering how heavy those boxes were like I was still old and decrepit." The boxes were heavy, but not so much that I couldn't manage them. The were more awkward than anything as I tried to get them through the front door – after checking the bottoms for dirt. No sense getting Edwina mad at me right off the bat. Before I got too carried away with unpacking, I called Kelli. "Hi Cooper," she said as soon as she answered. I may have been a nonagenarian, but I still knew about caller id and programmable ring tones. Granted, my experience was mostly second and third hand. "Hi Kelli, what are you doing for the Fourth of July?" "You're calling to ask for a date a month in advance? This isn't what I expected when you said you'd call later in the week," she said with 'tease' dripping from every syllable. "No, I'll probably give you a call tomorrow afternoon to ask about the coming weekend, or next week, but in the meantime I just need to know what your plans are for the Fourth. Do you spend it with family? Do you usually go somewhere for the weekend, or do you participate in the local activities?" "The family usually gets together at my Aunt's house and we usually do the local things. Fireworks, parades, that sort of thing. Why?" "I've got an opportunity to do something on the Fourth that I thought we might have fun doing together, but I don't want an answer right away. I just wanted to be sure that you would be here for the holiday before I started making plans." "Well I will be in town, and I look forward to finding out exactly what it is you plan on getting me involved in. We can talk about it when you call me tomorrow," she stressed, laughing as she did. "You have my guarantee," I promised. " ... unless?" "Unless what?" "You are working tomorrow?" "I am." "How about lunch? Could we meet somewhere for lunch? I could pick you up at the inn if that would work better for you and we could go somewhere nearby so you don't feel rushed." "Oh that sounds good, and I know just the place. Were you thinking noon for lunch?" "I was. Where's the place? Do I need to make a reservation?" "No, its a nice little cafe and bakery very close to the inn called Michelle's Patisserie. Their desserts are to die for, but the lunches are awesome too. You'll love the food and the owner is a friend of the family. You can come pick me up? In a car, not a motorcycle?" "Yes, I can," I laughed. "Great, its a date then," "It is, I'll see you tomorrow," there was an awkward moment then as we both hesitated before hanging up. Reluctance on my part, as I hoped it was on hers. The two boxes, once we got our head cleared of the phone call to Kelli, were divided into military and civilian. Though Cooper had been the Marine, I recognized the three uniform variations that were in the box, though I could hear his silent description as we pulled the pieces out of the box. Their was a set of dress blues, a khaki service uniform and a utility uniform in the modern Marine camouflage. There were hard and soft caps for the first two, and the utility cover and a boonie hat for the utility uniform. Actually there were three and two respectively of those last types. The dress blues and the service uniform were each packed inside their own garment bag. The white and khaki hard covers that went with them were in boxes. Everything else was folded neatly but loosely in the box except for two pair of dress shoes that were also in boxes. "Oh! I stuffed two watch caps in each shoe," Cooper said. "To help them keep from getting too flattened in shipping." I was still wound up from the earlier meeting and needed to burn some energy. Bud suggested some time in the basement and Cooper offered a few laps around the property as an alternative. I cast my vote for the run, preferring to work up a real sweat as opposed to the skull sweat that Bud offered. With the vote in, I ran upstairs and quickly changed into my running gear. I knew without his having said it that Cooper had more running gear in the second, unopened box. As I ran, I considered the future, known and unknown. I was supposed to be a super hero one of these days, according to Bud. I was a billionaire son of a former banking heavyweight mother with ties to organized crime and a financial and economic genius father who had died violently. Absolutely comic book material. I had a beautiful home in a scenic area with a hidden cavern and seemed to have attracted the interest of a beautiful young woman. There were no bats in the cavern and I was no Batman, but I was a plucky sidekick away from becoming a cliche. There was no doubt in my mind that having access to that kind of money would make this becoming a super hero thing easier to do, assuming this molecular telekinesis thing was actually going to amount to something. Having that kind of money would also make it far more difficult to maintain a low profile. Would I hold a job of some kind, or just be known as a rich investor? As Harley Scoville, I had some skills that were outdated in this day and age of digital publishing and the internet. As Cooper James, I had a skill set that had limited marketability outside the ranks of the military and law enforcement. Assuming I achieve the goals set by Bud, how much of my life would be dedicated to those super hero chores he told me would come? Would I be able to have a real life beyond it? Was my hopefully developing relationship with Kelli doomed because of it? Could I have friends, as I hoped Darius Booker would become, or would I have to isolate myself to protect myself and those around me? So preoccupied was I with these thoughts I wound up running my normal route twice. When I walked back into the house through the back yard, I was hit with the smell of something wonderful coming from the kitchen. I walked out to the kitchen and saw Edwina standing at the stove stirring something, though she must have heard me come in, because she had her head turned my way as I rounded the corner. "Afternoon Edwina," I waved. "Well hello Cooper," she called in return. "I saw you out running as I pulled in, but you were out there quite a long time." "I was," I agreed. "And I desperately need a shower because of it, so I apologize, but I've got to leave you immediately to take care of that." I did need the shower and it did feel great. Once I was clean I finished with a cold shower just to discourage myself from further sweating. I put on a polo shirt, jeans and the pair of worn shoes I'd found when I first came to the house. They had been Mr. James' and they just felt comfortable. Dinner was fish. A halibut filet with a delicious lemon and dill sauce, rice and baby carrots. I had a large glass of ice cold milk with it and that was delicious too. As Harley I'd spent thirty some years with a ever-worsening lactose intolerance. There was enough left over from the meal that I could plan on lunch for the next couple of days, except that I had a lunch date tomorrow. "Lets go to the basement," Bud said as soon as Edwina had left for the night. ------- Chapter 32 There was a light rain the next morning but I ran anyway, enjoying the coolness and the hushed tones of the rain falling lightly all around me. I took my shower and then ate breakfast wearing only a pair of boxers and a pair of socks. I spent a little time on the internet afterward, looking for some pictures of the Santa Rosa parade. I found exactly what I wanted and realized at that moment that I didn't have a printer, so I couldn't print the picture I wanted. I bookmarked the links I'd found and took the laptop with me when I left. Dressed as nicely as I could, based on the limited clothes shopping I'd been able to do so far, I drove the Wangler to my ten am meeting. Lloyd McCoy was right about how easy close it was and how easy it would be to spot the big red FiberDyne sign. It was a big sign attached to an even bigger five story building. There was no receptionist. I was met at the door by Lloyd McCoy. "Cooper, its a pleasure to meet you at last," this handshake was a little milder than others I'd had recently, and a little more timid, though Edwina was right about the voice. Lloyd tended to boom. "I'm pleased to meet you too, Mr. McCoy," I smiled, looking closely at the man. "I've heard you were close to my parents. Perhaps their closest friend." "Well, I might nominate Edwina Ibarra for the closest friend position, but Charles and Deanna and I were friends. Its ... sad, knowing they're gone and I get angry every time I think of how they died." "We'll talk more about that as we get to know each other better, I'm sure. To be honest, I've found out in the past couple of days that I didn't really know my parents at all." All the while we'd been talking, I had followed Mr. McCoy across the room and into an elevator. There were eight buttons, which was surprising for a five story building, and he punched the number five. During the ride up, which was longer than expected, as the elevator was painfully slow, I listened to a lighthearted recounting of the first time my parents met on a flight from Philadelphia to Santa Rosa. Cooper and I were both aware, from our separate experiences living in Blackwood, that the Philly airport was the closest to our mutual home town, so for that reason it wasn't surprising to hear. Mr. McCoy had been flying out of there after having attended a conference on the campus of Temple University and Cooper's parents were beginning their move to Santa Monica. "I just appreciated the obvious tender concern they displayed for each other. That was what attracted me to them at first," he finished. By this time we were standing in a large area at least as wide as the whole building. There was a wall of glass stretching across the inside wall, with more conventional windows on the outside wall showing the street below and the mostly undeveloped area surrounding it. There were two men there, both occupied with computers on the desks in front of them. There was a third desk that I assumed was Mr. McCoy's. "Coffee?" Lloyd asked, pointing at a coffee pot and accessories sitting on a small table near a cluster of casual chairs and small couches. "Sure," I agreed, walking towards the pot. "Ben! Sam!" he called out. The other two men looked up, then back down briefly before getting up to come over to the coffee area. "Cooper, this is Dr. Benjamin Girardi and Dr. Samsi Nieminen. Ben, Sam, this is Cooper James." "Mr. James," they both said. Dr. Nieminen with a slight accent. "Please, call me Cooper," I said offering a handshake. Both men returned it in turn. "Did you know my parents too?" "Yes Cooper, and please, call me Sam," Dr. Nieminen answered in his accented English. It sounded Scandinavian, and I thought the last name might be Finnish. "Not as well as Lloyd, but they were good people," Dr. Girardi added. "And call me Ben." "Cooper, we're so sorry to have to meet under these circumstances, but I think that things will be very exciting around here very soon, and it will be good to have you here for it." "Well, that certainly sounds interesting," I laughed. "Are you going to make me rich?" All three of them laughed at that. "You are already rich, are you not?" Sam asked. "We have made us and you richer." "And maybe famous," Ben added. "Famous!" I said. "What did you guys do?" "What we did, the three of us and your parents, was invent something cool, yes," Lloyd confirmed. "We invented it," Sam said, his accent a little thicker from his excitement. "Lloyd, Ben and I. But your parents funded it." "I thought I saw that they invested in a ten percent share of fiberDyne." "No, that's not right," Ben said. "I think you mis-read that Cooper," Lloyd sat down in one of the chairs and took a sip of his coffee. There was a long pause while Ben and Sam filled their cups and sat on one of the couches. I sat as well and took a sip of my own coffee. Perhaps Lloyd has used this as a way to collect his thoughts. He continued once we were all seated. "They invested ten percent of their fortune in FiberDyne. It was a considerable amount. For this, they became owners of one third of FiberDyne." "Lloyd was the one with the original inspiration that started this whole thing, and he funded the original tests, as well as conducting all the early experiments." Ben added. "For this, he owns one third of FiberDyne. "My ideas, and experiments and your parents' money allowed these two geniuses to solve some problems that have been plaguing some of their colleagues for the past couple of years." Lloyd continued. "For this, they too own a third of FiberDyne." "So the four of us own one hundred percent of FiberDyne," the three of them nodded, smiling at last. "And we're going to be rich and famous soon? How?" "Do you know what graphene is?" Lloyd asked. "No," I admitted "Although it sounds vaguely familiar." "Graphene is an allotrope of carbon, made up of a honeycomb of carbon atoms in a planar arrangement a single atom thick." Ben explained. "It has very interesting properties, including being capable of being either metallic or semiconducting." "Do you know what a nanotube or a buckyball is?" Sam asked, but didn't really wait for an answer. "Again these are new nanoscale materials with interesting properties, like graphene." "We won't assume that the Marine Corp spent a lot of time teaching you physics or chemistry," Lloyd laughed. They were on a roll now. They had spent some time considering how to present this, obviously. "Our breakthroughs, and there were a couple, let us take advantage of the recent breakthroughs in the creation of graphene and carbon nanotubes on a large scale to create a new class of fabrics." Ben continued. "We combined some new techniques for creating self-assembling monolayers and graphene monoribbons in combination with Fullerene strings." I think they saw the way my eyes had begun to glaze over at that point. Lloyd laughed and patted me on the back. Sam and Ben glanced at each other and joined Lloyd's laughter. "Sorry," I laughed along with them. "But you lost me at nano somethng-or-other." "To explain it in terms that won't put you to sleep, we've developed fabrics which are capable of some interesting things" Lloyd said with a dramatic wave of an arm at an imaginary vista. "Imagine selling clothes that are self-adjusting'" Ben added. "Imagine clothes that can heat or cool you as needed without requiring batteries," Sam offered. "Imagine suits that are bulletproof." "Fireproof." "Invisible." "Invisible?" I asked, ending their three man ping pong match. "Well, there has been some research on invisibility where our research might be applicable, but our fabric would just allow an improvement. That's sort of a theoretical one." Lloyd confessed. "So we're going to set the world of fabrics on fire then?" "No, not exactly. What we've done is set the defense industry on fire." "The Department of Defense bought almost everything we've developed." "For a lot of money. A lot!" I was getting ping ponged again, but was willing to let them have their head. "We're set to announce this, at a joint press conference with the Defense Advanced Materials Development Center at Travis Air Base." Lloyd said after a long pause. My coffee had gone cold, but I wasn't really interested in it any more. "How much is a lot?" I asked. "You know what the F-22 Raptor is?" Ben asked. "A stealth fighter?" I guessed. Something I remembered as Harley without Cooper having to prompt me. "Yes, and they cost the Air Force 122 million dollars each," Lloyd added, laughing. "We could each buy one," Sam said in a throaty whisper. "Every year." "They're paying that much?" I asked, impressed. "Right now they are depending on us to make it for them. This entire building, except for this floor, is a manufacturing facility and it is currently making eight different highly classified materials and three different unclassified but strategic materials." So I got the grand tour. There were military police stationed at the entrances to every floor in the building, and several of them were clean room areas that we couldn't enter without suiting up and going through decontamination. I passed. At quarter after eleven, I told them that I had another appointment at noon, so we went back upstairs to wrap things up. "We'll have to get together next week with our military liaison, Major Vance Lancaster." I agreed to set up a meeting and left them with my cell and email address. ------- Chapter 33 Once again I had a lot to think about as I drove away. I seemed to fall into money like some people fell in love. Early and often. "Remember to ask them about the nano fabrics the military wasn't interested in," Bud said just as we were turning east onto Guerneville Road. I thought about that during the drive in. There were plenty of times Bud kept quiet, and plenty of times he spoke up, and I wasn't sure if he was calculated in choosing his times. I had to keep reminding myself that Bud was 'The Voice', and perhaps the reason I had woken up in Cooper James' body. Bud was the one who kept saying I was going to be a super hero and showing me how to do the telekinesis stuff. I might trust Bud, but that didn't mean I was going to forget that Bud had an agenda. My ruminations kept me distracted until I was pulling into the parking lot of the Hillside Inn. I parked near the door and headed for the door when Kelli came out to meet me. "Hi Kelli," I called. "Hello yourself Cooper," she replied as she walked over to me, putting her hands on my shoulders and going up on her tiptoes. When she kissed me lightly on the lips, I realized for the first time that Kelli was a tall woman. Tall enough that I didn't have to lean down in order for her to kiss me, and my Cooper James body was six feet four. "I'm glad to see you," I said, grabbing a hand as I walked her over to the Wrangler to open the door for her. "Oh rough day already?" she asked. "Not rough, but a little weird." I laughed. "Well, you can tell me all about it. As well as this mystery Fourth of July thing." That conversation got put on hold as Kelli started giving me directions. Michelle's Patisserie was only a few blocks from the inn, so the directions were minimal and the trip was brief. I'd been half expecting a very feminine, ladies-only décor, given the name, but it was much more gender neutral, done up in stainless steel, chrome with a white and blue enamel painted stripe around the room at the height of, and in the dimensions that suggested an old fashioned chair rail, though the decorative accent was merely that, and not meant to be protective. That decorative touch was echoed by a matching strip near the ceiling that suggested antique crown molding. The tables and place settings matched the tones and colors, replicating the blue and white of the wall decorations. It was feminine, I realized, but in a very subtle way. A young woman greeted Kelli by name. "Kelli! Welcome back." "Hi Melissa, nice to be back, as always. This is Cooper. Cooper this is Melissa." We exchanged greetings and then Melissa showed us to a table. I really hadn't had enough coffee yet so asked for coffee when she asked what we'd like to drink. Kelli asked for tea. "I'll be right back with your drinks," I took my eyes off Kelli to look at the menu. There were some very interesting sandwiches, and I was drawn to what was called a 'crusted lamb and tomato' sandwich. I ordered that along with an 'Agean Summer Salad'. Kelli ordered the same salad as her meal. "So," she said as we waited for our meal. "What's happening on the Fourth of July?" "There's a parade, I said. I paused long enough after saying that to get an overly-dramatic frown from Kelli. "The local Harley Davidson enthusiasts participate. I have a Harley Davidson." "So you'll be riding in the parade? I nodded. "But I don't have a Harley Davidson, so what's the catch?" "Well..." I drew out nervously. "I've seen pictures from last year's parade. Each of the riders had a passenger riding behind them. I'd like to ask you to be my passenger." "You want me to ride in the Fourth of July parade with you. Is this one of those things like I've seen on TV about motorcycle rallies? Do I have to wear some skimpy bikini or something?" "No, absolutely not!" I protested immediately. "some of the women in the picture I saw were wearing bikini tops and halter tops, but plenty of them were wearing shirts and shorts. It was a sunny July day after all." "I see," she said, and I could tell this was suddenly less amusing than it had been. "Kelli, this is something of a lark, that's all," I told her, reaching out for her hand. "I know we'll have a date or two between now and then before this idea would seem more acceptable." "You're right about that," and her smile came back a little. "So I'm not actually asking you yet, okay? I'm just letting you know this is something I'm thinking about doing, and I wanted you to know as early as possible, not just spring it on you with no warning." "I can understand that," her eyes softened to match the smile. "I guess I'm being a little paranoid." "That tells me you've had some problems in the past. I apologize on behalf of my gender." "No, I like your gender, and most of you are decent enough, if short," I laughed in surprise at the short reference. "funny, I feel pretty much the same way about your gender." "My problem is that I seemed to attract deceitful little pr ... oblems." nicely saved, I thought at the obvious word change. "You've been lied to." "Painfully so, and its made me gun-shy, I guess. Don't let me take it out on you." "I'll let you know if I think you're being unfair, but don't hold back if it helps," I tried to put as much honest openness in my expression as possible. "I'll have things to tell you about myself over time, assuming you're willing to see me after the first date." "This doesn't count then?" "As our first date? No way. Our first date needs to be a little more of a production than this, don't you think? This is more of a lunch meeting than a date." "A lunch meeting to plan our first date. That seems a bit clinical to me." "I agree, but I'm trying to avoid a big dating disaster later by tempting a minor one now. Look, I'm new to Santa Rosa, new to California and my most recent experiences are of the jungles of Okinawa and the Philippines. I am in no position to plan and execute a decent date. I don't know where anything is, outside of a few businesses. I know you like riding dune buggies on the beach. I know California is known for surfing. I know there are huge redwood trees and I know about Yosemite park, but about the only thing I can tell you about it is that Yogi Bear isn't from there." "I see," she laughed. "You really do need help. I'm sorry if I was being a bit cruel about it." "No, its just as natural for you to assume I would be able to handle it, and to be honest, I probably could whip up something that would be the definition of an impressive date. I've got the internet to clue me in on what's happening in the area and there are always the tried and true options to fall back on – dinner at a fancy restaurant, a movie, a play, dancing and drinks someplace trendy." "Sounds like you do know the usual tricks," she laughed again, a light, sharing-the-joke kind of laugh. "I do, but I don't want to just pull out the usual bag of tricks. I want something fun and memorable, NOT something pulled from the usual first date lineup." "Oh, I agree with that!" Kelli leaned forward and grinned. "As you've probably noticed, I'm a bit taller than the average girl, and I'm athletic. I get asked out a lot by guys who see me as a challenge. The more enthusiastic they are the shorter they seem to be too, so the fact that you're taller than me by more than a couple inches is a big plus in my book. You look athletic, which appeals to me as well." well, that was an interesting blurb. I pondered it while I felt Cooper's silent affirmations of our athleticism and admiration for Kelli's. Before I could say aloud any of the things the both of us were thinking, our lunches arrived. I continued to ponder it over the excellent meal, all the while managing to carry on a conversation devoted entirely to personal trivia. I learned that Kelli had played volleyball in high school and again in college. I learned that she liked to ski; water and snow, and had been trying to snowboard in recent years. In turn, she learned from me that I loved to water ski and snow ski as well. Cooper was the water skier and I was the snow skier, having picked up the activity while stationed in Europe during the war. Cooper was also a fan of jet skiing and snowmobiles, neither of which I had any experience with, though I had seen both on TV late in Harley's lifetime. As Harley I had loved baseball and played tennis, while Cooper had loved Tennis and played baseball. Kelli enjoyed softball and swimming. I was a competent swimmer. Cooper said his swimming had mostly been of the military survival kind, and he too considered himself competent. By the time we were done with lunch I had a much better idea of what might appeal to Kelli as far as a first date was concerned. I knew it would probably be something outdoors and something on or near the water. By the time I was dropping her off at the Hillside, I knew when her days off would be for the next couple of weeks and left her with a kiss, slightly more lingering than the one I'd received when we met for lunch, and a promise to call sometime in the next couple of days with plans for a date. ------- Chapter 34 The cavern seemed cool after the ride back from the Hillside Inn. Bud had been silently insistent on an immediate practice session. Other than a desire for a bit of time searching the internet for possible first date activities, Cooper and I were eager as well. "Remember that sense of focusing beyond focus," he reminded us as we settled into our now familiar spot on the cavern floor. "You must strive for an ever smaller focus point. Right now your sense is dancing around the molecules, not quite able to lock on them, but before you can lock on a larger object, you must be able to lock on an individual molecule within it." Easier said than done apparently, as we once again spent several hours chasing our sense of focus in and out and around a not quite grasped 'something' that seemed just out of reach. We did this with our eyes closed, sitting cross-legged on the floor. I expected to feel stiff when we finally stopped, but this young body was a lot more resilient than the old one I had so recently worn. Cooper and I might have felt discouraged if it hadn't been for the sense of accomplishment we felt from Bud. While we fixed the leftover halibut we'd had for last night's dinner into a halibut burger for tonight's, we listened to Bud describe our efforts in more glowing terms than we might have. "You are close," he told us. "And when it happens, you will know it immediately. There is a definite feeling to successfully locking on something with this ability. I will not have to tell you when it happens." To me it felt like I was trying to juggle marshmallows blindfolded while wearing boxing gloves. Cooper laughed. "The blindfold is an illusion," Bud laughed along with Cooper. "And the boxing gloves are quickly shrinking away." After dinner and a shower, I spent a little time cleaning up after myself in the kitchen and then sat down with the laptop out on the front porch. The rocking chair there had been inviting me since I'd first walked up the porch steps and I finally succumbed to its lure. I had decided to look first at water skiing in the Santa Rosa area. The two biggest lakes in the area were Lake Sonoma and Lake Berryessa, and I quickly discovered that water skiing was definitely available on both, with boat and ski rentals available both places. It was at this point that Cooper brought me crashing, very temporarily back to earth. "Whose going to drive the boat?" Water skiing was definitely less enjoyable when it was only two people. It would be more enjoyable with a larger group. "What about jet skis?" Cooper asked. I had no experience with them, but remembered seeing them on TV. My remembered impressions filtered over to Cooper. "There are two and three person jet skis now, you could ride together and take turns doing the driving." So that began a new line of research into jet skiing. It doesn't take long to find plenty of opinion on the internet about anything, and in this case the opinion seemed to be that Lake Berryessa was the better choice for water ski or jet ski enthusiasts. It looked bleak though for dining options. If we were going to ski then eat, we were either going to have to pack it ourselves or find someplace away from the lake for dinner. After mulling those options over for a while, I expanded my search a little further, and ran smack dab into Lake Tahoe. Now this was a recreational lake! This begged the question though, of just how big I wanted to go. Something too grandiose, too soon might be bad in the long run. Lake Tahoe might be a good third date, maybe even a second date if the first went well. "some women like to be bowled over," Cooper thought out loud for us both. "I don't think Kelli is the type to appreciate that on a first date," I responded. "We need to let her know we're filthy stinking rich and getting richer, but not on the first date." "You're right," Cooper responded. "But we're currently an unemployed former devil dog with little to recommend us beyond our good looks, and charming manner. We need..." he stopped at that point, I could tell he was thinking, but couldn't tell what, other than that it involved Kelli. "What?" I thought in his direction. "Kelli," he thought eventually. "We're thinking some pretty serious thoughts about this girl and we barely know her." "We are," I agreed. "I was always the type to assume if I was going to show an interest it should be a serious interest. I know your generation is a little more casual." "My generation is a LOT more casual, but I wasn't. I'm more like you in that than anyone I grew up with. It made my high school years difficult. I spent a lot of time looking for someone I could have a serious interest in, but only came close. Kelli seems closer to that already than any woman I've ever known." "You are more like me than I expected you to be, once I realized what was going on. You were definitely more athletic than I was, but that can be attributed to the differences in the times we grew up in, I think. I was more academically oriented, but there were no outlets outside of that that were available to me as a young man. At least none that would have been acceptable to my parents." "You two are similar," Bud interjected. "This is one of the reasons you two were candidates for this project. You are growing more similar all the time and that is because the two of you are moving closer to being one person." We both objected at that point. I didn't have to sense Cooper to know what the objection was. He objected, as I did, to the thought that one of us might 'fade' into the other, or even that we both might slowly 'go away' in favor of some new personality that was a synthesis of our combined consciousnesses. "Neither of you is going to loose your sense of self," Bud attempted to dismiss our fears. "Harley has control, but Cooper will always be Cooper and Harley will always be Harley." We sat digesting that for a while, and perhaps Bud could sense when we had accepted it, or at least mostly accepted it, because he threw more chum into the waters then. "You will always be the unique and separate entities you were, I promise," he said into the short pause caused by our introspection. "But ... You will have to learn to be able to act and think as one being. You will not be able to take the last step in your transformation until you can." "Now let's go practice." Some Kind of Hero by Sea-Life Book Two: Harley ------- Chapter 35 I was thinking about calling Kelli the next morning to ask her if she liked golf. I'd liked the game when I was younger but had never picked it back up once I was back from Europe following VE Day. Cooper had played but had never been all that taken with it, but was game to give it another try. I had thought an afternoon of golf, followed by an upscale dinner someplace near the golf course. My plan to call Kelli were interrupted by my phone ringing. "Cooper James," I answered. "Cooper! How you doing?" Came Darius Booker's distinctive voice. "Darius? I'm fine man, what's up?" Cooper guided my speech patterns from very near the surface of our thoughts. My phone skills were still a little too stuck in the 1930s for this kind of call. "You busy this weekend?" "Well, I've been trying to line up a date, but nothing's set in stone yet, why?" "Ah, well that's good. Do you think your potential date might like to go water skiing?" I laughed out loud. "What?" Darius asked, puzzled. "That was one of the first things I thought of for a date, but rejected it because I didn't see it as a two person activity." "Yeah, its more fun when there's a group, so that's why I'm calling, actually. I've got a houseboat and ski boat Saturday and was wondering if you wanted to come try some water skiing." "When to when, and what would we need?" "We were going to leave about 9 Saturday morning. We should be on the water before noon. We can lunch on the lake, ski all afternoon and then stop somewhere for dinner on the way back." "Wow, that sounds perfect," I said, wondering silently how I managed to again have things just seem to come together perfectly. "What's my share of the boat rental?" "It's not a rental. One of the mid-level partners at the firm owns both boats and keeps them on Lake Berryessa. We buy the fuel and the food, that's it. It'll be Tina and I, our friends Ken and Gloria Reynolds and hopefully, you and your date." "It sounds awesome, but I'll have to call you back after I talk to her," I glanced at the clock. "I'll call you back sometime before lunch?" "Sounds good. Listen, Tina's planning on making burgers for lunch and Ken and Gloria will be bringing potato salad. Bringing anything else is not required, but feel free, if you'd like. Also, since we're going to be on the water and we're all driving, no alcohol." "I think we can handle that," I agreed, silently glad for the alcohol prohibition. A very few seconds after hanging up with Darius, I was dialing Kelli's number. "Hi Cooper." "Hi Kelli. Am I catching you at work?" "No, I don't go in until noon today. What's up?" "Would you like to go water skiing this weekend? It would be us and two other couples." "Water skiing? That sounds like fun. Who are we going with?" "My lawyer Darius Booker and his wife Tina and their friends Ken and Gloria Reynolds. Darius is the only one of them I've actually met, but he's a good guy." "Where are we going, and how are we getting there?" "Lake Berryessa, and we're driving. We're supposed to leave about 9am. Darius has a houseboat and a ski boat for the day, so we can eat lunch and relax on the water when we're not skiing. The plan is to stop for dinner on the way back from the lake." "So pack something nice to wear for dinner? Does the houseboat have a shower? Do we need to bring anything? What about drinks?" "I'm not sure about the dress, I'll ask Darius when I call back to confirm," I began mentally ticking off her questions as I answered them. "Same for the shower, I'll ask. Tina is making hamburgers for lunch and the Reynolds are bringing potato salad. Darius says we don't have to bring anything, but can if we want. Drinks should be non-alcoholic, since we're boating. I imagine those of us not driving could have drinks with dinner when the time comes." "Are we all driving up together then?" "I think so. I saved a lot of questions until I'd talked to you first," which was pretty much the end of the conversation, except for a few hems and haws as once again we seemed reluctant to let each other go. I called Darius back immediately and got the information we would need. Yes, there were bathrooms on the houseboat. Yes, something nice to wear for dinner would be good, but don't go all out. Transportation was indeed a planned convoy leaving from some point, yet to be determined, where we would meet up before heading east where we would take either the Calistoga road or the St. Helena road. From there we would follow highway 128 to Lake Berryessa. Calistoga road I was familiar with – it was the road I'd come into Santa Rosa on. I Google-mapped the St. Helena road as we were discussing the trip and saw it went more in the direction we intended to go, as we would have to pass through St. Helena eventually anyway if we took the Calistoga route. In fact we were going to be going back out the way I came in for a while either way. I voted for St. Helena and Darius agreed. With all the items mentally checked off my list, I called Kelli back. "If we're going to meet up, why don't we do it at the Hillside?" she suggested immediately, but then cut me off before I could agree. "Or perhaps the IHOP? We could meet early and have breakfast before we hit the road." I liked that idea, though getting to the IHOP on the eastern side of Santa Rosa from my house on the Russian river meant leaving even earlier for me. I had no idea where anyone else lived, so maybe it wasn't just me who was going to be pulling out early. "That's a damn fine idea," Darius said when I called him. "Saves me from having to listen to Tina fret about dirty dishes sitting in the dishwasher all day. We probably would have had to get up early anyway to deal with the dishes before we left, and truth be told, I love IHOP's blueberry pancakes." So I passed the word back on to Kelli, and when the dust settled, I had a date for Saturday, was going to spend time with Darius, who I liked, and meet his wife and a couple of their friends. We again had some trouble finishing our call. Kelli was excited about the skiing, excited to meet people I knew, even if Darius was really the only one I knew. She was excited to be going to dinner after the skiing and I had a feeling she was going to use it as an excuse to shop for a new dress. I hoped that the restaurant was going to meet up to the standards of the dress. Once I managed to get off the phone I went for my morning run. There had been a little rain again overnight, but it had been light and was almost completely dried up by the warm morning air. My thoughts as we ran were a mixture of excitement, apprehension and worry. I could sense Cooper's emotions and knew he was similarly preoccupied. "Focus!" Bud screamed into my head. If it was a real voice it would have been hoarse by now. He had abandoned the gentle, fatherly encouragement today for a more R. Lee Ermey kind of approach. I was starting to think of him as 'Full Metal jacket Bud'. The problem was that we were just tantalizingly, agonizingly, frustratingly close. I could feel my sense slipping off around and away from whatever I tried to lock on to, but I could not get it to stay locked for long enough to sense I had accomplished it. Still, I could touch it. I was feeling that touch happen. Then it would seem to slip away all over again. I could feel my anger and frustration growing and I felt Cooper's growing as well behind mine. There was another problem. Cooper shouldn't be behind me in anything; thoughts, emotions, senses, life, anything. This was his body we inhabited, not mine and he was young and hadn't had a chance to experience the long life I had. Those thoughts increased my frustration even more. He may have tried to throw his life away, but he deserved more than the peripheral second chance Bud and whoever was behind him had given him. My anger burned, and my frustration added fuel to the fire, and my love for the great grandson I hadn't even known existed until we were both dead made me do something I hadn't thought I was capable of. I reached within my 'self', behind it and grabbed Cooper and brought him to the forefront of our consciousness. "This is your body and your life we're living," I told him. "You need to be the one living it, so get busy living!" and with that, I let myself fade back into the place where I should have been all along. It wasn't until some long moments later that we realized we were locked onto a molecule with everything we had. ------- Book 3 ------- Chapter 36 Well, this was a fine situation I'd gotten myself into. I was back in charge of myself again, thanks to some mysterious mental manipulations by Grandpa Harley. That thought came later though. The first thing I realized was that I was locked on something, or rather we were locked on something. No slippery-slidey evasion, no fading in and out or around. We were locked on a molecule of something. "Good! Good!" Bud was screaming in my ear. "That's it! You've got it" I felt Harley's eagerness just behind and beside mine. I felt the question in him just as I was forming the thought to ask myself. "Okay Bud. We've got it, but can you tell us what it is we've got?" "Yes, but feel it for a bit first," he slid back into his detached lecture mode. "Taste it. Wrap your senses around it so you will recognize it the next time you lock onto this substance." "Okay," I said, with grandpa's thoughts echoing mine, and we did, trying to get a feel for what we had hold of. How do you describe that though? I didn't have anything to compare it to at the time, but later would describe this particular one as hard and 'pokey'. Yeah, a good technical description, I know. "Good," Bud said after a while. "What you are locked onto is a molecule of silicon carbide, which you might know as carborundum. It is a very useful material, and is made up of silicon and carbon atoms." "Isn't carborundum a synthetic material?" I asked, remembering something about the material I'd been taught in a high school shop class. "It is," Bud confirmed. "Silicon Carbide is only rarely found naturally on Earth, and in minute quantities, but it is relatively easy to manufacture and carbon and silicon are both abundant materials. Silicon is the second most abundant element in Earth's crust, after oxygen." "So the dust on the floor of the cavern is carborundum?" grandpa asked and I echoed. Of course he would be more familiar with the older name for it. "Isn't that dangerous?" "It would be, if we hadn't taken some measures to keep it from mixing up into the air of the room. It is one of the few extraordinary measures we were able to accomplish here when we created the cavern." Harley and I had both been speculating in our own minds whether Bud represented alien visitors or time travelers from the future or something else, but this latest bit of not-quite-revelation made the alien visitor theory seem pretty likely. Just the way Bud referred to Earth gave that impression. "You are locked onto a molecule of silicon carbide, but it is unlikely that you've found a free molecule, separate from any others. The molecule is probably a part of some minute speck of carborundum dust, and that speck is made up of millions of similar molecules." Bud continued his lecture. "A trillion would be closer, in this case. Now, do you think you could grab a trillion molecules of silicon carbide at once?" "No," we said together. Our tone reflected the discouragement we were feeling. "Good, you would be foolish to expect to, but don't be discouraged. That is not our goal." Bud encouraged. "Now, let us return our attention to what you are still holding. Do you remember when you were first trying to open the door to the cavern and your efforts to turn on the lights?" "Yes," we replied as one. "Those efforts were aided by the use of a material that is very responsive to your ability. One might say it is eager to be touched in the way only you can touch it. It is a special material, and one not available to us here on Earth at this time." Harley and I were both nodding silently at this. It matched what we had felt. "One of the reasons we used silicon carbide here is that, like that special material, it is very receptive to your ability, though nowhere as sensitive as the door and light material. As well as this sensitivity, silicon carbide has another tendency, in that it likes to align in particular ways, forming lines and sheets of molecules. As you focus on the hold you have, you should eventually be able to sense the edges where those aligned molecules connect." We held our little invisible bit of carborundum for a while longer, trying now to feel its edges, but it was getting harder and harder to maintain our focus. Finally we'd just had enough. I looked at my watch and realized it was almost lunch time. We had been down here for almost three hours! Edwina was due to cook dinner that night, but in the meantime I was out of leftovers. I had all the fixings for sandwiches except for the meat, so I thawed a package of bacon in the microwave while I went and took another shower. I hadn't been all that physically active, but my work in the cavern had worked up another sweat. Plus, this time I felt dusty from being in there. With the bacon thawed I got it frying in a pan while I sliced a tomato and washed some lettuce. A couple BLT sandwiches sounded like a good lunch, but I was again out of beer and I'd finished off the lemonade I'd made a few days earlier. There was still coffee in the pot, but it had been sitting too long and no longer interested me. I had the bacon off the stove and sitting on a paper towel-covered plate letting the excess fat drip off when the doorbell rang. ------- Chapter 37 The doorbell had been four installers from Play it Again Sports. It took a couple hours with them to get the equipment assembled and configured properly. They had a diagram based on the photo and measurements I'd given Billy back at the store. While they were working I went looking for something to offer them in the way of refreshments, but I was out of beer and couldn't find any soft drinks. There were a few more cans of frozen lemonade concentrate in the freezer, but I was out of lemons to add to the pitcher, so I passed on that idea too. In the end, I gave the guy who seemed to be in charge the last sixty bucks I had in my wallet as a tip. He had passed along the message from Billy that the other half of the equipment was on order and would be here sometime late next week. I looked at the clock and felt a little pressure from Bud to go get in some more training, but the lack of beer, soft drinks or anything in the way of refreshments to offer company beyond tea or coffee headed me for the Wrangler and a quick shopping trip. I drove to a little town called Hacienda, where a bridge crossed the Russian river. It was actually closer than Guerneville, and on the way back to Santa Rosa. It was almost completely residential, with a single market and espresso stand in a wide spot in the road leading to the bridge. I did my shopping at the little place called Berry's Market. I bought a case of Corona and some limes to go with them. I'd had a lot of similar beer in the Philippines, and bought it more as a thirst quencher than anything else. I bought a bunch more cans of the frozen lemonade concentrate and a case of bottled iced tea with lemon. I found a bunch of nice fruit, surprising for a small market in the middle of nowhere, and bought a huge bag of fresh ultra dark, ultra sweet Bing cherries and several bags of very sweet, crisp green grapes. For a little more mundane snacking I bought a couple jars of 'gourmet' popcorn and some commercially packaged trail mix that was mostly a mix of peanuts, cashews, almonds, raisins and m&m candies. I knew that Mrs. Ibarra was going to do some major shopping for me sometime this week, but this would keep me supplied with beer and snacks for a while. I had a couple of days to get some shopping done before the ski trip too, and wondered whether I should buy the gear I would need. I hadn't thought to ask Darius about skis and life jackets, and I definitely didn't have any swim trunks, beyond the workout gear in the box from Okinawa. Those shorts were definitely not designed for swimming. I rode home thinking about another shopping trip. I carried my groceries into the kitchen and quickly got the fruit tucked away in the fridge, pulling off a nice bunch of grapes and washing them to have as a snack. I put the beer in the fridge and wished they were already cold enough to have one. Now that I was away from the noise of the road I pulled out my cell and called Darius and asked about skis and life jackets. He told me that they would probably have everything we needed and asked me what size shoes I wore. My size elevens were a size larger than his and a size and a half larger than Ken Reynolds. By the time I got off the phone I was convinced it would be best to go shopping for my own equipment. If I was going to be living here, I would hope to be using them often enough. With the call out of the way and the equipment installers gone, Bud's urging for more time in the cavern won out. The equipment made for a momentary distraction as we headed down, but only a moment. Soon enough I was standing in the middle of the dusty cavern floor focused on a molecule of silicon carbide. "Feel the edges," Bud spoke quietly in my thoughts. "It will be a slightly different feeling than you're experiencing now, but familiar, like the same note in a different key." I struggled with it long enough for my legs to get tired from standing in one spot so long, so I sat down in the dust, my focus unwavering and concentrated even harder. "Feel it," he whispered again. "Its like the moment, on a swing when you're reach the peak of your swing, but haven't begun to swing back the other direction. Its not really there, its just emptiness between two other things, but it feels real and distinct." Bud tried a dozen other ways of analogizing it, and who knows which one of them did the trick, since he rattled them off so quickly. Personally, I wanted to think it was the one about the moment after you pull the rip cord during a parachute jump, but before the chute pulls back as it begins opening. Regardless, I suddenly felt that edge he had been describing, and then suddenly I was locked on two molecules at the same time. "Yes!" Bud's cry came in my mind, and I felt Harley echo it. I hollered out loud in triumph myself, and that was all it took, I lost the lock completely. "Damn!" I said. "No, that was good," Bud encouraged. "That was a fine first time. Quickly, see if you can do it again." We bent back to our concentration and quickly established a molecular lock. It was mere seconds this time before we'd moved along that edge to lock on a second molecule and then a third and fourth. It felt easy, and I knew without trying that I could have kept locking on more, but I was feeling a little overwhelmed. "Drop your lock," Bud interrupted my moment of reverie. I did as he asked. "Now, grab a different molecule and do it again, just like before, but don't think about how many edges or how many molecules you're locking, just keep going." So I did, but after a while I stopped. I felt kind of groggy from the effort. I held the lock though, until Bud asked me to drop it again and start over. We repeated that process a dozen times, with me getting that groggy feeling a little quicker. When we stopped, I found I had a headache. My joints were all sore and my stomach was grumbling. I found the bowl of grapes I'd washed for myself before coming down and grabbed a quick handful on the way to the kitchen. They went down quickly, and I found the beer in the fridge cold enough now – we'd been in the cavern for almost three hours! I finished off the first Corona very quickly, not even waiting for a wedge of lime. While I got a lime sliced up for my next bottle, I opened the package of trail mix and filled a bowl with it. I ate handfuls of that while I fixed my next beer, finally washing down trail mix with a very satisfying Corona and lime. "Wow," I said aloud. "That took a lot out of me!" "It did," Bud agreed. "For now you are having to use your own energy for this, and you are expending a great deal of energy accomplishing what will require very little energy once you're used to it." "Sure, I thought back. "but right now I'm dealing with the tiniest amount, and I'm not moving it at all, just locking on it." "True, but you must remember that the amount of effort isn't really tied to the number of molecules you are locking onto. One molecule or a million, it is a single lock, so a single effort. Right now the effort is being expended exercising an unused mental muscle, so to speak. Even if its not a physical act, it can and will manifest as physical effort." "If you say so," Harley and I echoed. Bud laughed at our skepticism and sent back waves of silent reassurance. ------- Chapter 38 I was back at the Coddingtown Mall, or almost. Santa Rosa Ski & Sport was just across Guerneville road from the mall. I found everything I needed there, including a rack that I could mount myself to the spare tire mount on the rear. When they showed me a mount that fit over the spare tire mounting bracket, allowing you to put the spare back on the mount after attaching the ski rack, I was sold. I bought a nice pair of Radar X-Caliber combo skis and bindings, a Hyperlite life vest and Connelly ski gloves. I bought the vest and gloves that seemed the most comfortable, but the skis I bought based on the salesman's recommendation. They weren't the most expensive pair they had, but they weren't cheap either. I had a full appreciation for the protection a wetsuit offered, even in a relatively benign climate and favorable conditions, never mind coming ashore at night under fire. The shop didn't have anything in a full suit in stock for anyone my height, so I settled for a combination of a wetsuit jacket and trunks. The jacket was a size larger than I might otherwise wear, but the extra size helped compensate for my slightly wider shoulders and longer torso. After throwing in some accessories for maintaining the skis, bindings and wetsuit pieces, I'd once again dropped some serious change. I was out of cash as well, but there was a Bank of America branch right next to the Ski & Sport, so I popped over and used their ATM to grab some more cash. I preferred cash for tips and quick, small purchases. The part of me that was Harley now was more comfortable with it too, so I drew out $500, the maximum it would let me take. While I was in the bank, I saw a floor display - a typical bank display, in its way, showing a family enjoying a fourth of July picnic and stressing that financial security had allowed this idyllic scene. I wasn't worried about financial security, but the picnic scene reminded me that I didn't have an ice chest and that I hadn't seen a barbecue grill anywhere at the house. More shopping, but not today! I laughed at myself as I drove back home. I stopped at the subway on the corner first and grabbed a foot long. I said no to the meal option, as I had drinks and fresh fruit at home to help wash the sandwich down. It took me about twenty minutes in the garage to get the ski rack mounted properly and the spare tire back in its place. There were actually two racks, one on each side of the spare, and they were adjustable enough to use with water boards, snowboards and even bicycles, though you had to ditch the spare tire to strap a full-sized bike across the back. I'd managed to eat half my sub while I worked and took the other half to the kitchen and wrapped it in some plastic wrap I found in the pantry and put it in the fridge. Maybe lunch tomorrow, or a late night snack if another session this evening left me feeling like the last one. I dug out a couple of my PT Shirts and sunglasses from my Okinawa boxes and added them to a small collection that included my new board shorts. I would want to wash the shorts at least once before the ski trip, but I also wanted to make sure they would be comfortable, so I cut the tags off and put them on, along with one of the t shirts. I grabbed the sunglasses and the water shoes and went back downstairs. I tied my regular running shoes together and strung them around my neck. If the water shoes weren't comfortable with socks on for a short run, they wouldn't be comfortable worn wet and without socks. I made a final adjustment to everything and went for a run. The shoes seemed fine to start. It helped to have uniform feet. I knew some guys in my last unit who had a really hard time getting shoes because one foot was larger than the other. One guy actually had to get two pairs of shoes and throw the smaller left and larger right into the shoe bin. It didn't help that he was a size thirteen like me. There were seldom any shoes his size in the bin. While I ran, I tried using my sense to feel for any molecules that wanted to be locked on. Of course that's not really the way it worked, but as Bud explained, that was how it would often feel when it did work. I didn't have any success, but I wasn't really expecting to. In my own head I wondered if my own internal Yoda was going to tell me that my failure was because I expected to. Bud could be just as annoying as Yoda, but at least his sentences weren't inside out. After a lap around the property with no problems, I took everything off in the house and started a small load of laundry, mostly to get the board shorts washed. I used the utility sink downstairs to wash the water shoes off, inspecting them for damage. These shoes should be able to do dual service, dry land or water, but it never hurt to be paranoid about your gear. With the load going I went up and took another shower to wash off the dust of the run. With some clean trunks and a t shirt on, I went back downstairs to grab another beer and check out the news online. I was surprised to see Edwina in the kitchen cutting and chopping. I glanced at my watch and realized that I was once again letting time get the better of me. "What's for dinner?" I asked, sniffing the air. "Stuffed pork chops and au gratin potatoes," she answered. "Where'd you find the fruit?" "At Berry's Market in Hacienda of all places. I went there to get something to drink and found the grapes and cherries. They were too good to resist." "I'll have to stop by tomorrow. They make buying runs now and then through some of the better local farmer's markets and roadside vendors. Sometimes they come back with some really good stuff. Most of the time its pretty run of the mill." "Well today is was great, though I didn't look at anything else once I'd found these." "You're loading my fridge with beer too?" she asked. "I did buy some beer, and have some of it in the fridge. I'll try not to take up to much space, which reminds me..." I hadn't put any of the bottled ice tea in the fridge yet, so I quickly corrected that oversight. I think the sight of it mollified Edwina somewhat, as she went back to cooking. I headed over to the living room and fired up the TV and the laptop. I hoped for news on the TV and did a Google search for silicon carbide. The news was depressing as usual and what I read about silicon carbide left me hoping that I wouldn't need any more than my high school understanding of chemistry to be good at manipulating molecules. ------- Chapter 39 That night, sometime near ten pm, I moved my first speck of dust. I almost passed out from either the shock of it, the effort or perhaps some of both. "You did it!" Bud exulted. "It was just a single speck of dust," I reminded him. "And look at me. It wiped me out!" "Yes, it did, but that's to be expected. Think about the three or four molecules you were locking onto this morning and think about this speck of dust." "Sure," I said, remembering this morning's effort, and especially how it had gotten to me. "Did it feel any different to you, holding the lock on that speck of dust. Compared to holding those three or four molecules?" "Not really," I said, replaying the sensations over in my head. "Moving them sure felt different though." "Of course," Bud agreed. "Remember, the sense that lets you lock onto them is really a completely separate thing. Its what allows you to grab the molecules, but it is not what you're using when you move them. That gift you used for the first time today." "So once again I'm stretching new mental muscles?" "Exactly." I'd recovered enough by then to respond to the grumbling in my stomach. It was demanding food and the rest of me was agreeing with it. I walked up the stairs slowly, felling the last couple of steps in my back and legs. I didn't yet understand how I could feel so physically drained from what I was doing, but the thought that I felt weak in the legs like I'd run ten miles was even weirder. I opened the fridge and grabbed the unfinished half of my sub and an iced tea. My fingers actually shook as I unwrapped the clingy plastic. The first bite was sheer bliss, and the second and third were not far behind it. In between bites I guzzled iced tea. Breakfast the next morning was prefaced by a new routine. I spent thirty minutes working on my upper body strength with the pulley system that was the main component among those installed. I moved to the new treadmill from there and began experimenting with using the device as a substitute for my normal running. I ran on the treadmill for thirty minutes and then moved to a Hack machine to do squats. I did fifteen minutes at a slow pace, not worried about the number of squats so much as getting a good feel for how comfortable I felt with the amount of weight I'd started with. I'd always had strong legs. My time in service to Uncle Sam had made them stronger still. The last three years in particular we had driven ourselves very hard to push our bodies to places they hadn't been able to go. I was smiling after my fifteen minutes and went back to the treadmill to cool down on for another fifteen minutes. The ninety minute workout was followed by a shower and breakfast. Breakfast was bacon and eggs with four slices of toast with butter and cherry preserves. The coffee was good and I brought the laptop in from the living room so I could surf the news sites while I ate. The local Santa Rosa news was mildly boring, except for a report on a gang or drug-related shooting near Cook Park. "This is the sort of thing we would expect you to take more interest in, when your training is complete," Bud said as I digested the story. "Not something so small as this particular event, but the drug activity here and, as time passes, over a wider area." Knowing the little enough that I did about the way my parents died, I nodded grimly to that idea. I would have no problem at all when the time came, focusing on drug traffickers. No problem at all. Once I'd cleaned up after breakfast I called Lloyd McCoy at FiberDyne. He had warned me that there were press conferences and military liaisons and other exciting things happening there, some of which I was expected to be a part of. "Cooper, good to hear from you. I was going to call you this afternoon," Lloyd greeted me. "Oh?" I asked. "Something come up?" I asked, knowing there were several potential somethings. "Nothing new, but Major Lancaster does want to meet with you, Monday if possible." "I can meet Monday, no problem," I agreed. "What time?" "He's supposed to come by to take us to lunch, so I'd be here before noon. My guess is he wants to get us to agree on what will be said at the press conference." "From what you told me before, I would think so. I don't have a problem with that if you guys don't. My schedule is clear after the weekend." "Good, we need this," he said with a sigh. "We're not close to running out of our seed money, but we can't get paid until the government gets to make their announcement." "I can understand that," I laughed. "Since I've got you on the phone, and I'm no longer quite so bedazzled by everything, let me ask you a few questions I should have asked then." "Sure," Lloyd laughed in return. "Let me put this on speaker though. Ben and Sam are both here." "Sure," "Very well, go ahead," Lloyd said, his voice now coming through with the faintest amount of echo. "We're a corporation, right? FiberDyne Incorporated?" "Correct." "Who are our corporate officers? Do I have a position, other than as majority stockholder?" "Oh, well of course. We really should have covered this last time. First, California law says that if there are at least three shareholders, there must be a board of directors with at least three directors. Papers have been filed appointing you to the seat on the board previously held by your father. So, to begin with you are a member of the board of directors of fiberDyne, along with Ben, Sam and I." "Okay, that's a good start." "As for officers, the corporation has three, a CEO, a CFO and a Secretary. I am the Chief Financial Officer and currently, Ben is the secretary. Your father was supposed to be CEO, once he had recovered enough, physically. I have been holding both positions, provisionally. You will be the CEO as soon as you're ready to assume the role." "I don't mind holding the title, but what would I do? I have no business education to speak of, after all." "As far as the day to day business decisions go, I'll be happy to continue making them. I'm a much better businessman than I am a scientist, my one moment of insight aside. If I were a better scientist, Ben and Sam wouldn't own a third of this corporation." "And if we were better businessmen," Ben interrupted. "You might have been meeting with just the two of us. But the truth is that Lloyd is an excellent businessman and it would be difficult to replace his unique combination of business acumen and scientific knowledge. He is more than worth his third of the corporation." "Which once again begs the question," I jumped in. "Why do you need me as CEO?" "There are several good reasons for us to hope you will take the position," Lloyd began. "First, we're not competing in a marketplace with other competitors. Our products are almost exclusively going directly to the department of defense. What little we make that doesn't go to them will be mostly experimental products. Pure research." "Second," Ben added. "We need someone who will look good in front of the cameras, and hopefully, can string together a few sentences without stammering. You seem up to that, from what we've seen so far." "Third," Sam added. "You're ex-military. You were honorably discharged after serving in two theaters of war. You've been decorated for your actions and were a member of an elite branch of the service at the time of your discharge." "You're a god-damned poster boy," Lloyd laughed. "We'd be nuts to have anyone else at the head of a defense-related company, which, after next week is what the world will know us to be." "Our output here will be almost completely comprised of what the defense department considers 'strategic materials'." Ben added after I'd had a moment to absorb their pronouncements so far. "We will be required to be very close-mouthed about what we produce," Sam continued. "Major Lancaster will usually be in charge of our PR. The world will see what defense wants them to see." "So I'm really just going to be a figurehead?" "At first, sure," Lloyd said soothingly. "If you take an interest and start to pick things up as we go along, we would be happy to let you assume more real duties as you progress." "And if I'm happy to just be a figurehead and be the playboy executive?" "We would have no problem with that either," he said, with Ben and Sam nodding in agreement. "The money the government is going to be paying us over the next twenty years will allow the three of us to engage in whatever research makes us happy, or we could just lounge around someplace tropical with umbrella drinks in our hands." "We're going to be rich," Ben said. "But you're going to be Scrooge McDuck rich. We all laughed. Even Harley knew Scrooge McDuck from the comics, and I felt him laughing along with us. ------- Chapter 40 The coming week was going to start with a bang: Monday a meeting with FiberDyne and Major Lancaster. Tuesday, we would be flown to Travis Air Force base where we would hold a press conference where FiberDyne's status as a supplier of strategic materials would be announced. I wondered why the defense department would even bother with something like that, but assumed I would know more after meeting the Major on Monday. I talked to Kelli briefly, asking her if she had thought of bringing anything for lunch on the boat. She hadn't, so I volunteered to bring something as an after lunch dessert. I could hear the surprise in her voice when she agreed. To be honest, her surprise was echoed by my silent trepidation. I'd been inspired by two things. The large bag of cherries I brought back from the store and the ice cream maker I'd seen sitting on a high shelf in the pantry. Google and the internet found me a million recipes for cherry sherbet, cherry sorbet, cherry ice cream, cherry compote, cherry whatever-you-want. The hardest part was settling on a recipe. In the end I settled for a cherry sherbet recipe. I had everything I needed except for a liqueur called kirsch. Amazingly, my Google maps search for kirsch got a hit on a place called La Czar, on the other side of Forestville from the FiberDyne plant. Spitting distance! I knew I could probably find the stuff in any upscale liquor store, but there was something pleasing about being able to say my sherbet was made from fresh cherries and locally made cherry liqueur. I called the number and they were open and would be happy to sell me a bottle or two. I gulped when she quoted the price, but then smiled into the phone as I remembered: I was Scrooge McDuck! I hadn't had an excuse to ride the bike in a few days, so I made the short trip on the bike. I made sure I had plenty of extra padding with me. I definitely didn't want a cherry liqueur-scented saddlebag. I got back home after a short but pleasant ride wondering if I was biting off more than I could chew. I had enough cherries to try a second batch if the first didn't come out, but I wasn't sure I had enough time. I looked at the clock. I had time to get a first batch done and in the freezer for the requisite 4 hours if I was willing to stay up a little late. Step one was pitting the cherries. Somebody somewhere has probably invented a cherry pitting tool, and since I had the laptop in the kitchen with me so I could consult the online recipe without running back and forth to the living room, I was tempted to search for it, jut for grins, but managed to resist the temptation. I fell back on old reliable, my field knife – properly cleaned of course, and quickly found a quick method by placing a cherry on the cutting board with the knife blade resting on top of it. I pressed the blade down and forward, rolling the cherry along until I'd cut clear around the circumference. Then it was a simple twist of the two halves to separate them and then a flick of the knife tip to pop the pit out of whichever half it elected to remain in. Well, most of the time the roll went clean, but not every time, and most of the time the flick of the knife tip worked, but not every time, so it took a bit longer and was a bit messier than I'd anticipated. Still, I got the three cups of pitted cherries a lot quicker than I expected, even after packing them down slightly. I also realized that I was going to have little to no cherries left by the time I'd gotten my six cups – and I was going to be a mess. I grabbed a bottle of iced tea out of the fridge to wet my whistle while I worked and while I was doing that, went and turned the TV to a music channel and turned the volume up. Out of respect for Harley I hunted for something not so modern and settled on an classic rock station. By the time I had the first three cups of cherries and quarter cup of water boiling in a saucepan, I realized that I wasn't exactly sure what some of the directions meant. Harley surfaced a little then to reassure me that his old-school memories knew what correctly prepared cherries would look like, though his memories were from making cherry preserves as a youngster. The next big step was getting the blender ready for the cherries, once they were done cooking. I also brought the ice cream maker out and cleaned it thoroughly. I had no idea how long it had been sitting, but it needed to be cleaned before and after use, I knew that much. Once I could tell Harley thought the cherries were softened properly, I poured the hot contents of the sauce pan into the blender and gave it a few pulses. I eyeballed the results, not knowing what I was really looking for and then gave it two more pulses. That was the most the recipe called for and trusted it to be right, since Harley and I had no idea about this phase of the recipe. I had a strainer and bowl out next and strained the cherries through into the bowl, pressing them into the strainer with the back of a spoon. Once I was done with that process I quickly added the sugar the recipe called for – it warned about making sure to do it while the cherry puree was still hot. Now it was cover and chill time, and I had a whole hour to relax before the next step. The recipe said to discard the solids, but I thought they might be useful for something else, so saved them in a storage container. I spent my hour cleaning myself and the kitchen of the cherry juice remnants of my labors and then scouring the pantry, garage and basement for an ice chest. This did not seem to be among the items mom and dad had acquired during their time here. I was going to have to get something that would keep my sherbet cold during the trip up. Hopefully, the houseboat had a freezer, and if not, at least a refrigerator. Taking ice cream on a ski trip in the middle of June. I really hadn't thought this through. Time for the internet to save me again – maybe. I found what I wanted, price be-damned. It was the Engel 16 quart portable freezer. I could run it off the 12 volt power outlet in the back of the Wrangler and it would run of regular household AC if it was available. I grabbed the phone and hit #1 on my speed dial. "Cooper, a new question?" he laughed. "Yes please," I laughed along with him. "Do you know if the houseboat has a freezer? If not, do you know if it has regular 110V AC available?" "Hmm. I know it has a fridge and an ice machine. It even has a TV and satellite dish, so I'm guessing all that stuff runs on 110. You're asking questions I'm not 100 percent of the answers. Can I get back to you?" "Sure," I agreed. "Wait, why do you need to know this?" "I decided to bring dessert, and it needs to be kept frozen, or as close to frozen as possible," I explained. "What about the drive out? It gets warm early this time of year." "I hope to have that covered. Same solution will cover the houseboat if there's no freezer." "Okay, sounds good. I'll check back shortly." While I waited for Darius to call back and the cherry mixture to finish cooling, I dug deeper into research on my desired freezer. Getting one here might be difficult. Google couldn't show me anyplace nearby where I might buy one. Online purchases were not a problem, other than the need to have it by tomorrow night. Finally, I found what I needed on the Engel web site itself. There was an authorized dealer in Santa Rosa – West Marine. I flipped over to Google maps and found it very quickly. Damned if it wasn't just down the street from Play it Again Sports. I eyed the clock and gave them a call. "West Marine, this is Chelsea," a pleasant female voice answered. "Hello, my name is Cooper James," I began. "Good morning Mr. James," she replied. "What can I do for you?" "I'm looking for an Engel MT 17F-U1 portable freezer, or if you don't have that, the Engel model MD14F with the AC adapter." "Certainly Mr. James, we have both in stock," she said immediately, which was a bit of a surprise. Not that they had them, but that she knew immediately that they did. "you must know your stock very well," I commented dryly. "Well, I do," she laughed. "I should let you go on thinking I REALLY do, but to be honest, I literally just got done looking at that whole section of the store with another customer." "Well, despite failing to keep me bamboozled at your stock mastery, I'll take one of the 16 quart models." "Very well sir, will you be paying for that now?" "I'd be happy to pay by credit card immediately. Do you deliver?" "We can, though there would be a fee for same day delivery." "If you can get it to my this afternoon, I'll be happy to pay a delivery fee. Given what these units cost, the delivery fee will be the least of my concerns. Keeping my cherry sherbet frozen while I'm skiing this weekend is what's important." "I see," she dropped an octave. "I love skiing. Where are you going?" "I've got a ski date on Lake Berryessa this weekend. That's why I need the freezer in such a hurry." "We could easily deliver it tomorrow without the delivery fee," she offered, her voice back to normal. Perhaps my ski date comment had restored her to her usual professional demeanor. I gave Chelsea my credit card information and address. She told me to expect the delivery sometime around 2. I went back to making cherry sherbet, a happy camper once again. ------- Chapter 41 The sherbet had been in the freezer for only a few minutes when I was finally back down in the cavern behind the basement wall. "time for something a little different," Bud told me as I stood in my usual spot. "Walk over to the far wall." I walked in the direction I knew he meant and saw that here the wall bulged out slightly about four feet above the floor of the cavern, forming a shelf or bench of solid stone. On the bench I saw several slabs of different materials. The first was a dark yellow, material with a somewhat pebbled surface. Bud drew my attention to it. "What is it?" I asked. "Natural rubber," he told me. This piece is Vietnamese in origin, actually." "I suppose this is my new point of focus?" "It is, though we shall not devote long hours to the task as we did with the carborundum." So I focused on the material, letting my new sense flow over it. It was harder to get a grip on than the silicon carbide, and felt different, though I had no idea how I would have been able to verbalize that difference. Still, after several long minutes I had a molecular lock. "Tell me how this feels," Bud asked. I struggled with it in my head. "Bigger, smaller, heavier, lighter?" "No, it doesn't feel different in those ways, it just feels ... clumsier." "How about the edges," Bud asked. "Can you feel the edges?" I moved my mental focus in the way I had learned with the silicon carbide, but the reaction was very much different. It took longer to find the edge I wanted, but when I did, it seemed to rush past me, leaving me jammed sideways into the next molecule. I know that makes no sense. That's not even really what happened, but I can't put into words what did happen. Still, in the end I had two molecules locked. "Natural rubber is an elastic hydrocarbon polymer," Bud lectured. "The molecules are much more complex than the silicon carbide molecules you've dealt with previously. They form long chains that easily tangle." "Is that why they feel so clumsy?" I asked. Bud laughed. "Time will tell," he said. "You will slowly become familiar with a greater and greater variety of molecules, and each will feel different. Each new impression will alter your past impressions. The description of any given molecule will be a moving target, and one that will never come to rest." I spent a few minutes 'tasting' the polyisoprene molecule, as Bud also described it. He warned me that natural rubber had many impurities, and that my ability to link from edge to edge could be interrupted by encountering impurities. Finally Bud asked me to drop my focus and move on to the next slab of material. It was a dense-looking glossy black. I sent my senses into it and made a lock very quickly. "This is Bakelite," Bud told me. "One of the worlds first synthetic plastics, called phenol plastics. Unlike the elastic hydrocarbon polymer, this is a very rigid phenolic thermosetting resin." I was amazed at the difference I felt between this and the last. Grabbing this felt like sliding on rails, smooth yet hard and unforgiving. The edges felt cold compared to the edges of the carborundum or rubber. I also seemed capable of grabbing a lot of molecules very quickly – getting locks very easily, but all in a straight line. I described my impressions as I went, hearing Bud's approving murmurs as I did. After moving back and forth between the rubber and Bakelite slabs a couple of times, Bud called it a night. I had cherry sherbet to test. As I left the basement I diverted my course, heading for the garage. The Engel freezer had been delivered that afternoon and I'd gotten it unpacked and set up in the back of the Jeep, but currently had it plugged in to house current to get it down to temperature. West Marine had thrown in a small digital thermometer that could be placed inside the freezer for a quick readout of the temperature. When I flipped the lid up, the readout said 3 degrees. Perfect. I could store the sherbet in it now if I wanted, but I wasn't going to mess with that until the time came. It was nine pm. I'd spent my day either making sherbet or playing with new molecules. Darius had called me back with good news and bad news. The good news was that the houseboat did indeed have a freezer and regular house current and the bad news was that he was going to have to make a trip out there in advance of our arrival Saturday morning to plug the houseboat into shore power so that the fridge and freezer would have time to get their respective temperatures down to where they needed to be. I offered to go with him, having nothing better to do. It also would mean I would have a chance to familiarize myself with the route, just in case we were separated on Saturday. It was nine pm and I was feeling a bit antsy. I wanted to run off some excess energy but I didn't want to do it on the treadmill. It wasn't so dark that I couldn't have managed a lap a round the property, but I didn't want to take any chances. A sprained ankle would definitely put a damper on the skiing. "If you're feeling energetic, I have an idea," Bud offered. "Go practice," Harley and I chanted in unison, laughing as we did. "Yes practice, but not in the cavern," Bud teased. "I was thinking about that very large, lovely bathtub you have upstairs that you haven't even used yet." "You want me to take a bath?" "Well, I do want you to partially fill the tub, but I'd prefer we use cold water, and you're not going to have to get in it." "Okay," I agreed and grabbed a beer from the fridge and headed to the master bath and the big jacuzzi tub that I had so far ignored in favor of the shower. The tub was large, shaped like a triangle with very rounded corners. I ran about eight inches of cold water in at Bud's direction. "Okay," Bud said when I turned the water off. "Give it a go." I assumed he meant lock onto a water molecule, so I did. Oooh, water locked very easily! "Oooh!" I said out loud. "Yes, water locks very easily, doesn't it?" Bud said, anticipating the cause of my exclamation. "Liquids in general are easy to lock, but water is particularly eager to cooperate." "It sure is!" I agreed. "Now feel for the edges," he prompted, I did, and damn, I found edges everywhere at once! "Whoo!" I gasped. It suddenly felt like I had hold of the entire tub full. "You've probably grabbed a lot more than you've managed before, but trust me, you're not really holding it all," Bud once again anticipated my thoughts. "The problem with grabbing water is that it is too cooperative. You must struggle to grab only the water you want. Even water with impurities in it, such as this tap water will tend to over-respond to your efforts. Water is a good molecule to practice limiting your lock. We can practice locking greater and lesser amounts. We can practice locking directionally." So I did. Little bundles and long lines of water molecules. All still mostly too small to actually be seen with the naked eye, if I was trying to move them. Mostly. When Bud did ask me to try to move a long, thick line of molecules I had locked, I got instantly wet, as did most of the bathroom around me. "It wasn't the molecules you moved that did this," Bud explained as I sputtered and reached for a towel. "It was the molecules around them. You tried to shift that line of molecules only a short distance in the macro world – one end of the tub to the other. In the micro world though, those molecules tried to respond with the speed of your perception, and that meant those molecules had to move very, very fast indeed." "So what then?" I asked, trying to imagine it in my head. "I created some sort of underwater sonic boom?" "That you did." I could almost hear a giggle of glee in Bud's thoughts as we went over what had just happened, trying to repeat the movement at a less impressive speed. It took several tries before I could move my water molecules without getting wet, and by then the water still in the tub was beginning to get warm. My efforts were heating the molecules due to the friction of the movement. I did notice that as the water got hotter it got harder to lock onto. It took me a while to get the bathroom cleaned up, but at least I didn't need a shower when I was done. I was going to have a load of towels to wash in the morning though. As I fell asleep that night I could feel Harley's awe seep through to the forefront of our consciousness. It echoed my own. I had finally moved something with macroscopic effects, even if only second hand. Awesome! ------- Chapter 42 I woke up early Friday morning. Earlier even than my normal time. I got my pile of soggy towels into the laundry and since I was down there, did my morning upper body workout. I wanted to run outside today though. Screw the treadmill. I threw on my running gear and headed for the edge of the property. It was still very early in the morning and the sun hadn't even made it over the hills to the east. There was still dew on the grass and shrubs and I reveled in being able to lock onto little beads of it as I ran and getting a tiny little popping sound when I yanked the middles out of the beaded water. My preoccupation with the dew drops kept my pace down and I finished late, and without having even worked up a sweat. I went back down to the basement and did some squats and then ran thirty minutes on the treadmill to make up for my poor run outdoors. I could really smell the pot of coffee I'd set to brewing by the time I headed back upstairs so I diverted to the coffee pot before heading up for a shower. While I was in the shower, enjoying the feel of the hot water pounding down on me, I had a thought. "Can I make water boil?" "Good question," Bud said with some excitement. "You will be able to make water hotter and colder by influencing its molecular motion. Whether you could make that water boil or freeze will depend on the volume and how your ability develops. "How is my ability developing?" "You are progressing at a faster pace than had been anticipated, though the difference does not impact our plans." "Speaking of your plans," I said, my mind falling back on something that had been bothering me for a while now. "I've been wondering about how I seem to be getting wealthier and wealthier on almost a daily basis. Its kind of creepy to be somehow transforming into this billionaire industrialist practically overnight. It doesn't feel natural. Is this part of your 'plans'?" "It is a part of our plan, but perhaps not in the way you are thinking," Bud answered after a moment. "You aren't becoming a billionaire because we chose you, rather we chose you because we knew you would become a billionaire." "That's why I was chosen?" I asked, confused. "It was among the selection criteria, yes. It does no good to train a super hero who cannot provide for his privacy, and who cannot be completely free to act on our behalf because he or she must hold down a job. In addition, there are some things about FiberDyne that made you an especially attractive option. We are pleased that our plans have fallen on one of the best options we had available to us." I would have been this rich anyway then. Hmmm. I wondered if the old me, the suicidal, pre-Harley me would have been able to handle it. I did wonder. A lot. A part of me felt embarrassed about the way I'd been spending money lately, but that me was used to the spartan lifestyle my military choices had led me into. It was used to the unassuming childhood in New Jersey – the one where my parents had let me grow up not knowing the truth about our wealth or our family roots. Harley was far more used to the trappings of wealth than I was. He at least had grown up with it. He too had returned from overseas to take up the reigns of ownership and wealth. I felt his presence reassuring me. Together our combination of new and old knowledge and skill felt pretty good. I had been a confident man as a soldier. I was prepared to be a confident man now and a confident super hero when the time came for that phase of my new life to begin. That last thought had Harley and I both giggling. Bud stayed silent. I pulled into the Shell station next to the IHOP at the Flamingo One Stop and got out to fill my tank at one of the credit card pumps. I grumbled at the price, even knowing that I'd never have to worry about the price of gas again. It was every American's patriotic duty to complain about gas prices, regardless of the ability to pay. While I was standing there letting the tank fill and the dollar amount threaten triple digits, I heard a horn beep behind me and looked up to see Darius waving at me from the pump two spaces over. "Great minds think alike," he yelled over the noise of the gas station and nearby highway. "I guess we don't have to meet in the IHOP parking lot then, do we?" I laughed. "Nope, just follow me out of here and we're good to go!" I didn''t really need to, but checked the oil and the tire pressure and gave the Wrangler a general once over. The typical behavior of a new car owner. I climbed in, took a sip of my iced tea and pulled out and around until I was behind Darius' Ford Explorer. This time of day on a Friday, it wasn't all that busy, but better to make sure I was behind him now. I was listening to KXFX 107.1 FM, a 'rock' radio station that wasn't quite so grating on Harley's sensibilities as the more current Adult Contemporary, Alt and Hip Hop stations, nor so old that they grated on mine. Neither of us was at all interested in what passed for entertainment on the news/talk stations, and so far neither of us could generate much interest in the Country stations either. I didn't think of myself as anti-religious, though the flavor of my Christianity was pretty hard to pin down, but the Christian radio stations, rock or otherwise were just weird, and thus to be avoided at all costs. I hadn't really noticed it when coming down from Seattle, but the countryside here was really nice. Once you got away from the main highway traffic it was a very peaceful drive. By the time we'd made it through the mountains KXFX was starting to get a little spotty, so I searched down the dial and settled on KVYN – I switched from 'The Fox' to 'The Vine' and kept on keeping on. I'd almost wished I'd brought the bike instead of the Wrangler. We came out of the hills almost straight into St. Helena, driving right down their main street until Darius took a hard left south of town. We entered more hills, passing a lake to our left and kept on going. Once we were past that lake it got pretty hilly again, but we just kept following the highway 128 signs, eventually heading south until things flattened out again, but that was a brief respite past a winery, a mobile home park and a few odd parking lots and other buildings. When the road turned hard to head us north again, things went back to being hilly and stayed that way until we pulled into a marina about eleven thirty. I still had half my bottle of iced tea and there was another stuck in the passenger side cup holder. We planned a late lunch on the way back in St. Helena. Getting to the boats was a momentary hassle, as the space they were in was a rental and we had to get the marina operators to let us on the dock. The way had been cleared for us more or less, so once we were past the 'who are you guys?' at the beginning, they were pretty cooperative. To save time tomorrow, we fueled both boats up, which required getting the engines fired up and running smoothly. For the houseboat this required firing up the blowers first to vent the engine room of fuel vapors, so it took us a good half hour to get both of them over to the fuel dock and back. We fueled the two jet skis that went with the houseboat at the same time, and this included half-filling the refill tank the houseboat was fitted out with. The refill tank was a bladder tank sitting in its own wooden deck cover. It held sixty gallons, which was enough to refill both jet skis twice, as they had fifteen gallon tanks, but we weren't sure we would need that much, and could always come back to the marina for more if we were wrong. Once we had the houseboat back in the berth, we got plugged into shore power to get the fridge and freezer started cooling down and then we looked at the inverter that would power things once we were away from the dock. It looked practically brand new, and we were able to take and drop the load several times with no problem, so Darius was satisfied. We flushed the fresh water holding tank, and refilled it, then tested the on-demand hot water system to make sure it was working. There was cell service available everywhere on the lake, but the boat still had a marine radio, including one in a waterproof bag that could survive a swim to shore if the boat sank for some reason. All these things we did based on a checklist that was taped to the wall by the main entryway. One thing that wasn't on the list was my perusal of the galley to see what was available as far as kitchenware and utensils. What was there was mismatched and plain, but serviceable. Things were looking fine when we left the marina. We had a pass for the next morning so we wouldn't have to waste time establishing our credentials before we got the boat. Time for a sweet ride back and a nice lunch. ------- Chapter 43 Kelli and I talked twice Friday evening. I called her the first time to tell her my dessert plans had worked out. I told her I was very happy with the results. When she asked if there was anything she could do, I suggested a dark chocolate topping, if she knew of one she liked. She 'hmmm'd' at me and said she had an idea. She called me later to say she'd found a topping and that she was worried that she'd be too excited to sleep that night. I joked that this was just what a guy liked to hear and then told her about the drive up to the lake with Darius to make sure everything would be ready in the morning, and she told me she'd bought a new swim suit for the occasion. We managed to spend an hour on the phone talking about nothing in particular before we bid each other a goodnight. I had to stare at my lap for several minutes and threaten it with a cold shower before I could get on with my evening. A cold shower was sort of what I was interested in anyway, or at least one caused by shifting some water molecules around. I'd had my taste of it earlier, but the cooperative water molecules had me excited about locking a moving macroscopic quantities. While he didn't say anything, I could feel Bud's silent approval of my train of thought. I considered the bathtub again but decided against it. There was water in the cavern after all. I just needed a bowl or something to put a small amount in. getting a lock on even a single molecule within the swift moving stream at the back of the cavern would be difficult at best. I wanted my molecules at their cooperative best. I had found some small paper bowls in the pantry while I was packing up for the ski trip. I grabbed one and took it and an empty ice tea bottle out of the trash. I rinsed the bottle out and headed downstairs. I did not get wet. Well, I did get a little wet just trying to scoop some water out of the fast moving underground stream, but other than that, I did not get wet. What I did do was lock on enough water that when I lifted it out of the bowl could see it with my own eyes. I did remember to move it S-l-o-o-w-l-y, to avoid any sonic booms or other unexpected effects. But damned if I didn't move enough to see! I was ecstatic, but put the water back and started from scratch. A dozen tries later I had most of the water in the bowl hovering three feet above the bowl it had started in. I had a ski date in the morning or I might have stayed there all night playing with the water. I went to bed wearing a huge smile. I want to say that Saturday morning started out like gangbusters, but I'd be lying. My gotta-have-it, too-early-to-be-fucking-around cup of coffee was not waiting for me when I got up. The timer on the coffeemaker, for some reason unknown to me, did not engage at the requested time, so a freshly brewed pot of coffee was not waiting for me when I came down the stairs. I flipped the switch to start it manually and went away grumbling, to take my shower. Despite the coffee hitch, things proceeded quickly. I had a small bag packed with a change of clothes for on the boat as well as several pairs of socks and the usual necessary items – toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, shaving cream, deodorant. My water gear was in a separate bag that everything wet would go into for the ride back from the lake. I also packed the medical kit I shipped home from Okinawa with my other equipment. It didn't have any of the high powered meds it used to. As with my automatic weapons, grenades, and other too lethal for home items, they belonged to the Corp and they wouldn't let me keep them. I'd added some more acceptable civilian alternatives to the pack in their place. I knew how to use what was in the kit pretty well too, emergency first aid did not stop at first aid when you were in the field. I'd never had to take on the role of combat surgeon, but in a pinch I felt that I could, up to a point. I honestly hoped I never had to. Showered, dressed, packed and the freezer plugged in and happy in the jeep, I pulled out of the driveway and onto River Road at 6:30 am. We were due to meet up at the IHOP at 8:00, which was more than enough time for me to get there. I didn't mind being early. The cup of coffee I had in my hand wasn't going to be enough, so I was hoping to get at least one more cup in me before anyone else showed up. By the time we left the IHOP it would probably be warm enough that the four iced teas I had in the freezer would be the drink of choice. I just had to remember to pull them out while we ate breakfast so they wouldn't freeze. I liked them cold but didn't want to be opening the freezer too often either. It wouldn't take too much for the temperature in such a small space to rise. I'd settle for whatever temperature I wound up with while we were on the road. I considered the possibility that I could have bought two of them and used the second one as a fridge for things like this. What's the point in being Scrooge McDuck rich if I couldn't wave a credit card at a problem and make it go away? All three of us were laughing in my head over that one. The IHOP was not too busy yet when I walked in. I found a pair of tables in the back corner that shared a bench seat on one side. That would give us the six seats we needed to be able to eat together. I parked the Wrangler right in front, so Darius and Kelli should spot it and know to look for me inside. Since the seats I'd found weren't visible from the entry, I was depending on it, in fact. I didn't see Mila at the counter this morning, but had no reason to expect her to be working. I did tell the girl at the register that I was expecting five more for breakfast, but that they might be a while getting here. Traffic hadn't been light, but there were no surprises and no slow downs, so I'd made the trip in only 45 minutes. I bought a morning paper and sipped coffee while I read it. I was just starting my second cup of coffee when I saw Kelli walk around the corner and head my direction. "Good morning!" she greeted me cheerily. An impulse from Harley had me standing before she made it to the table. The ingrained old-school manners of his kicked in before my own less automatic ones had a chance. "Good morning yourself!" I said with equal cheer. "Now don't you look nice!" and she did, wearing a very delicious looking summery yellow wraparound dress that would make transitioning from boating to skiing and back very easy. "Thank you," she said as she finally stopped, inches away and looking up slightly. If that was an offer, I accepted and bent only slightly to give her a light kiss on the lips that lingered just long enough to tell the room that it was more than a friendly peck. "Coffee?" she asked, still only inches away, her light, sweet breath puffing against the skin of my cheek. "On its way," I puffed back, hoping my puffs weren't too terrible. I zipped over to the coffee station and filled a carafe. The rest of the breakfast seemed just like that. Kelli and I stayed close to each other the entire time. Even after our other four skiers showed up. Darius and Tina came in first. Tina was slender and fit looking. She was as tall as Darius and looked a little like Marion Jones, the former Olympic track star who had forfeited all her medals after admitting to steroid use. She smiled widely as we were introduced, the smile widening further when I introduced Kelli to her and Darius. Ken and Gloria Reynolds were only a few minutes behind the Bookers. Ken Reynolds was my height, but thin, with red hair and glasses. Gloria was the shortest person at the table by quite a bit. The height and the way she carried herself made me think she might have been a gymnast. The introductions proceeded past the basics over a cup of coffee, but the conversation over breakfast turned to the lake and the fun we all hoped to have. It was a loud, boisterous, happy bunch as we dove into food. ------- Chapter 44 The transition from car to houseboat went smoothly. Darius, Ken and I packed the three coolers in, while the ladies grabbed as much of everything else as possible. One more trip for skis and the only thing left was to get the sherbet out of the freezer. I turned the freezer off at the same time, unplugging it from the Jeep's 12 volt circuit. I got my dessert safely settled in the houseboat's freezer and then I dropped the houseboat's lines while Gloria helped Ken untie the ski boat from the dock and move it over to a tow line attached to the back of the houseboat. The houseboat was a low speed operation, but the boat had a waterproof cover that would stay on while under tow. We did unsnap it long enough to fire up the engine briefly, just to make sure there were no surprises later. It fired up easily and ran smoothly for a minute before we shut it down again. The marina was at the end of a long narrow arm of the lake and far too busy and constricted for good water skiing. Running through them in the jet skis would probably be fun, but as we slowly powered out way out to the main body of the lake the discussion was held about when to do what and it was the consensus of all involved that the jet skis would be best saved for the afternoon when we all welcome the chance to sit down while we played. With that conversation out of the way it then became a procession in and out of the bathroom as we took turns getting changed into our water clothes. Tina went first and then Gloria, and I had to admire both women in their chosen swimwear. The contrast between Tina's tall, mahogany-skinned frame in a dazzling pure white one piece swim suit and Gloria's tiny, blonde haired, barely tanned skin in an emerald green halter topped swimsuit was incredible. I went next, but didn't put my wet suit pieces on, instead going for the board shorts and one of my PT shirts – a gold one with the round eagle, globe and anchor of the Marine Corp seal on the left breast. When Kelli came out in her swim wear, I was really glad I was wearing my board shorts. My wetsuit trunks were very form fitting and my reaction to seeing Kelli's dusky golden skin in the red, not-too-skimpy but oh so glorious bikini would have been either very embarrassing or very painful. "Wow!" I said as she walked over to where I was filling glasses with ice and iced tea. "Nice suit!" "I'm glad you like it," she took the glass I held out. "I bought this just for you. Its a bit more revealing than my usual suit." "Did you bring your old suit?" I asked. "Yes," she giggled. "Why?" "Because if I start acting too goofy around you, you might have to change back," I grinned. We both grinned at each other for a while without saying anything until Tina called Kelli over to check on something in the galley. I decided to go see how Darius was doing and take him a glass of iced tea. There were two helms aboard the boat, one forward in the main cabin, whose windows were hidden behind some decorative curtains at the moment, and one atop the 'flying bridge', which was a bit misleading. The roof of the houseboat was flat and the back half was a sun deck with lounge chairs and a hot tub. The forward half had a windowless sunroof and the main ships wheel, captain's chair, engine controls, marine VHF radio and even, to my amazement, radar. "We won't be using that!" Darius joked when he saw me eyeballing it. "I sure hope not," I agreed, handing him the ice tea I'd brought him. "Something would have to go pretty seriously wrong for us to wind up needing that." "That's for sure. So how are the ladies doing down there?" "I think they're getting the galley organized," I said. "I think on a houseboat you can actually call it a kitchen," Ken said as he came up the stairs to join us. "They're eyeballing the space and trying to decide on how they'll cook the burgers. There will be slicing and dicing later." That's when I finally realized that Ken Reynolds had a dry, deadpan sense of humor that I liked. He favored the slightly weird non sequitur over an actual joke, and as I learned over time, his sense of timing was uncanny. With things squared away in the kitchen, the women came up onto the sun deck. Darius pointed Ken and I to a locker and we quickly pulled out enough deck chairs for everyone. It was still a little early for sunbathing, but sitting out in the fresh morning air with the breeze from the boat's gentle passage sounded attractive to me too. "Hey honey," Tina hollered over her shoulder at Darius. "We need some music!" "Will do, sweet stuff," he replied. "Cooper, you want to take the wheel for me?" "Sure," I agreed, walking back over to the helm. I settled in behind the wheel and Darius pointed out a line towards a point in the distance. "Just keep her pointed in that direction, and if I'm still downstairs messing with the music when we start getting close, turn left and follow the shoreline. I will NOT be that long though, so don't worry." "I won't," I grinned. At the rate we were moving it was going to take quite a while to get to that distant point. "Ken, come with me. I'll show you the ins and outs of the entertainment system so you can answer the call next time." Darius headed down the ladder. "Coming," Ken answered, heading down as well. I sat in the Captain's chair, my eyes focused on the distant point. I could hear the low talk and occasional laughter of the three ladies and the sound of the water of the low thrum of the engines. The sun was just starting to really warm the air around us, making the air movement caused by the boat's passage, added to by an actual stir of breeze now and then. It was quiet and peaceful until suddenly the sound of The Wallflowers' 6th Avenue Heartache started pouring out of the speakers all around us. It was a little too loud at first, and then too quiet. Darius came up the ladder with Ken trailing him and walked over to where I was sitting. I stood and offered him his chair back. He took it, and from there reached over to a panel to one side and adjusted a nob. The volume rose again until it was filling the air quite pleasantly. "There we go," he said with a nod. "This boat's got Sirius satellite radio," Ken gushed. "And Dish Network!" "I told you not to get too excited about that Ken," Darius laughed. I don't think our ladies are going to be want us glued to the idiot box this trip." We all laughed at that and then Ken and I walked over and pulled up chairs with the women. As I went to sit, I was once again won over by an impulse from Harley. "Can I get any of you ladies a refill?" "No thanks," came three voices. "We're good for now. Pull up a chair bub!" Kelli added, patting the deck chair next to hers. "So," Tina said as I took my seat. "Tell us about Cooper James." "Cooper James?" I asked facetiously. "Cooper James is a Jersey boy. Raised by good parents who didn't tell him everything they should have about who they were and what they did for a living. Cooper James was a man happy to be a devil dog. Cooper James was a Marine who was happy to be the weapon that got pointed and aimed at the bad guy du jour. I used to be 'fire and forget' James, and my superiors loved me." "It sounds like you loved being a Marine," Gloria said. "Why did you give it up?" Obviously there had been some discussion amongst the women, but to this point Bud and Harley were the only ones who knew what I'd done, even though I hadn't really discussed it with them beyond the actions that had brought me back from Okinawa and the mistake that had ended my life in the Klamath River. I did consider it a mistake now, and there was no way anyone but Bud and Harley would ever hear about it. "My parents died," I answered with a heavy sigh. "They died and died wrong. I thought I could come home and set things right. I needed to understand what happened and deal with it in some manner." "You gave up your career for – revenge?" Tina asked. "No, not exactly. I gave up my career because I could no longer be what the Corp needed me to be," I glanced over and saw that Darius and Ken were listening too. "I was not an assassin," I looked each of them in the eye for a long second after saying that. "I wasn't even a sniper. But I could be either of those things if I needed to be, but it took a sense of detachment. An ability to remain calm and unaffected by what you do, and what you see your enemies doing. After my parents deaths, I couldn't keep my emotions out of it anymore." "So you came home," Kelli said sadly. "No," I disagreed, which got everyone's attention. "I came to Santa Rosa, California. I came to the town my parents had moved to without telling me." "Did they really sell everything and leave everyone they knew back east to move here?" Tina asked. "They did," I confirmed. "Because your dad was sick?" she asked further. "Because the best hope for surviving what was otherwise going to kill him was here." I had talked too much about it. Talked more than I'd wanted. I got up and walked down the ladder to the lower deck, not hearing the calls that followed me. ------- Chapter 45 I refilled my glass and went to stand at the back of the boat. I stood there for quite a while, staring at the water, occasionally locking on a bit of it. It was interesting, the water was more or less staying in one place while I was moving, but the effect was the same as the moving water back in the cavern. The movement made it harder to get a lock, but the water, as it had before, seemed eager to oblige. The effort needed to focus on it left me free to disengage myself from the foul mood the questions on the deck had put me in. I had surprised myself with how much anger and bitterness surfaced. "Cooper?" Kelli's voice called me back from my reverie and out of my focus. I looked up and she was standing beside me, biting her lower lip pensively. "Are you okay?" "Sure," I said, reaching out for her with a hand. She stepped in and put her head in the crook of my neck, the rest of her clinging to me. "I hadn't really talked about these things to anyone yet, so the emotions it brought up kind of caught me by surprise." "We're all so sorry," she said, looking up into my eyes. "It was thoughtless of us to even bring it up." "No," I gave her a squeeze. "You guys asked about me. I'm the one who took us to where I didn't want to go. The problem was I didn't know I would react that way." "We won't mention it again, okay?" "No its fine. I'll need to talk a little more I think. You and Darius in particular are the two closest friends I have here. If I can't talk to you about this, then who can I talk to?" "Okay, well whatever you need, we want to be there for you." "Thank you," I said, and then leaned down and kissed her. I leaned down and kissed her, and this time, finally this time it was a long, lingering kiss with more than a little sincere like behind it. Way beyond sincere like! "Whoo!" Kelli said when we broke apart. "Uh huh!" I agreed, trying to figure out how to adjust myself without pulling away or being obvious. I wasn't sure if it would embarrass Kelli if she became aware of my erection, but I knew it would embarrass me if she became aware. Fortunately for my modesty, at that moment the boat engines revved for a second and then dropped down to idle. "We must have made it to the main part of the lake," I guessed. I watched the ski boat slowly come closer as it continued to coast towards us on its own momentum, but it slowed to a stop still some ways behind us. There was a drag line in the water behind it to discourage it from coasting up into the ass end of the houseboat. Nice to see it working so smoothly. "We're at the wrong end of the boat to see. We should go back upstairs." Kelli pulled away as she said this and I nodded, taking her hand and heading back to the ladder. "Ah, good!" Darius called as my head popped up through the deck. "We were just thinking of coming to get you guys." "What's the situation?" I asked as I waited for Kelli, taking her hand again once we were both on deck. "We've got a couple of hours before lunch and no where in particular to go in the houseboat now that we've reached the big water. I was thinking we'd just park in one of the small inlets near here and get the water skiing under way. What do you guys think?" "Sounds good to me," I said looking at Kelli. "Me too," she nodded looking back at me. "Who's skiing first? "I thought we'd let Tina go first so she has as much time as she needs for lunch. Anyone else going to need time?" "The potato salad isn't going to take any fixing," Gloria said. "Just open the container and spoon it up, but I'd like to go a little early so I can help Tina if she needs it." "Mine's just open and serve too," I added. "Kelli's got topping, but I don't think there's any prep involved, is there?" "No. Not unless someone wanted theirs hot." "Oh, this is for the dessert Tina said you were bringing?" Gloria asked and Kelli and I nodded in confirmation. "What is it?" "Cherry sherbet," I told them. "Mmm, sounds good!" Ken patted his tummy. "Gourmet? Where'd you get it?" "Homemade," I laughed. "From Cooper's kitchen. I bought the cherries in Hacienda of all places, but I bought too many for me to eat before they started to go bad, so this was a good way to use them up." While we were talking about my dessert, Darius had slowly brought us back up to speed and brought the boat around to a small inlet nearby. Darius went scrambling out a front access hatch to get to the bow and drop the bow anchor. I followed Ken back down the ladder to get the stern anchor dropped and the ski boat pulled up alongside. Things progressed very quickly from there. Water skiing was a three person operation on the small but powerful boat. The skier, the driver and a spotter were the required number. There was room for a nother person on the boat, but the initial load was Darius driving, Ken as the spotter, and of course Tina was the first skier. Once they looked to be ready to go, I headed into the master bathroom to change into my ski apparel. Someone was already in the small bathroom just off the living room. I came out with my wet suit trunks and jacket on, feeling a little self-conscious. The trunks really were form fitting. Eventually I decided I'd been unnecessarily concerned. Perhaps I'd been borrowing a little of Harley's sensibilities. I sat with Kelli and Gloria for the half hour that Tina was skiing. I found out that Gloria was a grade school teacher and Ken was a middle school vice principal and cross country coach. Their grade school and middle school shared a campus and that was where they had met. I messed with my new skis a little as we talked, trying to make sure they were ready for my turn when it came. When the skiers came back to drop Tina off, Ken was up for his turn, and Gloria was going to be his spotter, but I asked to go as well so I could learn how to operate the boat. Someone was going to have to if Darius was going to get a turn on skis. After the slowness of the houseboat and the calm of the little inlet we'd anchored in, the speed of the ski boat and the rush of the wind was exhilarating. Ken was not quite the nimble skier Tina was and it took four tries to get him up on his skis. Once up though, he proved to be a good skier. My attention was mostly focused on Darius and his control of the boat. The procedure wasn't new to me, as I'd once been an avid skier. I had even managed to do some recently while in Okinawa. There are a lot of very nice places to water ski in the islands, and it beat the hell out of the locations we used for training there. Ken got in a good half an hour up on his skis and then they asked me if I wanted a go. "I think I'd rather go out with Kelli so we can ski together," I said. "This is supposed to be our first date, after all." So Gloria went next with Ken as her spotter and we spent another good half an hour with her up on her skis. She was definitely more gymnastic on skis than anyone else had been. Her small size helped in that regard. After that we returned to the houseboat and Ken and Gloria swapped with Kelli while I grabbed our skis and gear. "Who wants to go first?" Darius asked. Kelli and I looked at each other, waiting to see if the other was going to say anything. "Ladies first," I said finally. "okay," Kelli laughed. I joined in as we laughed at our mutual reluctance to volunteer. If you're skiing in the appropriate safety gear, its hard to look sexy through the bulky life vest and other safety gear, yet Kelli managed it. She also proved to be no slouch when it came to skiing, as she was up on ski her first try and was quickly enjoying the ride. I could hear her laughter as she crossed the wake, using it to do small jumps. She was no competition for Gloria, but she was very adept on water skis. Her half hour came to an end and she gave me a real scorcher of a kiss as I pulled her aboard. "Top that!" she laughed. "I don't think so!" I laughed back, starting to get ready. My skis and gear were new, so I took my time getting into them and checking the bindings. When I slid into the water I was surprised at how warm it was. The top three feet felt almost bathwater warm and it was still late morning. As Darius slowly took up the slack in the tow rope, I went over in my mind the familiar procedure needed to get up. I toyed with the idea of trying to lock on some water to aid the process, but decided that was likely to be embarrassing until I'd gotten a little more used to things. 'No embarrassing us on our first date with Kelli' I heard Harley say. While I was having those thoughts my body put me up on ski via conditioned autopilot. The weather was perfect, the water was perfect, the tow was perfect and for thirty minutes I forgot everything else and played on the water. When I was done, I handed Kelli my skis, lifted myself up on the ski platform and into the boat. Then it was my turn to give Kelli a scorcher of a kiss. "That was fun!" I said when we broke apart. "Sure was," she giggled. "How was the skiing?" Darius and I both joined her in laughing over that one, then I offered to let him take his turn. "Sure, but why don't you take the boat for a little spin first to get a feel for her?" I agreed and swapped spots with him. The boat was very responsive, and I noticed right away that the rear was prone to sliding in turns. Too flat a hull, I thought, but for skiing, big, gradual turns were all you needed anyway and those went fine. It took two tries to get Darius up on ski, and the first time failure was my fault, not his. The second time was perfect, and he was grinning when he climbed back in the boat at the end of his thirty minutes. I looked at my watch as we were heading back. It was past noon. I might have worried that they had started lunch without us, but I was having too much fun snuggling with Kelli. ------- Chapter 46 The grill was already hot when we got there, and The burgers went on as we were tying up. Darius and I cleaned the skis and gear off and put it away while Kelli headed to the bathroom to change. I came back from taking my turn at getting changed, and brushing my teeth a little – got to keep my breath kissing fresh! Kelli was helping Gloria get things set up while Tina was cooking. I offered to help, but was told to go away, and that lunch would be in twenty minutes. I grabbed a fresh ice tea and wandered off, finding Ken in the living room watching a baseball game on the Satellite TV system. "This is the life," he hailed me with as I came in, hoisting his glass in my direction. "Too bad a teacher's salary isn't conducive to this kind of lifestyle." I didn't say anything to that, since my new life was conducive to this kind of lifestyle. Any lifestyle I chose, I realized as I sat down in front of the TV. So far I'd been using my new wealth to satisfy small, immediate needs. I hadn't considered the long term consequences of the wealth I'd found myself with. Nor was I going to today, I resolved, hearing Bud and Harley laughing in my head at the thought. "So, do us Santa Rosans root for the Giants?" I asked, nodding at the game. The San Francisco Giants were playing the Cincinnati Reds at Candlestick Park – excuse me AT&T Park, as the TV broadcast reminded me. "We do," most of us," Ken told me. "A lot of Santa Rosans are from someplace else, so they also root for the home team of wherever they're from, but for the most part we're Giants fans. Not looking good for us so far today, though. Our ace Lincecum is pitching but we're already down 3-zip in the third." I hadn't been a big baseball fan before this, but I had enjoyed it when I had the chance. I was a Philadelphia Phillies fan when I was being a fan at all. It was a lot closer than the Mets or Yankees. Even the Baltimore Orioles were looked on more favorably than the New York teams. We watched with little enthusiasm until we were called to lunch. Lunch was delicious, loud and boisterous. The burgers were delicious and so was the potato salad. There were kettle chips as well. Everyone was talking about the excellent skiing they'd had and how good the water felt. The little inlet we'd anchored up in was shallow and sandy bottomed, so there was some discussion of swimming whenever we weren't water skiing or riding the jet skis. When it was time for dessert, I brought out the sherbet with some pride. Everyone tried it straight and with the dark chocolate sauce that Kelli brought. We all agreed that the sherbet was delicious by itself, but even better with the topping. There's just something about the combination of cherries and chocolate. There was some leisurely laying around time after lunch, just to let the food settle. Ken came back upstairs in disgust to announce that the Giants were being shelled 8-zip in the eighth. We just sat and visited a bit, extending the conversations we'd had while eating. No more about me or my parents; everyone was staying safely away from that topic, though I didn't think it was going to produce the same sort of reaction now that I was aware of the potential. I did mention the Fourth of July parade when we were talking about our plans for the holiday. It was the only definite plan I had for the long weekend. "You're kind of unemployed at the moment, aren't you?" Ken asked. "Technically, yes," I answered. "Well then every weekend is long weekend when you aren't working. Us school teachers know that one for sure." I thought about what I might say to this group, and then decided this was the best place to start. "I do have a job, sort of," I told them. "But I'm not drawing a salary and the duties are kind of in limbo at the moment." "Oh really?" Darius said. Of everyone here he was in the best position to know that I wasn't quite the vagabond everyone else might be thinking of me as. "I'm the majority stockholder for FiberDyne Industries," I announced. "That puts me on the board of directors, and technically that makes me the CEO. The rest of the board has said they want me to hold that position." "Wow!" the group collectively expressed their surprise or shock. "I have no idea what fiberDyne Industries is, or what they make, but it sounds impressive," Gloria giggled. "Well, we're not huge, but we're set to announce next week that we're supplying strategic materials to the Department of Defense." "Whoa," Tina said. "Isn't telling us that in advance something the SEC could use to get you in trouble?" "No, were a private company. Our stock is privately held, not publicly traded. There's no way you could use that information because there's no stock you could buy to take advantage of it." I could see the wheels turning in several sets of eyes, including Kelli's. "So, Kelli, feel like taking a spin with me on one of the jet skis?" "Sure," she said. ------- Chapter 47 Tina and Gloria had both wanted more time water skiing and Darius was glad to take the boat out for them. Ken suggested he should stay behind, because we didn't want to leave the houseboat unattended. We had all agreed that was probably a good idea. That left Kelli and I alone with the two jet skis. Between the whine of the engine and the sound of the jet skis hitting the water as they went skipping side-by-side across the water like synchronized well thrown stones, there wasn't much opportunity for conversation. The Kawasaki models we had were '3 passenger' Ultra SLX's. Their four stroke engines were a lot kinder on the ears than the two stroke single passenger models, but still too noisy for talking while riding. We road north and east, crossing the lake to the western shore which had a much more irregular coastline than the eastern shore. We played follow the leader for about twenty minutes before I pulled in to a little shallow deserted beach for a break. "That was fun!" Kelli said as soon as we'd killed the engines. "That it was!" I agreed. "I could see that being a lot of fun if we had three or four more of these." "Even one more would be nice," Kelli said as she found a spot of beach that was more sand than gravel and took her life jacket off to sit down. I took mine off too and sat beside her. "This would be fun as a two day weekend where we got all the water sports we could stand during the day and then we could do more relaxed stuff." "Yeah, a designated driver would be nice so we could have a beer or two once we were done skiing. Sitting here right now makes me think of those Corona commercials." "Oh, I know the ones you mean," she ooohed, "the couple sitting in beach chairs on the sand by a palm tree, watching a sailboat slide by off in the distance, and they clink their Coronas? I love that commercial, and yes, that's exactly how I see the end to an exciting day on the water too." "We've still got a lot of summer left," I said leaning closer. "Maybe before its over we can arrange something like that. Some friends, a houseboat or something, skiing and jetting for a couple of days?" "I think that would be great, and I like these people, they'd be fun to do something like this with. I've got some friends who'd love to do it too. How many people would be too many?" I laughed. Here I was worrying about whether she would think we were close enough for such an idea, and she was completely bought into it already. "Well, that depends. I prefer salt water to fresh water usually, how about you?" "Oh, I prefer salt water too, but the lakes do have their advantages. Cleanup is easier and there are usually less problems with waves and such." "Salt water would be harder to do in a houseboat. At least getting the boat to someplace away from the crowds would be. I'm knd of surprised we haven't had as much company here on the lake today." "I think its a lull between the Memorial day and fourth of July holidays. This place was probably crazy Memorial weekend, and will be almost as bad for the Fourth. People tend to stick closer to home for the Fourth, so its not usually as bad." From where we'd both started out semi-laying on the spot of smooth sand we'd found, we'd slowly moved as we talked until we were laying side-by-side only inches apart. An awkward silence hit us suddenly. I glanced at my watch. "We'd better go," I said. "We've been gone almost an hour. "Okay," she said softly. "But don't you think you should kiss me first?" So I did, and she kissed me back and it was very, very nice. Soon it began to get kind of uncomfortable too. She giggled when my discomfort became obvious. "Sure, you lay here and laugh while I take a quick swim to try and get readjusted," I teased, completely comfortable with her finding humor in the situation. I rolled away from her before I stood up and took a quick run toward the water, diving in and swimming underwater for a little while before coming up with a splash. "Woohoo!" I heard from behind me and turned to see Kelli sprinting for the water and leaping in for a classic cannonball. I started swimming her way and she began scrambling for the beach, screaming and laughing at the same time as I 'chased' her back to our life jackets. We shared another, briefer kiss before we got zipped back into them and headed for the jet skis. As we sat on the boats in the quiet, before we fired them up again, she finally asked me the question I had been expecting all afternoon. "This CEO thing with FiberDyne and the DOD stuff. Your rich aren't you?" "Yes I am," I admitted. "I'd always known my parents were well off, you understand? I never understood how rich they were because they were happy living a life that said 'well off', not one that said 'rich'. The crazy thing was they were into banking and investing, and Mom's family had been in banking for generations. I should have had a better sense of what that meant, but I just never paid attention to it." "I understand," Kelli nodded. "They didn't want to raise a boy who was spoiled by money, and they were happy." "Now that they're gone, I'm learning just how rich they were. FiberDyne is, at the moment, the minor part of what they left me. It seems to be heading towards becoming the major part, but I won't know for sure until we have some meetings next week with our DOD liaison." "So you really more than just a little rich then?" "I am," I said. "Does that worry you?" "A little," "I hope it doesn't change whatever interest you have in me," I said with some fear in my voice. "I'm finding myself very interested in you, and that's not something I've felt in a long time." "No worry there," she grinned, blew me a kiss and fired up her jet ski. I followed suit and let her lead as we zipped our way back across the lake towards the houseboat. ------- Chapter 48 The rest of the day on the lake was much more laid back. After we got back, everyone else got in a little time on the jet skis, and Kelli and I got in a little time soaking up rays on the sun deck. Minus the wet suit pieces and the life jackets, we were looking much more like sun worshipers than we had earlier. Kelli had some sun block, though I was in far more need of it than she was. She applied it liberally to me and then I had the pleasure of returning the favor. Needless to say, the first sunbathing session was done face down. The Eagles were reunited and singing 'New Kid in Town' while we laid there, eyes closed, feeling the heat of the sun. I don't know about Kelli, but that wasn't the only heat I was feeling. I tried to take my mind off her nearness by focusing on the water. I was a good fifteen feet above the water, which was quite a lot further away than I had ever been before when locking onto a water molecule. More importantly, I learned that I didn't need to actually see the water to lock on it. Maybe it was because there was so much of it. Maybe it was because I had seen it, and knew it was there. Maybe it was both. One thing I did know, was that water was eager. It was easy. Locking water without looking at it meant nothing – yet. We were on our backs, sunglasses and more sun block freshly applied when everyone else came back. They were excited and a little wired from the thrill of the ride, and that was enough to get us up and moving. "Feel like a swim?" I asked. "Absolutely," Kelli sighed. "That sun was nice, but I'm boiling!" "Me too," I agreed. "Lets get a drink first." We stopped at the fridge downstairs and topped off our mostly melted and barely cool ice teas for a fresh cold batch that still had ice floating in it. A couple of long swallows and we were ready for the water. Everyone was aboard except for Ken who was tying up the last of the jet skis. "Jump in over the side?" Kelli asked. "Sounds like fun," I agreed. We walked over to the port side and stepped up onto the gunwale with one foot each. I reached over for Kelli's hand and she put it in mine. "One, two, three, go!" Kelli called out and together we stepped up and jumped. We were still holding hands when we hit the water, and managed to keep our grip even after we went in, but as we surfaced, Kelli dropped my hand and momentarily turned away. "You okay?" I asked. "Fine," she replied. "But my new suit top isn't up to that kind of entry, so if you'll give me a moment?" "Of course," I laughed, turning away so she could get her top where it was supposed to be. "Okay," she said a moment later. When I turned she was along side me and reached up with her hands and arms around my neck and pulled herself up for a kiss, which pulled us both underwater momentarily. Underwater or not, the kiss was very nice. I felt my toes touch the lake bed and let our momentum carry us down a bit more before straightening my legs and pushing off the bottom. We were still kissing when we resurface, but pulled apart so we could keep our heads above the water. We swam in the warm water of the inlet for a while, playful and teasing by turns. I think the others left us alone, knowing this was sort of a first date for us. The water was just too inviting though because eventually Gloria came flying, tucked into a cannonball, over the side to join us, quickly followed by everyone else. The play got a lot less flirty and a little more athletic, and Kelli and I joined in for a while before pulling ourselves aside to lay in the shallows to soak in the warm water. It was very relaxing, and we held hands underwater for a long stretch of quiet, contemplative closeness. "I'm starting to feel a little over-baked, how about you?" Kelli asked. "Me too," I agreed, and it was true. The skin on my face in particular was starting to feel a bit tight. "I hope I'm not going to be red as a lobster at dinner later." "Maybe we should go see if there's any sherbet left," she suggested. ------- "There is some danger in deciding on 'fine dining' when one is in the Napa Valley region. Perhaps its all the vineyards, but there are a lot of upscale restaurants that are too upscale for me." So Darius prefaced our entry into Go Fish, a restaurant in St. Helena he'd chosen for our after-ski dinner. As the name suggested, fish was featured on the menu, and we all had the Tai snapper except for Gloria, who insisted on having the sole. I finally allowed myself a drink, a single glass of a wine. Kelli had several, but she wasn't driving. We were an animated, chatty bunch during the meal, reliving the moments that stood out from the day. Kelli and I took some good-natured teasing, but they didn't lay it on thick. Though we had a long drive through the hills back to Santa Rosa, we said our goodbyes outside the restaurant. The other couples would be going home from here while I took Kelli home. It did occur to me though that she had met me at the IHOP just like everyone else. "Am I taking you home, or did you leave a car at the IHOP?" I said, figuring it was safer to ask than assume. "Well, I had this well designed plan that had you dropping me off at the Hillside where I would call my brother, who is standing by with two of my uncles. He would come and pick me up to bring me home." I felt glum for a moment only. The glum faded when I tripped over the word 'had'. "You had a plan?" "I did," she laughed. "In case you didn't turn out to be as nice a guy as I thought, or if I had any reservations." "But?" I prompted. "But you were just as nice as I hoped you would be and our date was great and now I know more about you and feel better about letting you take me home." she reached over and patted my should, then after a long pause while she stared straight ahead - "Besides, you're a good kisser. I didn't include that in my well designed plan." During the rest of the ride home we talked about another date the following weekend. I didn't yet know if the meeting with Major Lancaster was going to produce obligations in the near term, but I expected I would know by the middle of the week, so we made plans to check with each other Wednesday night for sure. Kelli had me take a left onto Montecito Boulevard, and then the Fountain Grove Parkway. It wasn't until we passed the Fountain Grove Golf and Country Club that I realized we were in a very upscale neighborhood. Very, very upscale. "Here on the right," she pointed a little later. I found a long driveway with a gate. She pulled something out of her purse and pointed it. The gate began to swing open, and I had to slow down to wait for it. The house at the end of the long drive was, to be honest, palatial. I pulled up in front of the entrance and Kelli leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. "Walk me to my door?" "Sure," I slid out of the Wrangler to the sound of her light titter and moved around to open her door. I kept waiting for the hair on the back of my neck to tell me her brother and two uncles had come to her rescue, but we were alone when she stepped out and still alone when we stood in front of the door. "You'd better make this goodnight kiss a good one," she whispered as she slid into my arms. "I'm sure the videotape from the security system will get plenty of viewings tomorrow." So I kissed her as if I really meant it, and I did. This was really our first lost-in-the-moment kiss. I had to hope Kelli lost her ability to focus as I had. If so, she recovered more quickly than I did, because she was looking into my eyes and smiling at me when I was finally able to see clearly. "Good job!" she whispered as we hugged one last time. Then she was inside and the door was closed and I was on my way home. Slowly. I had no idea how to get home from her house. I ambled my way vaguely west until I finally found the Redwood Highway. ------- Chapter 49 I woke up happy Sunday morning. A little stiff and sore, but happy. The skiing had used muscles that I hadn't exercised recently, and they let me know about it. The happy was entirely based on Kelli Montoya. A quick run around the property loosened up the muscles enough to stop their complaining, then I spent an hour in the basement working them over so they wouldn't be so eager to complain in the future. As for my Kelli Montoya smile, I would send her flowers tomorrow, and call her later today and thank her again for the wonderful date. I would leave her morning to her and her family. I knew that church was important to them, and didn't want to intrude on that time. Church was on my mind for other reasons this Sunday. There were two places I hadn't visited yet that were long overdue, and my parent's church was one of them. I fixed myself a breakfast of coffee, toast and two soft boiled eggs, and when I was done, went down to the cavern and spent an hour working with the sample slabs. Before I began I had a talk with Bud. "Bud, how aware of things are you? Are you self aware enough to perceive the passage of time?" "Of course, Cooper," he responded. "How do you keep track of time?" I asked. "Well, there are a variety of ways, but its simplest to just say that I am always aware of the date and time, down to the microsecond, actually," he said with some trace of boastfulness. "Good, then from now on you will be our timekeeper," I told him. "I'm getting tired of being surprised by how much time has passed when we're down here training. You will keep track of the time for us and be our alarm clock and appointment reminder. Agreed?" "Well of course," Bud sounded offended. "That is the least of what I can do." "Well then you haven't been doing the least thing for me, because you haven't been doing that, have you?" "You're right," he said, then went silent. "Good, now lets get busy, but we've only got an hour, so in exactly one hour, interrupt whatever we're in the middle of and remind me its time to go." "Got it," he said with some of his normal cheer. "Yesterday on the lake there were several times I wanted to play with locking some water molecules and move them around, but you discouraged me. Why?" "Because it was too dangerous with others around," Bud said as if it was obvious. "Dangerous?" "Yes, extremely. You are quite capable now of locking on macroscopic quantities of water, are you not?" "Yes I am," I said proudly. "And so far you are locking on what amounts to monomolecular sheets of water molecules. Sheets a single molecule thick, like the graphene." "Right," I agreed. Now, what happens to an object if you hit it with your single molecule thick group of locked molecules edge on?" "But its water," I blurted out at first thought. "It would be pretty harmless, wouldn't it?" "Left to itself, of course," Bud lectured. "But it isn't being left to itself, is it. You have the molecules locked. Their behavior and physical properties, such as hardness, are modified by your ability. Given that, a monomolecular line of water could and would act like the sharpest knife ever seen. It could potentially slice through almost anything." "Oh my God!" I gasped as the realization hit me. "That would be extremely dangerous." "Yes, and for that reason you must move beyond your natural tendency to grab molecules in the two dimensional way you do now. That ability will be the key to much of what you will be able to do, but you must train until manifesting that aspect of it requires conscious intervention." "So not so much going with the flow and more building three dimensional locks." "Correct, and you must move much further into the macroscopic with it. Even something hundreds or thousands of molecules thick could potentially be sharper than you could imagine." "Especially when I have those molecules locked." "Yes," Bud agreed. "When you begin manipulating molecules with more structural integrity, greater hardness and durability, you could probably make permanent blades of incredible sharpness. But even then, your ability to apply a telekinetic lock would amplify the effectiveness of any blade you wielded in that way." "I see," and I was, in my mind, seeing how horrible such 'blades' could be. "Beyond that," Bud continued when I paused. "You move these molecules from place to place faster than the eye can see in some cases. The speed at which they move and the thinness of the cuts could mean that you could cause a great deal of damage before you even realized it." "So my training will have to be as much about how not to do things as it is about doing them," I said aloud as I saw the other side of the coin for the first time. The rest of the hour seemed almost anticlimactic after that discussion, but I spent it growing my ability to 'grow' the amount of molecules I was grabbing. "Time," Bud said at last. The regulations regarding the wearing of the uniform post-discharge were pretty specific, but I was managing to bend them a little today. The regs said: 'A person who is discharged honorably or under honorable conditions from the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps may wear his uniform while going from the place of discharge to his home, within three months after his discharge'. I had already traveled from the place of discharge to Santa Rosa, but today's events would for me, signify the final steps to being home, so I considered this a valid interpretation. I walked through the doors of the First United Methodist Church wearing my Dress Blues. The church itself was beautiful, with that large, inspirational and impressive style common to churches. I didn't stand at the back of the church long before an older gentleman came quickly but solemnly from the front of the church. He was eying my uniform as he came near. "Good morning Gunny," he said with a smile. "Good morning," I returned the greeting. "I'm Bob Rosewood, Are you here to worship?" he asked. "I'm Cooper James," we shook hands as we exchanged names. "I was hoping to see Pastor Whitmore," I told him. "But I will be attending today's service." "Pastor Whitmore is giving the sermon today, Sergeant James." he told me. "But I'm sure he would be happy to meet with you following the service." "Thank you, that would be fine." "Let me show you to a seat," he offered. I followed him to the front of the church, stopping at the third row. There was an empty space in the pew right on the aisle. A middle aged couple were there with four others to the right of them in the row, all younger, possibly children and grandchildren. "Here we go," he said, waving me towards the empty seat. The man I would be sitting next to stood up. "Pete, this is Gunnery Sergeant Cooper James. Sergeant, this is Peter Trask and his wife Emily." "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Trask," I shook hands with Mr. Trask as I nodded to Mrs. Trask. "Pete and Emily, please," Pete told me as we sat, Mr. Rosewood leaving us. Emily leaned forward to look around her husband. "Are you new to Santa Rosa, Sergeant?" she asked. "Just Cooper, ma'am, and yes, I've just moved here recently." "you don't have family here then?" Pete asked. "No sir," I said, not wanting to elaborate. Mr. & Mrs. Trask seemed very nice, but I didn't want to make my parent's story the news of the day at First United. Fortunately the service began and I was able to focus on it. I was never a dedicated church-goer, but I attended regularly when I was living at home in New Jersey. There were times while I was serving overseas when I would attend a service, often before a mission I felt had too much FUBAR potential. The service here was fine. Between Memorial Day and Independence Day as we were, it was more about service and honoring our fellow man and God. I found nothing disagreeable and it was certainly not filled with the social venom and self-satisfied superiority of some I'd experienced. The military seemed to be top-heavy these days with what I considered the seedier side of man's religion. When the service ended I found Bob Rosewood at my side again, I stood with him while the rest of the church made their way out of the church. "Let's wait for a moment and allow the rest of the congregation to go ahead of us," he suggested, We waited only a few moments before taking a place at the end of the file of exiting congregates. Pastor Whitmore stood on the steps of the church speaking with those who stopped for a word on their way out. He was an older man, probably in his seventies with white hair, glasses and a distinguished, scholarly air. "Sergeant James, so nice to meet you at long last," he said as he took both my hands in his. "Thank you for shepherding our young man on his way Bob." "A pleasure meeting you Sergeant James. Don't be a stranger." I shook hands with him then and, because there was something about him that seemed comfortable, I offered him a parting "Semper Fi." "Oorah," he replied, and I got a quirky smile from the older Marine. "Would you like to come to my office for a chat Cooper, or would you like to take a walk on the grounds with me?" "The walk would be nice, as long as you're not just offering for my sake." "No, its how I usually wind down after a service. Preaching tends to leave me a little high strung." So we walked through the grounds and talked about my parents. They had chosen First United due to its proximity to Santa Rosa Memorial, the hospital where my dad went for his treatments. I found out a few things from Pastor Whitmore. I found out that my parents were very proud of me. I found out that they were very happy in Santa Rosa and excited about the future. They had even talked about adopting a child and becoming parents again. That shocked me at first. "Your parents were excited at the sense of freedom their new lives here gave them," the pastor told me. "They felt they had escaped a life full of obligations they dreaded honoring. Their old life and old obligations were what made them decide against having more children after you were born." There was a lot of reading between the lines involved, but I knew that my parents must have told Pastor Whitmore all about their crime family connections back east. In the end I thanked him and told him how much it meant to me to have the communications with him while I was going through the shock of learning about my parents death. I promised him I would be back, but that I probably wouldn't be a regular church-goer. That just left one more stop. First I made a quick trip to the Safeway in the Flamingo One Stop. It was Sunday and all the regular flower stores were closed, and almost amusing to have discovered, the church and cemetery where all close to the Flamingo and the Hillside Inn. I had a small plot map to guide me, included in the things forwarded to me by Darius Booker while I was still overseas. It was easy to read and I found my way with no problems. Fifteen minutes after I'd parked, I was standing over the marker. Mr. & Mrs. Charles James Charles and Deanna "The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart" I had loved the quote when I'd read it in letters from Pastor Whitmore and it made even more sense to me now, knowing more about what had brought them to Santa Rosa and their life before. I dropped to a knee and put the small bouquet of Safeway flowers atop the plaque embedded flush into the beautiful lawn. "Hi Mom and Dad," I said with a quavery voice. "Sorry it took me so long to stop by to see you." ------- Chapter 50 "Think of it as taking a step back from a rattlesnake you encounter on the trail," Bud suggested. "You keep your awareness focused on the snake, but you move back from it." "Step back where? There's nothing there, nowhere to go." I asked, confused. "okay, okay, okay," he rushed. "Try another tack. "You're focusing through binoculars. You have a particular building in your sight. Now zoom out so you see more and more of the city, while still remaining centered on the building." "I can't do it," I grumbled. "The minute I try I loose my focus." "Try!" Bud yelled. "I am!" I yelled back. "Stop!" Harley's voice rose up out of the quiet place he usually kept himself. "This is not helping." The silence in my head was almost deafening as we stopped struggling with each other and my locking ability. The pause lengthened. For me it was like I needed to catch my breath all of a sudden. "Listen Bud!" Harley growled finally. "Cooper doesn't 'see' this stuff, despite treating this like it was similar to vision at the beginning. He feels this, he doesn't see it." "That's ri..." "Cooper!" Harley yelled at me. "What's your problem. You knew what I just told Bud as well as I did. Why do you keep feeling for edges in only one direction? Come on man, get your head out of your ass!" Our arguing must have really set old Harley on edge. I couldn't remember him ever being so loud and in your face about anything in the admittedly brief time we'd known each other. "Well okay then," I muttered. I could hear Bud snickering, but at the same time I recognized his chagrin. "Feel it all over and get my head out of my ass." So I took the old man's advice and just let my 'feel' fly off in whatever which way it wanted to go. At the same time I poured all my anger and frustration and everything I had into it. I would have screamed it out too, but I didn't have the energy – I poured it all into those damned 'edges'. And dammit all to hell! Dammit all but it worked! I felt it as my molecular lock didn't just grow, it bloomed! My senses raced through the block of Bakelite like wildfire and it was suddenly like I was staring down at the Earth from orbit when a second ago I'd been staring down at the street from a skyscraper window. Zoom and swoosh, I had the entire slab locked! "Yes!" Bud's cry came triumphantly. "You've got it!" "I guess I do," I laughed. "Should I try to lift it or something?" "Yes," Harley begged. "Lift it up." "But slowly," Bud cautioned. "Remember that your mind can imagine it moving faster than physics will allow for, and the results of failure can be unpredictable and dangerous." So I took a breath and lifted the small block of Bakelite with my telekinetic talent. I made it rise slowly, inches at a time until it was hovering six feet over my head. While I had it safely overhead where it would be less likely to cross paths with any of my molecules, I sent it floating in a circle around me. I slowly moved it faster and faster until the block's passing through the air started to make a rushing noise. I decided to stop it and for the first time, I felt something odd associated with using my telekinesis. "Careful," Bud cautioned. "You're feeling the resistance of the built up energy inherent in that mass' momentum and velocity. Telekinetically, you are able to sort of work around some of the physical limitations you might otherwise experience, but it doesn't mean you can just violate the laws of physics at will." I moved the block of old school plastic back to where it had started, and oddly, I could sense exactly where that spot had been, allowing me to replace it exactly where it had been to start with. Bud sensed my awareness coming to rest on that. "Molecules interact, effecting and being effected in return. You are able to sense their interaction and match them up in your mind, seeing how they fit back together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. This is even more marked when dealing with two pieces of what was once a whole." "Phew!" I said out loud and Harley echoed it silently. "Hungry?" Bud asked. "Famished," I said, and it was true. "You moved into new territory today with your talent," Bud laughed. "Your body thinks its expended a lot more energy that it actually has, but still, you should eat, its getting late, and you skipped dinner." I had skipped dinner. Mrs. Ibarra didn't cook on Sundays and I'd asked her not to cook the night before, since we were going to have a late dinner on the way home from Lake Berryessa. This left me without any leftovers, so lunch had been courtesy of an In and Out Burger, which drew me in as I drove past it on the way home. I looked at the clock. It was 8:30. What I wanted was pizza, but I wasn't sure I could find anyplace this late, except for the usual chains, and I didn't want to go that far looking. A quick laptop session found me Andorno's Pizza, which was still open for a half an hour. I could get there by closing time if I hurried, but figured I'd be better off trying to call ahead. They were happy to take my order and happy to read off the menu of their pizza recommendations. I opted for a small 'Pride of Petaluma', a roasted chicken pizza that sounded perfect, and a grilled chicken breast salad. I was in the Wrangler within five minutes of picking up the phone, headed for Guerneville. The ride was pleasant and uneventful, other than the thrill I got, while stopped at a light waiting for traffic, of reaching out and locking onto a crumpled beer can sitting on top of a concrete-filled steel post by the side of the intersection and lightly pushing it off the post. "Don't get cocky," Bud said, cutting into my smug grin. I was there so quickly that my pizza wasn't ready to go when I arrived. I sat and drank a root beer and flirted with the waitress who was way too young for me, but cute and giggly. It was a ten minute experience and I left shaking my head. High school girls should be required to wear a bra, or at least learn to operate the top buttons on their blouses. On second thought, this particular hhigh school girl probably did now how to operate the top buttons on her blouse and had been trying to push my buttons. I grabbed a handful of the paper napkins they had on the counter so I could eat pizza as I drove. I didn't have a nice hotbox to transport my pizza in, so I wanted to get some of it while it was still fresh and hot. I even managed to not burn the roof of my mouth with hot cheese. I sat in the living room and ate the rest of my pizza while I got caught up on the day's news online and listened to music. I finished a slice of pizza and, because the curtains were closed, the door was locked and I was alone, I stretched my new found gifts by lifting the next slice telekinetically out of the box and into my hand. I ate the salad the traditional way. Pizza isn't the messiest food in the world, but it can be messy, especially when they're generous with the sauce and toppings. That had been true in this case and the stack of napkins had long been used up and replaced by paper towels. I grabbed a crumpled napkin with one hand while taking a bite of the last piece and crumpled it more tightly, tossing it in the air and catching it again. "Go ahead," Bud said after a few tosses. "I know you want to try catching it with telekinesis. "Go ahead." So I did. Well, I did try. I did fail too. I waited for the crumpled ball of paper to reach its apex after tossing it up in the air and reached out to grab it. It wobbled, shivered, un-crumpled slightly and then fell fluttering to the floor. "Like with moving water, that paper was more difficult to lock onto because it was moving," Bud explained. I picked the paper up and it felt funny, warmer than it should have. "But on top of that, your efforts to lock onto all the molecules in it and keep them from falling back down encountered several problems. There were additional energies from little things like the paper being crumpled. There was some energy trapped there as the fibers of the paper were trying to return to their original alignments, also the paper ball was rotating slightly in multiple directions, all these things made grabbing the molecules difficult. All the molecules whose various energies and rotations and tensions matched your initial lock cooperated. The vast majority, which did not meet those criteria, did not." "So that's why I saw some wobble and shiver at the moment I tried," I observed. "I'm guessing the warmth was from induced friction?" "Correct. As you can see, you still have a ways to go towards mastery of what you can do." "I guess I do, but it sure seems like I'm taking bigger steps these days." "Doesn't it though?" Bud and Harley agreed. ------- Chapter 51 Major Vance Lancaster was a foot shorter than I was, with a soft voice and a mustache that qualified as somewhere between 'pencil' and 'disappointing'. He was wearing an Air Force uniform which automatically counted as a strike against him in my book. His soft handshake and weak smile didn't win him any points either. 'Sergeant James," he said as he approached me in the Kaffe Mocha & Grill, our lunch destination. Lloyd, Ben and Sam stood behind me. "A Pleasure to meet you at last." "Major Lancaster," I replied, returning his handshake. "I look forward to getting things squared away so FiberDyne can start being everything you have asked us to be." The greeting seemed to satisfy him and we sat at a large table with a lot of privacy. The restaurant was on the edge of the airport and I imagined it was a place the Major felt comfortable. It was too warm for coffee so I ordered lemonade after lingering on the iced tea option for a while. Everyone else ordered an iced coffee of some kind which, given the name of the place, was probably what they were known for. I prefer my coffee hot. "Lloyd tells me that we can go ahead and do our press conference tomorrow," the Major said while we waited for our drinks. "That's correct," I answered. "My week is open, but as far as I"m concerned, the sooner the better." "Great," he actually rubbed his hands together. "We'll have a helicopter at the FiberDyne helipad at 9am tomorrow, if that's not too early?" "No problem," I nodded. The drinks arrived and I took a long sip of the lemonade. It was a pleasing combination of tart and sweet and didn't go too far one way or the other. I'd been studying the menu while we talked and I was prepared to order, asking for a prime rib sandwich and salad. "The last of the paperwork was signed this morning," Lloyd told me. "With the signatures you gave last week, this press conference is the last step. By tomorrow afternoon we'll officially be a DOD supplier." "And we are the sole suppliers for these materials, correct?" "Ahh, that is correct, Sergeant," the Major licked his lips unattractively. "Our contract makes you the only company in the country authorized to produce these materials for us." "Which is natural enough, since we are currently the only company capable of making them," I countered. "Exactly," he laughed. Finally something about the man I didn't find off-putting. He had a good laugh. "The press conference will be pro forma," the Major said as we waited for our food. "It fulfills a federal regulation regarding military contracting by the Department of Defense. Particularly regarding DOD purchasing not tied to a particular military budget." "So its really a CYA thing," I said dryly. "Exactly," the Major again laughed. "The members of the press who will attend will be – ahh, how do I put it?" "The usual suspects?" I laughed. "Close enough," his laughter joining mine. Lloyd, Ben and Sam joined in as well. "Since we don't have any impressive hardware to show off, we won't do the usual podium in a hangar scene politicians love. There's a briefing room for the press corp at Travis and we'll use that," "Whatever makes you folks happy," I agreed. Lunch arriving interrupted things for a while as we all got our meals arranged and dug in. My prime rib sandwich was very nice, served with some Au Jus to dip it in like a french dip and some horseradish. The meat was succulent enough that I didn't bother with either of them. It was a large sandwich. I wound up sacrificing half my salad, as I was full before I could finish it. When the feeding frenzy died down a little I got around to asking the next of my questions. "Will I be expected to make a statement?" "Yes, I'll call you up and introduce you and you can make a nice, generic statement." "Major Lancaster," I laughed. "I'm so new to this party that a generic statement is the only kind I'm capable of. I don't have the education or training to be able to tell you anything specific about what FiberfDyne actually does. I know it involves making things out of something called graphene, or at least that was the start of it. I know how much my parents invested in the three guys sitting with us, and how much faith that implies that they had in them. Beyond that I can't day much." "That will make it easy then." "Will I have to take questions?" "Yes, but that will be easy enough as well. Answer in whatever detail you feel comfortable with if they ask personal questions. For anything technical, defer to Mr. Lloyd or Drs. Nieminen and Girardi. For the most part, if its not a yes or no answer, I'll interrupt at that point and say its classified and prevent an answer from being given." "That sounds simple enough," I said, breathing a little easier. The idea of having to speak at a press conference had been intimidating me a little. "Its even simpler than it sounds," he snorted. "Don't forget, the 'reporters' that are attending are hand picked by us. They know better than to get too nosy." There was little else to cover. The Major reminded us that nothing new went anywhere before he and the DOD had had a chance to test it. We could do whatever we wanted with their rejects personally, but we couldn't sell them commercially. Nobody seemed eager to linger over a second iced coffee, so I said my goodbyes and headed out to the Harley. I'd been missing riding it the last few days, so I was glad to have it out, and again it was a nice day for a ride. I had barely pulled out onto the Redwood highway when my phone chirped. Ahh, my new helmet with the bluetooth modifications Gus at the Double V shop had suggested were finally coming in handy. "Answer," I commanded into the helmet mike. I'd had to upgrade my phone too, so soon after having bought it, but it was now proving to be worth it. There was a chirp that signaled the command had been accepted and completed. "Cooper," I said into the phone. "Cooper, thank you for the flowers, they're lovely!" Kelli gushed. "Oh good, I'm glad. I spent some time on the phone with the florist this morning trying to get it right." "Well, you got it very right, and everyone here at work is very, very jealous!" she giggled. "Where are you? You sound funny." "I'm on my bike. I just had a meeting out by the airport and am headed back home." "Oooh, fancy, you got your phone wired into your helmet." "Phone, mp3 player, the whole works," I bragged. "If we ever decide to do a bike trip together we could even have a helmet-to-helmet communications system so we can talk to each other while we ride." "So I'd have to get myself a motorcycle then?" "Well this hog is designed for two riders, so just a helmet like mine, at a minimum, but his and her Harleys sounds pretty good too," I teased. "We could ride across America some day, maybe." "That does sound like fun. Someday," she sighed and there was a moment of silence then as I think we were both basking in the warmth of possibilities. "Based on that house I dropped you off at, and the neighborhood its in, you could afford the bike if you wanted it," I observed. "My parent's house is a bit ostentatious," she laughed. "It is the way they are building them these days in that neighborhood though." "Swimming pool? Tennis court?" I asked. "Yes, and I'm a good tennis player, despite my height." "I've been thinking about a pool," I told her, which was true. "But I'm also thinking I need to make the whole place more secure. When you have money, you become a target." "Well, speaking of being able to afford it, right? So do whatever it takes to make you feel safe." "You're right of course," I agreed. "But things have been moving so quickly! I haven't even been in town a whole month yet! I've met bankers and lawyers and scientists and Air Force Majors and beautiful and intelligent hoteliers. It has been incredible, and some parts more incredible than others, speaking of beautiful and intelligent hoteliers." "Well thank you kind sir," she giggled. "I'd reply in kind, but I'm not sure what to say after handsome and charming. Entrepreneur? CEO? You're a hard man to classify." "After tomorrow it will probably be 'military industrialist' in some people's eyes at least. I am the majority owner of a business whose sole client is the Department of Defense after all." "It will be fine," she said reassuringly. "You're doing fine, really, with everything." I knew she meant with her, and I knew she meant it as encouragement, which I was happy to get. "I better let you go so you can concentrate on the road," she said into my silence. "Call me tomorrow? I think I might have something fun to do this weekend if you're interested. I'll know more tomorrow." "Alright, I'll talk to you tomorrow," I said, wanting to say more, or blow a kiss or something. "You'll have to hang up first, my phone control is voice-activated." Kelli hung up and I told my phone to shut off. I pondered Kelli as I rode. I'd been on River Road for most of the conversation and was very close to home. For the first time I really paid attention as I did to what was adjacent to the property. The fence line was just open scrub and trees on both sides of the small post and rail fence. Coming in from the east I didn't see another house. I rode past my driveway and looked at the property to the west of me. Mine took up most of a little notch in the hills, but there was nothing on that side either for quite a while. Not until the road curved around another bend. The house was isolated and I didn't have neighbors. Right now it was private, but not secure. I pulled a U-turn and headed home. More to think about. ------- Chapter 52 The helicopter wasn't visible as I approached the FiberDyne building the next morning. I took the elevator up to the office and found all three of my partners there. "Good morning Cooper," Ben greeted me when he saw me. "Coffee's on!" I grabbed a cup, not having had my morning's quota yet and walked over to where the three of them were standing, watching something on the computer. "what's so interesting?" "Ahh, Sam stumbled across this page full of animated gifs on the internet," Lloyd explained. I glanced down at the monitor and saw a high school boy getting his testicles rearranged by a steel railing, over and over again. I cringed automatically. "okay, enough of that one," Ben clicked an onscreen option and the next picture showed some guy miraculously avoiding a horrendous accident as he seemed to casually step out of the way just before a car careened off the highway and into the car he'd been standing next to. "A nice morning's entertainment I see," I laughed. "The helicopter should be here any minute, so we don't want to get too wrapped up in work. This does a good job of keeping us occupied while we wait," He clicked on screen again and the picture changed to the upper torso of a very generously proportioned, naked woman bouncing up and down. "Yeah, about one of every ten of them is like this," he mumbled apologetically. "They seem pretty popular." "I would imagine so," I commented dryly. Fortunately we were interrupted by the phone. Lloyd answered. "The helicopter is here," he announced. "Let's go." The three of them grabbed their coats and we headed for a door at the far end of the office from where the elevator was. A typical security door with a push bar led to a flight of stairs that turned once before leaving us at another door. This one also had a security bar on the inside. We pushed through and there was a Bell 206 sitting on the helipad. There was a smiling woman dressed in an Air Force uniform standing at the doorway who ushered us in. It was done in Air Force paint on the outside, but I could see it was the prototypical executive shuttle on the inside. The executive cabin was very well appointed and much more soundproof than the Pave Hawks I'd most recently been used to traveling in. "Welcome aboard gentlemen," our hostess said as she shut the cabin door. Things got immediately quiet. "I'm Airman Lonnigan, but since none of you are military, you can call just me Abby." "Thank you Abby," Lloyd said with a smile. The airman had been chosen for this duty, I assumed, because she was very easy on the eyes. "If you'll just take your seats and fasten your lap restraints, we'll be in the air momentarily. We're sixty air miles from Travis, and should be on the ground there in approximately 30 minutes." The scenery was very nice, for most of the ride as we crossed the majority of the Sonoma and Napa valley wine country. Our hostess didn't offer us anything to drink, but sat expecting to be engaged in conversation. Ben and Sam both spoke with her briefly. I ignored everyone for the most part, just watching the scenery go by and fighting off the memories of past flights. 'Well, exiting this bird should be a lot less exciting that the last couple I dropped out of, ' I thought to Bud and Harley. 'And you won't have to jump out of this one, ' Harley's laughter sounded in my head. The airman escorted us out of the Bell and quickly across the tarmac to a small door in the side of a huge building. Behind that door we followed a short hallway and then went through a door that left us in a small room with several comfortable looking love seats, upholstered chairs, a large counter with a mirror behind it, and another door with both male and female symbols typically used for restrooms. I stepped in, and yes it was, so I emptied my bladder quickly, washed my hands, examining my face for a moment as if reassuring myself that this was going to be okay. Hands dried and fly double-checked I stepped out of the bathroom and found the Major there already. "Ahh James, good. We're ready to go if you are?" "Of course," I nodded. "Alright, just like we discussed yesterday. I'll have some introductory remarks, you'll make your statement and then we'll open it up to questions. A few of those and we're done." And that was pretty much how it went. My statement was so bland as to be totally unmemorable. I at least couldn't remember it five minutes after I said it. The only real surprise was when one of the men asked me about my military career. The Major jumped in immediately. "Mr. James served ten years in the United States Marine Corp. That service included active duty tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. His last station was the jungle warfare training center at Camp Gonsalves, Okinawa, where he received his honorable discharge with the rank of Gunnery Sergeant. Any other questions about his military career should be directed to the Defense Department." Wow. There was a mouthful, and probably said better than I could have. I tuned out the technical questions and the inevitable 'classified' intervention by the Major. It was a very brief briefing. We were done in less than thirty minutes. Airman Lonnigan escorted us back to the Bell and we were in the air and on our way back to FiberDyne within five minutes of leaving the podium. Major Lancaster talked the entire way, but it was just jabber. I tuned it out, only barely remembering to smile when I shook his hand at the cabin door. My partners were very much wound up on the flight back. I had to remind myself that this signaled a big payday for us, and for them, their first big payday. The scenery outside was just as nice going back as it had been coming down. Inside, the airman seemed to be trying to give me a look at some nice scenery as well, as she had unbuttoned a couple of the buttons on her uniform. I didn't think the air force uniform was really cut to take advantage of such an effort, and in any case, I had better scenery on my mind, thinking of Kelli and what she might have for us to do this weekend. We got a wave and another look down the blouse of the airman as we exited the bell on the FiberDyne helipad. Ben, Sam and Lloyd were all laughs and smiles as we went through the door into the rooftop stairwell. It was interesting to note that Lloyd used a cardkey to unlock that door and used the same key to unlock the one back into the office. "Do I get one of those?" I asked, nodding at the key. "Well, yes," Lloyd looked embarrassed. "Now that you're officially a part of the team, you should have your own key. Ben, can you put in a request for another key?" "Sure," Ben said. "I'll call them now, no sense waiting." "Who does your security?" I asked, realizing they may have already gone where I needed to. "Ah, the Air Force is doing it now, but they said we had a pretty decent setup already," Lloyd bragged. "They added the guards of course, which we weren't doing before, and they changed out most of the equipment and replaced it with their own." "Who did you go with before?" "ADT Security," Sam said. "They're a national outfit, but they were very professional, and very thorough." "Good to know," I said. "I've been thinking I need to do something about security out at the house. Even if people didn't know I had money before, there's no sense risking it." "Well, ADT did a great job for us, we were sorry to see them lose our contract, but the Major insisted." "Okay, now," I said shifting gears. "Where's all this stuff you've made that the DOD doesn't want and that you can't sell?" "Oh, you want to see it? Actually the reject shed is kind of cool," Ben said excitedly. "Hah," Sam pointed as his friend. "You like anyplace with an echo." "I'd like to see it, yeah." I agreed. "Let's go," Ben got up. "Aren't you supposed to be calling to get Cooper a key?" "Oh, yeah," Ben said disappointedly. "Go ahead," Sam laughed. "I'll call in the key request. Cooper, it will mean coming in for a biometric scan before they'll activate the key. That will probably be in a couple of days." "Okay, thanks." Ben took me down to the ground floor and outside the building through a side door. We walked a good five hundred yards down an asphalted path before we got to a two story building with no windows and a single door. He used his key card to open the door. Lights began coming on automatically when the door opened and were almost to full brightness by the time we were inside. Ben noticed me glancing at the lights. "Industrial LED lighting," he bragged. "They'd come on even quicker if they weren't designed that way to cycle up. Actually gives the human eye a chance to adapt to the brightness without having to worry about temporary blindness." With the lights on, it was obvious that the tall building did not have a second story, just a single big one with Costco-like ceilings and racks. The racks were almost completely bare. There were a half dozen racks halfway down one side of the left wall that were not empty and Ben led me to them. "These are our disappointments," he sighed. "These all seemed to hold some promise, but we were never able to make them into anything practical." "Not so impressive, is it?" The six racks contained large spools of cloth, all in shades of black or gray. Ben pointed at one in particular with a distinctive woven pattern visible in it. "This is batch AG6a," he sighed. "We thought this was going to mean a revolution in memory cloth. Our theories told us it should be able to 'remember' shapes by applying an electrical charge, and then return it to its original shape by reversing the polarity of the charge." "Didn't work?" "No, instead what we got was a woven, flexible capacitor that couldn't be made to hold its charge for more than a few microseconds. Still, the military guys took it and played with it for over a year before they gave up too." I was trying to project a calm disinterest, but I had Bud in my head, going 'Yes! Yes! Yes! We want this one!' It was hard to ignore. "This one here was batch CC21a," Ben pointed to the one above the one Bud was being so orgasmic over. "It was supposed to absorb radio waves and turn them into electricity. Id does absorb radio waves." "But?" I asked. "Turns them into heat, and nothing else. Doesn't do to have your new stealth material show up clearly on infrared." "I'm guessing the defense guys were disappointed?" "To say the least," Ben laughed. "Oh, here's one they actually liked, sort of. Batch AG951." "What was it supposed to do?" I asked. "This was supposed to be a new Kevlar, a new, improved material for making body armor, and it actually worked." "So why didn't they take it?" "Well, it was as good as Kevlar, but not better. Since it cost a thousand times as much a square yard to make, they rejected it." "I see," I said as Bud was insisting in my head that we wanted this one too. I had been experimentally feeling the material with my fingers as we talked about them. Bud cautioned me to keep my head out of them for now. The next two samples drew no notice from Bud, but the last did. "Batch AG6A," Ben said with another sad sigh. "At the molecular level, this stuff looks like it should make the perfect selectable semiconductor material – you could practically cut transistors off with a pair of scissors. Buuut," he exaggeratedly beat me to the punch. "It didn't work. We couldn't get the stuff to line up the right way no matter how we tried to encourage it. Another dead end that nobody has any interest in." "Hmm," I feigned considering the materials. "They're useless to anyone, but you can't sell them." "We can't even give them away, technically," Ben snorted. "You or I could take a roll home and use it to make pillowcases or to line our garbage cans, if we wanted to, but technically, no giving it away to anyone." "So I could take it because I already own it?" "Exactly." "Okay, I'll take this roll, this roll, and that one up there," I said pointing to the three rolls of Bud's desire. "Huh?" "Well, you said I could take them and no one else wants them, so I want them. I'll stick them in my garage, play with them a little and feel like I'm involved in something related to fiberDyne." And that, minus a few more confused 'huh?'s from the rest of the crew, was how I wound up with three eight foot tall rolls of unique nanocomposite fabric in my garage. ------- Chapter 53 The fabric needed a sealer to make it work best. Sewing the damned stuff was possible, but didn't make for the kind of seams we would need. So said Bud. At least this was true when it came to making seams between two different fabrics. Turns out my telekinetic ability with molecules also made it possible to encourage identical materials to 'reconnect', even if they hadn't been connected in the first place. So I was set to be my own super hero seamstress. No Edna Mode for me, I would build my own suit – and no cape! Edna was right. Capes are dangerous. This was all a bit in the future, I rationalized as I stared at the swatches of fabric I'd cut of my three rolls. The rolls themselves were huge. I had enough to make a hundred costumes each, if that would have been the way it worked, which I already knew it would not. Tuesday afternoon I called ADT Security and asked to have a technician come out and take a look at what I wanted to protect. They said they could have someone out tomorrow afternoon. Next I called Darius. "Hey, what's up buddy?" he asked when he picked up. "Do you know who owns the properties adjacent to mine?" I asked. "No, why? You having problems with the neighbors already?" he joked. "No, in fact I don't see anyone living on the properties on either side of me. Its heavily wooded and undeveloped in both directions." "Okay, then what do you need?" "I'm thinking of buying them, if I can." "What for, isn't your place big enough?" "For the extra security. I'm getting a security contractor out here today to look the place over. I'm too rich on paper to continue taking security lightly. I need cameras, sensors, better locks, you name it." "You're probably right," he conceded. "I can't help you on this one, but I''ll give the realtor I dealt with a call and have her call you." "Thanks buddy, I appreciate it." "So, you got another date with Kelli lined up yet?" he asked. "Maybe. I should know more tomorrow. She's got something we might enjoy doing this coming weekend, but I don't know what yet." "Well good luck, she's quite a girl." "I couldn't agree with you more," I laughed. My next call was to Sonoma Pool & Spa. They agreed to send someone out at 10am the next day when I told them I was interested in a custom pool, and that I was more worried about getting what was right for me than I was about price. It felt good to be able to say that and be able to mean it. I guess I'd been capable of saying it since I got back, but I was beginning to appreciate it more. That had left me down in the cavern, playing with my swatches. I learned something immediately, once Bud let me play with them. All three fabrics were very responsive to my ability to lock and to my telekinetic touch. Very responsive. Water molecules seemed standoffish in comparison. Batch AG951 was the first one Bud asked me to look at. I locked on the molecules of the swatch, 'tasting' them for the second time. "Kind of gooey," I thought. "Yes, nowhere near the impervious substance our friends at FiberDyne thought, eh?" Bud asked. "Doesn't feel like it." "You have all the molecules locked?" he asked, rhetorically. He knew as well as I did what I had locked. When I didn't answer with my thoughts, he continued. "Tell them to be impervious." "What?" I asked, confused. Bud laughed. "Okay, okay, not exactly that way. What you need to do is move those molecules each against the other, like this..." his mental voice trailed off and was replaced by an image in my mind of each molecule moving in a particular way, shifting just slightly to change the way they aligned with each other. I 'twisted' them with my mind and suddenly my swatch went from gooey to hard and smooth. "Wow," I thought. "That's quite a difference." "It is, and the change is permanent," Bud told us. "Feel it." I reached out with my hands to touch it and strangely, the material actually felt softer than it had before, not harder. When I pushed a finger into it through, it seemed to stiffen up slightly, and felt rougher, like sharkskin. "Bullets, knives, bombs, lasers, radiation, you name it – if its energy based, it gets absorbed, if its material, it gets impeded." "They were so close," I said, thinking of Lloyd, Sam and Ben. "But they had no way to take it that final step. What you did is the only way." "So we took their AG951 and turned it into ... what?" I asked. "Impervilon," Harley thought to us after a moment of silent thought by all three of us. "Impervilon," Bud and I echoed. "I like it," I said. Laughter times three echoed in my head. By the time I got back upstairs Mrs. Ibarra was there and the ground floor of the house was filled with the wonderful smell of cooking that emanated from the kitchen. "You do like that basement, don't you young man?" she asked me as I walked in. "I do," I told her. "I can't wait for the rest of the equipment to be installed." "You might want to consider moving the laundry room back upstairs," she suggested with a raised eyebrow. "The mud room by the back garden is wired and plumbed for it. I feel like I'm intruding when you're down there exercising, so I don't come down." "Not a bad idea," I agreed, thinking it would be good to have one less reason for her to need to go down there. "I do need a store room for exercise gear, and the utility room is too small." "While we're on the subject of changes, I should warn you that I've got a security company coming by to look the property over. I need to increase the security of this place. I've also got a pool company coming by to talk about putting a pool in." "Oh, where were you thinking of putting the pool?" "I was thinking in back on the west side, opposite the garden would be nice. I might ask them about adding some sort of water feature in that area as well." "Oh, some sort of small pool or pond would be nice. I've always thought it needed something back there." "We'll see, but I think you're right." "since we're speaking of change..." Mrs. Ibarra said hesitantly, which set alarm bells ringing in my head. "Yes?" I asked with some trepidation. "I do not think that you need me," she said with her eyes down. "You are much too active to be able to plan meals for regularly with our current arrangement." "Well, you're probably right about that," I admitted reluctantly. "I've noticed it myself, my not being around when you're cooking, or having to call you to cancel because I'm going to be out for the evening." "What you really need is a live in cook who works only for you and whose schedule can be completely flexible to accommodate yours." This was true, if it wasn't for the whole keeping the super hero secret identity thing I was going to have to worry about at some point. Some point soon, I was hoping. "I see your point. I know this is hard on you, but..." "You're not sure what to do about it, are you?" she looked up and had a smile like my mother used to give me when she was putting a band aid on a scratch, just before she kissed it better. "No, I feel loyal to you, for what you meant to my parents especially, but at the same time, I'm not sure I could get used to a live-in anything." "You need someone who won't be in your way, won't be demanding, won't get into your business, which does seem a bit mysterious, by the way." And there it was. The angle I needed to explain without explaining. "You're right," I smiled. "Come out to the garage with me for a minute?" "All right. Just let me turn the heat down on this for the moment." In the garage the three rolls of material were obviously a new addition. I walked her over to them. "What are these?" she asked, reaching out to feel one of them. "These are FiberDyne rejects," I said. "The company is now an official strategic materials supplier to the Department of Defense, and these are materials the company made that were rejected by them, but which we aren't allowed to sell to anyone else." "So you have them here?" "Yes. We're not even allowed to give the stuff away, but as one of the owners, I can fool with the stuff all I want. So I took these three rolls as a lark, and who knows what I'll do with them, but there they are." She looked at them and gave me another raised eyebrow. "I see," which meant, of course, that she didn't. "The point is that I work for a company whose every product is assumed to be classified as a matter of national security. Even the stuff they don't wind up using, like this, because the method of making it might be determined by others if they got their hands on some." "I see," she said, meaning it this time. "So we need to find you someone who can keep to themselves and that the feds won't object to, is that it?" "Exactly," I agreed. "Oh, and someone my potential future girlfriend won't object to either. That requirement should go to the top of the list, actually." "Really," Edwina tittered. "Your miss Montoya, I assume?" "Yes," I confirmed. "I am hoping so, anyway." ------- Chapter 54 It was the middle of June and it was a busy day. It began with my usual run of the property line, which my eyes now tried digesting with security in mind. I considered what it would do to the scenery if I had a security fence put in. I knew that a fence would be as much a sign of something valuable as anything else, but it was also a good way to discourage most intruders. I was starting to feel paranoid about my concerns. I had oven baked french toast for breakfast, courtesy of a pan Mrs. Ibarra had made up the night before and left in the fridge. She was going to do 'a little looking' for me, she said, to try and find someone I would find acceptable as a live in housekeeper. Since I was expecting the pool consultant at ten, I didn't want to get too busy in the cavern, so I stayed upstairs, got caught up on the morning news and checked my email, which I'd not done the last couple of days. I had emails from Bobbie Chalmers and Mitch Price. Bobbie was just following up, making sure everything was working fine. I emailed him back and told him things were fine, asking if he had that new grand kid yet. Mitch was just emailing a 'what's up?', and I emailed him back saying I was busy, but not tied down to a suit or chair yet. A Gmail IM window popped up immediately. "Sup, dude?" "Chilling," I replied. "Got a pool guy coming by this morning, so gotta stick around the house." "You got a pool?" "Not yet," I answered, adding a smiley. "Cool," he sent, and then before I could reply, "You some kinda Richie Rich?" "Not growing up so much, but I am now," I answered. "Cool," he sent. I wondered if that information was going to make him think I wasn't interested in maintaining the friendship that had been developing. "I'm thinking of adding more computers to the house so I don't have to keep remembering to take the laptop with me when I go to the bathroom." "The house networked?" he asked. "Yup, supposed to be good stuff from my cable provider. The tech was an older guy but very competent, from Guerneville." "Sounds good." "Do I need a Mitch Price seal of approval?" I asked. "You want my recommendations for your other computers?" "Absolutely. You're my go to guy for that shit, you know that." "Guess I do," he threw a smiley back with that one. "you busy tonight?" I asked, thinking no time like the present. "Not really, What time and where?" "Seven sound good? I'll feed you dinner." "Free food is always good." "Okay, lets plan on it then," I gave him the address and described the property for him a little and warned him not to trust Google Maps. "They're about a quarter mile off," I laughed. "They think I'm closer to Guerneville than I actually am." "They do do that sometimes, don't they? See you tonight." I still had quite a while before the pool guy would be here, so I headed upstairs for a quick shower. I was just dropping my shorts on the bed when my cell chirped at me. "Cooper James," I answered. "Cooper, its Billie. We're set to head out with the rest of your stuff if its a good day for it." "Awesome," I said. I have a pool guy coming by at ten, so I may have to leave you to your own devices for a while." "No problem, my install guys are familiar with the layout now, and they said you were very accommodating last time." "Same deal this time too," I laughed. "I'll throw some extra iced teas in the fridge. Try and pull everything over to the side of the porch, okay? I want the pool guy to have an unobstructed view of the front of the house." It was almost nine by the time I was showered and dressed. I went and checked my iced tea supply and realized I was a bit short handed if the installers were thirsty. I grabbed a sharpy and a piece of paper and printed a neat 'If you're early, go on in and make yourself at home. Ran to the store at 9am. - Cooper' I taped the note to the front door and headed for Hacienda in the Wrangler. Berry's market saved my day again, as this time I bought two cases of the Honest Tea that I'd grown to like. I didn't strike it rich this time in the produce section, so I came home with just the tea. The note was still on the door and there weren't any cars in the driveway when I got back. I took the note off and got a case of the tea cooling in the fridge. I made a pot of coffee and a pitcher of lemonade at the same time, just to be safe. I had a cool glass of lemonade in my hand and some idea of which of Mrs. Ibarra's offerings I was going to use for dinner tonight when the doorbell rang. It was Billy and a line of guys with their hands full. I recognized two of the guys as having been here the last time and waved them on, as they knew where to go. "Can I get you a lemonade or an iced tea?" I asked Billie. "Not yet," he said. "Let me go pretend to ride herd on these guys for a few minutes first." Shortly after they'd disappeared down the stairs with their second load of pieces and parts, the doorbell rang again. "Good morning," I said with a smile as I opened the door. Holy smokes! "Good morning Mister James. I'm Bianca Ingersoll from Sonoma Pools & Spas." My pool guy was a pool gal, and what a gal! "Come on in Mrs. Ingersoll," I said, noting the ring on her finger. "Excuse the madness, but my home gym installers are here finishing my home gym. They shouldn't interfere with our meeting, though I may have to take a moment when things are done to sign some papers." "Not a problem," She smiled. "I recognized the truck as I was pulling up. It must be a serious home gym if they had to bring a truck and two cars. "That's because I refuse to ride with the yahoos that work for me," came Billie's voice from behind us. "Billie!" The lovely Mrs. Ingersoll squealed. "Good morning Bianca," Billie said, coming over and getting a hug. "Well, I see you two know each other," I laughed. "We've worked on the same new houses a few times in the past," Billie explained. "When you said the pool guy was coming, I didn't realize it meant that you were looking at putting one in." "I'm kind of regretting the pool guy reference now," I laughed. "I was a bit off on that, wasn't I?" "Very off," Billie laughed along with me and tipped an imaginary hat to the lady. "I just came up to tell you we've got about an hours worth of assembly and adjusting down there before we need you. Will that be enough time?" "It should be, thanks Billie. Now Cooper, may I call you Cooper?" "Of course," I agreed. "And call me Bianca, please. Now, why don't we go take a walk around the property while we talk?" "There's iced tea and lemonade in the fridge Billie, and fresh coffee in the pot," I called back as we headed out the door. Bianca Ingersoll was a very charming woman, and really knew her business. We looked at the front of the house first and then at the patio/garden area. "this is really the defining part of the exterior," she said as we stood in the middle of the patio. "It does need something, but there's not really room for a pool here." "I know what you mean," I nodded. "I was thinking more to the west side of the house, behind the garage extending along the line of the hill." "Is this for exercise or just for fun?" she asked. "I was hoping for both," I told her. "My former career had some very aquatic components, and required I be a strong swimmer. I don't want to loose that, and at the same time, I can see myself entertaining around a pool and patio area." "Covered?" she asked. I'd seen a covered pool option on their web site, but the question still found me unprepared to answer. "I don't know," I said. "Certainly not at the patio. The pool should seem as natural as the rest of the space, but if its for swimming, something to keep the sun off would be nice, this time of year especially." "Not married and no kids, I take it?" so she had seen the state of my ring finger as well as I had hers. "No. Potential girlfriend perhaps, but that's it. I've only been in town a few weeks." "What about a hot tub or spa?" "Hmm ... I like the idea, but don't know if it would fit in with the rest of the patio. Could it go somewhere else?" "Is that deck on the second floor outside the master suite?" she pointed. I looked up to see where she was pointing, but knew that the only deck on the second floor was outside my bedroom. "Yes it is." "One could go up there easily, it appears from here. With the space being over the main foundation rather than out on stilts it could probably take any kind of tub we wanted to put there." "True, but that seems too, ahh ... intimate a space to want to put a large tub. I could see a two person tub, but I'm not the kind to invite more than one person up to my bedroom, even if its just to soak in the tub." "I understand," she smiled. "I'm of the same opinion, personally." I tried to square that statement with the almost transparent blouse and lack of a bra, but decided it was beyond me. "Would you be opposed to some major landscaping to reorient the entire space to accommodate the pool?" I thought about it. The small, circular stone patio in the center of the 'garden' was the only piece that truly spoke to me as a parental remembrance. "Could we keep that," I said pointing to it. "I think so," she said after staring at it for a long while. "Let me work up some ideas. If I can't come up with something that works with it, we'll start over." "That works for me," I agreed. "I'd like to get my digital camera out of the car and take some pictures as well, if you don't mind? Including a few from that upper deck." I walked her back to the front porch and waited by the door while she got her camera. I showed her up to the bedroom and unlocked and opened the french doors leading to my balcony, as I'd always thought of it. She took a quick series of pictures down into the back garden and some wider shots of the whole back of the property. "Good vantage point," she said as we walked back down stairs. "Those will probably be the shots I need, but I'll take a few more from around the property and then take off. No need to stick with me if you'd rather go check on Billie and his boys." We shook hands and I went back into the house through the patio door. I found Billie and his crew sitting at the kitchen table drinking lemonade. "Mission accomplished," he grinned. "Awesome. Its been a productive day already." "That it has. All we need now is for you to come on down and double check everything. We can adjust the chin up bar for your height and get the crunch bench set for your long-legged self." We went through everything pretty quickly. The big station they'd installed the first time was the most technically finicky, so the new stuff was a relative breeze. My height had been taken into account to begin with, so the personal adjustments were minimal and minor. Billie already had my credit card info, so all I had to sign was the final invoice and completion contract and we were done. I waved goodbye from the porch as their three car caravan pulled away and then went in and sat on the couch with my lemonade. "What a morning!" ------- Chapter 55 I had leftover french toast and cherry sherbet for lunch. The second batch I'd made had been sitting in my freezer since Friday and I was going to serve it tonight to Mitch. There was an awful lot of it though. I could use more dinner guests. I wondered if he had a girlfriend. I grabbed the cell and called him this time. "Canceling dinner on me Cooper?" he said as soon as he picked up. "Nope, just wondering if you have a girlfriend you'd like to bring along. I've got more food than the two of us could eat." "Well, I've got a girl I'd like to call my girlfriend. I could call her and see if she would come to dinner with me on short notice. Will your girlfriend be there too?" "I'm like you, I've got a girl I'd like to call my girlfriend that I'll call and invite." "Okay, let me make my call. I'll call back in a few minutes." While I waited for his call back, I called Kelli. "Hi Cooper sweetie!" she smiled through the phone. No I swear, I could almost see the smile. "Hi yourself, sweetie," I returned in kind. "You free tonight?" "I am for you. What's up?" "I've got company coming for dinner and I'd like more help eating the cherry sherbet we're going to have for dessert." "Company for dinner and dessert huh? Who's coming to dinner?" "Mitch Price. He's my go-to guy for computer advice. He's seventeen, and hopes to be bringing a girl with him." "Don't want his girl to feel outnumbered?" "He said he's hoping she'll be his girl, but that she isn't yet, so anything we can do to help him out. He's already been a big help to me." "Sounds like fun, what time?" "I told him seven, so if you want to come earlier, I could be ready for you any time." "I'm sure you could," she said in a low, breathy tone that had me gulping. "So I better not come by too early. How does 6:30 sound?" "Works for me," I said. "they're both to young for alcohol, but I was thinking we could have a drink before they got here." "Ooh, I have an idea. I've this very tasty key lime Mojito mix. I'll bring it and the fixings. We can make a pitcher to serve with dinner. Its very good with or without the alcohol. We can spike ours if we want, but I'd rather not drink if they can't." "That will be perfect," I said. "Dinner is going to be something Mrs. Ibarra calls Carne Asada Casserole. I've got Spanish rice to go with it." "Mmm, that sounds yummy. Will you need help?" "Well the casserole is already made and in the fridge waiting to throw into the oven. I've got to make the rice, but the rest of the ingredients are ready to add to it, and there are written instructions." "Mrs. Ibarra sounds like a gem," Kellie cooed. "She is," I agreed. Just then I got a chirp from call waiting. "That's probably Mitch," I said. "I'll call you back." "No need, I'll see you at six!" she blew me a kiss and was gone. I answered the incoming call. "What's the word Mitch?" "I'm set," he sounded excited. "Meg actually asked me why I'd waited so long to ask her out." "Well that's cool, but she understands this is sort of a working dinner, right? Dress casual and all that?" "Sure, no problem," Mitch laughed. "I just think that the idea of dinner with an older couple at a private home has her feeling very grown up." I gave Mitch my address and said see you at seven. He sounded excited too. I hoped he and his date didn't blow this all out of proportion. I'd just gotten the general area cleaned up from the morning's busy spell when the doorbell rang again. This had to be the ADT guy. I prayed it was a guy this time and not another beautiful woman in a transparent blouse. "Mr. Cooper?" the burly guy asked when I opened the door. "Good afternoon, I'm Bill Largent. ADT Security." "Come in Mr. Largent," I said as we shook hands. "I've been expecting you. Can I offer you iced tea or lemonade?" "Lemonade sounds good," he said gruffly. I got him started towards the couch and went to pour a couple glasses. He had his briefcase open when I got back and there were aerial pictures of my property on the coffee table. I handed him his glass and sat down across from him. I'd moved the chair there earlier in the day thinking the pool guy would be showing me things, but he was a she, though she did show me a few things. I felt Harley's silent chuckle at that thought. "Your situation isn't too bad here, Mr. Cooper," he began as I sat down. "The adjacent properties are undeveloped and you have these hills backing all three of them, The highway and the Russian River front you and those limit the options of anyone interested in bringing harm your way." "I see you wanted to come prepared," I said, impressed. "That's why were the best at what we do," He grinned, the gruffness disappearing. "Prepare for the worst and expect the same. That's our unofficial motto at ADT, Santa Rosa." "You obviously researched the address I gave you, did you also research me?" "As much as possible, sir. We understand you're rich enough to make finding out how rich you are difficult. We hit blank walls with your lawyer and investment group, but were able to draw inferences from the degree of blankness those walls presented. We also found the FiberDyne press conference at Travis yesterday." "Well, you now know why I have concerns about my security," I laughed. "I'm rich enough to be a target and my defense department ties make me a target for different reasons. I decided I needed to be more aware of my security here and see if there were practical ways to increase it without turning my home into an armed camp." "Given your military background, we assume you aren't thinking about bodyguards or other personal protection services?" "Bodyguards? Definitely not. Backup is always nice to have though when you get in a tight spot. Those things we can discuss eventually. For now I'm hoping to get a quote on setting up a state of the art security system for the house and property, including intrusion sensors and video surveillance of the property. I'd like to hear whether your people would recommend a privacy fence." "We can do those things," he nodded. "I'm sure you can," I grinned. "The guys at FiberDyne were very complimentary, and told me they were sorry to have to cancel on you." "Well, you can't argue to much with the Defense Department, and the people they bring to bear on such situations are very, very good at what they do." "You should also know that I'm beginning the process of having a pool put in, which will probably include fairly extensive landscaping behind the property. I'm thinking of having trees planted alongside the driveway as well. I find the bare drive very unattractive. Like I said, better security, but not an armed camp." Thus began the negotiations with ADT for increasing my security. Some might have thought it odd that I was having security increased when I had super hero kind of secrets to protect, but I considered it insurance that the only eyes on me would be the eyes I knew. By the time Bill Largent left, I was feeling pretty happy about the future security of my house and property. When I'd asked for a preliminary ball park estimate, he laughed at first, but the price he gave made me gulp, but I followed it with a grin. I was still thinking of the old days when my prices had to have fewer digits to the left of the decimal. It was three. I had three hours to kill before I had to be home, showered, dressed and smiling for Kelli's arrival. I smiled at the leakage I was getting from both Harley and Bud's eagerness. Bud especially, was eager to play with the new fabrics. Harley's eagerness was a little harder to figure. Maybe he was just re-projecting Bud's. I needed to make a beer run first, and had a mind to run into town and get something from the Russian River brewery, but that was a bit further than I wanted to go right now. I jumped on the bike and zipped over to Berry's Market and found myself another six pack of Anchor Steam. I trolled through the produce section as usual and found a couple of very nice looking locally grown tomatoes that I paired up with a small wheel of Vella Dry Monterey Jack cheese. The two would make very good pre-dinner snacking. I liked the Anchor Steam, but I would have to make a point of making a beer run to someplace that carried a wide variety of local and regional stuff so I could get a wider sample. I parked the bike in the garage, glancing at the spools set back on one side against the wall. I put my six pack in the fridge and walked back into the garage and reached out with my mind to the three rolls of fabric. All three sat on spoolers that let me pull as much off as I wanted. Each spool held a bolt of cloth eight feet wide and a thousand feet long. I had a lot to play with. I'd already taken small swatches from the three spools, more as Bud's way of showing me how to 'cut' pieces than because I needed them. The material was so eager to be touched that I didn't need to practice manipulating them. I took six feet from each spool and let them trail me down the stairs into the basement and into the cavern. "Man, I wish everything responded to me like this," I said aloud as the door closed behind me. "Everything will, eventually," Bud reassured me. "These materials though are going to be special, and not just because you'll wear them. They can become more when used together than they are individually. They too, are one of the reason why you were a prime candidate." "What would you have done if I hadn't worked out?" "We would have had to go for our second choice. That choice would have meant that these materials would have been useless. Only someone with your ability could make use of them. The program would have been delayed considerably." "Well, I'm glad that you're glad it was Harley and me. I think that makes three of us." "We are close Cooper," Bud laughed as I made the sheets of fabric swirl around overhead. "I will have to show you how to do some things you won't understand. Some patterns that you will need to impose on the AG6a and the CC21a to bend it to our will. The meaning of these patterns will be technically beyond you. You will have to learn them by rote at first. But we are getting close." ------- Chapter 56 I was still thinking about my damp hair and wondering if I should let it grow out, when the doorbell rang. I glanced at my watch and realized it was just a few minutes before six. Bud had done a good job of keeping track of time for us and I had left the cavern in plenty of time, but had taken longer than I'd expected in the bathroom. Just dawdling, my mind still going over some of what Bud had talked about and shown me. I took one more quick glance in the mirror and then galloped down the stairs. "Hi!" Kelli said brightly when I opened the door, way to quickly. I had to catch myself before I slammed it into the wall behind it. "Hi!" I grinned and answered back. "You look nice." She did too. Bright yellow dress that set off her dusky, tanned shoulders. She had a matching sweater folded over the crook of one arm and a grocery bag in the other. "Thank you," she grinned back. "So do you. Your hair's still damp." "Yeah, I kind of dawdled in the shower. Here, let me take that," I reached out for the bag and she handed it to me. It was bigger than I'd expected, and seemed full. "This all needs to go to the kitchen. Do you have ice? This would work best with crushed ice." "I do, but we'll have to crush it in the blender." I walked toward the kitchen, looking back to make sure she was following. I set the bag on the breakfast bar and turned back to her. She didn't stop, but kept walking up to me until she'd violated my personal space quite severely. Such impudence deserved only one response. I leaned in until our personal spaces were in mutual and intimate violation and kissed her. "There's the nice welcome I was hoping for," she breathed into my ear as we hugged following the kiss. "That's a welcome I'm happy to offer you any time," I breathed back. I kissed her again, a quicker, more traditional welcoming kiss and leaned back to separate us a little. "Can I take that sweater for you?" "Oh yes, thank you. I'll get our Mojita fixings going while you do that," she moved around me to grab the bag, brushing against me and my abused personal space again. I smiled and rushed back to the entryway to put the sweater in the entry closet. I looked at the hangers in the closet and decided the loose, cable-knit sweater would be safer laid on the high shelf at the back. When I got back to the kitchen, Kelli was slicing a couple of limes very efficiently and quickly. I was jealous at the uniformity of the slices she was achieving seemingly without actually watching hand, or knife. "Wow, you're good!" "Thanks," she giggled. "I worked as a waitress at several of our hotel restaurants while I was in high school. Slicing fruit as garnish for drinks and food was one of the things the waitresses did. I got lots of practice. Between that and all the time I spent in the kitchen with my Abuelita Isabel ... Ah how she can cook!" Her evident delight in her grandmother was contagious, driving my already wide grin even wider. I grabbed a big stainless steel bowl out of a cabinet and kissed her cheek while I walked past her. "I'll get the ice crushed while you're doing that." "Okay, do you have a pitcher?" she asked as I walked into the pantry. "There should be a big one in the dishwasher," I said, poking my head back around the corner. I had just got the lid of the ice maker open when I heard a "Got it, thanks!" called back at me. I reached in and grabbed the ice scoop out of the ice bin and stared down at it for a moment. There was a chute in the sidewall of the bin and the lid I'd opened was only one half of the top. There was another lid for the other side. I reached over and opened the other side. There was another bin and this one was half filled with crushed ice. There was a pusher with a handle on it in this bin that was obviously used to feed ice into the chute on the other side. I quickly filled my bowl and then gleefully spent a couple of minutes pressing scoops of ice cubes through the chute of the crusher. "My ice maker was more awesome than I knew," I joked as I walked back out to the kitchen with my crushed ice. Kelli had a deep glass bowl half filled with some of the Mojita stuff, and was working it over very seriously with a wooden bat about 8 inches long. I watched raptly while she finished mashing the ingredients together before dumping it into the pitcher. "Would you fill the pitcher about three quarters full with the ice?" I did, using a plastic measuring cup I found in the cupboard to scoop the ice from the bowl to the pitcher. She followed this with cans of club soda, pouring them into the pitcher until it was full, stirring everything gently as she did. "There we go," she said, wiping her hands on a dish cloth. "A pitcher of virgin Mojitos We should save that to have with dinner I guess," she said as I put it in the fridge. "What else do you have to drink, and do you have any bar glasses? "I've got a six pack of Anchor Steam cold in here," I said from the fridge door. "And there's a full bar setup over there," I pointed towards the living room where Mrs. Ibarra had demonstrated the hidden bar for me. I went over and opened it up for her, then retreated back to the kitchen so I could put out a plate of the cheese and tomato that I'd bought for snacking on. I broke out a clean knife and sliced the tomatoes, but there was a cool little cheese slicing toy on the back counter I wanted to try, and had fun with it while Kelli explored the bar. "The bar is very nicely stocked," she said as she came back into the kitchen. "We'll have no problem heating up our Mojitos later if we want to." I perked up my ears at that. It sort of implied that she'd still be here after Mitch and his date left. I hadn't let myself consider that, but apparently she had. "I've got a plate of appetite encouragement here," I waved the plate in the air as I went to put it in the fridge to keep fresh for later. "I hope its not too upscale for our teenagers." "Most of them are happy to experiment a little with the food if it means being treated like an adult. Can you bring those glasses over that I set on top of the bar? We should probably close the bar up while they're here and just treat it like it doesn't exist." "I'm going to grab a beer," she said opening the fridge. "Ohh, you have iced tea!" "It is good stuff, I like it," I yelled back from the living room. "I'll take one of whatever you grab." I got the bar closed and while I was there, grabbed the dish controller off the coffee table and found some alt rock on he satellite radio. I turned it up loud enough to be heard in the kitchen, but not so loud as to require effort to speak over. "My Spanish rice recipe is a bit of a cheat," I said after I took my iced tea and another kiss from Kelli. "And I cooked the rice this morning. Actually, I cooked enough rice three times. "Three?" "I've got a very nice Cuisinart rice cooker in the cupboard. I cooked rice in it this morning to test it out. I got it right by the third batch." This got me a generous laugh, followed by a generous kiss as if to make up for being laughed at. "Well if the rice is cooked, what's our schedule look like?" "The casserole needs to go in the oven at 350 degrees about 50 minutes before you want to serve it, and it needs to come out of the oven after 45 minutes." "You memorized the instructions?" "Well, they were simple instructions," I said defensively. Kelli laughed again and gave me a hug afterward. "Sorry, I don't mean to make fun of you, but your showing your bachelor feathers a little here and it tickles my funny bone." "'I'm a decent cook, really, but most of my experience with it is very seat-of-the-pants. Most of the kitchens have been a bit ad hoc too," I joked. "I can imagine," she sighed. "It wasn't all MRE cuisine?" "No," I laughed as I had my own funny bone tickled. "An MRE is what you eat when you have nothing else." "Hey! Do I get a tour of the house before Mitch and his date? What's her name by the way? I don't think you told me earlier." "Ahhh ... Meg? Yes, Meg. I don't know if that's short for Margaret or something else." I confessed. "And as far as a tour goes, you can have yours now, or we can wait and do the grand tour with everyone." "I'll take mine now please," she set her tea down and took my hand. "Upstairs or downstairs first?" "Upstairs is mostly bedrooms and a sitting room. I haven't really used any of the rooms except for the master bedroom and en suite. That tour will be quick, so lets start there." The two unused bedrooms and the sitting room were pretty quickly disposed of. The master bedroom we lingered over, with some innuendo and some blushing. The master bath actually got more time than the bedroom proper. The large jetted tub and stand up shower with room for three received rave reviews, as did the twin sinks, and linen pantry. I showed her my balcony last, letting her look down on the back garden and the hill behind the house. "There's going to be a pool back here somewhere, probably over this way," I said pointing behind the garage. "But it probably means the landscaping back here is going to be completely redone, except for the circular stone patio. The pool company was here today to take a preliminary look see." The downstairs tour was achieved more quickly, despite there being more to see. The basement with its now fully equipped gym drew some interest, as did the mostly empty study on the ground floor as well as the remaining downstairs bedroom and the media/TV room, which my parents hadn't bothered furnishing. The downstairs rooms generated some conversation, centered around my own speculation regarding what I might do with them. Somewhere in the middle of that I paused long enough to get the oven preheating. We were back in the living room when the oven beeped to let me know it was done preheating. A quick glance at the time told me it was a quarter to seven. I left Kelli in the living room while I went and put the casserole dish in the oven and set the timer. "Dinner is in the oven," I told her when I got back. "How long will the rice take?" "Only five or ten minutes. Everything just gets thrown into a skillet and stirred together and heated up." "We've got ten minutes or so, what shall we do?" Kelli vamped a little in my direction. "Well, I'd like to suggest we go sit on the couch and make out a little, but Mitch and Meg would probably notice, don't you think?" "I'm sure," she giggled. "They're teenagers, right?" "They are, but I'm pretty sure this is a first date for them, so they may not have any mutual experience." "So," I said, suddenly remembering. "You might have something fun to do this weekend?" "Yes, I think so. It sounds like its a go, so do you want to go? It's going to be an all weekend thing." "Of course I do. Now will you tell me what it is?" "Kayaking. A guided kayak tour of Drakes Estero. Its in Marin County, in the Point Reyes National Seashore. I've been down there before to the Drakes Bay Oyster Company. The kayak tour is supposed to be really great and I've had some friends who've been wanting to do it for a while now." "Kayaking is good. I like to kayak. Since its a guided trip, are the kayaks rentals?" "Yes they are. We're looking at a full weekend with an overnight camp and everything. We won't be roughing it though – Sunday breakfast, two lunches and Saturday dinner are all catered." "Wow, this sounds like it will be pretty awesome. How many will be going?" "Eight counting us. My best friend in the world, Greta Petrizio and her boyfriend Tom. Our friend Gina and her husband Wyatt and our friend Sid and his significant other Ryan. Plus us makes it eight." "We bring clothes and cameras and that's it?" "Yup, everything but the kayaking will be as decadent as we can afford to make it." "Really?" I raised an eyebrow. "Well, no, I guess not" she giggled and punched my arm. "But I will have to remember to tell them not to worry about keeping the costs down on your account," "Sounds like fun for sure." The doorbell rang then and the kayaks were forgotten as we moved together towards the front door. ------- Chapter 57 Mitch went from a nervous smile to a big grin when I opened the door. Beside him stood a slender Japanese girl who matched him height-wise and haircut wise. "You made it!" I grinned back, come on in!" I moved aside, revealing the entry and Kelli standing by the entry closet door. The couple moved in past me and I closed the door behind them. "Mitch, this is my ahh – friend Kelli Montoya. Kelli, this is Mitch Price." "Nice to meet you Kelli, ahh, this is my umm friend Megumi Okada." "Nice to meet both of you," Kelli said with a grin of her own. "Can I take your coats?" Both were wearing very nice leather jackets. They weren't matching – Meg's was a deep. Reddish brown and went to the hipsand Mitch's was black and only went to the waist. Mitch was wearing black slacks and a blue shirt. Meg had a purplish colored blouse and a black skirt that fell to the knee. They both looked very nice. "Don't you both look nice," Kelli said as she took their jackets, Mitch schlepping a laptop bag between hands as he got the jacket off without setting the bag down. "Nice to meet you Megumi," I said to the girl as Mitch was helping her out of her jacket. "Meg please, Mr. James," she laughed pleasantly. "Only my grandmother calls me Megumi." "And I'm Cooper. Nobody in town calls me Coop yet, but it'll start eventually, it always does. Until then, please call me Cooper." "Of course," she laughed again. "And I'm Kelli. Nobody calls me anything but Kelli, except for my grandmother Isabel. Sometimes she calls me bellota." "Acorn?" I laughed. "Your grandmother calls you acorn?" "When I've pleased her. When I've messed up she calls me arbusto," She waited for me to translate, and when I didn't, provided us with 'shrub.' "How come you know bellota but not arbusto?" she asked. I recited. "An acorn swung On an oak-tree bough; So long it had hung, It would fain fall now To the kindly earth, That its germ within Might burst into birth, And its life begin." "'The Acorn' by Francis William Bourdillon," I explained. "I had to translate that in Spanish class in high school. Back then I could recite the entire poem, but these days that first verse is all I remember. Can't say my Spanish is all that good anymore either, but I do remember bellota, my little bellota ... um "mi pequeña bellota?" "Hah! Not bad for a kid from Jersey," she leaned in and kissed my cheek. "Dinner's in the oven and we have..." I glanced at my watch. "forty minutes until the timer goes off. About five minutes before that happens I need to start getting the rice ready, so we've got a while before we eat. Would you guys like something to drink? We've got bottled iced tea or key lime nojitos." Oooh, Nojitos!" Meg overacted. "Keep the alcohol away from the teenagers," her lighthearted laughter after the overly dramatic statement had us laughing along with her. "Those go with the dinner?" "Yeah, Carne Asada casserole and Spanish rice." "Better save the good stuff for dinner then," she said. "I'll have an iced tea for now." Mitch nodded his agreement at her decision. Drink choices decided, we moved towards the kitchen where Kelli retrieved our iced teas and I fetched two more from the fridge for Mitch and Meg. I double checked the oven and timer to make sure everything looked good. "Lets go sit in the living room," I suggested. "I'll turn the music down a bit." everyone followed me there and I grabbed the remote and turned the volume down a little, though it wasn't that loud to begin with. When I turned back to everyone I saw that Kelli had sat down on the love seat and Mitch and Meg had taken the couch. Kelli smiled and patted the seat next to her, so I slid in beside her, letting my arm slide around her back. "You have a very lovely home," Meg commented, looking around. "Thank. I'm still getting used to it. When I showed Kelli around earlier it was only the second time I'd been in some of the rooms." "He showed me where he's going to have a pool put in out back," Kelli said. "I think I"m going to have trees planted along the drive too – its just too bare for my tastes." "That'll help make things a little less visible from the road too," Mitch suggested. "Not that you're all that visible with the house back against the hill like this." "No, the setback from the highway is nice, even if it is just an old two-lane blacktop," I agreed. "I just think it will look nicer driving up to the house through the trees. It seems so barren the way it is now." While we'd been talking, Mitch had opened up his laptop bag and pulled out a laptop. "I'm no expert, obviously, but that doesn't appear to be the same laptop you had at the mall the other day." "Its not. That's my 'innocent, just hanging out, don't care if it gets confiscated' laptop. This is my 'Can't you see I'm working?' laptop. Very different set of programs on this one. Some that might confuse local law enforcement." "And it would confuse them because?" I asked. "Because some of the same tools you might use to find and fix network and computer problems that can impact an efficient network can also be used to harm them." "Are you going to need them tonight?" "I don't know. We'll go look at where your internet connection comes in to the house and where your wireless is set up, and that will tell me a lot." "Why don't the two of you get started on that while Meg and I go set the table?" Kelli suggested. "Sounds good," I said, standing. "C'mon Mitch, let me show you to the dungeon." "Lead on." I took him down stairs to the basement and showed him the utility room. He looked over the incoming cabling, Bobby Chalmers network box and the cable company's and the wireless router. He tugged a little on the cables and smiled. "Your cable guy does really good work, and this is all good equipment. At least as good as what I would've recommended. You've got an internal copper network of some kind too, did you know that?" "Sort of," I shrugged. "Bobby, the guy who did the install says it was better to make an internal network and then hook wireless routers in where we need them. We hooked one up on the ground floor and another on the second." "How's the coverage been? Any dead spots?" "Not that I've noticed, but the only places I've used the laptop have been the living room, kitchen and my bedroom." "Well, I don't think I have to worry about your network from what I can see here. You want me to recommend some computers, so lets go back upstairs." "Works for me," I agreed. "That is one seriously kick-ass home gym you've got, by the way," he said as we were walking up the stairs. "Brand new too," I laughed. "My parent's didn't need this sort of stuff, but I'm still too used to having to keep myself in shape, so I bought the whole kit." "Yeah, you sure did," he added his laugh to mine and shook his head. I showed him where the wireless access point was at the top of the stairs. We went upstairs and I showed him the wireless access point up there. "Did your cable guy say where the tie in would be for your external wireless when you decided to put it in?" I didn't remember Bobby saying anything specifically about the outside wireless connection and suggested we look on the balcony, as it had a good view of the back of the property. We didn't see anything obvious on the balcony, but Mitch''s eagle eyes spotted a small block that looked slightly out of place under the eaves at the back of the garage. I agreed that it was worth investigating, or better yet, emailing Bobby about. Downstairs, we found Kelli and Meg sitting at the kitchen table heads together over their bottles of iced tea. "Hey ladies, what's up?" I asked. The two of them looked up at the both of us and broke into a fit of giggling. "I think we've been getting talked about," Mitch said. "I believe you're right," I agreed. I walked past the ladies and glanced at my oven timer. I was going to have to start working on the Spanish rice in a few minutes. I grabbed my iced tea from the breakfast bar and sat at the table next to Kelli. Mitch grabbed his as well and sat down next to Meg. "Cooper had someone who really knows their stuff set up his incoming stuff and an internal copper network that looks good too. There are wireless access points running off it on each floor." "That's cool, what's his security look like?" Meg asked. "Pretty much non-existent on the incoming, except for what's built into the cable company's hardware. He is set up with good wireless security though." "Do you just want more computers, or are you thinking of creating an actual home network?" Meg asked. "I was just thinking of more computers so I didn't have to shlep the laptop around everywhere in the house," I said. "Why, should I be wanting a network?" "It depends," Mitch said. "I haven't seen a printer anywhere for example. Do you have one?" "No, and I'll probably need one eventually, won't I?" "Most people do. Have you used the office suite I installed for you yet?" "No, I haven't really had a need to yet. I suppose I will, eventually though." I admitted. "Okay, if you just have a PC here, a laptop there, but not networked, then getting to a document you created on one machine from another would be more of a challenge without a network of some kind. You would have to print only from whatever computer your printer was hooked to." "There are ways of creating so called 'home networks' just using the stuff on your computers now, but that option produces a very crude and inflexible network," Meg added. "At the same time though, creating a real network also creates more vulnerabilities, and those would have to be addressed." "You did say you had some sort of business stuff to deal with here in Santa Rosa, didn't you Cooper?" Mitch asked. "I did, and it turned out to be a lot more of a big deal than I even knew when we talked about it before. I'm officially the CEO for FiberDyne Industries." "So you're an executive of a tech company?" Meg said. "Even worse," I laughed. "We're a tech company that manufactures exclusively for the Defense Department." "Whoa," Mitch said, doing his best Keanu Reeves impression. "You do need security!" "Ahh, which reminds me. I've got ADT Security working on setting up a security system for the property. They may want some input on whatever we do about a computer network." "ADT? They're good," Meg commented. "You can probably get whatever you need in the way of network security from them." "I suppose I could, but they're not my computer guys, Mitch is. Unless you tell me we shouldn't, then we buy the computers you tell me too and the ADT guys can worry about how to make the two systems mesh. Knowing in advance that they will be doing that might help you decide what we get, unless this is all starting to sound like a bigger deal than you're prepared to handle?" "No, its not that," he said, managing to look indignant at the suggestion. "Its just that I haven't really done this on an official basis. I don't even have a business license." "Well, we're friends, and I would rather have you as a friend than as a business associate, so if you don't want to do anything officially, You can just help me order what I'll need. But if you ever thought this was what you wanted to be doing, here's a chance to get your feet wet. I'll even help with the business license." I had to interrupt the conversation to begin fixing the Spanish rice. While I was doing that, the oven timer went off and I pulled the casserole out of the oven and set it on top of the range to let it sit while I finished. We'd been able to smell it the entire time we'd been sitting at the table, so the extra boost of delicious aroma when the oven door opened had us all salivating. The rice was almost done when I heard Kelli at the fridge behind me. "Oops, guess what we forgot?" "What?" I asked. "We forgot to dig into that nice plate of cheese and tomato slices you made up as appetizers." "Uh oh," I laughed. "Well, we don't have a salad to go with the casserole and rice, so we can use those to round out the meal, don't you think?" "Oh sure, that sounds good, actually. Something cool besides the Mojitos to take the edge off the hot dishes." So we put out four plates, each with casserole, Spanish rice, cheese slices and tomato wedges, filled four of the drink glasses and sat down to dinner. Mrs. Ibarra had done an outstanding job with the casserole, and the rice was pretty good too, if I had to say so myself. The key lime Mojitos were the perfect counterpoint to the spicy casserole. Everyone reached for more of the cheese and tomatoes too, I noticed. The conversation stayed away from me and my computer needs, as Kelli told them both a little more about herself and what she was doing. We got protestations of jealousy when she mentioned our upcoming kayak trip. Meg told us about working at the Abercrombie and Fitch in the Santa Rosa Plaza mall. "Its a good job and all, but I don't really like it. I have to pretend to be someone I'm not, and there's a lot of class consciousness amongst the staff. I'm sort of the token Asian. I think they hired me hoping to draw in more of the upscale Asian clientele." "Meg and I should go into business together," Mitch said off handedly. "She's way more up to speed on virus and spyware problems than I am." "M&M Computer Solutions?" I joked. Nobody laughed and the two of them gave each other the eye. After dinner we loaded up the dishwasher and otherwise got the kitchen squared away. While we did, Mitch firmed up what I was going to get. "You want a computer for the bedroom and one for the study, right?" "That sounds about right. I shuttle the laptop back and forth between the living room and the kitchen all the time, and that works fine as is. I would like to have something dedicated for the study. I haven't been spending any time in there, and it really is the perfect place to make my home office." "We should get at least one printer as well. A laser printer would be best. Are you willing to spend the money needed to get a good color one?" I looked at Kelli with a smile. She smiled and winked back. "Money is no object." "Oh yeah, I forgot," Mitch laughed. It wasn't much longer before Mitch and Meg had to leave. It was only nine, but they had a long drive and neither of their parents liked them driving at night. "Wow, that was fun!" Kelli said once I'd closed the door. "They're such a cute couple." "I think that they weren't a couple when the got here, but I think they are now," I sighed, remembering several looks the younger couple had given each other during the evening. "Yes, I think you're right," and then Kelli was in my arms. ------- Chapter 58 It was raining. The idea of running the property in the rain had its appeal, but I decided against it. The treadmill was boring, but I ran with my eyes closed and my mp3 player blasting out R.E.M.'s 'Collapse Into Now'. When 'Oh My Heart' started playing, I made a mental pause, if not a literal one. I ran and wondered indeed about my heart. Kelli had not stayed the night, and we had not wound up in bed, but we had lingered very close to that threshold before she left. There was a little reluctance on both out parts. For mine, it was just a desire to wind up with something real, not just a momentary passion that quickly faded. I could only hope that her reluctance was grounded in the same sort of concern. I would call her later in the day. She had to work, and was working longer hours the rest of the week so she could enjoy the weekend without worrying about being on call. She would know more by this evening as well about the kayak trip and what we would need to do. She would call me about that. I didn't expect to hear from Mitch today, but it wouldn't surprise me if I did. He would probably want to thank me for dinner if nothing else. I wasn't expecting to hear back from either the pool company or ADT today either, but I was thinking it would be a good idea to let them both know I was going to be out of town over the weekend, just in case. I would hear from ADT before the weekend, I knew, but the pool company was less certain. Bud wanted some time in the cavern too. He'd felt a little frustrated at our lack of activity yesterday, given how much progress we had made the day before. I sympathized; we had really been making strides, but bottom line was that I needed my chances to live a real life when the opportunities arose. I wasn't prepared to give up some sense of normalcy in pursuit of Bud's goals. Harley was definitely on my side on that one too. I don't really think Bud was against the idea either, but he did have his focus more firmly on that single goal than we did. All else aside though, this morning was his, and during breakfast, he began planning out our morning session, but interrupted himself before he'd hardly begun. "Cooper, we need to ask Lloyd what they're using at FiberDyne to sew these materials together." "What? You think they have some special thread or something?" "More like the 'or something'," he explained. "I anticipate a special bonding agent of some kind." "You mean like a special sort of super glue?" "Yes. I doubt that these fabrics are actually sewn, especially when they are combined." "I'll call Lloyd later. Its a little too early yet." "While we're waiting for the means to put our pieces together, we can at least cut them out." So with the necessary patterns placed in my head but Bud, I spent several hours carefully cutting pieces. There were hundreds of them; some much tinier than I would have thought practical. Bud promised me he could remember each piece and where it went, so I didn't worry too much about keeping them separated. Once that little project was done, I went up and called Lloyd. "Cooper! What can I do for you?" he asked cheerfully. "Good morning Lloyd. I've been playing with the Fabrics you guys let me have, and I'm wondering what you guys use to join pieces of this stuff together?" "We have a special bonding agent that's made up of modified tubular Fullerene. It's great for making seamless joins of all the materials we produce, but it requires pressure and heat to use it effectively. I could give you some, but I'm not sure you would have the equipment to make it work." "Why don't I come get some anyway," I suggested, trying to sound casual. "If I can't get it to work, its no big loss, is it?" "No, the stuff would be pretty expensive to buy if it was available, but we make our own and there's always plenty. Its not considered an end product, so you can have as much as you want. Assuming you are able to make it work for you, a little goes a long way, so a 500 millimeter container should last you quite a while." I did the mental conversion in my head. That was only a little more than a pint. "Wow, it must go a long way indeed." "What are you trying to make?" Lloyd asked. "Oh, I was thinking of making a scuba diving suit. I was thinking it might make a good shark-proof suit if I layered it right." "That sounds interesting, and the pseudo Kevlar would work well I suppose. Not cost effective though." "I'm no scientist Lloyd, and this isn't research. I am a definite water dog by training and inclination, so this is just something to let me play with it and maybe make something for myself." "Well, be safe, that's all I ask," he laughed. "Will do. See you in about an hour." I called Kelli next and we sort of gushed over each other for ten minutes. She promised to call later with more info on the weekend, including what I would need to bring and what I wouldn't. I wondered about clothes, as I still had something of a clothes shortage. I was just too tall to be able to shop at most regular clothing stores, especially the ones who catered to young men. I had been hoping to find a big and tall store at the Santa Rosa Plaza so I had an excuse to stop in and see Meg at Abercrombie and Fitch. At first I thought I'd struck out, but then I saw there was an Eddie Bauer store right next to the A&F. They at least would have pants with the long inseams I needed. Most places, especially the 'trendy' ones couldn't come close. There was a Men's Warehouse near the Coddington mall. Between that and the Eddie Bauer I could fill my closet well enough with the basics. Right now I was limited to a single button up shirt, two polo shirts, two pairs of jeans and two pairs of khakis. The khakis were both of dubious vintage and so was the button up shirt. Everything else I had was leftover from the Corp; T shirts, shorts, socks and skivvies. The drive into Forrestville was quick as always. I was getting used to the lay of the land, so I was a little more aware of the things I passed. Today I noticed a place called 'Burke's Russian River Canoe'. Hmm ... I thought to myself. I wonder how that would compare to the kayak trip? My time at FiberDyne today was brief. I stopped long enough to say hi and to ask how things were going, then lingered only long enough for Lloyd to give me a quick introduction to the small container of what they called BFD. I joked about how it must be a Big Fucking Deal, which is what the acronym meant to those I used to hang out with whilst wearing BDUs. Lloyd laughed and told me that it was the abbreviation for Bonding Fullerene Dope, which itself was just a nickname. The actual name was the usual chemical soup kind of tetra – hydro – ethyl something or other. Most of the ingredients were supposed to evaporate, either immediately, or after the expected high heat and pressure were applied. "Do not hold this up to you nose and inhale, young man!" Lloyd warned me. "Trust me, there's no danger of me doing that," I reassured him, and meant it. 'Been there, done that', I thought to myself. I left FiberDyne headed south until I connected with Guerneville Road heading east. I followed it all the way to the Men's Warehouse, which was on the corner of Guerneville Road and the Redwood Highway, right next to a Red Robin Pizza, which was good, because it was almost lunch time and I was hungry. Men's Warehouse was where I hoped to find dress shirts that would fit my longer than normal torso, and maybe a sports coat or two. I did indeed find dress shirts, all I could hope for. I has assumed the sports coats would be a little more problematic, but to my surprise I found a couple I liked that would fit nicely without any alteration; one brown and one black. They also had some interesting suit coats and pants, but I would definitely need those tailored, so that was for another day. I left there with a large garment bag full of booty, and after a little gnosh at the Red Robin, headed down the Redwood Highway headed for the Santa Rosa Plaza. Once again it was a straight shot, kept from being boring only by some asshole in a white and rust colored Chevy Blazer almost sideswiping me. I had learned in the last couple of days that rust was another molecule that was easy for me to grab. There are several kinds of iron oxides, but the most common ones were the ones you expected these days, produced by rusting steel. I could have grabbed a LOT of iron oxide in that Blazer, but I wasn't sure yet what the physics were of me in a moving object grabbing another moving object, especially when both moving objects out-massed me considerably. Eddie Bauer was great. I found everything I could want there in the way of shirts and pants. I bought four pairs of chinos, three pairs of jeans and even found a pair of what I called expedition pants, but what they had branded as '365 Nisqually', whatever that was. These were waterproof, windproof pants designed for staying comfortable in moderately foul weather, but still light enough to wear in warmer weather. To top it off I also found a knit pant with drawstring fasteners at the waist and at the cuffs. Those would be perfect for wearing when we were camped for the night and were even light enough for sleeping in. As for shirts, I came away with eight shirts, twill, chambray, canvas, poplin and flannel. Only one flannel shirt, and I figured I'd have to put it away for a few months. It was going to be too damned warm for summer wear. The canvas shirt I bought was probably going to be the same. While I was at it, I bought a nice Weatheredge Jacket for rainy weather, a Polartec vest just in case, and a pair of water sandals, only because they had them in my size. The back of the wrangler was pretty full when I left, but I wasn't done for the day. I stopped at Mirage Florists and picked up a dozen roses. I had a stop to make, and a deal to seal. I hoped. ------- Book 4: Hero in Training ------- Chapter 59 The BFD was interesting stuff. I realized almost immediately that I didn't need the applicator tool that had come with it. I was able to pull it our of the container in a molecular stream that was far finer than anything the applicator was capable of doing. I had a bunch of 3 inch square pieces of the three materials that I was testing it out on. "You can ignore everything else in that canister except the Fullerene," Bud told me. "The other stuff is there merely to provide a means of delivery," "Easy enough," I said, sort of bragging. "Let's get some between two of our sample pieces," he suggested. "Right along two edges." Since I was moving the material with my telekinesis, my placement of everything was far finer than it would have been if I had been trying to do it by hand, and I have good eye-hand coordination, better than most. It was one of the reasons I was so good at what I used to do for a living. "Okay, got it," I said when everything was in place. "Now, feel the Fullerene. It's made up of lots of long tubes, isn't it?" "It is," I agreed as I 'tasted' the shape of the molecules. "Now," I could almost hear Bud take a deep breath. "The reason they need to apply heat and pressure to this is to encourage the molecules to change from 'this' to 'this'," he sent two images to me and I saw how the molecules changed, flexing and stretching like the old Chinese finger traps. Only in the image I saw, the molecules 'grabbed' all along one edge where the bonds along the Fullerene tube suddenly aligned with the bonding sites on the material, in this case the sample of Impervelon as Harley had named it on one side and the sample of Kinetex on the other. Did I mention the names Harley had come up with for our other two materials? Kinetex was the one Bud told us could be modified to store and release energy. The one that could be made into circuitry he dubbed Technetrene. I had no idea where he pulled those names from, but Bud was pleased, so I was too, I guess. Getting all the Fullerene to flex the way Bud wanted was simple. Getting it to remain that way took a moment while I figured out how to transfer enough energy to the conversion to make it permanent. When I was done, Bud made me open my eyes and examine my two samples. They were now perfectly joined along a single seam, and because of the precision with which I'd aligned them, you couldn't really even see a seam. It just looked like the material went from one kind to the next, just like that. "The seams are perfect," Bud told me as Harley and I marveled over the effect. "They're as strong as the original materials, stronger than the Kinetex actually." "So what next?" I asked. "Do we start assembling pieces now?" "We do. Things must be done in a particular sequence, and we will have to apply modifications to the Technetrene as we apply it. The modifications to each piece is generally unique, though there is some occasional duplication, quite intentional and necessary when making something that features bilateral symmetry, after all." So at Bud's direction, and with the speed and unerring precision only my telekinetic feel for the materials could achieve, we began putting the pieces I had cut together, and making the molecular modifications to each piece of material, all at Bud's uncannily exact direction. It was repetitious, unfathomable and boring, so I semi-tuned out the specifics and just let Bud's directions flow through me. It went quickly, but three hours later, when Bud called a halt for dinner, he told us we were about one third of the way done. I refocused on what we'd made, but at this point it didn't look like much of anything, let alone a super suit. "You're doing good work, trust me," Bud reassured me as we went up the stairs. Dinner was left over casserole from the night before. I thought about adding some spice to the remains of the pitcher of Nojitos and making them into actual Mojitos, but decided I wasn't going to risk it while we were doing all this detail work. I checked my phone while I was waiting for things to heat up and saw that had a missed call from Kelli. "Hi," I said when she picked up. "Sorry I missed your call, I was in the basement working out." "I figured you were either down there or had forgotten your phone again," she teased. "Hey, I"m getting better at remembering it. I only forget it half the time now," I joked. "I just wanted to call to let you know I emailed you the rest of the details on what you need to bring and how much your share of the trip is." "Oh good. I've got all those new clothes I bought today washed, so I'll have plenty of kayak-worthy clothes to wear," As I said this I headed over to the coffee table where the laptop was sitting and tapped the track pad to wake it up. I entered my password to unlock the screensaver and opened Chrome to get to my Gmail. I saw Kelli's email as well as one from Mitch and and what looked like responses to my earlier emails to the pool company and ADT letting them know about being away for the weekend. I opened Kelli's and took a quick glance. "Looks good," I told her. I have to remember to air out my sleeping bag and make sure its ready. I haven't looked at it since I got to Santa Rosa." "Well, you could bring it," she said with a low throaty tone I'd come to recognize already. "Or you could leave that detail up to me." "I could leave my sleeping arrangements up to you, huh?" I said, loading it down with tones of weighty consideration. "Hmm ... I suppose I know you well enough by now to trust you with those sort of details, don't I?" "I believe you do sir," she giggled. There followed another ten minutes of saying goodbye, and then I was checking the rest of my emails. The pool company thanked me for letting them know about my absence, but assured me they wouldn't have anything for me before the middle of next week. ADT told me they'd get back in touch on Monday. Mitch's email contained a list of things to buy, principal among them two actual PCs, a couple of other devices I wasn't sure of and another laptop similar to the one I had now, only larger. That seemed odd, but decided Mitch had a practical reason for it. I hit his number on my cell. "The big laptop, right?" he asked immediately. "Right," I laughed. "Its for your bedroom. It will stay there instead of being packed around, but it can be closed up and put away when you don't need it." "That makes sense," I admitted, and indeed it did, as he explained it. "I saw the printer, no surprise there, but what's this funky little scanner?" "It's pretty nice actually. Its a network device, so it will work wirelessly anywhere in the house and it'll send to any email address as well as directly to your printer. It even has some cloud-based functionality, but I think that's something you won't be needing to worry about for the moment." "I'm guessing you think I'll need the capability?" "Eventually, if your in business or doing business, you need to send something someone gave you to someone else. This makes that quick and easy, assuming its no wider than a standard sheet of paper." Since its small and wireless, I can stick it away when I'm not using it, I suppose." "Exactly, but of course if we make that downstairs study into a real office, you won't need to," Mitch said. "True," I said, visualizing the study in my head. "I keep forgetting to think of it like that. Which of the PCs will go in there?" "The big box is for the basement. Its going to be your file server. The Barracuda is a hardware firewall device. I think its advantageous to keep your server and your firewall separate, so that's whats in the recommendation. You probably should clear that part of it with the ADT folks though. Give them my email address if they need to ask any questions." I'll forward that on along with your email address. Just remember I'm not going to be around this weekend. I'm also going to tell ADT that you have the authority to approve any change or additional expenditure that is incurred as it relates to the network and its security." "Wow. I hope I don't screw anything up," he said with some doubt in his voice. "You won't dude, you got this shit wired, right?" "Yeah, I do, Thanks. Just keep reminding me of that," he said much more solidly. "Later dude!" I sent the email off to ADT with the link to the firewall hardware, Mitch's name and email address and a brief explanation about what was happening with my house's computer network, and asking them to direct any questions to Mitch, and that he could act on my behalf in dealing with anything arising from their system and any potential for interfacing theirs with mine. I stopped in the laundry room, swapped loads and folded clothes. All my new shirts were already done and on hangers so they wouldn't wrinkle. Once the new load was going, I headed back to the cavern and more bonding of pieces and parts. Bud thought we could get another third of the work done before bed tonight. ------- Chapter 60 There was something strange in the air, I could feel it. A mood, or sense of something poised to happen. It made sense. I had the completed suit in front of me. It was not a one piece item. When I was a kid, I always thought it was funny that Superman's invulnerable, bulletproof suit had no obvious way to take it off or put it on. It seemed to be a single piece with openings for the head and hands. It had to be super stretchy, I assumed. My suit pieces were surprisingly stretchy themselves, though not to any super degree. The bottom half had built in feet, more like built in shoes to be accurate. The upper torso piece included a hood that covered my whole face, and long sleeves, but left my hands bare. A pair of gloves finished it off. The hood could be pulled back and the gloves removed to allow me to eat and drink while wearing it, but there was no fly. If I needed to go, I would have to do it with the suit bottoms around my knees. I chuckled at the thought of that. 'Pays to be regular if you're a super hero' I thought to myself. Not quite myself – I felt Harley's laughter echoing in my thoughts. "We'll have something for the eyes," Bud promised. "But that work remains to be done. You need to get a little more comfortable with the rest of the suit before we worry about protecting your eyes." "So what do we do today?" I asked. "I do still have a few things to do before the trip tomorrow." "The main thing is to get the Kinetex cells charged up. We could stand in front of a light bulb, or your TV, or anything else that radiates in the EM spectrum and it would do it eventually. The Impervilon will completely absorb it and transfer it to the Kinetex. Anything that slow would take a long time though." "So we could find some high powered radio or microwave transmitter and stand in front it?" "That would work very well, and very quickly. The trick is in finding them. Once we have some power, we will have detectors that will do that, but until we get sufficient power levels, we'll be operating blind." "How about radar?" I asked. "There should be lots of radar near an airport." "True, but that's a little risky." "I thought the suit wasn't visible on radar?" "Its not, but its still visible to human eyes. There are always a lot of eyes at an airport." "Do I have to be wearing it for it to absorb energy?" I asked, suddenly inspired. "No, the process is completely automatic," Bud said. "Then why don't we just wad it up in a ball and put it in the microwave for five minutes, or however long it would take?" Bud was silent. "Well?" I asked. "Sorry, I'm calculating the time based on the 1200 watt power rating of your microwave oven," Bus aid before going silent again. "Yes, that would work very well. We couldn't do it too often, as the power draw would be noticeable at the power company eventually. Still, that's the perfect solution to our bootstrap power problem. An hour on high power should be enough to give us a good start." "Well lets do it then!" I said excitedly. "Hell yeah!" Harley came forward to say. It was what we had both been waiting for, after all. "Very well," Bud said. The suit did crumple up well. It could crumple into a very small size and fit into the microwave easily. I punched in an hour on high and turned it on. It looked weird seeing the suit slowly spinning on the oven's turntable. "While we're waiting," Bud said. "Yeah?" Harley and I echoed. "Have you considered how you'll travel?" "Travel?" "Well, you're a super hero. How do super heroes travel?" Bud teased. "Well, the good ones fly," I laughed. "Exactly," Bud said. "I can't fly," I said, exasperated. "I can't use my telekinesis on myself, remember?" "No you can't, but you can use it on other things. You could use a kitchen chair to fly around on if you wanted to." "I can?" I asked, stunned. "Of course," Bud snickered. "You've been assuming all this time that the movement you subject a molecule to is in relation to your position, but the two do not necessarily have anything to do with each other if you don't want them to." "So I could lift myself up by the suit?" I said, reasoning it out. "You could, theoretically, but there are several problems with that. First is the fact that the Impervilon absorbs energy, including kinetic energy. This makes it harder for you to grab, and because the energy is being converted and stored in the Kinetex almost as quickly as you apply it, it would be extremely inefficient." "I see," I said, disappointed. "There are several panels of unconverted Impervilon in the suit, remember, so you do have places you could grab, but we should consider those as for emergency use only." "I wondered about that. They seemed awful useless as shoulder and hip pads when we were adding them." "you were only paying half attention or you would have asked about them then, wouldn't you?" he laughed. "I guess," I agreed, miffed at being caught out. "So if not that, then what?" "I was thinking of something like a hoverboard." A hove ... you mean like the one in the Back to the Future movies?" "Yes, though I would envisions something a bit wider and longer." "Not so long as a surf board though?" I asked. "No, your suits not shiny enough for you to be the Silver Surfer, so we don't want to go there, do we?" he laughed. "No, I guess not," I laughed too. "If you're thinking of something longer than a skateboard, then how about a wakeboard? They're usually less than five feet long, and they're wider than a snowboard." "I'm thinking we need to make our own, is what I'm thinking," Bud said. "We'll wrap it in an Impervilon skin of course, and that will make it easier for you to grab telekinetically, but it can be made out of almost anything because of that. Something simple to manipulate but hard enough to use as a form." "Wood or plastic would be the obvious choices, if we're not buying something already made." "Weight isn't an issue, really," Bud said. "I had noticed that the weight of what I was grabbing didn't seem to matter, but wasn't sure. Also I've been wondering about what happens when I grab something that's moving very fast, or even not so fast if its very massive." "You can grab moving things, once you learn how, and high speed or massive objects can be dealt with as well. Your kinetic abilities do allow you to absorb and redirect inherent kinetic energy, which is all part and parcel of the velocity and momentum equation. But that will take more time and training. You are wise to be cautious with that." "A super hero is always learning," I sighed with fake exasperation. "That is going to prove truer than you could know," Bud said ominously. I choose to ignore that comment for the time being. I went swapped another load of clothes in the laundry room, checked my sleeping bag, which I was airing out, even if I wasn't taking it with me. I had no clue what I wanted for dinner, so I decided it was Andorno's for pizza again tonight. This time I'd let them deliver, since they were willing to drive the few miles to my place. I called and ordered a small Meatball Madness and a dinner salad. I still had a little of the cheese and tomato wedges left over from last night to garnish it with. While I was waiting for dinner, I got online and ordered everything on Mitch's list. I used the camera on the cell phone to take a picture of the purchase verification page and emailed it to Mitch with a 'Mission Accomplished' attached. Taking the picture of the web page made me think about the weekend. I had nothing to take pictures with but my cell phone. It took pretty good pictures, but its only advantage was it size. Sigh, yet another reason to make another of my seemingly endless series of shopping trips. I looked at my watch. It was quarter to six. I could sacrifice my pizza for a quick trip to Best Buy. Fuck it. I didn't need to instantly satisfy every whim. It could wait for next time. The pizza arrived, delivered by a guy with an actual mullet! I smiled and paid him his money, remembering the cute teenager who'd served me at the restaurant the last time I'd gotten pizza there. Good enough reason to shop in person from now on, perhaps. About the third slice of pizza the microwave dinged. I walked over and popped open the door. The suit was not glowing, smoking, steaming, sparking or anything else. It looked like it had when I put it in. "Go ahead and pull it out," Bud laughed. "The suit soaked up all that energy and converted it, its not going to burn you or anything." I laughed at my own nervousness and reached in and grabbed the suit. It felt no different, still slightly rough and cool to the touch. I shook them both out, watching the crumpled mass go back to smooth and unwrinkled in an instant. "Wrinkle free. Nice," I joked. "Stain resistant too," Bud joked back. "Let's go to the cavern and try it on." I grabbed a slice of pizza and gobbled it up on the way. Once in the cavern, I kicked off my shoes and unbuckled my belt. I dropped my pants and sat on one of the stools, sliding my feet into the suit and pulling the rest up to my waist. The material was definitely stretchy, which was going to be a good thing, because the pants didn't have belt loops. It stretched out over my hips and snugged back down against my waist. I stood back up and slid my arms into the sleeves until my hands were all the way through. I raised my arms and dropped my head into the top, squirming my way through and into the hood, using my hands to pul my head all the way through. Once I was through and could see again, I pulled it down until it met the suit pants at my waist. "Excellent," Bud crowed. "Now Cooper, The suit pieces can be sealed, as only you can seal them. Try sealing the two together at the waist." This was different than using the BFD – less permanent, but just as seamless. I 'encouraged' the two layers of fabric's molecules to intermingle. They intermingled so closely as to be air and watertight, but I could easily undo it when the time came. I drew the hood over my head all the way, finding I could breath through the material around my mouth, though it took some effort to draw a deep breath through it. 'Uh oh', I thought. Oh, and of course I couldn't see shit. "Relax," Bud told me. "We'll be able to fix this shortly. There's one last bit of technetrene to alter and we're set." Bud sent the last image into my mind, letting me know what needed altering and how. I made the final change and suddenly, things changed. A lot! I felt the suit come alive around me. Breathing suddenly was easy again even through the suit material. Parts of it firmed up and other parts seemed to soften. "Just a minute now,"Bud grunted. I felt more than heard a hum. Suddenly I wasn't blind. I could see clearly. Very clearly. "Wow," I said out loud. Suddenly a row of text popped up on front of my eyes, overlaid on top of what I was seeing. Systems activated: external sensors on;Heads up display on, internal environmental controls on. Internal kinetic boosters on standby. AI interface download complete. "What the hell is all this?" I asked. "Partly, its me," Bud's voice came through my actual ears! "Bud?" I asked. "It's been a good ride, Cooper, but my place is in the suit. I've downloaded myself into the Artificial Intelligence interface that you designed at my direction. There are a lot of things in the suit that you built at my direction. I will have control of them and provide you with an intelligent interface to its abilities, leaving you free to use your own to best effect." I couldn't believe it. I'd lost Bud! ------- Chapter 61 The morning was gray and blue. The drive down to Point Reyes Station had started early, and it had started in a Ford E 350 Econoline van. The van was driven by Tom Lowenstein, a wide-smile surrounded by dark, curly hair, sideburns and beard. He was Greta Petrizio's boyfriend, and Greta was a dark-haired, blue-eyed beauty considerably shorter than Kelli. The third lady in our group was Gina Urich. Gina was somewhere between Greta and Kelli in height with blonde hair and very light blue eyes. Her Husband Wyatt helped me load my pack in the back of the van. He was about six feet tall with jet black hair and brown eyes. His hair and nose suggested some Native American ancestry, or maybe Middle Eastern. It was always easy to make assumptions based on physical stereotypes. Our other two adventurers were Sid Simpson and his partner Ryan Thedescu. Sid and Ryan were almost two peas in a pod. Both had short, dirty blond hair, thin faces with sharp noses and both had accents. I got picked up at the house because we were taking the Guerneville Road to the coast so we could take good old U.S. 1 down the coast to Point Reyes Station. The overcast skies were soon matched by the blue-gray waters of the Pacific as we sped on down the highway. There had been music on the radio and happy and excited chatter all around, but it mostly flowed around me. There was an empty place in my thoughts that used to be Bud. I didn't notice when we made a big dogleg around Bodega Bay and away from the coast. I did look up when everyone's excitement picked up when we returned to the ocean of Tomales Bay. Somewhere along the way Kelli thought to ask me what was wrong. I told her someone close to me had died. It wasn't true, but it felt true. True enough that Kelli didn't question the pain in my eyes. Even Harley was hurting, I could feel it. When we left Marshall after stopping for breakfast, and passed by the Marconi Conference Center, I knew we were getting close to Point Reyes. I worked at drawing myself out of the funk I was in and getting into the spirit of things. Soon I was laughing along with everyone else at Wyatt's attempts to sing along with the White Stripes' 'Fell in Love With a Girl'. We were all still laughing as we piled out of the van at Point Reyes Outdoors, our kayak tour guides. "You must be the Urich party?" A short man with a shaved head and Harry Potter style glasses asked when we walked up to their counter. "We are," Wyatt answered. We were introduced to Nate and Jenna, our tour leaders, and there followed some measuring and fitting as we were set up with life vests and water shoes. I was glad I'd brought my own, as they had nothing in my size. Kelli was at least able to wear a men's size 9 when they didn't have any women's shoes in her size either. We were the two Paul Bunyans in the group. "Who here has any experience with kayaks?" Jenna asked. Everyone raised their hand. "Okay, who here would consider themselves an advanced kayaker?" I raise my hand as did Sid, Ryan and Kelli. "Would any of you consider yourselves as 'very experienced'?" she asked. I raised my hand. "How do you come by your experience, ahh Mr. James?" "Cooper please," I answered. "Marine Corp training ma'am." "And all of you please call me Jenna," she replied. "The Marine Corp teaches kayaking?" "Their advanced aquatic survival classes do," I answered dryly. "Very well then," she said with a bright smile. "We try to pair up each of our experienced kayakers with an inexperienced one. You have four experienced kayakers and four inexperienced. Nate and I will each tandem with one of you inexperienced. Which of you four would like to volunteer to tandem with a less experienced friend?" The four of us looked at each other for a second before we all raised our hands more or less simultaneously. Ryan gave Sid a look and stepped forward. "Sid and I will volunteer. We are an old, settled couple. Let the young lovers here share a kayak," he said in his eastern European accent while pointing to Kelli and I. Kelli blushed. I must have too, based on the laughs from everyone. "You are presuming a little ahead of the facts I think, Ryan," Greta giggled. That got Ryan to blush and it was our turn to laugh. My long legs had been problematic when I'd been training in kayaks in the Corp, and they proved to be problematic here as well. Not just any kayak can handle someone with legs as long as mine. But we'd been asked to provide out heights and weights in advance, and they had a Feathercraft K2 ready for me. I had some familiarity with this model, and they were very adjustable. It was a cloth and frame model, not the usual fiberglass models the tour company favored, so it didn't get a lot of use, except by the tour operators themselves but they were glad to see I was familiar with it. Before we left the store we went over our gear and how we would store things. A load balancing chart was made, showing which bags would go where. The kayaks rode on a flatbed truck, our gear bags tucked in with them, and we rode in another Econoline van, a much older, more beat up one than Wyatt's rental. The ride across to Schooner Bay, where our adventure would start, was mostly unremarkable. The scenery wasn't much different than what we'd been seeing on the drive down. The launching area, near the Drakes Bay Oyster looked more like a ghost town than anything else. There wasn't a lot there. But once we were in the water, the world took on a new character. Inches seem like miles when you're hugging the sea from the seat of your kayak. Particularly here in these sheltered bays with their flat waters, there was a feeling of peace and separation, as if you'd left the rest of the world behind and the only things that existed were the sea, the shore, the kayak and you, occasionally guest-starring a sea bird of some kind, a drifting piece of kelp, or a wisp of sea foam. Kelli rode in front of me, and as the day warmed up, the cloud cover burned off and the overcast skies turned to a solid blue, we all slowly stripped off layers until we were down to tank tops and swimsuits, which in Kelli's case meant a bikini top covered by a very lightweight shirt a scooped back and sides and spaghetti straps on top. There was a lot of skin visible I watched the play of muscles under the smooth skin of her shoulders and back as we paddled, and I found it stimulating indeed. It was difficult not getting too far ahead of everyone else. The Featherlight's skin was made of various kinds of urethane. It was very easy for me to get a grip on, so I was continuously 'assisting' our passage through the water. This made it difficult for the guides to include us in some of their nature talks, but we'd already been pegged as the young lovers, so it didn't seem much of a surprise to everyone when we wound up off on our own. What little we did manage to sit in on was interesting, and I endeavored to try to stay closer the rest of the day. Other than that, the only problem I had was that Kelli and I were too far apart to kiss. I remedied this as soon as I could, and as thoroughly as the situation allowed, once we went ashore for lunch. We took our lunch at the head of Home Bay. A sun shelter had been set up and there were buckets of hot water and washcloths so we could wipe the sea spray and sweat off before we ate. I grinned to spot Kelli watching as I pulled my tank top off and wiped off my chest, shoulders and lower back. "Missed a spot," Kelli teased, before offering to get the hard to reach spots for me. I offered to return the favor. "PULEEEZ!" Gina said, shaking her head. That, and the accompanying laughter, did bring us back to reality a little. Lunch was a delicious Caesar salad with a fruit bowl full of fresh cherries, raspberries, pineapple, grapes, oranges, apples and strawberries. There was whipped cream or chocolate topping to dip them in, but I ate all of mine unaccompanied. The flavors of the fresh fruit were just too satisfying on their own. I did notice there was a lack of protein in the meal, and it made me ask. "Anyone here vegetarian?" The answer was a chorus of noes. "Don't worry Cooper," Nate laughed. "I think the dinner tonight will make up for the lack of meat in today's lunch." Dinner did, surpass our expectations. We had huge pan fried prawns with drawn butter, there were lamb shanks with potatoes and onions, a curried chicken and celery salad that managed to be cool and spicy at the same time. Dessert was ice cream and grilled apple fritters, both topped with a caramel sauce. We washed it all down with a selection of Napa Valley's finest vintages. Our dinner was served at our campsite for the night, which was located on a little spit of land near the head of Barries Bay, our last stop for the day. We'd kayaked all the way out to where we could actually stare at the more open waters of Drakes Bay, which was very cool, but intimidating at the same time. We could see a lot of open water. After staring at that for a while, we turned back and followed the shore into the estero once again, winding up in Berries Bay and at our camp. There were five tents set up. One for each of us couples and one for the guides and the equipment. The food, was as described and excellent. The wine was perfect. There were songs and jokes and laughter aplenty, but eventually it was dark and people began filtering out two at a time to their tents. The tents were canvas walled, tall and straight sided. Ours had a large queen-sized air mattress sitting inside a collapsing wooden frame. There were real pillows, sheets and blankets making up the bed. A small bedside table held a battery powered LED lamp and another bottle of champagne and two glasses. This was not exactly camping anymore. When I turned back after I finished fastening the tent flaps and inner, insect proof fly, I found Kelli in my arms. We kissed and clung to each other fiercely. I did have to stop us eventually, because tall as the tent was, it was still not tall enough for me to stand straight up in. Kelli only had an inch or two of clearance. When Kelli began slowly stripping off the layers of camp clothes that had been added back on to ward off the chill of, I stopped breathing for a while. When she was gloriously naked at last and laying on our bed, watching me undress expectantly, I could barely think as I fumbled with my clothes, but I did have one thought, in the midst of my growing and evident excitement. Bud, you jumped ship one day too soon. ------- Chapter 62 "I appreciate what you're telling me," Bud said in my ears. "I'm sure it was incredible. I'm sure Kelli was incredible. Nevertheless, and for the last time please, this is where I belong. This is where I am meant to be and where I need to be if you are to succeed." That had been the story from Bud all day long. I had meant to tease him, perhaps torture him a little, with the details of the trip, and particularly the wonderful details of Kelli and I consummating our relationship with our first lovemaking session. He was glad for me. Happy for us. Confident that we had a real future together, but politely and that was it. Bud was no longer Bud, he was the suit AI. It was as if his personality had only been a reflection of mine and Harley's; borrowed from us rather than genuinely his own. All business he may have been, but it was an exciting business. I'd come down to the cavern mid-morning and found him patiently waiting for me. After waking early and running the property line then following that with an hour in the gym and a shower, I made myself bacon and eggs for breakfast. I drank coffee and appreciated it immensely. The coffee we'd had Sunday morning at camp was a french roast that everyone else seemed to like, but I thought it was too bitter and burnt tasting. I needed a hearty roast, but not quite that aggressively roasted, thank you. Between breakfast and making my way to the cavern I'd called Kelli twice. We spent several minutes together each time being stupid on the phone, bit it was a good kind of stupid, if you know what I mean. She was going to be working a long day today and I told her my day was going to be similarly busy. We wouldn't be able to have dinner tonight, but I offered her lunch tomorrow someplace and then dinner at the house that evening. Bud had been busy during my absence. A lot of the circuits, pretty much all of which I'd put into the suit without understanding their function, worked together to create something far beyond anything I knew of being even possible. "I am now almost completely self-repairing," Bud told me once I was wearing the suit and we could communicate. "The microwave treatment Friday has me running on what would normally be the 5 percent reserve. We'll have to go get a better charge somewhere, but our options are considerably improved." "Can I power the suit? Charge its battery, I mean?" "You can, and will. You are in fact the preferred means of power, but you aren't ready to try to focus your telekinetic abilities in that direction yet. You could harm yourself if you tried." "Then what do we do next? Where do we go to juice the suit?" "We need to go where we can be exposed to a lot of em spectrum emissions. The higher the frequency the better." "Microwave or radio?" I suggested. "Those would be common and readily available, but microwave radiation is lower on the frequency spectrum than even visible light. Radio waves are lower still. Frequencies above visible light would be better, but less likely to be available." "Above light, that's like x rays then?" "Yes, and Gamma radiation above that and Ultraviolet radiation between light and x rays." We sat in silence for a while. Well, I sat and Bud did whatever he does. But for a change, sitting and thinking actually produced a result. "Tanning beds," I blurted. "What?" Bud said in my ear with Harley's simultaneous exclamation echoing in my head. "Tanning beds. They use ultraviolet radiation to tan you," I said. Here we ran into a small problem, although we didn't realize it at the time. Most large businesses who offered tanning beds make an effort to monitor their beds, both for safety and liability reasons. I had three tanning sessions before I found one that didn't have cameras and offered privacy for getting that all over tan. Thank god I did, because one more actual session and I would've been burnt to a crisp! The place I found was in a semi-seamy side of Santa Rosa and was called Diosa De Oro – Golden Goddess in English. "Three sessions like this will be enough for now," Bud said when our first was done. I made an appointment for the next day then smiled at the girl working the counter and asked her when she got off work. "Three honey," she smiled at me rapaciously. "Are you sure you can afford me though?" "Maybe not," I laughed. I left shaking my head. No amount of money would have been enough to make me meet her at three. I would be back here at four though, to get in another session with a different clerk. "This doesn't exactly feel like being a super hero," I mentioned to Bud later when discussing the seedy places I'd been in search of unmonitored tanning beds. "I understand, but some aspects of what you will have to do will be, of necessity, less than glamorous. "I guess," I grumbled. I can tell you it is not fun not having you to talk to when I'm not wearing the suit." Nothing got said about that for a while. I stewed. "We may be able to resolve that, to some degree, once we've got the suit power levels up to where they become somewhat self sustaining," Bud said at last. "I confess that I too miss our constant contact." "If you're not a person, why can't you – I don't know, clone yourself or something? Then the two of you get each other up to speed on what you each have missed whenever I put the suit on?" "hmm, we had not considered such an option, but it would have benefits, wouldn't it?" "I think so," I said encouragingly. "I will always have to spend most of my time with the suit off. Every minute of that time is a potential missed training opportunity." "hmm," again he said. I smiled, knowing I'd made an impression. "I will have to consider this. Perhaps we will discuss it again tomorrow," Bud said after another long stretch of silence. I wondered if he had a way to communicate with whoever else might be involved in this. He had often used 'us' and 'we' in a context that I knew didn't mean him and I. A time would come to know such things, I supposed. I had lunch in town, stopping on my way north at Play it Again Sports first to say hi and let Billy and crew know how happy I was with everything. From there I decided to head over to the Third Street Ale House, but spotted a barber shop on the way and decided to stop for a haircut. I hadn't had one since I left Seattle, back in my old life, and wanted to get rid of a little shagginess I felt had been creeping up on me. The woman who greeted me had a very warm smile and welcomed me into an empty chair. "Let me see," she said looking at me. "You like it short but not too short?" "I spent a few years letting Uncle Sam decide how short it should be," I grinned. "Now I still like it short, but I don't like to see my scalp through it. Mostly its been more than a month since I got it cut last and its feeling ragged." "We can fix that right up for you," she told me, and she did, quickly and efficiently. "Perfect," I said as I looked in the mirror and rubbed a hand across the top of my head. "Well of course," she laughed a warm, throaty laugh. "See you in about a month," I said, handing her a twenty out of my wallet and not waiting for change. Lunch was the Ale House's chipotle burger. I washed it down with their Kolsch Bier. I needed something light to help cut the heat of the chipotle. The place was bustling for a Monday, loud and happy sounding. Because Sunday had been Father's day, and I'd been gone kayaking, I stopped off on my way home and said Hi to mom and dad. When I got home I parked the bike in the garage and called Kelli to tell her I missed her. We spent the usual ten minutes saying goodbye. There was a note on the counter from Mrs. Ibarra, telling me she had someone she thought I should interview for the live in cook and housekeeper position that we'd both decided was really what I needed rather than her part time services. I called her immediately. "Tell me about this candidate you have," I asked Edwina. "Her name is Trinh Nhu. You would probably call her Mrs. Trinh. She's a widower in her mid fifties. Her husband left everything to their son when he died of cancer two years ago. Bad investments by the son have left her with nothing. She has been working as a part time maid and cook for the past year." "What can she cook?" I asked. Vietnamese cuisine could be good, but not as a steady diet. "She can cook anything," Edwina told me. "She married young, but her husband was an older man and in the banking business. She took cooking classes as a way to get out of the house that her husband would allow. She's an accomplished cook who never got to use her skills in her own home." "Well, she sounds very good. What is she like?" "Quiet," Edwina sighed. "Life's beat her down pretty good the last few years." "So she's a project of yours?" I guessed. "Yes, of a sort. She's not from the area, so I haven't known her long, but her story is compelling and her strength in the face of it is admirable." "Perhaps you should arrange a meeting for us," I suggested. "This week?" "Of course, as soon as is practical," "I'll call you tomorrow. Will you be home?" "Probably," I laughed. "Leave me voice mail if you miss me. I'm getting better at checking it at least." "Very well," she said with feigned annoyance. "Good night." Hmm ... More change on the horizon it. It seemed that change was the only constant for me these days. ------- Chapter 63 The internet giveth and the internet taketh away. This is what I told myself after looking for quite a while at wakeboards, surfboards, sailboards, and snowboards. At one point I even looked at satellite dishes, and table tops, anything to give me something to stand on. In the end though, that was the real problem. I was a telekinetic, not a magician. I could move anything I could get a lock on, but doing that didn't magically overcome other problems. I couldn't overcome inertia or gravity or friction. I had no way to keep myself on the board I was moving beyond my own strength and balance. "I can't ride something that moves, even if I'm the one moving it," I told Bud. "I need to move me, and failing that, I need to move the suit, which you said I would be able to do eventually." "Eventually," Bud repeated. "You're don't have the skill needed to do that safely yet. You are right though. Riding an object will not work due to the limitations you mention. We will have to start over and make a new suit." I heard some depression in Bud's voice. The audio that played through the suit while I wore it was not as nuanced as hearing his thoughts in my head, so the depression must have been deeply felt. At the same time, I wondered about the absolute confidence I had been placing in Bud and those he represented. This seemed like a pretty obvious fuck up on their parts, after some very lengthy and detailed planning. "We might need to make a new suit, but that doesn't mean we can't make this one work for us while we're waiting," I offered. "What about a harness that we can add to the outside of the suit? Maybe the unconverted AG951 material. Its easy enough to grab before I convert it into Impervilon, and its still as good as Kevlar." "hmm ... something like that would work, but I would suggest we use actual Kevlar. That way if we loose it at any time it won't lead back to us like the AG951 would," Bud countered. "We could use the AG951 in the new suit though to provide an internal harness." "Maybe we should avoid Kevlar as well and do something simple like ripstop Nylon. Parachute cloth." "Ahh, now we're getting far afield indeed, and I retract my previous conjecture. We need to use the AG951," Bud countered. "We need to use something that can be bonded using the BFD. If its bonded with that, then its not coming off." "Then lets use it and be done with it," I said, getting a bit exasperated. "Can you give me a pattern to apply since you're not in my head? Bud paused when I said that. I hope he was taking it as an insult, because that's how I meant it. "No, I can't," he said. "But I can show you on the suit's heads up display. Can you apply and bond the material while wearing the suit?" "I should be able to," I said after thinking about it for a moment. "Can you give me live feedback about my positioning?" "Yes." Six hours later, Two important things occurred. First, the suit modifications to add a TK harness were done. A new stripe of material went from shoulder to ankle on the outside of both left and right sides. Along with these two stripes there were three chevrons on the chest and three inverted chevrons on the back. Each row of chevrons was split by a vertical stripe that ran from neck to waist in the back and collarbone to waist in the front. The top chevron in the back met and blended into the vertical side stripe at the shoulder. In the front, the bottom chevron met the side stripe on each side at the hip. This operlap was important, because it made the entire arrangement of stripes a single 'grab' as far as my telekinesis was concerned. The second important thing that happened was, night fell. It was dark, and my house on the Russian River was relatively isolated. I didn't have neighbors for at least a mile in any direction. Even better, a state preserve and recreation area meant it was near wilderness for many miles to the north. Just before midnight, I stood in the back yard, about where my pool might be going some day, and pulled the hood/mask down over my face and sealed it by 'zipping' the two layers of material together telekinetically. As I did, the heads up display blinked on. Cool air flowed over my face and sections of the suit went stiff. "Here's the situational display," Bud's voice came through the suit. Suddenly there was a split screen view of two maps. Both showed me as a small blinking three bar chevron. The left hand map showed me from a top down perspective and the terrain and buildings around me were rendered as wire frame images. The right hand display showed me from the side with the elevation of things in front of and behind me displayed. I spent a while staring at it. "This is not the most efficient system we could employ," Bud interrupted my silence. "But it will take a lot of practice to get comfortable with the 3D overlay system." "Its just information anyway, right? You're actually going to be watching out to make sure I don't run into anything." "Correct." "Then lets get going," I reached out and locked onto the harness. "No, we've got a few other things to learn first," Bud insisted as the display died out and left me just 'seeing' normally again. "Okay, I said. I kept my lock for the moment but waited for Bud to clue me in. "Flex your legs and jump up lightly." "A bunny hop? Sure," and I did. "All right," Bud said and then I felt a sort of hum run through the suit. "Do it again." I did my little bunny hop again, only this time, I jumped a good ten feet in the air! Wow!" I said as I landed with no more effort than if it had still been the little bunny hop I'd tried the first time. "That, my boy," Bud crowed triumphantly. "Is the set of exoskeletal muscles built into the suit. Jump again and give it everything you've got this time." I did, and I leaped almost a fifty feet in the air. "Woohoo!" I yelled as I landed, again with no more effort than an unaided jump would have required. "Jumping is easy. Let's try something else. Pick up a rock." I found a nice baseball sized rock and hefted it in anticipation. "What should I throw it at?" "That tree," Bud said and suddenly the entire scene in front of me lit up in a blue light, one tree amongst the dozens in front of me outlined in orange. I reared back and threw and fifty feet away, the thin trunk practically exploded into splinters with a loud C-R-A-A-C-K! "Jesus Christ!" I cursed. "Needless to say, we will not be energizing the exoskeleton very often to start with. It will be extremely dangerous, both to you and to others until you are fully trained. Additionally, those three little uses took about half of one of your tanning sessions worth of power." "Wow, I guess we do have to be careful on both counts, don't we?" "Indeed," Bud said dryly. The longer he stayed in the suit, the more like his old self he was starting to sound. "Now lets see about getting off the ground. Slow and easy at first, remember." I still had my lock on the harness. I was silently pleased with myself for not having lost it despite all that had just happened. I moved the harness with what seemed like agonizing slowness and the ground fell away beneath me far more quickly than I'd anticipated. I stopped the movement as soon as I realized this, but was still much further off the ground than I'd planned. The display that had come on while I'd been throwing the rock was still there, and I could see everything clearly, outlined in blue. In the dark, the ground was difficult to make out, and the blue outlines didn't include it. It seemed strange, and was hard to judge my height just based on what I was seeing. "This is the 3D overlay," Bud told me as I hung there. "What's your biggest concern with it so far?" "It seems kind of bottomless, like there's no ground below me. I can't tell how high I am, except in relation to what's around me." "And all this time, you have been concentrated on holding the suit in this spot. If something where to completely divert your attention, you would fall." "Yeah," I said, seeing the obvious difficulty. "Do you have any fear of heights?" "No, they don't let you do what I did in the Corp if you've got any fear of heights. Same with claustrophobia, though I'd say I've got more of a dislike of holes in the ground than I do of endless drops." "Good, then lets go higher," Bud said. "Here's a new addition to the 3D display." With that another item blinked into existence on the HUD, this was an altimeter, and seemed perfectly familiar, looking very much like the ones I'd had attached to my parachutes when I did that sort of thing. The altimeter told me I was 20 feet above the ground. "Is this altitude absolute or relative?" I asked. The altitude shown is relative to the ground below you, not sea level," Bud answered. "We can display absolute altitude, and the system switched to that at 1000 feet." "Could be tricky someplace where I started out below sea level to begin with," I mused aloud. "Please try to climb to 100 feet," Bud asked. "Roger," I agreed, refocusing my full attention on the harness and sending it, and me, up. I saw the altimeter on my peripheral vision wig out and I stopped. Too quickly, I must've been going pretty fast, however far I went. I felt the blurry edges of high negative G's caused by the rapid deceleration of my sudden stop. Conscious of the grip I had on the harness, and what it would mean if I blacked out, I cursed. Long and colorfully, as only someone whose spent time in the company of a series of Marine Corp Drill Instructors can. I glanced at the altimeter. 385 feet. "Damn, to much to fast," I said. "Indeed," Bud agreed. "But you did well to maintain your hold on the harness. "Yeah, but I tried to stop too fast and the negative Gs almost made me black out," I swore again. Now that I was able to, I looked around me. At this altitude, the peaks of the hills behind me were still higher than I was by quite a bit, as were the hills to the south across the river. I saw the lights of my house and not much else. I say 'I saw', but it was the same as 'seeing' something in your rear view mirror while driving. I had to keep my lock on the harness at all times, so my attention was continually divided. "This sucks," I said to no one in particular. I VERY cautiously dropped us back down to about ten feet off the ground. "What sucks?" Bud asked. He no longer was able to get the context of my thoughts along with the words. Harley did, I felt him agreeing. "Having to keep my attention on the harness to maintain my lock," I explained. I felt Harley again as I said it, and that was it. That was it! "Harley," I thought and said. "Can you try locking the harness instead of me?" Harley reached for it and I let go. We dropped. We dropped two feet and then stopped as Harley had the lock and he used our telekinesis to hold us where we were. "Harley, I always knew there had to be more to the two of us being in here than just doubling our power levels to the point of allowing access to the telekinesis," I said after a moment. "The question is going to be, how much independence will you be able to assume in handling our flight?" "This is going to take some time to adjust to," Bud offered. "Agreed," Harley and I echoed. "Then lets begin." ------- Chapter 64 Lunch was at a place called Checkers in downtown Santa Rosa. Kelli had some business in town and meeting there made it convenient for her. I ordered the Linguini Monterey and Kelli ordered the Arugula and Prawn salad. The meal was delicious, but the company was better. We sat close and talked closer, with interruptions caused by occasional kisses. "One more date where I don't come home all night and you're going to have to meet my parents," she said, mostly serious. "I look forward to it," I said, completely serious. "When would you like that date to be?" "I'd like it to be tonight's dinner date, but I have to cancel, I'm afraid." she looked down at the table as she said this. "Cancel? Is everything okay?" "Yes, but I have to fly to Scottsdale this afternoon. We've got a business meeting there and my father has asked me to accompany him." She had told me before that her family owned hotels in California, Oregon and Arizona with a smattering in Nevada. I had to assume this was about the restaurant business there. "Well, I'm disappointed of course," I admitted. "But business is business, and if your father is including you in his business like this, it must be a good thing." "It is a good thing," she nodded and looked up, smiling again. "He believes I represent the future of the family business, for several reasons, but mostly because I'm the only one of my generation who has expressed an interest in learning the business and then followed that up with action." "Ah, that suggests that someone might have expressed interest without taking action," I speculated. "Yes, my cousin Roberto. He is two years older than I am, the oldest of the children of my father and his brothers. He assumes he will take up his rightful position, but he has done nothing. He has gone to college; four different ones, and finished none of them. He works at the corporate offices as a purchasing manager." "He believes he will just rise up the chain from there, based on the experience that a series of jobs in the corporation will give him," I said, not asking, but stating what I saw as obvious. "He does, and perhaps it would work, if he showed any talent for management or business," she laughed. "But he expects it to happen just because he is the eldest male. He expects it as his due. This my father does not like." Kelli had a predatory look on her face as she said this. I didn't blame her. I knew her well enough already to know that a sexist with delusions of entitlement would annoy the hell out of her. "How long will you be gone?" "Overnight tonight and back late tomorrow." "How late?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and wiggling it. "Too late," she giggled and buried her face in her arms on the table, managing to miss the remains of her meal. "Sorry," I said. "No your not," she looked up, eyes twinkling. "But I do have good news. Since we're making this middle of the week trip, I have the rest of the week off when I do get back, so..." "So..." I smiled. "So I'm free if you're free to do ... whatever," she looked down at the table again, embarrassed by her forthrightness, vague as it was. "Good, I look forward to lots of ... whatever. But perhaps we should do something special?" "I'm in favor of special," she punctuated that with a kiss. "What did you have in mind?" "I have no idea," I said, my mind spinning. "We could go somewhere quiet for a long weekend perhaps?" "You have good ideas. I expect to be pleasantly surprised when I get back from Scottsdale." "You wouldn't mind going somewhere right after a business trip?" "Not if its with you and its not business." "Boating, hiking, golf, tennis, anything like that?" "I said surprise me, but sure, I"m game for any or all of the above. Now kiss me Cooper, 'cause I've got to get going." So I did, and while we kissed, all thoughts of the coming long weekend flew out of my head. I watched her walk out of the restaurant and the minute she was out of sight the wheels began spinning in my head. A long romantic weekend, but where? I had an appointment with Mrs. Trinh tomorrow at 10. Kelli would be back late tomorrow night, so our long weekend couldn't begin, practically, until at least mid-morning the next day, Thursday. We could conceivably leave Thursday midday and return Sunday evening without messing up our schedules too much. This still left the decision of what kind of long weekend it was going to be, and how close to home it would be. We were both active people, and this is California, where activities seem boundless. I thought about it as I drove home. "Harley, what do you think?" I asked. "What, you want my opinion?" he asked. "Yes, I do," I told him." What's more, I think you need to start taking a more active part in our life. Just because you gave up control to me doesn't mean you aren't still participating in everything we do." "I guess," he said with little enthusiasm. "Try to be a little more enthusiastic," I laughed. "Now that you're our in charge of our telekinetic harness lock, you need to be closer to the forefront." "But you need to be in control," he argued. "Things definitely work better when you are in charge." "I won't disagree," I told him. "But my being in charge doesn't mean you can't be right out there with me, ready at any moment to contribute however you can. Especially when we're talking about offering your opinion or making a suggestion. There's no cost to me or us by your doing so." "But I don't want to be a distraction." "I trust you to know when you would be a distraction and hold your peace until it was safe. At the same time, I know you see some things differently than I do, and that different perspective is valuable to us. That value is lost if you remain silent." "I can see that," he admitted. "We were a triumvirate there for a while. You, me and Bud all had our special piece of the puzzle to offer. Bud sort of took himself out of the equation by downloading himself into the suit, so now the only time we get the advantage of that perspective is when we're wearing it. I see that as a loss to us. You remaining silent when you should be speaking up would also be a loss to us. Agreed?" "Okay, I see what you're driving at. I got sort of comfortable back in the role of observer like I had been the last few years before I died. I have to borrow your youth and put my old man ways away." "That you do, and don't worry there's enough youth here for both of us." "With a little left over for Kelli?" He snickered. "With LOTS left over for Kelli," I grinned. "So you better help me come up with something to do for the weekend." "I liked the idea of golf, to be honest. Its been a long time since I played, and I was a golf addict in my thirties and forties." "I haven't played in probably eight years, except for goofing around a couple times. It might take a little while to get the kinks worked out of my swing, but it would be fun. Damn..." "What?" Harley asked, sensing my sudden shift of thought. "I just realized I could afford to play Pebble Beach if I wanted, any of the famous courses, but Pebble Beach and Augusta are the two that always fascinated me most." "You and just about every golfer in the country. I'd love to play Pebble Beach too, and we're on the right coast. Where is it exactly?" Which is why we got online as soon as we were home and Googled Pebble Beach. "Carmel, California. South of San Francisco quite a bit. I"ll try getting driving directions." "Watch and wonder, old man," I joked. "Here we go, three different routes, hmm ... just shy of four hours whichever route we pick." "Ah, I see. This is clever. Do we want to do that much driving? It would be almost four hours driving back too – that's 8 hours of our weekend spent on the road." "So we fly down. That should be pretty quick. We can even charter a flight if we want." "That would be nice," Harley said sounding enthusiastic now. "Shouldn't we make sure we can get a tee time at the golf course before we think about how we're getting there?" The internet giveth, and the internet taketh away. I found the contact information for the Pebble Beach Resorts, and there, in the name, was the rub. This was a resort with a capital R. Kelli's family owned hotels and resorts. She might be tempted to mix business with pleasure if we went to a resort. Granted, Pebble Beach was unique in its way, but by the same token, it wasn't going anywhere; it would be available later if we wanted. "We need something a little more personal and private," I said aloud, staring at the map. Perhaps Google maps would allow the internet to giveth back. Hmm. I wanted remote, or relatively so, cozy as I could get, and as far from a hotel or resort setting as possible. To my mind that meant a Bed & Breakfast somewhere, preferably on the coast. I found the golf course first. I wanted something nice, but out of the way. I turned up the Salmon Run Golf Course in Brookings, Oregon, billing itself as an eighteen hole championship course. The online pictures looked very nice indeed. With a course in mind, the next problem was finding a place nearby that fit my needs for a Bed & Breakfast that wouldn't seem like we were roughing it. Again the internet gods were kind to me, and I found the 'A Country Retreat B&B' not only also in Brookings, but within spitting distance of Salmon Run. I had to laugh though, as I looked at the map. The B&B was on the north side of the Chetco River and the golf course was on the south side. The spittin' distance between the two was transformed into a five mile drive via the bridge in Brookings and Harbor, the town on the south side of the Chetco from Brookings. The next hitch in my plan was renting a car. There wasn't a major car rental agency in Brookings or Harbor. The nearest was a Hertz agency in Crescent City, about 25 miles to the south across the Oregon/California border. That meant flying into Crescent City and driving up to Brookings. That didn't seem like that big a deal to me. We drove further to go to Lake Berryessa for a single day. Two phone calls later, I had the Country Retreat B&B's Aztec Room rented Thursday through Sunday and a Friday morning tee time at Salmon Run with assurances that I shouldn't have trouble getting a tee time Saturday or Sunday, especially if we were willing to play as part of a foursome. I still needed a way to get there, and that meant some sort of charter flight, because I figured if we were going to be biking, we'd have to take our bikes with us. I also wanted at least some part of this trip to be flashy, so I was thinking a jet charter would be best. Who would be likely to have experience with this sort of thing? Well, who besides Kelli's dad. I wasn't prepared to seek help in that direction! On a whim I called Mike Guilford. He certainly ran in the right circles, financially. Perhaps he would know. "Jet charters?" he laughed. "Sure, in fact Howes Investments has a contract with Kaiserair. When do you need them?" I let him know my needs and he promised to call me back when he had something for me." My romantic getaway weekend was set. ------- Chapter 65 With reservations made, Kelli off to Scottsdale, and nothing on my agenda before tomorrow morning's meeting with Mrs. Trinh, it was time for more practice. Bud was keen on getting us used to the suit's exoskeletal strength. This required another visit to the sleazy tanning parlor I'd found in South Santa Rosa. I, on the other hand, was keen on figuring out how to use my telekinesis to power the suit without hurting myself. "No, we will not be doing that yet," he insisted. There is too much risk." "At least explain to me what we will be doing, so I can try to understand the danger." "If I explain it enough for you to understand the danger, you will know enough to try it. No." "Look," I said while silently letting Harley know I wanted him to lock the suit and lift us five feet of the cavern floor. "We do have something we can do in the meantime. Or we can go looking for other ways to charge the suit. What would happen if I went found a high tension power line and grabbed it with a glove?" "The Impervilon would convert it and transfer the energy to the kinetex. If this was a major power line, you would fully charge the suit in approximately ten minutes. The power drain would be very noticeable to those that maintained the power grid, though." "Could we bring the grid down?" "No, our drain would be large, but it would be non-interrupting. We might cause a minor brown out in the immediate vicinity." "Would doing that be more or less dangerous than my trying to learn how to power the suit myself?" "Less dangerous," Bud said. "Much, much less." "Okay then, lets try and figure out where we can do something like that, because I'm already tired of the whole tanning booth fiasco, and I want to get used to the exoskeleton. We're getting close." "I might disagree, but so far we have been moving faster than our original projections suggested." "Okay then," I decided that Bud was agreeing with my idea. Time to get him acting on it. "Where and when do we grab that line?" "I will have to look into that," he told me. "In the meantime, since you don't want to use the exoskeleton, what do you suggest we do?" "Well, I've been wondering. Can I still use my telekinetic gift while Harley has the suit locked and lifted?" I felt Harley's agreement. We'd both wondered about that since we'd settled on his doing the locking. "Ahh. Mmm. Well..." Bud hesitated. He didn't know! We'd stumped him! "Well if you don't know, we're in the right place to test it. Shall we try?" "Very well," Bud said, but with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. "But proceed cautiously, please!" Harley had been holding us five feet in the air during this entire discussion, so without further ado, I reached out and tried to lock on the slab of Bakelite sitting in its usual place. Tried and failed. Yet the failure wasn't absolute. I could feel Harley's lock, and I could feel my own, and mine didn't so much fail utterly, as slip and slide around his without finding its way to where it needed to go. I tried again, with the same results. And again. And again we failed. But even in our failure I felt encouraged. "We can do this," I told Harley. "I believe you're right," he answered in my thoughts. "We'll just have to keep trying it until we get it." I shared my mental agreement as I tried again, and failed again, "We need to think on this power problem too," he added. "I don't care what Bud says." Not having Bud in our thoughts actually came in handy for a change. We zoomed around in the cave for a little while, just to give Harley and I a chance to get used to passing directional information without actually 'thinking out loud'. After a while we had it working very well, and Harley was able to read my intent and act on it faster than he would have been able to respond to my verbalized thoughts. After playing with that for a while we went back upstairs and I spent some time catching up on the news online, on TV and in the paper. I was getting a pretty good idea of where the 'problem' neighborhoods in Santa Rosa were, and who some of the key figures in the gang and drug related activities were in the area. The worry I had, over my success or failure as a super hero, was over intelligence. I had no way to gather it other than by going there myself and observing. I could wish I had some fancy alien spy gadgets, or that I could read minds, or simply see events from afar. Unfortunately, I didn't have those things. Bud had implied that 'they' wanted me to be a super hero. 'They' had to know there was more to it than a little power and a costume. The time would come to confront Bud, and perhaps the mysterious 'they', with these questions. For now, every day was about living, learning and indulging. For two guys who used to be dead or dying, a little indulgence was nice. Dinner was early, I was restless. Kelli called to let me know they were safely in Scottsdale, and after several minutes of hr soft voice and a quick good night, I was more restless. I got on the bike and headed out. I rode east to Hacienda and when I got there, stayed on the north side of the river and took Westside road east and then north as it followed the Russian river. I followed the road clear to and through Healdsburg and then took the Redwood highway all the way north to Geyserville before I turned around and headed back. I wanted a beer and I was in wine country. I pulled off the highway in Healdsburg and drove through town on Healdsburg Avenue. Finally I saw a sign that looked like what I was looking for, the B&B Saloon. I pulled the bike into a parking lot just past the building to the south. It looked like the parking here was probably for the patrons of the bar, at least this late in the evening. I locked the helmet to the bike, noticing a couple of people getting out of an old beat up Chevy pick up at the other end of the lot. I looked like there was a side entrance from the lot as well as the sidewalk entrance I'd seen from the road. I left that entrance to the couple and walked around to the front. The B&B Saloon was a dive. I looked at the rough edged customers and the rough trappings of the place and smiled. This was just what I was in the mood for. There were maybe a dozen people in the place, including the two I'd seen in the parking lot who were just now sliding into their seats near a pool table in the back. Waylon Jennings was playing on the juke box, and despite the laws in California, there was smoke in the air. I found a stool at the bar and sat down. The bartender was a woman, long blond hair, big tits and crows feet around her eyes. "What'll you have Sugar?" "What's on tap?" I asked. "Miller, Budweiser and Bear Republic Red Rocket," She told me. Odd, I thought at the time, but asked for a glass of the Red Rocket, which sounded familiar for some reason. The beer was good. I drank it fairly quickly, one eye on my fellow patrons. A couple of the less seemly looking gentlemen were eying me speculatively, as if they were wondering what I was doing in their bar. "Another one?" the bartender asked when she saw me tipping the glass up for the last of it. "No thanks," I said, throwing a ten onto the bar top. "Just needed a quick one to cut the road dust." I slid off the bar stool and headed for the door, not waiting for change. I noticed the two I'd been eying head for the side exit. I took the corner wide coming up on the parking lot, just in case there was a surprise waiting there for me. The corner didn't hold any surprises, but the two yahoos were standing next to my bike. Yahoo number one was big, though still several inches shorter than me. Yahoo number two was thin, wiry and more than a bit twitchy. "What can I do for you gentlemen this evening?" I said as I walked up. "This your bike?" The big one asked. "Yes it is," I answered. "It looks new," the other guy said. "It is. Bought it less than a month ago in Seattle." "What the hell you doing up in that neck of the woods?" The big guy asked. I noticed the twitchy one sidle a little to his right, moving slightly behind me, but not enough to be out of sight. "That was where I landed when I got back from Okinawa after my discharge from the Corp," big guy looked up at that. "You a Marine?" "Once a Marine always a Marine," I answered. Twitchy had moved back to where he started. "What the hell's a Marine got to do in Okinawa?" "There's a jungle warfare school and base there. I was there taking an advanced course on how to kill people." "Ahh, well, a couple in the bar said they saw you ride in on a Harley, and we was just curious about the bike. "Well, its a brand new this years model Harley Road King, but other than that, its nothing special." "Still a nice bike, Thanks for letting us look at it," big and burly said before heading back into the bar with his buddy bouncing along behind him. I got back on the road and headed home, but a part of me wished the two of them had started something. I wasn't looking for a fight, but the kind of mood I'd been in, it would have almost been a relief to have something like that happen. Some Kind of Hero by Sea-Life Book Four: Hero in Training ------- Chapter 66 The coffee was just finishing when I walked into the kitchen. I needed a cup, desperately. I needed something for my head too; it was pounding this morning. I'd gotten back to the house last night after my ride and gone down stairs and put the suit on and had it out with Bud. "Bottom line," I'd told him. "You need to figure out a way to be in the suit and still be in my head. You need to be with us the way you were before, or Harley and I are likely to kill ourselves with this power you have not yet completely taught us how to use." He hemmed and hawed and sputtered but in the end Harley and I both told him to figure it out and get it done. If he hadn't figured out where we could get the suit charged while we were gone last night it might've been even uglier. Harley had a complaint of his own, which I was glad to join in on, a bit sheepishly, since I should have been the first to be complaining about it. Harley thought it was ridiculous that we were so out of touch whenever we were in the cavern, and wondered why, if the suit was such an amazing piece of super-programmable electronics and beyond, that Bud hadn't figured out a way for it to receive our cell phone's calls, whether we were in the cavern or not. It was a huge heaping load of 'what have you done for us lately', I suppose. That's the kind of shit you should expect to get dumped on you when you dump your team. Still, that's not where the headache came from. That was caused by Harley and I pounding our heads against the wall of the dual lock problem until midnight when I finally called a stop to it and went to bed. I'd done my morning run and workout and was eating breakfast when I got a call from ADT asking if they could come by this morning to discuss options for my security system. I told them I had a ten o'clock meeting, which might last an hour but not more. They offered to come by at nine and take no more than forty five minutes. I told them to come ahead then, in my best John Wayne impression. I don't think they got it. I started another pot of coffee, having put the rest of the first pot in an insulated carafe so it wouldn't develop that over-cooked taste I hated. I looked at the clock and saw I had the time, so I found a package of 'gourmet' refrigerated cookie dough I had in the fridge and started a batch of snickdoodle cookies baking in the oven. While the cookies were baking I did a little cleaning up. The kitchen was the only part of the house that really needed it. I got the dishes from breakfast and last nights dinner going, washed and wiped down the sinks and counter tops and went through the fridge looking for anything that looked like it needed to go in the garbage. There were a few wilted bits of romaine lettuce that I decided were past their prime along with some sliced tomatoes that I hadn't used fast enough, and those all went into the garbage disposal in the sink. There were a couple dried out dinner rolls left from a package I'd opened a few days earlier that I decided were beyond their prime as well. All in all there wasn't a lot to do. I was not a messy person. Harley had a general inclination towards neatness as well, so between the two of us, we were pretty domesticated. Once the cookies were done and cooling on a rack in the kitchen I moved to the living room where I had the TV on again, watching some local morning show out of Santa Rosa. The hosts were talking excitedly about the schedule of events for the upcoming Fourth of July holiday. I turned the volume down when the doorbell rang. "Good Morning Mr. James," Bill Largent said as I opened the door. There were two men standing behind him. A tall, beefy specimen and a smaller, wirey one. They sort of reminded me of the Mutt and Jeff act I'd met in the B&B Saloon parking lot last night, except for short haircuts and clean shirts. "Good morning Bill," I said, stepping aside and waving them in. "Come on in. Can I get you guys some coffee?" "Sounds good to me," he replied. I closed the door behind them and led them towards the kitchen. "We can meet in here around the kitchen table if that works for you," I said as I headed for the coffee pot. "Closer to the coffee pot that way." "Fine," Bill agreed. " Mr. James, this is Thom Schenderline and Ken Spears," the big guy was Thom and the little guy was Ken. I shook both their hands. "Thom is our electronic systems specialist and Ken is our external security specialist. They both have plans to present to you today, and a few questions as well." "Sounds good," I said setting cups of coffee down in front of the three of them. "Help yourselves to the cookies, they're fresh out of the oven this morning. I'll be right back." I went into the living room and grabbed the laptop and my own cup of coffee. I set the laptop down on the table and went to top off my cup from the carafe before adding the rest of the fresh pot to it and bringing it back to the table with me. Thom and Ken both had laptops of their own open on the table when I sat down. "Who wants to start?" I said, flipping my laptop lid up and typing in my password to unlock it from standby mode. "Ken, why don't you start," Bill nodded to Ken. "Alright," Ken said. "Mr. James, we've got..." "Why don't you all call me Cooper," I interrupted. "I'm going to prefer Bill, Ken and Thom over Largent, Schenderline and Spears anyway." "Okay, Cooper, we've considered the security of your house and property and its a bit of good news and bad news. The good news is that you don't have neighbors, so whatever we do isn't likely to draw comments or complaints from anywhere, and there aren't any housing association rules or community standards to worry about here. The bad news is that you don't have any neighbors. You're isolated out here, which will encourage anyone who does decide they want to do something against you." "That's the way I see it too," I agreed. "In my previous career, that would have meant sandbags, barbed wire, claymores and gun towers, maybe with arty support already dialed in on the killing fields around the wire. I'm guessing we can't do that here?" Ken and Thom looked at each other while Bill and I grinned. "No, I don't suppose we can," I let them off the hook. "Tell me what we can do, Ken." "We want to replace that low fence you have now with something a little higher and beefier. You'll go from a three foot fence of mixed post and rail and post and wire to a eight foot fence of post and wire. The posts are going to be wood, but they're going to be wrapped around steel posts and set in reinforced concrete footings. The wire we''re going to use is going to be a high tensile strength woven stainless steel. The combination should resist most vehicular intrusion, but not a concerted effort by multiple large vehicles." "Sounds expensive," I laughed. "It is," Bill interjected. "But then you can afford it, can't you?" "Yes I can. What about cameras, motion sensors, infrared, all that sort of stuff?" "there w ill be that sort of stuff," Thom jumped in. "All of it will be tied into our remote monitoring center. You will also have a monitoring center here in the house, though it won't be manned. You'll be able to use it to monitor the perimeter if you believe you are experiencing a trespass of any kind." The intrusion detection system on the fence will not be set to trigger any kind of house alarms. They will trigger alarms at our monitoring center," Ken added. "Our agents there will determine whether your house alarms need to be triggered to alert you." "Okay," I agreed. "The automatic alarms will trigger if any of the house's intrusion sensors are engaged," Thom continued. "In addition to those sensors being installed, we'll be replacing all the doors and windows in the house. We'll have bulletproof glass in the windows and the door and window frames will be replaced with reinforced, intrusion resistant models of our own design." Our conversation lasted the promised 45 minutes, and we drank the entire pot of coffee and ate half the cookies while we did. I was happy with the results. It would take minimal compromise on my part, would be easy to include others into the system, and would take only a month to finish. Thom Schenderline had liked both the location and size of the utility room that would become the local monitoring center, and the home gym that occupied most of the basement. "Sweet," he said when he saw it. The door and window work, as far as I was concerned, could happen at any time, but I did remind them about the pool work, and that it might be good to compare notes with the pool company. Bill promised me that they would do that, and let Sonoma Pool and Spa know about their upcoming work as well. Other than ensuring that the beefed up wall didn't get built on the front of the property until after the heavy equipment needed for digging the pool and whatever large scale earth moving was associated with the landscaping was done, I had a finalized, approved and provisionally paid for deal done with ADT. I had just enough time after the three of them left to get a kettle of hot water going on the stove and the evidence of our session cleaned off the kitchen table before Edwina and Mrs. Ibarra arrived. Some Kind of Hero by Sea-Life Book Four: Hero in Training ------- Chapter 67 There was no doubt that Mrs. Trinh was a quiet woman. So quiet it was difficult to hold a conversation with her. Thankfully Edwina was able to interpret the silences more or less appropriately. Nhu Trinh was a petite woman, slender and short, with long graying hair, though most of it was still jet black. She had small, sad brown eyes and a small mouth that was mostly set in a neutral horizontal slit, as if either smiling or frowning would be too great a show of emotion. We talked for over an hour about her past life, going back to her grandparent's arrival in the states back in 1956 and her mother's own arranged marriage the following year at the age of 15. Her own arranged marriage to Trinh Cong Min in 1973. She had been 15 as well when she married the much older man. Their son Dinh had been born less than a year later. Some of that got glossed over, perhaps still too painful to speak of in front of a stranger, even if it was a prospective employer. I spoke a while, telling her what Edwina probably already had, that I was a young, former soldier now trying to settle into life in Santa Rosa and learning to deal with wealth I hadn't been used to as a child, as well as the loss of parents that had not confided in me about their own family and financial status while they were alive. The two of us managed, in the end to look on each other with some mutual sympathy. After the long conversation, Edwina told me to go watch TV or something for a while. Mrs. Trinh was going to make me lunch. "Don't worry," Edwina laughed. "I'll only be here to show here where things are. She'll do all the cooking." I took my laptop to the living room and checked my email. And surfed the internet for a while. I was considering looking for a set of golf clubs rather than relying on a set of loaners from the resort, though apparently they prided themselves on their ability to match people up to a set of outstanding Calloway clubs. I did a little surfing around with the clubs in mind, but wasn't sure yet if I even wanted to go through the effort to buy clubs, given my lack of recent experience. If we were going to play tennis though, I was going to have to shop for that. I didn't want to seem as if I was completely unprepared for a resort vacation. I needed golf clothes too, which had me looking again at some of the places I'd looked before. My quest was interrupted by the call to lunch from Mrs. Trinh. Quiet though she was, her voice was pleasant, with clear, bell-like tones when she spoke up. I sat at the table, finding a glass of orange juice waiting for me. "I've made you Eggs Benedict and cottage fries for lunch Mr. James," she said, placing an elegant plate in front of me. "I've also made a small Moroccan orange and carrot salad. This is a slight adaptation of the recipe, as you did not have orange blossom water," "I didn't have orange blossom water?" I feigned indignation at Edwina. "Edwina, I thought you had my pantry well stocked!" "Sorry sir," she answered in an obviously exaggerated drawl. "Safeway was fresh outta orange blossom water." Edwina and I laughed, and after a moment, I thought I heard a small, clear titter coming from behind the hand covering Mrs. Trinh's mouth. The meal was fine, though the salad was not something I would go out of my way to ask for. It certainly showed me that Mrs. Trinh was a good cook, and the cuisine she had access to was impressive. "You're a small woman, and I know you're no little old lady, but you are in your fifties," I said as we walked back up the stairs from looking at the laundry room and gym. "Hauling laundry up two flights of stairs might begin to wear on you after a while." "Perhaps," she said in her small voice. "After a dozen years or so." Quiet she might be, but she had some wit about her, no doubt about it. We looked upstairs, and while we did I talked about the changes happening soon, both the ADT security changes and the pool installation. She was especially pleased to hear my idea about lining the road with trees. Edwina cautioned me about having someone living in the house and setting off the alarm systems, and I told them both not to worry, that the security people were mindful of these needs. "What time do you get up in the morning, sir?" Mrs. Trinh asked. "I'm usually up by six, sometimes earlier," I answered. "What time would you expect breakfast?" "On days when I am home, I usually eat at eight, unless I have an early appointment. I would not expect you to make breakfast on days when I had to leave early. At this time I don't expect that to be something that happens very often." "Will you have lunch at noon?" "I would expect so, yes. Lunch though is the meal I will probably most consistently be gone for. What we will have to do is see how consistently I can keep you apprised of my schedule, so you're not cooking meals I wind up missing." "Will I be cooking for others?" "Occasionally," I told her. "There may frequently be one other for dinner and possibly breakfast, as I am dating someone, and I believe the both of us are pursuing a committed relationship. I am making friends here in Santa Rosa, so do anticipate having people over for dinner. In fact I have already had a dinner for four here in recent days. The carne asada casserole was a big hit, by the way Edwina." It was at this point it seemed like we were all in agreement that we would give this arrangement a try. It was at this point I decided to play a card I'd been considering for a while now. It would be good to do it with Edwina still here. Once the two were back to the kitchen with their tea, I excused myself, saying I'd be right back. I went and got the suit out of the basement and put it on, leaving the hood down for the moment. This was so I wouldn't be returning as some masked stranger, but also so I didn't have to listen to Bud yelling in my ear over what I was doing. I saw two pairs of eyes go wide as I walked into the room. I chuckled out loud, both because it looked funny and because I wanted the two of them to relax. "You might recognize the material this suit is made out of, Edwina," I said as I pulled the hood up and over my head and face. "I've continued playing with the bolts of material I brought home, and I've made this suit. It is bulletproof, but that isn't really why I made it. It was mostly to see if I could bond these materials together. I had to borrow some special glue from my partners, but as you can see, I've managed to make something with it." I walked up and let first Edwina and then Mrs. Trinh feel the arm of the suit. "It feels soft," Mrs. Trinh observed. "Yes, and it is soft, flexible and light. It is incredibly expensive, can't be dyed or colored, and isn't breathable at all. Too long in this and I'd start to look like a stewed chicken." I pulled the hood back down, smiling at both ladies once my face was fully exposed again. "The point of this demonstration is that I own a high tech business that makes special materials for the department of defense. I work with a bunch of physicists, chemists, and the like. I have regular meetings with a Major from the Department of Defense. There will be things about my life I can't share. You may see me doing odd things from time to time. I may be gone at odd times." "So you need my understanding," Mrs. Trinh asked. "Your understanding and your silence." I saw Mrs. Ibarra's nod, firm jaw set. I knew she would, if only to honor my parents. "Of course," Mrs. Trinh said. "You already had this, but I shall endeavor to a greater degree, knowing this." That satisfied me. The rest was just dollars and cents. "When should I start," was the ultimate question from Mrs. Trinh. "You can start immediately. Get moved in and become familiar with the house and kitchen. I will be gone from Thursday afternoon until Sunday afternoon." "Ahh, may I ask where you'll be?" "Of course. I'll always try to let you know where I am and how to contact me in case of an emergency. I'll be at the Pebble Beach Resort in Carmel." "Ooh!" Edwina said, teasingly. "A romantic getaway?" "Indeed," I grinned. "I will be attempting to sweep a certain Miss Kelli Montoya off her feet." Once the ladies had left, I got things straightened out in the kitchen. I made a mental list of the things I needed to do today. I wanted to run into town to shop for the usual tennis apparel, a racquet and shoes. Nothing I had would meet the standards of a place like Pebble Beach. The same went for golf clothes, though I was still not sure about clubs. I fired off an email to Darius saying I was hiring a live-in housekeeper and needed an employment contract that included a confidentiality clause. I mentioned the amount I wanted to offer and the pay schedule I wanted to use. I wondered about other things like insurance and vacation time. I'd have to discuss those with Darius and Mrs. Trinh. I wondered what FiberDyne had in that regard. More questions for a later time. Once the ladies were gone I also threw the hood back up and listened to Bud rant for a while before interrupting him. "People are going to have to know bits and pieces of things," I told him once he wound down. "This way my housekeeper and cook is in on the deal enough that we don't have to worry about her passing on anything she sees, and if she does, it will be cast in favorable terms tied to our government work and FiberDyne's technology." Bud didn't want to agree, but what choice did he have. I reminded him again that he once was able to rider herd on my conscience from in my head, but he gave that up to live in the suit. That shut him up. ------- Chapter 68 The tennis purchases I solved with a run into the Santa Rosa Sports Authority. I bought three sets of tennis shirts and shorts and six pair of tennis socks. I had to go to south Santa Rosa and Casual Male XL to find tennis shoes in my size. They were even classic Reebok tennis shoes that I figured would go with anything. I bought a pair of Adidas TaylorMade golf shoes too. While I was there I figured I'd better add a little to the dress up end of my wardrobe, which was meager. I bought two sets of sport coats and matching slacks and four good shirts and a couple of ties. I added two pair of dress shoes as well. Once again I was in danger of filling the Wrangler after setting out to make a few 'minor' purchases. Kelli called me just as I was thinking about lunch. "How's your day?" I asked. "Busy. Daddy's trying to talk some local Scottsdale entrepreneurs into financing half of our resort expansion there. Actually, that's not true – they've already bought into that idea. Now he's just trying to see if they're willing to sweeten the pot for us," she laughed. "Daddy can be very persuasive." "He sounds like an interesting man. I look forward to meeting him," and I meant it when I said it, though I sounded a lot more confident about that than I was. "Oh, he's looking forward to meeting you too!" she laughed. I said nothing, trying to gulp silently. "So, what are you doing?" "Shopping for tennis and golf gear." "Ah, so I need to pack my golf clubs and tennis racquet?" "Indeed you do, and your swimsuit and some nice dresses for nice dinners in nice restaurants." :Nice dresses or fancy dresses?" she asked. Crap, I thought nice meant fancy. "Both," I answered, hoping to dodge the bullet. "Just where is it you're taking me?" she asked. "Ahh, no spoiling the surprise," I said, enjoying the shoe being on the other foot as I laughed over her curiosity. I cruised a few malls after we finished our call, mostly thinking lunch, but nothing in the food courts appealed to me. I did stop in at Abercrombie & Fitch for a minute and saw Meg. "Cooper! How are you?" she said, managing to sound A&F-ish. "Good," I answered, bending down to let her give me a quick peck on the cheek. "Had to come to town to shop for some tennis gear. I'm taking Kelli away for a long weekend tomorrow afternoon." "Ooh, exciting! Where are you taking her?" I saw someone approaching out of the corner of my eye. Male, thin, wavy blond hair and cleft chin. Frown firmly in place. "Promise not to spoil the surprise?" I raised an eyebrow in pseudo-dramatic fashion. "Of course! Is it someplace romantic?" she was practically hopping with excitement. "I've got us booked into a bed and breakfast on the Oregon coast for three days and three nights," I told her. The approaching frown stopped and the frown was replaced by a puzzled expression. "Golf, tennis, horseback rides, some biking and long walks on the beach. Maybe even some fishing. Perhaps some romance." Meg 'squee'd' at the thought of it. Mr. Frown got even more baffled, but charged ahead, confident of his place in the order of things. "Meg, does this gentleman need some help?" he asked her, but kept his eyes on me, now accompanied by a smile that had appeared mysteriously the moment he spoke. "Oh, I don't think so," she replied calmly, a little twinkle in her eye. "Cooper, this is my boss Mr. Calkins. Mr. Calkins, this is my friend Cooper James, President of FiberDyne industries." "CEO," I corrected, pointedly not shaking the hand offered to me. "I'm Chief Executive Officer and majority shareholder of FiberDyne Industries." "Chaz Calkins," he offered his own hand. I kept mine where it was. "What can we do for you here at Abercrombie & Fitch Mr. Cooper," Mr. Frown-to-smile asked. "Oh nothing, I just stopped to say hi to Meg while I was in the neighborhood. I'm afraid you don't have much here that I can wear, sorry. Your shirts aren't long enough in the torso, your pants don't have a long enough inseam and your shoes are nowhere near my size," he actually gulped at that. "I used to think that you guys specialized in clothing for the skinny boy-toy set, but Meg's corrected me on that assumption," which of course was a blatant lie, but I saw the twitch of a suppressed smile on the corners of her mouth. "Anyway," I turned to Meg. "Kelli and I will be out of town until Sunday night, so pass that along to Mitch if you would? I should probably just email him, but since I was nearby I thought it would be nice to do it the old fashioned way." "Of course, Cooper," she too moved to exclude her boss from the conversation as she walked me back to the store entrance. "I expect you and Kelli will have a great time there. Tell her I'll expect all the details when you guys get back." "Well, not all the details I hope," I laughed. "Maybe not," she laughed with me. I wished I had eyes in the back of my head as I walked away to see what happened between Meg and her boss, but I decided discretion was in order and just walked away. I finally stopped for lunch at the In-N-Out Burger where Guerneville Road careens into Steele Lane at the Redwood Highway near the Coddington Mall. I wound up eating my take-out lunch in the parking lot while I waited for a severe fender bender to get cleared off the underpass. There proceeded to be a frenzied stretch of about an hour and a half where a whole bunch of business got done via email, text messages and phone calls. The first was a call from Mike Guilford, letting me know that Kaiser Air would be standing by for me at the Santa Rosa airport. "You want to go whole hog and add the proverbial chauffeur-driven limo to the experience?" he asked. Since the flight to Crescent City was the only upscale part of the trip, it made sense, in an upscale sort of way. "Sure," I must have been grinning verbally, because Mike could tell. "I can throw in champagne and roses too if you want to go all out." I seriously considered it before saying no. I wasn't sure that a full court press approach would be appreciated. A long weekend together so early in our relationship was full court enough. "The limo will pick you up at your house tomorrow at one," Mike said. "You'll go from there to pick up the young lady and then its straight to the Kaiser Air terminal at CMS. This is a company ride. DO NOT tip the driver." I had learned that a lot of people abbreviated the Charles M. Schultz airport as 'CMS' because 'Charles M. Schultz – Sonoma County Airport' was just too much of a mouthful. "No problem. Is an hour going to be enough time?" I asked. Mike laughed. "You're catching a charter flight. They leave when you're ready, not the other way around." "Oh yeah," I laughed along with Mike. I was still getting used to this. Next came an email from Mitch wishing me a fun trip and thanking me for letting his girlfriend have fun at work. I replied back saying it was fun for me too. Moments later I had a text from him as well. 'ps. ADT + me = FTW!' Sounds like Mitch and the ADT tech people were getting along fine. As I was finally getting close to home, the cell rang again. It was Bianca from Sonoma Pool & Spa asking if I would be free Monday to look over some proposals. "I should be," I told her. "I'll be out of town starting tomorrow afternoon, but should be back Sunday evening." We settled on ten in the morning. I pulled into the garage and I'd handled or handed off everything I had on my plate. Everything except training. I was in the basement within fifteen minutes of getting through the door. I wore the suit so Bud could participate and brought a frisbee with me that I'd picked up on one of my frequent shopping trips. I'd grabbed a baseball, glove and bat too. The glove was still getting worked in a little and of course I had no one to play catch with but myself. I was thinking I could actually do that. Play catch with myself, but I worried about being observed. For that reason I'd brought the frisbee. The cavern was big enough to throw it around in, as long as I wasn't energetic about it. My first efforts involved getting a lock on the frisbee's molecules first and then throwing it. That proved to be ridiculously easy. Frisbees are made of polyethylene, and once I'd gotten familiar with the 'taste' of the long chain molecules it became very easy to lock. I could throw the locked frisbee and have it do, essentially anything I could think of. The real problem was making it look natural. Most of what I made it do were definitely physically impossible. When I threw the frisbee first and then tried to lock it, things got interesting and frustrating. The molecules were moving past my lock faster than I could apply it. I tried everything I could think of to speed up my locking ability, but it was fruitless. While I might improve that speed some with practive and perhaps some advance in technique, it didn't look like it would be enough to overcome this problem. When I fell back on my training and led my target, I failed just as completely. I was locking air, not plastic. I did get good laughs from Harley and Bud though when I grabbed the air in front of the spinning disc so firmly that the frisbee bounced off it! Two hours later I more or less stumbled on the answer. I called it 'predictive locking'. Bud didn't suggest something better as far as a name went, and Harley was just happy that we'd done it and could call it a day. The trick was to find the molecules, but not try to lock them where I found them. Instead I 'told' the molecules to lock when they reached a point ahead of their path. The point was the point on the flight path that matched the time needed to establish the lock. That sounds weird. It is. It even feels strange to do it, and probably that's not what I'm really doing, but that's what it feels like. I was 'catching' the frisbee easily by the time I was done. The next step would be to move up to harder to lock molecules and more complex objects. I was thinking the baseball would be good. For sure I would not be catching bullets. That was what the suit was for. ------- Chapter 69 Thursday morning was somewhat frantic. I realized as I was laying out the things I would be packing that I needed golf clubs, as well as the associated accessories. I also needed real luggage. There was too much of the Corp in what I had. A quick internet search suggested the nearest place for buying golf clubs was back in downtown Santa Rosa, and as for luggage, there was a California Luggage Company right next to the Santa Rosa Shopping Center. I could have almost spit on it from the Abercrombie & Fitch yesterday. I was pissed at myself all the way into town for not having thought of this basic need yesterday. I zipped in and quickly bought a matching pair of Briggs & Riley Baseline bags; a folding garment bag and a wheeled cabin bag. I didn't like hard-sided bags and wanted something matching but not too large. These looked ideal and I left happy but wondering what else I was forgetting. I'd been smart enough to bring the laptop with me and got a nice travel bag for it as well. How I hadn't thought of these things yesterday when being talked into buying a bag for my tennis gear was a mystery to me. Maybe I just had too damn much going on, but it seemed to be a recurring problem these days. For golf clubs, I headed back to Play It Again Sports. It took me an hour and a half to find a set of clubs I liked that would fit my height and long arms, but when I was done, I was happy. Of course I bought a new bag for the set, balls, tees, shoes, the whole nine yards. Back at the house I quickly filled the garment bag, glad that the dress shoes would fit in the bottom of it. The tennis bag got all my tennis gear, white socks and all. That kept the cabin bag limited to 'regular' clothes, golf outfits and swim wear. My luggage purchase had included a matching toiletries bag that fit nicely into the cabin bag. I didn't remember ever having a nice set of luggage. We were never big on travel growing up. With the bags packed, or prepared for packing, I decided there was finally time for a little practice in the basement. I put the suit on and Bud started complaining immediately. He complained about being left alone so long. He complained about not being able to work on the Mark II version of the suit without us. He complained about our being gone for so long on this trip with Kelli just when we were starting to make some serious progress. "Bud!" I shouted. "What?" he asked hesitantly. "You know what the real problem is here, and you know what needs to be done to fix it, so either fix it, or shut up." "We're working on it," he confessed. "There are ... issues." "Fine, but if that is leaving you feeling frustrated, that's no reason to be taking it out on Harley and me. We don't have to put this suit back on you know." "That wasn't part of the deal," he said after a lengthy silence, during which I tossed the baseball up and down, trying to grab it in midair. "No it wasn't," I agreed. "But the deal didn't say anything about you throwing temper tantrums just because your 'grand plan' had a few flaws in it either, did it?" "No," another lengthy pause. "I'm sorry." "Apology accepted," Harley and I both said with my voice. "From both of us," I added, since Bud couldn't hear Harley anymore. "The thing is, if Harley and I are going to be a super hero for 'you'; and we all understand that 'you' doesn't just mean you, Bud, then it will require more than just our being able to do our molecular telekinesis tricks. Speaking militarily, there are plenty of things needed to wage a campaign besides boots on the ground. Even good soldiers need good intelligence and good logistics, and that's at a minimum." "Understood, of course, Cooper," Bud answered immediately this time. "We do have plans for implementing certain things to aid in this, but..." "But," I interrupted. "Your people seem limited in the amount of actual physical action you can take on our behalf. Is that it?" "Yes, that's it exactly. We will be able to offer more support in the future, but the recently realized flaws associated with my move into the suit mean we will have to delay that support." "For how long?" "That's a bit of an unknown until we work out a solution to the current problem." "Understood, and Harley and I both sympathize," and really, we both did. We'd been soldiers during times of war. We understood that no plan of battle ever survived the campaign intact. Enough had been said. Bud went quiet and I worked on catching the baseball a bit more. The progress was there, but it wasn't much. I was getting it to wobble in midair now and then. Problem was, the contact was so brief that I wasn't sure whether the wobble was from grabbing the ball or inadvertently grabbing air around it. That gave me an idea though. I thought about it a bit first, but then gave it a shot. Boom, just like that I had the ball suspended in mid air. "You did it!" Bud exclaimed. "No, I cheated," I admitted. "I grabbed the air around the ball and held that. Once the ball stopped moving I was able to grab it and let go of the air." "Hmm, an interesting concept, and potentially an answer to that worry you had about not being able to catch bullets." "What, you mean lock enough air molecules between me and the shooter, and lock them solidly enough to stop a bullet?" "Yes, that seems workable after what you just demonstrated. The question is whether your ability to lock the molecules together would be strong enough to overcome the high kinetic energy of the bullet." "Well, since the suit will protect me, I'd be more likely to be trying to protect someone or something else, wouldn't I?" "True," Bud agreed. "Would we be able to acquire a gun to test it with?" "I should be able to get a gun no problem, but there's going to be a waiting period. I don't know the state laws here, but I should be able to find out everything I need to know online, or wherever I find a gun shop." "Not something we need to worry about for now, certainly." "Thanks Bud," I smiled. "Remind me when I get back from this trip." "Of that, you can be certain," he said, and sounded more like his old self. I had an hour before the limo was due when I climbed the stairs up from the basement. I had time to grab a small bite and went for some toast with blueberry preserves and an apple. I washed it down with a glass of orange juice, left over from what I'd made myself for breakfast. After my quick snack I loaded the little bit of dishes I'd dirtied into the dishwasher along with this morning's and started it cycling. Next was a quick shower. I hadn't worked up a sweat during the time since I'd taken my morning shower, but I was going to be riding and flying, snuggled up, I hoped, with Kelli, so I wanted to feel clean. I finished a very hot shower and then shaved while I was still cooling down from it, wanting an extra close shave to start my trip with. My recent haircut was still looking sharp, so I ran a hand through the still damp hair, splashed on some aftershave and deodorant, then brushed my teeth and flossed. By the time I finished with all the post-shower activities I was almost cooled down enough, so I slipped on the silk boxers I'd bought especially for the occasion and then stepped out on the balcony for a minute. The outdoor air had me cooled down in no time, despite the warmth of the day. I didn't linger. The warmth of the day would have had me heating up again pretty quickly if I had. I slipped on the dress slacks and shirt I'd picked out to wear during the trip, put my watch back on and added socks and my new soft black leather Florsheims. There was an identical pair of brown ones already packed in the bottom of the garment bag. My new tax bracket may suggest Italian leather, but finding a pair in a size fifteen isn't easy. Now that I was dressed, I finished packing my bag and took the two pieces of luggage downstairs along with my tennis bag. I sat them by the door where my new golf bag already rested. I wanted my sunglasses. I found them sitting on the breakfast bar where I'd left them. I did the whole, wallet, watch, keys semaphore and satisfied, went over to the coffee table and grabbed my cell phone and tapped the laptop's touch pad to wake it up. There wasn't anything in my inbox, so I shut it down and stuck it in the laptop bag. Spotting the laptop's AC adapter and cords sent me scrambling upstairs to grab the cell's charger. It fit nicely in the laptop case, which was a good place for it. That entire assembly fit nicely as well inside the front compartment of my new cabin bag. I had everything ready except one last stop for me. I hit the downstairs bathroom and emptied the old bladder one last time. I looked at my watch and saw it was ten minutes to one. I glanced out the window and didn't see the limo, so I did a quick check to make sure the downstairs doors and windows were locked and nothing was left on in the kitchen. When I got back from those rounds, the limo was pulling up the drive. I grabbed my sunglasses, opened the front door and hit speed dial number one on the cell. "Cooper!" "Hi beautiful," I said as soon as Kelli answered. "The limo is pulling up in front of the house as we speak. You ready to have some fun?" "I am sooo ready," she said with her voice down in the low and shivery setting that I loved. "Good, I'll see you soon," I blew her a kiss and hung up. I was hoping she was laughing at her end of the disconnect. ------- Chapter 70 The limo pulled up to the Montoya's and Henry, my driver, and I both got out. He went back to open the trunk and I went to the front door. It opened before I got there and Kelli came out, closely followed by an older man with a weathered face and gray peppering his hair. My view of him was quickly cut off by Kelli's jumping into my arms. "Well hello," I said with a grin. "Hi yourself," she answered back. Then there was a kiss. Slightly longer than I felt comfortable with, given that it was probably her father getting the close up demonstration, but not as long as I wanted. Afterward, she stepped back and to my side. "Cooper, this is my father Silvano Montoya. Father this is Cooper James." we shook hands and I smiled, which might have thrown Mr. Montoya off. The smile was caused by the tiniest of hesitations between 'Father this is' and 'Cooper James'. In my mind she had almost inserted 'boyfriend' there. "Mr. Montoya, it is a pleasure meeting you at last, sir," I said, extending my hand. "Mr. James," he answered, and we shook. It was interesting to note that he was at least three inches shorter than Kelli, which had me towering over him. He had wide shoulders which tapered down to a still trim waist. "I have been interested in hearing my daughter speak of you. She speaks quite highly of you." "She speaks well of you sir, and of course I think the world of her." "Indeed," his eyes flashed as he somehow managed to look more directly into mine. "As do I, and I would not want to hear of her being hurt." "I would do nothing to dishonor her, or you sir. Besides, she wouldn't let me." I grinned at that. Thankfully, Mr. Montoya smiled with me. "She is a bit headstrong. A father's life is never easy with a willful daughter under his roof." "I was an only child, and grew up in what I have come to discover was something of a sheltered life. I guess I can't appreciate your problem. Rest assured though, I do appreciate your daughter." "Michael Guilford speaks highly of you, and your parents. My condolences young man." "Thank you sir. Mike is a good guy, and I'm glad to have him worrying about what to do with my parent's money." "Well, you two have plans and I don't want to keep you. Take care of my daughter, eh Mr. James?" "Of course." We shook again, and Kelli hugged him. During our conversation, someone from the house and the chauffeur had loaded Kelli's things into the limo, so all we had to do was slide into the back and let Henry close the door. Kelli and I kissed as he got in and during our kiss, the limo pulled out of the Montoya's and took off for the airport. "Well, I thought meeting my father went well, don't you?" Kelli asked after we broke our kiss. "Yes, it did," I nodded. "I didn't realize he would be so much shorter than you though. He comes across as taller though, after you talk to him for a minute." "He has a large presence," she nodded back. "I've always thought so, and so have others. It is one of the reasons he is so successful in his business." "He had me checked out, I assume, since he talked to Mike Guilford about me." "Actually Mr. Guilford manages my father's investments, so that may not have been why they talked about you, but I do know he had you investigated the first time I mentioned you to him." "Oh, and when was that?" I asked. "I might have mentioned you that night, when you first checked into the Hillside," she blushed and looked down at her hands. "That's alright," I said, giving those hands a squeeze where I held them in mine. "I'm pretty sure I was mentioning you to people immediately as well. You were only the second person I met in Santa Rosa, but I was immediately attracted to you." "Well, my father might have been reserved this time, but he tells me that his investigators found nothing he didn't like about you. It doesn't hurt either that you could buy my father's business several times over." "It doesn't?" I was surprised. Her father had obviously shared what he'd learned of my wealth with Kelli. "No," she laughed. He doesn't have to worry that you're after his money." "I guess that's a valid concern when you're successful. Hey you're not after me for my money, are you?" My grin gave away my lack of seriousness, but Kelli decided to play along. "Oh please!" she laughed evilly. "A guy comes riding over from the IHOP on a motorcycle looking for a room for the night, looking like he hadn't slept in a real bed in a week, and I decide then and there to seduce him for his obvious wealth?" We both laughed over that. "Mr. James," the driver called over the limo's intercom. "We've got clearance from Keiser Air to proceed straight to the tarmac." I'd known the trip to the airport would be quick, but this had been quicker than I'd expected. We passed through a gated fence and suddenly we were on tarmac, rolling up to a very nice looking Citation V executive jet. "Okay, just where the heck are we going and where did you get a jet?" Kelli laughed. "Coincidentally, I got the charter flight through Mike Guilford. Howes investments has a lease arrangement with Keiser Air. You'll find out where we're going soon enough." Henry opened our door and offered Kelli a hand as we got out. "Will either of you want one of your bags as a carry on?" he asked. "Oh, yes please," Kelli said. "The Baggallini please," I shook my head and Henry went to open the trunk, and I noticed there was a man there wearing the prototypical ground crew jumpsuit, waiting. We were standing in front of the open cabin door and a woman in uniform came down through it to greet us. "Good afternoon Mr. James, I'm Eliana Mack, your pilot today. If you and Miss Montoya want to go ahead and board, I'll make sure your luggage gets secured properly." "Thank you," we both said. Henry brought Kelli's bag and we stepped up into the cabin. The cabin was very nice. We were met immediately by an older man dressed similarly to our pilot. "Good morning folks," He said with a toothy grin. "I'm Dave Lopez, your co-pilot. The middle row of seats has been configured for your flight today if that's all right." "Sure," I said, walking Kelli back to the seats. There were two seats separated by a small table set up on one side of the aisle, with a small, two person couch sitting facing the aisle opposite them. The co-pilot put Kelli's bag in an overhead compartment and showed us the seat belts. They were the usual airline kind, so there wasn't any explanation needed. We took our seats and listened to the sounds of the luggage getting stowed away, followed by the solid thump of the compartment being closed. The pilot boarded with a wave in our direction, closed and locked the cabin door and then the two of them were in their seats and busy. "Still not going to tell me where we're going?" Kelli asked. "All will be revealed soon enough," I laughed. "How was Scottsdale?" "You're only asking in order to sidetrack me, but okay," she stuck her tongue out at me. "Scottsdale was fine. The deal looks good. Daddy still has to work out some of the debt structure at our end, but that's completely internal at our end. We will sign the papers next week after they get final approval at their end." "Do I remember you saying this was some sort of resort development?" "It is," she nodded. Golf, tennis, swimming. Family oriented, mostly." The plane had been moving as we'd talked. We were interrupted by our pilots voice coming over the intercom. "Folks, we're lined up for departure and have immediate clearance to taxi out onto the runway for takeoff. You'll need to make sure your seat belts are fastened, any carry on bags are stowed and electronic devices, including cell phones are turned off." I hadn't thought of my cell, and quickly shut it off and slipped it back into my pocket. In that brief amount of time we were suddenly pushed back into our seats by acceleration, and almost that quickly, were in the air. "Kind of nice not having to wait around, isn't it," I said once things eased off a bit and we were leveling off. "It sure is," she agreed. "I really hate having to fly commercially anymore. The whole post 9/11 security process was annoying to start with and now its insulting and embarrassing." "I agree. I think the entire approach used by the TSA is ridiculous. The Israelis have the right idea. Their screeners are trained to spot suspicious travelers and screen them. The TSA has people working for it that probably couldn't get hired at McDonald's back home in New Jersey. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are plenty of good people working there too, but they don't seem to set a high standard." "Haven't you been able to avoid most of it while you were in uniform?" "You would think so, but not in our modern military. Even when entire units are shipped out to Iraq or Afghanistan, we fly commercial, mixed in with regular passengers on regularly scheduled flights some of the time." "That doesn't seem right," Kelli said with a frown. "It's not," I said, but any further discussion on that topic would descend into politics, and we probably shouldn't go there." "Yes, that's probably best, especially while in mid-flight," she laughed. We had the conversation diverted for us at that moment though, as the pilot came out of the cockpit and began rummaging around in a forward area. A moment later there was a telltale popping sound and she came back a moment later with a champagne bucket, complete with ice, champagne, and two glasses. "What's this?" I asked. "Hold that thought," she laughed. "Not done yet." She went back to that forward area and came back with a tray carrying a flower arrangement consisting of a half a dozen perfect red roses and a plate of chocolate covered strawberries. There was a card sitting on the tray, and I grabbed it, just in case it revealed too much. "You didn't do this Cooper?" Kelli asked. "No, I didn't," I said, opening the card. Enjoy your weekend, hope these little gifts get the mood started off right. Mike It looks like Mike Guilford decided he had to do more than arrange a charter flight for me," I said, handing the card over to her. "You'll have to be quick in enjoying the champagne and strawberries folks," our pilot said. "The flight time is only thirty minutes, and we've used five of that already." "Oh, thanks for warning us," Kelli said. "Someone won't tell me where we're going." "If you and Dave would like a strawberry, feel free," I motioned to the plate. "I know I can't offer you any champagne, but I don't think Kelli and I are going to eat more than one or two of these." "Thanks," she laughed. "We'll scavenge off the plate after we land, how's that?" "Oooh, the exciting life of corporate charter pilots!" Kelli joked. "Enjoy," she told us before leaving us. I poured a glass of champagne and handed one to Kelli. She held the glass up while I poured mine. "A toast?" she asked as I raised my glass as well. "To Kelli Montoya, the beautiful and elegant woman who has captivated me completely," I offered, staring straight into her eyes. Her eyes managed to crinkle and soften at the same time. "To Cooper James, the handsome and clever man who has stolen my heart," She answered. We sipped. I held my glass up again. "To us," I added. "To us," she added. We sipped again, then our glasses were on the small table and we were in each others arms. Well, we were as soon as we got unbuckled from our seats. We ate a strawberry each, sipped our glass of champagne, but to be honest, we were too full of each other to have room for food or drink. It seemed only a moment later that the co-pilot came back to get Mike Guilford's surprise stowed away, cautioning us to buckle up, as we would be landing soon. ------- Chapter 71 The landing, like the takeoff, was fast and efficient. We were quickly on the ground and taxied to one end of the terminal, where we could see three people standing next to a large motorized cart. The Citation rolled up and came to a stop and Dave Lopez had the hatch opened a few seconds later. He came back and got Kelli's bag down for her. "Guess I didn't need this after all," she said, elbowing me in the ribs. "But since I didn't know where we were going..." "All will soon be revealed," I laughed. What was revealed was the tarmac of the Jack McNamara Field, in Crescent City. "Welcome to Crescent City," I announced as we stepped out of the plane. "Crescent City?" Kelli asked. "We're spending the weekend in Crescent City?" "Nope," I laughed. "But we're picking up a rental car here." Our rental car, in fact, pulled up in front of us, the local Hertz agent being quite cooperative when I told him how I was arriving. I'd gotten us an Infiniti QX56. We needed the room for our golf clubs, but that didn't mean I didn't want something with a little luxury. While I was getting the paperwork taken care of, our bags got transferred to the back of the rental. I shook hands with the Hertz agent, slipping him a hundred dollar bill. "See you Sunday," I told him. He looked at the bill in his hand and grinned. "Yes, you will." I opened the door for Kelli and helped her slip into the passenger seat, then thanked our two pilots on my way back around the car. "See you Sunday," I told them. "Maybe," Eliana the pilot told me. "It depends on which plane you draw for the return trip. You probably would have gotten a Citation II for a flight this length, but we were what was free on such short notice." I eased myself into the driver's seat, leaned over and kissed Kelli before buckling up my seat belt. The Hertz agent was waving us towards an open gate in a fence that separated the tarmac from the road. Once I was through the gate I stopped long enough to get the Very nice GPS navigation unit started. "Okay my sweet," I laughed. "Suspense time is over. We're headed to Brookings, Oregon, just across the border, where we have a very nice, secluded and cozy room in the 'A Country Retreat B&B'. The Salmon Run golf course is nearby. There's a tennis court. There are horseback riding opportunities. We can rent a boat or kayak, perhaps bicycles or scooters, or none of the above. We have a 9 am tee time at the golf course tomorrow, but other than that, we are completely free to do whatever we want." "Really, even just walk around and sit on the beach and watch the waves roll in?" "Really," I had pulled out on airport road, turning east onto Washington Boulevard. Traffic was light and it was still early in the afternoon. "Golf and tennis were the only activities I had planned. Everything else is totally up to you." "And the dining that required my dresses?" she raised an eyebrow at me. "Well, that may have been a slight exaggeration," I admitted. "There are several very nice restaurants in Brookings, and a couple in Crescent City as well, but we've got three dinners together on this trip and nobody to impress." "I didn't bring any real outdoor clothes," Kelli said with a frown. "I wasn't thinking it would be quite this rustic." "I'm sorry. I guess I did too good a job of disguising my intentions, didn't I?" "No, its okay, but if we want to try the horseback or kayak options, we'll need to find someplace I can buy jeans at least." By this time we were through north Crescent City and in the middle of turning onto the Redwood Highway headed north. "Once we get to the B&B, we can look online and see what our options are." The ride north up the Redwood highway to Brookings was only 30 miles or so. The scenery, combining the beautiful and rugged pacific coast and the redwood forest, was very nice. We saw several places along the way that looked like they might be worth spending some time at. We turned back towards the shoreline at a place called Smith River. We passed signs for an Indian cemetery, then saw an Indian casino called the Lucky 7. "Well, if we want to gamble, we've got a place to go," Kelli laughed as we drove past. A few miles later we crossed the border into Oregon and then the Winchuck River. Things started to get a little more urban as we edged into Harbor, Oregon. As we did, Kelli got excited as she spotted a sign for a shopping center. "Aha! There's a Sears here," she pointed. "We can come back here and I can look for some outdoor wear, even if I have to shop in the men's department." When we hit the Chetco River, I was able to point out the sign indicating the turnoff to the Salmon Run golf course just before the bridge, then slowed and turned north just past the bridge. That turnoff led to North Bank Chetco Road, and that led, after a few miles and a few bends in the river, to Coho Drive. Coho Drive had one tricky turn at a fork in the road, but the GPS got us past it, and a minute later, we were pulling into the driveway of A Country Retreat B&B. We were met by a smiling woman in an apron and rubber boots, hair pulled into a ponytail with only partial success. "Mr. James?" she asked, extending a hand, which I took. "Cooper, please," I guided her hand to Kelli's. "And this is my girlfriend, Kelli Montoya." "Miss Montoya," the wattage of her smile grew as they shook hands. "I'm Janet Baldwin, but please just call me Jan. Welcome, both of you to A Country Retreat." "Call me Kelli, and thank you, we are looking forward to spending a few quiet, lazy days." "Well, except for the golf," I joked. "Cooper and Kelly," the lady said. "How cute. Let me show you to your room." The room was nicer than the online picture I'd seen had suggested, and while it was far from opulent, it was indeed quaint and cozy. There was a huge tub in the bathroom that I saw Kelli noticing immediately. The king size bed looked decadently comfortable. Everything in the room said comfort. "Oh this is perfect," Kelli smiled as she saw the small private porch overlooking a secluded garden. Only a few minutes later we were alone. Our room had a private entrance, which we now had a key to. We had instructions on tapping into the free wifi and a quick tour of what was where, besides the bed and bathroom of course. "Alone at last," I smiled. "Maybe so, stud," Kelli giggled. "But you got me out here without the proper clothing, so I demand to be taken shopping! Shopping first, fun later." So that's why we hit the road again as soon as we had the luggage unloaded. Our quick trip to Sears turned into a cruise through and around Brookings and Harbor. We made stops at Sears and Fred Meyers and several smaller stores that caught our eye. When we got back to our room, we had our hands full of bags. Less than two minutes later, I had my hands full of Kelli. "I'm hungry," Kelli said from where she lay next to me some time later. "Me too," I said, half expecting my stomach to grumble its concurrence. "We'd better get up and get showered and dressed if we're going to go get dinner somewhere." ------- Chapter 72 Breakfast the next morning was billed as a country breakfast, and that it was. We ate at 7:30 along with the Baldwin family. There were other guests, but none had opted for the full breakfast and were expecting a more buffet-style but less impressive meal later in the morning. The table was piled full of pancakes, sausages, fried eggs, toast, orange juice, coffee and fresh milk. We ate our fill, and didn't linger, wanting to be at the golf course by eight, hoping to find a driving range to loosen up on before we teed off. We stopped on the way to the course to grab coffee from one of the places we'd seen while driving around the day before, and armed with our drinks, mine plain black coffee and Kelli's a cafe mocha something-or-other, we made our way to Salmon Run. The course didn't have a driving range, but they did have a warm up driving tee with a net. We bought a bucket of balls and spent 45 minutes getting our swings loosened up before our tee time. We were back in the club house with ten minutes to spare and found another couple there. The gentleman at the counter, who hadn't introduced himself earlier came over. "Hey folks, I wonder if you would like join these folks over here and play as a foursome? They have a 9:30 tee time, but when they found out you folks were a couple, they thought they could get going a little earlier and have a little more fun golfing with another couple." The couple, who stood up as this spiel was made, looked to be about our age, perhaps a few years older. They were both tanned and looked fit. They were dressed for golf, as we were, and nothing else about them stood out to me, other than the big smile on the woman's face. I looked at Kelli. "I don't see why not," she said, looking at me for confirmation. "Might be fun," I agreed. "you folks have a few minutes until your tee time, so I'll leave you to get introduced." "Howdy folks," the man said as they finished approaching us. "I'm Cody Jenkins and this is my wife Clarissa." Kelli laughed and I grinned and shook my head as I shook the offered hand. "Cooper James, and this is my girlfriend, Kelli Montoya." "Oh my," Mrs. Jenkins laughed. Cody, Cooper, Clarissa and Kelli. Aren't we an alliterative assemblage!" "Absolutely," I drawled, causing all four of us to crack up. While we got our clubs and carts sorted out and prepared to play the first tee, we learned that Cody was an aircraft mechanic who worked for a company in Scottsdale, Arizona. "Small world," Kelli said when she heard this. "I was in Scottsdale on business two days ago." "I have to be back in Scottsdale in two days," Cody told us. "We're at the end of two weeks of vacation. We've been golfing our way down the coast from Seattle, sort of." "We're just taking advantage of a long weekend to get away from town," I told them. "We're from Santa Rosa, in California," Kelli added. "I've been there," Clarissa said. "I grew up in Vacaville." We continued to learn little bits and pieces about each other as we played that morning. Cody and Clarissa were in their early thirties, so both were a bit older than we were, but not that much. Cody had been in military as well, in the air force, but had gotten out three years ago and gone to work immediately for the company he now worked for in Arizona. Clarissa worked at a bank as a teller. I quickly learned that I had the longest drive in our foursome, and I needed that advantage, because I was also the worst of the four of us once the ball was on the green. The course was absolutely beautiful, and I loved the fourth hole, with the pin sitting on an island in the middle of a small lake. The four of us made a friendly bet on the game, with the losing couple buying lunch, and the Jenkins' proved to be a better pair of golfers than we were, particularly with my erratic putting. I could hear Harley silently wishing we could just lock onto the ball and put it in the hole. I could have done that of course, and he knew it. The questions is, could I do it and make it look natural? I wasn't willing to risk finding out. The restaurant at the club house was nice, and lunch at the Salmon Run featured salmon of course, but I opted for a grilled chicken sandwich instead, though I had a smoked salmon chowder with it that I enjoyed a great deal. "This was fun," Kelli said when we were done, hugging Clarissa while I shook hands with Cody. "It was," Clarissa agreed. "Where are you guys staying? Maybe we could get together for dinner tonight?" "That sounds like fun," I agreed with a nod. "We're staying at a bed and breakfast on the other side of the river," I said. "very cozy little place called 'A Country Retreat B&B'. Very nice. We even ate breakfast with the family this morning." "That sounds nice," Cody said. "We're staying at the Ocean Suites Motel, down by the boat basin in Harbor." It's very nice," Clarissa chimed in. "We would definitely stay there again. A bed and breakfast sounds nice though. We've thought of doing something like that for our next vacation. Just working our way from one B&B to another along some route." "This was a good combination though," Cody said. "The golf's been good and the drive down the coast has been spectacular. Hmm..." "What?" Clarissa asked. "Well, what if for our next vacation we just pick up where we leave off on this one. We'll come back here in two years and work our way down the Northern California coast, staying in B&Bs?" "Ohh, that sounds like it would be perfect!" she purred. "The golf courses can be hard to find if you stick to the coast," I warned them. "As I was looking for ideas for this trip, I scoured the coast for golf and B&B combinations, and there are a few stretches where it's pretty desolate." "Yup, well we've got two years to plan." I could see the wheels turning in Cody's head. We'd inspired him. "Where shall we go to dinner?" Kelli asked. "We went to dinner last night at the Blue Water Cafe. It was very nice." "It's close to the motel, and there's a seafood restaurant called the Happy Clam nearby as well," Cody added. "Other than that, your guess is as good as ours. We only got to town last night ourselves." "Well, since we're the losers," I offered. "Why don't you guys find the restaurant and make reservations for four, and we'll buy." This started a back and forth argument about who would pay, with me insisting that the day's losers should pay and Cody insisting it was their turn to pay. We went back and forth like this several times before Kelli finally interrupted. "Cody, let him pay," she said. "Not that you can tell, because he's only been an ex-marine for a few weeks now, and he's as unassuming as you can get, but my boyfriend here is filthy stinking rich." "Really?" Clarissa said, puzzled. We had to promise to offer more of an explanation at dinner, but that finally got us out the door and on our way. We exchanged numbers and we also gave them the number at the B&B, in case we couldn't be reached for some reason. Back at the car, I pulled Kelli into my arms. "Hey girlfriend." "Hey boyfriend," she answered with that deep, throaty voice she can summon that sends shivers up and down my spine. "I like the sound of that," I said, kissing her. "I do to," she agreed, kissing me back. "So, what shall we do next?" "Well, let's go back in and get a tee time for tomorrow. Then, I was thinking I might like to take my girl back to our room and make love to her." "Your girlfriend thinks that would be absolutely grand," and we kissed again. We decided on an afternoon tee time for our Saturday round, got a reservation for 1pm, and left. The phrase is 'afternoon delight', isn't it, like the song? Accurate description, though I tend to think of Ron Burgundy and company now when I hear the song. I had to bite back the words 'I love you' several times. It wasn't that I didn't feel that way, it just seemed to be too soon to actually say the words. We got the call from Cody and Clarissa at half past three. We were meeting them for dinner at the O'Holleran's at seven. This left us with quite a bit of time to kill, and while we considered going back to what we'd been doing, decided to save that for after dinner. We decided on a drive up the coast a ways, just to see the sights, and headed out once again on the Oregon Cost highway. It was beautiful, but nothing piqued our interest until we saw the Whaleshead Beach Resort. "That looks interesting," Kelli said as we saw the signs. We pulled in to investigate. There were tons of small rental cabins available, as well as some for sale. They had RV spaces and a nice looking restaurant. The view out onto the bay and the beach that fronted it were very nice. I took a picture with my cell phone camera and emailed it to Darius, adding a 'Don't you wish you were here'. "We'll have to remember this place," I said once we were back on the road. "It would be a nice place to bring friends for an extended stay." "you're right. I could see us coming up here with our friends for a week of boating, hiking, whatever. Rent multiple cabins if we needed to and use it as the central location for adventures off into the redwood forest, up into the mountains, fishing off the coast, all kinds of things." "I didn't see anything about whether there was internet access," I said, drawing a laugh from Kelli. "I'm getting used to being constantly connected." "Poor baby, what would you do?" she laughed. ------- Chapter 73 Brookings to Gold Beach is just under 30 miles, as the GPS drives it. With stops at the Whalehead Beach Resort and a few other scenic places on the way there and the way back, it took us almost two hours to make the trip. Gold Beach isn't any bigger than Brookings-Harbor, but what it has to distinguish itself from other places was the Rogue River. We crossed the Rogue River, just so we could say we had, and spotted another interesting looking resort on its shores that we filed away for future reference. Unlike Whalehead Beach, this one was a series of long buildings. "You can look it up when we get back," I told Kelli as she craned her head. I used their parking lot to turn around and head back south. We stopped on the way back through gold Beach just long enough to get ice cream cones at a Dairy Queen. We laughed and talked and ate ice cream as we sped back towards Brookings and our dinner date with the Jenkins. There were new people at the B&B when we got there. Viola and Louie Botchke, an older couple, in their late sixties. We had time to sit and visit with them for a little while before we had to go get ready for dinner. They were from Biglerville, Pennsylvania. Mr. Botchke was a retired electrician and his wife a retired teacher. They had a big ¾ ton pickup truck with a camper on the back, which they said was taking them up the west coast to Seattle, and then maybe back East along the northern route across the country. We wished them luck on their travels and went to get ready. There was a certain amount of playful grab-ass attempted, in both directions, but not too much. Kelli wore one of her 'nice' outfits and I put on one of my new shirts and slacks, but didn't bother with a tie, and wore my one now officially casual sports jacket rather than the new dressy ones. We walked in the doors of Oholleran's a few minutes before seven. We didn't have to bother asking about the reservations because we spotted Cody and Clarissa across the room at a table immediately. We waved and headed that way. The couple had found a very nice table in a corner by a window. They were sitting at one side, with Clarissa getting the window seat. I let Kelli take the window and sat down across from Cody. "Did you guys have a fun afternoon?" Clarissa asked. "We drove up the coast to Gold Beach and back," Kelli answered. "We stopped a few places, but mostly just soaked in the sights from the road." "We did find one place that looked interesting," I added. "Called the Whalehead Beach Resort. There are a bunch of cabins there for rent and nice restaurant. It would make a nice place to bring a large group of people for some kind of group getaway." A waitress came by and we ordered drinks right away. I stuck with beer, ordering an Inversion IPA, something they had on tap from the Deschutes Brewery, an Oregon brewer. Kelli ordered wine as did Clarissa. Cody ordered whiskey. When the drinks came we were ready to order our food. All four of us wanted the scallops, though the ladies ordered theirs with salads. I had mine with sweet potato fries and Cody had his with basil fettuccine as a side dish. While we waited for the food we continued our conversation. Our new friends had spent their afternoon fishing on a charter boat, and had a blast. It was during this conversation that something that had been in the background several places we'd been got brought up. Back in may, the big Tsunami that had devastated Japan had also hit the coast of Oregon, causing considerable damage to the local harbor here. Efforts to rebuild it were still ongoing. "Our charter operator was quite emotional about it," Clarissa told us. "He told us some of the local boats got demolished, and the boat basin was almost completely destroyed." "I guess in all the news coming out of Japan about the problems there I missed hearing about this," Kelli said. "I was still in Okinawa, " I said, remembering. "We did a little scrambling of our own then. For a while it looked like our offer to render assistance was going to be accepted, but the Japanese can be very funny about accepting help from outsiders, and especially the when it's the US military." That conversation lasted most of the way through dinner. I decided silently that I was going to do something to help with the rebuilding efforts. Cody and Clarissa were leaving in the morning for Crescent City and the Del Norte golf course. We lingered a little over dessert, but said our good nights and goodbyes afterward. On the way out I spotted fliers for the tsunami relief efforts and grabbed one. "You're going to make a donation, aren't you?" Kelli asked when we were alone in the car. "Of course, but I'll do it through the bank back home, and hopefully, anonymously." "Of course," she laughed. That low laugh I was getting used to hearing that said she was happy with me. "So, what now? The night is young." "Well, let's head towards the river and see if something looks interesting," I grinned. "This time of night? I bet you won't see anything interesting until you get me into bed." "Maybe so, pretty lady," I said, laughing. "But we won't know until we get there." There was no plan, but sure enough Kelli spotted something almost immediately. "Oh look!" she pointed. "A tavern. Lets go get a beer and see if they have a pool table." "What, another game you're going to kick my ass at?" I laughed. "Maybe so," she echoed my earlier comment. "But hey, at least you'll get a beer out of it." "Somebody's getting something all right," I leered, drawing more laughter from Kelli, this her more normal, lighthearted version. It was a tavern, and it was Friday night. Since we'd lingered over our desserts and conversation, it was almost nine o'clock. The place was bustling. And we were perhaps a bit overdressed. We had a mostly blue jeans and flannel shirt crowd in the Pine Cone Tavern, and Kelli and I came in looking mostly silk and linen. The pool table was in use, but there was room at the bar. We both ordered more Deschutes, which was on tap here as well, though this time it was Mirror Pond pale ale. I asked for change for the pool table and added a quarter for me and one for Kelli. There were three ahead of ours, so I expected we'd be at least into our second beer before we got to play. There were live musicians in one corner, who began playing a blues beat shortly after we'd gotten our beers. A few minutes of that as a warm up and they slipped into something I recognized – 'Rock Me Baby', by B.B. King and a zillion other musicians. This was not a dive, like that place I'd stopped at on my ride out to Healdsburg. There were two bartenders, smartly dressed and waitresses zipping here and there similarly dressed as well. Most of the people here were our age or older. The music was loud enough that it made talking a little difficult, but not impossible. We probably didn't have to sit with our heads together as much as we did, but we were enjoying the excuse to be close. It was very intimate, but I managed to keep one eye on the pool table, so saw when my game came up. "Time for some pool," I said as I stood, holding out my hand. Kelli slid off her bar stool to walk hand in hand with me over to the table. "Cooper," I introduced myself to the man who held the table. The guy who'd lost to him was putting another quarter up, but didn't stick around for introductions. To be honest, he looked a little pissed about loosing. "Pete," he identified himself. We shook briefly. I spent some time looking through the cues available before I found one that seemed straight and suited to my long arms. I fed quarters into the table and racked the balls. Kelli was examining the cues that were available in anticipation of having the next game. We were playing the standard bar version of eight ball, and Pete sank the fifteen ball on the break. I discovered very quickly, because these days I tried locking onto everything with my talent, that I was going to as good as I wanted to be at pool from now on. It wasn't that I could lock onto the balls and telekinetically force them to go where I wanted; I could if I needed to, but even without that, it was just that the way I had to focus in order to get a lock at all made seeing the angles and forces almost automatic. I didn't run the table once I got a turn, but I did finish Pete off very quickly. He thanked me for a good game, put another quarter under the rail and went to find his beer. "You're not going to be the pushover I thought, are you?" Kelli teases as she racked up the balls. "Nope," I teased back. "But I promise I'll be a pushover later, if that will help." "No, I already knew I had that in the bag. Lets see if you just got lucky." I didn't. Halfway through the game the guy who'd lost to my first opponent came back with a beer and a couple buddies to watch our game. I may have had new levels of talent at this game, but Kelli was no slouch. Also, in the dress she was wearing, she made playing pool with her very interesting. Unfortunately the looser and his buddies thought so too, and they began making comments towards the end of the game, though nothing that went over the line as far as I was concerned. I could see Kelli's more or less permanent smile twitch at a few of them, but after each one she would make sure to come get a kiss. The more graphic the comment, the more scorching the kiss. I did beat Kelli, and it was loser's turn. While he racked, I finished my beer and ordered Kelli and I another. I saw what the guy I'd beaten already was drinking and ordered him one too. About the time I broke, without sinking anything, the band broke into George Thorogood and the Destroyer's 'Bad to the Bone'. This guy started strutting like it was his theme song, and went on a decent run. He only had two balls left on the table beside the eight ball when I finally got a turn. I was warmed up now and my talents were in tune. I ran the table, sinking the eight ball on a long cross-table shot. Kelli squealed and jumped into my arms for a kiss. "good game," I told the guy, offering my hand, and I meant it too, he'd had a run almost as good as mine. "I'm Cooper." "Cooper?" he sneered. Uh oh. The guy's nickname had just gone from loser to asshole. He had looked pissed when he'd left at the end of Pete's game, but he looked downright angry now. "What the hell kind of name is Cooper?" "It's the name my parents gave me, asshole," I told him, withdrawing my hand. "Asshole!" He shouted. "Nobody calls me names!" he grabbed a pool cue off the table and brandished it. "You take a swing at me with that cue and I'm gonna take it away from you and shove it where the sun don't shine," I warned him, having gotten a little pissed myself. "Big talk beanpole," he sneered. "Knock it off, Fred," came Pete's voice beside me. Assholes two buddies stood then, and suddenly there were another dozen people standing around us, including an older man with a Sam Eliot mustache and an R. Lee Ermey, drill sergeant kind of voice. "Get the hell outta my bar Conway," the mustache said. "Or we will see you out." When the dust had settled, resident asshole Fred Conway had left the bar and Pete and I got another game. My anger at the incident with the asshole threw my focus off some and Pete was able to give me a much closer game this time. "Damn, you are good, Cooper," he said with a grin at the end. "Thanks," I answered, offering my hand again. "You're not too bad yourself. I need to calm down a bit though. Why don't I let you play my girlfriend this game and I'll sit out?" Pete seemed to think that was a really fine idea. Him and every other straight male in the place. While they were playing I went over to visit with the mustache. "Thanks for coming to my rescue back there," I told him once he'd come over to where I was sitting at the bar. "More like I was coming to Fred's rescue," he laughed. "Or more like keeping his daddy from having to bail him out of the hoosegow again." "Well, he had a couple of buddies that looked like they were willing to stand up with him, so you at least saved some broken furniture. Not everybody's misguided in the same way, I guess." Maybe it was the way I said misguided, or something else, but he tilted his head a little at that. "You Corp?" "Yup," I answered. "Been out about a month or so now." We got to talking shop then, and we found we had a couple of mutual acquaintances, though those were simply names in chains of commands that we both recognized. My instincts had been right, this guy had been an instructor. Kelli finished her game and came back over, Pete in tow. "Did you have a good game?" I asked her. "I did, but Pete here beat me," she laughed. "I just can't win tonight." "Congratulations Pete," I told him. "Kelli is very competitive and doesn't like to loose." "I'd guess she doesn't have to worry about loosing too often," he blushed. "She's very good. I barely beat her. Had to sink a ridiculous shot on the eight ball or she'd have probably had me." "It was a very good shot," Kelli said. "You deserved to win." "You ready to call it a night?" I asked her. "I think so. This was fun, even the part with all the testosterone," she teased. "Speaking of that," Vic, my mustachioed compatriot interrupted. "Pete, why don't we escort these two out to their car, just to make sure old Fred isn't out there waiting for these two to leave?" "You really think that's necessary?" Kelli asked. "A good chance it could be," Pete answered. "Fred Conway is still reliving high school every weekend, and he's still trying to solve his problems the same way he did back then." Despite Pete and Vic's apprehensions, we saw no one when we walked out to the car. "Nice car!!" Pete said as I used the fob to unlock the doors. "Just a rental," I laughed. "But we needed something big enough to hold two sets of golf clubs." I left my number with Vic, and he gave me his, as did Pete, Donaldson I learned his last name was, and then Kelli and I headed back to our cozy, comfortable bed and a quieter night. Not too quiet, I hoped. ------- Chapter 74 We woke up too late for breakfast with the Jenkins Saturday morning, but we had a nice breakfast anyway at nine when we finally strolled out of our room. Mrs. Jenkins offered to make us some pancakes, but we were happy with toast, oatmeal, a grapefruit and some coffee. "So, what are you two doing this morning?" she asked. "More golf?" "No golf this morning," Kelli answered. "We're playing this afternoon, but we haven't decided what to do with our morning yet." Our hostess had a few suggestions, but the only decision we came to quickly was that we wanted to get in some tennis at some point today. We'd been here two days now and still hadn't stepped onto the nice court they had on the upper end of the property. We decided to just go for a drive to start the day, and made that start by returning to the Dutch Brothers coffee stand we'd been to the day before, and then, headed towards Salmon Run, just wanting to see what the scenery was like along the Chetco river when we had some time to enjoy it. It was South Bank Chetco Road. The road was nice, though it didn't follow the river all that closely in a lot of places. We drove for about an hour before we decided we should turn around and head back. By this time, I needed some relief from the coffee at breakfast and the large helping from the coffee place. I found a pullout alongside the road and stopped to relieve myself. Kelli was suffering from the same problem, so we walked a little ways into the woods and each found our own tree to duck behind. I was quicker to finish my business, since mine required merely a quick unzip. I waited for her and we'd just begun to walk back to the car when I heard a familiar voice. "Well howdy there Cooper," Fred Conway said, his two friends standing behind him. "Awful nice of you and that very pretty girl of yours to just walk off into the secluded woods like this for me." "Stay behind me, and keep your eye out for an opening," I told Kelli, handing her the car keys. "Mr. Conway," I began, making sure he and his friends knew that I knew exactly who he was. "You came close to making a big mistake last night, and you're set to make an even bigger one here. Why don't the three of you just turn around and head back the way you came. My girl and I will be on our way back home tomorrow and you're not likely to ever see us again." "No, I don't think so," he laughed. "Vic Sloane and his crowd at the Pine Cone kept me from teaching you a lesson last night. That means today's lesson is going to be a little more serious, and that pretty thing there is going to have to play her part too." "You know, you had a chance to walk out of here without any broken bones before you said that," I told him, throwing my sunglasses back to Kelli, who I was glad to see had done exactly what I'd asked her to. "Now, you don't walk away, these two are going to have to carry you out." "What, you some sort of kung fu expert?" he laughed, looking at his friends. "No," I took the ring off my finger and stuck it in a pocket. "The United States Marine Corp used to pay me to kill people for a living," I laughed back. "They liked how well I did my job they kept sending me off to learn more and better ways to do it. They even promoted me to Gunnery Sergeant for my efforts." I was hoping my little spiel would work on these guys the way it had on the two yahoos up in Healdsburg, but I didn't think it was going to with Fred Conway. This guy definitely had some sort of short circuit in his mental wiring. "Are we going to use our talent?" I heard Harley ask. "Not unless I have to," I thought back to him. "Too many witnesses." I felt his silent agreement. "Did you really follow me home last night, and then follow us again this morning?" I asked. "Oh yeah," he practically giggled this time he was feeling so giddy. "You were not going to get away with what you did." "I beat you at a game of pool, that's all," I looked at the two guys behind him. "You two, you have to be smarter than this. We're not in high school. If you guys beat me up, I will report it. If you touch my girlfriend, I will report it. You're looking at some sort of felony assault charges, maybe worse. Can this asshole's father get you out of those kind of charges?" Neither guy looked like he was happy with the situation. They glanced at each other. "We're just here to make sure that Fred get's his chance to kick your ass," the bigger of the two said. "And what he said about my girlfriend?" I asked. "We're not rapists, man." the other guy said. "Is that right, Fred?" I asked, turning back to him. "You just want your chance to kick my ass and these guys aren't here to help you?" "I guess so," he said, giving the two a look of scorn. "I don't need their help anyway," And with that, the idiot fucking asshole pulled a knife. I didn't wait to see if he was willing to use it at that point. I stepped forward, stepping around his bringing the knife up in front of him, caught the arm at the wrist as he tried to bring it back towards where I'd stepped, and without a moment's hesitation, broke his wrist. He dropped the knife as his face went white from the shock of it. I took the time then, still holding the wrist with one hand, to punch him in the face, twice. He dropped like a sack of potatoes, unconscious. "You guys better get him out of here and to a hospital," I told them. "And watch his right wrist, its broken." "Leave the knife where it is," I cautioned them as they stepped forward to grab their friend. "And don't touch it. Last thing you two want are your prints on that knife." Fred would have to be grateful later that he was unconscious when they picked him up, because I saw them bump the wrist at least twice while they got him up between them into a more or less traditional two man carry. They were more likely to kill him getting him into his car than anything else, but they at least seemed familiar with the technique. "My god, that was so sudden," Kelli said behind me. "Are you okay?" I asked, not taking my eyes off the retreating twosome and their burden. "Of course," She said coming up beside me. "I was never really in any danger, was I?" "Of course you were in danger," I reprimanded her. "There's never any predicting what's going to happen in a situation like that. He could've pulled a gun instead of a knife." We hugged then until we heard a the sound of tires scrabbling against the gravel of the pull off we'd stopped in. "Lets get to the car," I said. "I need something to put that knife in so we don't lose any evidence." "Are you going to report this?" "Of course. I have to, they're headed for the hospital with him. I broke his wrist pretty badly, and the hospital will most likely report it." Back at the car I found a zip lock bag in the glove box that held the owner's manual and other paperwork. After locking Kelli in the car I went back and got the knife, putting it in the glove box. "Do you have cell service here?" I asked, checking mine and not finding any. "No. We must be in a dead spot." "Okay, keep checking with my phone as we go. We should get service back at least by the time we're back to Salmon Run." we'd only driven a mile or so when Kelli announced that we had service. I pulled to the side of the road and she handed my phone to me. I found Vic Sloane's number in my address book and dialed it. "Sloan," came the gruff announcement in his distinctive voice. "Mr. Sloan, this is Cooper James, we met last night at the Pine Cone?" "Of course, Gunny," he said. "What can I do for you?" "My girlfriend Kelli and I are a few miles north of the Salmon Run golf course on South Bank Chetko Road. We just had a run in with Fred Conway and his friends." "You guys okay?" he asked. "We're fine," I reassured him. "But I broke Conway's wrist and took a knife away from him. His friends left with him, headed for a hospital I hope. He's unconscious, but I did warn them that his wrist was broken." "Did you save the knife?" "I have it in the glove box, in a zip lock bag." "Outstanding. Listen, you two get to the Salmon Run and stop there. Get a drink or something and wait. I'll call the sheriff's office up in Gold Beach and the local police, then I'll head out and join you there." "All right, Thanks" I agreed. "We're supposed to have a one o'clock tee time here anyway, but I suppose that's not gonna happen now." I looked at my watch. It was almost eleven. "Well, you never know," he laughed hoarsely. "All depends on what those two friends of his decide to tell the folks at the hospital. See you in a bit." With that he was gone, and I handed the phone back to Kelli and got us back on the road. Salmon Run wasn't that far away, when you weren't going slow to enjoy the scenery, and we drove it in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. We pulled in and parked, and headed into the clubhouse. "Can I help you?" the man at the counter asked. It was the same guy we'd met yesterday. "Oh, you're early," he said when he recognized us. "Sorry, we're not here for golf yet," I told him. "We were assaulted up the road a ways, and a friend from town suggested we stop here and wait for the police to get here." "Oh!" what I'd just said shocked him. "Are you and the lady okay?" "We're fine," I said. "We'd better not say anything else until we've talked to the police though." "Oh sure, I guess I can understand that." "We're going to go find a table in the restaurant and get some coffee, okay? You can tell anyone who comes looking for us that we're in there." We found a table and ordered coffee and a piece of apple pie to share. More because they'd asked if we wanted anything than anything else, and they had cute little signs on the table touting the fresh apple pie. "You're not going to get in trouble over this, are you?" Kelli thought to ask, now that things were approaching calm. "I don't think so, but it depends on just how much pull that guy's daddy really has around here." "Do you think that's a possibility?" "I do," I said. "When I talked to Vic, he mentioned calling the sheriff's office in Gold Beach before he mentioned calling the local police." "Oh god, in the movies, the asshole's daddy is always the local police chief," Kelli moaned. "Well, this isn't a movie," I laughed. "And Vic didn't say anything about that last night or while we were talking earlier. I'd have thought he'd mention it if that were the case." We sat about fifteen minutes before Vic arrived. He'd brought Pete with him. "Nice touch," I said, pointing to Pete, "Bringing your own witness?" "He was along the way, so I stopped to see if he wanted to tag along." Vic grinned. "Happy to help out in any way I can," Pete said. "Might as well sit down and have some coffee while we wait for the sheriff to get here," Vic said, sliding into the chair next to Kelli. "I noticed when we talked earlier you mentioned calling the sheriff before calling the police," I said to Vic. "Was there a reason for that?" "Nothing bad," he laughed. "You were outside of Brookings or Harbor, so it called for a county response, not a city one. I called the city cops just because Fred Conway was involved and his pals were likely to take him to the Brookings Medical Center." "We were worried it had to do with whatever connections his family had in town. You did say something about his daddy bailing him out repeatedly." "Aw, that's just because his dad's pretty well fixed, financially, so he can afford it," Vic grumbled. "And Fred inherited several of his more prominent personality traits from the old man too," Pete added with a laugh. "I used to work for his old man, so I know." It took another ten minutes for a sheriff's deputy to show up. A local police detective from Brookings walked in right behind him and the conversation got a bit muddled as multiple people began speaking at once, including the poor waitress who was just trying to see if anyone wanted anything. "Gentlemen," Vic called out eventually. "We need to move this out of these people's restaurant and let them get back to their business." So we wound up reconvening around our car. I carefully pulled the knife out of the glove box and gave it to Deputy Fernandez, letting him know that to my knowledge, no one had touched the handle except Fred Conway. Detective Brown eyed this process keenly, but didn't attempt to interfere. Then, apart from everyone else, I narrated for both officers the events in the woods, as I remembered them, as well as the events of the previous evening. This was followed by Kelli doing the same. After some discussion, Pete, then Vic were taken aside while they related the events at the Pine Cone from the previous evening. Things were starting to look like they might be wrapping up when Deputy Fernandez and Detective Brown finally called us all together. "Folks," the Deputy began. "It looks like we have all the information we need from you folks. We've got officers conducting interviews of the three suspects, and unless their accounts are totally contradictory, there shouldn't be any charges filed against you, Mr. James." Before he could continue, a large, white Cadillac Escalade came squealing into the parking lot. A large man came rolling out, almost before the car had come to a stop, and he headed straight for us. "Uh oh," Vic groaned. "Here comes daddy," Pete snickered. "Officers, where's the perpetrator," the man bellowed. "I assume you have him in custody?" Of course things degenerated quickly again after that. I looked at Kelli and wondered how she was taking all this. I stepped away from the knot of people and leaned against the hood of our car. She came over and slid in under my arm and up against me. "I'm sorry about this," I whispered. "Don't be," she whispered back, kissing my neck where she had snuggled into it. "You didn't do anything but stick up for yourself and for me." ------- Chapter 75 It had almost been enough to make me take off the suit, but I figured he deserved to let off a little steam over the news of the events of our last day in Brookings. Yes, our last day was a day sooner than planned. The B&B was too close to the fray, we had decided, once they told us we were free to go. We did miss our tee time, but didn't much care. We had another night paid for, but we told the Jenkins to keep it, and got in the car and headed for Crescent City. We were going to get a room somewhere there, but I decided to call the Kaiser Air number I'd been given. They could meet us in Crescent City in three hours. That left us with two hours to kill once we got there. We drove around a little, strolled the aisles at the local Walmart, and otherwise twiddled our thumbs. The last thing we did in Crescent City was stop at the 76 station on the way to the airport to top off the gas tank. "I did not use my talent in any way," I had reminded Bud. "I didn't do anything a person with my training and experience couldn't have done just as well." "You drew attention to yourself," this was his real complaint, and while there was some merit to it, I suppose, I disagreed with his assessment of my actions. "To have backed down would have drawn more attention to myself," I said for the umpteenth time. "And once we were confronted in the forest, the only thing I could have done differently would have been not breaking his wrist. That was my call to make. You weren't there." The flight back to Santa Rosa had been subdued, to say the least. I kept apologizing to Kelli, and she kept telling me I had nothing to apologize for. "Look," she grabbed my lapels finally, having gotten tired of the endless runaround. "You protected me. I was safe. I've never felt safer than I felt when you put yourself between me and those men. I never felt more cared for, you understand?" "Sure, but..." "No buts!" she punched me in the shoulder. "You remember those times when there were girlfriend and boyfriend references made by each of us about the other?" "Sure," I managed to bite off the but this time. "Well, in case I forgot to mention it. It made me very happy to hear that. It made me deliriously happy to be able to say it about you. You're the first man I've been willing to commit myself to since high school. Don't start looking for reasons I would turn away from that. I won't." Phew! That was a mouthful, there! Even better though was that I knew I felt the same way. "Well, I feel exactly the same way about you. I have reasons for not wanting any commitments right now, but I have to ignore those reasons and go with my feelings." "Okay then" Kelli smiled. "We're agreed then. I'm yours and you're mine, right?" "Agreed,"" I said. 'Forever and a day, ' I thought as we kissed. This was part of Bud's problem too. Even though he'd seen it coming, he'd not really considered how a very close relationship with Kelli would make keeping our secret more difficult. He'd only previously considered it as being in keeping with the promise of being allowed to have a life outside of our super hero business. To be honest, I wasn't sure I knew how I was going to handle juggling the relationships I was developing with my promises to Bud and the responsibilities they entailed. All I knew was that I was not going to disengage from one in favor of the other. His bickering kept drawing me away from the present, making me second guess my actions in Brookings. I warned him again that this was having a negative impact on my training. I could hardly focus on the task at hand if he was going to keep drawing me back to that. He agreed with that, and promised to tone it down. Promises, promises. Most things did settle down pretty quickly, once we were back. I figured out, between Darius and the people at the bank, how to make an anonymous donation to the Brookings-Harbor boat basin restoration fund, and donated $10,000. One asshole in town didn't mean that the good ones shouldn't get some help. Darius also got Preston & Roberts' legal team on the lookout for any fallout from Fred Conway or his father. I didn't expect any. Fred's two buddies had come clean under questioning. They might have stuck with him if he hadn't pulled that knife, who knows? I was invited to dinner with Kelli's family, and I was still not sure how that was going to go, but that was three days away. In the meantime, I was busy playing make up with Bud and Kelli was busy getting caught up on the details of the Scottsdale deal and what it meant for the business. She was trying to step up and be a big part of this deal, and it appeared her father was willing to let her. With Bud retreating to something closer to his normal tone for the moment, I was in the cavern working on multiple things at once. I was still getting comfortable with Harley and I doing the fly-and-lock trick, but Harley was doing some stepping up of his own with that one. He was able to pull himself up, into my thought stream enough to read my every intention perfectly, and at the same time, retain his own awareness. At the same time, Bud has me getting more comfortable with locking onto ever larger groups of molecules. It wasn't enough in the end, he told me, to be able to grab billions of molecules. I need to grab them in ways that shaped them to my purpose. "Flinging around molecule thick slices of this and that can be very deadly for everyone in the vicinity, even if you're trying to be careful," he reminded me. Indeed, such molecular slices were one of my more immediate and potent weapons. At the same time, despite Bud's cautions, I was worrying on the problem of charging the suit's power supply telekinetically. Since he wasn't willing to work on that problem yet, I had no idea where to start, and Harley was equally clueless. I was still worrying these multiple problems to death when my alarm went off. "Cooper, it's lunch time," Bud told me. I pulled the hood of the suit down and headed for the cavern exit. I had learned to run a locking sweep through the basement area before I opened the door, trying too lock on hemoglobin molecules. They're molecular structure is far too complex for me to actually get a lock on, but I'd learned to recognize them with my locking sense, and that made for a good detection system to make sure Mrs. Trinh wasn't in the basement when I opened the cavern door. I closed the entrance behind me and stopped in the bathroom across the hall from the stairway to wash my face and make sure I didn't look too messy. Mrs. Trinh was settling in nicely, so far, and having her make lunches on days when I stayed in was very nice. Today I could smell it as I came back out of the bathroom. "Something smells very good," I said to the back of her as I came in to the kitchen. I found a glass sitting on the table already filled with iced tea and took my place, and a sip of the sweetened tea. "Black bean soup and spiced chicken salad sandwiches," she told me, smiling. The soup included shredded cheese to top it with and the sandwiches were made with a thick, crusty bread with sun dried tomatoes and peppers in it. The entire meal was mouth-watering good. I was half way through the sandwich when it dawned on me that I had been hearing the gentle murmur of cellos in the background the entire time. "Is that Yo Yo Ma?" I asked. "Not this one," she said, tilting her head and listening closely for a second. "Pablo Casals, I think." "Ahh," I said, not as up on classical musicians as she was. I felt Harley concurring with her. Casals was more his era, after all. "I like it." "I do too," she said softly. "The sound of the cello has always appealed to me, even when I was young. The sound of it seems to pull at me in some way. I am drawn into the music." "Yes," I agreed, somewhat absently. Something she had said struck a chord in the back of my brain. Drawn in. Pulled at. Yes. Most molecules, when I locked on them seemed to leap out at me, eager to be locked. Of course that was not what was happening, but that was how it felt. Some molecules though, did not leap out at me, nor were they inert like most. Some molecules seemed to pull at me, as if to draw me in. I gobbled up the rest of my lunch with a grin on my face. When I finished, I hustled my bowl and plate into the dishwasher and then grabbed Mrs. Trinh and lifted her up in a hug and spun her around. "Thank you," I said as I rushed for the stairs to the basement. "I'm glad you liked it," she said, flabbergasted. I rushed down the stairs, across the basement and through the cavern door, already opened before me. I had the hood of the suit up and the doors before I was hardly through the inner door. "What is it?" Bud asked. Harley already knew, of course, and he brought himself very close to the surface in anticipation. "Some molecules leap out," I blurted out. "But some draw me in." I felt for those molecules within the suit, these were the right kind, alright, more so than any I'd ever felt, and I'd always resisted that pull, lust as I'd ignored the sense of other molecules leaping towards me. This time I didn't ignore that pull. I fell into them, endlessly, and the rush of it was incredible. It was greater than the greatest high I'd ever experienced in my life. I reveled in it and danced and spun and the giddy flow of it had me totally captivated. "I guess this is another reason I'm here," Harley said after a while, and I felt him shove me back down behind and beneath him, just long enough to detach us from the endless rush and pull us back out of where we'd been and back into ourselves. "What have you done!" I heard Bud yell, just before I blacked out. ------- Book 5: Hero Rising ------- Chapter 76 I woke up to the sound of Bud's laughter in my ears. His laugh sounded as giddy as I had been feeling just before Harley pulled me back from the rush I'd lost myself in. "Uhh," I groaned. "Ahh, Cooper, you're awake?" Bud asked. "I think so," I groaned. "What happened?" "You figured out how to power the suit," Bud said. "And more importantly, you survived the experience." "Thanks to Harley." "So he has been telling me," Bud laughed again, a little less giddily this time. "Harley's been conscious without me?" I asked, but I didn't really need to, as Harley's awareness flooded my own. He had been, and had been the man in charge for a little while there. "Yes," Bud agreed. "He has been telling me of your breakthrough, which I should be angry about, as I had told you not to attempt this." "But you're not?" I laughed. "Well I can hardly be mad at your success, now that it is achieved," he laughed with me. "Harley also reassures me that when it is time to charge the suit again, he can step forward again at the appropriate time if needed." "Good, because it will probably be needed," I admitted. "Your problem with drugs manifests itself when you charge the suit, doesn't it?" Bud asked. "Apparently so," I muttered, feeling Harley's agreement. "Don't feel as if you must explain yourself," Bud said, but I cut him off. "No, the feeling is like the best of every drug rush I ever experienced," I admitted. "and I've done far worse things than the pills Harley found in the bike's gas tank. While I was overseas I was able to do opium and heroin. This combined the extreme inward peace of the one with the intense rush of the other, and everything in between." "We would never have come back from it, if it had been up to Cooper," I heard Harley say with my voice. "He's right," I said. "But since its done, and Harley says we can safely do it again, how did we do?" "The suit is fully powered," Bud said. "This advances our schedule quite a bit in some ways." "What does that mean for us?" I asked. "It means we can resume training immediately with the exoskeletal features." "Good," Harley and I both said at the same time. "I will ask you to wear the suit to bed tonight," Bud said. "Wear it to bed?" "Yes, its time I rejoin you and Harley, and leave the suit." "About time!" I said. "Finally!" Harley added. "We have decided as well that it is time for the next of our major physical acts of interference. Perhaps our last major physical act." "All right," we agreed with a great deal less confidence. There was little we could do with the exoskeleton's features in the cavern. There just wasn't enough room. The same was true of our ability to fly. I went back to practicing grabbing large amounts of molecules in quantities and shapes that were casually safe if encountered by others. One of the things I was trying to do was build structures out of thin air. Of course, air was mostly nitrogen, oxygen and argon, and at that, mostly nitrogen. There were four times as many nitrogen molecules available than oxygen molecules in any given sample of air. Getting those molecules locked and formed into something solid was not easy. Gathering molecular nitrogen required a refined 'touch' with my locking sense. Molecular nitrogen was an inert gas, but it did form molecular bonds with a lot of other things, and some of those could be very reactive. Explosively reactive, in fact. I had to be very discriminating when I began grabbing molecules out of the air. I played around with nitrogen for a couple of hours before heading back upstairs. I took a shower upstairs and then pulled my new bedroom laptop out of its hiding place. I was becoming something of an amateur chemist, thanks to my new interest in molecules, and the internet provided endless research opportunities. I also had a half dozen emails waiting. Mitch had a few questions about what had happened in Brookings, having only heard a halfhearted summary so far. Sonoma Pool and Spa hoped to have a meeting Thursday afternoon with their design team for finalization of the pool and accompanying landscaping. ADT was going to begin rewiring the house over the weekend. They'd already replaced the exterior doors, and would do the ground floor windows at the same time as the wiring. I fired off an email to ADT first. I let them know about the meeting Thursday with the pool company, and invited them to have one of their people sit in on it. I then emailed the pool guys and let them know about the possible presence of the ADT tech at the meeting. I sent a text to Mitch asking if he could do lunch tomorrow. I'd buy, he and Meg could pick the place. I put the laptop back in its place and headed back downstairs. Mrs. Trinh was in the living room, sipping tea and watching a cooking show on the food network. I went into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of iced tea, finding a plate of cookies that I hadn't seen earlier. I was reaching for one when Mitch's return text arrived. 1 pm. Sizzling Tandoor. Kelli coming? I wondered myself if Kelli could come. She was number one in my heart and number one on my speed dials. "Hi sweetie!" she answered. "Hi yourself, hot stuff," I teased. "You free for a one o'clock lunch tomorrow?" "One? What's up?" "I'm buying Mitch and Meg lunch tomorrow at the Sizzling Tandoor." "Sure, count me in," she said. Do you want to pick me up first, or should I meet you there?" "Are you going to be at the Hillside?" "No," she laughed. "Daddy has decided that I'm wasting my time working there. He wants me shadowing him most of the time now. Can you pick me up at the Sebastopol Road office?" "Sure. About 12:30?" "That should be plenty of time," There followed some phone kisses and some other silliness, as we still found it difficult to say goodbye to each other over the phone. I replied to Mitch's text, letting him know it would be a table for four and that he got to make the reservations, since I was buying. Things seemed to be moving nicely on all fronts, and I could feel a nervous energy building up, so, after telling Mrs. Trinh that I'd be having lunch in town tomorrow, I went back downstairs, this time just to work out. I did two circuits of the equipment, concentrating on getting a good all around workout and at the same time focusing over and over again on the feeling of falling into the Kinetex and the rush of it. It was my big personal flaw, I knew, and it bothered me tremendously to have to admit it to anyone. "Its okay," Harley thought out loud at me. "You've got me to keep that little flaw from getting in our way. We've all got them, right?" "Thanks," I thought back. "What's your flaw?" "Still waiting to find it," he cackled at me. "It's managed to hide from me all these years." Very funny, I thought. Harley was feeling his oats today. Saving me from myself must have him feeling better about his place in our little scheme of things. Dinner was chicken and dumplings. There were chocolate brownies for dessert. The rest of the evening was spent online catching up on the local news and once again trying to get a sense of what the local crime scene was about. I needed to understand the local criminal element, and the local gangs better if I was going to get some payback for what happened to my parents, and to do whatever it was going to take to make Bud's 'people' happy. I went to bed that night with the suit on, feeling self-conscious about it too. Still, the suit wasn't uncomfortable, and when I'd been in uniform I'd often been able to get to sleep in a lot less comfortable situations. Still, the excitement of having Bud back in our head when I woke up in the morning was hard to let go of, and it took quite a bit longer than normal to get to sleep. ------- Chapter 77 I woke up alert and focused. I didn't say or think anything, just hopped up and stripped off the suit. With the suit off I threw open the curtains to see the light of morning greeting me. "Anybody home?" I thought to myself. "Home and glad to be back," Bud's familiar mental voice responded. "The three amigos ride again," Harley cheered. "Glad to have you back where you belong, my friend," I said to Bud, and meant it. "We have much to discuss," Bud said. "You should get your shower and get your breakfast so we can get started." "Nu uh, I need a run first. Then shower and breakfast." And that's what I did. In fact I ran the property line twice, it felt so good. The shower was extra long as well. By the time I got back downstairs, I could smell coffee brewing and when I walked in the kitchen, Mrs. Trinh was sitting at the table enjoying a waffle and some strawberries. "There's more batter on the counter and the waffle iron is still hot," she commented as I poured myself a cup of cofffee. "Sounds good," I said, taking a sip of the coffee and groaning at the pleasure of it. Mrs. Trinh made much better coffee than I did. I got a waffle started in the iron and looked to see if there were more strawberries ready in the fridge. There were. "This is great, thanks," I said when I sat down with my cup of coffee to wait for the waffle to cook. "Well, I had a craving for waffles this morning, and its much easier to make batter for two than for one. Also, the strawberries need to be eaten in the next few days to be at their best, so they were a good accompaniment." I agreed. I felt agreeable today. I hope nobody asked for anything unreasonable today, I was likely to give it to them. When I finished breakfast, I took a cup of coffee with me and headed for the basement. "We need to get the suit and bring it with us," Bud reminded. I'd left it in the bedroom where I'd taken it off this morning. I ran upstairs and grabbed it. On the way back down the stairs, Bud asked me to grab my laptop and cell phone. They were both sitting on the coffee table in the living room. Soon enough I had the suit crumpled up in one hand, the laptop in the other and the phone stuffed in back pocket of the hiking shorts I'd decided to wear until it was time to head out for lunch. "Go ahead and put the suit on," Bud told me once we were in the cavern. I did, wondering as I did why the cavern seemed different to me somehow this morning. "Okay, now what?" I asked. "Hood too," he admonished. Oh yeah. I pulled the hood up letting it cover my face. The suit's systems began firing up, but this time, it wasn't Bud's suit voice I heard, it was another, similar, but different voice. "Mark I Tk Suit prototype now active." Hmm. The suit was a prototype now? The voice seemed much more mechanical than Bud's had been too. The HUD flickered to life and an overlay diagram of the suit itself came into view. It began cycling through the various systems, showing their status. It was very cool to see the power meter completely full. "Just as Harley is able to manage your flight-locking for you, I'm going to be able to manage the suit systems for you. The suit now has its own internal AI system that I will control. This will allow you to use the suit without having to focus internally." "I see," I said, thinking about that for a moment. It made sense, really, and who understood the suit's systems better than Bud? "I notice that the suit refers to itself as a prototype. Are we going to be making us a Mark II soon?" "Indeed," Bud said with those familiar dry tones I'd been missing. "We should begin tomorrow. We will use the suit to assist." "Excellent," I agreed. "I assume we're going to be getting out sometime soon to someplace where we can get some exoskeleton practice in too?" "Of course," perhaps even this evening, if all goes well." "Excellent!" I thought. "Now, remove the hood for the moment, if you would." "All right," I said, doing so. "Now try calling someone on your cell phone." "Huh?" I said, puzzled. The phone didn't work down here and Bud knew that. "Please, just try and call someone." "Okay," I shrugged and found Vic Sloane's number in the address book and dialed it. My first clue should have been the fact that the phone told me I had full bars. That became obvious when Vic answered the phone. He was surprised to hear from me, but I passed it off as wanting to warn him that he might get visited by people from Preston & Roberts, and that it was okay to talk to them, as they were working for me. We chit chatted a bit, but there wasn't really any news yet on the Fred Conway front. "Okay, so that was new," I said out loud after hanging up with Vic. "Yes, your being out of touch while down here was problematic, so it has been corrected." "Cool," I said, grinning. "But that's not all you did, is it? I can feel something else changed down here." "You're right, of course. What did you sense?" "I don't know, it just seemed different somehow when we walked in." "Back here," he said, and I knew where he meant. Ahh, back to those little background mental communications we'd lost while he'd been in the suit! There was a large, gray rectangular block of something sitting against a wall in one corner of the cave that hadn't been there before. "What is that?" I asked. "It is, at its heart, a computer," Bud answered. "But it is really more than that, it is a communications system." "What does it communicate with?" Harley asked. "The best thing to do is show you," Bud answered. "We need your laptop now." So I opened the laptop and got it out of hibernation. "Check your available wireless networks," Bud asked. I did. There was a new one called TkOne. It had full bars. "Connect to that one." I tried, and it immediately requested authentication. "Well?" "Enter the following string," Bud prompted, and rattled off a 140 character string, several of which I had to search the keyboard for. It took me three tries before I got it right. Probably missed uppercase on a character somewhere, or typed a dash when I needed an underline or something. Finally though, success. "Now open your browser." I opened Chrome and lo and behold, I didn't have my normal Google search home page. "What's this?" I asked, staring at a page that said quite boldly Tk Net "Tk Net? What's that?" "Click on the little globe icon," Bud told me, and I did. A Google Maps kind of interface came up. "Should I look for something?" "Why not type in Santa Rosa, CA?" I did, and the map quickly changed to Santa Rosa. I noticed that we had the satellite view, not the map or terrain views, but the street and other names were still overlaid on the map. "Zoom in." I did, zooming in on the familiar intersection of Highway 101 and the Luther Burbank highway. This is when I realized that what I was looking at was not exactly Google Maps. I could see the traffic moving on the streets. This wasn't a series of still images. This was video! Or was it? "Is this..." "It is a live view," Bud interrupted. "You are seeing it as it actually is, right now. I was speechless. I typed in the address of the house and watched the image re-shift until it showed the top of my roof, from about the same distance I'd just been above the street in Santa Rosa. I zoomed in further, until I was as close as I could get in a typical Google Maps image without shifting to street view. I kept on zooming until I was looking at the bottom step of my front porch where I could see the 'CJ' carved into it like I was sitting next to it. "This is not Google Maps, that's for sure," I muttered. "No, its not," Bud said."It is much, much more than that. "How are you doing this?" I asked. "Do you have your own satellites in orbit?" "Yes and no," he answered. "We do have some, and they're the ones providing the live video. We're also piggybacking off a good number of the normal commercial satellites that were already there. We're also piggybacking off the existing broadcast transmission systems and cell tower systems, world wide." "How can you do that without it being detected?" "We are using transmission frequencies and methods which are currently undetectable. Also, our equipment is very, very small, and disguised to look like common things you would expect to see in the environment around them." "Wow!" "Now click on the badge icon," he told me. I did. We spent an hour looking through the items under the icons available. "Here is your intelligence," Bud said at last when I'd sat back and let out a big 'whoosh!' "It has cost us a great deal to effect these changes. Now it only remains to see if you will be able to learn how to use the intelligence it provides effectively." I was still feeling a little dazed when I left to pick up Kelli for lunch. The changes Bud's people had worked overnight were incredible. No wonder he had been so hesitant about what would be done and when. I pulled into the MRH parking lot at 12:15, a little early, but I'd not been to this side of town before, except for my brief adventure searching for tanning parlors. The parking lot was not terribly crowded, and I found a spot close to the main entrance easily. The lobby of the building featured a setup similar to what I'd seen at Preston & Roberts. A lovely woman wearing an earpiece, a smile and an upscale looking outfit sat behind a desk. "Good afternoon sir, can I help you?" she asked, the smile remaining unchanged. "good afternoon," I replied. "I'm Cooper James. I'm here for Miss Kelli Montoya." "Oh yes, Mr. James," her smile did change then, growing wider. "Miss Montoya is expecting you. I'll let her know you're here." A few minutes later an elevator door opened and Kelli, her father and another man I didn't know, but who bore some resemblance to Mr. Montoya, came out of it towards me. "Hi sweetie!" She said, lifting herself up for a kiss. "Hi Beautiful," I answered, once we were done with the kiss. "Mr. Montoya, a pleasure to see you again sir." "My pleasure as well, young man," Mr. Montoya said, not breaking into a smile, but not frowning either, I was glad to see. "I'm looking forward to your coming to dinner tomorrow." "As am I," I agreed. "Cooper, this is my cousin Roberto Montoya," Kelli said turning to the other man. "Cousin, this is my boyfriend, Cooper James." "Ah, Kelli has mentioned you," I said with a smile. There was no smile in return. The hand I offered him was gripped and squeezed hard. It was a trick I was familiar with and completely prepared for. I just kept smiling as I looked down at him. He was even shorter than Mr. Montoya. After a moment, I laughed and said, "If you keep hold of that hand any longer, Kelli's likely to get jealous." He dropped my hand like it was a snake then, and the non-smile turned into a frown. I saw Mr. Montoya's face flicker towards a frown briefly as his eyes went towards his nephew then back to me. "Well, we won't keep you," He said, a smile replacing the previous neutral expression. "I just wanted to stop down for a moment. Come Roberto." Well, there was certainly no argument from Roberto as Mr. Montoya turned and headed back to the elevator. "Shall we?" I held out my arm. "Of course," Kelli took the offered arm and we walked back out into the Santa Rosa afternoon. "That little snake!" she fumed as soon as we were in the car. "He invited himself along when Dad offered to come down and say hi." "Well, I don't think your dad appreciated the little hand squeezing attempt," I replied. "I remembered what you'd said about him, so I expected him to try something. He really is short. Maybe that's his problem." "Maybe so," Kelli laughed. "I've always been taller than him, since I was five, and he's two years older than me!" ------- Chapter 78 Lunch with Mitch and Megumi went a long way towards calming Kelli back down. Even retelling the events in Brookings and the forest north of the golf course and the nerve wracking hurry-up-and-wait of the county sheriff and police deputy's investigation and all that followed from it. The person whose calm received the most from it was Bud. Now that he was back in our head, he heard the story completely for the first time from both our points of view. The food was spicy, but very, very good. I had something made with lamb shoulder, but as it was prepared it could have been called lamb stew. Yum. "Is this your lunch hour Meg," Kelli asked at one point during the meal. "Yes, a late lunch because I had to cover the shop while the boss had a business lunch. I'm not sure what kind of business though. We saw our regional rep last month. I think maybe Chaz Cooper has something going on besides work." "A boyfriend?" Mitch asked, getting a giggle and a punch in the arm from Meg for his efforts. "He's not gay," she said sheepishly. "Either that or he's gay but still likes to peek down the blouses of his sales associates." "Well, he seems a bit creepy to me," I said. "I know I only met him the one time, but he seemed like a phony from the get-go." "Oh he is," Meg laughed. "All image and no substance. What is it they say in Texas? All hat and no cattle? That's my boss." "I am liking the new laptop setup in the bedroom," I said to Mitch, changing the subject. "I was using it last night before dinner. Made it nice not to have to remember the other one when I go upstairs." "Good, I'm glad you like it. I think that's the ideal way of having computer access in the bedroom, especially for young singles who don't have kids to share their computers with." "Sounds like you've given that a lot of thought," Kelli teased. "I have," Mitch blushed. "I may still be in high school, but I'll be in college next year, and it won't be too many years before that's done." "Having a girlfriend have anything to do with that kind of thinking?" she asked. "Of course," he smiled at Meg. "Especially when your girlfriend is someone who you can see yourself growing old with a few decades from now." That got him a kiss from Meg, who was beaming. It even got me a kiss from Kelli. "Well Mitch," I said once the kissing was done. "Kelli and I are one of those decades beyond where you are now. You can see that a lot can happen to a person in the time between high school and now. I don't know about Kelli, but I don't think I remember anyone having their act together in high school the way you two seem to. That doesn't mean that one or both of you might not change a lot in that time." "Be flexible," Kelli added. "You've got a lot of time to decide on how your life is going to turn out, and whether you two are meant to be together. Cooper and I are still exploring that ourselves." "In the meantime, remember that you have friends. Mitch, I know you have friends. I've met a couple of them. Meg, I assume you have friends as well. If they are truly friends, they'll be there for you. Kelli and I will." "Absolutely," Kelli nodded. "Meg, do your friends and Mitch's friends get along? Are you two able to share friends? Are there shared interests between the two groups?" "Oh sure," Meg answered. "We had some friends in common before we became a couple. That's really how we met. I have a few friends who probably wouldn't fit in with Mitch's crowd, but they're what I call my 'A&F' friends. If I didn't work there they wouldn't want me as a friend. I'm too much of a nerd otherwise. So, no by that definition they're not really friends, just acquaintances." "I've learned that I can't be afraid to look for friends outside of my comfort zone," Mitch said. "I can thank you for that, Cooper. Becoming friends with you, and then Kelli surprised me." "It kind of surprised me too," I admitted. "But its more about the kind of person you are than your age. Your willingness to help a stranger that day in the mall said a lot about you." "Now it's my turn to thank you," Mitch said as we were walking out of the restaurant. "Getting me together with the ADT guys looks like its going to work out nicely for me. I don't think I'm going to have to worry about where I'll be working during the summers while I'm in school, and I might even be able to work for them during the school year on a part time basis." "Do you know where you're going to college yet?" Kelli asked. "Well," Mitch looked at Meg and squeezed her hand. "We both are hoping to get into Stanford. We'll see." "What about scholarships?" I asked. "Are you depending on them to pay for school?" "Mitch is," Meg said. "At least partly. "I've got a college fund my grandparents set up that will cover mine." "I'm hoping that what I make working for ADT will keep me in clothes and consumables, but my college savings are pretty much non-existent. My parents haven't ever been able to afford to put anything aside for that." Kelli knew me well enough to recognize when the wheels were turning in my head. She brought it up the moment we were alone. "You're thinking about helping Mitch with his scholarships, aren't you?" "I am," I admitted. "But he should know by November or December if he's gotten in. He'll have a good idea what his financial aid situation will be like by then too." "So you don't have to step in anonymously until close to Christmas?" she laughed. "How appropriate, my studly Santa Claus." We laughed over it, but Kelli was on target with my thinking on that subject. Mitch was my kind of kid, and not so young that I didn't see him as one of my few friends here. What good was it being a billionaire if I couldn't help my friends? I asked Kelli if she wanted to come over for dinner, but she demurred, thinking that my coming over tomorrow night needed to sort of stand on its own in her family's perception. I agreed, with some pretend reluctance that disguised, poorly, my real reluctance. With the suit now fully functional, and Bud back in my head, we had decided to find someplace to get some practice in after dinner. That left me the time before dinner to continue something I'd spent far too little time on; researching the events surrounding my parent's death. Bud had promised me that I'd get a chance to even the score with those responsible. I couldn't do that if I didn't know who they were. The papers I had collected from what Darius sent me included newspaper clippings, copies of police reports, and names and addresses for TV reporters, newspaper reporters and witnesses. The police reports didn't list suspects outright, but it did list the names of the gangs involved and a few well known names associated with them. I spent the afternoon making phone calls and sending emails to as many of the people listed as possible. My best response was from Carlos Corrido, investigative reporter for KFTY in Santa Rosa. I talked to Carlos for almost an hour. It didn't take very long for him to remember covering my parent's deaths. He was more than willing to talk about the gangs in question, particularly the gang suspected of doing the shooting. "They do some strange things sometimes," he told me. "Things like your parents shooting. Always someone seems happy to make it seem like they're the gang who couldn't shoot straight, but they usually come out ahead of the game after their big mistake." "Really?" I asked, not sure where my parents deaths would fit into that. "Yes, though I'm not convinced your parents shooting fits that mold. I think it must have truly been an accidental shooting in their case." "But otherwise, what conclusion do you reach when you think along those lines?" "I think that someone is paying them to do certain things. Or they have a boss higher up and unknown to everyone else. Someone with his own agenda." "I see," I said, not really seeing, but willing to keep my mind open to the possibility. He was suggesting that at least one of the local gangs, if not more, were actually fronts for some sort of criminal mastermind? A puppet master pulling the strings behind the scenes. If that was true, then what other strings might be getting pulled? I got a few more returned calls and emails in the following weeks, but none of them offered more than oblique confirmation of what Carlos Corrido had told me. The fancy new communications system Bud had shown me had one thing my laptop didn't have; an AI that could be tasked to do things unattended. I spent some time inputting what I had of the names and places associated with the gangs and my parent's deaths. The AI would begin looking for anything it could find that was relevant. I would have to wade through it later to separate the hits and misses. "Too bad I can't access this system from my laptop," I commented. That got me a long lecture from Bud about the security risks of allowing our system to interface in any way with the internet. "You said you're piggy backing on all these existing systems with an undetectable system of your own, didn't you? Couldn't you make some sort of device that I could attach to my laptop, or any computer that let me tap into your system by piggybacking undetectably on that same system?" That got me a 'hmm' from Bud and a promise to look into it, with a reminder that these actual physical interferences were not trivial undertakings. In the meantime, I could at least be happy to know that I did have access through the suit, and indirectly, through him. I took a break for an hour to do a few mundane things around the house and to wash the Wrangler. Then it was back to the cavern and the start on the Mark II version of the suit. I wore the existing suit while we worked, and between it and Bud, followed step after convoluted step as requested. There were a couple of new ways I was asked to manipulate some of the fabric, and surprisingly I even brought some of the free carborundum laying around the cavern, weirdly twisted by my talent, into the mix. After being told to shut up the few times I tried to ask questions, I just decided it was smartest to go with the flow. I suspect I was enough of a headache to Bud and his 'people' already without stopping to question every little detail. I worked steadily and mindlessly until dinner time, excusing myself from sitting down to eat long enough for a quick shower first. I'd worked up quite a sweat working my magic on the fabrics. "Six more sessions like that and we'll have a new suit," Bud said while I was showering. Dinner was short ribs and potatoes with green beans. I drank milk with the meal, seeming to crave it. I wondered if the work I did with my talent was responsible for the craving. I watched the evening news hour on TV after dinner, but headed back down to the cavern as soon as it was over. Another session on the new suit took me until dark. Nightfall; time to go play with the suit at full power. ------- Chapter 79 The suit AI told me as soon as I had the hood on that the Net had a projected path of travel for us. With the hood up and the HUD working, Harley lifted us up and into the air from the back edge of the property. We followed the slope of the ridge until we were fifty feet from the top, then hugged it, following it north and east, before breaking over the ridge and moving even further north at higher speed. It was exhilarating to 'see' the ground rushing by beneath us. The clear area the 'Net' had given us, the term the suit used to refer to the computer back in the cavern and the network of piggy backed satellites and communication systems, was north of the Austin Creek State Park, buried deep in the tangled hills and mountains between Walbridge Ridge and Vulture Ridge. I spent five hours running, jumping and rolling at first. I probably looked like the worlds strangest gymnast doing a floor routine. The important part was learning to judge what those actions meant, powered by the suit, and how applying different levels of power changed things sometimes slightly and sometimes drastically. I also got to unleash some serious Tk devastation for the first time. I made myself what I thought of as an apple peel Frisbee, made of a string of silicon molecules shaped like a loose coil, held in lock by my Tk ability. I whipped that around and through a couple of small trees, and it shredded them, very quickly and very thoroughly. It had the added benefit of being relatively quiet. When I started flinging rocks and small boulders at some other trees, it was considerably noisier, if not somehow more spectacular, as the trees exploded from the force of the impact. "Wow!" I commented finally. All I got in response was a chuckle from Bud. "Let's try something new," he suggested a few minuted later. "Okay, I'm game," I agreed. "Walk over to that tree," he said, the HUD highlighting a tree with a considerably larger diameter than the ones we'd been playing with so far. I did as requested. "Make me a cylinder this size, one molecule thick," Bud asked, the HUD again giving me the information I needed. "Out of anything in particular?" I asked. "Whatever you want." I took the lazy way out and reshaped the silicon molecules of my frisbee into the shape requested. I wound up with a cylinder 5 inches in diameter and about three feet long. "How's that?" "Fine," Bud replied in his usual dry tone. "Now, push that cylinder through that tree trunk until the end is just sticking out the other end." I did. There was very little resistance. The cells of the tree were cut very cleanly by the sub-microscopic edge of my cylinder. "Now, close the far end of your cylinder." I did what was asked once again. "Now draw the cylinder back through the tree until it is free of the tree." I did, and of course it brought the cylinder of wood it had cut with it. There was now a five inch diameter hole through the heart of the tree. I eyed the landscape beyond through the hole. "Cool," I said, impressed with what I'd just done. "That would work just as easily on a steel beam or concrete wall," Bud observed. Wow. I guess I could see where that would come in handy. It could also be lethal. We worked one more hour; again jumping, flying and running. This time I concentrated on making myself weapons quickly from whatever I could find at hand as I moved. It was both easier and harder than I thought it would be. There was always air, so at a minimum I always had those building blocks of nitrogen, oxygen and argon. On top of that, well, if there was free water somewhere, I had water molecules. Dirt, dust, anything else loose and laying around had some sort of potential. I even found a few discarded aluminum cans here and there to reshape to my will. When we were done, I spent a little time making sure none of the trees I'd wreaked havoc on were left in any condition to leave questions beyond 'who cut this tree down?'. One of those aluminum cans became a shredder like you couldn't imagine, turning the tree remnants into dust so fine as to be impossible to even detect, let alone identify. ------- Wednesday morning. I woke up with Kelli in my thoughts, and not just because of the family dinner that night. I let the thoughts of Kelli subside in the shower, along with the evidence of her presence in my thoughts that I'd woken up with. Breakfast was eggs, bacon and a cinnamon roll that would have made the folks in the food court at the mall jealous. If Mrs. Trinh kept feeding me like this, I was going to have to start exercising more. I called Kelli after breakfast and we had a little phone snuggling – it couldn't have been considered more than that, but I felt like we were closer when we hung up. From there it was down to the basement and into the cavern. The Net, as even I was starting to think of it, had quite a bit of information for me. I began to pour over it, marking bits of information, flagging locations for Net to keep an eye on via the super-satellite system. The names were a mix of familiar and not. The most frequent names, among those who seemed to have some power within the gangs I had Net monitoring, were Ya Ya Marchiria, Paco Serna and Manuel Pulido. Of those three, Paco Serna was the most intriguing to me. Marchiria kept showing up as some sort of muscle or ultimate enforcer. Pulido only showed up in the news when Serna was mentioned. Serna was never in the story, only referred to. Next were the phone logs for these people, where there had been any activity. I groaned when it started playing. It was in Spanish of course, and mostly street Mexicali Spanish. My Spanish was nowhere good enough to keep up with the conversations I was listening to. "Bud, please tell me that you're better than humanly possible system includes language translation," "Of course," Bud said, then rather apologetically. "Not in real time, of course. Net will transcribe these conversations for you." "Darn, I was hoping you guys had a babelfish kind of answer." "Babelfish?" Bud asked, then 'saw' the answer to his question in my thoughts. "Oh, very clever. That would be nice, wouldn't it." "Yeah, especially since it seems that most of the foes you expect me to tackle are going to be speaking a language I barely get by in. Either a babelfish, or some sort of instant learning system like in the Matrix would be nice." I got nothing from Bud that time. I think the babelfish idea had already derailed him for the time being. I headed back upstairs, waving at Mrs. Trinh, who was watching an Iron Chef rerun. I took the motorcycle for a spin, wanting some time to think. The suit, or rather me in the suit, were looking pretty formidable. I could easily envision myself taking on just about any traditional comic book super hero short of Superman with what I could do. The problem was that there were no super villains out there to fight. Tackling street gangs and modern criminals seemed like something the suit and I were not designed for. It made me wonder just what I was designed for. I managed to keep those thoughts to myself, or rather between Harley and me. As much as we'd welcomed Bud back into our head, there were some thoughts we preferred keeping to ourselves. 'Our talent and this suit seems a lot more suited to killing than to catching, ' Harley thought to me. 'Are you prepared to kill the bad guys?' 'I am if I'm convinced they're bad guys, ' I answered him. 'Do you have a problem with that?' 'Nope. But we agree that we both have to be convinced before we'll do it?' 'Absolutely, ' I confirmed. 'Its possible we're being groomed to become the world's most unstoppable assassin, ' Harley observed a few miles further down the road. 'I know. We'll have to see what Bud has in mind once we've settled the score with my parent's killers.' I'd ridden all the way to Duncan Mills on River Road, lost in my thoughts and having my internal dialog with Harley. It was on the way back that I realized we were heading past a golf course that I'd driven by multiple times in the past. I turned around and headed back, finding the entrance and pulling in. The Northwood golf course, nestled as it was between the forest and the river as it was, reminded me a great deal of the Salmon Run course. This was a nine hole course, and it was beautiful. "You a golfer?" a man asked as he approached me where I stood in the club house looking at the picture display they had of the course. I was wearing my riding clothes and had my helmet in my hand, not having bothered to lock it in place. "I'm picking the game back up," I told him. "Just played Salmon Run up in Oregon a few days ago, and this is very reminiscent of that course." "Doesn't look like you came prepared to play," he said. I realized he was looking down at the helmet in my hand. "No, I guess not," I laughed. "I was just out for a ride and drove by. I realized I'd been by here a couple of times now, so my curiosity got to me and I pulled in for a look see." "You live in the area?" "Oh yeah, back up river a ways. Near Hacienda. Haven't been here long enough to find everything yet, but there always being something new can be fun." "Well, if you golf, you come back anytime and get in a round or two. I think you'll like our course, our club and our restaurant." The mention of a restaurant made me realize I hadn't been keeping track of time, and looked at my watch. "Uh oh," I said, reaching for my phone. "Hi," I said when Mrs. Trinh answered. "Sorry I lost track of time, but I'll have lunch where I'm at and be back in about an hour." "Wife?" the man asked. "No, my cook and housekeeper. I warned her that lunches could be pretty dicey for me, attendance-wise, but this is the first time I missed one without a little advanced notice." He laughed and introduced himself as Ian Holloway, the Northwoods Golf Club's current president. "Cooper James," I said as we shook. "Since I'm having lunch here, can I buy you lunch and let you tell me more about the course and the club?" "I guess I better, after having talked up the place, eh?" he laughed again. I liked his laugh. It reminded me of that guy who played Colonel Potter in the old MASH TV show. I ate a burger and listened to Mr. Holloway tell me of the sad but ultimately triumphant history of the Northwoods course. ------- Chapter 80 I arrived for dinner as close to seven as humanly possible, and I managed to do it without circling the block or anything else. As I approached the gate, it began rolling open for me before I could press the talk button on the intercom. Someone was watching. Kelli was waiting for me in front of the door where I'd picked her up only days earlier. She was alone and ran around to my side of the car as soon as I pulled to a stop. "Park over here," she said, pointing to a pullout at about the 10 o'clock spot on the circular drive. There was room for at least four cars there, but it was empty. I pulled into a spot and climbed out of the Wrangler. Kelli was in my arms the moment the car door was closed behind me. "I miss being in your arms, ' she said once our kiss ended. "I miss having you there," I answered. "Come on in, everyone is dieing to meet you." "I suppose cousin Roberto is here?" I asked. "No, father has banished him for the evening," she said with a huff. "Really?" I asked. "Well, not in so many words, but he found someplace Roberto needed to be on business. It is the same thing. Daddy would never send Robert anywhere on business unless it suited some other purpose. He's just not that good a representative for our family interests, despite his opinion of himself." "I see," I laughed. Dinner was surprisingly mellow. Mr. Montoya was much more down to earth when he was around his family and gathered around the table for a meal. It was easy to see just how much Kelli was the apple of his eye, and how much effort she made in return ensure he was proud of her. The questioning was good-natured, but thorough. I talked about conditions in Afghanistan and Iraq, without discussing any of what I did while I was there. One of the younger cousins began to ask a question about who I killed when Mr. Montoya interrupted him. "Hector, that is no topic for the dinner table," he reprimanded. "Si Abuelo," the boy said, head down. "Besides, I am sure that Mr. James is not allowed to talk too much about what he did, isn't that true?" "That's right," I said. "I'm sorry, but the only things the government lets me talk about are the dusty, dirty, boring parts, like trying to keep the sand out of my socks," I made the joke, and it worked causing the boy to forget the reprimand and the unanswered question he hadn't been allowed to ask. Later the adults sat in the living room and had drinks, though all I had was iced tea, since I was driving, and we talked about this and that, business mostly to start with. "You are the head of FiberDyne its called?" Kelli's Uncle Carlos asked. "I am, though its something of a figurehead position for the moment," I answered. "Why is that?" Mr. Montoya asked. "Well, I'm the majority shareholder, thanks to my parents, and the other stockholders have voted me into the position. The business is on solid ground and has a contract with the department of defense that is very lucrative, but limits our business opportunities. We cannot sell anything we make to anyone else without their permission." "Oh," Aunt Fidelia began. "What does the company make then that's so valuable to the government?" "We make very high tech fabrics, using nanotechnology and graphene-based materials. Graphene is a material made of carbon atoms laid out in a sheet only one molecule thick." "I see," she said, not really seeing. "I think you understand it better than we do, but not so much, eh?" Mr. Montoya commented. "You are exactly right, sir," I nodded. "They like my military background and my clean cut features more than my business sense." "Well, everyone has to start somewhere," Kelli added, laughing. "Cooper tells me the other people there are very nice, and were close friends of his parents." "It was too bad about your parents," Uncle Carlos added, shaking his head. "These gangs are a blight on our community." This threatened to turn into a semi-political conversation at that point, so I asked Mr. Montoya how the resort business was. "Ah, we are new to the resort business, as you are to yours, though with a little more knowledge and experience that will prove helpful." "We have been in the hotel business for several generations," Kelli added. "But the housing and real estate markets, and the low interest rates have made the resort industry more attractive." "I would imagine that the same conditions make you worry about having customers with enough disposable income to spend on a vacation at one of your resorts." "Ah, very good. Yes, this is true," Mr. Montoya nodded. "But out hotel business is solid, and our cash reserves are more than adequate, so we are perhaps in a better position to endure such conditions than others might be." "I see," I agreed. "It must be a struggle to find steady hands to keep things moving smoothly and reassuring your other investors at the same time." "That's right," Kelli offered. "Daddy stretches himself too thin sometimes, trying to do this. I worry for him." "You are helping more and more, mi niña preciosa," Mr. Montoya reassured her. "I will be sending you out on your own very soon." "Ahh, good thing Roberto isn't here to hear that," Aunt Corina said at that. "He already is too angry over his place." "He is lucky he has a place," Mr. Montoya looked at each person in the room, one at a time, as if sealing them to silence. "He has demonstrated no ability for the business, and is barely up to the minor tasks I do give him. If her weren't family, I would never hire him, as anything more than skilled labor, and even then I'd worry about the inventory and keep an eye on the cash box." Well that sure cast a pall on the room. I saw one of the uncles with his head cast down in shame lift it as if to say something. Mr. Montoya waved a hand at him and he held his peace, as if the gesture reminded him that they had already had this conversation, and everything that could be said had been. "I'm sorry," was all he got out. "No, no," Aunt Fidelia comforted him. "You did everything you could. At least you managed to turn him away from those gangs he used to run with when he was young." The words may have been meant to comfort, but they did nothing to lift the gloom. I decided it was probably a good idea to make my exit. "Well, I know many of you have to be up and at work tomorrow, even if I am still able to be a layabout in my parent's house. I should say goodnight." Kelli walked me out. "I'm sorry about that," I apologized as we walked toward the Wrangler. "No, you have nothing to be sorry for," she countered. "This is the first time my father has been willing to have these things said in front of someone outside the family, but they are not new to anyone in that room. The only one ignorant of my father's feelings regarding Roberto is Roberto. He cannot take a hint, but one of these days, familia will no longer be enough, and father will send him packing." Can you come to dinner tomorrow?" I asked. As we stood by the car with the door open. Some time had passed between my opening the door and the question. Time spent in a heated embrace. "Of course," she purred. "Dinner for two?" "Three if I can convince Mrs. Trinh to eat with us. She is very conservative in that way, and I am trying to break her out of that mold a little." "All right, dinner for three will have to do. I'll bring my overnight bag." I'm pretty sure I was smiling all the way home. Not until I started reading the transcribed phone conversations of Paco Serna and company did I loose the smile, and then I lost it very thoroughly. Paco and his crew were being paid, and paid handsomely, to drive down real estate prices in the southern half of Santa Rosa. They were doing this by increasing the levels of gang violence, increasing the numbers of accidental shootings, the body count of innocent bystanders, and the damage done to businesses owned by outside interests. My parents deaths fit nicely into this scenario, I realized. They referred frequently to someone addressed only as 'Iron Man' as the source of this deal, and the source of their paydays. Several of the transcribed calls were between Paco and Iron Man, but the number was a cell phone that Net wasn't able to get any ID on. One of those famous disposable cell phones with instant activation and preset minutes that were more or less anonymous. "We need to figure out how to trace that phone somehow," I said out loud. "We'll work on it," Bud said. "We know a lot more today than yesterday." "Who knows what tomorrow will bring?" Harley added. Those words were still echoing in my head when I went to sleep. ------- Chapter 81 I woke up Thursday morning with a headache and a stiff neck. I'd slept awkwardly and my body was complaining about it. I tried to make up for it by giving myself a good stretch out before I went on my morning run. It did help the stiff neck but the headache persisted. I grumbled through breakfast then apologized to Mrs. Trinh for it. Then I remembered to let her know Kelli would be coming, and probably spending the night. I was just starting to think the headache would fade when I heard the rumbling of heavy equipment approaching up the drive. I opened the front door and saw a rather beefy excavator on a flatbed truck and a bulldozer on another one following it. Trailing the two of them was a car I recognized. Bianca Ingersoll was back, and she'd come armed this time. I was relieved to notice when she stepped out of the car that her blouse was nicely non-transparent this time. Two steps later I also realized that she was not wearing a bra. I swear this woman wore her sexuality like a gladiator wore a sword! "Good morning Mr. James," she said with a smile and her hand held out for a shake. I gave her the handshake, but carefully kept my eyes on hers while I did. "We're all set to get that big hole in your back yard started." "Oh wait, there's been a change!" I said with as straight a face as I could manage. By the time you've made gunnery sergeant in the Corps, you've learned to lie to officers pretty convincingly. Bianca looked down at her clipboard, then back up and me. She was just beginning to sputter when I broke out laughing. "Mr. Cooper," she said sheepishly. "I can't believe I fell for that. "Sorry," I said not-at-all contritely. "You picked the only day this week when I woke up with a headache to bring in the big noise makers, so I had to extract my revenge." "Well then leave, go someplace quiet and spend the day. There will be a big hole in the ground when you come home tonight. "I'll remember to be careful." Okay, so the plans for the day were shot. It was at this point that I had a panicky thought. I ran upstairs and found my copy of the plans for the pool. "Bud, now that you're back in my head, can you look at these plans and tell me if I've just paid a company to come dig a hole where our secret tunnel goes?" "What!?!?!" Bud screeched. "Calm the fuck down and look at the damn plans!" I hollered back, mentally. There proceeded a pregnant pause like non I remember outside of combat. "No," he said at last. "No, we're okay by at least twenty feet," "Thank god!" I muttered aloud. "It was that little circular patio piece you asked them to leave," he said after we stared at it a while. "If you hadn't asked them to leave that, they would have dug right into the tunnel." I was living a charmed life, no doubt about it, not even counting my resurrection thanks to Bud and his 'people'. Still, I went out and found Bianca to make sure we were all still on the same page. 'Where shall we go?' I asked my two partners once we were done. "We're not going to want to hang out in the cavern today, that's for sure." 'How about some golf?' Harley offered. 'We've got a new course to try out, don't we?' 'That's true, ' Bud said. 'Golf is purported to be a calming endeavor.' 'That's right, ' I laughed. "Too bad you missed our earlier outing Bud." "Yeah, you missed a few things," Harley added. The two of us snickered where Bud couldn't hear us. 'Wear the suit, or take it with you, ' Bud suggested. "Why?" I said out loud, surprised at the suggestion. 'You can check in with Net to see if there's anything new on your surveillance.' "Nah, I'm not that desperate for intel. It can wait until tomorrow, but I'd better stow it in the cavern, just to be safe.' With the suit stowed, and the clubs in the Wrangler, I went looking for Mrs. Trinh. "Mr. James, this does not look good," she said, staring out the kitchen window. "The pool company decided today was the day to start digging for the new pool," I explained. "I'm going to cancel tonight's dinner plans and give you the day off, okay? Go somewhere quiet and spend the day. That's the suggestion I got." "Oh, very well then," she nodded. On the way to Northwoods, I called Kelli. "Cooper, what's up?" "I'm canceling dinner at my house tonight." "Why? Is everything okay?" "Oh yeah, but the pool company decided to start digging today, so its going to be a noisy mess around here all day. I've given Mrs. Trinh the day off and I'm headed to a golf course for the day. I'd invite you to join me, but I assume you're working?" "Yes, sad but true. Where are you playing?" "I found a course just down the road called The Northwoods. Its just past Guerneville, near Monte Rio. It reminds me a little of Salmon Run. Only nine holes, but nestled in the trees near the Russian River. I doesn't really take advantage of the water like Salmon Run, but its nice. The club seems friendly and the restaurant looks to be good. Its so close to home for me that it'll be a convenient getaway spot for a round of golf when the mood strikes me." "Well, enjoy yourself. I'll be wishing I was there. Anyplace but here. It's hell around here today. Roberto heard about the conversation at dinner last night, probably from his father, and he's storming around like a little tyrant." "Oh that must be fun," I laughed. "What does your father think of it?" "He's not here, unfortunately. He drove down to Petaluma to meet with some union people." "Hmm ... Tell, me does your building have internal security cameras?" "Sure, Daddy insisted on it for insurance reasons." "Well then throw your weight around a little and get the security staff to show you what was recorded. Maybe you'll get some ammunition to use against the little shit." "I like the way you think, Cooper," her laugh dropped down into that low, shivery laugh I'd come to recognize as her having. "Actually, I like the way you do a lot of things. Thanks, I'd better run. Roberto could think about the surveillance system too." "All right, but call me later. Just because we can't do dinner at my place doesn't mean we can't do dinner." The Northwoods turned out to be exactly what I'd thought it would be, a pleasant little course nestled into the quiet of the forest. I filled out a foursome of vacationers from Montreal, Canada;Don Murville, Sebastien Brandt, and Jacquelyn Cresson. As we played I learned more about them. Don, who was closer to my parent's age, worked for a radio station as an engineer. Sebastian and Jacquelyn, who were in their late thirties or early forties, were married, and musicians with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra business, or at least the Montreal Symphony's business, was quite the soap opera, I learned over lunch with the threesome. Jacquelyn was Don's sister, and he had supported the couple through some recent hard times. The orchestra had been through changes of leadership and strikes in the last five years that had threatened its very existence. Now things were a little rosier, especially for the couple, who had gotten together with another couple and formed a string quartet that had been well received since its inception two years ago. As well, the couple were getting the occasional appearances, along with their quartet mates, with the Toronto Symphony. The Toronto symphony was currently a much more stable outfit. "So we asked Don what we could do to pay him back for all he'd done for us over the years, and he suggested this," Sebastien was saying. "I love golf, and we all wanted to see the Pacific," Don added. So this week was the perfect time for us all, so here we are." "Yes, but why here?" I asked. "This is a lovely little course, and the scenery is beautiful, but it seems a bit off the beaten path." "Ah, that is true, yes," Sebastien laughed and the others joined him. "We started at the Stone Tree Golf Club, near Napa Valley, because a friend in the orchestra recommended it. While we were there, we met a couple people headed for Bodega Bay for a couple of days on the shore there, and they invited us." "So of course we found the course at Bodega Bay and played there," Don added. "And someone there told us about this cute little course along the Russian River that he had played just the week before," Jacquelyn finished. "So here we are." "So if things follow true to form, you will recommend yet another course to us, no?" Sebastien laughed. "I actually do have a course to recommend. My girlfriend and I just played a course called Salmon Run in Brookings, Oregon. If you like this course, you'll love that one. It too is tucked in between forest and river, but they really use the water there to enhance the course." Sebastien pulled his smartphone out and began fiddling with it. "How are you guys getting around?" I asked. "Are you driving or flying?" "We're flying," Don said, glancing at Sebastien. "He is a pilot, and has a Piper Seneca." "Speak kindly of the love of my life now," Sebastien looked up. "She cost me as much as a good wife would, after all." "And she's more dependable," Don and Jacquelyn echoed simultaneously, laughing as they did. "Well, yes she is, and you should be grateful for that, since you too are depending on her, eh?" Sebastien huffed. "you are right about this course," he said a little later. "I don't have much of a display on this," he said, waving the smartphone. "But what I can find makes it look attractive." "Oh, well hang on a moment," I told them, and jumped up and ran out to the Wrangler. I'd packed the laptop too this morning, since I wasn't sure how long I'd be. I fired it up on the way back in, and found I was in luck, as the club did have wireless, unsecured wireless. I connected without a password! I slid back into my chair and then very quickly browsed to the Salmon Run web site. I spun the laptop around where they could see it. "There you go." The three of them oohed and ahhed over it for a little while. "Where did you stay while you were there?" Jacquelyn asked. "Do they have an airport?" Don asked. "Do you think we could go fishing while we are there?" Sebastien asked. The three of them fired off their questions in series and without waiting for an answer. I laughed to see their enthusiasm. "We stayed at a lovely little bed and breakfast called "A Country Retreat," I answered Jacquelyn. "They do have an airport, though we didn't fly into it. We flew into Crescent City and drove up, because I wasn't sure if there was a car rental place in Brookings. I'm still not sure about that, but I could find out for you if you'd like. Where did you guys fly in? There's no airport near here, is there?" "We flew into the Sonoma County airport," Don answered. "It was the nearest we could find." We'd finished lunch some time ago, so it was decided we needed to play off the meal with another nine holes of golf. The afternoon sun made the course much warmer than it had been for the morning. On the third tee, my cell began buzzing in my pocket. "Hi beautiful," I answered. "Hi yourself," Kelli said. "Still playing golf?" "I am," I answered. "I filled out a foursome for three delightful people from Montreal and we played nine holes, had lunch and now we're playing a second nine. How's your day going?" "Its going good, and thanks to your suggestion I think tomorrow will go even better. The security people did have Roberto's antics recorded. They're even decent recordings. Clear video and audio. Roberto's pretty much hung himself with this performance." "That's good, but be careful," I cautioned. "If there's a way to make sure your Dad sees them without your being involved, that would be best. Roberto strikes me as the vindictive sort." "Good idea again, thanks. So, what are we doing for dinner?" "Well, I haven't planned anything, but I was thinking we might take my new Canadian friends someplace tonight. I don't know where they're staying yet, but they flew into CMS, so its probably near there." "Ooh, I can find us a place. Anything about them I should know that might influence my choices?" "Hmm, well two of them are professional symphonic musicians and the other is a radio engineer and private pilot." "Okay, call you back in a bit." "okay," I answered. "Miss you." "I miss you too," The others had hit their tee shots while I was on the phone, and I told them my girlfriend was finding us a place to have dinner together that night if they didn't have other plans. They didn't, and were excited to get to meet Kelli. The third hole at Northwoods is a short 145 yard, par three. I would have no problems reaching the green if I could keep myself under control and chose the right club. There was no way I would use a driver, so I fidgeted with my irons for a while until I had what I thought was appropriate. I had begun using a trick, focusing on the golf ball with my molecular locking sense, not locking anything, but using that level of focus before backing off to something more normal before starting my swing. The extra level of focus seemed to help my long game in particular, and especially my former erratic tendencies from the tee. My golf mates all went 'oooh' as soon as the ball left my club. It had felt good and I looked up in time to watch the ball arc gracefully onto the not-so-distant green and roll to a stop within a foot of the cup. "Nice shot!" Sebastien slapped me on the shoulder. "You're the one to beat on this hole." The put was ridiculously easy, and I did indeed win the hole, though we weren't playing for anything, so it was bragging rights only. Sebastien did par the hole and Don and Jacquelyn finished one over. The next hole was almost exactly twice as long, with a dogleg. Don won that hole, and the next, a long par five hole. I would have tied him on that one, save for a bad second putt. The sixth hole was another dogleg hole, slightly shorter, but also a little narrower than the fourth had been. I had just hit a tremendous tee shot that curved nicely around the turn and landed dead in the middle of the green to leave me a nice layup shot, when my cell buzzed again. "Hi sweetie," I answered. "Where are we eating?" "How does Johnny Garlic's in Windsor sound?" "Johnny Garlic's?" I asked. "Yeah, its one of Guy Fieri's restaurants." "Guy Fieri?" "You don't know Guy?" she teased. "You need to watch more Food Network. He's one of their big stars. Anyway, he's a hoot, and he's going to be there." "Who's going to be where?" "Guy Fieri is going to be at the Windsor restaurant tonight." "Damn, I should call Mrs. Trinh and see if she wants to go," I thought out loud. "She's a Food Network junkie. She'd probably love a chance to meet one of their stars." "What's her number, I'll call and see if she would like to go," Kelli offered. "That sounds great, but she may not have transportation," I cautioned. "Don't worry, I'll take care of it." "okay, what time are our reservations?" "We have reservations for eight. I'll have to call back and add a sixth if Mrs. Trinh says she'd like to go." So it was set, and I was able to get back to golf and fill in my fellow golfers on the dinner plans. ------- Chapter 82 We finished out second round of golf at five. We pulled out of the Northwoods at quarter after. I had to stop at home and change clothes and pick up Mrs. Trinh, who was also back at the house to get ready for the dinner. Kelli would meet us at the restaurant. I was curious to see how big the hole was in the back yard. I honked at the Canadians as I pulled off and they honked back as they continued on to their hotel, which I'd learned was the Hilton Garden Inn near the airport, which made sense. The digging was still going on, and the hole looked pretty impressive. While the big excavator I'd seen initially had obviously been involved in making the big hole, I saw that a large backhoe, a loader and a bulldozer were moving earth in the surrounding area as well. Digging the hole wasn't the only work being done, obviously. The initial stages of the landscaping were being done while the equipment was here as well. Mrs. Trinh was nowhere to be seen when I went inside, so I used the time to make a quick trip to the basement to check on Net's progress. A lot more calls had been translated, and there were a flurry of new calls today between Paco Serna and 'Iron Man'. I would have to wait for those to be transcribed. Perhaps tonight I would be able to read those. In the mean time, I began to piece together some sort of image of the relationship between Serna and 'Iron Man'. Based on frequent references, they had known each other when they were younger, but 'Iron Man' was not a gang member, at least not officially. He did fund a lot of the gangs operations, it seemed, as the conversations involved Serna asking about payment at least as often as they involved 'Iron Man' asking about some project or another. Through the course of the transcriptions, 'Iron Man', or el hombre de hierro, as it was said in Spanish, got shortened to Hierro, which I eventually began shortening it in my head also. I instructed net to shorten it that way in the transcriptions from now on, capitalizing it to make sure it wasn't confused with someone actually using the word 'iron' in a more normal context. After spending a little time with Net, I went upstairs and took a long shower, laid out some clothes to wear to dinner and then pulled out the laptop to look up Johnny Garlic's again. The GPS navigation in the Wrangler would get me there, I was sure, but I always liked to have some confidence that what it was telling me wouldn't steer me wrong. The directions were pretty straightforward and I stuck 'exit 498' in my head as the exit to take in getting off highway 101. I checked my email, answered a couple of new ones from ADT and one of the managers at my bank. My donation to the Brookings-Harbor Basin restoration fund had tripped a flag there, and they were just following up. I sent a brief explanation with a few links, and told them to call me if there were still questions. I was dressed and ready to go at seven. I went downstairs and found Mrs. Trinh also dressed and sipping a cup of tea in the living room. She was watching the Food Network of course. She was wearing a very smart, but conservative dress. She looked good for an older woman, and much less matronly than her usual appearance. Obviously prepared to knock Guy Fieri's socks off, I thought. The drive up to Windsor was quiet, though a little less so than normal. Mrs. Trinh was out of her shell a little bit tonight, and based on my meager familiarity, I thought she seemed prepared to enjoy herself. The drive on River Road to the Redwood Highway was a familiar one by now. I laughed silently to myself as we drove past the airport and I saw a sign for the Hilton. I resisted the urge to look for the Ford Explorer my Canadian friends were driving. They too needed something big enough to cart their golf clubs around in. I did indeed spot exit 498, and got off the highway at the appropriate time. From there, it was almost a matter of just following the signs. I found a place to park and escorted Mrs. Trinh to the entrance. Kelli was already there and waving at us as we came in. "We're a few minutes early," she said, after a briefer than normal kiss, in deference, I assumed, to Mrs. Trinh's presence. "But we can sit at the bar until your friends get here." "That sounds fine," I said. "Mrs. Trinh, can I get you something to drink?" "I think an iced tea would be nice, thank you," she said. Our drinks hadn't arrived yet when Don, Jacquelyn and Sebastien arrived. I waved at them from the bar, and they came straight over. Jacquelyn hugged me and I got hand shakes from Don and Sebastien. "Kelli, Mrs. Trinh, this is Don," I indicated the older man. "Sebastien and his wife Jacquelyn. Folks, this is my girfriend Kelli Montoya and my Housekeeper Mrs. Trinh." "Please, call me Nhu," Mrs. Trinh said. Mr. James has only recently hired me and we are still acting in a completely professional manner. This is a fun occasion, so we shouldn't be formal, don't you think?" That was the most I'd heard Mrs. Trinh say at one time, outside of meal instructions. While I was still being flabbergasted by that, Kelli began shepherding us to our table, which had been waiting for us all this time, apparently. As we found our seats, I noticed that Don had managed to find a seat next to Mrs. Trinh, pulling out her chair for her. I was doing the same for Kelli, of course, as Harley's older generation instincts did usually surface in these situations. Sebastien saw which way the wind was blowing, so to speak, and grinning, pulled out Jacquelyn's chair for her. Our drink orders came, and the Canadians got a chance to order their own. The menu was an interesting mix of burgers, pizza, pasta and high end beef dishes. We ordered Lava Rock Shrimp appetizers all around. I ordered the ribeye, as did Sebastien. Kelli and Jacquelyn ordered chicken dishes. Mrs. Trinh ordered a bayou salad, saying she'd made something like it once and wanted to compare it to her own. Don ordered Roasted garlic soup and a Caesar salad. Dinner came, and it was delivered by Guy Fieri himself. I wasn't familiar with him, but I could see why he was on the Food Network. He had tons of personality, and made everyone feel very welcome. Mrs. Trinh in particular got some close attention. I suspected that Kelli had had something to do with that. We got him to pose for pictures with her, which we all took with our cell phones. Once Mr. Fieri was gone, things settled down again as we enjoyed the fine food. We talked about golf some of course, though Mrs. Trinh professed an ignorance of the game. "My husband was a very traditional man," she said by way of explanation. "Women did not play sports, so of course, I did not." "That's a shame," Don said sympathetically. "It is how I was raised," she said. "My father was the same way, it is cultural." "But now you are free to do whatever you want," Jacquelyn said. "True," Mrs. Trinh blushed. "But now I am an old woman, and one left in poor circumstances. I am grateful to have found employment with Mr. James. He is not a demanding employer." "Except for my penchant for not showing up for lunch, I'd be just about perfect." I laughed. Throughout the entire evening I caught myself noticing Don being very solicitous to Mrs. Trinh. He was the one who kept drawing her back into the conversation, asked her questions and expressed interest in her opinion on things. At one point Kelli leaned in for a kiss, and while we were close, whispered in my ear. "Is that how old people flirt?" "I guess so," I whispered back. She giggled, drawing looks, but we just smiled and made like it was some boyfriend/girlfriend sort of thing, which in a way, it was. We all declined dessert, and while we finished our coffee's I excused myself to the restroom and paid our bill on the way back. There was some talk of stopping somewhere for a drink, but it was mostly an effort to keep the enjoyable evening going. Kelli had work in the morning, if none of the rest of us did, so we abandoned those plans. We exchanged numbers, and waved goodbye, and let our night end there. I kissed Kelli goodnight and Mrs. Trinh and I drove home. "Thank you," she said as we were pulling into the drive up to the house. "That was a very enjoyable evening. It was quite thrilling to meet Mr. Fieri." "It was nice meeting Don too, wasn't it?" I teased. "What do you mean?" she asked sheepishly. "Well, he certainly seemed interested in you, and it wasn't just because you two were the oldest ones at the table." "He was very nice," she said. "He asked for my email address, but I had to take his, since I don't have one." "Ah," I grinned. "Well, we'll have to get you set up with email then so his long distance courting of you can commence." "It is nothing like that," she tittered. "Never say never, Nhu," I sang, then headed for my room. ------- Chapter 83 I was up in time for my usual morning routine Friday. I didn't want to run the property line today, not with all the equipment sitting around, but I did the treadmill for a few miles and then the StairMaster for a few more. Mrs. Trinh had omelets and orange juice for breakfast, and was very chipper, almost dancing around as she served. Today for the first time she slipped in to eat at the table with me without my having to prompt her to. After breakfast I went back downstairs and then into the cavern. I read through the rest of the transcribed conversations, saving the new ones from yesterday for last. The more I read of Hierro's side of the conversations, the more something about him nagged at me. I even listened to some of the audio from the conversations, but while that too nagged at me, I just couldn't figure out what it was that bothered me about it. After an hour of reading transcripts, I came back upstairs and called Pete Donaldson and asked him about charter fishing in Brookings, letting him know about my new Canadian friends coming to play golf at Salmon Run. He wanted to know when they were coming and how, but I told him I didn't know. They had their own plane, but might fly in to Crescent City, because they were uncertain about being able to rent a car that they could carry four set of golf clubs in. "Aw geez, that shouldn't be a problem," he laughed. "We've got people who rent their cars out all the time. Let me check with Vic, he's got a Chevy Suburban he rents." "Okay, call me back." He promised to call back within a half an hour, so I used the time to make a few other calls, first to the bank manager who'd emailed me, but my reply email yesterday had settled their concerns. Next I called Don. "Don, its Cooper, good morning." "Good morning Cooper, what can I do for you?" "Its more like what I can do for you," I laughed. "I've got a line on some charter fishing in Brookings as well as a car for you guys to use to get to around while you're there." "Really?" "Well, I'm waiting to hear back on the car, and when I do. I expect I'll hear more on the fishing. When were you folks planning on heading that way?" "We were planning on leaving after lunch. That bed and breakfast you told us about is full up for the weekend, but we've got reservations at someplace called the Westward Inn. Those bed and breakfast's seem more geared towards romantic getaways than a group of traveling companions." "Yeah, I can understand that," I agreed. "How's Nhu?" he asked. "Oh, she's fine," I laughed silently. I could have seen that coming. Curious how he thought to ask right after mentioning romantic getaways. "Fixed a fine omelet for breakfast this morning. I promised her last night that I'd get her fixed up with an email address, so don't be surprised if you get an email before the day's out." "Ah, okay, thanks," he suddenly seemed to be embarrassed at his interest. "Okay then, I'll call back as soon as I here from my guy in Brookings." I heard back from Pete in less than ten minutes. I let him know my friend's anticipated schedule, and where they were staying. He said that Vic's Suburban was theirs for as long as they were in town, no charge, as long as they bought the gas. "Pete, can I give them your number?" "Oh sure, I'll want to meet them at the airport anyway." he said. "Pete, pardon me for asking this now, but what do you do, anyway? I remember you mentioning that you used to work for Mr. Conway, but I don't remember you saying what it was you did." "Really?" he sounded bemused. "I thought that was why you called me." "Why would I call you?" "Because I operate a charter fishing boat?" "Really?" I almost choked, I laughed so hard. "That's so funny. Wait, shouldn't you be out fishing?" "I am out fishing," he laughed. "We stick pretty close to shore most of the time, and I almost always have cell coverage." "Now just because Vic is loaning them a ride for gas money, don't think you have to give them a discount just because they know me." That was Pete's turn to almost choke on laughter. Turns out he couldn't afford to offer discounts to anyone. His only concession to our friendship was his plan to divert whatever customer he had scheduled to another charter boat on the day they wanted to fish. I called Don back and gave him Pete's number, telling him Pete would be their charter operator, but also that he was a newly made friend as well. With those tasks out of the way, I got online and created a Gmail account for Mrs. Trinh. The kitchen computer, another one of Mitch's recommendations was tucked in a corner with a small cabinet for supplies. Rather than being a laptop, or regular component PC, this was a Compaq Presario All-In-One PC that was essentially a monitor and a keyboard. There was no separate tower or other components. It could communicate wirelessly with the small printer that had been installed on a shelf below it, handy for printing off recipes. I spent about fifteen minutes with her, showing her how to log into the PC, how to get to Gmail, login and check her mail. The first thing we did was send a 'test' message to Don's address. I left her at that point. But hung out in the living room channel surfing for a while in case she had questions. After a few panicky questions and their simple answers, I left her to it. I hoped this attempt to expand her horizons, and Don, did not turn out to be disappointing. I spent most of my day in the cavern, interrupted only by lunch and dinner, working on the Mark II version of the suit. On thing I'd mentioned to Bud had been the thought, that the Mark I version, being very form-fitting, made it evident it was being worn by someone matching my dimensions, which was fairly distinctive. The new suit, for this reason was going to get some extra room in it, meaning room for more power and more communications and computing capability. No one, me, Harley, Bud or his 'people' it seemed, were sure if more computing power was needed, but since the room was there, it was planned for. Thus, the new suit, as I built it, layer upon layer no longer matched my own silhouette. The calves bulged in a very tapered, non-human way. The thighs were thicker and segmented. The Shoulders were much broader than my real ones, the chest was much thicker and it all combined to make a very super hero-ish V shaped taper. The arms, being proportional to the rest of the suit were also much thicker than my own. "The suggestion was made, early on in the design of the new suit, that the increased area available meant that it could, in addition to everything else, be an environment suit, giving you temperature controls and an internal breathing system. These new features have been incorporated into the new design." The bringing in of atmospheric and environmental controls and the added memory and computer and AI components, Bud told me, meant that the exoskeletal features were moved as well. They now lived up to the 'exo' part of exoskeletal. These components had been moved to the outside of the suit, while at the same time split into many more, thinner segments. "The Kinetex glows when it is activated," Bud told me while we worked. "That effect is invisible in the current suit, buried beneath layers of material. It will be visible in the new suit." "Please don't tell me it glows pink," I moaned, expecting the worst. "Pink?" Bud said. "I don't believe so. It should be a deep blue, if I remember." "Phew," I said. I could hear Harley's laughter echoing in my thoughts. After dinner, I went back to work on the suit. While most of what we did seemed similar to what we had done to make the first suit, there were things that definitely were new, and I struggled with several of them. Only Bud's active reassurance that I was doing fine and Harley's calm strength underpinning the effort got me through it, but through it I went. "Two more sessions like these," Bud said that night as we were getting ready for bed. "Two more like this and the suit will be done." "Not tomorrow though, ' I said. "Or not both of them at least. I really exhausted myself today." "No, we'll do one tomorrow then. We can finish on Sunday." ------- Chapter 84 I woke up hungry Saturday morning. Mrs. Trinh had made pancakes and bacon. I ate everything she made, except for the two small pancakes she made herself. I apologized, but she said she was happy to see me so hungry, though she cautioned me to get plenty of exercise if I planned to eat like that every day. Most of the construction noise had subsided. It was going to be an ongoing process, and not quiet by any means, for weeks. I'd paid for the laying on of extra hands to expedite the process as much as possible, but it would still be many weeks before I was swimming in my new pool. ADT had their hands in as well, having begun work on replacing the fences with the beefier, more secure and tech-friendly version they had proposed. Both projects were being completed simultaneously, though the new fence at the front of the property, not to mention the new gate, would not even be started until after all the heavy equipment was done and gone. This all made for an unfriendly environment for Mrs. Trinh and I. We persevered as much as possible, but it was not long before I told her not to worry about lunch, and to go somewhere for a while away from the noise. "What about dinner?" "I do owe Kelli a dinner, but I think we can hold off on that a few days. I should have saved our trip to Oregon for something like this." "Very good," she said. "Edwina has been after me to come to dinner. Perhaps tonight would be a good time. I'll call her." With Mrs. Trinh taken care of, I had to decide what I wanted to do. I needed to get one session in down in the cavern working on the new suit, but that could happen any time. Certainly not this morning, I thought. I looked through my email, but there was nothing but junk mail, all caught by the filters. A Google ad for some Independence Day sale reminded me that next weekend was the start of the July Fourth long weekend, since the fourth was a Monday. My parade plans were fast approaching. I'd have to remind Kelli of that. On top of that, I figured a call to the folks at the folks at the Double V and see if there were any changes in those parade plans. On second thought, this was a great excuse for a bike ride. I brought the Harley out, wiping it down with a cloth to clean the dust of that had settled on it in the few days it had been sitting. The vibrations from the construction had raised a little dust in the garage, obviously. I got a couple of toots from some of the equipment operators when they saw me riding out. I waved back at them and hit the road. The folks at the Double V were very welcoming. Gus was glad to see the bike and gave it a good long look, but was happy with how I was treating her. Parade plans hadn't changed, but some of the details had firmed up. I had names and numbers to call on Parade day to get directions for lining up. Turns out that this is something of a variable, not just from year to year, but from day to day as the parade drew closer. Some people assumed the Harley folks were collectively disreputable, and tried now and then to put a crimp in their parade plans. The last minute fluctuations seemed to take care of that problem pretty well. I drove around Santa Rosa for a couple of hours, just crisscrossing the streets, trying to get ever more familiar with were things were in town. That included long rides south and east. I drove south as far as Rohnert Park, and east past the Roseland section of Santa Rosa all the way out to the development that surrounded the Santa Rosa Golf and Country Club. I considered stopping in, but decided it would be pushing it, especially in my riding leathers. The downtown layout was starting to look familiar to me now. Blending in the rest of town, the residential areas and seedy sections would be important if I was going to be working, living and super hero-ing in the area. Several places brought Bud's commentary, as these were places tied to some of our surveillance. "I need to think about what it will be like flying in, out and over these places in the suit," I said in my head. "We will have very accurate, live overlays from our satellites," Bud reminded me. "Are those overlays going to tell em where telephone and utility lines are? Clotheslines and TV antennas?" Bud's silence told me I'd once again pointed out something that he and his had failed to consider. I grinned inside my helmet and hoped Bud didn't feel it. Harley had, as I could feel his own mental grin joining my own. I stopped in Sebastopol and ate lunch at a place called Martha's Old Mexican Grill. I was tempted to order more than I did, but did make note of the place. This would be good place to have lunch or dinner with Kelli. The good food had me feeling energized enough for a session of suit building, so I pulled out of Sebastopol headed north ... I saw signs for highway 116 north, and followed the signs, then followed the highway. I laughed when I began recognizing the scenery. I was going to go straight through Forestville. When I did, I got off 116 as soon as it turned east, and instead stuck with roads headed north until I reached River Road. The session in the cavern was interesting. Bud was much more talkative this session. Not in the usual way, rather he offered a running commentary as we went. It seemed several times as if he was reading his own notes out loud along with the instructions. Not a lot of it made sense, but here and there a key phrase or two suggested things to me about my ability, and about where I was finding the power that fueled what I could do. I wasn't likely to wake up anytime soon knowing the key to my power, but it was nice to know there were keys, and that I had some chance someday of understanding them. Again this session some of what I did was more 'work' than the rest. I began to recognize some of these transformations. I was bonding monomolecular structures, and I was adding something to the molecules, as if I was providing some 'extra' bond between the materials; more than they would support normally. Not that any of this could be considered normal. When I was too tired to do more, we stopped and I went upstairs for a beer followed by a shower and a beer. I called Kelli and had a little phone snuggling, then took a nap. I hadn't taken an afternoon nap in years, except for a few times in the field when opportunities to sleep had been few and far between. "Damn you Bud, what the hell is this doing to me?" I thought, but I was asleep to quickly to know if he answered. I woke up at six and went downstairs. Mrs. Trinh was nowhere to be found and I had messages on my phone. I had calls from Don and the Canadian crew thanking me for my help and telling me they were having a great time. I had a call from ADT telling me they would be working Tomorrow, and apologizing for an inconvenience to my Sunday. I had a message from Kelli, and that one I returned. "Where have you been?" she asked. "Forget your phone again?" "No, this time I was asleep. I took a rare afternoon nap, and apparently I needed it, because I just woke up a few minutes ago." "So, does that mean you're not interested in dinner?" "No it does not," I laughed. "I gave Mrs. Trinh another day off due to the construction, so I've got to find someplace else to eat tonight. What did you have in mind?" "I have in mind that its Saturday and I don't have to work tomorrow. I have in mind that you should take me someplace for dinner, then bring me home and make love to me all night long." "I'm right there with you on that whole plan, even the all night long part, but fair warning, that's the only part I can't offer a guarantee on." "Oh shoot," she giggled. "What's the matter, you even had a nap!" "Since we're still talking dinner to start, do you have anyplace in mind?" "Not particularly," "How about a place I found for lunch today called "Martha's Old Mexican Grill." "Oh! I've been there, though its been a while. Yes, that would be excellent." "Should I come get you, or meet you there?" "I'd better meet you," she said. "Right now its safer for you to keep away from my house. Daddy's given Roberto thirty days notice, and the aunts and uncles are in an uproar." "And all they remember about me was that I was at dinner when this all started," I observed. "Exactly," She sighed. "Sorry." So I changed clothes, straightened up the bedroom, and headed Back to Sebastopol. Kelli was dressed to impress when she got there. She wore a light yellow dress that was loose at the skirt and tight above the waist. The tight above the waist part also showed far more cleavage than I'd ever seen her show, outside of her bikini at the lake. Her hair, which was normally done in a no-nonsense business do, had been curled or waved or something, as it now had shape and bounce beyond its previous capacity. It was a good thing I was already standing, or I probably would have knocked over my chair. "Wow," I said with every bit of weight I could bring to that little word. "Thank you," she laughed. "That's the best wow I've ever got." "You deserve every bit of it too, looking like that. Wow again. What's the special occasion?" "You mean beside my getting to have dinner with you? Well, how about getting promoted to Vice President of Operations?" "Really? Awesome!" I said, giving her a huge hug. "Careful," she said checking her outfit as we separated. "I look really good in this dress because parts of me are barely kept in it." "I see," I said, doing the traditional Groucho eyebrow maneuver. "I plan on addressing that problem more thoroughly later." We had a thoroughly enjoyable dinner. It was followed a few hours later with my addressing her dressing problem, very thoroughly. Completely removed the problem, actually. The all night long part of the night did not get accomplished, but I gave it an honest effort. ------- Chapter 85 Sunday morning was a bit of a recap of Saturday night. A slower, mellower replaying of the highlights. Once the 'glow' began to fade, and the cool air began to make the drying sweat uncomfortable, it was shower time. The shower was a playful event, and if I hadn't tried to so hard the night before to live up to that request, it might have taken longer, but while I was willing, 'Sarge' was AWOL. What? Every guy has a name for theirs, don't they? So what if you haven't really met Sarge. Kelli has, and that's all that counts. "I need to work out," I said as we were dressing. Care to join me?" "I'd love to watch you work out, but I've got to get going. I'm expected to go to church with the family. There will be a lot of praying for Roberto today." "Not even breakfast then?" "No, sorry," she laughed. "Hate to ... shower and run," the laugh turned into a giggle." "Not a problem. The whole evening was sort of last minute." "This stink with Roberto will be over with soon. I"ll be settled into my new position, and then we'll have more time together, I promise." We kissed at the door and I waved goodbye as she pulled away. Weird. Here I was, the guy trying to hide a burgeoning secret identity and the second life it entailed, and Kelli was the one making excuses for not being able to spend as much time as we'd like together. I worked out for an hour and came back up to find breakfast cooking. Another shower took care of the sweat from the workout and then it was waffles and fried eggs with toast and coffee. The distant sounds of construction began again while I was eating. The ADT sanctioned work on the new fence around the main property was under way. Mostly it was a pair of backhoes digging holes and trenches. Since they were at the edges of the property, it was hardly noticeable. "This is much better.," Mrs. Trinh observed as we ate. "Don't get used to it," I said. "The pool crew has the day off, but they'll be back tomorrow, and the noise level will go up again." "I think you're right, but I'm hoping it won't be so bad now that they are done digging the big hole." "Well, the noise level may not get reduced, but the ground-shaking vibrations might, so there's a chance. By the way, didn't we agree that you had Sundays off? Why are you fixing me breakfast this morning?" "Well I have to eat too, you know, and I live here," she tittered. "Besides, its hard to cook breakfast for one." "I hope Kelli spending the night and then not staying for breakfast didn't cause you too much trouble." "Oh not at all," the way she said it made it sound like it was no surprise to her that Kelli stayed, or that she wouldn't stay for breakfast. I wonder how much behind the scenes prearranging might have occurred. Better not to ask, I think. With Mrs. Trinh supposedly on her day off, I gathered my bedding and towels together and started a load of laundry. With the washer going I slipped into the cavern. There were a lot of new transcriptions from Net. Hierro was burning up the aether, calling Paco Serna and this time, even Ya Ya Marchiria directly. I began reading the transcribed intercepts from this latest burst of activity, skipping some of the older stuff that remained unread. I read with an increasing sense of foreboding that turned to icy certainty when I read Hierro saying 'I want her dead, you hear me? I want her and her redheaded lover dead! Today!" He'd hung up then, not waiting for an answer. I needed answers though. "Are you sure of the translation?" I asked Bud. "Net is," Bud replied. "The word is pelirrojo – that is redhead male in Spanish. Pelirroja would be a redheaded female. "Hierro is Roberto Montoya," I said aloud. "How stinking weird is that?" Especially since my hair wasn't that red! More a reddish brown, I'd always thought. If there had been any doubt about the connection, It was resolved as I read further in the transcriptions. Paco Serna called YaYa Marchiria later in the day. The loyal soldier Marchiria immediately reported the call he'd received from Hierro. "This is the guy," Marchiria said. "We already kill his parents. Now Hierro wants him dead too, and a young woman from a local family." "A family with deep roots in the community," Serna added. "I know why he wants this. The connection to the redhead and his family is coincidence, but the woman? That request is personal for him." "Personal or not, it is loco!" Marchiria spat. "We would be crazy to do as he is demanding. It would be the end of us." "If we tell him no on this, he will end our association. You know his money is what keeps us going." "Why?" Marchiria spat again. "Why do we need his money? Why do we do the dirty work for him in this plan to steal land cheaply? What kind of work is that for us? Does it keep us out of the drug trade? No! Does it keep us from running guns south across the border? No!" "No, it hasn't kept us from the old ways, but it has let us grow beyond the little street gang we used to be." "We should go back to what we were, and tell this little devil we are done with him." "I cannot do that, old friend, and you know why." "Because you swore an oath as children, I know. Sometimes children do foolish things. For this, they are corrected. We had better stop these childish things before we too are corrected." Ya Ya Marchiria actually sounded like a sensible man, reading this conversation. He had seemed stoic and accepting in everything else I'd read before this. Too bad he'd confessed to killing my parents. I was not the kind of man to let that slide. I went back to reading. There were another flurry of calls from Serna to various captains in his gang, warning them not to act on any requests from Hierro, but to call in such requests so any action could be coordinated. Serna and Marchiria conducted a back and forth regarding the request to kill Kelli and I, and it was unfinished when I reached the end of the current transcriptions. "How much more remains to be transcribed?" I asked. "None," Bud answered. "Net is transcribing it live now." So they've stopped talking for now?" "It is Sunday," Harley reminded us. "Montoya is probably in church with his family, even if its not with Kelli and her father. Religion runs deep in these communities." "Even the gang leaders could be in church." Bud suggested. "What's their next move?" I thought out loud. "Based on past surveillance, they'll probably meeting in person." "Where?" The display shifted as Net switched to the live satellite map and zoomed slowly in on a large industrial building on Standish Road in the far southern edges of Santa Rosa. There were four men visible 'lounging around' the building who were obviously lookouts. "We need to get the new suit ready," I said aloud. "Let's get it done then," Bud said. So we spent the next three hours finishing the suit. The last fifteen minutes of that was me twisting molecules here and there in ways I did not understand in the least, but when we were done, ahh ... the finished product looked impressive. "Its almost lunch time," Bud reminded me. "We can try it on and get it charged up after lunch." "Sounds good," I agreed. "That session was crazy." "Yes, you have exceeded all our expectations in regard to your abilities," Bud told me as we left the cavern and headed upstairs. The first thing I did after I got out of the shower was to call Kelli. I was worried about her of course, but based on what I'd seen so far, she was safe unless Roberto decided to act on his own. "Cooper, miss me already?" she teased. "You know I do," I answered seriously. "What's up?" she asked, hearing the tone of my response. "The more I think about it Kelli, the more I worry about that cousin of yours. He doesn't strike me as completely rational. You could be in danger from him." "I understand," she said, dead serious now herself. "It shouldn't be a problem though. His parents have gone back to Vallejo, where their offices are. They were here only for Roberto's sake to begin with. They have their own business to take care of after all." "They do?" I asked, surprised. "I thought they worked for MRH?" "Well, yes and no," Kelli explained. "MRH contracts out all its laundry and dry cleaning business to my uncle. This gives all our hotels a centralized laundry and keeps the hotels from having to do laundry on site." "Huh," I grunted. "I wonder why Roberto didn't work for his own father then?" "He did, when he was younger. He started out working a big steam press, ironing bed sheets and stuff. He hated it, and I think that hatred carried over to the rest of the business too. He considered the hotel business to be much more respectable." Hmm ... now I saw where the 'Iron Man' appellation came from. Perhaps Paco Serna had worked there as well when he was younger, and this had been where they had formed their friendship, though it had sounded, from the transcripts, that the friendship had been from a very young age, much younger than working age. "Even so," I refocused back on my goal. "I don't trust him to be rational about this. He might see you as a target for revenge, and given the way he has acted in the past, that revenge could be lethal." "really? You think so?" "I really do." "I guess you could be right," she sighed. "I'll warn daddy, just in case he hasn't already come to the same conclusion." then, as it suddenly occurred to her. "Cooper, you could be in danger too!" "Yeah, I already figured on that," I answered. "I kind of hope the little devil does try something." Kelli giggled. "Yes, I could see that happening. I think Fred Conway would consider himself lucky in comparison, wouldn't he?" "I would hurt him bad if he came after me," I admitted. "But if he comes after you and I am around..." "Don't say it," she groaned. "you shouldn't have to do that sort of thing for me." "Shouldn't, doesn't mean wouldn't," I said. "Okay, I will be careful," she said at last. "I have to go, we're having lunch and everyone's probably wondering already why I haven't come down yet. At least I'll have a good explanation." "I'm sure Mrs. Trinh has lunch for me too," I said, and we managed to finish our call with a minimum of phone snuggling. ------- Chapter 86 Lunch was grilled chicken panini sandwiches and sliced peaches and pears. I drank a large iced tea with it and watched Mrs. Trinh grin as I devoured it. "That was delicious," I said when it was gone. "How could you tell," she teased. "It wasn't in your mouth long enough for your taste buds to react!" "Guess I worked up an appetite." "You are exercising too much down there," she cautioned again. I was beginning to worry that she wouldn't keep buying the idea that I was just down there exercising. "It's not that I'm exercising non-stop," I ventured. I was going to say more but decided it was probably not wise to belabor the point. I'd switched loads in the washing machine before coming back upstairs, and the first load was dry by the time lunch was over. I made something of a production of carrying the folded sheets and pillow cases up to the upstairs linen closet, trying to reinforce the concept that there were legitimate things getting done in the basement. With the last load in the dryer, it was back to the cavern. The new suit went on the same way the old one had, but it seemed odd once I was standing there in it. "The false shapes need some encouragement," Bud told me. "The first thing we need to do is get the suit's power cells full." With Bud back in my head it was easy to know where and how, not that this was unfamiliar. The amount of power it took to fill the suit completely was surprising though. "That's a lot more power than last time," I said when I was done. "The suit has a lot more reserves now," Bud commented. "Plus it now has more active systems that require power. The first one is the new shape." "I want to see" I said, and built myself a mirror. Creating an almost optically perfect mirror was an easy trick when you can get the appropriate layers of thicknesses telekinetically. There have been a lot of methods tried over the centuries to create sheets of glass. Float glass, for example, is created by 'floating' molten glass on a bed of molten metal like tin. The technique produces a thin, even layer of glass, but was a tricky process that many tried, but few achieved. Commercial success for the method eluded glass makers until the 1960's. I could achieve even better results than that, perfectly flat glass anytime I wanted, as long as I had the correct ingredients to hand, and the process of depositing aluminum and other materials on the back of the glass were a piece of cake for me. The coolest part was that when I was done, the mirror just dissolved back into its component molecules until the next time I needed them. Oh, and it was cool of course that the mirror would float in midair while I used it. Telekinesis is cool. Bud guided me to an internal switch that I could activate telekinetically. I flipped it, and suddenly I looked like a comic book super hero. I had the wide shoulders, tapering waist and bulging muscles of a cartoon character. At the same time, the whole thing looked somehow alien. Maybe it was cartoon proportions translated to real life, or maybe it was something else, but in the suit, I did not quite look human. The smooth, almost featureless not-quite-a-face where the face should be added to the effect as well. "All right, now for the real show," Bud said as we stood there staring at my image in the mirror. "Activate the exoskeleton." "Okay," I said, and followed words with action. "Oh wow!" Harley and I echoed together. Powered up, the exoskeleton brought a myriad of spiderweb-thin fine lines into view, glowing with a deep blue light. Think of the suits they wore in the old movie Tron, or the newer sequel, only smaller and finer. It did look sort of like a tracing of circuitry, in a way. "the harness points on this suit are built in and mirror the larger of the exoskeletal lines you can see," Bud told us. "Everything should work the same as the old suit, but it would be a good idea to go get a good workout in it tonight." Harley and I agreed. "What should we do with the old suit?" I asked, looking at the crumpled heap on the table were we'd dropped it when we went to put the new one on. "We can keep it as a reserve, of course," Bud said. "But we might want to consider something else. We could cut the arms and legs back, eliminating the feet, gloves and the hood, and cut back around the neck and collar as well. That way you could wear it under your normal clothes." "Would we want to do that?" I asked. "It would allow you to access Net from almost anywhere," Bud explained. "And of course you'd have access to the exoskeleton's strength in an emergency." "Hmm..." I thought about it for a long time. There was certainly something to be said for having access to Net and the exoskeleton, but even as thin as the material was, I thought it was too bulky to go unnoticed under normal street clothes. "How about we incorporate it into my riding leathers?" I asked. "That would mean converting it to a two piece system, if its even possible, but it would never be noticed there, and could be explained away as my trying to boost the riding outfit's protective features." "Hmm..." This time it was Bud's turn to think. "That might be workable. We could even work the HUD into your helmet. Let us think about that for a while and see what we can come up with." "Sure," I laughed. "You guys are the brains of the outfit, after all." I did do a little playing around in the cavern, seeing how it felt to move about, let Harley lift us into the air and move us around. I practiced engaging and disengaging the exoskeleton. Everything felt normal. The new suit didn't feel any bulkier than the old one, and I felt just as nimble. I did notice that the bottoms and edges of the suit's feet felt harder and more solid. Less like slippers and more like shoes compared to the old suit. I figured that would be nice if it ever came time to kick something. I'd be less likely to be concerned about hurting my feet if I had to kick something hard. With the suit charged, and everything looking good, I figured it would be best to spend some time upstairs defusing Mrs. Trinh's curiosity. Wearing the old suit under my clothes to allow me to keep tabs on Net and our surveillance occurred to me, and since Mrs. Trinh was already used to seeing me wearing it about the house, I figured I could risk it. "Wait a minute," I thought as I was preparing to put the suit on. "How am I going to be hearing Net if I'm not wearing the hood?" "Crap," Bud said, making me laugh. "Okay, we'll have to think about that one too. Maybe bluetooth," he said, muttering to himself already. I went upstairs and played email and phone tag here and there, checking in with Lloyd at FiberDyne, Darius Booker and Mike Guilford. I emailed Vic and thanked him for letting my Canadian friends use the Suburban, and promised to take him golfing the next time we were there. I got an email back in less than ten minutes. "I suck at golf. Take me fishing. Fish fear me." I laughed at that last line, even though I'd seen t shirts that said that already. Mike Guilford emailed me back asking what deviltry I was up to today. I called him instead of replying to the email. "Cooper, I was hoping you'd call. What are you up to?" "Not much, trying to ignore the sounds of construction in my yard. "The pool?" "Not today. Its the new fence the security company is putting in." "Ah good idea. You have to be careful when you have your kind of money." "Yeah, so everyone tells me. Its getting done. Don't tell me you're at work on a Sunday afternoon?" "Not really, just puttering around the house, but I always have this phone with me. There are several fourth of July committees that I'm on who are in the middle of their annual week-before-the-event frenzy. I make sure they only have my work number, but this time of year I need to make myself available, so I haven't turned it off like I usually would on a Sunday." "How does one get someone like you to serve on their committee, Mike? I'd think you wouldn't be an easy target for that sort of thing." "Well, I'm a bit more of a softy than I let on, but you have to promise not to let that get around. Also, it helps if your wife is very civic minded. Oh, and there are certain drawbacks to maintaining relationships with your fellow alumni." We both laughed at the pained tone he used in saying this, but the words themselves triggered a thought. "Hey Mike, speaking of alumni," "Yeah?" he said exaggerating the previous tone even more, which again made us laugh. "I've got a friend, a younger friend, who will be going to college next year. He's hoping to get into Stanford, and is depending on financial aid as well. He won't know until November or December whether he's gotten in as an early admission. I've been planning on helping him out in some way if the financial aid falls through, but since you're the money man you are, I thought you might know how these things work better than I do." "Of course I know how these things work, but how serious are you about helping this one young man. Or do you see this as the start of something more permanent?" "More permanent?" "Sure, like establishing a scholarship in your parent's name or an endowment, that sort of thing." "I hadn't thought of that. What would it take to establish a scholarship?" "A full four year scholarship? All expenses paid or tuition only? Something else entirely?" "All expenses, I guess. As long as that doesn't include beer money or that sort of thing." So Mike calmly rattled off a few numbers, and then reminded me that, in my own words, I was Scrooge McDuck rich and could afford a lot more than that, if I wanted to. "What if this young man decides on graduate school and an advanced degree? Are you going to cover that as well?" "Hmm..." I hesitated. "Tell you what," Mike said finally. "Call me at the office tomorrow. If you're serious about this, we should approach it seriously. We can sit down with the legal people and work something out. In your tax bracket doing something like this can actually be beneficial." "Okay, and thanks Mike. I appreciate your taking the time to hold my hand like this." "Billionaires need hand holding Cooper. It's what I do for a living, primarily." "I see," I laughed. "I guess I hadn't looked at it like that." I felt better about the situation with Mitch's college aspirations when we hung up. I also liked the idea of establishing something permanent. Doing something in my parent's name appealed to me. I might have to do two. One for kids like Mitch, but I also thought a scholarship for honorably discharged Marine Corps Vets held some appeal too. The current G.I. Bill was not a panacea for America's former soldiers, and especially those who left the service with a family to support. Lots to think about. Thoughts for another day. ------- Chapter 87 Kelli and I talked twice before dinner and once after. She was sticking close to home and family, on the assumption that Roberto wouldn't try anything with other family around. In between calls, I was in the cavern listening to transcribed conversations, sometimes over and over again, and poring over closeup video shots of the Standish Road warehouse. I could only wish that Bud's people could show me the inside of the warehouse. Sigh. When it got dark enough, I put the suit on and Harley lifted us up through the tunnel to the secret entrance. Ah yes, the secret entrance. It wasn't much use to me until Harley and I got our act together with him doing the flight side of the telekinesis and me doing the rest. The secret entrance was covered by a slab of stone the size of a mack truck. Lifting it was interesting. The inertia tied up in something that big made moving it feel weird. It didn't stop and start when you would expect it to, which could be tricky if you weren't prepared for it. Fortunately it had been equipped with some of the super-eager material that the door and the lights used, and was connected to the tunnel itself with some very cool, massive looking rods that let it be lifted straight up using them as guides. I'd only used it so far to make the training trips up into the mountains where I could smash trees and boulders without being observed. Tonight I used it again for that purpose. I was learning how to travel through the air faster than the speed of sound, without making a sonic boom. It was possible, but tricky, and the hardest part was being patient. Accelerating too fast could push the number of G's I experienced too high, and I would black out. Not something you wanted to do when traveling at 700 miles an hour or more. I especially had to forget anything like a sudden turn at these speeds. The suit was more than capable of serving as a G suit under these conditions, but this wasn't science fiction. There were no 'inertial compensators' or other super-science gadgets to negate the effects of rapid acceleration. Harley and I had learned our lessons early about not just 'thinking' things from point to point, since that could cause speed problems leading to sonic booms and other things, such as death. Really wanted to avoid that last one. Back up in the training grounds, the new suit's shakedown cruise proved to be anticlimactic. The suit behaved exactly like the old one. The balance and responsiveness were identical, and still left me thrilled at my abilities with the exoskeleton turned on. After smashing stuff up for a while and doing my gymnast impression again, we cleaned up the area and headed home. I had a couple of new tricks filed away, including one that Bud had actually cheered about. I'd made myself some of my deadly little Frisbee weapons, and I figured out how to attach them to the outside of the suit so that I could 'pop' them off for use later without having to take the time to build them first. "Minutes and seconds will count," Bud had crowed. "Good work!" I stayed up late that night hoping to get some new communications between Roberto and Paco Serna, but they had taken the entire Sunday off, it appeared. While I waited for incoming messages, I did not waste my time. Bud and I tackled the problem of converting the suit into something that could be fit into my riding leathers. That meant bringing the leathers downstairs as well. After several frustrating brainstorming sessions, Bud got tired of it. "Okay, enough," he said. "I don't think this is going to work. We need to make something from scratch that can be fit into your leathers. The original idea of splitting the suit into two pieces would be best." "Can we do both?" "Of course," Bud snorted. "Working out the details of what to add to the suit, and how to tie that in to your helmet will require some research on our part. Since we've discussed it before, that research is probably already going on." "All right, so those are both projects for another day," I said. "Lets get to bed. It's been a long day." I did not have pleasant dreams that night. Roberto featured heavily in them. The one that scared me was when Kelli and I were attacked while we were riding in the parade. That one woke me up at quarter to five. "What's wrong?" Bud asked. "Do you share my dreams?" I asked. I already knew Harley did. "No." "Well I just dreamed of Kelli and I being attacked while riding in the fourth of July parade." "How?" "In the dream it was men with big swords, but if Roberto was to get Serna's men to do it, they would use guns, and do it from a distance." I was wide awake and there was no way I was going back to sleep. I got up and made coffee. I went for a run while I waited for it to brew, just to get rid of some of the nervous energy the nightmare had generated. "You're up early," Mrs. Trinh said as I came back into the kitchen to get my first cup. "You are too," I said. "I had a nightmare wake me up, what's your excuse." "I smelled coffee brewing," she laughed. "It is a very hard smell to resist, even though I hardly ever drink it." "But it smelled good this morning?" "Oh, it always smells good. It usually doesn't taste as good as it smells, though when it does, it is quite fulfilling," she sighed. "What kind of nightmare." So I explained about Roberto, giving her the version fit for public consumption. I expressed my concerns over his being a psycho enough to attack us while we were in the parade. "You are probably over-reacting," she offered. "Probably," I agreed, though of course I knew better. "But you are a soldier. You prepare for such things as a matter of course, don't you?" "Until recently it was the job of someone to prepare against me. I was more involved with offense than defense, but yes, I am familiar with these kinds of concern." "So you will do what you have to do, to keep the woman you love safe." She said it so matter-of-factly that it surprised me. She was definitely more pragmatic about it than I'd expected. "I will," I said. "But this is not war. I cannot do anything about it until he shows his intentions, if he has them. He may be the type who threatens but is afraid to act." "Be careful," was her final bit of advice. My housekeeper was an interesting woman. I spent the early hours monitoring the situation in the basement. Breakfast was at its usual time, and as soon as I was done, I called Kelli. "What?" she said, her voice muffled, and her tone less than its normal cheery self. "Are you okay?" "I'm brushing my teeth. My mouth is full of Crest bubbles." "Sorry," I laughed. "I wouldn't normally call this early, but I've been up since five. Tell me. Have you told anyone about my wanting you to ride in the parade with me on the Fourth of July?" "Sure," She answered, followed by the sound of spitting and rinsing. "I told Daddy, and my Aunts. They needed to know I had different plans than normal." "So you told your aunts. That means there's a good chance Roberto knows." "I suppose. Why? You don't think he would do anything, do you?" "I'm probably just being paranoid, and it was only a dream, but I woke up at quarter to five this morning dreaming of him hiring people to attack us during the parade when he knew we would be together." "He wouldn't do that," she said flatly, then added a little less confidently. "Would he?" "I don't know. I just know he hasn't seemed rational in his responses to some of the stuff that's happened, or to your or my part in it. If he's not acting rationally, he could do anything." "You're right. What should we do?" "I don't know. This is too much too soon. We just have to be careful, for now. Don''t let yourself be alone. We can't be alone together unless we know it's safe." "Oh Cooper, this seems so insane!" she gasped. "So does he, Kelli," I sighed. "So does he." I spent the rest of the morning pacing in the cavern, listening to transcribed messages, mostly old, and feeling frustrated. If only there was some way to tie Roberto publicly to the gang activities he was sponsoring. My phone messages wouldn't be admissible in court though, and if there was any evidence on paper anywhere, it would be difficult to find. Net had a voice, and now that he was more familiar with how things were to be done, was happy to read me the transcriptions aloud so that I could focus on other things. He even changed voices for each speaker. "I wish there was some way I could see inside that warehouse," I grumbled. "And I wish I could figure out where he keeps his dirty laundry. There's got to be some evidence on paper somewhere, especially financial records, since he's been the gang's financier." "Dirty laundry?" Harley laughed. I saw what he was thinking immediately. "Of course. 'Iron Man' has to be getting the money from his parent's laundry business. Its his only source of funds except for what MRH was paying him." "If the laundry company was coordinating laundry service for all the MRH hotels, they would have to be on the internet somehow," Bud observed. "Net? Just how good are you at getting into other computer networks?" I asked. "I am very good," Net answered. "very good?" I echoed with some hope. "Very, very good." Net, it seemed, AI or not, had some pride. "Get going then," I ordered. "Don't stop monitoring the phones we've been following, and keep monitoring the warehouse, but other than that, I want you to throw everything you've got at cracking that system and finding Roberto Montoya's dirty laundry." ------- Chapter 88 It took Net Thirty hours. During that time, I would have gone nuts, but Bud asked me if I was serious about wishing I could see in the warehouse. "Serious? Of course I'm serious, but your systems aren't capable of penetrating walls." "No, they're not," he agreed. "But that doesn't mean we couldn't build something here. In fact, the quickest solution would be to sacrifice your old suit for the purpose." "What do you mean? Sacrifice it how?" "With the Tk power source, a modified video field like the suit hood uses to allow you to see even when the hood is covering your face, and some adapted exoskeletal bits and pieces, we could build a small, self-contained unit that we could insert into the warehouse. It would move on its own, the AI would guide it. It would record audio and video, but could just as well transmit using our undetectable communications system to send it to Net as a live feed. We could even override the AI if we saw something interesting we wanted to investigate." "Well what are we waiting for then?" I asked. "Lets get moving!" So that's how I spent my Monday morning, except for a thirty minute session on the phone with Mike Guilford, where we hashed out the Charles and Deanna James Memorial Scholarship fund, the Fiberdyne Industries Science and Technology Scholarship fund and the James Military Veterans scholarship fund. Mike Guilford promised me he would take care of finding qualified and caring people to administer the scholarships, subject to my input on membership, and on future decisions regarding disbursement of funds. There were laws to be followed of course. The money involved was a large sum, but I wouldn't miss it. That was another mental hurdle I was slowly overcoming. The finishing touches would take months. What we'd begun today was barely begun, to be honest, and I wold certainly have a few dotted lines to sign on before anything was real, but it felt good to have things begun, and in time to help Mitch if he needed it. When we were done building our new toy, it was almost dinner time. I'd come upstairs at lunch time and devoured a cold pasta salad and some fresh apple slices, then disappeared into the basement again. The finished product looked like a cross between a spider and a caterpillar. It had the long, sinuous body of a caterpillar, with the long, skeletal legs of a spider. It had twelve legs, in six pairs. There were two video and audio sources, one at each end. Both video feeds could handle visible light. One could also handle infrared light and the other could also handle UV light. The unit was about the size of a large banana, and the legs were each as long as the body. I was rather proud of the feet. The feet were special. Taking a cue from the invention of Velcro, thought to stud the bottom of the feet similarly, but Bud suggested instead that we emulate the gecko. I studded the feet of 'Bug' as I began calling it, with millions of microscopic hairs only a few molecules thick. The feet of a gecko utilized structures called 'Setae', which relied on something called Van der Waals force for their ability to stick to even smooth, slick surfaces. The nanoscale nature of my threaded feet gave them a hundred times more sticking power than the best a gecko could do, and on top of that, with the AI's help, the effect was slightly tunable, allowing for the maximum adhesion possible for any given material. "That is one amazing little critter," I said when we were done and watching Bug scurry around on the walls of the cavern. "We need to get it into that building tonight." "As soon as it gets dark," Bud agreed. Dinner was steak and potatoes with a green salad. I ate leisurely and talked with Mrs. Trinh about her new email account and how she was getting along with it. Don Murville's name came up as well, and it was interesting to see her drop her eyes while she spoke of him. Something else to file away, and definitely too soon to tease her about. Sunset was around 8:30 that night. Full darkness took a while longer than that. I sat in the house and watched some shows that Mrs. Trinh liked on the SyFy channel. I thought it was called the Sci Fi channel, but apparently they'd changed it. Both shows were a nice mix of action and humor, and I enjoyed them. I was chuckling when I finally headed for the basement at ten. I could have used some of that stuff they had in the warehouse. I took a big breath when I donned my new suit. This time I was putting a suit on to actually use it. This was my first public act as a super hero. Granted, it had better not be any more public than I intended it to be, as in totally unnoticed by the public, but you know what I mean. This was my first time 'being' a super hero. I lifted up out of the secret exit, grateful as well that it was only a few days until the new moon. There was not a lot of light in the sky, and with the normal atmospheric haze, I wasn't too worried about occluding any stars for people on the ground. Harley lifted us up to fifteen hundred feet, following the flight path the suit's AI was displaying in the HUD. It was about 12 miles, as the Tk Suit flies, from the hilltop above the secret exit to the airspace above our destination. Harley began accelerating immediately, slowly building our speed, then reducing it as we grew close. With a peak of two hundred miles an hour, it took only a couple minutes to get to there. When we came to a stop, We stared at the overlay of the building below us for a moment. "Match that up to our daylight view," I told Bud, and he and the AI did their thing and zap, the scenery around us switched to what looked like broad daylight. Really we were just seeing the daylight version laid atop the current one, but it was so seamless, it was impressive. "Highlight the target," I thought. Bud relayed that to the AI and a small section of wall began to glow. This was our one uncertainty. Net had found the building's schematics in the Santa Rosa City Building Department's computer files. Awful nice of them to computerize all this information for us. Those plans showed that this section of wall was isolated from the rest of the building, but had access to the rest of the structure. Harley had us hovering in place. The walls were made of thin preformed concrete sheets, sandwiching a thin layer of preformed sheets of foam insulation, used more for the sound deadening qualities than as insulation. Those sheets also were coated on both sides in a fire-retardant film. The trick was to cut through that with a cylinder so thin it didn't meet any resistance. My best bet would be to use local material, so that nothing would seem out of place, or be traceable to somewhere else. The two most common materials, besides those in the air around us were the silica in the concrete dust coating the sheets and the rust of the screws used to fasten the sheets to the framing. I decided to use the concrete dust, as it was plentiful and needed no encouraging to pull it off the surfaces where it rested. It took five minutes to build, which was longer than I'd anticipated, but it was quiet enough that I wasn't worried yet. I sent the spinning cylinder towards the wall, prepared to stop if the process made any noise at all, but it proved to be as easy as it had been to core sample that tree I'd first practiced on. When I was through, I capped the end and pulled my plug back out to me. I held it in midair while I placed Bug into the hole. He scurried through and I began seeing a small image in the corner of my display showing his progress. Once he was clear of the hole, I slid the plug back in and retracted my coring tool. I could have encouraged the molecules around the edges of the plug to reconnect, but I didn't see a need. At this point there was no visible trace of the plug, and in fact it probably resealed itself somewhat, just based on the microfine molecular contact between the two surfaces. I took one more momentary pause, just to gather myself, and then Harley was moving us up rapidly. We hit fifteen hundred feet and we took off again, retracing our route back to the secret exit, which I could now refer to as the secret entrance. It felt like I'd held my breath the entire way, based on the big breath I drew once I was standing on the ground inside the cavern once again. "Woohoo!" I cried out in giddy relief and triumph. "We did it!" "Congratulations, Cooper. Congratulations Harley. The two of you were flawless," Bud told us. "Congratulations yourself," Harley told him. "Exactly," I added. "The three of us were flawless," Harley corrected. I slipped upstairs and grabbed a couple of beers and a bunch of grapes that had been washed and set in a bowl in the fridge. I took them back to the cavern with me. We watched the live feed from bug as it scouted out the interior of the warehouse, marking likely locations for people to gather. There were two offices, one on the ground floor and one up on a second level accessible only via a steel frame stairway and steel mesh floored walkway. There was a single man asleep in the lower office, otherwise the building was empty. It was almost midnight now, that didn't come as a surprise. Tuesday morning I was feeling very chipper, despite my late night. I skipped my morning run in favor of some time with the free weights in the gym. I threatened to overdue it, and that made the shower afterward seem even more therapeutic. The shower was followed by oatmeal half a grapefruit and toast for breakfast. Mrs. Trinh noticed the missing grapes, and of course I had to confess to having had a late night snack. At least I'd remembered to bring the bowl back upstairs with me. I called Kelli after breakfast and we talked a while. I was dying to ask questions about Roberto and the laundry business, but I wasn't sure how to approach it without raising questions I wasn't prepared to answer. It had taken net thirty hours, but he got what I hoped to find. Their system is incredibly simple, and almost completely unused," Net told us. "The inventory control and communication systems are the only things they use. Everything else was collecting dust, except for what Roberto was using. I spent the rest of the day poring over the records Net had found. Roberto was keeping a second set of books, and the hidden set laid out everything in plain Spanish. "I've downloaded everything and created the English versions you are reading," Net bragged. "Son of a bitch," I swore. "He even has a line item showing the payments for that untraceable phone and all the minutes he added to it." "Well, at least he was good at something, it appears," Bud commented dryly. "He should have been the damned secretary," I laughed. "Guess his machismo couldn't handle that title." "We have to decide how to get this information to the authorities," Harley said. "With this information in their hands, they'll do our work for us." "How robust is their corporate communications system?" I asked Net. "Could we send this to MRH corporate headquarters via their own network?" "Of course," Net said. "They have plenty of bandwidth, they simply don't use most of it." "That will have the additional benefit of identifying the source and authenticating it at the same time." Bud said with glee. "Okay," I said after a moments reflection. "I wish I knew where Roberto was before we did this, but I'm hoping this will flush him out. We need to finish reading through the information here, in case it tells us something we need to know, but once we've gone through it, we should do it." "Agreed," Bud said. "Net, any chance your presence will be detected in their system?" "Here? Not likely at all. If we were in one of the main corporate nodes the possibility would be much greater, but still unlikely." So we began reading. Net could read much faster than any of us, and he made it through the entire collection much faster. The only piece of information that looked useful was another cell phone line item. "Net, can you..." I began. "Already on it," he said distractedly. I had to believe that was for effect, as Net was 'merely' software after all. ------- Chapter 89 I'd skipped lunch during out hot pursuit of the data from Roberto's laundry operation. Mrs. Trinh had left a note saying she was off shopping, so I pigged out on leftovers I found in the fridge, then cleaned up after myself. I wanted to go for a run, to burn off some of my nervous energy, but the perimeter of the property was not a safe place right now. There were holes, trenches and heavy equipment all over the place. Instead I hit the treadmill and ran hard for half an hour, then I got on the inclined bench and did a quick hundred sit ups. By the time I was done with a shower and back in the cavern, Net had more information for us on that new phone. "The phone belongs to a young woman named Reyna Gomez. She lives in an apartment leased to Roberto Montoya, and paid for using funds I'm able to trace to the laundry books," I saw the pertinent lines flash on the display. "She's a girlfriend then?" I guessed. "Do we have any of their phone conversations in our data?" "Only two," he said. The two calls were interesting, in that Reyna did most of the talking. Pleading more accurately described it. She was vague in her demands and Roberto was noncommittal in his replies. "She's a junkie," Harley came forward to say. "I've heard that type of neediness before. She's strung out and looking for a fix." "I think Harley's right," I said. "She'll probably be willing to spill the beans to anyone willing to take care of that need." We flagged the data showing the phone and lease for Reyna's apartment, and then let Net begin the transfer of the entire laundry data store to the MHR central data system. While it was transferring, I walked around the room restlessly. "I wish we could add a note to this, connecting the dots," I said internally, sighing as I did. "Why can''t we?" Bud asked. "How would I sign it?" I asked. "Even if I had a super hero name, which I don't, it wouldn't mean anything to anyone yet. "I have a suggestion," Harley said in our heads. "What?" Bud asked. Well, I really like the looks of those deep blue lines that show up when the exoskeleton kicks in. I've been calling that shade cobalt blue, so... "Cobalt!" I anticipated. "Yes!" He echoed. "I like it," Bud said. It's even a bit misleading, which is good." "All right!" I cheered. "World, say hello to Cobalt!" I laughed at that, but then had a thought. "What about my voice?" "Your voice?" Bud asked. "When I'm in the suit, being Cobalt, and I talk, will I sound like me? I shouldn't sound like myself." "Ahh, that's true," Bud and I thought about it. "Net's voice would be good," Harley suggested. "He even does accents," that was in reference to Net's spoken translations of Roberto and Paco's phone calls. He'd employed different voices for each speaker, and until Harley mentioned it, I hadn't noticed that the voices had typical Spanish accents. "Having that real-time translation trick would be handy too," I sighed. Could we steal Net's abilities and get him to come live in our suit?" "There should be no need," Bud said. "With the extra room in the new suit, we were able to add a great deal of computational power. More than enough to implement a system similar to Net's translation and verbalization modules." "Great, how long will it take to implement?" "Oh, almost no time at all," Bud laughed. "Net is downloading the configuration information now and the on board AI is reconfiguring itself as we speak." "Too bad Cobalt doesn't have a nifty symbol to represent it," Harley laughed. "it would look funny having a big blue 'Co' on the chest of the suit." "What about two concentric circles," Bud suggested, with the outer circle missing an arc segment that makes it resemble a 'C'?" "That would be perfect," I said, watching a visual representation flash onto a mockup of the suit on Net's display. The image showed the symbol glowing blue in the same way the webbed lines of the exoskeleton did when it was powered up. "It would be good if the symbol could be lit up separately from the exoskeleton, and not lit up when we needed to be stealthy." "Of course," Bud said. "Minor modifications. We could do that now, if you wanted. Of course we wanted. I took the suit off and laid it out on the table where we usually did our work. Bud, happily back in my head was able to guide the new operation, which truly was a trivial application of some of the modified Kinetex. We were done in ten minutes. At the same time, Net and the suit AI had finished their modifications. I put the suit back on, hood up and ready to go. I reformed my mirror and took a look. I impressed myself. The suit made me a six foot, eight inch herculean visage of alien might and mystery. "This is Cobalt! Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air!" I said inside the suit. Outside the suit a voice much deeper and more impressive than my own said the same thing. It sounded like one of those guys who does movie trailer voice overs, or that guy who says 'Get ready to rumble!' - a real stentorian announcer's voice. "Oh that's good," I chuckled. "That voice definitely says superhero." "With a capital S," Harley teased with a Superman reference. "We've got a high degree of confidence in my abilities," I said out loud a bit later. "We've got a super suit that kick's ass and our own crack surveillance and monitoring wizard in Net. We've got Bug out in the field doing close observation. We've sent the laundry computer information to MRH." "It's begun," Bud agreed with where I was going with my little speech. Net told us the download hadn't been noticed by anyone at MHR yet. "We're making our first real moves as a superhero. I guess it's time to get obvious about it, but how? Adding a note to the date won't get it noticed any sooner." "We could send a copy to the police," Bud suggested. "We could," I agreed. "But it would be better if we let the folks at MHR get the ball rolling with the authorities, don't you think?" "That does sound better." "How about if we send a text message to Mr. Montoya?" I asked. "Do we have the information we need to do that?" "We do," Net answered. "Can we do it so its untraceable?" "Of course," Net said, managing to sound insulted. In the end, the message was simple and straightforward. Check MHR network downloads for dirty laundry Cobalt "Sent," net said at last. "Now we wait," I said. "We have enough pieces left from the old suit, we could spend the time building another Bug," Bud suggested. I checked the time. We still had a few hours until dinner. "Let's get started," I said. Building the second Bug took much less time than the first one, since we knew exactly what to do this time. While I would have killed for a Bug with wings, that kind of project would have to be for another day. We had about an hour's work left when we broke for dinner. Mrs. Trinh and I were sitting down to a dinner of tempura chicken and rice when my cell buzzed. It was Kelli. "Cooper, you won't believe what's happened?" "What?" I asked innocently. "Daddy got a message a few hours ago telling him to check something on the company computer network. When he had a tech look at it, they found a bunch of stuff! Bad stuff that says Roberto has been stealing from his parent's business and using the money to do all kinds of terrible things!" "Oh wow!" I said. Inside I was giddy. "Who sent him the message?" I asked. "Was someone else involved?" "That's the weirdest thing," she said. "The note was signed 'Cobalt'. Nobody seems to know what that means." "Cobalt?" I played along. "Like the metal?" "I don't know. Could be. Its a mystery. Daddy's called the police, and they've got people in Petaluma seizing the computer systems there. They're trying to find Roberto now." "He's on the loose then? Are you worried?" I asked. "Should I come to you?" "No, its too crazy here, and I should be safe. There are police with us, and at our offices." "All right, if you're sure you're okay. I'll wait for now." "Oh, sweetie, I know you want to protect me again, but I'm okay for now." "If you say so," I said, and then for the first time out loud. "I love you." Kelli gasped. Quietly, but I heard it. "Oh Cooper, I love you too., but I have to go." "Stay safe my love," I said. "I will," and she was gone, for now, but the words had been said. I looked up and saw Mrs. Trinh grinning at me. She looked different wearing a grin, like some mad scientist or something. It made me laugh. "So, the words have been spoken," she laughed back through the grin. "You noticed?" I asked. "It was in the way you said them. But the conversation sounded serious. Is everything okay?" So I explained to Mrs. Trinh what was transpiring, being careful to only pass on what Kelli had told me. Then I excused myself, and went back downstairs. "We've got some new traffic on Paco Serna's phone," Net told us as soon as we were in the cavern. "From a pay phone in Petaluma. I believe it is Roberto. They have arranged to meet at the warehouse tonight at ten." We need to get ready to be there," I said. "The house phone has been dialed by Roberto's cell phone. It is ringing now." Net announced. "Crap," I said, and scrambled for the basement. I almost forgot to close the entrance, I was in such a hurry. I forced myself to slow down as I came up the stairs. The phone was no longer ringing. Mrs. Trinh was standing at the breakfast bar holding the receiver and looking white as a sheet. "What is it?" I asked. "I answered the phone and a man told me - he said 'Tell Cooper James he is a dead man. I am coming for him." "I think this is related to Kelli's call. Give me the phone." I dialed 911 and with Mrs. Trinh witnessing, did everything right in informing the police of the threatening call and connecting it to the MHR investigation. They asked to speak to Mrs. Trinh, and I let her talk to them. All she could do was relate the brief event as it happened. "I think you should call Mrs. Ibarra and ask to spend the night there. You will be safe there." "Yes, of course," she agreed immediately. She was obviously still shaken from the call. While she contacted Mrs. Ibarra, I made her a cup of tea. "Here you go," I handed her the tea. "Oh, thank you. Mrs. Ibarra and her husband will be right over to get me. I need to pack a bag for the night." "Pack enough for a couple days. I don't want you coming back until we know this is over with, okay? I'll pay for a hotel if it takes more than a couple of days." I called Kelli immediately and let her know about the threatening call, and that I'd called the police and let them know about the call and the probable connection to the problems with Roberto. Again she urged caution, and again we spoke our love. That felt good in the middle of all the craziness of the night. Things were a little calmer by the time Mrs. Ibarra arrived. "you be safe, young man," she too cautioned me. "If Roberto Montoya comes here looking for trouble Edwina, He will surely find it," I said with genuine menace in my voice. "I know," she patted my hand. "But better in the long run if you don't have anything new on your conscience, eh?" I agreed and let them bundle Mrs. Trinh off to their house. Mrs. Ibarra had dismissed my suggestion of a hotel room if things were drawn out more than a few days, insisting that Mrs. Trinh could stay with them as long as it took. The minute the tail lights disappeared, I was back to the basement like a shot. ------- Chapter 90 in the cavern, Net was quick to begin filling me in on the flurry of activity. He had calls to and from a myriad of phones. It was chilling to see that the call that immediately followed the house phone was one to Paco Serna, followed by one to Ya Ya Marchiria. I was equally as relieved to see that Ya Ya called Paco as soon as his call from Roberto ended. He was still being the loyal soldier. I almost felt bad about my intention to kill him, but I had killed loyal soldiers before, and they had not perpetrated the deaths of my parents. I put the suit on, checked its energy levels and decided to top it off. The rush left me giddy and excited, but Harley stepped up as usual and took charge until I recovered. As Net read calls aloud and updated us with police traffic, I finally had to ask Bud something. "Bud, it seems like an awfully unnatural coincidence, me winding up so closely associated with the family of the man behind my parent's murders." "I realize that," Bud said after a moment. "If we had indeed arranged this somehow, I would lie very convincingly and tell you we had nothing to do with it, but we did indeed have nothing to do with it." "I would really like to believe that." "I know we promised you a chance to get revenge against your parent's killers, we did not know the specifics of this gang's situation, nor of Roberto Montoya's involvement with them until you yourself revealed it." "That makes the coincidence seem all the more incredible, doesn't it?" I laughed derisively. "I grant you that, yes. But it is true nonetheless. A great deal of what has made you and Harley into Cobalt seems to defy logic and chance. Of course we chose you for a reason, and of course we expected you to succeed, but the manner in which you have arrived at this point has surprised us all. If there is more than coincidence at work here, it is not of our manufacture." I decided to take him at his word. There wasn't much I could do about it if it was a lie anyway, and to be honest, it was the sort of thing I half expected to happen in a superhero's life. At least that was how things worked in the comic books. By the time ten o'clock rolled around, I was beyond eager to get this done. Bug had begun detecting increased activity at the warehouse hours earlier. By the time I was hovering silently over the building at ten, there were a dozen gang armed gang members inside and four outside. "We've got a car coming," Net relayed to us. We got a brief closeup view of a beat up Toyota Tercel pulling onto the warehouse property. It stopped long enough for one of the men to approach it. He pulled a cell phone out of a pocket. "We've got an incoming call on Serna's phone," Net told us. "He's here boss," Net relayed. "Have him drive in," the second Net translated voice said. As he said this, the warehouse doors began to open. The car drove in. We switched to the feed from Bug as the warehouse doors began rattling shut. We watched Roberto Montoya get out of the car, a woman on his arm. The woman was obviously strung out, as she had to hang on to Montoya to walk. Bug's close up of her explained a lot. "Damn, except for her height, she's a dead ringer for Kelli," Harley thought aloud. "Your observation is accurate," Bud agreed. "Shit, that kind of explains a few things, in a sick, twisted sort of way, doesn't it?" I said. Indeed it did. Roberto had a thing for his cousin, and some inadequacy issues, that I knew for sure. He was also an amoral prick. I wonder what he held over Paco Serna that kept him loyal all these years. "Okay, decision time," Bud said. Do we just call the police and let them know he's here, or do we do something a little more personal?" "That's a rhetorical question, isn't it Bud?" I asked. "We could have done that from the safety of the cavern and left this entirely in their hands. There's no other reason to be here than to take some personal action." "So this is your moment of revenge?" he asked. "You promised me that," I reminded him. "We did," he agreed. "I'm holding you to that promise then," I growled. "I'll do the regular superhero routine after this, but this one is just for me." "Would your parents approve?" he played the only card left in his hand. I laughed. "No, but then if I'd have had a chance to tell them what I'd been doing in Uncle Sam's service all these years, they wouldn't have approved of that either." "Very well," he said at last. "What will we do first?" "The first thing is taking out the four outside men. They're so worried about covering all the possibilities, they've stopped maintaining visual contact with each other. I should be able to take them out one at a time." "How?" "I want to try a new trick," I growled. "A new trick?" Bud and Harley asked together. Harley was surprised he didn't know what I intended. "Watch," I told them. When I'd worked on building bulletproof shields out of atmospheric nitrogen, it had occurred to me that I could encapsulate something in a bubble of it, or failing that, a dome. Then it had made me wonder what would happen to the air inside that dome if I suddenly compressed the dome without letting any of the air escape, or so rapidly at least, that the air didn't have time to escape? Compressed air heats up, for one thing. The increased atmospheric pressure would not be kind to anything inside of it either. Doing the reverse, making a small bubble around them and expanding it without letting additional air in would do the reverse, rapidly cooling the air molecules and decreasing the air pressure. For scuba divers, a rapid decrease in pressure would cause the bends, otherwise known as nitrogen narcosis. I wasn't sure if it would do the same in these kinds of conditions, but at the rate I envisioned it happening, something else would happen, something called explosive decompression. I was less sure of the effects of the second option, so I was going with the first. If nothing else, the effort should render the victim unconscious. I started with the gang 'soldier' at the far back corner. There was a high fence around the property, but there were also no lights here. It would be a good avenue for undetected entrance to the property perhaps, but I wonder who they thought might come that way? It didn't matter. They never imagined it would be me. Cobalt, rather. I needed to think of myself that way while I was doing this. My first target, the lazy bastard, was leaning his entire back against the building. That was annoying. My intended method wouldn't work unless I separated him from the wall. I had to go with option three. I wrapped his head in a 'mask' of solid nitrogen and held it there, and held him still as well by getting a telekinetic grip on his clothes, unable to scream, unable to move, and unable to breath, he was soon unconscious. Target two, on the other side of the warehouse was being a little more vigilant, and thus he became the first person to experience Cobalt's 'dome of death'. I seriously underestimated the effects of the sudden compression I applied. It almost squished him like a bug. He was a seriously bloody mess, and leaking more from every orifice when I left him. Target's three and four, in the intervening time, had abandoned their posts, more or less, and were standing next to an old junked pickup truck near the front of the property, sharing a smoke. The way they were sharing it, I didn't think it was tobacco they were smoking either. In any case, it made bagging them easy, and though I eased up on the 'dome of death' effect considerably, they were still dead when I was done. I could see blood coming out of their ears and their noses, but they weren't the bloody bundle that target number two had been. "Okay, that was nasty," Harley said when he felt it was safe to 'speak'. "It was quite gruesome," Bud concurred. "I'm feeling kind of nasty and gruesome tonight," I said. "How shall we do this? Big and bold or quiet and mysterious?" "I'd prefer quiet and mysterious," Bud said. I felt Harley's silent laughter. He knew where this was going. "No, I think its time for some Big and Bold," I said. "I think it's time for Cobalt to really show up." "Okay," Bud said with sad resignation. "Power up," I called, activating the exoskeleton. "You're not going to punch your way in are you?" Bud asked excitedly. "You could hurt your hand." "Nope," I said, "But it's going to look like I did." I stepped up to the big garage door that Roberto had so recently driven through, wound up a fist and drive it forward. I had already grabbed a large chunk of steel molecules within the door itself, and as my first approached it, Pushed those molecules forward at 'tree-exploding' speed. The door exploded inward, sending shrapnel everywhere, with most of the door flying over everyone and everything to crash into the back wall of the building. The entire place shook with the force of it and the steel scaffolding leading up to the upstairs office rang like a bell. "I think you got Bug's attention," Net said dryly. "She's demanding instructions." She? I wonder when Bug became a she? The blast had stunned everyone in the building momentarily, but it didn't take long for someone to start shooting. The suit outlined the shooter for me. I grabbed the gun he was holding first and ripped it out of his hands. I told the steel molecules that made up most of it to separate, and the gun mostly just seemed to dissolve into dust, leaving some non-steel parts behind. By the time I'd done this, more shots were hitting me. "Well boys, the suit does seem to be bulletproof, as advertised." I said. "Lets see if these guys read comic books." "This is Cobalt," I said, letting the suit amplify and transform my words into that superhero voice. "Drop you weapons and put your hands in the air!" All that did was generate more gunfire in my direction. I grabbed every gun I could find except for one, and yanked them into the air. I pushed them all together in the middle of the warehouse with such force they fused together into a warm glowing lump. This caused some of the ammunition to be set off. "Oops," I joked to Bud. The exploding garage doors appeared to have taken care of a few of the inside crew already, as there had only been eight people shooting at me. I picked them all up by their clothes and threw them with force against the nearest wall, causing them serious damage, and putting them out of the fight, if not out of life. With the soldiers taken care of, I headed for the upper office. "Show me Bug's last update from there," I asked. The display blipped into view with the familiar figure of Roberto Montoya and his Kelli clone cowering behind a desk and Ya Ya Marchiria and almost forgotten Manuel Pulido both brandishing weapons. "Door or window?" I asked the boys. "Door?" Bud answered. "Window?" Harley offered at the same time. "Hmm ... window it is," I said. I grabbed a little of the steel shrapnel laying around from the door and sent it, scatter-shot, through the side window of the office. I followed the inward spray of glass and steel, coming to ground on the floor in the middle of the office. "Roberto Montoya," the suit yelled for me. "Surrender now!" Bugs last update had been a little inaccurate. Roberto and the woman were no longer behind the far desk. They were in the corner by the door. I stepped towards them and Roberto, the worthless little shit, threw the woman at me! I caught her, as she stumbled towards me, what else could I do? She had a straight razor in her hand and she tried to cut me with it, but the blade skidded of the Impervilon skin of the suit, uselessly. I yanked it out of her hand with a little telekinesis, my hands being otherwise occupied holding her up. Roberto dashed for the door as his two lieutenants raised their weapons. I tossed my unfortunate bundle behind the desk behind me, hoping it would offer her some safety, and turned back to the men. Roberto was out the door and headed for what was left of the steel stairs. I heard him curse, and then Ya Ya Marchiria unloaded on me with the shotgun he had pointed at me. There's a lot to be said for shotguns. They're often praised for their stopping power. In this case, standing there as I was, and even wearing the suit, the impact knocked me clean on my ass. The kinetic absorption of the impervilon kept it from hurting me, and greatly reduced the force, but it was still enough to knock me over, unbraced as I was. "Where's Bug?" I asked as I got back up. Ya Ya was pumping the shotgun to load another round. Pulido was firing at me with a machine pistol of some type, but the small caliber bullets were no problem. Still, Roberto was getting away. "Keep her following Montoya." "I told bug to get in Roberto's car," Net said as I grabbed the machine pistol with my gift and yanked it away. Boom, another shotgun blast, and again I hadn't had time to brace myself, and was knocked back. "I am getting tired of that," I said aloud. I grabbed the shotgun and yanked it. It went off as I did and the blast caught Manuel Pulido square in the face. That certainly eliminated him! I had twisted the shotgun into a pretzel and turned towards Marchiria when suddenly I was jumped on from behind. Once again Montoya's junkie girlfriend had decided to insert herself into the fray. I tried to shrug her off, but she was manic. "I guess what my momma taught me about ladies doesn't apply," I sighed. I turned around and grabbed a steel coat rack sitting askew in a corner and used a little telekinetic encouragement to wrap it around her, pinning her arms to her side. When I turned back to Marchiria, he was gone. "Shit!" I said. "Net! Where did he go?" "We haven't observed him leaving the building," Net answered. "Okay, lets start looking. Suggestions?" "Enhance the audio pickups," Bud said. "Switch visual to infrared," Net added. Let's get out of here first," I said, headed for the open door. "Did he have time to get off this walkway?" "If he jumped," Bud said. Once I was out of the building, I started to lift up, headed for the ceiling, wanting a better vantage point. As I did, the visual switched to infrared. There was a muffled noise as I started to rotate around. "What was that?" I asked, but at the same time saw a flash of red from the roof of the office, which did not come close to reaching the ceiling. "He was hiding on the roof," Bud said. "Track him," I said. "Tracking," Net answered immediately. "He's climbing down the rear of the walkway." I zipped myself over as fast as I could, managing to clang off of one of the hanging lights, this one not working. To be honest, given the manner of my entrance, I was surprised any of the lights were still working. While Harley was quickly moving me to intercept our target, I grabbed the steel of the walkway, and yanked. I yanked with vigor. The structure sagged like soggy toast, but held together as I threw it over my head and into the far wall of the warehouse. Marchiria fell from the structure as I did and hit the concrete floor hard. "Nice try Ya Ya," I said as I landed next to him. He stood crouching, his eyes looking for a way out. I saw him come to the realization that there was none, and he seemed to relax and stood straight up. "What the hell are you?" he asked. "I'm a superhero, Ya Ya. The world's first. My name is Cobalt." "What are you going to do?" "I'm going to kill you, and pretty soon now. That madman you worked for is getting away, and I'm afraid I know where he's headed." "Then go ahead," he screamed. "Do it!" "you're a good soldier, Ya Ya," I sighed, and I meant it. He was the kind of guy every Sergeant dreamed of having on his team. Quick, skilled, calm in a crisis and willing to take orders. "I'm a better one, even without these extras," I raised my arms, showing off the suit. "Take it off then, and face me man to man," he bargained. "Give me a chance?" "Like the chance you gave Charles and Deanna James?" I asked. "The redhead's parents?" he asked. "What the hell do they have to do with this?" "My voice, please Net," I asked internally. "Affirmative," he answered succinctly. "Because they were MY parents, asshole!" I said to him in my own voice. I waited for the realization to show in his eyes, and then I killed him. A little piece of light fixture went through him like a knife through butter, once, twice, three times before he managed to collapse on the floor in a blood-spurting heap. "Feel better," Harley asked. "No. Laundry Boy is still out there. Where's he headed Net?" "I would surmise he is headed for Silvano Montoya's home," Net said. He is already through SantaRosa proper and on Mark West Springs Road." "Can we beat him there?" I asked. "Certainly," Net said. "Would you like Bug to disable the vehicle?" "Not yet." I said, lifting heading for open air. "Only if it looks like he's going to get there before us." "Affirmative," he responded. "Net, I like the way you say that," I laughed as Harley lifted us into the sky. "Distance is fifteen miles," Bud said. "ETA in five minutes." "Push it a little Harley," I said. "I want to be there in plenty of time." "Accelerating," I got, from Bud, the suit, Net or Harley, I wasn't too sure, because suddenly my vision blurred as Harley did indeed push it, just to the edge of G overload. A couple of minutes later, I got the warning that we were decelerating, but Harley didn't push this quite as much. We were hovering over the house and my head was clear. "What's his ETA?" I asked. "Two minutes," Bud said. "Good thing we pushed it. He appears to be running all the lights and stop signs." "What do you think? Is he going to try to negotiate his way in or blast his way in?" I asked. "I suspect he is in no mood to negotiate," Bud said. "He never was a negotiator," Harley added. "Okay, lets get down into the driveway. I want us between him and the house." Harley set us down gently halfway between the gate and the front door. I still had a piece of light fixture in one hand and I let go if it, locking on and reforming it into a half dozen razor sharp strips three inches wide. "Lets makes sure he gets shredded tires as soon as he hits the gate," I said setting my strips in place. I heard the familiar sound of a shotgun chambering a round behind me. "Who are you?" Mr. Montoya's voice asked. "Mr. Montoya, I'm here to protect you and your family sir," I told him in my Cobalt voice. "I'm Cobalt." "You're Cobalt?" he asked incredulously as he stepped out of the shadows by the side of the house. "What are you?" he didn't lower the barrel of the gun. "A superhero, sir." "Superhero," he snorted in disbelief. "Yes sir, the world's first and only, I believe." "ETA sixty seconds," Net said in my ear. "He's accelerating." "Mr. Montoya, you should get back in the house sir. Roberto Montoya will be here in just under a minute. He is traveling at high speed and I don't believe he plans on stopping at the gate." "Ten seconds," Net said. He's traveling at 80 miles an hour. I don't think the car he's driving can go any faster." "Sir, at least step around the corner. He's almost here." I said. "Net, tell bug to get out of the car if it can do it safely." Tires squealed and an engine did its little Tercel version of a drone. "I don't think those little strips are going to slow him down much," Harley commented. "Nah, you're probably right," I said. "Better change tactics a little bit. I dropped all but two of the strips flat and lifted the other two up and turned their slim little monomolecular edges towards the oncoming car, about eight inches off the ground and just wide enough to match the car's width. The Tercel hit the gate with a screeching clang, and as pieces of gate flew, I looked into Roberto Montoya's eyes through the windshield. He drove into my little strips of steel and they sliced the front wheels neatly in two. The front of the car dropped onto the brick of the drive and as the momentum carried it forward, the rear wheels enjoyed the same treatment. The Tercel continued towards me, skidding across the brick driveway, sending sparks flying. I dropped my slicers and grabbed the steel of the car's frame and brought it to a halt. The speed with which the car had come to a halt had thrown Laundry Boy forward, but not fatally so. As the car came to a stop, he first tried to open the door, but the bottoms were jammed against the driveway. He rolled a window down and slowly, almost comically, climbed out. There was madness in his eyes and a gun in his hands. "You!" he shouted as he staggered forward. He raised the pistol towards me, but before he could shoot, there was a blast, and he went jerking backwards. In the silence that followed, I could hear sirens. I looked up and one police car was already coming to a careening halt just outside the gate and the doors went flying open as uniformed officers drew their sidearms and pointed them at me. "Arms in the air," a voice screamed. I looked back at Mr. Montoya. "I'm glad you and your family are safe sir. Your nephew was a madman." "Yes, he was," he said, lowering the shotgun. "Thank you." "Its what I do sir, though I hope to be a little less messy from now on." With that, Harley lifted us up into the midnight air and we were quickly gone, again at a vision-blurring speed. We seemed to take a long time getting back to the secret entrance, but Harley apologized when we were settling in and I was closing the entrance above us. "Sorry, there was a police helicopter approaching, and I didn't want to worry about it trying to follow us," Bud said. "Where was I during this discussion?" I asked. "You were kind of busy at the time," Harley laughed. "I made an executive decision." "Okay, well good work." "Nothing to it," Bud laughed. "I need to find a shower and a pillow," I said, feeling exhaustion coming on fast. "Better hurry," Harley said. "How long do you think it'll be before Kelli decides to wake you up to tell you the news?" "Oh God," I said, stripping the suit off and making a dash for the exit. Such is the life of a superhero. Yup, that's me now, officially. Still, there are questions remaining. Am I really going to be the superhero Bud and his people have claimed I would be? Who are Bud and his people? Are they really aliens, like Harley and I've been thinking? Am I the only one, or are they making more out there somewhere? Rich military industrialist with telekinetic mind powers, a super suit, a supercomputer detective teammate that hacks into computers and snoops on cell phones. Oh, and don't forget the rich, beautiful girlfriend, elite military background, flawed past and dead, avenged parents. Sounds like a comic book all right. Well, maybe so, but there it is, weird journey that its been and yeah, I know what you're thinking. That's some kind of story. True enough, but don't forget Harley and I started out dead at the beginning of this, and now, we're no kind of dead, instead we are: Some Kind of Hero. ------- The End ------- Posted: 2011-08-25 Last Modified: 2011-10-07 / 08:41:31 am ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------